We were later than we’d said, getting to Lilah’s house, but she didn’t call us on it. She opened the door looking less put-together and more like her actual age than I’d ever seen her, in jeans and a faded T-shirt with her hair scraped back and no makeup. The T-shirt had writing on it: Though she be but little, she is fierce. I had a vague idea that it was a quote from something, and I’d have asked her about it, but it wasn’t really that sort of visit. Phil would probably know, anyhow.
“Come on in,” she told us, and led us straight to the kitchen again.
Axel was sitting at the table with his hood up and his hands clamped around a mug of something steaming. He took one look at us and bolted, presumably for the womb-like security of his room.
I hoped he didn’t spill his drink on the way. Those carpets weren’t cheap.
Lilah made a sad face. “My poor baby. It’s brung it all back for him, this happening. Thank God his auntie’s coming round for him in an hour.”
“Yeah? They going somewhere nice?”
“Some gaming-exhibition oojamawotsit. Tallulah’s always been better with all that geek stuff than I have. I ain’t got the patience. Never did have.”
“She spends a lot of time with him, does she?” Phil asked.
“Oh, yeah. Since he was a baby. Well, I had the business to run, didn’t I? She was glad enough to have me pay her to mind him. I always say she brung him up more than I did, so any bad habits he’s got, they’re on her, not me.” Lilah cackled. “Coffee?”
“Uh, yeah, ta.”
We sat down at the table, me in the seat still warm from Axel’s bum and Phil on the opposite side, while Lilah bustled about with the kettle and stuff. Axel’s mug had left a ring of what looked like hot chocolate on the glass surface of the table, and I had to keep reminding myself not to put my elbows in it.
Lilah didn’t ask how we took our coffee, just plonked a couple of mugs in front of us with plenty of milk and no sugar, which was what she was having. She didn’t bring out the biscuits this time either, but then it was a bit soon after breakfast.
“So what the bloody hell’s it all about, then?” she asked, hopping onto the chair next to mine. “Are the filth all sitting around with their fingers up their bums? Why haven’t they locked that nutter up and chucked away the key?”
Me and Phil exchanged glances.
“There’s not a lot we can tell you,” Phil said, his tone sympathetic. “We haven’t even heard if the body’s been positively identified.”
Lilah rolled her eyes. “What, and it’s all some big coincidence how Oliver went and disappeared last night? Pull the other one.” She turned to me. “No, what I want to know is, how was it you were the one to find him? What gave you the idea to go round there in the first place? Did you have, like, a premonition?”
“It wasn’t like that.” I stopped, not sure how much I should tell her.
“We actually went round to talk to Oliver about another matter,” Phil said cautiously.
“You mean, about my Jonny?”
“Yes.” Phil gave me a nudge.
Great, so I got to be the bearer of bad tidings. Although on the other hand, telling her this might make her feel better about Mr. Proudfoot’s unfortunate demise. “Uh . . . I know this isn’t going to be easy for you to hear, but . . . there’s been a suggestion that your husband was, um, having an affair with Oliver.”
I braced for an emotional outburst, but Lilah simply looked baffled. “Well, yeah. I knew all about that. Wasn’t an affair, though. They were just shagging.”
I stared, gobsmacked.
Phil leaned forward. “He told you about it?”
“First off, it was that nosy cow at the café—couldn’t wait to tell me how she’d seen them around together, and wasn’t it nice how they were such good friends? Bloody shit-stirring, that’s what it was.” Lilah made a disgusted face.
Sarah, I’d thought better of you. Although maybe she’d meant well.
“Then my Axel came to me about it, bless him. Got himself all worked up and all. Spent weeks worrying how he was going to tell his mum, poor baby. I told him, ‘When you’re an adult, you’ll understand.’”
He would? I was an adult, and I bloody well didn’t. Still, takes all sorts.
Then I frowned. “How did Axel find out?”
