Woman Last Seen(34)
“The day for what?” Clements asks dutifully.
“Missing women. I’ve just had one put through to my desk too.” Clements feels a chill run through her body, her breathing stutters but she manages to keep her outward response to nothing more than raising an eyebrow. So, he was actually reading her screen. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t trying to secretly rub up against her, though; it’s just proof that, despite stereotypes, he is a man who can multitask.
“Really. Who? Where?”
“A Kai Janssen. Her husband called it in. Woman in her midforties, boss.”
Clements is not Morgan’s boss. She’s not even his senior. They hold the same rank. However, she is fifteen years younger than him and likely to continue to take exams and be promoted, whereas he is most probably done. The use of the term boss is laden with sarcasm. He does not see this “slip of a girl” as so much as an equal. It’s her breasts. Not that her breasts are particularly notable. Not especially large or small, but their existence—proving she is a woman—is enough to convince Morgan that Clements is inherently inferior. That’s why he laughs at the idea that one day she might outrank him. He jokes about it now, so that when it does happen, it won’t seem threatening or even important.
“The husband sounded posh, maybe foreign. Dutch? With a name like Janssen. Some foreigners sound so posh they sound more English than we do, though, eh? I’m just heading over there to talk to him in person. To follow up.”
“Do you mind if I take it?” Clements tries to keep the eagerness out of her voice. If he knows she really wants it, then he’s doing her a favor. If he does her a favor, she owes him.
“You think they are connected?”
“Maybe.”
Morgan scratches his belly, glances toward the window. It’s raining again. “Be my guest,” he says.
15
DC Clements
Clements doesn’t bother taking Tanner with her. She needs a break from her esteemed male colleagues: their sweat, their opinions, their careless assumptions. Not for the first time she wishes her division had more female officers.
It’s 3:00 p.m. by the time she arrives at the address Morgan has given her. The property is on the river, one of those flash, multimillion-pound apartment blocks within spitting distance of the shiny financial district. She is a bit surprised because urban legend has it that no one lives in these apartments, that they are all bought up by Russian oligarchs who don’t want to live in the UK but want to protect their cash and so pour it into something tangible overseas. A soulless arrangement. This is a very different part of London from the bit she was at earlier. A few miles in physical distance, worlds apart in reality. Leigh Fletcher’s home is slap bang in the middle of row after row of identical Victorian terraced houses, in a street that has yet to be redeveloped. At some point it will probably become another neighborhood for people with a lot of money but no roots. Clements would guess that the last time the Fletchers’ street was transformed was in the ’70s. Then, the original features—like stained glass, sash windows and black-and-white tiled paths—were ripped out and dug up. Replaced by ugly practical solutions—uPVC windows and doors, cement paths. Their street is not charming or in any way estate-agent “desirable,” but it is not without merit.
It is busy with nose-to-nose traffic, crowded. It’s the sort of street where groups of morose teens loll on the low walls at the end of the scraps that pass as gardens, tired parents dash their kids to and from school and football practice, pensioners slowly but determinedly saunter to the corner shop, prepared to pay a bit more for their milk as it guarantees a chat to the person behind the counter. It’s an area where the recycling bins overflow, the paintwork on the doors blisters and peels. You get the sense that the people who live on the street are too strapped—by time and money—to bother with DIY. However, there is something appealing about the sense of enduring community. It’s the sort of place where all the kids go to the same local school, and the residents don’t shoo away the teenagers from the walls because it’s silently and tacitly acknowledged, they could be up to a lot worse, elsewhere.
Kai Janssen’s part of town is immaculate. The pavements are litter-free, there are landscaped walkways, fountains and green spaces. Although there is not a single soul around to enjoy these features. Clements looks about her and shivers, made cold by a sense of isolation. Personally, she’d rather live with the peeling paintwork and the streets that teem with life. This rarefied atmosphere of wealth is paradoxically suffocating. Clements rings the bell and is allowed into a large glass-and-marble foyer where she is greeted by a man in his fifties sitting behind a concierge desk. This makes the place seem more like a hotel than a home.
Clements flashes her badge. “Can I help you?” the concierge asks, not managing to hide the frisson of excitement he is so clearly feeling on having a police officer visit the premises. Cops don’t expect cheers and genial greetings from many people, but they can always depend on a warm welcome from a nosy busybody. Clements asks for Mr. Janssen.
“Is he expecting you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I hope there’s nothing wrong.” The concierge is insincerely obsequious, but Clements doesn’t judge. She thinks that arguably it’s a necessary quality of the job if you have to suck up to the rich and entitled all the time. Obviously, something is wrong if a cop turns up at your door, unless it’s the strippergram variety. There is nothing about Clements that suggests she is a strippergram. She doesn’t reply, just smiles politely. She wants to keep him onside, in case she needs his help later; busybodies often make great witnesses, but she has nothing she wants to share with him yet. After a beat he gives up, recognizing he is not going to get anything out of her, and calls Mr. Janssen. After a brief exchange he says, “You just tap in the code. It’s 1601. The lift takes you right up to Mr. and Mrs. Janssen’s penthouse.” Clements nods her thanks and heads off to the lift.