Claire sat down and plucked a piece of lint from her trousers. “Is this your house? You own it?”
Emma’s cheeks reddened. “No. Dad’s. It’s way too big for me, but he insisted I live here. I just wanted a little flat somewhere outside London.”
“And the security?” Claire pressed. “That was his idea too?”
“And my mum,” Emma said in a quiet voice.
Claire sat back and appraised her surroundings again. “What about your move? Is that a recent decision?”
“Dad’s going to renovate this place,” Emma said. “Everything needs to go into storage.”
Claire switched on a Dictaphone and placed it on her lap. “The police found Sophie’s body wrapped in a sheet.” She wanted to get straight down to business. “Someone shot her.” When this didn’t elicit a response, she pressed on. “They found Sophie in the woods.”
Emma rummaged in the crate and produced a teaspoon. “I know,” she said in barely a whisper, “I put her there.” Emma looked over at the journalists. “Tea or coffee?”
“You—” Claire glanced at the red light on the Dictaphone. “You’re admitting you killed Sophie?”
“No. I didn’t say that.” Emma’s tone remained soft and calm. “So, tea or coffee, Ms Campbell?”
“Coffee.” Claire had to hand it to her; Emma Greco was observant. Preacher had warned them. Several times. Claire ignored the rumours and put Emma’s skills down to a lifetime of having to deal with police officers and journalists. She tugged at her cuffs. “What gave it away?” Emma obviously knew their names before they’d set foot inside the house, but Claire assumed the way she dressed declared her seniority. It so often did.
Emma spooned coffee granules into a mug. “You spoke first. The one who’s in charge always speaks before anyone else.”
Melody sniggered and Claire shot her a warning look.
“What about you?” Emma asked her.
“Nothing for me.” Melody peered into the open box. “May I?” She pulled out a canvas: a painting of a girl standing beside the River Thames in the rain, done in bright colours and fine brushstrokes. The inscription in the corner read: City Rain by Ava Macintosh. “I love art.” Melody angled it in the light. “This is a great piece.”
“Thank you,” Emma said.
Melody returned the painting to the box and flipped through more. “Wait. These are all by the same artist.” Her eyes widened. “This is you? You’re Ava Macintosh?”
Emma gestured around the room. “This was my studio.”
“Seriously?” Melody’s voice rose. “You’re amazing.”
Emma poured the drinks, then added precise amounts of milk to each mug. “Thanks.”
“No, I’m serious,” Melody insisted. “Your paintings have been in loads of galleries.” She took a breath. “You give them away to charities, right?”
Emma’s cheeks flushed again.
“I guess you don’t need money with parents like yours,” Claire said in a low tone.
Emma shook her head. “Apart from the house and security, which Mum and Dad insist on, I pay my own way.”
“Were you born creative?” Melody asked. “I bet you were the envy of all your classmates.”
Emma smiled. “I was homeschooled.”
Melody studied the next painting: a girl holding an umbrella under an overcast sky stood in the middle of Millennium Bridge. This one was called Better Days. “It’s so detailed. Have you got a photographic memory?”
“My brain is just weird,” Emma muttered.
“In what way?” Claire asked as she adjusted the Dictaphone on her lap and angled the microphone.
Emma glanced over at her. “The best way I can describe what I can do, is that every time I look at something, it’s like seeing it for the first time. It’s how I can remember places and objects so well.”
“Sounds great,” Melody said.
“Not really,” Emma said. “My thoughts can obsess with the why, and if I’m not careful, they run away with me.”
Claire’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Emma gestured at the bottle of milk on the counter. “Like why someone chose that shape and size of container, that thickness of plastic. How was it made? Where’s the farm? The bottling plant?” She shook her head. “It’s exhausting.”
Melody returned the Millennium Bridge painting to the box and moved to another box crammed full of canvases.
“Most people’s brains recognise an object they’ve seen before and filter out unwanted information the next time,” Emma said in response to Melody’s puzzled expression.
