She Read online

  The Duke, formerly ‘of Edinburgh’, was crammed with oversized buggies, screaming toddlers, and mothers enjoying a fixed price lunch consisting mainly of hand-cut, twice-cooked chips served in bo-ho hip, enamelled mugs bought as a job lot from a camping store. West made for the bar, ordered a large vodka, straight up, no ice, and downed it in one. The barman, scraping six feet tall, raised his eyebrows as she ordered another.

  ‘Tough morning?’ he quipped, scratching the stubble on his chin.

  West, saying nothing, produced her warrant card and flashed it in front of his face.

  ‘Oops. Hope it wasn’t too gruesome,’ he said, smirking.

  She scowled. Her eyes locked on his.

  ‘How old are you?’ she snarled.

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘Ever been in trouble, son?’ she said.

  ‘Me? Course not!’ he said, nervously.

  ‘Well, play your cards right, and you might be.’

  CHAPTER 5

  “WHAT WAS SHE LIKE?”

  San Francisco. Mellow, congenial, alluring, a little old-fashioned and built on a fault. Not as temperamental as the San Andreas, perhaps, but just as volatile and liable to crumble at any moment. Like I say, despite her outward appearance, her public persona, you know – confident, self-assured and fiercely independent – underneath it all, she was actually quite fragile. Underneath it all, she was still the little girl who’d just lost her father. All she really wanted was for someone to guide her, someone to tell her what to do. She wanted to be held, to feel safe. Protected. I’d wrap her in my arms and she’d snuggle in, tight, like a puppy craving warmth, and, more often than not, fall asleep. It gave me a sense of purpose, I think. Made me feel as though it were my duty to shield her from harm.

  There was an aura of unsullied innocence about her, like the proverbial girl next door, enhanced by the fact that she was free from artificial additives. No lipstick, no blusher, no mascara, no nothing. Plain and simple, just as nature intended. Her hair was neither blonde nor brown, it was that in-between shade. I suppose you could have called it either, depending on the light. She wore it short, shorter than a bob, said it was practical. Low maintenance. With her big, green eyes and little, pointed chin, she looked like a pixie, a mischievous sprite, which, all things considered, was quite appropriate. She had, shall we say, a slightly twisted, almost impish, idea of fun.

  She thought nothing of dropping little notes through letterboxes chosen at random, most often on her way to work. Little notes, written with a fountain pen on vellum paper and sealed in plain envelopes. Notes which read ‘I know where you live’, ‘Let’s meet again’, ‘Keep your doors locked’ or ‘I miss you’. I could almost hear the ensuing arguments, the threat of divorce lawyers, the sound of suitcases hitting the pavement.

  Harry also fell victim, soon after they met. He’d just opened the bar, he was still drinking, and she could see he needed help. However, what she thought was funny, almost broke him in two. It was, by any standards, creepy. It didn’t take long for her to acquire a set of keys to his flat, in his perpetual state of inebriation he didn’t even notice they were missing. They’d known each other seventy-two hours, it was four in the morning and Harry, out for the count, didn’t hear the door open. She’d gone there with the intention of moving the furniture around, just little things, enough to make him stop and think, enough to unsettle him, shock him in to giving up the booze, but when she saw how sparsely furnished it was, I mean, a sofa and a coffee table, she had to think again. She found him upstairs. He looked pathetic, sprawled out on the bed, snoring and dribbling like some orphaned waif. She stood in the shadows and watched as his chest, bathed in moonlight, heaved with every audible intake of breath. His phone, face down on the floor beside him, glowed softly with unanswered calls. She picked it up, took a single picture of his troubled face, and left. Come the morning, or what was left of it, he checked his phone and, apart from the shock of seeing an alcoholic in his bed, assumed he must have taken it himself. He trashed it, went to work, and forgot about it. Til the following morning. He checked his phone. Same alcoholic. Different photo. Six days later, he was a paranoid wreck who’d taken to sleeping with a hammer under the bed. That’s when he gave up drinking.

