by Lodge, Gytha
Flat 15 turned out to be occupied by a young man with a slightly harassed expression. He sighed when she asked for his help, but he let her into his sitting room—a carbon copy of Zoe’s—and even offered Hanson a cup of tea.
“That’s OK, thanks,” she told him with a smile as he drifted toward the kitchen area. It was best not to accept hospitality. It made it harder to leave in a hurry. “I’m just here to ask whether you saw or heard anything strange on Thursday night.”
“Thursday?” he asked, looking around with a distracted expression as if wondering what he’d come to the kitchen for. “Umm…What sort of things? Has there been a burglary?”
Hanson felt a rush of surprise. Most of the other neighbors had known what she was asking about as soon as she’d explained she was from the police. Was he really unaware that his neighbor had been murdered?
“No, I’m afraid there’s been a murder.”
He stopped looking around and focused on her. “What?”
“The young woman living in the flat next door, I’m afraid.”
“Oh my God,” he said, and leaned back against the counter, his eyes strobing left to right, left to right. Trying to remember something, she thought. “Zoe. The artist.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.” Hanson looked away from him, scanning the flat. There was a desk by the window, with an open laptop and a huge pair of headphones. It looked like he’d been working. And then her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out to look at a message from the DCI.
Tip-off from Felix Solomon about man in Flat 15. Piers Lough. Apparently a sex offender. We’re checking it out, but suggest waiting to interview him.
“What happened?” the young man asked, and Hanson did her best to smile up at him as if her pulse rate hadn’t just doubled.
“Sorry? Oh. We’re investigating,” she said, aware that her voice sounded strained. “But we’d class it as a suspicious death, so we really need to know if you saw or heard anything.”
She wondered if she should message the DCI back, or pretend that she needed to leave. But it seemed ridiculous. He might be a sex offender of some kind, but that didn’t mean she had to be afraid to be in the same room as him.
“Right,” he was saying. “God, that’s really horrible. I was…I was here. On Thursday night.”
Hanson gave him an attempt at a smile and pulled out her notebook.
“That’s useful to know,” she said, telling herself that she was going to do this interview right and stop being pathetic. “Could I ask if you saw or heard Zoe coming or going from the flat that evening?”
“No, I wasn’t…I’ve been working flat-out. I’m supposed to be audiotyping a load of files and they arrived late, and since Wednesday I’ve barely been outside. Sorry.” He waved a hand toward the laptop.
“That’s all right,” she started to say with a smile.
“Oh, wait.” His eyes flicked left to right again, and then he said, “You know I actually think I did hear her. It must have been on Thursday. I was trying to work and someone was talking really loudly, and it kept cutting through the audiotapes to the point where I was having to stop and rewind. It was driving me mad, and I was thinking of going and finding out who it was and having a go. But then it quieted down.”
“That’s really useful,” Hanson said, scribbling in her notebook but wondering whether this might be a way of diverting attention from his criminal record. “Do you know what time that was?”
“Ahh…” He was thoughtful again, and then offered, “It would have been nineish. Maybe a bit later. Not really late because I remember thinking it wasn’t the kind of time where you could call the police and complain…” He gave a sudden short laugh. “And I know that sounds totally over the top, but that’s how stressed out I’ve been about it all.”
Hanson gave him what she hoped was a sympathetic smile as she watched him carefully. She wondered about the slight sheen of sweat on his face. About the nervous fiddling with his hair. “Can you give any more details? Was it an argument?”
“Yes, I think so,” he said. “Though I was mostly hearing only one voice. I couldn’t hear any words,” he added. “It was just this booming right over the top of the voices on the tape.”
“A male voice?” she asked.
“Yes, definitely.”
“And you say it suddenly ended? What time would that be?”
“Well, not much later…” He broke off, and then said with a triumphant smile, “Nine twenty-seven! It was at nine twenty-seven. I’d told myself if he didn’t shut the hell up by nine-thirty, I’d go and bang on the door.”
“And you think it came from next door?” she asked.
“Oh, well, I’m not certain.” He gave her a worried look. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pretend I thought…It could have been from above or below, to be honest. I was getting it through the headphones. It must have been from one of those three flats, though, as you don’t get noise from any others. It’s unusual to hear anything at all. They’re reasonably well insulated.”
Hanson nodded, a little more convinced by his uncertainty than she had been by his certainty. Perhaps he really had heard something. Though it might have nothing to do with Zoe’s death.
It occurred to her then that an argument might tie in with the bruising on Zoe’s hand. What if the argument had become violent, and Zoe had ended up hitting her attacker? Might she have some of the killer’s DNA on her knuckles?
She decided that she could both check his story and narrow down where any noise had come from. She just needed to check the flats above and below.
“That’s been really, really useful, Mr….” She tailed off, realizing that she hadn’t asked his name, and only knew it from the message from the DCI. She smiled politely. “Could I take your name?”
“Oh, sorry,” he said. “Piers. Piers Lough.”
