I slip back into the station just before one p.m., the chill in my marrow fending off punch-drunk tiredness for the time being. Violent death makes restful sleep seem like a rather shallow privilege of the living anyway, and it’s not as if the Sandman and I are great pals at the best of times.
It occurs to me that I could ask Dr Allen for something to help me sleep. To date, I’ve generally relied on wine, weed and a whole ton of emotional eating to numb me into eventual slumber but maybe a chemical crutch might be nice, although I’m not sure of the protocol.
Do you wait to be offered?
Does asking for something sound the ‘not-coping’ klaxon?
More importantly, do I even care?
Right this second, probably not. With Leamington Square and my encounter with Noel trawling up long-buried memories and black tarry thoughts, the idea of some state-sanctioned oblivion buoys me more than it should.
‘DCI Steele?’ Parnell’s just ahead of me, slumped against the front-desk, interrupting the custody sergeant’s flow as he checks the dietary needs of some goon in a ‘Gangzta’ hat about to be booked in.
The Sergeant glowers at Parnell. ‘Third floor. Door with the broken handle.’
In reality, we don’t need directions as the gravitational pull of an incident room is Herculean in strength. Stepping out onto the third floor, we instinctively turn left and follow the corridor to the end, straight and purposeful like darts, ignoring all the early-afternoon hustle of a central London station. From a few steps away, I clock Steele through the doorway looking sharp and match-fit, bouncing on her stockinged feet, all five feet three of her – shoes indiscriminately discarded somewhere, no doubt. ‘I can’t think straight with sore feet.’
Prepping the incident board are man-mountain DS Pete Flowers and blade-thin DC Craig Cooke – aka the Feast and the Famine. Both are solid coppers, without question. Diligent types. Flowers could probably make inspector if he wasn’t so charmless, while Craig’s a good guy to have around, a one-man-band of dad jokes and contagious optimism. I give a thumbs-up to Seth, still beavering away thanks to three cans of Red Bull and the lure of a gold star from Steele, and I smile vaguely at a stunning girl in a mustard duffle who I’ve worked with before – although when I say ‘worked with’, I don’t mean in the Cagney-and-Lacey sense – just that we shared the same kettle, copped the same flak.
But I’d know that duffle coat anywhere.
Given my job, I should feel blessed to have a good memory for pointless prosaic detail. Truth is, it’s more of a curse and it’s one of the reasons I find it hard to sleep. In a matter of seconds, my dead-of-night thoughts can sway from the consuming, feral agony of Mum’s final days to the saltiness of the pork at Jacqui’s wedding, while images as banal as driftwood and duffle coats rub shoulders with suspicions about my dad that are so black and unmentionable that I have to keep them locked in a box at the centre of my frontal lobe.
In my mind, this box has always been purple. A deep Catholic purple with a heavy black lock. Despite the lock there’s no key to open the box, to do so would be catastrophic, but occasionally a thought seeps out through the tiny space where the base meets the lid. It’s already happened several times today.
‘Righto folks, let’s make a start.’ Steele hushes the room in two seconds flat. ‘Now contrary to popular belief, I’m not completely in love with the sound of my own voice so here’s the drill. I’ll go through the basics, answer any questions, get everyone up to speed, and then I’m throwing it out to the floor for a bit of audience participation, all right?’
A horseshoe of fresh-faced DCs sit up, synchronised in gutsy ambition. For a second I long to throw myself into the heart of their competitive clique and leave Parnell to his quiz shows and arthritic knees. But it’s a quick spark of sentiment, gone before it can take root. I never seem to shine with people of my own age. I just never feel that relevant.
‘So, quickly, let’s talk about me, shall we?’ Steele hops onto a desk, shuffling to make herself comfortable. Her legs don’t quite touch the floor and with her ditsy print dress and swaying feet, she looks like a child about to recite a nursery rhyme. ‘For those who don’t know, my name’s DCI Kate Steele and I’m the SIO leading this investigation. You can call me Boss, Guv, whatever you like. You can call me Kate if you sense I’m in a good mood, but you run that risk at your own peril, m’dears. Behind my back, you’ll no doubt call me Cardigan Kate, on account of the fact that my upper arms haven’t been seen since 1989 but that’s fine, I’m used to it. Christ knows, I’ve been called worse. Just don’t let me hear you or you’ll wish your mother had had a headache the night you were conceived.’
