He opened the door and waved her through. ‘This is between you and me, right?’
‘About the DCI?’ Hart asked, confused.
‘About the fan,’ Foster said, closing the door firmly behind him. ‘I went to a lot of trouble — did stuff I’m not proud of to get the damn thing — and I don’t want some light-fingered bastard sneaking in here and robbing it.’
Chapter Five
Sara Geddes opened her front door in a quick, decisive sweep, as if half expecting her friend to be standing outside.
She hasn’t slept, Hart thought. Miss Geddes looked neat in her grey wool trousers and burnt-orange cashmere sweater; her honey-blonde hair was carefully tied back and she had even dabbed on a little make-up, but there was no mistaking the dark smudges under her eyes and the slight wince as she blinked in bright daylight.
‘Miss Geddes? Detective Constable Hart.’ She nodded to Foster. ‘And this is Detective Sergeant Foster.’
Sara looked from their warrant cards to their faces, matching the photos to the two people on her doorstep. Only when she was entirely satisfied did she let them in.
The hall was wide, and its warmth was welcome after the chilly April sunshine. A long mirror with a beaten metal surround had been hung above the radiator; gunmetal grey and warm bronze. She led them to the front sitting-room and Hart realised that the juxtaposing of warm colours and hard lines was something of a theme. The walls of the room were stark white but they were hung with abstract paintings; the largest was in aubergine and lilac, relieved by beige and cream. A rivulet of silver metal ran from left to right, thick and globular, smooth as solder. There were four more, in a range of colours and styles, three large, one small.
‘Your own work?’ Hart asked.
‘Yes.’ Sara Geddes frowned. ‘Can we get on with this?’
Hart understood. This was a woman used to dealing with the police, she had no need for reassurance, and she had no time for small talk.
‘Have you spoken to Detective Constable Frinton?’ Sara asked.
Hart looked at Foster. ‘The detective investigating the stalking allegations,’ he explained. ‘Not in our remit, Miss Geddes. You’ll hear in due course from Inspector Norton.’
Sara considered this for a moment, then nodded. ‘All right. What do you need to know?’
‘Let’s start with the approximate time of Miss Ward’s disappearance.’
Sara glanced at the wall behind them, as though picturing the scene, her green eyes a little clouded. ‘The coffee had just finished brewing as I came in,’ she said. ‘That takes about ten minutes — she always has it ready for when I come home. I’d say she disappeared no more than ten minutes before I arrived, and that was at six p.m.’
The contradictions of hard and soft, warmth and hard edges that Hart had seen in her artwork were, it seemed, reflections of the woman herself: she was evidently concerned for Megan Ward, had spent a sleepless night waiting up for her, and yet she was able to present a calm analysis of the facts.
‘Could we see her room?’ Hart asked.
‘Rooms,’ Sara corrected her. ‘Megan has converted one for use as an office — she uses the smaller room as her bedroom.’
They followed her up the stairs. ‘You say she’s an investigative journalist?’ Hart said.
‘Freelance. I don’t know what she was working on currently.’
More of Sara’s paintings decorated the walls in the stairwell and on the landing; oils, acrylics, even a collage which seemed to be made from left-over pieces of the bronze and steel that made up the mirror frame in the hallway. By contrast, Megan’s bedroom was as bare as a nun’s cell. The bed was neatly made and there was no clothing on view — not even a pair of shoes or a discarded sock. No make-up or perfumes on the dresser, no paperbacks on the bedside table.
‘Did she take all her stuff?’ Foster asked.
Sara Geddes went to the wardrobe tucked into an alcove next to the chimney breast and opened the door. Blouses at one end, trousers and skirts at the other, boots and shoes lined up neatly on the floor of the cupboard. ‘It’s all here,’ she said.
‘When did she move in?’ Hart asked, riffling through the clothing, not sure what she was hoping to find.
‘Just under six months ago,’ Sara said. ‘She took the rooms in October.’
‘Not much to show.’ There was a curious absence of personal detail in this, a woman’s most personal room. No photographs, no knick-knacks, no magazines; the only picture was one of Sara’s abstracts in shades of yellow and blue above Megan’s bed.
