Close to Home (DI Adam Fawley #1)(63)

His eyes widen. ‘Seriously?’

‘Think about it. The one person who benefits from that fire is her. She’s already given us some pretty nasty evidence against Barry and anything in the house that might have incriminated her has now gone up in smoke. Literally. And that includes the car, which as far as I can work out, never usually got put in the garage. Which means that without a confession or some evidence on the body – ’

‘If we ever find it.’

‘ – we’re going to find it bloody hard to convict her.’

‘Assuming she did it.’

‘Assuming, of course, that she did it. But if she was capable of killing Daisy, perhaps she’s capable of leaving Leo in a burning house. Think about it – she could walk away from this whole mess scot-free, and start a new life somewhere else. With only the insurance money for company.’

Quinn whistles. ‘Jesus.’

There’s a knock at the door. One of the PCs who’s been putting in all hours on the search. She looks exhausted.

‘Yes?’

‘The guys on duty at the house asked me to collect this for you on my way in, sir. It’s the Masons’ post. Most of it is bills and crap, but there’s one you need to see. And before you ask, it wasn’t me that opened it – the flap must have come unstuck in the post. When I picked it up, the contents fell out and I saw what it was.’

The padded envelope is about six inches square. Addressed to Sharon and postmarked Carshalton. On the back, the sender’s address is given as the Havenview Care Home. And inside, a DVD. As soon as I look at it, I know why the PC brought it in.

I look up at her. ‘Good work – sorry, I don’t know your name.’

‘Somer, sir. Erica Somer.’

‘Good work, Somer.’

I stand up and stretch my aching back. ‘I’m going to go home for a couple of hours. Give me a call if Jamie’s parents get in touch.’

‘That’s the other thing,’ says Somer. ‘The desk sergeant asked me to tell you. It’s Mrs Northam.’

I sit back down, heavily. ‘At last. OK, show her up.’

Somer looks embarrassed. ‘Actually, she wants you to go there. To her house. Sorry. If it had been me I’d have told her – ’

I wave a hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ I say wearily. ‘It’s not that far out of my way.’

*

1 May 2016, 2.39 p.m.

79 days before the disappearance





5 Barge Close


Daisy is sitting on the swing at the bottom of the garden, twisting it desultorily from side to side. Behind her is the piece of fence her parents don’t know is loose. She went out through it a few minutes ago, lifting the greenish panel carefully in both hands so as not to mark her dress. If someone had seen her she’d have said she wanted to look at the ducks on the canal. But that wasn’t the real reason. And in any case, nobody saw. Not her mother in the kitchen, not the people on the path. No one noticed. No one ever notices.

She kicks her legs out and starts to move, backwards and forwards, higher and higher into the air. With each swing the metal frame wrenches slightly out of the ground where her father didn’t fix it firmly enough. Her mother is always moaning about it, on and on about how you’d have thought a builder could fix a simple thing like a child’s swing. Daisy lifts her face into the sun. If she closes her eyes she can almost believe she’s flying, gliding above the big billowy clouds that look like beautiful snowy mountains or fairy castles where princes and princesses live. It must be amazing to fly right through the clouds like a bird or an aeroplane. She went in a plane once but it was a long time ago and she can’t remember what it was like. She wishes she could. She wishes she could look down right now at the houses and the roads and the canal, and her own self, very small and very far away.

There’s a tap, then, on the kitchen window. Fingernails on the glass. Rap rap rap.

Sharon opens the window. ‘Daisy,’ she calls, ‘how many times have I told you about swinging too high? It’s dangerous, the state that thing is in.’

Sharon stands at the window until Daisy slows the swing down. As it comes to a halt there’s a sudden high-pitched buzzing, like a mosquito. Sharon can’t hear it because the frequency is too high. But Daisy can. She watches until her mother closes the window and disappears back into the kitchen before reaching into her pocket and taking out a small pink mobile phone.

There’s a new text on the screen.

I like your dress

Daisy looks round, her eyes wide. The phone buzzes again.

I’m always here

And then

Don’t forget

Daisy drops off the swing and goes back to the fence, and slips quickly through it. She looks up and down the towpath. At the families walking with their dogs and pushchairs, the group of teenagers smoking on the bench, the ice-cream van, and the cars parked on the other side of the bridge. She puts the phone back in her pocket and climbs back through the panel.

She is smiling.

*

When I pull up on the Northams’ semicircular drive it’s alongside a Bentley and a bright red Carrera. Like Canal Manor, this is new-build masquerading as heritage, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Because everything here is on an infinitely grander scale. A three-storey mock Georgian in cream stucco sitting in its own grounds, with an orangery one side, a separate garage block got up to look like stables, emerald lawns sweeping down to the river and a gleaming white and chrome gin-palace moored off a jetty, bobbing gently up and down. It’s like finding yourself inside a colour supplement.