  I was lucky, I escaped with my mind intact. My body, however, was not so fortunate. Play fighting was something she enjoyed with vigour. According to her rules, biting and scratching were allowed, which invariably left me bleeding from wounds surrounded by teeth marks. She assaulted my taste buds, on more than one occasion, by substituting the salt for sugar, and vice-versa, then collapsing in a fit of uncontrollable giggles as I spat out French fries which had been unnecessarily sweetened or tea which was nothing more than a warm, saline solution. Relaxing on the sofa was best approached with a degree of caution too, lest my derriere be speared by the copious amounts of cocktail sticks she’d stuck deep within the cushion.

  She was clever, no doubt about it, I mean, you’d have to be to come up with pranks like that. Maybe that’s why she got on so well with Harry, maybe that’s why their relationship was more cerebral than physical. She was modest about it though, never mouthed off, never said ‘actually, you’re wrong, the correct answer is…’. She knew she had nothing to prove. Sometimes, of a Sunday evening for example, she’d sit quietly and rattle through a crossword as though it were a tedious chore, frustrated by the simplicity of the clues. Given the opportunity, she preferred to use her God-given talent for planning and deception to exercise the old grey matter by playing chess, for example. Unfortunately, I was not a worthy opponent. The words ‘check’ and ‘mate’ spilled from her lips with alarming speed each time we played.

  She liked her job. At first, I thought it was below her, I thought was she was wasting her talents, I mean, working in the archive department couldn’t have been that taxing, file this, number that. I thought she’d have been more suited to something that would make her brain hurt, like stem cell research, or, or, I don’t know, finding a new molecular compound, but it soon dawned on me that it satisfied her craving for regimen and order. For want of a better word, her OCD.

  Take her house, the stuff in her house, it was neat and tidy, yes, but excessively so. Everything lined up, everything was straight. For example, open any drawer in the chest of drawers in the bedroom, and you’ll find all her socks arranged in rows, on a single level, organised by length and colour. Same with the underwear. And the jumpers. And the tee shirts and the vests. The stuff in the wardrobe is hung according to length and grouped by use, coats on the left, then the cardigans, then the shirts, and at the bottom, her shoes. I say shoes, they were trainers, that’s all she wore, each pair in a transparent, plastic box marked with the date she bought them. The kitchen was the same, as was the bathroom, and the lounge. Now, I know what you’re thinking, that she was just house-proud and it really isn’t that unusual, but it went further than that. It was the way she approached things mentally, as well.

  I suppose the first time I noticed it, this obsession for order, that is, was when she invited me to dinner. Not a take-away, not an impulsive affair simply because we were hungry, but a proper meal, one which she’d prepared. We had sirloin. The plates were square and set in perfect alignment with the grid on the checked tablecloth, as was the cutlery. The steaks, cooked black and blue, had been trimmed so they, too, were square, and surrounding them were twelve, perfectly aligned, homemade chips, cut from spuds she’d grown at her small allotment. Three to the left, three to the right, three to the top and three beneath. All cut to fit. That wasn’t just to make the plate look pretty, I’m telling you, it had nothing to do with aesthetics.

  Then there’s the other thing. The numbers. I washed the dishes, as any guest would, and, in clearing them away, it hit me. Three. She had a thing about the number three. She had three plates, three knives and three forks. There was a spare chair at the table. There were three cushions on the sofa. The books on the shelves were arranged in blocks of three, separated by
vases or picture frames, marble Buddhas or candles. I looked at her glass, vodka and tomato juice, three ice cubes bobbing on the top. Naturally, I asked why. I had to. The third-eye, or the sixth chakra, I was told, is the gateway to the inner self, the vehicle that will take you on a journey of enlightenment to a place of higher consciousness. The sixth chakra enables you to merge intuition with rational thought, a primeval instinct long since buried by our reliance on the trappings of modern life. I felt foolish. I should’ve known.

  Obviously worked for her, whatever it was, the belief, the lifestyle, she was so, balanced. So, in-tune, with her surroundings. She’s probably the only person I have ever met who wasn’t prone to mood swings. She never got angry, nothing irritated her.

