Post Mortem (25 page)

In Kieran's flat, she had turned away from the window and walked over to the opposite wall. Unable to stop herself, she had reached the frame down and taken it over to the sofa, where she could examine the iridescence of the print more closely. The child had a serious face. Kieran, leaning out beyond the nib wall, saw her studying the print, the shine of the glass tilting a line of light across her face.

‘Please.'

She turned towards him.

‘I'm sorry, Lizzie. Would you mind putting that back?'

Right, OK, OK, put it back
. She met his eyes briefly, letting him get a measure of her mood, before she stood up and hung the photo back on the wall. How could she ever have trusted him?

He said, ‘Pasta's ready.'

The plates were white china, the glasses etched in green with some funky IKEA pattern. Kieran reached across the table and took her hand, but his touch was uncomfortable now, irritating, so different from how it had been. She drew her hand away and took a mouthful of pasta. It was too heavy on the basil. There was a side salad of cherry tomatoes and rocket. She didn't have enough spit and it was hard to swallow.

He said, ‘Do you want to know about my daughter?'

‘No, no. It's fine. Tell me when you're ready.'

She took a sip of red wine. There was a brief silence. Then she said, ‘OK. Why not? Go ahead then. Tell me about your daughter.'

‘She lives with her mother. I see her at the weekends, when I'm not on duty.'

‘The mother or the daughter?'

‘Sorry?'

She spoke slowly, spelling out what she knew had been obvious to him the first time. ‘Do you see the mother or the daughter at weekends, when you're not on duty?'

He looked at her closely. ‘I see them both.'

Hey, why the drama? Where was the surprise? She had known this all along. She took a breath of indifference and said, ‘OK.'

‘We've been struggling. She's moved out of London. It's been difficult. We've been trying to make it work.'

‘This isn't a great way to go about it.'

‘Agreed.'

She pushed her plate away. ‘Not a good evening. Sorry. I'd better be going.'

‘What's going on, Lizzie?'

She was silent as she contemplated with some panic the rush of consciousness that would leave her mouth if only she could let it free.

‘Shall I drive you home?'

‘No. I'll be fine.'

Her hoody was on the sofa and she went to get it. Kieran caught her gently by the arm. He said her name and she thought he would kiss her but she shook her head and pulled away. ‘No.' He stepped back and watched her in silence as she put on the jacket and zipped it up. She could not help herself. She said, ‘Am I one of many?'

‘What?'

‘Well. Am I?'

He shook his head and smiled. ‘No.' Then, after a pause, more firmly. ‘No. Don't be ridiculous.'

She checked her pockets. Purse. Warrant card.

‘I'm just one of two.'

‘That's right.'

She laughed. ‘That's all right, then.'

He laughed too. ‘It's problematic. I'll admit that.'

‘Problematic.' She left it there.

She was a fool. Of course this whole thing had been much more important to her than to him. A fool. She decided, after a moment's thought, that she could at least let him know about his music collection.

‘I hate Pavarotti, by the way,' she said.

‘That seems to be a big deal.'

She immediately regretted her remark and could hear its childishness. But his face had cracked into a smile and he said, ‘So put something else on.'

She grabbed her phone from the coffee table and slipped it into her pocket. ‘No. I've got to go now.'

He walked over and held her gently by her upper arms. ‘Lizzie, what is it?'

She shook her head, but this time she did not pull away. He bent over her and kissed her forehead. ‘Don't be like this. Stay. Talk about it, whatever it is.'

‘No, sorry. I've got to go.'

But she did not move. He stroked her face with his hand.

‘Come on, spit it out.'

‘That conversation in the hallway, the one I gave a statement about, saying I was there.' She laughed in spite of herself. ‘The one where nothing bad was said? That one?'

‘Yes, OK. What's the problem?'

‘Well, Farah recorded it on her mobile phone.'

He pushed her away slightly. Still holding her arms, he looked into her face.

‘OK. Go on. How've you found this out?'

‘She called me.'

‘How did she get your telephone number?'