“Saw them in the stockroom at the Smithy. He was helping out on a Saturday when his sister had the flu.” Lilah cackled. “Gawd, if Tallulah had caught ’em at it, there’d have been hell to pay. She’s always had a stick right up her arse, ever since we was kids.
“So I had a word with my Jonny,” Lilah went on. “I told him, if he wants to have his bit on the side, it’s no skin off my nose. Blokes have got their needs, ain’t they? You’re not going to stop them getting their end away, so why worry? Long as he still came home to me, that was the main thing.” She shrugged, a gesture almost as big as she was. Then she sighed. I guessed she was thinking about that time he hadn’t made it.
Or maybe she was thinking about poor old Oliver. Who knew? It was like she was speaking a different language, except that the words made sense all right. It was just the sentences that didn’t. At least, not to me. I couldn’t imagine me having that attitude, if I found out Phil was screwing around. I certainly couldn’t imagine him being okay if it was me. It’s like Marmite, I s’pose. Lilah might find an open relationship tasty and good luck to her, but there’s no way it’d ever pass my lips.
So to speak.
Maybe it was the porn career? Like, she was used to separating sex from emotions? Or was it a fetish in itself? Like, she got off on hearing about him shagging other men? I swallowed.
Lilah scrubbed her face with her hands. “And now they’re both gone. You know what? I’m scared. I told my girl she’s not going back to work, not while that bastard’s running around loose. That git’s mental. If Loos has any sense, she’ll shut the shop down for a week or two, not just today. It ain’t safe. I got my ex coming round later.”
Phil leaned forward. “You still think Kelvin Reid is the killer?”
“Who the bleedin’ hell else? He killed my poor Jonny ’cos he left him, and now he’s killed that lad because of them shagging. I rang them up, you know. After I spoke to you. I rang them up and said, ‘Why ain’t he in jail?’ But all they did was fob me off. ‘Can’t give out information about an ongoing investigation.’ Ongoing load of bollocks, more like. I told them that and all.”
I guessed they were Hertfordshire constabulary. And I wouldn’t mind betting our Mr. Reid of the big fists was even now helping them with their enquiries. I wondered if he had an alibi for last night. Then again, I still couldn’t see how he could’ve got Oliver to let him in. Not without waking Pete up.
That made me think of something else. “Your daughter”—calling her Hazel to Lilah’s face seemed rude, somehow, but no way on earth was I calling her Lola—“are her and Pete good mates?”
“Oh, yeah. More than, I reckon. On her side, anyhow, though she always says not.” Lilah made a face. “Like she’s going to tell her mum anything, right?”
“Did she meet him through Oliver?”
“Other way round. They were in sixth form together, Pete and my girl. She used to go round his house and play these Dungeons & Dragons games and whatnot. I ask you, what happened to teenagers going out on the piss? That lot just sat around drinking tea and playing flippin’ board games. Not even video games, they weren’t. Unnatural, I call it. That was when his mum and dad were still alive, of course. He was living there on his tod after they had that accident, until Oliver’s landlord kicked him out ’cos he wanted to sell the place. So my Lola says, ‘Why don’t you move in with Pete?’ And he’s been there ever since. Lived there and died there, Gawd rest his soul if you believe in all that bollocks.” She drew in a deep breath, and Christ knew she must’ve needed one after all that. “He’s a good lad, that Pete. Bit of a weirdo, but who ain’t? Living on your own, it’s bad for a boy that age. ’Specially working nights. He never had a right lot of friends, and now he’s gone and lost another one.”
I hoped for Pete’s sake she wasn’t planning on repeating this to the police. Then again, even I was starting to wonder if maybe young Mr. Steadman was a better actor than we’d given him credit for.
“Is your daughter at home now?” I asked, expecting a Gawd, yes, I’m not letting her out of my sight till she’s thirty.
“Lola? She’s gone round to see Pete, bless her heart.”
