Flyte couldn’t tell Willets what Cassie had shared; she just had to endure the suspense until an email arrived from the coroner’s office just before lunchtime. It summarised Dr Cuff’s preliminary findings and said that a Home Office pathologist had been instructed to conduct a forensic PM on the body of Lucas Lawless the following day.
Minutes after she’d forwarded it to Dean Willets, he ambled over.
‘So your heath guy just got promoted to a category one,’ he said. ‘Sounds like my Hugger Mugger case is back in business.’
In light of the discovery that Luke had likely been killed in a chokehold, a possible linkage between the two cases had occurred to Flyte. But she’d decided it didn’t bear much examination. ‘If someone did plant the GHB on him, then they were almost certainly trying to put us off the scent by painting this as an OD,’ she told Willets. ‘The MO is totally different. Whatever the motive, this isn’t a straightforward mugging gone wrong.’
‘Well, his wallet and phone were gone.’ Willets raised his eyebrows sarcastically.
She raised hers right back. ‘Maybe his assailant was removing evidence that might implicate them.’
‘Or perhaps this reporter was out cruising, was new to GHB so didn’t know how to take it, and fell foul of our Hugger Mugger.’ Willets pulled a patronising smile. ‘Let’s wait and see what the forensic PM says, shall we? A uniform can do the death knock and Seb can check out Lawless’s flat when he gets in later.’
The death knock: visiting his next of kin. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if I did both? Seeing as I met him, and attended the scene?’ Keeping her tone light, unchallenging.
‘I’d rather keep your talents focused on the Kavanagh case. The NCA is sending over mugshots for members of drug gangs with a history of steroid smuggling. I’d like you to show them to Bethany Locke in case she recognises any of them as Sean Kavanagh’s associates.’
As Willets sauntered off, she mouthed a rude word at his back.
Could it really be coincidence that just days after Luke Lawless had told her he was probing the murder of Sean Kavanagh, he should turn up dead in highly suspicious circumstances? But arguing the point with Willets without a scrap of proof was pointless. Ordinarily, she might have considered taking it to Steadman, but he was away at a national conference for the brass in Birmingham for a few days.
After logging into Luke’s case, she found his home address, provided by his boss at the Gazette, as well as the name of the lettings agent who held a spare key. Seeing it was nearly 1 p.m. she left a Post-it note on her computer screen saying ‘Back by 14.30’ and sauntered out. If she picked up the key en route to his flat and had a quick sniff round nobody would be any the wiser.
*
Within half an hour, she was unlocking a grimy front door next to a Korean fast-food joint off the Camden Road. She climbed the narrow stairway with its stained and threadbare carpet to Luke’s first-floor flat, the whole place smelling like it had been marinated in Korean spices.
Pulling on a glove, she knocked at the front door – no answer – before unlocking it, aware of her heart beating faster, although not in an unpleasant way. Pushing the door open, she held her breath and listened for a long moment, but could detect no movement within.
The place was tiny, the kitchen area and living–dining space only about three by four metres, an unmade bed visible through an open door. Up here the smell of spiced chicken and kimchi was even stronger.
She started to scope the place, knowing what she was looking for: the tan-coloured Moleskine notebook Luke had used during their first meeting.
The living room was surprisingly tidy for a young guy living alone, making her task easier, but there was no sign of the notebook. On the coffee table lay a copy of the latest Gazette, open at Luke’s feature on the Kavanagh case, and on investigating the sideboard, on which a modest-sized telly stood, she found only old fast-food receipts, and bits and bobs. Nothing in any of the kitchen units either.
Moving into the bedroom, she saw two framed photographs beside the bed, reminding her of her precious image of Poppy. One held a selfie of Luke making a silly face alongside an attractive young woman, her eyes intelligent behind glasses: clearly a lover, although no doubt Willets would dismiss this as the window dressing of a closeted gay man. The other showed a couple, presumably Luke’s parents, on a hot-looking beach sitting either side of a two- or three-year-old in a sun hat. Toddler Luke was intent on prodding a hole in the sand with his spade, but his mum and dad only had eyes for him. The dad who’d recently lost his wife and who was now having to deal with the fact that his only son had been murdered.
A swift but thorough search of the bedside table and chest of drawers was fruitless. Returning to the front room she was starting to think that maybe Luke’s assailant had taken his notebook along with his phone and wallet when she heard something.
The traffic noise from the street below increased as if the volume had been turned up, before subsiding again: the only clue that somebody had opened and closed the door downstairs to the street.
Flaming focaccia!
She moved swiftly to the front door, quietly snibbed the lock, and waited, trying to quiet her breathing.
Stupid! Since no keys had been found on Luke’s body, it was a good bet they were in the hands of his attacker. Straining her ears, she couldn’t hear any footsteps from the stairs but ten seconds later she could sense someone on the other side of the door.
A scraping noise as a key was put in the lock. Flyte held her breath, her pulse thudding double-time in her throat. Now the key rattled uselessly in the lock, the snib holding firm. What would the visitor do now? It would only take a couple of well-aimed kicks to knock the lock off the door frame. Then a silence that seemed to last an eternity, before she heard steps retreating down the stairs.