A smile spreads across the faces of those who’ve worked with Steele before. We know this script verbatim.
‘Now, there’s a few of you I don’t know so if you have something to say, put your hand up and state your name. I probably won’t remember it but don’t take offence. It doesn’t mean you’re not a remarkable human being, it just means I’m a batty old woman who can’t remember where she parked the car half the time, never mind a load of new names every time I head up a case, so if you can just play along if I get your name half-right, I reckon we’ll all get along fine. OK? Everyone happy?’
The horseshoe constricts, one or two allow themselves a cautious smile.
‘Wonderful.’ Steele turns to face the incident board. ‘So, victim’s name is Alice Lapaine. Thirty-five years old. A married, part-time pub chef from Thames Ditton in Surrey.’
A point to her bloodied corpse followed by a quick reverent pause. Just enough time for us to contrast the normality of her life with the savagery of her death. There but for the grace of God go I . . .
‘Vickery’s in court this afternoon, maybe tomorrow, so there’s a delay on the post-mortem, but in layman’s terms – possible strangulation, a blow to the front of the head, slashes across the throat – not fatal. Other bumps and scrapes, mainly to the legs and chest. She was fully clothed, no obvious signs of sexual assault. No obvious defence wounds either. Vickery estimates she’d only been dead a few hours, four to five hours max. She was found on Leamington Square at approximately four forty-five a.m., however Leamington Square is not the primary crime scene. We have her on CCTV being dumped there at four-o-five a.m. Benny-boy, you’re up.’
DC Ben Swaines, boyband-handsome in a tedious, steam-cleaned kind of way, steadies himself for the spotlight with one last run of his hand through his sandy-blond hair, but unfortunately not even his sterile loveliness can detract from the fact that it’s a pretty depressing tale of stolen cars, poor-quality CCTV, tinted windows and balaclavas.
Basically, nothing a good brief couldn’t make mincemeat of.
Parnell visibly sags with each blow, however Steele looks on, totally at peace with Ben’s litany of disappointments. All part of the game, she reminds us, especially at the start of the case before the grunt-work kicks in.
‘The car, a Vauxhall Zafira, belongs to a Richard Little.’ Ben looks relieved to have at least one tangible thing to offer. ‘A piano teacher from Tulse Hill. He’s been in Malta visiting his parents since the eighteenth so he’s in the clear. Didn’t even realise his car had been stolen. He parks it outside his flat – it’s off-street residents’ parking but it’s easily accessible. It’ll be a lump of ash by now, no doubt.’
‘We’re talking to the neighbours, right?’ says Steele.
Ben nods. ‘The car was definitely outside at nine thirty p.m. A neighbour, Mr Spicks, got home around then, remembers being narked that “Liberace” had parked it in his usual space before buggering off to Malta. Seemed happy it’d got nicked, to be honest.’
‘Run the CCTV again.’ Steele balls her hands into fists and leans hard on the table, knuckles taut and pearly white. ‘Watch this and store it, folks,’ she says, tapping her temple. ‘Brazen is not the word.’
We sit in grisly silence and watch a figure get out of the driver’s seat, stretching their back slowly, almost luxuriantly, as if they’ve just finished a long, arduous drive. There’s a quick glance away from the car, a last look up to Farringdon Road, perhaps – the only realistic source of interruption at that time of the morning – and then they open up the back seat and haul Alice Lapaine out by the shoulders, tossing her onto the tarmac and making every one of us flinch as her head smacks the road. The figure stands over her briefly, composed and stock-still, before getting back in the car and driving off. Nothing at all to suggest a crime of panic.
I’ve seen more signs of stress on a fly-tipper dumping a mattress.
