Catherine came up with clearer images of the men in the two cars. There were three of them in all who seemed to take it in turns to remain in the SUVs. The question was, where had they gone when they got out? The answer, from the topography of the square and where the cars were parked, had to be the shop.
Torquil Squire was back working at the bookshop although he was still sleeping at Victoria’s house. Persephone greeted Cross and Ottey as if they were potential customers.
‘Hello,’ she said brightly. ‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’
‘We’re here to see Mr Squire – Torquil,’ answered Ottey.
‘Can I let him know what it’s about?’ the young woman replied.
‘Do you really not remember us?’ asked Ottey.
‘I’m sorry, I get so many customers through the door,’ she said, looking at the only customer in the shop, browsing. ‘It’s hard for me to remember them all.’
‘DS Cross and DI Ottey,’ said Cross, holding up his warrant card.
‘Oh, my goodness. I’m so sorry. I think I’m still in shock. You found me in the bathroom.’
‘We’ve also interviewed you twice. Once at the Major Crime Unit and once in your flat in Totterdown,’ Cross reminded her.
‘I think I’m kind of blanking things out. People do do that in times of crisis or having experienced a traumatic experience, don’t they?’ she said, with a light sprinkling of melodrama. ‘Torquil’s upstairs.’
*
‘Do you recognise any of these men?’ Ottey asked Torquil Squire, showing him blow-ups from some screen grabs. As he looked at them, Cross noted a shift in the old man’s demeanour, which indicated he did.
‘Never seen them before,’ he told her. One thing was immediately evident to Cross. Torquil Squire was frightened.
‘Are you sure?’ Ottey asked.
‘Yes,’ he replied without looking up at her.
Cross gathered the photographs up and took them downstairs to Sam Taylor.
‘Yep. All three of them have been in the shop at one point or another in the past few months. Don’t know who they are, though,’ he said.
‘Did they buy anything?’ asked Cross.
‘Not from me, no. That one there, he was odd. Look at him. No neck. His head literally just grows out of his shoulders. If he wanted to look around at something, he had to turn his whole body. Wouldn’t want to mess with him.’
Cross often wondered why people said this. On the whole, surely people didn’t want to mess with anyone.
‘What did they do when they came into the shop?’ asked Ottey.
‘Just wandered about the place. Picked up the odd book. But not in a way that said they were at all interested in buying. Never put them back, though. That was strange and annoying,’ Sam told them.
‘Did they speak at all?’ asked Cross.
‘Only when I asked if I could help,’ he replied. ‘They just mumbled no. I think they were foreign. Eastern Europe, Russia or something.’
‘Weren’t you curious?’ asked Cross.
‘Of course.’
‘Did you ask Ed about them?’
‘He said he knew nothing about them.’
‘Did he speak with them?’ asked Cross.
‘Not to my knowledge, no.’
*
‘Yes, I remember them,’ said Persephone, looking at the pictures. ‘Didn’t like them one bit. Soon as I saw them. Gave me the chills. One of them had no neck.’
‘Yes, your colleague told us that,’ replied Cross.
‘My colleague?’
‘Sam,’ Cross replied.
‘Oh, yes. Right. Having said that, they did seem to spend most of their time on the first floor.’
‘What were they doing?’ asked Ottey.
‘I don’t know. But they weren’t buying books. Actually, that’s a lie. One of them did buy a book from me. Spy novel. Can’t remember which. Maybe Charles Cumming?’ she said.
‘Did he pay cash or pay by card?’ asked Cross.
‘Card. No one uses cash these days, do they?’
‘I’ll need you to track down that transaction,’ said Cross.
‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’ she laughed.
‘It shouldn’t take you long,’ he said, looking around the empty shop. ‘If this is a typical morning’s trade for you.’
‘Fine. I’ll look into it after you’ve left,’ she said tersely.
‘Thank you,’ said Ottey as she and Cross turned to leave.
‘There was one thing that happened, which was odd. When they’d been here one day, I heard shouting in the road outside. I went to look out the window and Ed was standing next to a car shouting at it. I think it must’ve been them. But I can’t be sure.’
‘Did you ask Ed what it was about?’ Cross asked.
‘Obviously,’ she replied, with an emphasis which seemed to imply they had no idea of the closeness of her relationship with him. ‘Ed and I talked about everything.’
‘What did he tell you?’ asked Cross.
‘That the man had tried to steal a book from the first floor.’
‘I have no recollection of that,’ said Sam who had appeared and was leaning on the door jamb into the room.
‘Of his attempting to steal the book? Or Ed telling me? Because if it’s the latter I have no recollection of you being in the room when he did,’ she replied haughtily.
‘Of any attempts to steal a book by those blokes. You’re such a drama queen, Percy. Did you really hear an argument between Ed and one of them or are you just trying to put yourself centre stage?’ he asked angrily.
‘Why don’t you go back to your own floor and let me speak with the detectives? It wouldn’t, after all, be the first time you’d fail to notice someone stealing stock,’ she replied. This seemed to irk him somewhat. But he didn’t appear to have a suitable riposte and so just left. Cross watched him go, then turned back to Persephone.
‘I think he might have been a little jealous of your relationship with Ed and your position here within the company,’ he observed disingenuously.
‘Tell me about it. It’s like he feels threatened or something. Honestly, it’s like dealing with an oversensitive ten-year-old sometimes,’ she replied.
‘Perhaps it’s just that he didn’t understand your relationship with Ed,’ suggested Cross.
‘Right?’ she said in a way that Cross always found perplexing in these situations. An exclamatory question that was supposed to agree with what he’d just said always threw him.
