Angel on the Inside (8 page)

I resolved to have a serious word with Amy – when I found out where she was – about her deliberately misleading me every which way about Debbie. She didn't strike me in any way as a battleaxe, a Rotweiler, a frump, a career spinster (‘So afraid of marriage we call her the Ring Wraith'), someone for whom nightlife meant a long chat with a timeshare salesman from a call centre, or indeed a woman who had to wear a bra designed by Fisher-Price. She wasn't even half-way to her mid-forties, and I call five-foot-one petite, not dwarfish. I quite liked the big round glasses and didn't think they made her look like a constipated owl at all, and I saw no reason to call the fashion police over the stonewashed denim jacket she was wearing with the very short suede skirt that showed an awful lot (proportionately speaking) of very shapely, well-tanned bare leg that ended in multi-coloured high heeled Cacharel sandals with white flowers on the straps.

On reflection, maybe I wouldn't go into so much detail for Amy.

‘Yesterday it was the police, first thing in the morning when I turned up for work, as if that wasn't bad enough,' she started after her first sip of tea.

I nodded sympathetically, hiding my smug expression behind a bone china teacup.

Well, I mean: a few roses, a free ride in a taxi, a comfy armchair in nice surroundings and a cup of orange pekoe and she was answering questions I hadn't even asked yet. God knew what would happen when the Madeira cake arrived – she'd probably ‘fess up to one or all of the recent Heathrow robberies.

‘They were in with Amy for hours.
Taking statements
, they said.'

‘And this would, of course, be about ...'

I didn't make it a question, just trailed off with a wave of the teacup and quite a bit of sage nodding.

‘Yes, you're right,' she said, nodding with me. ‘Keith Flowers – what an awful person to stalk Amy like that. And you had no idea, did you?'

She put down her cup and saucer and reached a hand out, placing it on my knee. I saw no reason to do anything but let it stay there, but out of the corner of my eye I saw a pair of waiters talking together out of the sides of their mouths whilst staring at Debbie. They were probably betting how long it would be before I asked if they rented rooms by the hour. I was going to disappoint them. I knew already that they didn't.

‘It did come as something of a shock,' I said, with just the right touch of pathos.

‘She was only trying to protect you, I think.' She gave a shudder and her grip on my knee tightened. ‘God, what an odious human being. He kept after her even though she took out that restraining order. How on Earth did a creep like that ever get to meet Amy?'

Probably at their wedding, I thought, but I said nothing. It was clear to me that Debbie didn't know that the odious Mr Flowers was in fact the first Mr Amy May. Debbie had to know about the restraining order because it covered the office, but Amy hadn't told her everything. Still, she'd told her more than she'd told me.

A plate of cakes arrived and Debbie's eyes lit up.

‘I shouldn't,' she said demurely as I offered.

‘Nut allergies?' I suggested, straight-faced.

‘I was thinking of my figure,' she said automatically, eyes on the plate.

‘So are half the males in this room,' I said, gesturing grandly around the large open plan foyer. ‘You've nothing to worry about.'

‘Thank you, kind sir.' She grinned and helped herself, but there were spots of blusher on her cheeks that hadn't been put there with a brush.

‘The police. You were saying,' I prompted.

‘Oh yes. They were only doing their job, I suppose, but it did seem to take
ages
, and afterwards Amy was on the phone for about an hour, even though she knew one of the buyers was waiting to see her and it was making her late for the 10.30.'

‘The 10.30 what?' I tried.

‘The 10.30 management meeting. She never did make it. I had to cover for her. When she came off the phone, she just grabbed her bag and shot off. The security desk said they saw her hailing a cab on Oxford Street.'

Which would give her enough time to get home and modify the diary on her computer at 11:38:08.

‘Has she said what spooked her? I presume she was upset by something that had been said.'

‘Well, as upset as Amy ever is. You know what she's like. But didn't she tell you about it?'

‘I didn't actually see her last night, and this morning she was up and gone before I was – awake.'

I'd almost said ‘conscious'.

‘Gone where?' asked Debbie, putting down her cake plate and staring at me from behind those round glasses, which actually did make her eyes look bigger.

‘Something called Welfash, according to her diary. I was hoping you knew what it meant,' I said as casually as I could.

‘It means Welsh Fashion Week. It was a secret.'

‘Fashion – in
Wales
? That is a bloody well-kept secret.'

‘No, I meant Amy going there was a secret. She was headhunting one of the student designers who's supposed to be the next big thing. But it was supposed to be a secret in case the competition got wind of it.'

‘What do you mean “was”?' I asked.

‘Welsh Fashion Week was last week. Amy went down there on the train and back the same day. Last Wednesday, I think. She didn't mention it?'

‘That she'd been to Wales? It's not the sort of thing you brag about, is it?'

I realised that came out snappier than I had intended. ‘So where is she today?' I said calmly.

‘I've no idea. She didn't come into the office this morning and her mobile is switched off. I thought you were coming to tell me what was going on.'

Dream on, Debbie, dream on.

‘Look, I've probably just misread her computer diary,' I said, trying to recover. ‘I'm useless with computers, I probably just got the wrong week.'

‘It doesn't explain where she is today, though,' Debbie said rather primly, and I noticed that the hand had gone from my knee.

‘No, it doesn't, so we've got to try and work it out. You haven't seen her since the police called at the office yesterday, right?'

‘Yes.' She drawled it, rolling her eyes like I was being deliberately slow on the uptake. ‘I said, didn't I?'

