Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(37)

“Okay, I’ll try and schedule that call for tonight,” said Tristan.

“We should work through this school photo of Caitlyn’s and track down each of her classmates and the teacher, and we can hit LinkedIn and Facebook.”

“I thought you said you weren’t on Facebook?”

“I am about to join,” said Kate. She quickly explained about Jake and Facebook.

“I was sixteen when I joined Facebook,” said Tristan.

“Bloody hell, now I feel old!”

They sat at their desks and logged on to their computers. Kate set up a Facebook profile, and she heard a ping from Tristan’s computer a moment after she sent him a friend request.

“That’s cool. I’m your first friend,” he said. “That’s your profile picture?” He laughed. She’d uploaded the picture of the dead fish she’d taken that morning.

“That’s me, first thing in the morning without makeup,” she said dryly.

“I’m sure you look great when you wake up . . . I mean, you don’t wear makeup anyway, do you, and you look really good . . .” His voice trailed off, and he had blushed bright red. “Sorry, that came out all wrong.”

She waved it away. “I’ll take it as a compliment! I’m old enough to be your mother.”

She saw Tristan had a hundred Facebook friends. She typed “Jake Marshall” into the search field, and a list of profiles came up. Three down, she found Jake.

The little monkey didn’t wait, she thought. Jake had used a photo of him with Milo the Labrador, taken in the garden. And she saw he already had twenty-four friends. His wall was covered in messages from his classmates, welcoming him. She sent him a friend request and then turned her mind back to the task of finding Caitlyn’s classmates.

They worked for a couple of hours and managed to find ten of Caitlyn’s school friends. Kate also found the teacher, who was living close by in Southampton.

“Do you fancy a coffee break?” she asked. “Who knows how long it will take people to reply.”

They went down to the Starbucks; Tristan grabbed the good comfy seats by the window, and Kate ordered. When she came over with their coffee, he was on his phone.

“This is on the BBC News site,” he said. She took his phone and watched the short video.

It was a statement from the parents of Kaisha Smith, recorded at the front gate of their terraced house. Tammy and Wayne were both pale and thin and looked like they hadn’t slept in days. They were dressed in black, and a small girl, dressed in a grubby pink fake-fur coat, stood by Tammy. They were all flanked by a police officer, who was reading out an appeal for witnesses, and there was a hotline number and website address. They blinked at the cameras flashing. Kate could see that Wayne and Tammy were poor, and Kaisha’s father, Wayne, wiped at a tear in his eye as the police officer read out the statement. Kate saw he had “LOVE” and “HATE” tattooed on his knuckles, and she wondered how the newspapers would frame the story. The working class were usually built up as tragic heroes, but if the story cooled, the press would go for the jugular. The school photo of Kaisha flashed up again: her hopeful, smiling face in her school uniform, unrecognizable from the hideous corpse. When the report finished, Kate handed the phone back and took a long pull on her coffee.

“There’s nothing on the news about what we found at the wrecker’s yard, or the other girl,” said Tristan, swiping through his phone.

“The police will want to keep that information back. I would keep it back if I was working on it.”

They finished their coffee and then went back up to the office, hoping that they had some replies waiting. When they came through the door, a man and a woman were in the office. The man was looking through the box file containing the Caitlyn photos, and the woman sat at Kate’s desk looking at her computer.

“Excuse me, who the hell are you?” asked Kate.





19

“I’m Detective Chief Inspector Varia Campbell,” said the woman, “and this is my colleague Detective Inspector John Mercy.”

They both got up and flashed their police ID cards.

“Do you have a warrant to search through our private paperwork?” asked Kate.

“No. But do we need one?” asked Varia. She tilted her head and put her shoulders back, as if she were squaring up to Kate for a fight. She looked to be in her midthirties and wore a blue pantsuit. Her cappuccino-colored skin was very smooth. DI John Mercy was a big strapping redhead with a ruddy complexion. His broad shoulders and muscular build strained against the constraints of his smart black suit.

“Yes. You do. Put that down,” said Kate to John, who was holding a photo. He put it back and closed the box file.

“Your visit to the Nine Elms Wrecker’s yard yesterday. I need some clarification as to how you stumbled upon the stuffed bird and found the note inside,” said Varia. “May we sit?”

Kate indicated the small sofa in front of the bookshelf, and they both sat. Kate and Tristan sat at their desks.

“Common sense,” said Kate. “The crime scene at the Nine Elms Wrecker’s yard matched the crime scene at the original Nine Elms Lane Wrecker’s yard in London. I’m referring to the Nine Elms Cannibal case . . . the case I solved.”

“You were also involved in a relationship with Peter Conway, and you have a son together,” said Varia. “Are you still in contact with him?”