‘Phoebe Stones?’

‘Phoebe Stiles.’

‘I’m sorry ma’am, I don’t know anything about that.’

‘The client was Lovely Locks, and the date of the shoot was February second.’

‘Mmmm hmmm…’ There were background sounds of rustling paper and scribbling. ‘You know what – I’ll speak to my manager and get someone to call you right back. Where did you say you were calling from?’

‘I’m from the National Crime Agency in the UK, international division.’

‘Sorry, what?’

‘I’m an Interpol officer. And I don’t have time to wait for a call back. Tell your manager that I’ll be coming to your offices tomorrow, and I expect to get access to all information regarding that shoot. Is that clear?’

There was silence for a beat. ‘Yes ma’am.’

Rachel hung up and planted her forehead on her hand for a few seconds. Then she checked the time on her watch. Eight fifty. Her rental car was due to be dropped off in a few minutes.

She opened her laptop and checked Rob McConnell’s details. A phone call would be most efficient, given the time restraint. His mobile went straight to voicemail. She hesitated, then decided she was at risk of waffling and hung up. She composed a text instead.

She added a kiss then deleted it. No more work-centred flirtation: that was the new rule, she reminded herself. Grabbing her bag, she went outside to wait for her hire car.

---

It was now Thursday morning, and she was flying back to London on Sunday. Three days left, and so much still to do. Nigel Patten had phoned the previous evening and demanded an update. It was the middle of the night in London, and in the background Rachel could just hear the faint sound of a mewling newborn.

‘Night feed?’ she enquired.

‘Something like that,’ sighed Patten. ‘If you’re wide awake at four in the morning, you may as well make use of the time difference. That’s what I’m telling myself.’

Rachel had kept the debrief as vague as possible, but he had pressed her. ‘So the local police have made an arrest in the case?’

‘Yes,’ admitted Rachel. ‘The victim’s ex-boyfriend.’

‘And charged him?’

‘Yes. First degree murder.’

Patten took this in. The baby made a series of rhythmic squawks, as though being jiggled over his shoulder. ‘Well, that’s a good result, I suppose. And the victim’s family?’

‘They held a cremation here today and they’re returning to the UK with the ashes. I attended the service.’

‘Well… good. Excellent. I’ll ask Janette to find you a flight back, and you can debrief me in the office on Friday.’ The baby let out a high-pitched wail. ‘I’m going to have to go—’

‘No, wait, sir… one second.’

‘Make it quick. Shhhh, Max, there’s a good boy.’

‘There are a few loose ends I need to tie up, some people I need to talk to. Can the flight be pushed back until next week?’

‘I want you in the office on Monday morning. Janette will book you a seat for Saturday.’

‘Sunday.’ pleaded Rachel. ‘The overnight flight from LA will land at stupid o’clock on Monday, and I’ll come straight to work from Heathrow.’

Patten’s response had been drowned out by infant mewling and Rachel had hung up before he had chance to change his mind.

---

Rachel’s phone rang as she was easing the car into fast-moving traffic on the I405. She let it go to voicemail and checked her messages as she was held at a red light.

‘Rachel – hi. Rob here. I guess you’re en route… I’ve emailed you a copy of the crime report and contact details for next of kin. Speak soon… Hope you’re good, by the way?’

She parked and retrieved the email once she had entered the San Diego city limits. It contained an address for Tiffany’s mother, Letizia Kovak. ‘Hope you get a chance to talk to her,’ Rob wrote, ‘Although from the enquiries I made, it sounded like the Stiles case is being wound up?’

As she drove to Mission Hills, Rachel decided that this, here, was the Southern California of her imagination. She left behind the sweeping blue bay dotted with sailing boats, and drove through steep streets of handsome Spanish-style homes dripping with bougainvillea and palms swaying in the warm breeze. Letizia Kovak’s house was a stucco-splattered, terracotta-roofed villa in a garish shade that reminded Rachel of school custard. Through the metal gates, she glimpsed a pool and a couple of Mexican gardeners raking leaves off a pristine lawn.

A maid let her in and told her sorry, Madam was out at the mall, and would she please call later. Rachel explained that today – now – was all she had. She showed her warrant card and was permitted to wait, seated under a pergola with a glass of iced tea.