‘She moved around a lot,’ Sara said. ‘She never really had the opportunity to put down roots.’
Foster was behind Sara, checking through a chest of drawers to the right of the window. He glanced over and Hart acknowledged the look with the barest flicker. This seemed more and more like a set-up by the minute. Foster returned to his search and Hart began a thorough scan of the room, looking for places where a camera or microphone might be hidden.
‘Bingo.’ Foster brought a faded shoebox from the bottom drawer of the dresser. He placed it on the bed, lifted the lid and carefully sifted through the contents with gloved hands.
‘Do you know what this is?’ Hart asked.
Sara Geddes shook her head. ‘I’ve never seen it before.’
The box contained a random collection of bus and rail tickets, a couple of programmes for pop concerts, pull-outs from magazines, ticket stubs for various attractions. There was a prefect’s badge, birthday badges, a butterfly hair-grip, a penknife and one six-by-four photograph.
‘She was in care?’ Foster said.
‘For a short time, after her mother died,’ Sara said. ‘How did you—?’
‘Kids in care get shunted around a lot,’ Foster said. ‘They’ve all got a little box of treasures like this — gives them a connection with the past. With home.’
Hart eyed him curiously, but Foster moved on. ‘Is this her?’ The photograph pictured a family group: mother and two children, the boy about fifteen years of age, the girl maybe five years old.
Sara studied the group. ‘It could be . . . She has the same colouring, the same fine features.’
‘Did she mention a brother?’ Hart asked.
‘Mm,’ Sara said, still distracted by the photograph. ‘He died.’
‘The father?’
‘She doesn’t remember him. He was killed in an accident on an oil rig when she was quite young.’
‘The Missing Persons Helpline has software that can age-up a photo,’ Hart suggested.
Foster tapped the photograph against the side of the box and after a moment’s consideration dropped it back inside and closed the lid. ‘Yeah, but we’ve got an artist on hand,’ he said, smiling at Sara. ‘You must’ve done a sketch or portrait of Megan at some time or other.’
‘Yes.’ There was something in her tone that Hart couldn’t identify. ‘I’m not sure it will be of any use to you.’
She showed them through to Megan’s office. It looked as if Megan had packed her belongings in a hurry, leaving a few unimportant items behind.
‘This is . . . ?’ Foster began.
‘How it always looks,’ Sara confirmed, looking sadly at the largely empty bookshelves.
‘There’s nothing missing?’
Sara’s eyes skimmed the room. ‘I didn’t come in here often. It was her workplace, I didn’t like to—’ She stopped, checked again. ‘Her laptop—’ She pointed to the bookshelves. ‘She normally keeps it there if she’s not using it.’
Hart was puzzled. ‘So she left — or was taken — within minutes of your arrival, leaving everything else but her laptop?’
‘Her work is everything to her,’ Sara said. ‘If she had to clear out, she’d make damn sure she took her research.’
‘And you don’t know what this research was?’
‘I’ve already told you that.’ Sara was used to the cross-examination techniques of barristers, she wouldn’t be so easy to trip up as
the average witness.
‘Was she a good payer?’
Sara frowned at Foster. ‘Payer?’
‘Did she pay her rent on time?’
She eyed him coldly. ‘Always.’
‘’Cos freelance journos, irregular income . . .’ He shrugged, palms up.
‘Always,’ Sara repeated, fixing him with a glare that could melt steel.
‘You spent evenings together,’ Hart said, drawing her attention from Foster. ‘Was she ever prone to mood swings? Did she seem overly anxious?’
‘She was worried about the man who was following her, naturally — so was I.’
‘She’s been here, what — six months?’ Foster said. ‘You must’ve got to know her well. Was she—?’ He broke off. ‘Did you ever worry about her . . .’
Hart saw that he was struggling for a suitably politically correct word. ‘Did you worry about her stability,’ she said. ‘Her mental state.’
Sara straightened, looking from Foster to Hart with frank contempt. ‘You botched Megan Ward’s complaint of stalking,’ she said. ‘So now you’re trying to imply that she imagined it?’
