Page 51 of Return Ticket

“No.” Clark pondered. “You’re wondering when she might have gone off, are you?”

“I’m trying to ascertain when your wife was last seen. Can you give me the names of her friends?” James saw the reality of the situation was finally dawning on Larry Clark.

He gave a few names, the library where she met her friends for bridge, and her mother’s name and number, which he read out from a small address book in his wallet. “She speaks to her mum every week,” he said. “So you might have some luck there. Her mother won’t tell me anything.”

Not surprising, James thought. He was thoroughly unlikeable. “Thank you, Mr. Clark. We’ll keep in touch on our progress.”

“That’s it? That’s all you wanted?” Clark still seemed like a man hard-pressed to believe his luck.

“Unless you have something to add?” James asked.

“No. No, no. All good.” Clark tipped his hat and hurried away, the fog swallowing him whole.

James wondered what else he was up to, because he was involved in something. As he was in sales, James guessed he might be selling stock under the table or something along those lines. He shrugged, turned back to the pub, and to Gabriella.

chaptertwenty-one

Gabriella invitedJames up to her flat.

She didn’t want the evening to end, and she wanted to tell him about the news on her father.

James had tried to look for him for her a few months back, as much as it was possible for him to do without abusing his position at the Met, and she wanted to talk to him about the repercussions now that she knew more.

There was silence behind the door of Jerome’s flat, but it was Monday, and he might well be tucked up for an early night.

“Coffee?” she asked as she hung her coat on the rack.

“I want to say yes, but I haven’t had enough sleep these last few days, and coffee keeps me awake.” He hung his own coat up.

“Tea it is.” She was slowly developing a taste for it.

“Can you stand to tell me more about the body this morning?” James asked, pulling down two mugs from the cupboard while she put the kettle on.

“The age of the woman, you mean?” Gabriella asked. She thought about it. “I could only see part of her face, but it seemed to me she was around late twenties, early thirties. Wearing a neat tweed skirt and a brown jacket. I didn’t see her handbag anywhere.”

“And it was in your borough?” he asked.

She nodded. When they each had their tea, she sat down and blew on the surface to cool it. “Constable Evans took my statement, and the statement of the tradie who found her.”

He nodded. “I’ll go round tomorrow and speak to him.” He seemed distracted, moving his cup round and round.

“You think it’s the same person who killed the woman at the old bomb site?” she asked.

He raised his head. Gave a brief nod. “And two others.”

“The body in the allotment?” she asked, surprised.

“And another one we found just before I went home to Wales.” He finally took a sip of tea. “But she’d been dead over a month by the time we found her.”

“So four women over two months?” Gabriella set her mug down. “But all left at different places?”

“All hidden, or half-hidden.” James lifted a shoulder. “I shouldn’t really be telling you about this.”

“I won’t say anything.” Gabriella had a stake in this. Not just because she’d been there for the discovery of two of the bodies, but because it was so clearly dragging James down. “Hidden like the way he left the woman I found on the far side of the debris pile?”

James nodded. “He left the woman we found in the allotment in a ditch, and scooped some sand over her. The first one was thrown into a deep hole at a construction site, and you said today’s body was hidden in a skip bin.”

Gabriella thought about it. “Not hidden, really. Lying on top. But no one could see her from the ground and he’d put the box he must have used to stand on in order to throw her in back up against the church wall. It was only because the tradie was up the side of the tower, looking down, that he noticed her.”

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