I was still thinking about what Mila Walsh had told us when I found the address where Paige Hargreaves’ friend lived. It was a scruffy purpose-built block in Whitechapel, close to the huddle of soaring glass office buildings that filled the Square Mile but a world away from that money and privilege. I knew that every passer-by who glanced at me as I leaned on the buzzer had identified me on sight as a copper.
I’d left Mila with Liv, who was more sympathetic than me and, importantly, prepared to put up with her hysterics. My main concern was to persuade her to create a photofit of the man who had been in Paige’s flat.
‘But what if he comes back?’ she had called after me as I left, her voice raw with terror. ‘What if he tries to hurt me? I saw him.’
And he hadn’t minded her seeing his face, I thought, puzzling over it. So was the man our killer? Or someone else?
The intercom crackled, bringing me back to where I was. ‘Hello?’
‘Police,’ I said as clearly and quietly as I could. ‘Regarding your friend Paige.’
The door clicked and I pushed it open, wondering if the waft of stale urine as I did so was from the doorstep or inside the building. The flat I wanted was, inevitably, on the top floor, and the lift was, also inevitably, broken. I jogged up, trying to read the missing-person report as I went. Someone else had passed on the news that Paige had been found, I knew, and I was glad of it. No one liked delivering death messages, and I was out of practice. It was uniformed officers who got stuck with breaking people’s hearts, as a rule, not detectives.
Bianca Drummond had already opened the door to her flat when I reached the top of the stairs. She was small, red-eyed, her face bloated and blotchy from tears, and she was wearing a tracksuit and fluffy socks. No absence of grief here: she looked devastated by the loss of her friend.
‘Sorry. It’s a long way up.’
I tried to get my breathing under control. ‘It’s good for me.’
‘I had this crazy idea.’ She stopped, and rubbed at her eyes with a ratty tissue. ‘I thought you might be coming up to say there’d been a mistake and it wasn’t Paige in the river. There’s no chance you’re wrong, is there?’
‘None at all, I’m afraid. We matched her DNA.’
I saw the fight – and the hope – die out of Bianca’s eyes at that. I understood why she wanted it to be a mistake, and it made me warm to her. She stood aside mutely and watched me walk past her into a small, very warm living room. A blanket was rumpled on the sofa, as if she had been lying there sobbing into the crumpled tissues that littered the floor.
‘Sorry, it’s not very tidy in here.’ She picked up the box of tissues and then put it down again, as if she couldn’t think what else to do with it.
‘Please, don’t worry. It’s fine.’
‘Cup of tea?’
No matter how awkward the social occasion, there was always tea. ‘No, thanks. I won’t stay long. I just have a few questions for you about Paige.’
She sniffed as she drew her hair into a ponytail, visibly pulling herself together at the same time. ‘I can’t believe she’s gone.’
‘It must be a shock.’
‘I mean, I was worried about her. You know I was, I reported her missing, for God’s sake. But I never thought …’ She took a deep, quavering breath, trying to hold back her emotion. ‘They said she was in the river.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Was she strangled? Or …’
‘We’re still working out exactly how she died,’ I said truthfully. If Bianca didn’t know the details, I wasn’t keen to tell her.
‘Do you know when it might have been? Was she already dead when I reported her missing? Was she kept somewhere? Or did they kill her straight away?’
‘They?’ I repeated.
‘Whoever did this.’ She took refuge in a tissue, but I had noticed the flicker of her eyelids as she registered she’d said more than she intended to. Because she knew something?
‘We don’t know yet. This is a very early stage in the investigation, though. We only identified her this morning.’ I paused for a beat. ‘The best way you can help to find the person or people who did this is to tell me everything you can about Paige and anyone who might have wanted to harm her.’
‘I’ve been trying to think.’ She sniffed. ‘I want to help.’
‘Let’s start by talking about Paige. How long have you known her?’
‘We were at university together. Same course. We met on the first day and just clicked.’
‘Would you say you were one of her closest friends?’
Bianca nodded. ‘She didn’t have many friends, you know. She had loads of acquaintances but it took a long time to get to know her. She was … self-contained. She didn’t need to be around people all the time. She didn’t want to be, either.’
‘Did she have a boyfriend or girlfriend?’
‘She dated men, but she’d drop them as soon as they got too serious. She didn’t want to let people into her life. I was in her flat twice, I think, and she lived there for four years.’
‘Can you tell me about her family?’
‘She didn’t have one. She was an only child and her parents died when she was twenty. They got food poisoning on holiday in Egypt in some dodgy resort that got closed down over it. You’d never expect that food poisoning would kill you, but they died a day or two after they got sick. Paige was devastated.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘It was really awful. Especially when it turned out that there wasn’t any money. They’d sent her to expensive schools and they were dead posh, but they were actually living way beyond their means. They’d borrowed money for their business, but the business wasn’t going well. When they died they were months behind with their mortgage, they had loads of credit card debts and basically everything had to be sold off. Paige was supposed to get compensation from the holiday company but they went bankrupt. She ended up with very little to live on. As long as I’ve known her, she’s worked. I’ve never known anyone so driven.’
