Tastes Like Fear (D.I. Marnie Rome 3) (37 page)

Noah took it. ‘I’ll let you know.’

57

‘News?’ Marnie read Noah’s face when he came into her office.

‘Something, maybe. Yes.’ He brought his shoulders up, making himself narrower. He’d found something but he wasn’t sure of it, not yet. ‘Logan was working as a volunteer at drop-in centres and homeless shelters. One of them was Paradise House.’

‘Ledger’s old address.’ Marnie nodded for him to sit down. ‘I don’t remember his name being on the list we were given by Welch.’

‘It wasn’t, but Logan was eighteen, a part-timer. Maybe Welch only kept a record of the full-time volunteers.’

‘So … Logan might’ve known Ledger?’

‘I think it’s closer to home than that.’ He was tense, with doubt or excitement.

‘How much closer?’

‘I spoke with Gina Marsh. She says the volunteering was Calum’s idea.’

‘He mentioned it, didn’t he, when he came here?’

‘Yes, but he didn’t tell us
he
was often at homeless shelters. Helping out, fixing stuff. He’s an electrician, but he can turn his hand to most things, that’s what Gina says.’ Noah stopped.

Marnie studied the thinness in his face. ‘Go on.’

‘I thought … an electrician?’ He rubbed at his temple. ‘His name wasn’t on the lists we got from Battersea. But the company that hires him, Resa Electrical? Their name
was
on the list. I’m waiting to hear who they sent on site in the last six weeks.’

The skin tightened at Marnie’s wrists. ‘And you think …’

‘The twitching,’ Noah said. ‘When we interviewed him at the hospital, d’you remember? He was twitching. I thought adrenalin, shock. But it was in his face as well as his feet and hands. Tremors just like the ones Fran described. And Kenickie said it was pure chance he was on that road that night. It wasn’t his usual route. What if he was out searching for Grace? Because he knew she’d run from wherever he was keeping her.’

A phone rang somewhere in the station.

Two, three rings before someone answered it.

‘Calum Marsh,’ Marnie said. ‘You think Calum Marsh is Harm.’

Logan’s dad. The man who’d sat in this station with his head in his hands. Their killer.

‘It makes sense, doesn’t it?’ Noah was waiting for her to push back, needing her to try and pick his theory apart. ‘Even his coming here makes a kind of sense. We knew this was someone who wanted to be seen …’

‘He had Logan with him that night. Why?’

‘Coincidence. Gina says she phoned him at short notice, asked him to collect Logan as a favour because she was held up at work.’

‘An eighteen-year-old? Why couldn’t Logan take himself home?’

‘He’d come off his bike a week earlier, was only just off the crutches. She’d promised to collect him, he had no money for a taxi, so she called Calum. He said he’d do it, no problem.’ Noah drew a short breath. ‘Gina said they shouldn’t have been on that road that night, it wasn’t on their way home. They shouldn’t have been anywhere near York Road. When she asked him about it, Calum said there were roadworks on their usual route. I checked. There were no roadworks. So why was he there?’

Noah’s tension was infectious. Marnie’s pulse skipped. ‘Where’s Calum now?’

‘He’s been missing since that day he came here. Gina can’t get hold of him. She’d assumed he was feeling guilty, couldn’t face talking to her. She says he blamed himself for Logan’s death. Not Joe Eaton, who swerved into him, not Grace for walking out into the road. He blamed himself.’

‘He denied seeing Grace,’ Marnie remembered. ‘When we spoke with him at the hospital, and here, at the station. He said he never saw a girl walk into the road.’

‘That might’ve been true. He was driving the other way. But if he was out
looking
for her … He could have lied to us. He could’ve been trying to undermine Joe’s version of events.’ Noah leant forward, his wrists on his knees. ‘I called his work, his home. No one’s seen him since the accident. Gina spoke with him, just one call, the afternoon Logan died. I checked the time. Logan died on the day we found May’s body, at just about the time Fran said she was killed. What if losing Logan pushed him over the edge? Gina said he sounded insane, out of his mind with grief. It’s not the first time he’s lost someone, either. His parents died two years ago, and there was something about a sister. We thought our killer had been through a trauma of some kind—’

His phone rang.

‘DS Jake. Yes. If you could …’ He listened, his face fierce with focus. ‘Got it. Thanks.’

He ended the call and looked at Marnie. ‘That was the hospital. I asked them to check the records from the night of the crash. Calum Marsh was hypernatremic.’

