Cold Justice (Willis/Carter #4)(23)

‘No, not even with the dog waiting for you to come through the door.’

Carter sat down at the study desk and pulled out the first of a set of four drawers. He rummaged inside. ‘Junk drawer, stapler, spare pens, that kind of thing.’ He opened the next two drawers in succession. ‘Correspondence, all recent. Mainly bills for caterers. He’s clipped the months together. I suppose he got to claim for a fair bit. He must have entertained visiting bigwigs in here. These clips have come undone in this drawer, I think Toby’s been looking through these.’

Willis came over to stand by Carter. ‘He implied that he just wanted to get the odd souvenir,’ she said as she peered into the fourth drawer with him.

‘Now, he’s made a mess in here. All these papers are just rammed back in.’ Carter lifted the bundle of correspondence carefully out and handed it to Willis. ‘Let’s look at it on the dining table, we can spread out.’

‘What are we looking for?’

‘Anything with reference to Toby, Samuel, suicide? I don’t know. You take half and get started.’

‘There’s nothing about Toby or the Cornish connection in my lot,’ Willis said as she finished looking through it.

‘Nor mine.’

‘Where else, then? Are there any long-term storage places here in this flat? I mean, he must have had belongings that he’d always kept?’

‘They may be in the Cornish house.’

‘I get the feeling Toby and Gareth spent some time in here. The ruffled bed?’ Willis wandered over to the CD collection. ‘They listened to music, watched the odd DVD? There are some gaps on the shelf here.’ Willis tilted her head to look at the titles.

‘Jeanie loves music, all kinds. She could sing something from all these albums,’ said Willis, who often babysat Jeanie’s little girl Chloe on a Saturday night and stayed over to spend Sundays at Jeanie’s house –no one made a roast like Jeanie’s husband Peter.

‘That’s for sure,’ said Carter. ‘Not like Cabrina who has ’80s music on all of the time – drives me frigging mad. It’s either that or she’s watching reruns of Friends.’

Willis turned to look at Carter. He went into the kitchen and looked inside the fridge. ‘It’s as if Jeremy Forbes-Wright had just stepped out.’ Carter stuck his head back out of the fridge. ‘There’s a half-drunk bottle of wine, a loaf of bread.’ He opened the wine and smelled it and then he rummaged through the rest of the cupboards before returning to the lounge.

‘Looks like they really did make themselves at home here,’ he continued. ‘They had a bite to eat, opened a bottle of wine. It’s all within its sell-by date in there. Considering JFW died a month ago. Interesting what Toby has started revealing about his childhood.’

‘Yes, I caught some of it as you were speaking to him. It sounds horrible.’

‘You have a lot in common. I’m sure boarding schools are not that different from kids’ homes.’

‘Both dreading going home, I suppose,’ said Willis.

‘Maybe we should leave you here and I’ll take Jeanie down to Cornwall?’ Carter and Willis locked eyes and he shook his head. ‘Maybe not.’

Willis took a call from Robbo. She put him on speaker.

‘A cleaner’s found some mittens that match Samuel’s at a services on the M5 heading south. They were in the car park, no sign of anything else.’

‘We need the place shut down, Robbo. Order the dogs sent in; we need a fingertip search of the area. He may have been dumped in the surrounding countryside, so helicopters as well. It’s a good lead. It’s a relief to feel progress.’

Carter looked across at Willis.

She nodded. ‘It narrows down the possible abduction route.’

‘I agree. Now we’re getting somewhere,’ said Carter. ‘Let me know the minute they find anything else, Robbo. Meanwhile, we need to trace the Cornish mourners on the way back and see if any stopped at the services.’

‘I’m analysing the CCTV footage. I’ll make this a priority; I’ll work on it overnight. By the way, Malcolm Camber, the child abductor from Greenwich, was out of town when Samuel went missing. He has an alibi that checks out. We’ve checked out the others of interest and drawn a blank. We’ll keep looking,’ Robbo said as they finished the call.

‘Okay, I’ve seen enough in here. Let’s talk to the concierge on the way out,’ Carter said as he prepared to leave.

They locked the flat up and took the lift down to the ground floor, past the waterfall walls and woodland sculptures in the reception area, to a semicircular bevelled glass station lit from beneath like an Olympic torch.

‘Hello, sir.’ Carter re-read the name badge. Tyler Brooks.

The smart young man stood tall behind his desk.

‘Can we just ask you a few questions about Mr Forbes-Wright?’

‘Of course, sir.’ Tyler already looked slightly nervous but with a bit of cockiness and excitement in the mix.

‘How long have you worked here, Tyler?’

‘About nine months.’

‘And are you always in this apartment block?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Do you work shifts?’

‘I work nights from seven thirty each evening until six in the morning.’