‘We’re exploring all possibilities, Miss Geddes,’ Hart said.
‘Except the very real possibility that Megan is in danger.’
They were losing ground fast, and if there were recording devices in the house, they were going to come out of it looking very bad. Hart looked Miss Geddes in the eye; she was a woman used to rules of evidence, balanced arguments. She was analytical and, despite her evident dissatisfaction with the police’s involvement to date, Hart felt she was a reasonable woman, too.
‘People go missing for all sorts of reasons,’ Hart began. ‘Top of the list is family conflict — now you ruled that particular scenario out when you told us that Miss Ward has no family. Other factors are debt, substance abuse, stress, depression and mental illness.’ She saw Sara absorbing all of this, matching their questions to the relevant statistic. ‘Abduction might be the most feared, but it’s also the least likely.’
Sara seemed to be wrestling with some emotion; at first Hart thought it was anger — she was frightened, and frightened people often felt the need to lash out — but then Hart saw something glisten in the woman’s eye. She turned away and lifted a canvas down from the wall.
‘Megan,’ she said. The painting was done in acrylics, the colours reminiscent of water and misty light. Through milky greys and blues an occasional flash of bright gold and red, like shafts of light, gashes of blood.
Foster held the painting in his hands, a look of surprised amusement in his face. ‘Not something you could put on Crimewatch, is it?’
Sara smiled, even laughed a little. It came out in a rush, as if she had been holding her breath; there were tears in it, and rising panic. She seemed to catch herself and made a visible effort to regain control. ‘I’ll sketch her for you,’ she said.
‘I don’t suppose you ever saw the man Megan said was stalking her?’ Hart asked.
‘Once . . .’ Sara frowned, evidently trying to recall the details of his face, his height and build. ‘It was dark. I could give you an impression.’
‘So long as it’s got eyes and a nose where you’d expect them to be,’ Foster said, squinting at the painting of Megan. He glanced up at Sara, tried his confused puppy smile on her, and it worked. She positively beamed back at him.
‘I’ll go and make a start,’ she said.
‘Before you do—’ Sara stopped and turned to Hart. ‘Do you know if Megan ever got any emails from this guy?’
It was strange to see doubt and confusion on Sara’s face. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry — I should have asked.’ She focused again on something slightly to Hart’s left. ‘She did say that someone had got past her firewall, if that means anything.’ She closed the door behind her and they listened to her footsteps retreating down the landing.
Hart and Foster locked gazes: people thought it was safe to talk behind a closed door. Had Sara closed it to give them privacy, or to give the illusion of privacy?
Foster shrugged. ‘What d’you think?’ he asked. The question was deliberately ambiguous.
Hart sighed and shrugged. For every action that had helped to persuade them that Sara Geddes was genuine, she performed another that made her look suspicious. ‘Worth asking Technical Support to take a look?’ She left him to decide whether she meant that they should check out the computer equipment for emails from Megan’s stalker, or the room for bugging devices.
Foster got it. He smiled and said with equal ambiguity, ‘Can’t hurt.’
‘Do we need to get clearance from the boss?’ Hart asked.
‘Nah — I’m making an executive decision,’ Foster said. ‘Let’s see what this sucker’s got to hide.’ He moved toward the computer system with a determined gleam in his eye.
Alarmed, Hart cleared her throat. It was enough to stop Foster in his tracks. He turned back to her, puzzled and a little impatient. Hart punched a number and spoke into her mobile, ‘Technical Support?’ she said, raising her eyebrows as she spoke. Are you with me, Sarge? From the look on his face, she guessed that he wasn’t, but he was canny enough to keep quiet.
‘DC Hart, Edge Hill Police Station,’ she continued. ‘I need some advice on treatment of computer evidence.’
Thirty minutes later, the back seat of their fleet car was stacked with computer components bagged and labelled separately. They had also taken the box of memorabilia, but they found no disks, CDs, notes, diaries or passwords among Megan’s personal effects.
‘Thanks,’ Foster said, taking the last bundle of bagged leads.
‘For what?’
‘For not making me look like a total dickhead over this lot.’