Letizia Kovak appeared fifteen minutes later; a petite pretty woman of Latino origin with prematurely grey hair.

‘Hi!’ she said, grasping both Rachel’s hands. Her own were shaking. It was clear from her combined agitation and excitement that she thought Rachel had come to tell her that her daughter’s killer had been found. Disabused of this idea, her mood visibly deflated.

‘I’m here because I have some new information that could potentially take the case forward.’ Rachel told her.

‘What information is that?’ asked Letizia flatly, pouring herself iced tea. She wore immaculately tailored trousers, a chiffon blouse and a lot of silver and turquoise jewellery.

‘I can’t disclose details at the moment, but if I could find out a bit more about Tiffany, it would be extremely helpful.’

Once Letizia had recovered from her disappointment, she seemed eager to talk about her daughter, as the recently bereaved often are.

‘Was she an only child?’

‘Kind of. I have a son, eight years older, from my previous marriage, but they didn’t exactly grow up together.’

‘My family’s the same,’ interjected Rachel. ‘I’ve just got one much older sibling. I always felt a bit like an only.’

Letizia nodded in sympathy. ‘Gerry – Tiffany’s father – and I are now divorced. He doted on her, spoilt her. Bought her anything she wanted. Fancy sports car when she turned sixteen, her own apartment when she turned twenty-one. Any problem she had, she’d just call her dad and he’d fix it for her. I’m not sure that was so good for her. But –’ she sighed heavily – ‘sure, she could be a handful, but she was a good kid at heart.’

‘Could I see a picture of Tiffany?’

Letizia went into the living room and came out with a fabric-covered photo album. Inside was the story of a life, from naked chubby babyhood to high-school graduation. Tiffany was olive-skinned, but had the grey eyes of her father’s Polish ancestry, with mid-brown hair that she started to bleach blonde when she reached her teens. Bikini-clad beach shots showed that she had a perfect figure, and the broad white smile confirmed she had been on the receiving end of top-quality dentistry all her life. Pretty, but not memorably so. An archetypal Californian blonde.

‘So when Tiffany disappeared…’

‘I’ll be honest; I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I mean, I hadn’t seen her for a couple of weeks, but – it sounds awful now – that was kind of normal. And she’d messaged me from her cell phone, so I had no reason to be worried.’ Letizia looked down at her fingernails. ‘Then, when they found her, the police said she must have been dead for weeks. Someone else must have been using her phone.’

‘Someone was pretending to be her?’

She nodded. ‘Exactly.’

‘So when did you know something was really wrong?’

‘Christmas,’ said Letizia with a grimace. ‘This all happened in December. And you know, everyone’s busy then, with holiday season events and shopping. But then when she didn’t show up on Christmas Day, and wasn’t answering her cell, that’s when Michael – my son – called the police. They found Tiffany ten days later, but she’d been dead for weeks by then. They said they couldn’t be sure exactly how long.’ Her eyes swam with tears.

Rachel paused a few seconds before asking, ‘And where was it, where she was found?’

‘At her high school.’

‘But –’ Rachel wished she’d had time to read though the crime report – ‘she was no longer a pupil?’

‘No, no, she graduated four years ago. She was studying fashion at Mesa College. But they found her on the Mission Hills high school campus, just near here. Where she used to go to school. And there were pictures of her car on the school CCTV.’

‘And what have the police come up with in terms of a theory? About who could have done this.’

Letizia sighed heavily. ‘They think it could be someone who was at school with her. They’ve questioned all her classmates, but… nothing.’

‘And did they talk to you about the fact she had her apartment listed on CasaMia?’

Letizia looked blank. ‘I don’t know anything about that. She only had the place on 9th Avenue – downtown – that Gerry bought for her, but she was living there herself.’

Rachel surreptitiously checked her watch. She had planned to drive back to Los Angeles by that evening, and she needed to use the time as efficiently as she could.

‘Mrs Kovak, is there anyone else I could talk to while I’m here; someone who could help me build a picture of Tiffany’s last days?’

