Sweet Little Lies (Cat Kinsella #1)(53)

‘Absolutely nothing,’ he says, matter-of-fact. He could do with joining me on ‘The Art of Positive Spin’ course.

‘Something on her vagina though,’ shouts Flowers, putting his phone down. It’s tasteless but it gets our attention. ‘That was the lab. No trace of condom lubricant.’

And then with the arrival of Seth bounding into the room, Eureka.

‘Ha-ha, I’ll see your vagina, and raise you a phone. We’ve just got a hit on one of the pay-as-you-gos’

‘It’s been switched on?’ asks Parnell, his arm already in one coat-sleeve.

‘Not exactly. Silly fool took out the SIM and put it in their regular phone.’

‘So we’ve got a location.’ I say, my heart pounding.

‘Better than that, an address. And a name.’

Sometimes it just happens like that. Days and days of thankless, arduous nothing and then, boom. All the tenuous leads and the tortuous trips up endless garden paths seem a lifetime ago, and you can never quite remember why you ever questioned the purpose of your wonderful, life-affirming job.

My coat’s on and fully fastened before Parnell can even think not to invite me.





14

I’ve lived in London long enough to know that the suffix ‘mansion’ often lends a false glamour to the most humble of dwellings. However, with a name like Ophelia Mansions, I’m at least expecting to find the odd willow tree or wild flower. What we actually find is a dilapidated six-storey eyesore just off the Gray’s Inn Road, less than a mile from where Alice Lapaine’s body was found.

Predictably, Saskia French lives on the top floor.

We’re let in the main door by a man rushing out. His wool overcoat and deposit-for-a-flat-watch mark him out as a ‘gentleman caller’ rather than an occupant and it’s obvious Parnell’s thinking the same. I see it in his smirk as he flashes his ID, assuring the guy that we’re not Jehovah’s Witnesses. I hear it in the wicked laugh that echoes all the way up the stairs, in between our puffs and pants.

When we get to the top, the door to 12C flies open and a girl in a nurse’s uniform – a real one, that is, not a kinky one – flies out, buckling under the weight of a large kit bag. Her face is blotchy, like it’s been freshly scrubbed raw of make-up.

Parnell whips out his ID again. ‘Saskia French.’

‘No, I .?.?. I .?.?.’ She glances back into the flat, looking nervy. ‘Are you here about Maryanne?’

Maryanne.

So whatever she was doing in London, she’d reverted to her old name.

‘I saw it in the paper. I would have called. Honest, I would have but .?.?.’

‘But what? You were too busy to care?’

‘No!’ she howls. ‘I just didn’t .?.?. it’s just I don’t know anything about, you know .?.?. and I’m about to qualify, and I just do this to keep my head above water.’ She looks to us both, backwards and forwards. ‘You see, they talk about bursaries but they’re not enough to live on. I’ll stop when I’m qualified, when I’m salaried, I will .?.?.’

We’re almost as thrown as she is. If she didn’t expect to be doorstepped by two puffed-out police officers, we certainly didn’t expect to be lectured on the state of NHS student funding.

‘And I thought Saskia would have called. I mean, it’s nothing to do with me.’ A quick glance at her watch. ‘Oh shit, I’m going to be late for my shift.’

A disembodied voice comes from inside the flat – loud, husky and impatient. ‘Just leave it, Petra. Go. I’ll talk to them.’

It’s an order. An instruction that sends Petra hurtling down the stairs.

She’ll keep.

‘Yes?’

The voice now has a body, and a knock-out body at that. Saskia French stands in the doorway pulling a bulky jumper over a red PVC dress, hopping from foot to foot and blowing her cheeks out at the cold. If it was possible to take your eyes off her legs, which finish somewhere around my shoulders, you’d notice that she’s got wide set eyes, heavily kohl’d and a little starey. A razor-sharp black bob with a spirit-level fringe. While she’s not quite exactly your full-on fetish-queen, there’s definitely something of the alternative about her. A certain edginess that propels her from attractive to arresting.

Put another way, she’s stop-traffic sexy.

‘Saskia, we’d like to ask you a few questions about Alice Lapaine. It sounds like you knew her as Maryanne Doyle.’

Several expressions collide but hostility overrides them all. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I can help, and I’m expecting someone shortly. A friend,’ she adds, with a smile more beatific than the Virgin Mary.

Parnell smiles. ‘No need to be sorry, you can definitely help us. We know Maryanne Doyle – a murder victim – made a number of calls to your phone, and thanks to your colleague just now, it’s clear Maryanne was known to you so let’s not do this pointless little dance, eh? Just a few questions?’

I stick my foot in the door, a pre-emptive strike that doesn’t go to waste when she tries to slam it shut. My foot throbs but I hold her stare. And it’s not the easiest stare to hold. Fervent, almost tipping into crazy. The kind of crazy that drives men wild as long as it’s at a distance – preferably a one-hour-once-a-week kind of distance.