‘Judging by build’ – Steele brings us back into the room – ‘I’d say we’re looking for a man, but we can’t completely rule out a strapping sort of woman.’
Craig smiles nervously, ‘Here, it’s not my Karen, is it?’
There’s a murmur of a laugh but it doesn’t take flight.
‘Cameras have the car heading east for a few miles but they lose it when it turns off the Romford Road,’ says Ben, looking apologetic, as if the fallibility of CCTV is his own personal failing. ‘I’ve alerted relevant CID – Barking, Dagenham, Hornchurch, Stratford, a few others. They’re going to keep their eyes out, but you know . . .’
‘Kids or dog-walkers. It’ll turn up somewhere. What’s left of it,’ says Parnell.
Steele hops back on the desk and flicks through her notebook which is pink, leather-bound and embossed with Keep Calm and Nick Villains. A present from me for her fiftieth last year.
‘So, we don’t have the car and we also don’t have her bag, her purse or her phone. No surprises there. POLSA are down on their hands and knees combing the area but let’s just say I’m not holding my breath.’ POLSA – Police Search Advisers, or in other words, Hardy All-Weather Heroes. ‘However, and I’ll have a drum roll for this please, we did find a receipt stuffed in one of her pockets. It’s for an espresso ristretto, whatever the hell that is. Bought at a café in Wandsworth on Friday, paid for by credit card, and thanks to the wonderful Seth Wakeman’s persistent stalking – and OK, maybe the small matter of Chief Superintendent Blake’s early morning intervention – VISA coughed up the details quickly.’ Seth takes a small bow. ‘The bad news is, and can you believe the utter sods-lawfulness of this, the café’s closed until Thursday. The two owners are on some Christmas market jolly in bloody Dusseldorf, so bang goes our chance of finding out if Alice met with anyone until then. It’s a bit off the beaten track so no CCTV either.’
A chinless DC rises up but I get there first. ‘A receipt’s hardly foolproof ID. How do we know it’s definitely her? She could have picked it up randomly, stuffed it in her pocket.’
‘It’s her. We need formal ID, of course, but Renée’s at the Thames Ditton address with the husband now and they’ve scanned through a photo and it’s definitely our girl. Actually, we need to get that up on the board, pronto. Kinsella, it’s on my desk. Do the honours.’
I walk into Steele’s office, a kaleidoscopic blur of box-files and dry cleaning, and quickly start moving papers around, tidying as I go. Under a coffee-stained memo from the Borough Commander, Alice Lapaine stares up at me through a clear plastic folder. Unbloodied and intact, she looks familiar somehow, although it’s more of a feeling, a vibration, than cast-iron recognition.
It’s an odd photo, I think, to sum up a life. Off-guard and out-of-focus. The kind of throwaway snap you’d take to use up the last of a film. Sitting on a garden chair, Alice’s lips curve upwards in an attempt at a smile, but something about her body language, the hunched shoulders and the crossed arms, looks off. Like she’s shrinking from the lens, trying to make herself small.
She doesn’t feel small to me, though. This blue-eyed, blonde-bobbed vision of complete-and-utter ordinariness is making my skin itch and my skull pulse.
I give myself a shake and walk out.
Steele’s still holding court.
‘So, the husband’s being driven in for formal ID in the next couple of hours. Once we have that, I’ll decide what exactly gets released to the media.’
‘The proper media, you mean,’ grunts Flowers, ‘It’s all over social media, thanks to the numpty who found her.’
I bristle at this, contemplate saying, ‘You mean the numpty whose life has been irrevocably tainted? The numpty who’ll have to relive this horror over and over in exchange for nothing more than a cup of tea and a Victim Support number?’ But Flowers has a prickly ego sometimes so I stay schtum, focusing intently on the floor instead until I’m sure the last remnants of pissed-offness have left my face.