“Is that why you wear sunglasses indoors?” Claire asked.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Emma said. “Sorry if it came across like that. I can find the world overwhelming without them. Sunglasses help reduce the noise. That’s why I paint—to get some of the images out of my head.”
Melody lifted out the next canvas, called Promise of Summer: two rows of trees, their leaves a myriad of golden hues with delicate hints of purple. She frowned at the signature. “Rosalee Franco?”
Emma stirred the drinks in slow clockwise circles. “I sign with different pseudonyms.”
Melody returned the painting to the box. “Why?”
Emma handed Claire a mug of coffee. “I get to be someone else for a while.”
Melody lifted out another canvas, titled Mood, mostly monochrome, with a hint of colour highlighting a man standing inside a stone archway, arms folded, and head bowed. She read the signature. “Savannah Miller?”
“Would either of you like a biscuit?” Emma asked. “I think I have cakes somewhere too.”
Claire held up a hand. “Not for me.”
“And what’s this one?” Melody strode over to the canvas under the dust sheet. She leaned in and peered at the exposed section of artwork. “Westminster Bridge?”
“Last painting done in this studio,” Emma said. “The Frasier Gallery should be here to collect it soon.”
“That Frasier Gallery?” Melody pointed out the window. “On Bloomsbury Street? We passed it on the way here.”
Claire consulted her watch and frowned at Melody to remind her they only had an hour and a half. She’d wasted ten minutes with this inane chatter.
Melody took the hint, dropped into the seat next to her and pulled a notebook from her jacket pocket.
“Why did you agree to talk to us?” Claire asked Emma.
She sat opposite, feet up on the chair and knees under her chin, hands cupped around the mug as though she gained strength from its warmth. “I said on the phone that I’d be happy to, on one condition.” Emma held up a finger. “Nothing I say here can be on the record. Hearsay only. Not my name, my family, or anyone else involved. Everyone’s anonymous.” She eyed the Dictaphone on Claire’s lap. “I won’t sign anything either.”
Claire nodded but didn’t switch it off. “You said that you placed Sophie’s body in the woods.” That admission alone was enough to get Emma into deep trouble, but Claire kept her cool. She wanted Nightshade more. So did the Chief. “Why did you do that?”
Emma stared into her mug. “I don’t remember much of my childhood, especially before the age of five or six, but one time I do recall was when I was eight years old.” She looked up. “My parents made sure someone was with me at all times, a bodyguard, but still let me go to the Tate Modern most days.” Her expression glazed over. “I’d go straight to the Andy Warhol exhibition and sit in front of his Statue of Liberty painting. For those twenty minutes, I’d escape to America. I wasn’t Emma Greco anymore.” She glanced at Melody. “That’s why I had to be an artist—to be free.”
Melody beamed at her.
“One day I went to the gallery and the painting was gone,” Emma continued. “Replaced by Elvis. I was devastated.” She sipped her coffee. “I ran home and straight to my bedroom, but you know what I found hanging above my desk?”
Melody’s eyebrows lifted. “The Statue of Liberty?”
>
“My grandfather, Salvatorre Greco, had heard about my museum visits and bought the painting for me.” Emma snapped her fingers. “As easy as that. From a place that has only ever sold one duplicate Lichtenstein print.” Her gaze dropped back to the mug. “That’s how I first learned about my family.” She shook her head. “Having that kind of influence is crazy.”
“That’s an interesting anecdote,” Claire said. “But you haven’t answered my question.”
“You’re an only child?” Melody asked.
Claire frowned at her.
“I had an older sister,” Emma said. “Died a long time ago.”
There came a knock at the studio door, and the beefy Asian security guard stepped into the room. He removed his cap and nodded at the covered painting on the easel. “Frasier Gallery are here to collect your work.”
“Of course. Do you want my help?” Emma made to stand, but the security guy waved her back down.
“I’ve got it.” He lifted the painting, cloth and all, from the easel and tucked it under his arm. After a glance at the journalists, he left and closed the door behind him.
