Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(56)

“Is that as broad as it sounds?”

“Yeah. He could be managing bands, or he could be giving out CDs in the street,” said Tristan.

“Any other friends who stick out?” asked Kate.

“No. She only started posting regularly on Facebook when she got together with this guy,” he said, clicking through more photos. Kate leaned closer. As the weeks passed, Emma appeared to lose weight in the photos and dress more provocatively, and the shine went from her eyes. There were more photos taken of partying, one in particular of Emma and Keir with dilated pupils.

“They were doing drugs, don’t you think?” said Kate.

“Looks like it.”

“Would you be willing to friend him? This Keir?” asked Kate.

“Why? He has an alibi—he was away in America when Emma went missing.”

“Yes, but he was close to her. He could have information.”

“Okay.”

“Are you into bands?”

“Some.”

“Could you pretend to be in a band?”

Tristan shook his head. “He’d check. What if I said I was a booker for bands?”

“What if you work for one of the big breweries?” said Kate. “You could be their person who gets bands into the pubs run by the breweries.”

“That’s good. New bands always book gigs in the smaller venues starting out.”

Kate nodded and smiled. “Brilliant.”

Tristan wrote a short message and then sent it with the request. They then went downstairs to get coffee.

“Bingo,” said Tristan when they got back. “He accepted.”

“Jesus. Do people realize what Facebook really is? I wonder how different my conviction rate would have been if I had Facebook profiles to snoop around,” said Kate.

They started to look through his profile. Various posts on Facebook said he was a music promoter and a music journalist. He had links to three abandoned blogs; none had any effort put into the template. The first two had brief articles about gigs, and the third had been set up to accommodate a GoFundMe page for Keir to become a Reiki healer. His goal had been to raise ￡3,500 for the course, but he’d abandoned it after raising only ￡54.

“He’s set it so we can’t see his friends,” said Tristan.

“He must come from money with a name like Keir, private school, and Cambridge, and his work life seems vague, yet in all these photos he’s well dressed,” said Kate.

“He’s creepy. That fleshy face, the hooded eyes. He’s an odd-looking guy.”

“That’s no measure of a serial killer. Remember, Ted Bundy was handsome. Peter Conway.”

“Yeah, but his eyes are so cold, even in the photos when he’s meant to be smiling,” said Tristan.

Keir had posted only a couple of pictures of him with Emma, and she vanished from his news feed a few weeks before her death, when he went to America. Kate turned her computer round and googled him.

“Aha,” she said, scrolling through results. “He has a criminal record. Article in the local paper in 2009. Keir Castle, charged with threatening his girlfriend with a knife. The girlfriend wasn’t Emma. She’s not named. He got off with a fine and a hundred hours of community service.”

“I would have thought he’d get time for that,” said Tristan, reading from her screen. “He must have been able to afford good representation.”

“Any more info about his family?” asked Kate. They went back to Tristan’s screen.

“Keir attended King’s York independent school in Oxfordshire. Doesn’t look like he graduated from Cambridge. He’s got two sisters: Mariette Fenchurch and Poppy Anstruther. Sound posh. The sisters’ profiles are all locked with maximum security settings by the look of them, but they all went to the same school,” said Tristan.

Kate sat back in her chair, deep in thought.

“He was linked closely to Emma,” said Tristan.

“And if he gets about, he could have come into contact with the other girls,” said Kate. “What if we could arrange a meeting with him?”

“Where?”

“Locally. What if you messaged him and told him that you were looking to book bands for the South East pubs you manage, in your capacity as a band booker, or whatever? You’d meet him in public, of course. You talk shop, and then you could get him to open up. Especially if he thinks he’s going to get something from you. We might learn the names of the other people Emma hung around with.”

“Okay,” said Tristan, warming to the idea. “I’ll send him a message and get him talking.”

Kate got up and picked up her bag and coat from the back of her chair.

“I’ve just had an idea about something. I’ll be back in an hour, and I’ll grab some lunch.”





29

“Are you sure about this? They’re not going to talk to us,” said Tristan. They were driving toward Crediton, a small town fifteen miles outside Exeter. Kate wanted to speak to the parents of Kaisha Smith, the girl found beside the river at Hunter’s Tor.

“These should help,” said Kate, handing him a small envelope. Tristan took it and pulled out two small stacks of business cards each fastened with an elastic band. “A set with your name on it and a set for me. I went down to the copy room and got them printed. They owe me a favor. There’s twenty of each.”