They didn’t go in at once. Instead, Maud led Forrester away from number 99, past Michelle and Dylan’s house, towards the high street.
‘Where are we going?’ Forrester asked.
‘I need to check something.’
They got to the high street and turned right, walking past boarded-up shops, a bookie, a twenty-four-hour greengrocer, a nail parlour, a barber, a money-lending outfit, and a place apparently selling only old-fashioned umbrellas and telescopes.
‘Here,’ said Maud, stopping outside a pound shop. The pavement outside was stacked with small stepladders, wheelbarrows and rakes, plastic storage containers, hard-bristled brooms, wheelie cases chained together, bags of compost, plastic Christmas trees, even children’s buckets and spades although it was December.
Maud looked at it with satisfaction, then stepped inside. The shop was separated by narrow aisles of shelves that were piled high with a miscellany of objects. There were batteries and wigs and food whisks and tools; dolls, fishing rods, treats for dogs, plastic flowers, tinsel, many, many Christmas decorations. There seemed to be no logic to how they were arranged.
Maud and Forrester made their way up the first aisle, though they had to reverse when a woman with her buggy came from the other direction. They turned the corner and Maud stopped.
‘Look,’ she said, pointing.
On the bottom shelf, next to a basket full of nails and screws, were several coils of blue rope. Maud picked one up and examined it.
‘It looks the same,’ she said.
She went to the man wedged behind the counter, surrounded by scratch cards, cans of fizzy drinks and behind him a variety of vapes and packs of cigarettes. He was reading a newspaper.
‘This rope,’ she said, holding it up.
‘Five pound forty,’ he said. ‘Cash for anything under a tenner.’
‘Can you remember if anyone came in here on Sunday the thirteenth of November, and bought one like this?’ He stared at her. ‘I’m a detective,’ she said, bringing out her ID.
‘That’s a month ago. Course I don’t.’
‘Do people buy rope like this often?’
‘People buy all sorts of stuff.’
‘Do you have CCTV?’
‘No.’
‘Do you keep a record of what’s bought?’
‘No.’
Maud pulled out her wallet and extracted a ten-pound note.
‘I’ll take this rope,’ she said.
A few minutes later, Maud and Forrester stood in Kira’s old flat. Maud had asked Sadie to leave for a while, to get a coffee. For a time, she just stood there, as if she was meditating. When she spoke, it was to herself as much as to Forrester. Going over things again and again.
‘Think of Kira,’ she said. ‘She should have been running away but when she bumped into Nancy she was coming back. It was that important. And think of the clothes tossed all over the floor.’
‘Could it just have been Kira, looking for the dress, if that’s what was being looked for – and it’s a big if – and not finding it?’
Maud shook her head.
‘If she’d gone back, if it was that important, I think she’d know where it was.’
‘Or if it was the killer who was looking for the dress, he – or she – might have found it and taken it away and destroyed it.’
Again Maud shook her head, more slowly this time, still thinking it through.
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘We can’t know. But those clothes on the floor, that doesn’t seem like normal searching. You know when you look for something and don’t find it and then you start hunting in the places you’ve already looked?’
‘It’s just a guess.’
‘If you like. I’m guessing that Kira came back for the dress because it was her one weapon. I’m guessing she hid it somewhere and the killer didn’t find it and nobody else has found it. Which means it’s still here. Or at least, I hope that’s what has happened.’
‘Everything you say is based on a hope and a guess.’
‘It’s based on the evidence.’
‘Or not.’
Maud smiled. Forrester was in an unusually hostile mood. She wondered what the other detectives had been saying about her. She wondered what Forrester had said back.
He gestured around the room.
‘It’s not a big flat. Where would you hide something here? What do you want to do? Take the floorboards up?’
‘It may come to that,’ said Maud. ‘I hope not.’
‘Where do you want to start?’
Maud stared around her, frowning.
‘The only thing to do is go through the flat inch by inch, looking for places where she could have pushed a dress. Behind the lavatory cistern, that kind of place. You start in the bathroom; I’ll do the bedroom. Then we can search in here.’
They both pulled on gloves. Forrester disappeared into the small bathroom. Maud heard him give a muted yell as he bumped into something. She went into the bedroom.
She searched methodically, moving slowly through the room, crouching to look under the bed, reaching up to see if there was anything on top of the wardrobe – there was, but only a broken flip-flop, a running cap and many dead flies. She opened the wardrobe door, moving aside the few dresses and shirts of Sadie hanging there, then moving the shoes to make sure nothing had been bundled up at the back and overlooked.
‘Not behind the cistern,’ called Forrester. ‘I’m taking the panels out from the bath to see if she hid it there.’
‘Careful you don’t damage anything,’ called Maud as she heard a bang and something ripping.
