Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(109)

Tristan went to the camera on the tripod and was joined by Varia. They stared at the replica of Kate’s bedroom for a moment.

“Oh my Lord. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Varia. “It looks exactly like Kate’s bedroom in the crime scene photos from 1995.” Tristan was intrigued to see what was on the camera and put his hand out. “No, don’t touch it,” said Varia. “I need forensics in here.”

“Sorry, rookie mistake,” he said, pulling his hand back.

Varia smiled. “Well done. We wouldn’t have found them without your help.”

Tristan felt his chest swell with pride and relief. He hurried back out of the warehouse and into the car park.



Kate and Jake stood, wrapped in a large blanket, in the car park outside the warehouse. They had been checked over by the paramedics, and they were in shock, but they would be fine. Kate felt Jake shivering, and she pulled the blanket closer around them.

They watched as Joseph Castle-Meads was taken past them in cuffs and loaded into the back of a police car. He was shouting and screaming at the police and didn’t see Kate and Jake. Moments later, two paramedics rushed out of the warehouse pushing the stretcher containing Peter Conway. Peter lay on his left side. There was now a huge compression bandage on his bloody neck, which also covered the right side of his face. As the stretcher went past, Peter shouted, “Wait! Stop!”

The stretcher came to a stop beside Kate and Jake. Peter looked up at them with one eye and a bloody face. He held out his free hand, his arm bloodied with its IV line.

“Jake, you should come and visit me. I’m your dad—we’re blood,” he said. His voice was weak, but his one eye sparkled malevolently. Kate froze and looked down at Jake, who was staring at Peter, as if seeing him for the first time.

“Dad?” said Jake.

“Yeah. I’m your dad.” Peter smiled. A look passed between them, a look of recognition that they were father and son.

“We have to get you to hospital,” said one of the paramedics.

“Love you, son,” said Peter, and then he was whisked away to a waiting ambulance. It was only when the ambulance doors closed and it started to drive away that Kate began to breathe again.

She looked down at Jake. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, looking up at her. “I don’t want to see him again.”

Kate kissed the top of his head and hugged him close. She wasn’t convinced by what Jake said. However small and tentative, he’d made a connection with Peter, and in a few years she would be powerless if Jake wanted to see his father.



Seventy-five miles away, Enid Conway sat waiting on a wooden bench at a small pier in the shadow of Portsmouth Harbour. It had been a hard place for her to find, accessed down a narrow, unmade road and next to the muddy, reed-covered bank.

At her feet was the small carry-on suitcase. She had to sit bolt upright on the bench or the money belt containing the passports and a quarter of a million euros dug painfully into her skin. She wore cork-heeled wedge sandals. Again, they weren’t the most practical, but they wouldn’t fit in the case. Beside her on the bench was a small sun hat. The weather in Spain would be hot, even though it was October, and the hat was made of blond straw and chosen to match her soon-to-be-blonde hair.

She shivered—she’d also dressed for warmer weather, and the cold was creeping up the back of the thin cardigan. She’d been told to expect a small fishing boat at two thirty a.m., manned by a portly bloke called Carlos with a gray beard, but looking out across the still water of the port, she could see nothing but a large tanker belching smoke.

She got up and paced, swearing as the money belt pinched at her skin. They were an hour late, she thought, checking her watch. She’d been told there might be a holdup, but this was starting to make her sweat, despite the cold.

Just then, she saw a small light appear around the side of the port and start toward her across the water. It was moving rather quickly for a fishing boat, but she felt immediate relief and excitement. Peter wouldn’t be on the boat; they would rendezvous on a larger boat a couple of miles out to sea. Enid grabbed her case and hat and checked her money belt was secure. Then she stepped down onto the small wooden pier, making her way carefully along the rotting wood to the end in her cork-bottomed wedges.

It wasn’t until the boat was almost on her that she saw and heard it was a speedboat and POLICE was written on the side.

Enid panicked. She grabbed the handle of her suitcase and made a run for it, back along the pier to the bank, where she thought she might be able to lose them among the acres of tall reeds, but the edge of one of her shoes caught on the uneven wood. She tottered on the edge of the jetty, her arms wheeling at her sides, then lost her balance and fell off the edge into the murky water with a large splash.

“You bastards!” she screamed as she thought of the money and passports now under the water. She attempted to swim away, swallowing a mouthful of foul-tasting water. A bright light was trained on her, and a long pole flopped onto the surface of the water, and she was encircled with a large plastic loop.

She was fished out of the water on the end of a long pole and dumped into the boat, where she was greeted by two police officers.

“Enid Conway, I’m arresting you for conspiracy to commit fraud and murder . . . ,” said one of the officers. As the other attempted to take the plastic loop off her shoulders, she slapped him across the face.