The battered computer processor whirred as it fought to keep up with the programmes she had opened. Ruby clicked on the search engine, typing in scenes describing how the bodies had been found. Forensics on the memorial cards had been disappointing because whoever sent them had covered their tracks. But it gave Ruby the incentive to clear the paperwork from her desk. She had declined Downes’s offer of a cooked breakfast, her mind too occupied with thoughts of Lucy to spend the morning relaxing in a café. Today was a late shift, which afforded her more time. But Ruby did not want to be anywhere else. A quick visit to her mum and she was back at work, four hours before she was due in.
Her search history consisted of some very strange phrases, but ‘eating cucumber sandwiches in lounge scene’ had to be in her top ten. But the return was so vast she did not know where to begin. She clicked on the images, pausing to change the search term. ‘Victorian, book, movie, scene in lounge, cucumber sandwiches.’ Like her other searches, it was random, but worth a shot. She found it on the third page of results. The image of a woman on a patterned chaise longue made Ruby’s heart patter in her chest. A table was displayed in front of her, triangular cucumber sandwiches on a neatly laid tray.
This was it. This was the re-enacted scene.
A memory resurfaced of a movie Ruby had seen over ten years ago. Lucy’s Christmas. It was too close to her own life for comfort, and she had vowed never to watch it again. A corny feel-good story set in Victorian times, it featured a little girl that had been given up for adoption. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl named Lucy. The first time Ruby had watched it she’d sobbed the whole way through. Like an old-fashioned version of Annie, it was a story of past regrets and new reconnections, as the little girl found her real mother again. A tragic parting, a fairy-tale reunion, with both lives intertwined. The movie began as Lucy’s biological mother sat sadly in her living room mourning the loss of her own mother. The death notice, the Victorian mourning traditions: they were all part of the scene. Having lost the one person who made her give up her daughter the woman vowed to reclaim her little girl. Several obstacles crossed her path, but all was resolved on Christmas Day. Ruby hated that movie because real life was not made of fairy tales and she couldn’t bear the fact her child shared the same name. She grimaced as she looked up an online movie site to find more information. The details were vague. She would have to watch it again.
But Ruby did not cry when she saw the film again because this time she was in her office watching with the eye of an investigator. The mother figure named Melissa looked nothing like victims Emily and Monica. But the scenes were exactly the same. Ruby held her breath as the film began with Melissa staring mournfully at a death notification: a black-edged card just like the ones delivered to Ruby’s desk.
The scenes could not have been any more exact. Melissa, in a floral dress, having tea and cucumber sandwiches, a temporary respite after being misdirected to her daughter’s true whereabouts. Falling asleep in her Victorian nightgown, her hair spilling out on the pillow as she dreams of being reunited with her daughter. Ruby watched through to the final scene. A touching moment, when the woman was sitting in the car ready to drive away into the sunset with her little girl. It had all been focused around that special Christmas Day when Lucy asked Santa for her true mummy. At last they were reunited, and the wicked woman who ran the orphanage was taken away, replaced with someone kinder to care for the children who were left behind. It was an old-fashioned, heart-warming fairy tale. Ruby could imagine her suspect watching it over and over until she knew every word, every scene, every detail off by heart. But nowhere in the movie had glass baubles found their way into the mother’s stomach. Was it an action born out of anger because Emily had not re-enacted the scene to perfection? And had Anita Devine ever watched this movie too? If so, it might give her a slim hope of survival. Ruby looked up a number and picked up the phone.
‘Mr Devine, this is Detective Sergeant Ruby Preston from Shoreditch Serious Crime Unit. We’ve spoken before.’
‘Yes?’ Joseph breathed down the phone, his panic audible. Ruby could have kicked herself for her insensitivity. It was obvious he was expecting bad news.
‘It’s nothing really, just a quick question. Has Anita has ever seen the movie Lucy’s Christmas? It’s an old feel-good film, not very well known.’
Joseph started speaking before Ruby had even finished her sentence. ‘Yes, she must have watched that movie a hundred times or more. She ordered it on DVD from some obscure website and tortured herself with it. In the end, I threw it away. Why? What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘It’s just a line of enquiry I’m pursuing. And Joseph? If we have any real news, good or bad, we’ll tell you in person. It won’t be delivered over the phone.’
Ruby bid her goodbyes, grateful for the lead. It was also a small glimmer of hope. And right now, it was Anita’s only chance of keeping her and Sophie alive.