Sweet Little Lies (Cat Kinsella #1)(83)

It’s a fair summation. Steele’s not being snarky either, she just never has the patience for the nuances of the long version.

‘Yup. Report on the back of a fag packet OK for you?’

She raises her hand. ‘Er, quit with the negativity Kinsella. How sure are we she was pregnant?’

‘She had all the early symptoms, and it works as a theory – Irish girl comes to England for an abortion on the QT.’

Steele nods. ‘But obviously something changed her mind as we know she gave birth.’

‘Again, on the QT,’ says Renée, packing up for the day. ‘It’s not registered anywhere, it’s not in her medical records.’

‘Illegal surrogacy?’ I chip in. They both nod like they’ve been discussing it. ‘It’d explain the IVF desperation, anyway. Gina Hicks said that even when she first met “Alice” a few years ago, she was already strung out about the IVF not working, which seemed a bit odd as they hadn’t been trying that long.’

Renée sees where I’m going. ‘Yep, that’s definitely going to sting. Struggling to conceive a child when you already gave a perfectly good one away.’

‘It doesn’t explain why she’d put the brakes on the IVF though,’ says Steele.

It does to me – ‘Maryanne was fierce resourceful.’

‘They’d been through so many rounds already, I think she was giving Thomas Lapaine up as a lost cause, looking elsewhere.’

‘So she came to London to seek a new sperm donor?’ Steele weighs it up. ‘It’s a bit Dick Whittington but I’ll go with it.’

‘Well, it wasn’t just that, remember. She told Gina Hicks that she was sure Thomas Lapaine was having an affair, so I think it was more a case of “you’re cheating on me, and you can’t give me what I want most in the world anyway – a child – so why am I putting up with it? I’m off.’’’

‘Makes sense,’ says Steele. ‘Of course it contradicts his version – the loving note she supposedly left which we only have his word for, but to be honest I think I’d struggle to believe the sky was blue if it came out of Thomas Lapaine’s mouth.’

‘But we’ve definitely ruled him out, right?’

Steele hands me a marker pen. ‘Well and truly as of a few hours ago. Emily took a statement from Abigail Shawcroft’s nosy neighbour and she confirmed seeing him at the house that night and leaving again the next morning.’

I walk over to the incident board, draw a thick black cross through Thomas Lapaine’s name, then change markers and write ‘Illegal surrogacy??’ across the top in red.

It feels like a red kind of theory.

Nate Hicks’ name has already been crossed out. ‘Definitely schmoozing in Cardiff then?’ I ask.

‘Looks that way,’ replies Steele. ‘Hotel confirms him checking in and out. CCTV has him going up to his room at twelve ten a.m. and he doesn’t appear to leave again until breakfast. His car didn’t move from the car park all night.’

‘Bollocks.’

The door opens and Parnell walks in, instantly making a beeline for me.

‘Well, look who it is, the international jetsetter. Glad to be back, are we?’

The answer’s a definite no. Right now, I’d give anything to be back in Mulderrin, strolling up the Long Road, burning off the last of my raspberry mille-feuille. In fact, I want to be Bill Swords. I want to cruise around the county in my rust-bucket of a car, singing along to Dusty Springfield songs and making ‘tosser’ signs at other drivers. Or I’d settle for running a B&B like Manda Moran. Hell, I’d settle for running a B&B with Manda Moran – she looked like she could do with the help.

Basically, I want to be anything other than back here, in this room, soul-deep in this wretched case.

Steele’s feeling the same. ‘How bad is this, folks? There was a woman murdered in Wimbledon on Sunday night, a strangulation, and I was almost relieved thinking it could be linked to our case. I was actually hoping for a serial killer, can you believe that?’ I can, wholeheartedly. ‘Turns out it was some scumbag she’d given the brush-off after a few dates. He walked into Mitcham nick last night, confessed the whole thing.’ She pulls her hair back off her face. ‘We can dream, eh?’

I look at Parnell. ‘Still no Saskia, I take it?’

There’s a rising worry in his eyes. ‘No. Phone’s still off and there’s no sign of life at the flat. I’ve got a Mrs Stevens across the hall doing covert surveillance’ – a quick smirk at me – ‘so as soon as Saskia or anyone else turns up, we’ll be on it.’

‘Facebook?’ I say. The solution to everything.

‘Can’t find her,’ says Renée. ‘She’s obviously got tight privacy settings.’

I sigh, throw my pen down, agitated. ‘It just feels like we should be doing more. Saskia’s got motive, she lied to us, she’s gone AWOL for God’s sake and .?.?.’

Steele halts my tailspin with one point of a finger. ‘OK, OK, OK, she possibly has motive – if she thought Maryanne was planning to grass her up to Gina Hicks for either shagging her husband, or shagging other people’s husbands for money, then absolutely, that’s reason to shut her up. But we don’t know Maryanne was planning to do that.’