Sweet Little Lies (Cat Kinsella #1)(14)

‘His car?’ asks Parnell.

‘She couldn’t be sure because – get this – the Lapaines don’t live on a street or in a flat, or under a bridge like Benny-boy’ – a nod towards her current favourite stooge – ‘they live on a private island on the Thames. Twelve houses, a population of about thirty, and to get back to my point, they all have to park in the village so the neighbour wouldn’t know if his car was there or not.’

Flowers whistles. ‘Private island, eh. There’s money then?’

Steele nods. ‘And three: when Thomas Lapaine did arrive home fifteen minutes later, he said he’d been out all morning. Walking.’ An alien concept to a woman who lives in four-inch heels. ‘Again, not unusual apparently. Three miles along the Thames Path, from Hampton Court to Kingston Bridge and back again. Takes a couple of hours. Obviously, Renée’s going softly, softly at the moment, but to my mind, it’s suspect. Bloody walking? When all the forecasts are warning, “Don’t take a shit in case your arse gets frostbite”?’

‘He could be telling the truth,’ I say. ‘Of course, what we’d have then is a potential suspect and an early-morning walk along a river path? Disposing of evidence, maybe?’

As a detective, I’m more fuelled by the mysteries and the ‘what-ifs’ than the verifiable truths but I’ve sat in enough of Steele’s first-day briefings to know that I’m about to get my snout slapped for ruining her Festival-of-Irrefutable-Facts.

‘Not a bad theory, Kinsella. One that has absolutely no basis at all at the moment, but not a bad theory.’

We are nothing if not consistent.

Duffle Coat’s hand shoots up. ‘DC Emily Beck, ma’am. So is Thomas Lapaine a serious suspect?’

I cringe as Steele swats the question away. ‘Husband’s always a suspect. Ask me another.’

‘Was he dressed for walking?’ I ask. ‘I mean, you’d want more than your winter woollies in this weather. You’d want decent boots, for a start. A flask. A waterproof, maybe?’

Steele raises an eyebrow. ‘Never had you down as a rambler. Honest answer is I don’t know. I’ve had two minutes on the phone with Renée all morning and she’s obviously having to play nice. Until we’ve got evidence that Thomas Lapaine is anything other than a grieving husband, I don’t want him feeling like he’s a suspect. The last thing we want is him turning against us before we’ve had the chance to interview him properly.’

Seth shouts over from his desk. ‘Bad news, Boss. He might already be against us, I’m afraid. The PNC check has thrown up something.’

Parnell makes a praying gesture. ‘Tell me it’s for offing an ex-wife, Seth. Make it easy on us.’

‘Alas no, Sarge. Section 5. Public Order Offence. He climbed on top of a van at a Reclaim the Streets March in 1996. Usual hundred-yard-hero, calling us “pigs” and “wankers” from a safe distance. He got six months suspended and an eight-hundred pound fine. He’s been squeaky clean ever since. However, and this is the interesting bit, he made an accusation of police brutality.’

Steele’s smile is acidic. ‘Did he really? Him and the rest. Anything in it?’

Seth shakes his head. ‘Doesn’t look like it. He got a tiny bit of gravel rash when they forced him to the ground. It went to the PCA. They rejected it. He didn’t appeal.’

‘Could make him touchy though,’ says Parnell. ‘We’ll have to build that into our interview strategy.’

Steele nods. ‘So what can you pair bring to the party? By the way, this is DS Luigi Parnell and DC Cat Kinsella for anyone who doesn’t know. They were both at the scene this morning. Lu and I go way back, back before some of you were on solids, so if he tells you to do something, do it.’

Parnell looks at me expectantly and I realise I’m being offered up as spokesperson.

‘We don’t have a great deal really.’ When will I learn the art of positive spin? ‘Girl who found her was too wasted to tell me anything. Just kept asking for her mum and her inhaler. We’ll have another crack when she sobers up but I don’t think she’s going to be much help. It was forty minutes between our victim being dumped and found. Whoever dumped her was long gone.’

‘And it’s quiet around there,’ says Parnell, hands raised. ‘Leamington Square’s off the main drag and yes, I know it’s residential, but it was four a.m. Not too many residents wandering about at that hour.’

He’s right, of course. If you had to pick a time when even the most decadent of deviants would be tucked up in bed, you’d probably pick four a.m. on a hypothermic Tuesday morning. But I still think there must be easier places to dump a body.

Steele called it brazen. I call it significant.

Parnell continues. ‘House-to-House are working the square and all the access roads but it’s not throwing up much. It’s up to you, Boss, but you could think about widening the parameters? Open it out towards Exmouth Market, maybe?’

No. Not Exmouth Market. Not my family.

The thought of Dad being questioned about a dead woman, no matter how peripherally, stirs something in me. Something dizzying and destructive.

‘Could do,’ I say, heart hammering. ‘Personally, I think it’d be a waste of time at this stage. People are too preoccupied before Christmas to be that much help. And they’re jumpy as hell too. We’d spend more time giving reassurance than we would gathering information.’