The Child (Kate Waters #2)(38)

“Really? I never read about that in the cuttings,” Kate said, leaning forwards.

“We never made it public,” he said, slurping his tea. “We kept it quiet while we checked out the husband—Nick, isn’t it?—but we never got anywhere. He and Angela both stuck to their testimony like glue. And, of course, there was never a body. Is that why you’re here? Has something new turned up?”

“Possibly,” Kate said carefully. “A baby’s skeleton has been found on a building site in Woolwich and I’m looking to see if there could be any connections.”

“Right. Woolwich,” he said, rolling the word round his mouth. “No, can’t think of any connection off the top of my head. Well, it has a military connection—the husband was in the army, you know. But all this is a lifetime ago, and at my age, I’m losing my marbles rapidly.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true,” Kate said and grinned at him.

“Well, I think I might still have some of the paperwork in my study—don’t tell the wife, I promised to clear all my police stuff out,” he said, grinning back. “Shall I have a look? Have you got time?”

“Definitely,” Kate said.

The study was all about cars. Photos of expensive bodywork, chrome detail, and racetracks were everywhere. Joe pointed at one and said, “That’s Goodwood, isn’t it?”

Len Rigby went over to examine it. “Yes, that’s it. Go every year to the Festival of Speed. Have you been?”

“Yes, my mum gets invited and I blag a ticket,” Joe said. “Love it.”

“We don’t want to take up too much of the inspector’s time, do we?” Kate said pointedly to her sidekick.

“No, well. Let’s have a look at the stuff I kept on the Irvings,” the DI said and winked at Joe.

It was a slim file of handwritten notes and Kate lowered her expectations immediately.

“Right,” Rigby said. “What have we got?”

He leafed through quickly—too quickly for Kate’s liking—but stopped halfway through and pulled out two sheets.

“These were notes I wrote up after we found out about the husband’s affair,” he said. “Nick Irving said it was a fling and he didn’t know the woman’s full name when I questioned him in front of his wife. But he did. He rang me the next day and told me. He didn’t want Angela to know. We checked her out—the other woman—where’s her name? Marian Laidlaw. That’s her.”

Kate wrote it down, checking the spelling. “And what was she like?” she asked.

“My sergeant saw her. Says here she was a pleasant, decent woman of thirty-five. Older than Nick Irving but a nurse, like Angela. The fling had gone on a while, according to her. There’d been talk of Nick Irving leaving his wife but then it had ended. When Angela found out.”

“A nurse?” Kate said, her pulse quickening. “Bloody hell. Did she know Angela? Did she work at the Basingstoke Hospital?”

“No, sadly not,” the detective said. “We got all excited like you—thought we’d found ourselves a proper suspect—but Miss Laidlaw had a cast-iron alibi. She was on duty on a geriatric ward in Southampton—miles away and with dozens of witnesses. Another dead end.”

“Interesting, though,” Kate said.

“Len, dinner’s on the table,” his wife shouted through.

“Well, I think I’ve told you everything I know,” DI Rigby said.

“You’ve been brilliant,” Kate said and shook his hand firmly. “I don’t suppose I could borrow your notes for a couple of days? Promise I’ll return them . . .”

“Len!” The voice was more insistent now.

“Coming, love,” he called back. “You can photograph them, but I can’t let them go. And anything I’ve said you’ll only use as background? No quoting me. Understood?”

“You have my word,” she said and Joe started copying the pages on his phone.





THIRTY


    Emma


MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012

I’ve got out my old diaries from the suitcase under the spare bed. It’s the first time in years I’ve looked at them, but the baby has made me want to check on how it all started. In case my mind has been playing tricks.

They’re cheap, thin exercise books filled with tiny writing. My teenage years. Funny how I divide my life into blocks of time. Like I was different people. I suppose I was. We all are.

When I read them now, I want to weep for her—for me—and the girl I might have been.

She was so young and innocent—nothing like thirteen-and fourteen-year-olds I see on the bus, shouting and swearing, frightening old ladies. Teenage Emma scribbled away about her life as if she were Jane Austen, recording the conversations and rivalries at school and home, observing the people around her. And occasionally, she described her feelings—like when she saw a boy in town she liked. She used words like “dreamy.” And that’s what they were, these boys, fodder for imagined romances and happy-ever-afters. Poor Emma. Outside her books and diaries, the world wasn’t like that, even if it looked like it for a bit.

Darrell Moore was her—my—first coup de foudre. She would probably have called it love at first sight. Whatever it was, it was devastating, literally. Not devastating, the opposite of awesome, as used on the news by people to describe minor events. But devastating as in overwhelming, savage, shattering. I couldn’t think straight.