“So,” Claire folded her arms, “Going back to Sophie. If you didn’t kill her, then who did?”
Emma lifted her chin. “Look, I’ll explain what happened and why, but nothing more. No direct evidence can come from me. I want the story to come out, that’s why I called you, for people to know what really happened, but you can’t attach my name to it.” When she received half-hearted nods in reply, she said, “Four days ago, I got—”
“Wait,” Claire interrupted. “Sorry, four days ago? You mean Sunday? The day Sophie was murdered?” She glanced at Melody to make sure her assistant was writing this down. “Just so we’re crystal clear,” Claire focussed back on Emma, “you got a phone call before or after Sophie’s murder?”
Emma sighed. “After,” she said. “Several hours after, unfortunately.”
Claire nodded. “Okay. Carry on.”
Emma took a deep breath. “Four days ago, I got a phone call . . .”
3
Four Days Ago
Emma awoke with a start. The real world yanked her from kaleidoscope dreams of flying cruise ships piloted by ghosts, as she floated over urban landscapes of exploding neon skyscrapers, while chunks of jet planes rained from the sky.
She sat up, prised a graphite pencil from her forehead, and wiped drool from the corner of her mouth. She’d fallen asleep at her desk again. Great. And judging by the crazy images, Emma’s subconscious had hunted for its next muse while under the influence of too much alcohol.
She squinted past her throbbing temples and dizziness, and eyed a half-drained bottle of vodka, an empty bottle of red wine, and another of white. Taped to the red was a note written in matching ink.
Em,
You muttered something about wanting to sketch me and then passed out. Charming! Tried to wake you up but you were soundo. By the way, you snore. Did you know? Really loudly. You should see someone about that. Like, seriously. Yikes!
Anyway, call me later and we’ll grab lunch.
Olivia X
Emma smiled as she recalled their evening together. They had laughed until their bellies hurt. Olivia told stories and shared gossip while she drank her favourite white wine and Emma guzzled the red, racing each other to the bottom of the bottles. Olivia won. She always did. Emma couldn’t understand how, because white wine was disgusting.
Emma’s phone vibrated, and pulled her back to the horrible reality of her hangover and sandpaper mouth. The electronic nuisance danced its way across the desk and threatened to leap off the edge. For a second, she considered letting it.
Emma sighed, snatched up the phone, and croaked, “Hello?”
“Where the bloody hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for the past half an hour. I was about to call your security.”
“Hey, Mum.” Emma spun round in her office chair and scanned the studio, packed full of paintings and art supplies, all organized and in their proper places. “What time is it?” The thick curtains made it hard to tell.
“Seven o’clock,” came the curt reply.
“A.M.?” Emma groaned and eyed the sofa bed under an American flag. “Phone me back in a few hours.” She went to end the call, but her mother’s shriek stopped her. “What’s wrong? Mum?”
“We need Nightshade.”
Emma sat bolt upright, now fully awake. “What? Why?”
“Something requires investigation.”
Emma pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why can’t you do it?”
Once, when Emma was eight, someone had burgled their house while they were on holiday. Two weeks later, with nothing to go on but a cigarette butt and a footprint under the sitting-room window, her mother had tracked down the guy.
Emma yawned. “I don’t understand why you need Nightshade.” In her eyes, Emma’s mother was a genius: able to spot the tiniest details, root out liars and find the truth, no matter how well buried. Those were a few of the many attributes that had helped her become such a successful businesswoman. So, if something bad had happened, Maria Hernandez was the perfect person to figure it out.
“I can’t do it this time,” Maria said in a tight voice. “Not unless we want to risk a war.”
Emma’s eyebrows lifted. “Why would it come to that?”
“This involves both families.”
Emma groaned. Now it made sense. If this affected both the Greco and Hernandez families, then Emma, the daughter of Richard Greco and Maria Hernandez, was the only person they trusted to move freely between them.
Her parents’ divorce had been the very definition of the word acrimonious.
