Sweet Little Lies (Cat Kinsella #1)(12)

But I’d know that duffle coat anywhere.

Given my job, I should feel blessed to have a good memory for pointless prosaic detail. Truth is, it’s more of a curse and it’s one of the reasons I find it hard to sleep. In a matter of seconds, my dead-of-night thoughts can sway from the consuming, feral agony of Mum’s final days to the saltiness of the pork at Jacqui’s wedding, while images as banal as driftwood and duffle coats rub shoulders with suspicions about my dad that are so black and unmentionable that I have to keep them locked in a box at the centre of my frontal lobe.

In my mind, this box has always been purple. A deep Catholic purple with a heavy black lock. Despite the lock there’s no key to open the box, to do so would be catastrophic, but occasionally a thought seeps out through the tiny space where the base meets the lid. It’s already happened several times today.

‘Righto folks, let’s make a start.’ Steele hushes the room in two seconds flat. ‘Now contrary to popular belief, I’m not completely in love with the sound of my own voice so here’s the drill. I’ll go through the basics, answer any questions, get everyone up to speed, and then I’m throwing it out to the floor for a bit of audience participation, all right?’

A horseshoe of fresh-faced DCs sit up, synchronised in gutsy ambition. For a second I long to throw myself into the heart of their competitive clique and leave Parnell to his quiz shows and arthritic knees. But it’s a quick spark of sentiment, gone before it can take root. I never seem to shine with people of my own age. I just never feel that relevant.

‘So, quickly, let’s talk about me, shall we?’ Steele hops onto a desk, shuffling to make herself comfortable. Her legs don’t quite touch the floor and with her ditsy print dress and swaying feet, she looks like a child about to recite a nursery rhyme. ‘For those who don’t know, my name’s DCI Kate Steele and I’m the SIO leading this investigation. You can call me Boss, Guv, whatever you like. You can call me Kate if you sense I’m in a good mood, but you run that risk at your own peril, m’dears. Behind my back, you’ll no doubt call me Cardigan Kate, on account of the fact that my upper arms haven’t been seen since 1989 but that’s fine, I’m used to it. Christ knows, I’ve been called worse. Just don’t let me hear you or you’ll wish your mother had had a headache the night you were conceived.’

A smile spreads across the faces of those who’ve worked with Steele before. We know this script verbatim.

‘Now, there’s a few of you I don’t know so if you have something to say, put your hand up and state your name. I probably won’t remember it but don’t take offence. It doesn’t mean you’re not a remarkable human being, it just means I’m a batty old woman who can’t remember where she parked the car half the time, never mind a load of new names every time I head up a case, so if you can just play along if I get your name half-right, I reckon we’ll all get along fine. OK? Everyone happy?’

The horseshoe constricts, one or two allow themselves a cautious smile.

‘Wonderful.’ Steele turns to face the incident board. ‘So, victim’s name is Alice Lapaine. Thirty-five years old. A married, part-time pub chef from Thames Ditton in Surrey.’

A point to her bloodied corpse followed by a quick reverent pause. Just enough time for us to contrast the normality of her life with the savagery of her death. There but for the grace of God go I .?.?.

‘Vickery’s in court this afternoon, maybe tomorrow, so there’s a delay on the post-mortem, but in layman’s terms – possible strangulation, a blow to the front of the head, slashes across the throat – not fatal. Other bumps and scrapes, mainly to the legs and chest. She was fully clothed, no obvious signs of sexual assault. No obvious defence wounds either. Vickery estimates she’d only been dead a few hours, four to five hours max. She was found on Leamington Square at approximately four forty-five a.m., however Leamington Square is not the primary crime scene. We have her on CCTV being dumped there at four-o-five a.m. Benny-boy, you’re up.’

DC Ben Swaines, boyband-handsome in a tedious, steam-cleaned kind of way, steadies himself for the spotlight with one last run of his hand through his sandy-blond hair, but unfortunately not even his sterile loveliness can detract from the fact that it’s a pretty depressing tale of stolen cars, poor-quality CCTV, tinted windows and balaclavas.

Basically, nothing a good brief couldn’t make mincemeat of.

Parnell visibly sags with each blow, however Steele looks on, totally at peace with Ben’s litany of disappointments. All part of the game, she reminds us, especially at the start of the case before the grunt-work kicks in.

‘The car, a Vauxhall Zafira, belongs to a Richard Little.’ Ben looks relieved to have at least one tangible thing to offer. ‘A piano teacher from Tulse Hill. He’s been in Malta visiting his parents since the eighteenth so he’s in the clear. Didn’t even realise his car had been stolen. He parks it outside his flat – it’s off-street residents’ parking but it’s easily accessible. It’ll be a lump of ash by now, no doubt.’

‘We’re talking to the neighbours, right?’ says Steele.

Ben nods. ‘The car was definitely outside at nine thirty p.m. A neighbour, Mr Spicks, got home around then, remembers being narked that “Liberace” had parked it in his usual space before buggering off to Malta. Seemed happy it’d got nicked, to be honest.’