At the station Lucy sits at her desk, turns on her computer and logs on to the PNC. She opens her bag and fishes out a crumpled sheet of paper, which she straightens and scans quickly before typing some names into the system. For a few minutes she switches between files, scribbling a few notes on her pad and, once she has done a thorough check, she makes sure she logs out again properly. Only last week she got a blasting from John for leaving her machine turned on.
‘Any Tom, Dick or Harry walking past your desk when you’re not around could have a quick look at what you’ve been up to. You have to follow the protocol, however petty it may seem to you.’
Lucy had found it difficult not to laugh at the idea of all the Toms, Dicks and Harrys who might be skulking past her desk with evil intentions.
‘Sorry, boss, won’t do it again,’ she said contritely.
Lucy checks her list again, then picks up the phone to call Nicky Scott’s friend, Lisa, who answers on the first ring. She sounds alarmed when Lucy introduces herself, firing off a volley of questions that Lucy carefully evades. Having established that Lisa will be at home for the time being, Lucy ends the call and fifteen minutes later is standing in front of a small terraced house in Battersea.
Mysore Road is just one more street in the area that has been taken over by yuppies, pricing the original working-class inhabitants out of the market and pushing them further and further out. It’s not that she’s resentful – she and Charlie could probably afford to live here with a sizeable mortgage – but she feels sad to see areas like this, which used to be more like small villages, losing their sense of community. Lucy daydreams about moving to a cottage in the country where Polly can run wild and the doors can be left unlocked at night.
Contrary to the image of a neurotic blonde that Lucy had conjured up while speaking to Lisa Meyer on the phone, the woman standing at the door is petite and auburn-haired with elfin features. Lucy is struck by Lisa’s exotic appearance. Her high cheekbones and dark eyes are enhanced by her olive skin and the beautifully cut brown hair that frames her face. She is wearing a very short, floaty dress of Indian design in burgundy, purple and black and, on her feet, a pair of heavy black leather boots. Something about the way she looks directly at Lucy and her firm handshake makes her think that Lisa might be a force to be reckoned with.
The young woman shows her through to the kitchen, where Lucy is surprised to see someone else sitting at the table – a striking redhead with a scattering of freckles across her nose and a warm smile. She stands up quickly and holds out her hand to Lucy.
‘I’m Jo Shepherd, another friend of Nicky’s,’ she says nervously. ‘Is it okay if I stay?’
‘Yes, of course. This is just an informal chat to get an idea of Nicky’s movements over the last few days. Shall we all sit down?’
As Lucy places her notebook in front of her, Lisa fires another barrage of questions at her.
‘Can’t you tell us what’s going on? Did you find anything at the house?’
‘As I told you on the phone, my colleagues are there at the moment and you’ll be the first to know as soon we have any news.’
Lucy continues quickly before Lisa can start up again.
‘Nicky has been staying with you for the last few days, is that right?’ She is careful not to talk in the past tense.
‘Yes, she arrived on Wednesday evening.’
‘Okay, let’s start there and you tell me everything you can think of up until this morning, when you discovered she hadn’t come back.’
Lisa sits for moment with her elbows on the table and her hands clasped together in front of her as if to gather her thoughts before she starts talking.
‘She arrived at about six on Wednesday evening. We had a drink here and chatted for a while and then we walked round the corner to Bahari’s to have supper.’
‘Did she seem like her usual self?’ Lucy asks.
‘Yes, absolutely. We had a nice time; she seemed totally normal.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘The usual things. Mutual friends, what we’ve both been up to recently. Work. Books. A bit of gossip.’
‘Anything personal – about her husband, her marriage, that sort of thing?’
‘Not at all. If anything, she was quite reticent.’
‘Did that surprise you?’
‘A little bit, maybe. She’s normally very open.’
Lucy notices that Lisa and Jo exchange a glance after this comment and wonders if Nicky’s friend is holding something back.
‘Go on,’ she says.
‘Then we went home, sat chatting in the kitchen for a bit, and were in bed by eleven thirtyish. I went to work the next morning and she had a meeting with her publisher.’
‘Her publisher?’
‘Yes, she writes children’s books. You might have heard of her – she’s quite well known. She writes under the name Nicky Butler, though, not Scott.’
Suddenly all the pieces fall into place and Lucy can even picture the shiny book sitting on the shelf in Polly’s bedroom, with the illustration of the fluffy toy rabbit on the front resting forlornly against the trunk of an oak tree.
‘Ah, yes, of course. I knew I recognised the name. Sorry, carry on.’
‘Yeah, so she went for a meeting at her publishers, Howden Cooper, in Hanover Square and told me she was having lunch with her editor afterwards. She was here when I got back from work at about five-thirty.’
‘What were her plans for the evening, do you know?’
‘She said she was going round to her brother-in-law’s house to tidy up. She is supposed to be staying there with James and her mother-in-law tonight and wanted to make sure it was in a decent state with the beds made up, etcetera.’
‘Did she mention that she might be meeting anybody?’
‘Definitely not,’ Lisa answers emphatically. ‘She said she would be back later, depending on how long it took to clean the place.’
‘Do you know if she made any calls while she was here?’
‘She told me she had rung James earlier, but I don’t know if she made any other calls.’
‘What was she wearing when she went out – was she dressed up at all?’
Lisa looks puzzled.
‘Not at all. She was wearing an ankle-length floral cotton dress – the type of thing she always wears – and she wasn’t made up. I would have noticed that.’
‘And you didn’t hear from her again?’