  Unlike Howard Hughes, her compulsive behaviour didn’t stretch to excessive cleaning, disposing of toothbrushes after a single use, or a morbid fear of germs. On the contrary, if the occasion called for it, she rather enjoyed getting ‘messy’, particularly if it involved flesh. Skinning it, gutting it, ripping the innards out and hacking it to pieces. As a child, she took great comfort in the rabbit stew her mother used to make and, sometime into the third week of our ‘dalliance’, she proudly announced I was to partake in her memory of it. I was flattered, only because I took it as a veiled invitation to visit the oddly named Winnersh. Sadly, the invitation was not forthcoming, she was to cook the stew herself. Even better, I thought. Nothing worse than standing on ceremony while prospective in-laws conducted a vetting process based entirely on appearance, wealth and manners. I assumed, however, she’d get the rabbit from the butcher, or the supermarket, nicely portioned up as unidentifiable joints of something resembling a chicken. But no. I arrived at her place to find Thumper lying on the kitchen table, looking, to all intents and purposes, as though he were asleep. The urge to retire to the other room was almost overwhelming but I felt obliged to sit and watch the spectacle unfold. She only used the carving knife once, to separate his head from the body. Then she produced a paring knife and, holding it like a pen, as one would when performing an autopsy, I imagine, she sliced him open and teased the skin from the flesh. She wasn’t rough, didn’t tug or heave, she was gentle. It was like watching her undress a favourite doll. The sound was the worst thing, like a silk sheet being ripped in two. Anyway, once he was naked, any association with Watership Down vanished into thin air. Out came the guts, she wasn’t one for offal, and within a couple of minutes, the poor fella was boned and jointed. I declined the offer of his foot, for luck. It obviously hadn’t worked for him.

  Other gifts, of which there were plenty, I accepted graciously. Nothing fancy, nothing bought from a shop, just stuff she’d found or picked up along the way, but each one presented with a product of her vividly, fertile imagination. The pebble shaped like a heart, for example, wasn’t just a pebble. It was proof that the man who turned to stone on hearing of his beloved’s demise, actually existed. The dry cleaning ticket had been dropped by a bridesmaid who, as a consequence, was unable to retrieve her dress from the cleaners and thereby missed the wedding but found love with the shop assistant. The Victorian key with a filigree bow, cast in brass, would open a chest containing the Holy Grail, buried beneath the mountains of Puglia. And then, there was the scalpel. One of her scalpels. An integral part of the artist’s toolbox, she said, as essential as a sable brush. It was the only gift that didn’t come wrapped in a fable. I thought nothing of it. Never occurred to me that she used them too. Not in the way an artist would. More, a surgeon. And that, I suppose, was her negative side.

  CHAPTER 6

  SPRATT HALL ROAD, WANSTEAD. 3:32pm

  Munro, framed by the doorway, stood perfectly still, cocked his head to one side and regarded the drowsy detective with a look of bemusement.

  ‘Are we keeping you up?’ he said, sternly.

  West woke with a jolt, her hands unable to decide whether to fix her hair or fiddle with the laptop.

  ‘I…’

  ‘This is not Madrid, Charlie. We don’t do siestas here.’

  ‘I know,’ said West. ‘I must have… you’re late.’

  ‘Indeed, I am.’

  ‘I thought it was just a sentencing…’

  ‘As did I,’ said Munro, taking a seat. ‘The defence, however, did not. In lieu of some staggering new evidence, no doubt purporting the accused to be mentally unstable or under the influence of some mind-altering substance, they have lodged an appeal. Sentencing has subsequently been postponed until the twenty-third.’

  ‘I see. Oh, well,’ said West. ‘On the bright side, I got you a sandwich.’

  ‘Very kind, I’m sure. And how was your sushi?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your sushi?’ said Munro.

  ‘Oh. Nice,’ said West. ‘Actually, I had sashimi.’

  ‘Is that a fact? And they make sashimi with pastry, now?’

  West looked flummoxed.

  ‘You’ve crumbs. Down your front,’ said Munro.

  West, rattled by his irritatingly astute observation, dusted off the remnants of a sausage roll and made for the kettle.

  ‘So. Progress, Charlie?’ said Munro. ‘Have you made any?’

  ‘Sir. DVLA. He’s got a Land Rover, Defender. Registered in his name but to his parents’ address. We found it in the car park. Forensics are on it now.’

  ‘Good,’ said Munro, eyeing the wilting sandwich with distaste. ‘And our part-time P.C., did he obtain a description of the girl from the fellow across the way?’