‘We need to speak with Gina.’ Marnie got to her feet. ‘Put out an alert for Calum. His SUV was a write-off after the crash, but find out what other vehicles he drives.’

58

Gina Marsh answered the door in a dark suit, no shoes. Her face was puffy with grief and she was holding an iPhone, its screen shattered in one corner. ‘I was looking through his phone for photos. I just … wanted to see his face.’ She held it towards Marnie and Noah. ‘It’s the girl on the news. The dead girl.’

‘May Beswick?’ Noah took the phone, tilting the screen until the light stopped running into the cracks across the display.

‘The other one. The girl you found on the estate. Ashleigh Jewell. It’s her, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ In the photo, Ashleigh was grinning, lips pouting. Flirting – with Logan?

‘Logan knew her.’ Gina shivered, sounding numb. ‘He must have known her, to take that. He never mentioned her, but he had so many friends.’

The photo had been taken on 20 October, just before May went missing. Noah scrolled through the other photos taken around the same time. More faces, boys mostly. A couple of selfies, Logan grinning at the camera.

‘That’s the only one,’ Gina said. ‘The only one of her.’

She held out her hand for the phone, taking it tenderly when Noah surrendered it, her fingers snagging on the shattered screen.

‘Where was the photo taken,’ Marnie asked. ‘Do you know?’

‘On the news they said she’d been living on the streets, so I’m guessing a homeless shelter? Logan was volunteering at shelters … You’ll want to come in. Come through.’

She led the way to a living room where all the lights were on, taking an armchair and waiting for Marnie and Noah to sit on the sofa. Photos of her son on the walls. None of his dad. They’d have to ask her for a decent photo of Calum.

‘Can you remember which homeless shelters Logan was volunteering at?’ Noah asked.

‘His dad organised all that. Lately it was somewhere in Stockwell, I think.’

‘Paradise House?’

‘Paradise – yes, that sounds right. Before then he was working with younger people. He was out two or three evenings a week, and at weekends. His dad’s idea. Character-building, Cal said. He wanted Logan to be responsible, was always lecturing him about that.’ She strained her eyes at the photos on the wall. ‘Both of us, in fact. Cal … likes to lecture.’

‘We’d like to speak with him. Can you think of anywhere he might have gone?’

‘I’ve tried everywhere. I’m organising the funeral and he’s …
gone
. I don’t know where.’

‘When was the last time you spoke with him?’

‘The afternoon Logan died.’ Her face clenched. ‘I couldn’t get any sense out of him. Going on and on about his mum and dad, that madhouse he grew up in. He hardly mentioned Logan.’ She opened her hands, nail marks in her palms. ‘You have to understand something about Cal. He’s not … he’s never been
with
us. Me and Logan. Not properly. He was reliable, responsible, all the obvious things. Didn’t drink or have affairs, was always here when we needed him. In the house, I mean. But at the same time, he … wasn’t.’ She closed her hands again. ‘I think he’d have preferred a daughter, someone to protect, you know? He did all the things a dad’s supposed to do, taught Logan to fish and ride a bike. Brought him up to respect girls, and women. Earned a living so I didn’t need to work when Logan was small. He wanted me to stay home and be a mum. He was scared Logan would get sick.’ She gave a small smile. ‘Logan never got sick. He was a happy baby, but Cal couldn’t stop worrying. I suppose because of what happened with his sister. It took me ages to see how he was, how little he
cared
. I know that sounds … He did everything right, ticked all the boxes, never put a foot wrong, but it was all about
out there
. The dangers out there, all the things wrong with the world …’ She stopped. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry, you have a job to do, better things to worry about than my ex-husband and his hang-ups.’

Right now their job
was
her ex-husband’s hang-ups.

‘What happened with his sister?’ Marnie asked.

‘She went missing when she was seventeen. Ran away from home. Cal was a couple of years younger. They never found her.’ Something moved behind her eyes and she stiffened fractionally, sitting tighter in the chair. ‘Why are you asking all these questions about Cal?’

She knew, Noah thought. Even if she hadn’t made the connection between Ashleigh and her son, between the homeless shelters and her husband’s strange absence from his family, his missing sister. She knew why they were asking the questions.

‘His parents died a couple of years ago,’ Marnie said. ‘Is that right?’