‘No problem.’ There were protocols for gathering computer evidence, and the slightest deviation from procedure could destroy evidence or mean that it was rejected by forensic examiners.
Hart leaned her arms on the roof of the car and looked across at him. ‘You did do the seminar?’ she asked, genuinely curious.
‘Yeah.’
‘Were you even awake?’
‘Daydreaming.’ The corner of Foster’s mouth twitched. ‘About you.’
Hart narrowed her eyes at him. He just never gave up. ‘It bothers me, there’s no backup disks or notes, though,’ she said.
‘Maybe she took them with her.’
‘Or somebody nicked them — people keep usernames and passwords close by their computer as a rule,’ Hart said. ‘Unless she’s hidden them in the paperbacks or manuals . . .’
She took a couple of fresh evidence bags from the boot of the car and made her way back inside. Sara came out of a room at the back of the house as Hart reached the bottom of the stairs with the bags full of books.
‘Megan,’ Sara said, tearing off a sheet from an A4 sketch pad.
Hart set one of the bags down on the hall floor and took the sketch. Megan had long hair, dark and straight; Sara had given it a glossy sheen. The face was attractive — a little long, perhaps, but the eyes were dark and luminous and the mouth full, suggesting sensitivity and perhaps vulnerability.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘This will help. We found no passport or driving licence.’ She posed this as a question.
‘She always carries them with her,’ Sara said.
‘What kind of car does she drive?’
Sara shook her head. ‘Something sporty. Silver. I’m not terribly good with cars. She bought it just after Christmas.’
Hart looked again at the sketch. They didn’t have much. ‘The stalker,’ she said. ‘Did you—?’
Sara tore off a second sheet. ‘It’s not very helpful, I’m afraid.’
The man was viewed from above. He was muscular, and he leaned forward on the balls of his feet, as though preparing for attack, but his face was a featureless shadow; for the purposes of identification, the sketch was useless.
‘Not to worry,’ Hart said. ‘If you think of anything that might help, if Megan con
tacts you — or if the man appears again — call me, anytime.’ She handed Sara a business card with her mobile and direct line numbers, together with her email address.
Sara nodded, suddenly looking frightened and tearful, as if this small detail had made her friend’s disappearance seem more real.
‘Anytime,’ Hart emphasised.
Sara nodded again, unable to make eye contact, and Hart felt unhappy about leaving her alone in this big house, worried for her friend, and with the possibility of a stalker hanging around the place.
‘If the stalker shows up, note the time. Dial this number, or the main switchboard, quoting the case number I gave you.’ Having some positive contribution to make to an enquiry often made people feel less helpless.
Sara Geddes looked into her face, understanding what she was trying to do. She offered Hart her hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
* * *
‘Well, Naomi,’ Foster said as she got into the car. ‘You seem to have made a good impression. Think she bats for the other side?’
Hart sucked her teeth. ‘We shook hands, Sarge. And if you’re suggesting that I must “bat for the other side” because I turned you down—’
‘Woah!’ Foster exclaimed. ‘Pause and rewind there, girl. I never meant nothing by it. You know me, I just engage my mouth before my brain’s in gear sometimes. Talking of which—’ He slotted the key in the ignition and fired up the engine. ‘But say them two did have a — thing. They might’ve had a lover’s tiff and Megan stormed off.’
‘Sara isn’t gay,’ Hart said, amused.
Foster pulled away from the kerb, checking the rear-view mirror. ‘How d’you work that one out?’
‘For one thing, she’s wearing a wedding ring on her third finger, right hand. I think she’s a widow.’
Foster glanced at her. ‘Doesn’t mean she’s not—’
‘For another, she was taken in by the Foster charm.’ Foster frowned at her. ‘“So long as it’s got eyes and a nose where you’d expect them to be”,’ Hart quoted, with a grotesque imitation of Foster’s sad-puppy smile.
Chapter Six
Naomi Hart dragged her fingers through her hair and tugged at her shirt hem in an effort to smooth out some of the wrinkles. She knocked at DCI Rickman’s door just as Foster turned the corner.
SEE HER DIE a totally gripping mystery thriller (Detective Jeff Rickman Book 2) Page 3