  ‘Yes. Vague, but it’s something. She was short, slightly built, wearing a thick, woolly, cardigan-type-thing and a knitted cap.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘Fraid so. Told you it was vague. Claims he hardly saw her face.’

  ‘Oh, well. How about…’

  ‘The phone?’

  ‘Aye, the phone,’ said Munro.

  ‘Sergeant Cole took it to ‘Inta’ this morning, in Greenwich. As it happens, he’s on his way back now, but I doubt we’ll get anywhere with it.’

  ‘And why would that be?’ said Munro.

  ‘No sim card.’ said West, assuredly. ‘Whoever put the phone there, removed the sim.’

  Munro, weary from the wasted trip to court, held his head in hands and sighed.

  ‘Oh, lassie,’ he said, ‘lassie, lassie, lassie. And I thought the younger generation were up on all this technology stuff. I’d brush up, if I were you, assuming, that is, you want to keep ‘detective’ as a part of your job title.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said West, defensively. ‘If there’s no sim, then…’

  ‘Then, there’s no problem,’ said Munro. ‘Look, let’s say you save all your precious bits of information, your contacts and your photos and your emails, and such, to your sim card, you think it’s safe, don’t you? And you think that when you take your sim card out, all your information goes with you. Am I right?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Well, no, Charlie. No. When you save all that nonsense to the sim, your phone, your clever, wee, smartphone, is so clever, it also saves it to the internal memory. Scrambling it, hiding it, stashing it under every digital nook and cranny it can possibly find.’

  ‘What?’ said West, genuinely surprised.

  ‘My advice,’ said Munro, ‘should you ever decide to rid yourself of that intrusive piece of technology, is to do a factory reset before you part with it. Better still, do a reset, and then destroy it.’

  West, astounded by Munro’s knowledge on the subject, passed him a mug.

  ‘You’ve not eaten your sandwich,’ she said.

  ‘No. I… I had a wee something at the court,’ said Munro, sipping his tea. ‘Perhaps, later. So, what else?’

  West returned to her desk, opened her notebook and did her best to look proficient.

  ‘Footprints,’ she said. ‘One thing a wooden floor is good for, is picking up prints. Now, discarding ours, and those we assume belong to Farnsworth-Brown, SOCO found one other set of latent prints. Rubbe
r soles. He recognised them straight away. Converse. Ladies, size 5. She’s heavy on her left foot, the heel’s worn down more than the right.’

  ‘And what makes you think they’re of any significance?’ said Munro, eyeing her as if she were on trial.

  ‘Well, I… for a start,’ she said, hesitantly, fearful of making a fool of herself, ‘the size, size 5, that could match the girl seen with Farnsworth-Brown. On the stairs. Based on height and build, that is.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘And they ran from the door, the front door, one set, straight up the staircase to where we found the phone, and out again. That indicates she knew where she was going.’

  ‘I see,’ said Munro.

  ‘So, my hunch is, and I’m not saying I’m right, but my hunch is that, the prints belong to that girl, the one on the stairwell, and she was the one who cleaned the phone, swiped the sim and placed it by the bed.’

  Munro leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, one hand beneath his chin.

  ‘These footprints, Charlie, do you not think they could, maybe, belong to the cleaner?’ he said, quietly.

  ‘What? The cleaner?’ said West, anxiously.

  ‘Well, the flat was spotless,’ said Munro. ‘As you know, the entire place had been scrubbed from top to bottom. Now, if you’re a cleaner, I’d say those Converse would be a sensible choice of footwear, comfortable and practical, especially if you’re on your feet all day.’

  ‘I hadn’t... that means…’

  ‘Perhaps those footprints have nothing to do with the girl or the phone.’

  ‘Shit. Sorry,’ said West, dejected. ‘It was just a hunch…’

  ‘Charlie!’ said Munro, pounding the desk. ‘Where’s your confidence? We don’t even know if he has a cleaner, and if he does, why did we not find her fingerprints around the rest of the flat? Well done, lassie. I think. So, come on, what do we do next?’

  ‘Erm, we, we look for the girl?’

  ‘Good. And where would we start?’