Letizia thought for a few seconds. ‘I guess the obvious one is her best friend. Paige Chen. They were always as thick as thieves, ever since middle school.’

‘Do you have an address for her?’

‘I have no idea where’s she living now, but I know she works at Lucky’s Tattoo Parlor on Broadway.’

---

Lucky’s didn’t open til midday, so Rachel went into a coffee shop on the next block, ordered espresso and scrambled eggs and acquainted herself with the contents of the crime report from Tiffany’s case.

The photos were disturbing, so disturbing that she had to abandon the scrambled eggs. The corpse – or what was left of it – was in the school’s gym; the face and torso wrapped in plastic but the arms freed and wrists hooked through the rope cuffs on the wall bars. The whole scene was reminiscent of a crucifixion. But in a high school gym. Very Bye Bye Miss American Pie.

Just as with Phoebe’s crime scene photos, it seemed the killer was trying to say something with the choice of disposal site. But what? Rachel ran through the rest of the report. Tiffany’s car was caught on CCTV entering the school grounds on the night of 12th December. The significance of the date was that it was the day the school closed for the Christmas holidays. And the body was found on January 4th, when the janitor went to unlock and clean the gym in preparation for the new term, which started the next day. The alarm had been disabled and the padlock on the gym door forced with bolt cutters. Because there was no heating on in the building and there had been an unusually cold spell for Southern California, the body was not as badly decomposed as Phoebe’s had been, but there had been no signs of sexual assault, no third-party DNA.

There was another anomaly. The medical examiner thought she must have died on or around December 12th, but her expensive sports car was seen several times on CCTV footage at her apartment building over the subsequent three weeks, leaving or entering the parking garage.

Rachel flicked to the forensic report on Tiffany’s apartment. It had been scrupulously cleaned, and no touch samples were found bearing traces of DNA other than Tiffany’s. It was the same story with the car – the analysts crawled over it, but every inch had been cleaned with an acid-based cleaning solution. The report writer noted that this was probably Citranox, a solution used in laboratories to remove DNA residue.

Rachel leaned back in her chair as she took this in. The killer really knew their stuff. The combination of audacity and attention to detail was something that she had never encountered in her police career; not at this level of psychopathy anyway. This was what Brickall would call hardcore.

---

Paige Chen was a chubby Chinese-American with waist-length dip-dyed hair and a nose ring. When Rachel returned to the tattoo parlour, Paige was busy with a client, so she sat on a stool and waited, watching as the girl expertly wielded the buzzing needle in her black-gloved right hand, dabbing the spots of oozing blood with her left.

‘Decided what you want?’ she asked when she was finished. ‘We’ve got books of sample pictures if you’re not sure.’

‘Oh no, I’m not getting a tattoo,’ Rachel told her, though now she thought about it, the idea quite appealed. She’d always wanted something discreet but distinctive on her wrist or ankle, or shoulder blade. One day. ‘I’m a police officer. Here to talk about Tiffany Kovak.’

‘You’re from here?’ Paige was clearly thrown by her accent.

‘From Interpol, in London.’

‘Why the hell would London be interested in Tiffany’s death? She never even went to England.’

‘I’m not able to tell you that.’ In fact, Rachel could have tried explaining, but she was aware that time was a scarce resource and wanted to cut straight to the chase. ‘Would you mind telling me what you remember about the time period around your friend’s death?’

Paige hesitated, frowning. Rachel showed her warrant card.

‘Okay, what do you need to know?’

‘Did you know about her listing her apartment on CasaMia? The home-sharing site?’

‘Yeah, she did mention that. It was a good way of paying for her studies. It’s a nice apartment, you know?’

‘And she was renting it out when she went missing?’

‘Um, not totally sure. I think she said she was going to stay with her dad for a bit while she had a sub-let, yeah. Think so. I didn’t hear from her for a few days, but I kind of figured it was because she was hanging at her dad’s place in La Jolla.’

‘Do you remember the date you last saw her?’

‘Few weeks before Christmas I think. I’ve deleted the messages now, so I can’t be more specific.’ Paige looked down at her fingernails. ‘Christ, I feel so bad about not paying more attention now.’