Back in the front room she opened a gap between the dusty wooden blinds, but could see only innocent-looking passers-by in the street below.
Holy moly.
Her pulse was still hammering. When Luke’s assailant took his key had he planned to burgle his flat? That was possible, but there was a more compelling motive: that they were both there for the same reason – to recover any evidence that might point the police towards Luke’s murderer. Like a notebook.
It gave her the impetus to renew the search with more urgency. Who knew when the unknown visitor might return, determined to gain entry? Luke was practically welded to that notebook; it had to be here somewhere. What would his idea of a clever hiding place be? After pulling all the cushions off the sofa and checking the linings, she returned to the bedroom to look under the mattress, inside the duvet cover and pillowcases, under the bed and bedroom furniture.
Zilch.
In the kitchenette, she clambered on a chair to check out the top of the kitchen units, which were clear except for a quarter-inch of fatty grime. In the cupboards she opened a biscuit tin and peered inside open packets of rice and cornflakes. Maybe this was a hiding to nothing.
The fridge was empty but for a pint of milk and some half-eaten noodles. The freezer compartment held a single bag of oven chips and she was about to close the door when she stopped. Behind the chips: the blue edge of a ziplock bag. Inside it, wrapped in a second plastic bag, was Luke’s Moleskine notebook.
She smiled. Of course it would fit with Luke’s sense of drama to hide it in the deep freeze, just as Sean Kavanagh’s body had been.
Flipping through the book with gloved hands, she saw a mix of shorthand notes and scribbled words. The last page contained just a couple of lines that might as well be hieroglyphs.
A bunch of scrawled numerals and initials, hard to decipher. What looked like ‘5K’ – five thousand? – followed by ‘0PD!! AO=NDW’ and then two words she was able to make out.
Abney. Caution?
Clearly scribbled in haste, perhaps even on his way out to meet his assailant on the heath? But at the last minute something had made Luke leave his notebook in its safe place. Was that why he’d written and underlined ‘Caution’?
It was nearly 2 p.m., and aware that Willets might come looking for her at the nick after lunch she took photos of as many pages as she could before returning the double-bagged notebook to the freezer compartment. Since Luke’s death had been declared suspicious a search warrant had been issued for his flat, but if the notebook were to be used in evidence against his killer it ought to come to light during an officially recorded search.
Letting herself out onto the street, Flyte spotted a cafe across the street that offered a clear view of the flat should the intruder return. She didn’t even know whether it had been a man or woman. Presumably only a man would have had the requisite strength to kill someone in a chokehold, although that didn’t rule out a female accomplice. She took a window seat, feeling a little stunned at how far off-piste she had gone, but also feeling more alive than she had for a long time.
Making a call, she said, ‘Hey, Seb . . . Listen, Willets wants you to check out Luke Lawless’s flat in Kentish Town right away . . . I was up this way so saved you some time by picking up the key.’ Feeling her cheeks redden at the egregious dishonesty she went on to tell him where she was.
*
Seeing Seb push open the door of the cafe, Flyte closed the image of Luke’s final note, suddenly unsure how much she wanted to share with him.
‘So Dean tells me we’ve got another victim of the Hugger Mugger.’
‘Hmm, maybe,’ said Flyte.
‘You don’t buy it?’ asked Seb with a half-smile.
Flyte was in a quandary: still not sure how much to tell him. Maybe it was because he had seemed to put himself on the side of Dean Willets and Jethro when they had misbehaved. She eyed his face. If push came to shove would he be more loyal to her, or to his buddies? But then without trust there could be no future for them.
She shared her hunch that Sean and Luke’s deaths might be connected and told him what had happened in the flat, watching his eyes get wider and wider. ‘Wow! And I always had you down as Ms Rulebook!’
She shrugged awkwardly. ‘We’re entitled to search his flat for evidence relating to his death, so my only misdemeanour is following up a lead Willets seems determined to ignore. Anyway, now we know that somebody else was keen to check out Luke’s place.’
‘It could have been his cleaner, or some workman sent by the landlord,’ said Seb. He tipped his head towards the flat. ‘Have you seen anybody going in since?’
A headshake.
‘So are you going to show me this mysterious code?’ Seb asked.
She could hardly say no. She opened the image and turned her phone to face him.
He made a face. ‘I get a bunch of meaningless numbers and initials. “Five K – zero PD” two exclamation marks, then “AO ‘equals’ NDW” followed by “Abney” and “Caution?”
She pointed to the 5K. ‘I thought that was a “five” too at first. But I think it’s an S. As in SK.’ Seeing if he would get it.
‘You think it stands for Sean Kavanagh.’ His shrug was non-committal. ‘What about the rest?’
She bit her lip. ‘That’s what I’m struggling with. Could it be some reference to steroids? The A in AO could be anabolic? Is Abney a person?’ She took her phone back. ‘I’d like us to put this in front of Bethany Locke, see how she reacts.’
Seb frowned. ‘You haven’t heard?’
‘No, what?’
‘When Dean tried to call Bethany Locke he got a voicemail saying she was going “out of town” for a while.’