She wrote it down despite already knowing it and took his phone number and email as well. And then she thanked him and left, profoundly relieved once she was out in the hall with the door shut behind her.
* * *
—
LIGHTMAN SETTLED HIMSELF at his desk, immediately comforted at having a task list that played to his strengths. Things had been up in the air since yesterday, and although working on a Saturday wasn’t exactly routine, it still gave him a sense of normality.
He decided to tackle the alibis before the sex offender. Alphabetical approaches to lists were his go-to whenever there wasn’t a clear order of priority.
It wasn’t the easiest task to call the Swardadines and ask them if they could confirm their own movements on the night of their daughter’s death, but Siku seemed to approve of his thoroughness at least.
“Just as long as you’re being equally rigorous elsewhere,” she said. And then, after a pause, “You haven’t found out any more about what Aidan was doing?”
“We’re checking his story using a digital trail,” Lightman said immediately, glad that he’d read the DCI’s notes on his interview of the night before. He didn’t add that the digital trail seemed to support Aidan’s innocence. That, as far as Lightman was concerned, was up to the chief to reveal. “We’re taking it very seriously, given his relationship to Zoe.”
“Good,” Siku said. She then went on to explain that she’d been doing locum work at Highfield Surgery in West Hampstead, one of several urgent clinics to which she gave locum hours during evenings and weekends.
“Thank you. And your husband?”
“Martin was at a dinner, I think.” There were muffled movements, and then Siku called to her husband. “Martin. Martin! Was it a client dinner you were at on Thursday?”
“Fuller and Michael,” came the audible response.
“Got it, thanks,” Lightman said. It would be easy enough to check that with Martin’s own firm, though he doubted he’d get an answer on a Saturday.
So that was the mother ruled out, then, Lightman thought, putting the phone down. There was predictably no reply at Martin Swardadine’s office, so he made a note to call again later and then again on Monday if he’d had no joy.
Greta Poole’s press dinner proved easy to google, and the event organizer’s mobile phone number was listed on the website under the name Penny Dawson. Penny answered after a few rings.
“This is DS Ben Lightman from Hampshire Constabulary,” he said. “I’ve got a boring bit of pro forma to do. I just need to establish that Greta Poole was an award presenter at Thursday’s dinner.”
“Right,” Penny said, clearly thrown. “I…Who did you say?”
“DS Lightman,” he repeated. “From Hampshire Constabulary. If you’d like to check the website and call me back, that’s fine. I’m listed on there.”
“That’s OK,” Penny said. “I just wasn’t expecting a call. Yeah, Greta was presenting the award for science writing that she won last year.”
“Was this an after-dinner presentation?”
“Yeah. The guests all sat down at seven forty-five, and then we did the awards at nine. Greta did hers…fifth, I think? Sorry…” Her tone suddenly changed. “What exactly is this for?”
“Just establishing timings before an altercation a little later in the evening,” Lightman said. “It’s highly likely that Mrs. Poole wasn’t involved, but we have to check.”
“Oh, right,” Penny said. “Well, I don’t think she can have been in an altercation later on. She was at the dinner until really late. She helped put one of the other delegates to bed.”
“Ah, that’s useful,” Lightman said warmly. “Thank you. Do you know what time?”
“That must have been…a little before one?” Penny replied. “I wasn’t drinking, by the way. In case that helps.”
“That’s great, thank you,” Lightman said.
So Greta Poole was unsurprisingly also placed in London on that night. The third alibi he had on his list was Felix Solomon’s, though it was for a time earlier in the evening than Zoe had almost certainly been killed. While it was technically a box-ticking exercise, it represented a good opportunity to talk to a suspect’s friend.
He put a call through to Felix’s friend Esther, who answered with initial trepidation but warmed up swiftly when she learned they wanted to ask about Felix.
“Oh, you don’t think Felix has done anything? He’s such a gentle soul.” She had a warm, lively voice and an accent that Lightman thought might be of Czech origin. “I did have tea with him, and then I went to drive home. I think I headed off at about five, maybe?” she said. “I started thinking I’d better get moving to be back to make food. I live in Winchester now.”
“And how did he seem?”
Esther gave a sigh. “He was like he sometimes is. A little in need of comfort.”
“Comfort?” Lightman thought back to the man they had just seen, who had seemed to need no help of any kind.
“He has PTSD,” she said. “Sometimes it gets really bad, and he needs company. He often calls when it’s awful, just to hear someone’s voice. I answer when I can, but I have a family, you know?”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Lightman said. “Do you know what it dates back to? The PTSD?”
“He never told me, and I wasn’t going to pry,” Esther replied.
“Well, that’s helpful. Thank you.”
Lightman ended the call and started to type his notes up carefully, thinking that the chief would want to know this unexpected side to Zoe’s landlord. Though perhaps it was a surprise only to Lightman.
* * *
—
JONAH FOUND HIMSELF considering everything that Felix Solomon had said for some time after he’d left. He still couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was about the man that unsettled him. It was somewhere between his calm and the way he spoke. It was as if he knew everything Jonah was going to ask before he asked it.