‘I gave it to her when I went to persuade her to get her dad to hand himself in.'

He nodded. ‘OK. What exactly did she say?'

‘She said there's a place we can go, the top of Portland Tower. If I get the charges dropped, she'll give me the phone there. She said I could trust her.'

He exhaled and smiled. ‘Right.'

‘Yes.'

He nodded. ‘OK.'

‘OK?'

‘I'll talk to Hadley about it. Find out if it's a problem. In the meantime, for God's sake change your mobile number. What were you thinking, giving it to her in the first place? You don't want any more calls from Farah Mehenni.'

29

‘
S
arah, I expect to be told before you caution a senior officer . . .'

DCI Baillie was ushering Steve and Collins in to his office. The view from the window was an orange city night, a chequerboard of lights that spilled into the river's oily blackness. Baillie gestured swiftly towards the low chairs that faced his desk.

‘I left you several voicemails to call me. I wanted an update. What's your explanation for not getting back to me?'

Collins was reluctant to sit, felt the disadvantage of it, but there was no avoiding it. Baillie had remained standing, his hands resting on his desk.

‘I'm sorry, boss. I've been trying to move the investigation on. Nobody's had much sleep.'

‘Not had much sleep?'

‘I'm sorry . . .'

‘Really, Sarah?'

Collins resisted an impulse to rub her neck. ‘I should have called you. Of course I should. No excuses. I apologize, absolutely.'

‘No excuses. That's about bloody right.' He eyed her for a moment, as if with professional curiosity. ‘How do you think it looks when I hear this second-hand?'

‘Sir, he arrived with a lawyer. I hadn't intended—'

‘You should have briefed me beforehand. We would have agreed a strategy.'

‘Of course I should. I apologize.'

‘Are you aware of Inspector Shaw's record, Sarah? Do you know what work he's done?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And do you understand that I may well have agreed to you interviewing him under caution; it's the not discussing it with me that I object to.'

‘Yes, sir. Of course. I'm very sorry.'

She wondered how many times she would be required to apologize, and whether it would ever be accepted. Baillie was considering her with a furious half-smile, and he now walked away from her towards the window. He looked out, across to the glistening Thames.

‘Have you any idea the kind of pressure I'm under?'

She did not reply. Steve was looking down, investigating some mark on his trousers. Baillie reached his arm out to his side and pinched his thumb and index finger together.

‘I'm about this close to taking you off the investigation.'

Collins' eyes were momentarily drawn to the panic button on Baillie's desk. For a brief moment – and with the sort of hilarity that happened in childhood – she wanted to reach over and press it.

Baillie said, ‘What exactly have you got on Shaw?'

‘He cleaned out Matthews' locker within an hour of him being dead.'

‘And what did he say about that?'

‘He said there might have been stuff there. Stuff that would embarrass. Not bent stuff – betting slips and a bit of porn perhaps.'

‘Plausible enough. What's your view on that?'

‘It's possible, yes.'

‘Possible.' Baillie shook his head as though he couldn't believe what the river was telling him. ‘Tell me about PC Griffiths, then. We any further on in finding her?'

Collins did not know whether Baillie was genuinely trying to
contain himself by not looking at her or whether he was revving himself up for more fury. It crossed her mind that he really might take her off the investigation. She glanced at the picture of the boy and the fish.

We are normal people: here is my son with a big fish
.

‘Sir, we've circulated images of Lizzie grabbed from the hotel CCTV, but so far there have been no sightings since she made off from me last night. Two officers are watching the hire car but they've seen no trace of her. I'm considering standing them down. After that footchase I can't think she'd risk going back to the car. There's been no phone use and no financial. We don't know where she spent last night but she must be running out of money.'

‘St Leonards? Anything useful there?'

‘We've tried the obvious: family and friends. No one seems to live down that way. Mum's helpful but she says her daughter's not been in touch.'

Baillie turned to Steve. Obviously it was still more than his patience could bear to look at his detective sergeant, but to the DC his tone was noticeably friendly: at least somebody in the room was not an idiot.