‘Okay, now can you remember the name of any of the policemen?'

‘Of course I can, I'm Amy's PA.'

If there had been a high horse clopping by, she would have mounted it with a single leap.

‘And ...?'

‘Well, the main one was Detective Inspector Hood of ...'

‘West Hampstead nick,' I completed. ‘He's the CID man in charge of the burglary Keith Flowers did on Amy's house.'

Not that Keith Flowers had stolen anything other than some information about my flat in Stuart Street and Amy's BMW, which we got back quickly enough albeit after I'd wrecked it. But as Keith Flowers had been out of prison for only a month when he turned us over, he had no doubt moved up the prisoner category and the law was going to sling everything it could at him this time. They don't like it when the system is shown to fail. They much prefer former prisoners to give it at least
two
months before booking a return stay at one of Her Majesty's Windsor Hotels.

‘You know him?' Debbie cheered up slightly, as if this was a straw within clutching range.

‘Not really,' I said, though I had impersonated him once on the phone. ‘But I can ask him what he said to Amy to get her so spooked she took off like that. Did she have any appointments for today?'

‘Dozens, but none I couldn't handle or bluff my way through.' She considered this for a moment. ‘I don't like lying, though. I don't think I'm very good at it.'

‘Me neither,' I lied. ‘When's the next big thing she really, really can't afford to miss or wouldn't miss even if she had to crawl in from her sickbed?'

‘You think she's ill somewhere?'

‘No, just surmising.'

People don't not go home just because they're feeling bad; unless they've been drinking with Inverness Doogie, that is.

‘Friday, I suppose. Big meeting with the chain stores in the City followed by lunch in one of the Guild Halls – Ironmongers, that's it.'

That was typical of the City. No-one knew what an ironmonger was any more, or where to find one, yet they did slap-up catering functions with so much antique silverware on the table you had to wear polaroids.

‘So there's a good chance she'll turn up for that?'

‘Oh yes, that's a seriously large lunch.'

I liked that expression, though I suspect my definition and Debbie Diamond's definition were somewhat different.

‘Has she ever gone missing before?' I asked her.

‘You mean you've never noticed?' she gasped, pulling back well out of knee-clutching range.

‘I mean missing from big business affairs, meetings, lunches, dinners, cocktail parties, that sort of thing. The sort of thing she never invites me to.' I saw Debbie's eyes narrowing, so I softened that. ‘Because she just knows how embarrassed I get being in the public eye. I think she tries to protect me from that side of things.'

‘Hmmm,' said Debbie, not convinced. ‘Short answer is, no way has she missed anything that important; in fact she doesn't miss anything if she can help it. If she's likely to be five minutes late for something, she'll get me to phone ahead with her apologies. This really isn't like her.'

That wasn't like the Amy I knew, but I didn't want to go into that.

‘So the stuff she missed today wasn't important?'

‘Nothing I couldn't handle, and normally I probably would have dealt with, except for the mad woman who said she had an appointment, but I don't believe she had for a minute.'

‘And this would be ...?'

‘This afternoon. She turned up about an hour before you did. In fact, I only got rid of her about ten minutes before you arrived.'

‘Not when,
who
?'

‘She said she was from the Probation Office in Romford.'

‘
Romford
?'

As far as I knew, neither Amy or I had any connection with Romford. It's a place you tend to go through – quickly, because of an unenviable reputation for the speed with which parked cars are stolen – not have dealings with.

‘The Probation Office there covers Chadwell Heath, or so she said.'

It took a full minute for the penny to drop, and I suspected that Debbie Diamond would have waited patiently for several more rather than help me out.

‘Keith Flowers,' I said, and she just nodded, almost approvingly.

By sheer dumb luck I had discovered that Keith Flowers had spent his initial month out of prison at a halfway house in Chadwell Heath. I hadn't been looking for him, he'd been looking for me and had rung the Stuart Street number and talked to Fenella, who had, naturally, grassed me up a treat and told him where I was. Thanks to the magic of 1471 last number recall (and why the cops on TV shows don't use it more often beggars me) I had got through to something called St Chad's hostel in Chadwell Heath and a very chatty warden there, whose name I couldn't quite recall but who was a very helpful guy, and it wasn't my fault that he somehow got the impression that I was Detective Inspector Hood of West Hampstead. Well, not entirely.

‘She said she was the case officer for that Flowers person and that she had an appointment with Amy, but there was nothing in the diary and Amy had certainly never mentioned anything to me.' Debbie took a deep breath. ‘When I told her Amy wasn't here, she said
then I would just have to do
and started asking all those questions.'

‘About what?'

I was genuinely confused. I didn't think Debbie had even seen Keith Flowers, unless he'd been picked up by one of the security firm's CCTV cameras.

‘About how many times Flowers had visited the office, had he met with Amy, where had they gone, that sort of thing.'

‘Did he? Did they?'

‘No, not to my knowledge. Amy came in one day and said there was a guy following her and she'd talked to her solicitor and he'd advised a restraining order. I had to screen all her calls of course, but if anyone rang I didn't know, I'd ask for a name, and if they wouldn't give one, they got snipped.'

She made a scissors movement with two fingers as if cutting a phone cord. At least I hoped that's what she meant.

‘So he tried to get through?'

‘I don't know if he tried, I just know he didn't get through me. I'm good at my job, and we get a lot of rogue journalists trying it on all the time, not to mention models who are getting career-desperate and agents who are just desperate. If he called, he didn't get past me. But the bloody woman just kept on and on about him.'