He realized that Hanson would probably still be near to the crime scene when Felix arrived home. He called her mobile.
“How’s it going?”
“Good,” Hanson said. “Though unfortunately I was already in Flat Fifteen when you messaged.”
“Ah,” Jonah said. “Sorry about that. All OK?”
“I think so,” she said. “He seems nervous, as I suppose you would be with a criminal record. He also said he heard a man yelling in what he thought was Zoe’s flat, and the upstairs neighbor’s just confirmed it. So it wasn’t fabricated, and while it could still have been him doing the shouting, it’d be weird to draw attention to it if so.”
“What time?” Jonah asked, sitting up.
“Nineish. Done before half past. So a while before the probable time of death, but it’s interesting.”
“That it is,” Jonah agreed, thinking of the two wineglasses that had been on Zoe’s worktop. If Zoe had argued with someone, it was possible that it had been the killer. And if she’d drunk with them, they might well have the killer’s DNA on a wineglass. “Are you still at the flats?”
“Just leaving now,” Hanson replied.
“Could you hang around for a bit?” Jonah asked. “Until Felix Solomon gets back? I’d like eyes on him, particularly as he still has Zoe’s key. He claimed he hadn’t brought it with him, but I have a strong suspicion that wasn’t true.”
“Sure,” Hanson said with what he sensed was false enthusiasm. “What did he have to say, apart from the sex offender stuff?”
“Not much of an alibi,” Jonah said. “He’s also strangely self-confident, and he’s clearly a smart guy, both of which are ramping him up in the suspicion stakes.”
“OK. I’ll be here.”
* * *
—
HANSON OCCUPIED HERSELF with strolling up and down Latterworth Road on the out-of-town side of the block of flats, keeping the door in sight and glancing over at it frequently. It was a wide, quiet road, and it should be reasonably easy to spot Felix approaching. At that point, she would have to follow him inside as quietly as she could. There was nowhere within the building she could get away with waiting.
She found herself thinking about Piers Lough again, wondering what he’d done to end up on the sex offenders register. She wondered whether Zoe had known about him, or had trusted him as a friendly next-door neighbor. The thought was skin-crawling. Though it had been Felix Solomon who had had a key to the flat, she thought. Not Piers Lough.
She turned again at the top of the road, and saw Felix making his way on foot toward the front door. She immediately pulled her phone out and pretended to be making a call, but Felix didn’t seem to notice her.
She waited until he’d let himself into the building, and then began to walk as quickly as she could toward it. The door had just closed by the time she got there, and she checked that he was no longer in the hallway before using the fob.
There was the swish and bang of a fire door closing somewhere above. She hurried to the stairs and then went up them as silently as she could, taking them two at a time but planting her feet carefully. She peered through the glass panel in the fire door toward the first floor, but there was no sign of Felix. His door was shut, too.
She hesitated, and then climbed up to the second floor, taking care again to be quiet. The fire door was shut here, too, and there was no sign of anyone outside Number 17. But by flattening herself against the door and peering at an angle, she could see farther, all the way to Zoe’s door and a little past.
And there was Felix Solomon
, standing frozen in front of the door with a key held out in the palm of his hand. Hanson reached for her phone, thinking of photographing him, but then he looked up suddenly and met her gaze.
She reacted quickly, despite the thumping of her heart. She opened the door and stepped into the hallway with a smile.
“Oh, hi,” she said as he swiftly and unsmilingly returned the key to his right-hand trouser pocket and turned away from the door.
“Good afternoon,” Felix said, and his slight smile was back once again, easy and confident. “You’re not looking for me, are you?”
“No, no,” Hanson said, for some reason feeling like she was the one who had to explain herself. “I’m just…trying to find Zoe’s cat.” She gave him a nod.
“Oh,” Felix said, his expression showing sudden concern. “Is he missing?”
“We haven’t seen him yet,” Hanson replied. “But hopefully he’s just hiding somewhere in the flat.”
“I hope so,” Felix said. “He’s a beautiful thing. Snow white and a total charmer. He’s probably missing her a lot.”
Hanson was closer now, and the corridor was well lit enough for her to see that Felix Solomon’s eyes were damp.
“You must miss her, too,” she said quietly.
“Yes.” Felix nodded. “Yes, I do. And I want you to catch whoever did it.”
“What were you doing up here?” she asked gently.
Felix glanced toward Zoe’s door. “I was trying to summon up the courage to have a look inside. And before you say anything, I know it’s a crime scene. I wasn’t going to touch anything, and you’ll have done all your prints already. I just wanted to see the empty flat and know…well. Know that it’s true.”
Hanson watched him steadily, and then said, “I’d better take the key, if you don’t mind?”
Felix fixed her with a very steely gaze, despite the hint of tears. “It is…my flat, you know.”
Hanson simply held her hand out and waited. Felix continued to hold her gaze for a few seconds and then looked away. He made a frustrated sound and pulled the key out of his pocket. He pressed it into her hand.