‘Steve, I want you to draw up a briefing on exactly what we are currently doing and any possible further local inquiries that will help us to locate Lizzie. I want a strategy – a proper CCTV trawl, door-to-door, ask questions in local businesses, cafés, hotels. On my desk in an hour, please.'

Steve made a note in his book. Collins waited a moment before saying quietly, ‘Understood.' Baillie glanced at her as if slightly surprised to see her still in the room. Collins tried to betray none of the nervousness she was feeling.

‘Sir, at autopsy the girl had Lizzie Griffiths' telephone number in her back pocket.'

‘Yes, I'm aware of that.'

‘Inspector Shaw says he went to the locker to protect PC Matthews' memory, but that's still just his account. He might have been searching for something specific.'

‘Yes, OK. So what's he searching for?'

Collins smiled. ‘I'm sorry, I just don't know. But I don't believe his account.'

Baillie shook his head in disbelief and then gestured for her to continue.

‘I'm not saying I've got the answers, boss, far from it. But I'm sure you'll agree with me that with what we've got so far, this investigation isn't complete yet.'

Baillie tilted his head, waiting.

‘And you've always been ahead of me in recognizing that it all pretty much comes down to Lizzie Griffiths.'

Baillie frowned, unimpressed. ‘Where's this going?'

‘Finding Lizzie Griffiths has to be our priority. Not just for the investigation, but also for her own safety. I've got her at high risk of self-harm. I think you agree with me about that?'

‘Go on.'

‘The only person close to Lizzie who lives anywhere near St Leonards is Inspector Shaw. He's got a place near Lewes. Shaw and Lizzie were in a relationship. It's quite likely she'd turn to him. I wondered whether you'd consider putting Inspector Shaw under surveillance.'

Baillie's hands closed in front of his sternum. He knitted the fingers together, lengthened his arms away from his body and stretched. He exhaled audibly.

‘It has been a long day.'

He turned to Steve, as if expecting the DC to have something interesting to say, and Collins regretted not having warned him of her suggestion.

‘Any opinion, Steve?'

Steve – rather comically, given his tired and worn face – gave the DCI an appearance of attentive neutrality, rather like an obedient and intelligent dog awaiting a command. His expression seemed to suggest that Collins had certainly made an intriguing suggestion, something that had not yet occurred to him but that might warrant consideration.

‘Your call, boss.'

Baillie turned back to Collins.

‘That's quite a big ask – putting one of our own officers under surveillance.'

‘I'm aware of that, sir.'

‘OK, let's think about it. I agree that Lizzie might well turn to Shaw, but we have no reason to believe that if she contacts him he won't contact us. And that's the point, Sarah: we don't have any grounds to treat Shaw as a suspect, or even to believe that he is not cooperating with the investigation, and that means we don't have enough to put him under surveillance.'

Collins jumped in, in spite of herself. ‘Something's not right, sir. There was a delay before Lizzie made her second statement. We haven't completed the phone work yet, but—'

‘OK, it's not complete, I accept that. What have you actually got so far?'

Collins hesitated. ‘Just one call from Farah to Lizzie, on the twenty-sixth of March, about an hour before Mehenni hands himself in to be interviewed. There's another call to Lizzie's mobile number on the seventeenth of April, probably just before Farah takes the child. It's from the Mehenni landline. The call isn't connected because Lizzie had changed her number, on the thirteenth.'

Baillie shrugged. ‘Lizzie could have had perfectly legitimate reasons to change her number, especially if she was a police officer who had made the mistake of giving out her personal number.'

‘We don't know that—'

‘Nevertheless, all we have is just one accepted call from Farah to Lizzie, and that call looks perfectly explicable.'

‘Yes, sir.'

There was a pause. Collins waited. Baillie cleared his throat. He looked as though he was making every effort to be reasonable.

‘So what have we got? Lizzie Griffiths' mobile number in Farah's back pocket? So what. Shaw looking through Hadley's locker – for which he has offered a plausible explanation. And a relationship between Lizzie and Mr Shaw that isn't improper but makes you feel a bit uncomfortable?'