Steele shrugs, crosses one dinky leg over another. ‘Not a lot we can do about that now, Pete. So, the husband, Thomas Lapaine.’ She holds up a finger. ‘One: he claims he hasn’t seen his wife in four weeks – she took off, not an unusual occurrence, apparently. Two: there was no one in when Renée got there around ten thirty a.m., so she had a quick chat with a neighbour, and she hadn’t seen him for days. Which doesn’t mean he’d gone AWOL, of course, just that their paths hadn’t crossed . . .’
‘His car?’ asks Parnell.
‘She couldn’t be sure because – get this – the Lapaines don’t live on a street or in a flat, or under a bridge like Benny-boy’ – a nod towards her current favourite stooge – ‘they live on a private island on the Thames. Twelve houses, a population of about thirty, and to get back to my point, they all have to park in the village so the neighbour wouldn’t know if his car was there or not.’
Flowers whistles. ‘Private island, eh. There’s money then?’
Steele nods. ‘And three: when Thomas Lapaine did arrive home fifteen minutes later, he said he’d been out all morning. Walking.’ An alien concept to a woman who lives in four-inch heels. ‘Again, not unusual apparently. Three miles along the Thames Path, from Hampton Court to Kingston Bridge and back again. Takes a couple of hours. Obviously, Renée’s going softly, softly at the moment, but to my mind, it’s suspect. Bloody walking? When all the forecasts are warning, “Don’t take a shit in case your arse gets frostbite”?’
‘He could be telling the truth,’ I say. ‘Of course, what we’d have then is a potential suspect and an early-morning walk along a river path? Disposing of evidence, maybe?’
As a detective, I’m more fuelled by the mysteries and the ‘what-ifs’ than the verifiable truths but I’ve sat in enough of Steele’s first-day briefings to know that I’m about to get my snout slapped for ruining her Festival-of-Irrefutable-Facts.
‘Not a bad theory, Kinsella. One that has absolutely no basis at all at the moment, but not a bad theory.’
We are nothing if not consistent.
Duffle Coat’s hand shoots up. ‘DC Emily Beck, ma’am. So is Thomas Lapaine a serious suspect?’
I cringe as Steele swats the question away. ‘Husband’s always a suspect. Ask me another.’
‘Was he dressed for walking?’ I ask. ‘I mean, you’d want more than your winter woollies in this weather. You’d want decent boots, for a start. A flask. A waterproof, maybe?’
Steele raises an eyebrow. ‘Never had you down as a rambler. Honest answer is I don’t know. I’ve had two minutes on the phone with Renée all morning and she’s obviously having to play nice. Until we’ve got evidence that Thomas Lapaine is anything other than a grieving husband, I don’t want him feeling like he’s a suspect. The last thing we want is him turning against us before we’ve had the chance to interview him properly.’
Seth shouts over from his desk. ‘Bad news, Boss. He might already be against us, I’m afraid. The PNC check has thrown up something.’
Parnell makes a praying gesture. ‘Tell me it’s for offing an ex-wife, Seth. Make it easy on us.’
‘Alas no, Sarge. Section 5. Public Order Offence. He climbed on top of a van at a Reclaim the Streets March in 1996. Usual hundred-yard-hero, calling us “pigs” and “wankers” from a safe distance. He got six months suspended and an eight-hundred pound fine. He’s been squeaky clean ever since. However, and this is the interesting bit, he made an accusation of police brutality.’
Steele’s smile is acidic. ‘Did he really? Him and the rest. Anything in it?’
Seth shakes his head. ‘Doesn’t look like it. He got a tiny bit of gravel rash when they forced him to the ground. It went to the PCA. They rejected it. He didn’t appeal.’
‘Could make him touchy though,’ says Parnell. ‘We’ll have to build that into our interview strategy.’
Steele nods. ‘So what can you pair bring to the party? By the way, this is DS Luigi Parnell and DC Cat Kinsella for anyone who doesn’t know. They were both at the scene this morning. Lu and I go way back, back before some of you were on solids, so if he tells you to do something, do it.’
Parnell looks at me expectantly and I realise I’m being offered up as spokesperson.
