Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(89)

“You okay?” asked Kate.

“Fine,” said Tristan, blushing red.

“We need to concentrate.”

They drove toward Adler’s Chemist. The crowds thinned out as they left the pubs behind, and then the dark roads were deserted. A silence fell over the car.

“It’s not too late to bail,” said Kate, also feeling that they were being crazy.

“No. If there is a chance we can find something that leads us to Caitlyn, we should take it.” Kate could see he was rubbing his sweaty hands nervously on his legs.

A few minutes later they reached the parade of shops with Adler’s Chemist. The two estate agents’ offices had lights on in the windows to advertise photos of properties, but the windows in the Costa Coffee and Adler’s Chemist were both dark.

Kate circled around the block twice, until they found the entrance to the narrow road that ran behind the parade of shops, leading to the delivery bay at the back of the building. She then circled the car back, and they parked two streets away, outside a row of houses in darkness.

Kate turned off the engine and the headlights. They sat for a moment in the dark, listening to the engine ticking over.

The last time she was a police officer on an active investigation was the night Peter Conway dropped her back at her flat after the crime scene in Crystal Palace. It seemed like a lifetime ago. She remembered her hunch when she found the keys and flask belonging to Peter and how scared she’d been to act on it. She had a similar feeling about Paul Adler.

Tristan was rummaging around in his backpack. He pulled out some running gear and two battered-looking baseball caps and handed her one.

“Must be fate. I had these in my bag,” he said. They pulled them on, and Kate checked her reflection in the mirror. The baseball cap looked a bit stupid with her jeans and black leather jacket, but its bill cast her face in shadow.

“Pull it down farther, and keep your head down,” said Tristan, adjusting her cap and then his.

“Okay. If there’s any hint of trouble, we run for it,” said Kate. It didn’t seem like the best pep talk, but Tristan nodded. They got out of the car and walked back to the road leading behind the parade of shops. It was dark and empty. The side walls of two terraced rows backed onto the parade. They were windowless and loomed high, cutting out the glow from the surrounding streetlights.

When they reached the gate leading to Adler’s loading bay, it was unlocked but creaked loudly in the silence when Kate opened it.

The loading bay was dark, and Tristan tripped over a pile of plastic rubbish bags.

“Shit,” he hissed as he went down.

“You okay?” Kate asked, fumbling to help him up.

“Yeah,” he said. She could hear the fear in his voice.

They moved slowly to the back door.

“It’s here,” said Kate, feeling for and finding the electronic keypad.

“What if there’s an alarm?” asked Tristan.

“Then get ready to run,” she said. Kate took out her phone and activated the light. She keyed in the number on the keypad; it seemed to beep so loudly, then gave a buzz and a click, and the door popped open.

“It worked,” said Tristan, shock in his voice.

“I’ll switch my light off,” said Kate. They were plunged back into darkness. She poked her head through the door. She couldn’t see much, but there was no small red light by the ceiling for an alarm box. She could smell stale coffee and cleaning fluid, and a minty antiseptic smell, and the memory of the last time she’d been in this kitchen came flooding back to her.

They came inside, and Kate closed the door. Tristan crashed into a chair, and Kate nearly cried out.

“Sorry,” he said. Kate moved around the small table to the other door. She tried the handle and it opened. They could see down the long corridor, past the two closed doors, the dispensary door on the left and storeroom on the right, and down to the shop front. The faint light from the streetlights out front penetrated the gloom. As they crept along the corridor to the door on the right, Tristan’s trainers squeaked on the floor. Kate checked, but there weren’t any cameras mounted on the ceiling.

“This is the door,” whispered Kate when they reached the storeroom. She tried the handle. It was locked. Using the dim light from the screen of her phone, she saw there was a padlock on the outside.

“Shit.”

“What do we do? Look for a key?” whispered Tristan.

“If he’s padlocking it, he won’t leave a key lying around.”

Kate thought it was ridiculous to padlock a room. It might look more severe than a lock, but a padlock was easier to open.

“I need a bobby pin,” she said.

“Why are you asking me? I’ve got a buzz cut,” he said, panicking. “I thought we were just going through unlocked doors.”

“We will be if we can find a bobby pin or a paper clip,” said Kate. The chemist sold hair accessories, but there were security cameras in the front. She thought back to the girls who worked for Paul Adler. They all had long blonde hair. She knew this was getting ridiculous, but she couldn’t let this chance amount to nothing. They were inside and so close. “Look for a staff room or toilets,” said Kate. They crept around and found a small toilet next to the kitchen. There was a mirrored cabinet above the sink, and inside were a packet of tampons and a hairbrush thick with blonde hair. Underneath the hairbrush was a hair band wrapped around a stack of bobby pins.