Gina nodded. ‘But he’d not been in touch with them for years. They didn’t come to the wedding. I never met them. I suppose with what happened to his sister … They lost touch.’

‘Where were they living? Where did Calum grow up?’

‘They had a house in Chiswick, but that wasn’t where he grew up. His dad was in the army, so they were always moving around.’

‘Do you have an address in Chiswick?’

‘Somewhere.’ She glanced around the room, hopelessly. ‘There was a solicitor’s letter, but Cal probably took it when he moved out.’

‘A recent letter?’ Noah asked.

‘From two years ago, after they died. That’s when he got the house.’ She stood up, putting her son’s phone aside to search the box files on the bookshelves. ‘He was going to sell, but it needed clearing and he kept putting it off. It was tough for him, seeing his sister’s photos, all those unhappy memories. Then he lost his job, and we were going through a bad patch.’

‘How did his parents die?’

‘A ferry accident in Italy.’ She opened another box file, moving her hands mechanically through the contents. ‘They were on holiday, on a cruise.’

‘Calum’s an electrician, is that right?’

‘It was good work, but he lost his job after they died. He … It was a difficult time. He should’ve taken time off to grieve. But Cal needs to be working, always. I told him it was good, me being the breadwinner for a bit. My turn, that’s how I saw it. But he hated it. He’s one of those men who needs to feel
needed
.’

Calum had said the same thing at the station,
Can’t stand being useless
. And about Grace Bradley,
Wondering where she is, missing her, praying for news
. Had he been talking about his own family, the loss of his sister?

‘Do you know where Calum’s been working recently?’ Marnie asked Gina.

‘Freelance jobs, nothing permanent.’ She stopped searching for the solicitor’s letter. ‘I can’t find it, I’m sorry. He must’ve taken it with him. It was somewhere in Chiswick. I never saw the house and he didn’t talk about it, just said it was full of memories. His sister’s things. Not a happy place, he said.’

Grace had called the house a squat. Calum had moved them out, she’d said, because he was worried about security. The half-finished tower block was better, safer.

‘He always tells me where he’s working.’ Gina wiped her hands on her skirt. ‘In case I want to get hold of him, like I did when Logan needed a lift that night.’ She blinked, moving her eyes as if she expected to weep or break down, but her face stayed stubbornly blank.

‘Was he working in any new-build tower blocks in south London?’

‘Those were his favourites.’ She reached for Logan’s phone, closing her hands around it. ‘He loved the security, the
idea
of security. He’d have had us living like that if I’d let him, in a tower block. But I hate heights and we couldn’t afford the sort of place he wanted. One of those brand-new blocks going up by the river.’

‘Was there a place in particular that he liked? Somewhere he’d worked recently?’

‘Brigantia Gardens.’ No hesitation. ‘Best views in London, taller than the chimneys at Battersea, better security than Fort Knox …’ She eye-rolled, then hugged herself, Logan’s phone tight to her chest. ‘He’d have moved us in there before they’d finished building it. Not that they
did
finish. It’s one of those places where they ran out of money. London’s littered with them. But to hear Cal talk about Brigantia Gardens, you’d think that didn’t matter.’

She looked away, at nothing, her eyes grieving. ‘Cal’s idea of a dream home, never mind the fact that it’s standing empty, no sign of it ever being done. Never mind that there’s no family now. That was it. His dream home.’

59

Loz was the youngest at the table, and the ugliest. Dirty hair, gritty armpits, chewed fingernails. She pretended she didn’t care about that stuff, but she did, she really did.

Christie’s face was super-smooth and her hair shone. Nothing freaked her out. She knew how everything worked in here, and outside. She knew how to get you to come back with her, and how to make you stay. She was scary, but not as scary as
him
.

He looked so …

Normal. Nice.

Loz tried to imagine how it was when the others were here, Grace and Ashleigh and May, all in the same uniform, squeaky clean. May with her hair shining and her words hidden. She’d hidden at home too, but she’d never looked like a Barbie doll without the boobs. Loz hated it. Hated the stupid clothes and the smell of baby soap under the cooking. Hated the
sameness
.

Harm said softly, ‘We don’t say grace here. Unless you’d like to?’

Loz shook her head. When Harm picked up his fork, Christie did the same. As if the blackout blinds and candles were normal – as if all of this was
normal
. Eating off camping plates in the dark, the candles making everyone’s shadow spooky. It wasn’t dark outside, not yet. Was it?