Deadly Secrets (Detective Erika Foster #6)(72)

Erika had choked on her tea, laughing.

‘Mum, this isn’t a room deodoriser. It’s amyl nitrate,’ said Mark.

‘What?’ she said, putting on her reading glasses and going over to him. ‘No, look. It says on the label that it’s a room deodoriser.’

Mark had explained to his mother that people inhaled poppers for the ‘high’ or ‘rush’ that the drug could create.

‘Is this true, Erika, love?’ Kath had asked, turning to her.

Erika had tried to keep a straight face. ‘Yes. It’s classed as a drug, though not illegal… Some people do use it for a high. It’s popular in the gay community, as it relaxes…’

Mark had shot her a look to make her stop.

‘Oh my word, what must they have thought of me?’ Kath had exclaimed, clutching at her chest.

‘You weren’t to know,’ said Erika.

‘But I told them I was getting it for my husband, for when he visits the bathroom,’ she said in horror.



* * *



Erika smiled at the memory, but it then hit her. She rushed downstairs in her towel and grabbed her phone. She called Moss, but it went to her machine.

‘Moss, it’s me. I told the team to focus in on the guy in the gas mask, and look for someone who could be a collector of old masks from the war. Go back and look at the statements from all the people who were attacked. Jason said he smelt something weird and metallic, see if any of the other victims mentioned this. Whoever it is could have had the breathing apparatus packed with tissue or cotton soaked in amyl nitrate, for a sexual high. You should also be looking at S&M gear. If you can get a clear idea of the exact design of the mask then you can start working on suppliers… I don’t know how it fits in with Marissa Lewis, but it could unlock who this person is… Anyway… I hope things are going well.’

Erika hung up her phone, feeling very far away from the investigation.





Fifty-Two





Moss sat bleary-eyed at the kitchen table the next morning, eating her cereal. Jacob came in with his guitar and started to play a new song he’d made up. As he strummed at the guitar and started to sing, Moss shouted at him to cut it out. Jacob looked up at her with shock on his little face, and his eyes started to run. She never shouted.

‘Mummy’s got a headache this morning. Why don’t you go and put the guitar away, get dressed, and then I’ll make you some hot chocolate,’ said Celia.

‘I thought you wanted me to make up a song for you. That’s what you said yesterday, you said for me to make up a song and now I’ve made one up…’

‘I just need some peace and quiet this morning,’ snapped Moss. Celia took Jacob out of the kitchen and returned a few minutes later. ‘You don’t want to get him into the habit of having hot chocolate every morning,’ Moss added.

‘He’s only having it over Christmas…’ said Celia.

‘Yeah, well tomorrow is New Year’s Eve; he’s been having it every morning for the past ten days!’

‘Is this really about Jacob having hot chocolate? Or are you taking stuff out on him, and me, because things are bad at work?’

‘Things are not bad at work!’ said Moss, getting up and dumping her half-full bowl of cereal in the sink. ‘I just need time to think! You have no idea how complicated this case is… And there’s all this noise here.’

‘That’s called having a five-year-old. You made a big deal last night about him writing you a song, when what you were really doing was fobbing him off!’

Moss’s phone started to ring, and she pulled it out. It was Peterson.

‘We’ve tracked down Don Walpole. His wife was taken ill the other day, and he’s been staying at her bedside in hospital. University College London. The ANPR came back with details of his car crossing the congestion charge zone.’

‘Good work. Can you get me there?’

She hung up and left the kitchen. Seconds later, Celia heard the front door slam.

‘Charming. She becomes an acting DCI and I’m just the help… No goodbye or kiss on the cheek.’

‘I’ll kiss you on the cheek, Mummy,’ said Jacob, appearing at the door, still holding his little guitar.



* * *



Moss and Peterson arrived at UCL hospital just after nine. Jeanette Walpole had been admitted to the renal department, and they had to get directions from the front desk.

‘Renal is kidneys, yeah?’ said Peterson as they travelled up in the lift.

Moss nodded. ‘You’ve got everything ready. The paperwork? Spit kit?’

He nodded, holding up a thick folder. The ‘spit kit’ was shorthand for the Forensic DNA Evidence Collection Kit. ‘You okay?’ he asked, seeing her tense face.

‘Had a row with Celia this morning, and I shouted at Jacob for being noisy.’

‘I’m liking the noise, having a kid around…’ Peterson got out his phone and swiped through, holding up the screen to Moss. It was a video of Kyle playing on pots and pans. He was crouched on the kitchen floor with a sheet around his shoulders like a superhero cape, and he was banging on a line of upturned pots with a wooden spoon.

‘Very tuneful,’ Moss said, her eyes flicking to the digital display. The lift stopped and a porter wheeled in a long metal box, which both she and Peterson knew to contain a dead body. ‘How is it all going?’