The next day isn’t great.
‘That which does not kill us makes us stronger,’ claimed Nietzsche, or Kanye West, depending on your cultural frame of reference, but exorbitant wine consumption must be the one exception because I certainly don’t feel strengthened by last night’s two-bottle bender. I feel annihilated.
Which I suppose was my full intention.
Stave off emotional blitzkrieg by destroying myself physically.
I wake on Parnell’s sofa with a piece of Lego burrowed deep into my right hip and the memory of me calling him ‘a boring bastard’ when he stopped me going clubbing with a group of bond traders. Issuing him a silent thanks and a more audible ‘thank god’ when I find a pint of water and a packet of Nurofen on the floor beside me, I sit up and take in my surroundings. Sure enough, his living room is everything I’d imagined it to be. Styled by his wife, wrecked by his kids. Like a Lord of the Flies stage-set, only taupe and with scatter cushions. I’m not quite sure what to make of the spare toothbrush and the, God-strike-me-down-dead, clean pair of knickers on the side of the sofa, but I assume they’re Parnell’s way of telling me that we’re running late already and I don’t have time to go home for a spruce-up.
In lighter moments that day, I can just about laugh at the fact I’m wearing my boss’s wife knickers. In darker depths, I pray for death to come quickly.
I work hard though for ten sweaty, nauseous hours. I work especially hard at avoiding Parnell, picking up my phone every time he heads my way or diving headfirst into my bag, scavenging for some unnecessary item. Luckily, I’m not short of reasons to pick up the phone as the public are feeling chatty today following Steele’s spot on the news.
The crackpots don’t bother me as they’re easy enough to spot. Any mention of aliens or Judgement Day, or anyone referencing the decline in Britain’s moral fibre can usually be shut down quite quickly. No, it’s the genuine do-gooders that take the time. The people who think that they ‘might’ have seen something. The people who want a small slither of the action to take back to the school gates.
I do take one promising call from a man who thinks he saw Alice talking to an ‘older guy’ in the Rugged Cross – an odious blot on the otherwise lively landscape of Spitalfields Market – on the Sunday evening before she died.
‘Older guy’ unsettles me, but half an hour later I’m leaning up against the bar, breathing in booze and BO – and finding the BO more appealing – only to find my man’s not quite as sure as he’d sounded on the phone and the barman’s only interested in if I’ve got a fella and what I’m doing Saturday night. I take a description of ‘older guy’ anyway – ‘between fifty to seventy, average build, average height, lightish hair, wasn’t really paying attention, tell you the truth – Man U had just equalised . . .’ For a millisecond I consider texting Jacqui for a recent photo of Dad but I’m not sharp enough to deal with all her questions, not today, and if I’m honest, I’m not brave enough to deal with the fall-out if . . .
If.
I get back to the news that Lapaine’s alibi checks out. Abigail Shawcroft is a carbon copy of Alice, apparently – blondish, prettyish in a drab sort of way. We chat this through for a while, come to the conclusion that she doesn’t have a lot to gain by lying for him, not with a bitter ex-husband looking for any reason to hammer her through the family courts and an application for deputy head still outstanding. After lunch, Emily and I turn our attention back to the Donatella Caffé and the residents of Keeper’s Close – the former sparking a frantic discussion about discarded till rolls and HMRC obligations, for which I’m woefully unqualified to give advice on but give advice on nonetheless. The latter simply spurs more variations of the ‘No, sorry I can’t help’ shutdown which is fast becoming the catchphrase of this investigation.
Aiden Doyle checks out too. He was indeed Sleepless in Mile End having a text exchange with an Aussie mate from one forty a.m. until nearly two fifteen a.m. While it clearly doesn’t cover him for the four-hour time period between the murder and the body being dumped, it certainly makes it less likely that he’s our guy.
And as the dark gathers at the window for one more day, Renée adds to our cauldron of nothing.
‘There’s no birth, adoption or death records pertaining to a baby born to either a Maryanne Doyle or an Alice Lapaine,’ she announces, soberly. ‘So that adds in the extra complication of a possible missing infant. Or a dead infant, of course.’
Dead infants. Dead leads. Deadbeat barmen in dead-end pubs.
Dead on my feet, I head home.
*
The next few days follow a similar pattern.
Work like Trojans. Feel like losers.
And another trip to see Dr Allen for me.
At least the ‘Lost Years’ article provides us with light relief, as judging by some of the calls trickling in, the woman formerly known as Maryanne Doyle was one conflicted lady – the kind of lady who sold speed to schoolkids in Hackney while at the same time giving out communion in a church in Porthmadog over 200 miles away.
A couple of callers suggest the same thing – which gets our attention, not to mention our hopes up – that Maryanne was an occasional face on the London dance scene, frequenting the likes of the Cross, the End, Fabric, Turnmills etc., at the end of the Nineties, into the Noughties. However, after a short flurry of excitement we have to ask, how does this even help us? No one ever recalls actually speaking to her. Not one person remembers ever seeing her with anyone. By all accounts she was just another anonymous face, bouncing away within the heaving, ecstasy-fuelled throng that moved from club to club, looking for the best tunes at the end of another monotonous working week.
Although the idea of her dancing on a podium in the late 1990s, off her face on pills, does give some credence to Sergeant Bill Swords ‘likely a runaway’ theory.
A theory I’d be only too happy to believe.
‘And that’s it?’ asks Parnell one morning, pained by the knowledge that he’s ‘acting up’ on a case that seems to be going nowhere. ‘I honestly thought we’d get more than this.’
‘It’s Christmas,’ says Steele, currently gracing us with a few hours face-time, free from the demands of Chief Superintendent Blake who’d hold a meeting about holding a meeting. ‘This time of year, Lu, it’s enough to remember where you’ve left the bloody Sellotape, without trying to think where you were eighteen bloody years ago.’
‘Anything on the car?’ I ask Ben, starting to bore of my own tasks and needing to revel in someone else’s failings.
‘Absolutely nothing,’ he says, matter-of-fact. He could do with joining me on ‘The Art of Positive Spin’ course.
‘Something on her vagina though,’ shouts Flowers, putting his phone down. It’s tasteless but it gets our attention. ‘That was the lab. No trace of condom lubricant.’
And then with the arrival of Seth bounding into the room, Eureka.
‘Ha-ha, I’ll see your vagina, and raise you a phone. We’ve just got a hit on one of the pay-as-you-gos’
‘It’s been switched on?’ asks Parnell, his arm already in one coat-sleeve.
‘Not exactly. Silly fool took out the SIM and put it in their regular phone.’
‘So we’ve got a location.’ I say, my heart pounding.
‘Better than that, an address. And a name.’
Sometimes it just happens like that. Days and days of thankless, arduous nothing and then, boom. All the tenuous leads and the tortuous trips up endless garden paths seem a lifetime ago, and you can never quite remember why you ever questioned the purpose of your wonderful, life-affirming job.
My coat’s on and fully fastened before Parnell can even think not to invite me.