Sweet Little Lies (Cat Kinsella #1)(16)

‘Please, Boss, I feel a connection to the victim now. A responsibility. Please. I really want to work this case. Work for you,’ I add.

Steele purses her lips and sits back. Her chair’s the cast-off of an ex-DCI, a man of Hulk-like proportions, and consequently it makes her look like a pixie. On her desk there’s a mug quoting Shakespeare. ‘And though she be but little, she is fierce.’

‘OK,’ she says finally but there’s a threat in her voice. ‘But you report direct to me, OK, and you tell me the second you feel wobbly. Parnell’s your everyday supervisor, but I want to know everything you’re up to, right? Everything. If I ask when you last had a bowel movement, you tell me, is that clear?’

‘Crystal, crystal,’ I say, smiling and nodding, almost to the point of bowing. ‘So, er, who’s interviewing the husband?’

I figure I might as well push my luck.

‘I’m doing the formal ID with him but I’m going to arrange for him to be interviewed at home. We might get more out of him in familiar surroundings.’

‘Absolutely, Boss. Absolutely.’ I keep smiling and nodding, nodding and smiling. ‘So, er, can I be in on the .?.?.’

‘Yes,’ she snaps, impatient but with a glint of humour. ‘Parnell actually requested you, if you must know. I think he’s quite smitten.’ She laughs at my horrified face. ‘Relax, Kinsella, don’t flatter yourself. He’s got four sons, that’s all. I think he’s always fancied a surrogate daughter.’

This stirs something inside me too complicated to name, although ‘nice’ might be an uncomplicated way to describe it.

Steele reaches for her internal phone, nods towards the door. ‘Right, hasta luego, Kinsella – or bugger off, whichever you prefer. Get prepped with Parnell, OK, and grab Renée when she’s back, see what she makes of the husband.’ She points the receiver at me. ‘And just so we’re clear, Parnell leads the interview.’

I stand up and give a small salute. Message received, over and out.

Or ‘si, yo comprendo’, whichever she prefers.





5

Thames Ditton Island glistens as evening falls, and despite the reason for our visit, it’s hard not to feel a little festive when faced with the constellation of Christmas lights flickering red, green and white among the dense canopy of trees, illuminating the river and the spectacle of Hampton Court Palace just beyond.

‘God, it’s so pretty,’ I say as we walk cross the narrow footbridge. Parnell treads tentatively, as if he doesn’t quite trust it.

‘It’s an insurer’s wet dream. Look how high the water levels are! Must cost an arm and a leg in premiums.’

When we reach the Lapaine house (small, white, timber-clad in the style of a Swiss chalet and to Parnell’s relief, mounted on stilts), we find we’re not the only visitors. The SOCOs have landed, and boy, they’re not happy. Unlike Parnell, the Island seems to have inspired in me a homespun dream of sharing my breakfast with a kingfisher before heading out for a mid-morning sail, but even I have to admit that it’s an inconvenient way to live. Certainly not ideal for forensic work, with the poor sods having to lug Alice Lapaine’s personal effects – her laptop, diaries, address books, bank statements – from the house, across the river to the mainland, and all against the backdrop of a skin-cracking December chill.

In the midst of this, Thomas Lapaine stands in an open-plan living room looking out onto the water, bereft and confused, a stranger in his own home. A home that hasn’t been decorated since the Seventies if the swirly carpets and woodchip walls are anything to go by.

The man himself strikes a stark contrast to the time-warp house. Slick and urbane with a top-dollar haircut, he looks like the lead in a time-traveller romcom. As Parnell taps the living-room door softly, he turns his head. Red-rimmed eyes bore into ours, begging us to say something that will make him feel just one per cent better.

Parnell begins. ‘Mr Lapaine, I’m Detective Sergeant Luigi Parnell and this is my colleague Detective Constable Cat Kinsella. On behalf of the Metropolitan Police Service, may I offer you our sincerest condolences.’ In the absence of any other appropriate response, Lapaine nods. ‘Following the formal ID you made earlier today, I can now confirm that we’re treating Alice’s death as murder.’

He blinks twice, quickly. ‘Thank you for letting me know.’ There’s a rich, formal tone to his voice. Accentless.

‘Mr Lapaine, can you think of anyone who would want to harm your wife?’

‘Can I think of anyone who would harm my wife?’ he whispers, quietly exasperated by the question, shaking his head at a fixed point on the floor. ‘No one. No one at all. She was so kind, so .?.?. harmless. I don’t understand how this has happened?’

I’m about to attempt a consoling response when he has a better idea. ‘God, I need a drink.’ He walks towards the kitchen. ‘Would you like a drink? If your friends haven’t emptied the cupboards, of course.’

I’d gladly sell a kidney for some wine right now – 250 ml of pure anaesthesia. Parnell shakes his head so I grudgingly mouth the words, ‘Not for me, either.’ Thomas Lapaine shrugs, grabs a bottle of scotch and a glass and invites us to sit down.

‘We’re sorry about the intrusion, Mr Lapaine,’ says Parnell. ‘However, your wife’s personal effects are crucial to our investigation. You mentioned to DC Akwa, the officer you met this morning, that you hadn’t seen your wife for nearly four weeks, but that this wasn’t a cause for concern. Can you tell us when you last had any sort of contact with her?’