Hushabye (6 page)

Nick Fullman had come back into the kitchen. He took a kitchen chair and swung it backwards, straddling it. There was something about the gesture that was a little familiar, and it took Kate only a few moments to realise that she’d seen Anderton do the same in the staff room just yesterday. Fullman had the same quality of dynamism, a palpable energy that seemed to radiate from him. Gemma Phillips was watching him intently.
She fancies him
, thought Kate, and knew she was right. She must talk to her again; it could be important.

Anderton was talking.

“Mr Fullman, we’re doing all we can to find your son. I know we’ve ascertained that Charlie didn’t have a passport, but we’ve still alerted all of the airports and ports. We’ve interviewed the neighbours to see if they can give us any information that might be helpful.”

“And have they?”

“We’re still going through their statements at this time but I have to say that nothing has particularly stuck out as suspicious.” Kate wondered whether he would mention Nicholas Draker and what he had or hadn’t seen. Anderton didn’t. “Is there anything else that you might be able to tell us that might be pertinent to this enquiry?”

Nick Fullman frowned. “No. I don’t think so.”

Anderton changed tack.

“The other thing we’re coming up against, sir, is the fact that none of the alarms on your property were activated last night.”

Fullman blinked, as if this had only just occurred to him.

“They weren’t?” He seemed to recollect himself. “No, of course they weren’t. My God, I hadn’t realised, I didn’t think of it.”

“Do you change the codes for the alarms often? How many alarms are there?”

Nick got up from his chair.

“There’s only two alarms. One for the garage, one for the house.”

“Do you change the codes often?”

Fullman looked a bit sheepish. “No, I don’t think I’ve ever changed them. It’s the same code for both.”

“Who would know the alarm codes?”

Fullman was pacing up and down, clutching his mobile phone like a talisman. He didn’t appear to have heard the question.

Anderton prompted him.

“Mr Fullman?”

He came to with a start. “Sorry, I was – sorry. Um, Casey and I know them, Dita, Gemma...”

“I do, love,” said Mrs Bright. Nick turned to stare at her.

“Yes, you do too,” he said.

“Anyone else?”

“I don’t know...” Fullman stared out of the window at the leafless trees and frosty lawn of the garden. “We’ve had cleaners and gardeners and so on. I guess they might have had them... I don’t know.”

Olbeck and Kate glanced at each other. Anderton said, with a touch of severity, “I’ll need a list of everyone who might have had access to the alarm codes, sir. Especially if you’ve never changed them. Can you do that for us straightaway?”

Gemma sat up in her chair.

“I can do that for you, Nick, don’t worry,” she said. Nick glanced at her and nodded slightly. He went back to staring out of the window. Anderton’s slight admonishment apparently barely registered.

*

Dita Olgweisch’s boyfriend, Tom Spencer, was a twenty-something young man with a pleasant freckled face and a thatch of thick brown hair. He worked as an IT consultant and had been working in Frankfurt when Dita died. Olbeck and Kate interviewed him in one of the more pleasant rooms on the first floor of the station.

“I can’t believe it, I just can’t,” he kept saying. A cup of cooling tea sat untouched before him. “It just doesn’t seem possible. Dita was the last person…”

Olbeck murmured something about being sorry for his loss and then asked whether Dita had enjoyed her job.

“She thought it was okay. I mean, it was just a stopgap. She was just doing it to earn some money. She’d done some work in a nursery back in Warsaw, while she was at university, and so I guess that’s why they took her on. She had experience. But it wasn’t her
career
. She wanted to go back to studying. She wants to be an architect. Wanted, I mean.” His voice shook for a moment and he cleared his throat.

“Did she like her employers?”

Tom looked uneasy. “Well, I suppose so. They were okay.”

“Only okay? Can you elaborate?”

“Well, I got the impression that the mother – that’s Casey – didn’t really want Dita there. So she could be a bit – a bit standoffish, I suppose. Dita always said she was really touchy about anyone else picking Charlie up while she – Casey, I mean – was in the room. If he cried.”

“So, from what Dita said, Casey didn’t really want a nanny? It was all Mr Fullman’s idea?”

Tom nodded. “That’s right. He had Dita start before the baby was even born, just helping out with housework and stuff.”

