Page 75 of Final Betrayal

‘Do you think she killed herself?’ The glass was pointed at Lottie in an accusatory fashion, clear liquid spilling down the side.

‘I’m trying to build up a profile of your daughter that might lead us to who did this and why.’

‘How did she die?’

Lottie looked at Boyd for support.

He said, ‘We can’t divulge details yet, but we really need to learn all we can about Louise.’

‘I don’t know a whole lot, to be honest. Suppose you want to see her room?’

‘Yes please. But can you answer our questions first?’ Boyd said soothingly.

Belinda sipped her drink and seemed to consider. ‘Louise was a troubled girl. Ever since that business over Mr Thompson’s case. I was sure she was depressed, but her father wouldn’t believe me. I secretly arranged counselling for her, but she didn’t buy into it. She only ever listened to her father.’ She paused. ‘Why do you think I drink? I can’t stand the man.’

‘You could leave him,’ Lottie said.

‘It’s complicated.’

She decided to abandon that conversation. Her main concern was to discover what she could about Louise. ‘What was Louise’s relationship with Cristina Lee like?’

‘Cristina Lee? I’ve never heard that name mentioned. But I don’t know much about Louise’s friends. She didn’t really talk to me.’

‘Did she get any unusual letters or notes recently?’ Lottie was thinking of the threatening note she’d discovered in Amy Whyte’s bedroom.

Belinda sipped and shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Can I search her room?’

‘I’ll take you up.’

Lottie made for the door. She couldn’t wait to get away from the woman. Something in her demeanour clanged warning bells in her head. She thought it might be because Belinda reminded her of when she herself had been snared by the talons of alcohol after Adam died. Or was it something else entirely? She didn’t know.

Boyd rolled his eyes as they waited for Belinda to refill her glass before she led the way up the winding staircase. She stopped outside one of the doors on the wide landing.

‘That’s her room. I think I’ll lie down for an hour. If you have to take anything away, please bring it back in one piece.’ She disappeared behind a door at the end of the landing.

‘What the hell was that all about?’ Boyd said.

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

Stepping into the young murdered woman’s personal domain, Lottie was immediately gripped with a sense of loss for Louise. A sense of loss that her mother had not displayed. She was standing in the preserve of a twenty-five-year-old girl who was never going to lie on her bed again, or flick through her phone, or complete her university course.

The room was tidy. In the wardrobe, clothes hung in neat lines. The dressing table had everything lined up perfectly. The bed covers were rumpled, with a T-shirt and jogging bottoms draped across them. Possibly used as nightwear. On the window seat Lottie spied a laptop, notebooks and a ring binder.

‘This must be her coursework,’ Boyd said, picking up a folder in his gloved hands.

‘Must be, Sherlock.’

Lottie glanced out through the window. A trio of magpies sat on the bare branches of a tree. She tried to remember the rhyme, but it escaped her. Instead, she concerned herself with the laptop. It was charged and switched on, and password-protected. ‘Shit. We need the password.’

‘Her mother might know.’

‘I doubt it very much. The technical crew can have a look at it.’

‘Or you could ask her father.’

‘Perhaps.’ Lottie wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to Cyril Gill any time soon.

---