Sweet Little Lies (Cat Kinsella #1)(56)

She turns back to me, confidence quickly draining, belligerence giving way to panic. ‘Please. You don’t need a warrant. I’ve given you permission so just take what you want and go. I can’t have my flat crawling with your lot.’

Technically, she’s right. Parnell and I could probably get away with a bit of a treasure hunt without a warrant. But Parnell’s not in the business of getting away with things. He’s a ‘just to be safe’ kind of character.

I try to explain this. ‘It’s not as easy as just taking what we want, Saskia. Forensics will need to go through Maryanne’s room with a fine-tooth comb.’

‘I’d let your “friend” know not to come over,’ shouts Parnell from the hallway. ‘Unless he’s a “friend” you think it’d be worth us talking to.’

She moves to the doorway, hands on hips. ‘Oh, do me a favour and quit the sarcasm, would you? It really doesn’t suit you.’ She draws her eye downwards. ‘Neither does that tie.’

Parnell laughs. ‘Oh, I’ll do you a favour, Miss French. If you say sorry for being rude about my favourite tie, I might just let you get rid of some of the more obvious signs of cocaine use littered around this flat before the cavalry arrives. How’s that sound to you? Fair enough?’

She gives an exaggerated shrug and stalks off into a room, presumably her bedroom, to call her ‘friend.’ I walk into Maryanne’s room, not touching anything, just glancing around at a whole lot of nothing. A small double futon, a cheap-looking nightstand and a clothes rail, that’s it.

I turn back to Parnell.

‘I’m on bloody hold,’ he says, tutting,

‘What are you thinking?’

He trains one ear on what Saskia’s saying, lends the other to me. ‘Something’s definitely off.’

I keep my voice low. ‘Seriously off. I can just about accept that a mousy little pub chef might embark on a double life as a lady-of-the-night. I mean, nothing surprises, right? But there was no semen? No condom lubricant?’ Parnell nods, encouraging me to go on. ‘And this room? I’m not being funny but where’s the racy underwear, the sex toys. There isn’t even a scrap of make-up, just some roll-on and a few face-wipes.’

‘The coke’s not mine.’ Saskia walks back into the hallway, her face illuminated by her phone.

‘Maryanne’s?’ I say, surprised by nothing anymore.

‘No, no, I mean, it’s mine, I suppose. But I don’t use it. I don’t do drugs,’ she adds, proudly. ‘But some clients like it. It, you know, helps .?.?.’

Parnell raises an eyebrow. ‘I wouldn’t know, actually.’

There’s a voice down the line and he ushers us away, back into the kitchen. We assume our positions again, her on the worktop, me on the chair. There’s so much to ask that I can’t think where to begin. Parnell needs to take the lead from here, anyway.

‘We’re going to need the name of the owners of this flat,’ I say, just to break the silence. ‘I appreciate that’s going to be awkward but we have to speak to them.’

‘I’m sorry?’ The muscles in her neck tense. ‘Why?’

‘They own the property, Saskia. Out of courtesy we need to reassure them that any damage caused by the search will be put right.’

‘I’ll tell them,’ she says, quickly. ‘There’s no need.’

‘It doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid.’ I take out my notepad. ‘Name, please.’

She says nothing. Stares at the back wall. But I don’t think it’s petulance, it’s discomfort.

I let out a long sigh. ‘Saskia, do you know how quickly we can find this out? This isn’t Scooby Doo, we’re the police. It’d just be a whole lot easier if you’d tell me.’

‘Nathaniel Hicks,’ she mumbles eventually, then louder, ‘His name is Nate Hicks.’

*

It takes me ten seconds to place the name. Five minutes to confirm it with HQ. Ten minutes to arrange for two uniforms to preserve the scene and it’ll probably take an hour for us to get over there at this time of day.

Nathaniel Hicks.

Owner of this flat and husband of Gina Hicks.

She of the impossibly perfect life on the impossibly perfect Keeper’s Close, where an imperfectly sighted pensioner thought she might possibly have seen Maryanne talking into the intercom.

God bless lovely June of the Donatella Caffé.





15

It takes more than an hour. Eighty-five minutes, to be precise. Eighty-five minutes of Parnell getting grief from Maggie about something and crunching his mood out on the gearstick, while I fiddle with the radio, flicking between songs that all seem intent on telling us what a wonderful time of the year it is. What a fabulous time we must be having.

There’s no let-up at the Hickses’, either.

The door’s opened by Santa. A crooked, puny Santa with a rattly chest and slow laboured movements who I recognise to be Gina Hicks’ father under the synthetic beard and cheap silly hat. He ushers us into the family room where, fittingly, the whole Hicks family is congregating in picture postcard style. Gina Hicks, nailing ‘casual chic’ again in tawny beige cashmere and brown furry boots, is hanging chocolates on a tree with the elf-suited toddlers, while the man I assume to be Nate Hicks – blondish and brawny, with features just the wrong side of handsome but with the confidence not to care – throws logs and muttered curses onto a smouldering fire that refuses to catch light. On a cream Chesterfield sofa, the eldest lad, whose name escapes me, tunes a violin and quietly hums ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman’ to himself, while his sister – flat-ironed hair, must be around fourteen – records every twee middle-class moment on her glittery pink phone.