“I can’t, Mum.” Emma glanced around the comforting surroundings of her studio. “Sort it out between you. I really would like to help, but—”
“I’ll make you a deal. If you do this—if you come here with Nightshade and she helps us—you’ll have my full blessing.”
“Full blessing for what?”
“To go to America.”
Emma leapt to her feet and the office chair slid into a table of art materials, knocking tubes of paint and brushes to the floor. “Can you say that again, please?” Her attention moved to a large canvas on the far wall that depicted the Manhattan skyline. Emma had painted it from photographs, but . . . To go there after years of dreaming and hoping? She longed to see America with her own eyes.
“I mean it,” Maria said. “No more security. Well, almost none. You’ll be free to live any way you want.”
“What about Dad?” Emma tensed at the pause which followed.
“Richard will agree.” Her mother’s tone hardened. “But let me be very clear about this: if Nightshade should fail, you’ll drop this idea of living in America once and for all. Understood? And you will move in with me.”
“What?” Emma rolled her eyes. Of course there was a catch. “Come on, Mum. I’m twenty-four: an adult. You can’t force me to—”
“You’re our daughter, and that’s why we have you so well-protected. But if someone could do this right under our noses, then who can tell how deep it runs. It might be a power play by a rival family. We don’t know what we’re up against. We need to solve the problem, and fast.”
Emma took a breath and composed herself. If her mother was willing to promise America in exchange, and also convince her father it was a good idea, this had to be serious. “Right. Okay. What happened?”
“It’s Sophie.”
Emma yawned again. “What about her?”
“She’s dead.”
Emma stiffened. “No.” Her legs wobbled. “I only saw her a few days ago. We had coffee.” Dad’s fiancée dead? It couldn’t be true. “How?”
“Murdered.”
Emma’s world drained of colour and her knees almost gave way. She staggered between the stacks of canvases, paintings, hundreds of journals, and shelves filled with half-abandoned sculptures, as if walking would ease the shock. “When
?”
“Best we can tell, a few hours ago.”
There had to be a mistake. Murdered? Sophie? Who would do that? Emma ground to a halt as another thought struck her. She struggled to form the words. “The baby?”
Maria sighed. “Gone.”
Emma dropped into an armchair covered with paint-splattered dust sheets and pulled her knees up to her chin. She wanted to disappear. “Who did it? Any idea?” What evil deviant could kill a pregnant woman?
“A lot of wild theories are flying about,” Maria said. “People creating monsters out of shadows. That’s why we need you working with Nightshade. You’re someone we can all trust: someone neutral. It’s that or war.”
Emma sat forward. “Wait a minute. If this is about Sophie’s murder, why are you calling me and not Dad? How does it affect both families?”
An ominous pause followed, and Emma held her breath.
“Jacob found her body at the farm.”
Emma sighed. Now it made sense. If someone had killed Sophie at Maria’s warehouse, it was a miracle that civil war hadn’t broken out already.
“You know it’s the only way,” her mother continued. “You agreed that—”
“I know.” Emma remembered her promise all too well. She had sworn a blood oath in front of each family to help if a day like this should ever come. The family members had approved in turn to let Emma move freely between them with no resistance. She would escort Nightshade and aid her with her tasks.
Emma had thought it was ridiculous at the time. She’d only wanted to keep her parents from killing each other; she’d never expected them to enforce the oath. Indeed, Emma had done her best her entire life to avoid their worlds.
Then, already under the weight of her sadness regarding Sophie and the baby, Emma recalled her mother’s promise about America, which added extra pressure. She exhaled. “I’ll do it.”
“Everyone’s coming to the farm,” Maria said. “No one will be allowed to leave until you and Nightshade get here.”
“We’ll be as quick as we can. Love you, bye.” In a daze, Emma sent a few texts, then changed into a clean hoodie and jeans. She pulled the hood up and slipped on a pair of sunglasses, all the while Emma tried not to imagine what gruesome scene she’d have to witness.
Death in London: A Nightshade Crime Thriller (Emma & Nightshade Mystery Series Book 1) Page 2