‘No, not from her, but James rang after she had left and wanted to ask her something. He left a message for her and said he was going to try his brother’s number. I went to bed quite early, around nine forty-five. I’d given her some keys to let herself in.’
‘James Scott told us you discovered she wasn’t there first thing this morning, is that right?’
‘Yes, just before I left for work I went upstairs to see if she was awake. Her door was open and her bed was still made with the note lying on the pillow exactly where I left it last night.’
‘Can I have a look?’
Lucy follows Lisa up the stairs to a landing, then up another narrow staircase to the top floor, where she sees an A4 sheet of paper lying on the carpet. Written in large red capital letters are the words: CALL ME WHEN YOU WAKE UP.
‘What’s this?’
For the second time since Lucy arrived, Lisa seems evasive.
‘Oh, that’s nothing important. I put it there this morning so she’d see it when she woke up, before I noticed that the door was open and the bed hadn’t been slept in. I forgot to pick it up.’
‘Why did you want her to ring you?’
‘To tell her that James had called last night.’ Lisa’s voice rises slightly on the last word.
‘Right,’ Lucy stretches out the word. ‘But didn’t the message you put on the bed last night say that already?
Lisa doesn’t reply and pushes the door fully open. Lucy glances round the bedroom, seeing the note on the pillow and taking in the small suitcase on the floor, which is lying open with a few clothes inside and a vanity bag on the floor beside it.
‘What did you do once you discovered she hadn’t come back?’
‘I checked my phone in case she’d left me a message and that’s when I started to worry. Nicky isn’t a teenager who behaves irresponsibly; she’s a sensible adult and if she had decided not to come back she would have let me know.’
‘So you called James?’
‘Yes, but he wasn’t there when I first rang – he had gone out for a run – so I left a message for him to ring me urgently.’
‘How did he seem when you told him?’
‘He was very worried, naturally. He called his brother’s house to see if she was there and then he rang back sounding so distraught that I offered to drive round there myself. I rang the bell and knocked a few times, but there was no answer. That’s when James decided to contact the police.’
‘Have you heard from him again?’
‘Yes, a couple of times: first to let me know that the police were going round to the house and again to say he was on his way up to London.’
‘What are you going to do now – are you going to work? It’s very likely that I will need to speak to you again today.’
Lucy is well aware that, in all likelihood, her next visit will be to break the news of Nicky’s death to her best friend, and Lisa’s reply indicates that she might be thinking the same thing.
‘You must be saying that because you think something has happened to her.’ Lisa looks Lucy straight in the eye.
‘We don’t know anything for sure yet,’ Lucy replies. ‘Shall we go down?’
In the kitchen, Lucy addresses Jo, who is sitting silently at the table, biting the edge of her thumb.
‘When did you last see Nicky, Jo?’
‘Um, Lisa had a party here a few weeks ago and I saw her there. We talked for a while.’
‘How was she then?’
‘She seemed very happy. James wasn’t there and she’s always much more relaxed without him around. She—’ Jo stops abruptly.
Something makes Lucy glance at Lisa, who is staring at her friend intently.
‘Sorry, Jo, you were saying?’
‘Nothing. Nicky was having a good time, that’s all.’
Lucy nods, making a mental note to revisit this subject later.
‘Okay, thank you both for your help. That’s it for now and I’ll be in touch again if I have anything more to tell you.’
As she walks the few paces to the gate, Lucy pictures the two women speaking in hushed tones behind the door. She’d love to know what they are saying.
*
At number six, John is standing at the bottom of the front steps, talking to a member of the forensic team when he sees Lucy walking up the pavement on the opposite side of the road by the Halls’ house. He breaks away and strides across to join her.
‘How did it go with the friend?’ he asks.
‘Nothing very enlightening. She didn’t fall over herself to give me information but pretty much everything she told me fits in with what James Scott told you. But I found out why I recognised the name. Nicky Butler writes children’s books – we’ve got one at home. She’s actually quite famous.’
Lucy briefly recounts her conversation with Lisa and tells John about Nicky’s meeting with her publisher the previous day.
‘I’m going to contact her editor to see if she can shed any light on Nicky’s movements last night,’ she says.
‘And what about the Hall family and that couple in the basement?’
‘I ran them all through the system. No red flags there. And, by the way, Harvey says the anonymous call came from a phone box on Clapham Common.’
‘That’s still a mystery, then.’
‘Yeah, it is. Anything else been happening here?’ Lucy asks.
‘The doctor’s been and he said that something very heavy must have been used to hit her as her skull was badly fractured. Whatever it was, we need to find it. The house and garden are being searched now, and then we’ll extend that to bins and front gardens up and down this road and beyond if we have to. I’d bet that our man got rid of it as soon as he could, particularly if he was on foot.’
John checks his watch. ‘We’d better head back to the station – Scott will be there soon – but, before we go, get someone to find out when they collect the rubbish round here. We don’t want to cock up on that.’
‘Okay, will do.’
‘And Lucy, assuming Nicky Scott knew the perpetrator, she must have been in touch with them beforehand to make a plan to meet up, so we need to check her phone records for the last few weeks – and her friend Lisa’s. From what you told me, Nicky was at Lisa’s house on her own for a while yesterday evening so she could easily have made other calls from there, apart from the one to her husband. We’ll get her numbers from James Scott and then you can get onto our contact at BT.’
‘Just our luck that it’s a Friday; you know what they’re like.’
‘I know, dammit, it’s always the way.’