‘We don’t have a great deal really.’ When will I learn the art of positive spin? ‘Girl who found her was too wasted to tell me anything. Just kept asking for her mum and her inhaler. We’ll have another crack when she sobers up but I don’t think she’s going to be much help. It was forty minutes between our victim being dumped and found. Whoever dumped her was long gone.’
‘And it’s quiet around there,’ says Parnell, hands raised. ‘Leamington Square’s off the main drag and yes, I know it’s residential, but it was four a.m. Not too many residents wandering about at that hour.’
He’s right, of course. If you had to pick a time when even the most decadent of deviants would be tucked up in bed, you’d probably pick four a.m. on a hypothermic Tuesday morning. But I still think there must be easier places to dump a body.
Steele called it brazen. I call it significant.
Parnell continues. ‘House-to-House are working the square and all the access roads but it’s not throwing up much. It’s up to you, Boss, but you could think about widening the parameters? Open it out towards Exmouth Market, maybe?’
No. Not Exmouth Market. Not my family.
The thought of Dad being questioned about a dead woman, no matter how peripherally, stirs something in me. Something dizzying and destructive.
‘Could do,’ I say, heart hammering. ‘Personally, I think it’d be a waste of time at this stage. People are too preoccupied before Christmas to be that much help. And they’re jumpy as hell too. We’d spend more time giving reassurance than we would gathering information.’
It feels like a lifetime before Parnell speaks again. ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ He looks to Steele. ‘Kinsella’s right about one thing though, people are as jumpy as hell. They’re either going away and leaving their houses empty, or they’ve got family visiting, and obviously neither’s ideal when there’s, and I quote, “a madman on the loose’’.’
Steele groans. ‘Magnificent. That’s all we need. I hope you warned the residents not to talk to reporters. If they get a sniff of a “madman”, they really will think it’s Christmas.’
A silence falls over the room. Just the white-noise drone of technology and Flowers’ stomach rumbling in low, melodic tones.
Steele breaks the lull with a weak laugh. ‘Look, I think we’re just about done here. The Feast needs feeding, don’t want him keeling over, do we?’
Flowers licks his lips in a way I think we’re supposed to find grotesquely erotic.
‘Usual drill,’ says Steele, voice raised. ‘DS Parnell and DS Flowers are your first ports of call, but my door is always open. Unless it’s closed, of course.’ She walks over to her discarded shoes, a pair of emerald suede courts that cost more than my rent. ‘So, final call. Anything else? Anyone?’ She turns on her heel, dropping a hand to Parnell’s arm as she passes. ‘Lu, be a love and sort out assignments. Kinsella, a word, my office.’
*
‘Now I know we’re in the age of “female empowerment” but I’ve got to tell you, Kinsella you look like shit warmed up.’ Steele gestures for me to sit down, picks up a lipstick and applies it perfectly without the aid of a mirror. ‘I mean it, you look awful. Washed-out. Although maybe it’s that top – yellow’s definitely not your colour.’ She pauses. ‘Did you buy it in a panic? I’d take it back if I were you.’
Her face is the very picture of authoritative benevolence, but it’s all in the voice.
She knows.
I don’t know how she knows, but she knows.
‘Good sleep?’ she adds with a pinched smile.
‘Oh, you know, on and off.’ I jerk a thumb towards the incident room. ‘Parnell’s not looking too rosy either.’
‘Parnell! Christ, it’d take more than a bit of beauty sleep to save Luigi Parnell. He’s a lost cause. There’s still hope for you.’
Harsh but fair. Unashamedly overweight and sometimes a little under-groomed, Parnell’s the kind of detective who makes you forget Sonny Crockett and Fox Mulder ever existed.
She drums her nails on the desk. Expertly manicured. I can never imagine her sitting still long enough to have them done. After a few seconds, she stops and leans forward. ‘Look, I’m not going to beat around the bush. Are you absolutely sure you’re ready for this one?’
Be calm. Be rational. Stay classy, Kinsella.
‘Of course,’ I say, feigning cool surprise. ‘Why? Have I done something wrong?’