Rachel smiled sympathetically. ‘We can check with your phone service provider… You went to high school with her?’

‘Mission Hills, yeah. That’s where they found her body. Still really creeps me out thinking about it.’

‘Can you think of anyone who was at school with her who might want to do this?’

Paige shook her head slowly. ‘Not really. I mean she was definitely one of the popular kids. Prom Queen, head of Student Council.’

‘Or why they would choose to leave her in the gym?’

‘She was super good at gymnastics. And other sports. I always used to tease her about being a jock.’

Rachel remembered the photos of sports teams in Letizia’s album.

‘How did she get on with your other classmates?’

‘Like I said, she was popular.’

‘With everyone?’ Rachel pressed.

Paige frowned. ‘There were people who were jealous of her, I guess. You know, because she was really pretty, and good at most things.’

‘How about boyfriends? Was there anyone special?’

‘She never said so, but I doubt it. She was the total player. Screw ’em and dump ’em; that was her style.’

‘So someone she dated could have had a grudge?’

Paige put her head on one side, considering this. ‘I guess so.’ She did not sound convinced.

The bell on the door rang and another potential client walked in. ‘Sorry, I have to get back to work.’

‘Just one more thing: what happened to her apartment?’

‘It’s listed for sale with a realtor, I think.’

Rachel handed over one of her cards. ‘If you or any of Tiffany’s other friends think of anything else that might be relevant, please get in touch.’

---

The address of Tiffany’s apartment was on the copy of the CasaMia rental record that Paulie had emailed to her. The period 12–15th December inclusive; for the use of the mysterious Stacey Gunnarson. A quick check on her phone map showed it was only a few blocks away from the tattoo parlour, so she left the car where she had parked it and walked. There was still time, if she didn’t hang around.

A real estate agent’s board outside the slick, modern tower advertised a one-bedroom apartment for sale on the eighth floor. The apartment number on the CasaMia property was 803, so this was almost certainly Tiffany’s former home. Rachel phoned the agent, who – when she had mastered her disappointment that this was not a potential buyer – reluctantly confirmed that the concierge kept spare keys at the front desk.

Rachel went into the slick marble and glass lobby and produced her warrant card for the doorman, and after a certain amount of discussion and a further phone call to the realtor, was handed the keys. Walking into apartment 803, she couldn’t help but be reminded of Phoebe’s apartment in Valley Village. It was smart, forgettably bland; a paean to beige and brown. Floor-to-ceiling windows gave onto a small balcony with chocolate-brown wicker furniture and a spectacular view over the city skyline to the San Jacinto mountains in the far distance.

A minimal furniture package remained: two sofas and a glass coffee table, a small dining table and four chairs in the living room; a double bed, a tallboy and two bedside tables in the bedroom. A few lamps and some generic framed prints on the walls. It was, as she had anticipated, very clean, apart from traces of the titanium oxide powder that had been used to dust for fingerprints. Rachel worked her way through the kitchen cupboards one by one, standing on tiptoe to reach to the back of the highest shelves. She found a pack of coffee filter papers, but they were otherwise empty. It was the same in the drawers in the bedroom and the built-in shelving in the walk-in closet, where there were just a few clothes hangers on the rails.

The beige marble bathroom had a full width vanity unit with inset double sinks and a fitted cupboard underneath. Rachel opened the doors and squatted down to look in the cupboard, even feeling in the space behind the downpipe, but apart from a packet of toilet rolls it was empty. The glass-fronted medicine cabinet above the sink was empty too. She grabbed the edge of the vanity unit and stretched her right arm as far as it would go, so that she could just – only just – reach the back of the cabinet. Her fingers brushed against a smooth, tubular object. A lipstick case.

Rachel pulled a glove from her pocket and put it on before removing the lid and twisting up the bright orange-red lipstick. Close examination of the label on the bottom of the rose-gold tube revealed that the shade was ‘Tangier Nights’. She carried the lipstick over to the living room window and examined it in daylight. Then checked the email from Paulie Greenaway. Checked the lipstick again.

Her hunch was right. It was the exact shade of lipstick worn by Stacey Gunnarson. Also known as Heather Kennedy.