She opened each of the pine chest’s drawers, dipping her hand behind each one in case the dress was secreted in a cavity. Then she pulled the chest away from the wall. There was a little ventilation grid and she crouched down to examine it. It was insecurely screwed into place and it was easy to remove it and feel inside for a dress. Nothing, except dirt and mouse droppings. She took off her soiled gloves and put on a new pair.
‘Nothing,’ called Forrester. ‘They have a real problem with silverfish though.’
They met in the main room.
‘You take the living area,’ said Maud. ‘I’ll do the kitchen bit.’
In a narrow cupboard, there was a small, rusty boiler that needed a service. She searched on top of it and tried to slide her fingers behind, but there was no room for a dress. She took the mop and old vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard and then a bundle of plastic bags. She got Forrester to help her edge out the greasy oven and found nothing but clotted dust balls, more flies, more mouse droppings. She did the same with the fridge, the washing machine. The landlord had been telling the truth when he said the flat hadn’t been deep-cleaned.
She squatted down to examine the cupboard under the sink. Behind her, Forrester was lifting cushions on the sofa and peering down behind the radiator. She took out a cracked bucket, several cloths that urgently needed to be thrown away, an empty bottle of floor cleaner, a nearly empty bottle of white spirit, a spray can for silverfish and other household bugs, fabric stain remover, bleach. There was nothing there.
‘I think these might come off,’ said Forrester, squatting beside her and jiggling at the narrow wooden board that ran along the floor under the sink.
‘I don’t think they will,’ said Maud. ‘Have you looked in those high storage cupboards?’
She put her hand into the grimy space behind the pipes, moving it to the left and the right. Her fingers touched something.
‘Nothing here,’ said Forrester.
Maud’s hand closed on plastic. As she drew it out, she heard a very faint chink. It was a white bag with red handles, folded up on itself. Her eyes gleamed. She sat back on her heels and carefully opened the bag.
She was aware of Forrester, kneeling beside her.
‘It can’t be,’ he said.
Maud drew out the dress. Green, minute and shiny, its sequins glinting.
‘We found it. You were right! You were fucking right.’
Maud let the garment hang from her fingers for a few seconds. Then she let it fall back into the bag and got to her feet.
‘This is a job for Matt Moran,’ she said.
‘How long will it take?’
‘Eight hours minimum, if it’s treated as a matter of urgency. But it’s already quite late. By tomorrow morning, I think. We’ll come back then.’
‘Tomorrow’s Saturday. I’m playing football.’
‘I can see you on Monday, if you want.’
‘I can cancel.’
Before calling it a day, Maud called Ollie’s number, but he didn’t answer. She left a brief voicemail. Ten minutes later, he called back.
‘Yes?’ he said. ‘You want to talk to me about Kira.’
‘I do.’
‘Why?’
Maud hesitated.
‘Where are you?’
‘Right now, I’m leaving work. Near Paddington,’ he added.
‘Do you have time to come to the station in Harlesden?’ said Maud. ‘For a quick chat.’
He arrived thirty-five minutes later, out of breath as if he’d been hurrying.
‘Thank you,’ said Maud as he was shown into her room. ‘This shouldn’t take long, but I thought it better to do it in person.’
He nodded.
‘You were friendly with Kira,’ said Maud.
‘Yes.’
‘What was your relationship to her?’
‘I liked her,’ he said frankly. ‘I mean, like liked.’
‘Did you know her well?’
‘No. I first saw her at The Cornerstone when I met up with friends there for a drink. She served me and we chatted. I went back a few times, because of her. Then I asked her on a date.’
‘When was this?’
‘The date? Thursday the tenth of November,’ he answered readily. ‘I stayed over after, and we spent most of Friday together.’
‘At her flat?’
‘Yes.’ He looked down at his hands, which were plaited together in his lap. ‘It was lovely,’ he said.
‘And did you see her again?’
‘No. She had to go to work that evening and the next morning, crack of dawn, I went away for a few days. A stag do in Barcelona. I called and messaged her when I got back, but she didn’t reply. I thought she’d changed her mind about me, but it didn’t seem in character for her not to tell me straight out. I looked in at The Cornerstone and she wasn’t there, and I went to where she lived. That’s when someone told me she was dead. I couldn’t believe it. I wondered if the woman wasn’t quite reliable – she kept telling me to go to the police but not mention her. I didn’t go. I mean, what was there to say?’
‘Did you use a condom?’
He flushed.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That is, a few actually.’
The mystery of the condom was resolved, thought Maud. Not evidence of any kind of crime, but of a happy sexual interlude spent with a man who was keen on her. She was glad to tie up this loose end, and glad too that Kira had had that.