‘No.’ She lowers her head, mutters ‘for God’s sake’, then glances up again, trying to look like she doesn’t want to throttle me. ‘I just think it might be too soon after . . . well, you know.’
‘Alana-Jane. It’s OK, you can say her name. I won’t have a meltdown.’
‘I was thinking of the mother, actually.’
‘Dafina Tolaj. You can say her name too.’
She points the lipstick at me. ‘Listen you, I’m less bothered about her name and more bothered about the fact that she was another blonde, thirty-something woman covered in blood.’ She looks familiar somehow. ‘I think you can do without that again so soon, don’t you? Especially while you’re still seeing Dolores.’
Dolores, not Dr Allen. Visions of them dissecting me over a nice bottle of Merlot does them both a disservice, but I have a tendency to catastrophise when I’m cornered. Another counsellor told me that.
‘You don’t want me on the case, is that it?’
Full-volume. ‘For God’s sake, Kinsella, I’m not picking the netball team. You’re not the fat kid in PE so quit with the doe-eyes. I need everyone at the top of their game at the moment and I’m just not convinced you are.’
‘Based on what exactly?’ It sounds stroppy, confrontational. I mumble a quick ‘sorry’.
Steele shoots me an arch stare. ‘Based on the fact I saw you at the crime scene this morning. You never used to be that queasy.’
I try humour. ‘What can I say? We got pizza from Big Jimmy’s again last night.’ I rub my stomach. ‘Seriously, Boss, they should close that place down.’
She smiles and I sense a tiny victory. ‘Look, I’m not sure Dolores would advise you being involved, that’s all.’
‘Has she said something?’
‘No.’ Of course she has. ‘So how are the sessions going?’
‘Am I still batshit crazy, you mean?’
‘I mean are you finding them helpful?’
I could tell the truth but it’s easier and ultimately to my benefit to play along. ‘I am, surprisingly. I’m actually feeling pretty good. She’s pretty good. I definitely feel a lot calmer. And come on, be fair, no one’s at the top of their game at five a.m. Not even you.’
No reaction so I change tack. Less front, more fawning.
‘Please, Boss, I feel a connection to the victim now. A responsibility. Please. I really want to work this case. Work for you,’ I add.
Steele purses her lips and sits back. Her chair’s the cast-off of an ex-DCI, a man of Hulk-like proportions, and consequently it makes her look like a pixie. On her desk there’s a mug quoting Shakespeare. ‘And though she be but little, she is fierce.’
‘OK,’ she says finally but there’s a threat in her voice. ‘But you report direct to me, OK, and you tell me the second you feel wobbly. Parnell’s your everyday supervisor, but I want to know everything you’re up to, right? Everything. If I ask when you last had a bowel movement, you tell me, is that clear?’
‘Crystal, crystal,’ I say, smiling and nodding, almost to the point of bowing. ‘So, er, who’s interviewing the husband?’
I figure I might as well push my luck.
‘I’m doing the formal ID with him but I’m going to arrange for him to be interviewed at home. We might get more out of him in familiar surroundings.’
‘Absolutely, Boss. Absolutely.’ I keep smiling and nodding, nodding and smiling. ‘So, er, can I be in on the . . .’
‘Yes,’ she snaps, impatient but with a glint of humour. ‘Parnell actually requested you, if you must know. I think he’s quite smitten.’ She laughs at my horrified face. ‘Relax, Kinsella, don’t flatter yourself. He’s got four sons, that’s all. I think he’s always fancied a surrogate daughter.’
This stirs something inside me too complicated to name, although ‘nice’ might be an uncomplicated way to describe it.
Steele reaches for her internal phone, nods towards the door. ‘Right, hasta luego, Kinsella – or bugger off, whichever you prefer. Get prepped with Parnell, OK, and grab Renée when she’s back, see what she makes of the husband.’ She points the receiver at me. ‘And just so we’re clear, Parnell leads the interview.’
I stand up and give a small salute. Message received, over and out.
Or ‘si, yo comprendo’, whichever she prefers.