‘We met your mother,’ he said.
‘She told me,’ she replied, less confidently.
‘You lived with Ed and Victoria for a while in your teens,’ Cross observed.
‘Yes.’
Cross looked at Ottey. She took this as a cue for her to take over the conversation at this point. Maybe he thought she’d be more personable. Either that, or because she was a woman, a mother.
‘Not a great fan of Ed and Victoria, your mother. Well, Ed in particular,’ said Ottey.
Persephone looked mildly alarmed at this suggestion.
‘I think maybe she was jealous of them,’ she suggested uncertainly.
‘It was a bit more complicated than that, surely, Persephone,’ Ottey suggested.
‘Yes, well, that’s all in the past. I’m not entirely sure what it has to do with Ed’s murder,’ she replied.
‘Except that your mother was arrested for assaulting Ed,’ said Ottey.
‘Sure, and that was terrible. But you can’t be suggesting she went back years later and killed him,’ she laughed. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘You were very close to Ed,’ Ottey went on.
‘Very. I’m grateful for what he and Vicky did back then. It was the right thing to do, and I could see that more as I got older. As for my mum, I think it was more about her than me. The fact that she wasn’t involved in the situation more than anything else,’ she replied.
‘Their making you have an abortion?’ asked Cross.
‘They didn’t make me,’ she retorted. ‘It was something we discussed and I agreed to do.’
‘Why did you stop living with them?’ Cross asked.
‘Mum wanted me back before I went to Oxford.’
‘Are you close?’ asked Ottey.
‘Do you have children?’ Persephone asked.
‘I do.’
‘Daughters?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you’ll understand. We’re very close. Went on holiday together recently. To Mykonos. We had such a great time. She said we were like a pair of teenage sisters more than mother and daughter,’ she laughed.
‘How’s your relationship with your father?’ asked Cross.
‘Better than it was. Way better,’ she answered.
‘Why?’
‘Well, we were out of touch for a while after he left. Then he had another family, basically,’ she said.
‘How did you feel about that?’ Cross asked.
‘Honestly? I hated him. But then later, I realised him not being in touch, not being part of my life, was a lot to do with my mother.’
‘In what way?’ asked Cross.
‘She didn’t have a good word to say about him. Then when I met his wife, my stepmum – but don’t, please don’t,’ she said, suddenly worried. ‘Whatever you do, don’t tell Mum I called her that.’
‘Why not?’ asked Cross. ‘That’s what she is, after all.’
‘Sure, I know. But she’d be really upset. Anyway, I went to visit them in Spain and met their two boys.’
‘When was this?’ asked Cross.
‘My first year at Oxford. I learned that things weren’t quite as black and white as my mother had made out when he left.’
‘You could argue he would say that,’ Cross put to her.
‘Oh, absolutely, and I did,’ she agreed with enthusiasm. ‘But it didn’t feel like he was pushing his version of events down my throat. I think he made a real effort to be objective. About how badly he behaved, but at the same time how it wasn’t all him,’ she said.
‘Do you see him often?’ asked Ottey.
‘Much more often now and we FaceTime a lot. It’s really great having him back in my life. It’s like I tried to make Ed, Vicky, Seb and Charlie my family when he wasn’t around. But now I realise I have my own. I have two brothers in Spain,’ she said with an exaggerated sense of disbelief.
‘That must be lovely,’ said Ottey.
‘It’s changed my life.’
‘How?’ asked Cross.
‘I don’t know. I’m more confident. In a way I feel less rejected. I know that sounds weird but, all that time, I thought my dad had rejected me. But I was wrong. He’d do anything for me. He’s shown me that since everything happened. He’s been there for me. I’m so grateful he, they, are in my life.’
Ottey was beginning to think Persephone sounded like a soapy podcast the way she talked about her life. Almost as though she was talking in the third person, about someone else. She also thought it was a different representation of the relationship than her mother had given them.
‘Do you think these Russians had anything to do with Ed’s murder?’ she asked.
‘Who said they were Russians?’ asked Cross.
‘Ed.’
‘How? Exactly what was it he said?’ asked Cross.
‘He just swore about them, something along the lines of, “If I see those bloody Russians again”,’ she said.
‘Did you get the feeling he knew them?’ Ottey asked.
‘I think he did. I mean, they were around so often and it’s not like they were interested in buying books, like I said. They just hung around in Ed’s eyeline. I think all that stuff about them stealing, or trying to, was just rubbish. But there were a couple of times I left work and they were sitting outside in their car. It was quite frightening, if I’m honest.’
*
They walked out to Ottey’s car, not entirely sure they were much closer to the truth. Sam appeared behind them. He looked back at the bookshop to make sure no one was watching.
‘I just wanted to say, you need to take what Persephone says with a pinch of salt. She’s obviously still in shock after all that’s happened. But she’s a complete fantasist. Lives in a world of her own. Always has done. She actually thinks she’s going to run this place, or thought so, after Ed retired,’ he said.
‘I see. Why are you telling us this? Other than the fact that the two of you clearly don’t like each other,’ asked Cross.
‘Ed never said anything about the Russians, if that’s who they were, trying to steal books and I saw nothing like that happening on our floor. I think something else was going on. Ed was worried. Frightened, now I think about it. I don’t know what it was about. I asked Torquil and he said he didn’t know what was going on. But I’m not sure I believed him,’ Sam said.
‘Why didn’t you tell us about this earlier?’ asked Ottey.
‘I don’t think it occurred to me, to be honest.’