Olbeck looked at Kate. She nodded very slightly.

“Do you know if Mr Fullman ever, well, looked after his child? Did he ever take over the care of Charlie when Dita or Casey wasn’t there?”

Tom looked mystified. “I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

Kate paused for a moment.

“Did Dita ever mention anyone who’d ever made any threats to the Fullmans? Any strange notes or incidents?”

“Threats?”

“Well, anything that might be construed as a threat. Anything out of the ordinary.”

Tom looked down at the table. Kate didn’t push him; she could see he was thinking deeply.

“There was one thing,” he said eventually. Olbeck nodded encouragingly. “A guy came to the door one time. An Asian guy in a flash car. Dita knew because she’d opened the door to him. Casey came out and took him into one of the rooms, and they had a huge argument. Shouting and screaming and all that.”

“Really? What were they arguing about?”

“I’m not sure. Dita took Charlie away because he was getting upset because of the noise. It’s just that afterwards, Casey asked her not to mention it to Nick.”

“Mrs Fullman didn’t want her husband to know about this?”

“That’s right. That’s what Dita said.”

“When was this?”

“Not that long ago. Maybe a month? I remember because we actually saw the guy again, Dita and me.” Tom brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen over his broad forehead. “We were out having dinner in Wallingham, and Dita saw him, pointed him out to me. She said, ‘There’s that man, the one that Casey had such a fight with. The secret one, the one I couldn’t tell about.’ I remember because he was getting out of his car, and it was a
nice
car, an Audi RS.”

Kate tapped her fingers on the edge of the table.

“Did this man ever come to the house again?”

Tom shrugged. “If he did, Dita didn’t see him.”

They watched Tom walk away down the street from the window of the incident room on the second floor.

“Poor bugger,” said Olbeck.

“Mmm.” Kate put a hand up to her head, checking the neatness of her ponytail. She tucked in an errant wisp. “So who is the mystery man and is it important?”

“We’ll have to ask Casey Fullman.”

“But not in front of her husband.”

“Good point,” said Olbeck. “Not right now, anyway. How about a bit of lunch?”

Kate grinned. “Are you
always
hungry?”

For a moment, she wondered whether it was a bit too early on in their professional relationship for teasing. Luckily, Olbeck was smiling.

“You sound just like Joe,” he said. “Always nagging me about my weight.”

“I wasn’t!”

“Teasing.”

“Oh.” Kate paused a moment, flustered. “Is Jo your partner?”

“That’s right.” There was a brief moment of silence. “Anyway, now we’ve established that I’m a greedy bugger, can we go and get some lunch?”

They were coming back from the canteen when they spotted Theo waving at them across the incident room.

“We’ve got something on the CCTV,” he said. “The same car, seen in the vicinity of the house several times over the past two weeks. Pretty flashy car, it’s an–”

“Audi RS?” said Olbeck.

Theo gasped. “That’s right. You’ve seen the footage?”

“Not yet.” Olbeck leaned over Theo’s desk. “Let’s see.”

They all watched the grainy footage of the road outside the Fullmans’ house, the flickering image of a powerful car moving slowly along, its headlights dimmed. Once, twice. Parked across from the gates for several minutes before moving off with a wheel spin. Driving past once more.

“It’s definitely the same car,” said Theo. His slim brown fingers manipulated the keyboard, bringing the image of the number plate up in close-up. “Whoever’s driving it isn’t making much of an effort to be discreet.”

“What date was this?” said Kate. “Or dates?”

“I’ll check. Give me five minutes.”

“Run the plate number too, please.”

Theo began to access the various databases needed for the information. Olbeck muttered something about getting hold of Anderton and walked off. Kate waited, holding each elbow in the opposite hand, tapping her foot.
Don’t get too excited, Kate, it’s probably nothing
.

“Here we go,” said Theo after a few minutes. “Car’s registered to an Ali Saheed, 15 Canterbury Mansion, London, SW7.” He handed Kate the piece of paper he’d scribbled the details down on.

“Thanks.” She looked down at the address. SW7 was Knightsbridge, wasn’t it? Somewhere like that.

Olbeck had returned. Kate showed him their find.

