In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(130)

Shelly saw Lynley looking at these when she raised her head from studying the anonymous letter. She said, “So? Wha’ of it anyway?” in apparent reference to what she was holding.

“Did you send it?” Lynley asked her.

“I can't believe she'd call the cops on this. Wha’ a flaming div she's turned out.”

“So you did send it? And others like it?”

“I di'n't say that, did I?” Shelly flung the letter to the floor. She sprawled on her stomach and unearthed a gaily printed box from beneath several yellowed copies of the Daily Express. It contained chocolate truffles, which she picked through to find one to her liking. She used her tongue against its entire surface before easing it slowly into her mouth. Her cheeks moved like bellows as she made much of sucking it. She offered a moan of putative pleasure.

Across the room Nkata looked like a man who'd just begun wondering how his day could possibly get worse.

“Where were you on Tuesday night?” It was largely a pro forma question. Lynley couldn't imagine this girl having the wits—not to mention the strength—to dispatch two able-bodied young adults, no matter what Vi Nevin thought otherwise. Nonetheless, he asked it. There was never any way to know how much information might be obtained by a simple show of police suspicion.

“Where I always am,” she replied, easing herself down so that she was propped on one elbow with her hand supporting her lank-haired orange head. “I hang about Earl's Court Station … so I c'n give directions to anyone lost when he gets off* the tube, natcherly”—this with a smirk—“I was there last night. I'll be there tonight. I was there on Tuesday night as well. Why? Vi saying something different, is she?”

“She's saying you sent her letters. She's saying you've stalked her for a number of months.”

“Listen to her,” Shelly said derisively. “This's a free country last time I looked. I c'n go where I want an’ if she just happens to be there, it's too bloody bad. For her, that is. I don't give a fook one way or th'other.”

“Even if she's with Nicola Maiden?”

Shelly said nothing in reply, merely fingering through her chocolates for another piece. She was skeletally thin beneath her dungarees, and the unappealing condition of her teeth gave mute testimony to how she managed it despite a diet of truffles. She said, “Bitches. Users, those two are. I should of seen it sooner, only I thought being mates meant something to certain people. Which, of course, it di'n't. I hope they pay for how they treated me.”

“Nicola Maiden has done,” Lynley told her. “She was murdered on Tuesday night. Have you someone who can verify your whereabouts between ten and midnight, Miss Platt?”

“Murdered?” Shelly sat up straight. “Nikki Maiden murdered? How? When? I di'n't ever … You saying she was murdered? Fook. Hell. I got to ring Vi. I got to ring Vi.” She popped to her feet and went to the telephone which, like the hot plate, was on the chest of drawers. There, the water in the pan had begun to boil, which offered Shelly a moment's distraction in her quest to contact Vi Nevin. She carried the pan to the basin, where she poured some of the water into a lavender cup, saying, “Murdered. How is she? Vis okay, right? No one did nothing to Vi, did they?”

“She's fine.” Lynley was curious about the sudden change in the young woman: what it said about her, what it said about the case.

“She asked you to come and tell me, di'n't she? Fook. Poor kid.” Shelly opened a cabinet above the wash basin and took from it ajar of Gold Blend, a second jar of coffee creamer, and a box of sugar. She excavated in the coffee creamer for a grimy-looking spoon. She used it to measure everything into her cup, stirring vigorously between each measurement and dipping the spoon liberally into the next ingredient. She performed each step without drying the utensil. By the end it was thickly coated with an unappetising patina the colour of mud. “Well, steady on anyway,” she said, having apparently used the coffee-making time to reflect upon the information Lynley had brought to her. “It's not like I'm going to run right over, am I, no matter what she wants. She did wrong by me, and she bloody well knows it and she can just ask me nice if she wants me back. And I might not go, mind you. I got my pride.”

Lynley wondered if she'd heard his earlier question. He wondered if she understood what his having asked it implied: not only about her place in the investigation into Nicola Maiden's murder but also about the state of her relationship with Vi Nevin. He said, “Your having sent threatening letters puts you under suspicion, Miss Platt. You do understand that, don't you? So you're going to need to produce whoever can verify your whereabouts on Tuesday night between ten and midnight.”

“But Vi knows I'd never…” Shelly frowned. Something apparently made its way into her consciousness, like a mole burrowing towards the roots of a rosebush. Her face illustrated what her mind was assembling: If the police were standing there in her bed-sit, putting the frighteners on her about Nikki Maidens death, there could be only one reason for their visit and only one person who'd pointed them towards her. “Vi sent you to me, didn't she? Vi … sent … you … to … me. Vi thinks I took Nikki for an airing. Fook. That bitch. That rotten little bitch. She'll do anything to get back at me, won't she?”