“What, at the—” I stopped myself just in time from saying, murder house “—house by the railway?”
“Nah. Crime scene, innit? They made him put up in a hotel, and what bloody use is that when you’re working nights? I told her to bring him back here, poor lad.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“More the bloody merrier if you ask me. Safety in numbers, innit? Tell you what, you two’d be welcome and all if you want to kip here tonight.” She gave Phil’s broad, muscular shoulders an approving look. “’Specially you.”
Hands off, love. This one’s taken. “Uh, sorry, but we’ve got to be home to feed the cats.”
“Was it just me, or was Lilah giving out seriously mixed messages about Pete Steadman?” I muttered after the front door had closed behind us. “There she is inviting him round to make himself at home, and in the next breath she’s one step away from saying ‘He was always a quiet one, kept himself to himself.’ That’s practically the dictionary definition of serial killer.”
Phil huffed. “Don’t reckon she realised she was doing it.”
“Think we should tell her?”
“What, not to trust him? Or to watch her mouth when she’s talking about him?”
I shrugged. “Either. Both.”
“I can’t see the lad trying anything at Lilah’s house. Likes to get his victims out on their own, doesn’t he, our murderer? Dark canal path, dark railway . . .”
“Yeah. Think he’s got a thing about transportation?”
We reached Phil’s car, which was parked a little way down the street, and he zapped the central locking. “Don’t know. But for the meantime, you might want to steer clear of motorway overpasses. At least at night.”
“Or footbridges. Or cycle paths,” I added as I opened the passenger door, since even murderers probably like to be environmentally friendly and keep in shape every now and then.
Phil gave me a look over the top of the car. “Cycle paths? Worried you’d get stabbed with a spoke?”
“Oi, he could throttle a bloke with a lock and chain. Or bash him over the head with a bicycle pump.”
Phil was shaking his head. “Doesn’t fit the MO. Our murderer’s not the hands-on sort.”
“Yeah, I s’pose they’ve got that whole out of sight, out of mind thing going on.”
“You think that’s why you were able to find Proudfoot’s remains? I’ve been thinking about that. They weren’t exactly hidden.”
His tone was sharp, and I felt intimidated by the focus of my beloved’s gaze, despite the fact there was a metric tonne and change of metal between us. Neither of us made any move to get in the car. “I dunno. I mean, I know they were just, well, lying there, but would anyone have found them if they hadn’t been looking? You’d get foxes and stuff taking them away and eating them, wouldn’t you? And eventually they’d rot and stuff.” I was getting queasy thinking about it. “Maybe it’s, uh, the intentions? Like, I don’t get vibes from stuff that’s lost, so it was all to do with how the murderer was feeling? Like they reckoned that was Oliver out of the way, body disposed of, job done?”
Phil nodded slowly. “That could explain it.”
Great. “Cheers, mate. Good to know you’re willing to believe there’s an explanation other than I put him there myself.”
He audibly tsked. “Christ, you know I know you didn’t kill him.” Then he grinned. “Haven’t been away from my side long enough, have you? No, I was wondering if . . . whatever it is that lets you find things, if it’s getting stronger.”
“Why would it do that?” I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t alarmed at the prospect.
“Been using it more, haven’t you? Getting better at tapping into it, from what I’ve seen. I keep telling you, it’s like a muscle.”
“What, and working these cases with you has been like the psychic equivalent of a few hours in the gym and a five-mile run?”
“Could be.”
“Great. On top of everything else, now I get to worry about my brain bulging out of my ears.” I got in the car and Phil followed suit.
“Anyhow, if you’re so curious about it all,” I asked as I buckled my seat belt, “why’d you shut down that transport copper when he was telling us about his gran?”
“Because it was all family legend, and chances are it was a load of bollocks. And he was treating you like a bloody freak show instead of getting on with investigating the murder. Next thing you knew he’d have been asking for a demonstration.”
Phil switched on the engine, put the car in gear—and froze.