‘She had a lot of expensive clothes in her flat – designer stuff.’
Bianca nodded. ‘That’s a perfect example of what I mean. She started out as a fashion journalist. She was able to put together a really impressive wardrobe because she got invited to sample sales and she made friends with fashion PRs so she got huge discounts or freebies. I don’t think she ever paid full price for anything.’
‘You said she started out in fashion. Was that still what interested her?’
Bianca laughed. ‘It never interested her. It was useful because of the lifestyle and she was good at it, but it bored her. She wanted to be a proper investigative journalist, digging into the dark side of life, uncovering the truth. But no one took her seriously. She couldn’t persuade anyone to give her a job in that area. They wanted her to write colour stuff, fashion, celebrity news. It drove her mad. She really knew what she was doing – all she needed was someone to give her a break. But she was determined and I felt she was going to succeed one way or another. She went freelance so she could work on the stories she wanted to tell.’
‘Why were you worried about her when you couldn’t get hold of her? She liked her own space, from what you said. She liked to be on her own. She worked alone. Why did you assume something had happened to her?’
‘I just had a feeling.’ Bianca shifted uneasily as she concentrated on fraying the tissue she was holding.
‘A feeling?’ I leaned back in my chair and waited. When the silence became unbearable, she sighed.
‘Look, she was working on something big. I thought she’d run into trouble.’
‘What was the story?’
‘I don’t know.’ She flinched at the sceptical look on my face. ‘I don’t, OK? She kept it to herself. She was worried someone would scoop her.’
‘Even you? Her best friend?’
Bianca fidgeted. ‘She didn’t trust anyone. I didn’t take it personally.’
That was a lie, I thought, but one I could understand. ‘So she didn’t talk to you about it?’
‘She wouldn’t even tell me what it was or where she was going. But I know she was excited about it.’
‘How can we find out what the story was?’
‘There must be notes on her computer.’
I didn’t want to tell her the computer was missing. ‘Who else would know about it?’
‘She’d pitched it to a few editors.’
‘Without success?’
‘As far as I know.’ She read the doubt on my face. ‘That doesn’t mean she was barking up the wrong tree. Mostly we don’t get commissioned on an idea. You really need to be sure of what you’ve got before they take an interest. She’d been working on it for a couple of months.’
‘But she had no guarantee it would be published.’
Bianca shrugged. ‘That’s how it is. And the worst part is that you’re on your own. In the old days, your editor knew where you were and what you were doing. Now we have no protection. No one knows what we do or where we are. It’s risky for all of us but the young female journalists have the hardest time with it. I suppose that was in the back of my mind all the time. That’s why I panicked when I couldn’t get hold of her.’
‘Can you write me a list of editors she might have approached?’ I slid my notebook and pen across the coffee table to her. Instead of picking them up, she stared at them, wordlessly plucking at the tissue. I wondered if I was unaware of some professional etiquette that might account for her reluctance. ‘I can get the list from someone else if you prefer.’
‘No, no. It’s fine.’ She leaned forward and wrote down five names and publications. ‘This is where I’d start if I were you. I don’t know for sure that she approached them, but I know she wanted to be published by them.’
As she slid the notebook across to me, a rattle at the door made me look around. Bianca jumped up.
‘That’s my boyfriend. He’s not supposed to be home yet.’
‘I think I’m finished anyway.’ I stood up too, gathering my things. ‘I’ll get out of your hair now.’
Bianca rushed into the hall and I heard her hiss, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I got off early.’ A rustle. ‘These are for you.’
Bianca whispered something in return. I checked I hadn’t left anything behind before I followed her into the flat’s tiny hall. It was mainly filled with flowers, at first glance. The boyfriend had arrived with an armful of peachy, close-petalled round blooms.
‘They’re beautiful.’
‘Ranunculus. Favourites of mine. Thought they might cheer Bianca up.’ The boyfriend was in green from head to toe, wearing the fleece and utility trousers of a professional gardener. He smiled at me and stuck his hand out. ‘Sam Williams.’
‘Maeve Kerrigan.’
‘She’s a police officer. She’s here about Paige.’ There was a strained quality to Bianca’s voice.
‘I’m so sorry, love.’ He pulled her into his arms for a quick hug. Bianca fought free, grief shading to irritation. It could take people that way, I knew, but Sam looked hurt.
‘I’m just going,’ I said quickly. ‘Thanks for your help, Bianca.’
‘Is that everything?’
‘For now.’ I handed her my card. ‘Call me if you think of anything that might help. And Bianca, I’d appreciate it if you kept the details of the investigation to yourself. I don’t want to open the paper tomorrow and find this is a double-page feature.’
‘I wouldn’t do that.’ She sniffed, hurt.
It was the second thing she’d said that I knew for sure was a lie.