“Anderton said we’ve got to talk to Casey and follow up this lead.” He looked at the address. “South Ken. Hmm.”

“I’ll talk to Casey,” said Kate.

There were even more photographers outside the Fullmans’ gate this time. Kate had to edge forward carefully, tapping her horn once or twice as the gates slowly swung open. She was almost immune to the flashes of the cameras by now and kept her face neutral, not blinking or showing any kind of emotion.

Casey opened the door to her. She was wearing the same clothes she’d had on yesterday: expensive lounge wear marked with what looked to be splashes of tea, smudges of makeup, other unidentifiable stains. Her soft, rounded face seemed to be growing thinner by the day.

“Is Mr Fullman in?” asked Kate as they made their way through the house to the kitchen.

Casey shook her head. “He and Gemma had to go out, they had a meeting.”

Kate inwardly chastised him, but she was also thankful. She wanted to talk to Casey alone.

Casey stood in the middle of the kitchen floor. She looked a little lost, awkward, as if it wasn’t her kitchen after all. Kate thought back to Gemma Phillips making tea for them all on that first day, of how much more at home she had seemed.

“Do you want a drink or something?” said Casey.

“No, thank you.” Kate watched without comment as Casey poured herself a glass of wine. It was only three o’clock in the afternoon. But if anyone needed a drink, it was this poor girl.
Woman, Kate, woman
. It was hard to think of Casey as a woman; she was so tiny and somehow undeveloped, despite the artificial curves. It was hard to think of her as a mother.

“You might remember that we asked your husband whether anyone had made any threats against you, or whether there had been any strange occurrences or anything like that happening.” Casey half nodded, her eyes cast down and her hands clasped around her wine glass. “Has anything come to mind?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all?

“No. Not that I can think of,” said Casey.

Kate tapped her fingers on her leg. “It’s just that we’ve been told that you had something of an – an altercation with a man recently. Someone came to the house and you had a  – well, had a bit of a row?”

Casey looked up.

“No. I don’t remember that.”

“He was described as an Asian man.” Kate persisted. Then, thinking of the name, “Perhaps Middle Eastern might be more accurate. Apparently this happened fairly recently.” She didn’t want to say the name aloud – she wanted Casey to say it. If it were true.

“Who told you that?” said Casey. She frowned. “I bet it was Gemma.”

“I can’t tell you that, Mrs Fullman, I’m sorry. Is it true?”

Casey didn’t seem to have heard her. “She’d say anything to get me into trouble,” she muttered, seemingly to herself. She was staring off into the middle distance.

“Was there a row with this man?” said Kate doggedly.

Casey appeared to come back to reality. She slid a sideways glance at Kate. “It wasn’t really a row. Just a – a difference of opinion.”

“Who is this man?”

Casey slugged back the remains of her wine.

“It was only Ali. That’s all. No one – no one sinister.”

“Who is Ali?”

“He’s my agent. Former agent. We decided to go our separate ways. That’s all. He was probably just a bit pissed off at something. It can’t have anything to do with this.” Her eyes filled. “He wouldn’t have had anything to do with this. He
couldn’t
have.”

“Who can’t have?”

Kate and Casey both jumped. Nick Fullman had come into the kitchen unnoticed by both of them. Kate was struck once again by his male-model looks and something she hadn’t really grasped before, the sense of physical power he exuded. Casey seemed to shrink back into herself as he came closer.

“Nothing,” she said, her voice shaking. “Nothing, Nick.”

“What were you talking about?”

He was looming over both women, sat as they were on one of the sofas. Kate stood up quickly and stepped forward into his personal space, forcing him to take a step back.

“I was just questioning your wife about a car that had been seen in the vicinity recently,” she said pleasantly. Nick raised his eyebrows.

“What car?”

Kate was silent for a moment, wondering whether to bring forward the subject of her conversation with Casey. Casey solved her dilemma.

“Just Ali’s car, Nick, that’s all,” she said. She turned to put her empty glass down on the nearest side table and knocked it over, catching it before it rolled onto the floor. “You know, when he came to drop that stuff back. That’s all.”

Nick frowned.

“You think he’s got something to do with this? That little shit?”

“We’re following several lines of enquiry, sir,” said Kate smoothly. Nick sat down at the table and put his head in his hands.