The Stranger You Know (Maeve Kerrigan Novels)

by Jane Casey

  I was encouraged by the news that they were failing to make a case. It meant that Godley might be more receptive to a new suspect. Especially if I could find some reason to get a search warrant for Stuart’s flat. In the past, I would have assumed I’d get a fair hearing from Godley and Burt, but I knew they would be a hard pair to convince now. I’d blown through a lot of credit in the past week—probably more than I had to spare.

  I had been waiting for about two hours and was making my seventh or eighth cup of tea when Ben Dornton put his head into the kitchen. “There’s a nice Japanese lady asking for you.”

  “Brilliant. At last.”

  “You get all the interesting cases,” he said wistfully. “I’m going to interview a guy who stabbed someone for his drugs out the back of Euston. He’ll probably plead guilty in the end. That’s my career.”

  I tilted my head back to show him the aurora borealis of bruising around my neck. “Interesting is overrated.”

  “I wouldn’t mind some of that. I could be the hero for a change.”

  “Trying to impress someone?” I asked slyly, and laughed as he actually blushed. He was utterly smitten with the lovely Christine and I wished him the best of luck.

  When I got back to my desk, the translator was standing near it and I could see immediately why Dornton had described her as a lady. She was in her mid-forties and impeccably dressed in a cashmere twinset, tweed skirt and pearls. More English than the Queen, I thought, and introduced myself.

  “I am Akiko Larkin. How can I help?” Her voice was soft, her English practically unaccented. I dragged a chair over so she could sit beside me.

  “I want to call a police station in Japan to find out about a suspect.” I filled her in as quickly as I could and she listened, taking in everything I said, making an occasional note.

  “It might take a little while to speak to the right person. There will be someone there at this time, but maybe not the person we need.”

  “Worth a try,” I said firmly, and handed her the phone. I was relying on her to do my job for me and I hoped she was as efficient as she seemed to be.

  It took two or three phone calls to track down the right bit of the prefectural police for Takayama, and then a half-hour wait for the relevant inspector, Nakamura Shoichi, to phone us back once Akiko had explained why we were calling.

  “Nakamura is his surname,” Akiko explained, having established that I knew more or less nothing about Japan and Japanese customs. “In Japanese the surname comes first.”

  “So you should be Larkin Akiko?”

  She laughed politely. “Before I was married I was Sakamoto Akiko. But I have been married to an Englishman for more than twenty years and I am used to being Mrs. Larkin.”

  The phone rang and I answered it, passing it to Akiko when the person on the other end tried to talk to me in Japanese. She spoke rapidly and softly into the phone, as I tried to pick out any phrases I recognized. Stuart’s name sounded very odd rendered in its Japanese pronunciation. Aside from “hai” and “arigatou,” I didn’t manage to understand much, but Akiko made copious notes. She ended on a flurry of thanks, hung up before I could stop her and turned to me.

  “I can call him back if you have any more questions, but I thought you would want to hear what he had to say.”

  “Go on.” I hated getting everything secondhand, but there was nothing else I could do.

  “Inspector Nakamura knew who I meant immediately. Your suspect was a resident in Takayama for a long time and the local community knew him quite well. He had a Japanese girlfriend who lived with him. He was very settled there and happy, but then a tourist was murdered and he came under suspicion.”

  “For what reason?”

  “He had met her a couple of days before she died and made friends with her. His girlfriend had just left him and the victim’s friends thought they had started a sexual relationship.”

  “How did she die?”

  “She was strangled,” Akiko said calmly.

  “But they didn’t arrest him.”

  “There was no other evidence against him and he left before they could find anything.”

  “Left as in left the country?”

  “Yes. He abandoned his car and many belongings. The inspector was quite concerned that he was guilty but he wasn’t able to pursue it because there was no evidence beyond his suspicion. Mr. Sinclair called Inspector Nakamura from London and said that he was depressed because of his relationship breaking up and he wouldn’t return to Japan. He said he left in a hurry because he was suicidal, and he made arrangements to have everything sold or given to charity.”

  “Did the inspector tell you anything else?”

  “He suggested that you speak to Mr. Sinclair’s girlfriend. Her name is Takahashi Yumi. She was reluctant to speak to Inspector Nakamura but now some time has passed she might have changed her mind.”

  Another phone call to Japan. Super. “Did he give you any way of contacting her?”

  “He had anticipated we might want to speak to her and contacted her family before he phoned us. I have her name and address, and her telephone number. She lives in Bayswater.”

  “In London?”

  “She’s a student at St. Martins College.” Akiko put her notebook in her bag. “She will speak English. You don’t need me.”

  I stopped thinking about the wonderful, glorious news that the girlfriend was in London, which was practically the first bit of luck I’d had so far. “I might need you to translate something. I might need you to call someone else in Japan.”

  She nodded, not smiling but obviously pleased. I rang the number she gave me and managed to get through to Yumi straight away.

  “It’s regarding Stuart Sinclair.”

  There was a gasp at the other end of the line, and then she spoke again, very quietly. “Is he in trouble?”

  “I need to ask you some background information about him, but it’s very important that you keep this confidential.”

  She considered that in silence and I asked another, very important question.

  “Are you in touch with him at the moment?”

  “No. I never want to see Stuart again!” I thought she was going to hang up but after a second she sighed. “When do you want to meet?”

  “Now, if possible.” I gave her the address of the office and she promised to come straight away, even though she had a lecture. I hung up and Akiko picked up her bag.

  “You have spoken with her. You know she speaks English well enough.”

  “Please, stay.” Something made me feel she might be useful, still. “Just until after the interview.”

  “All right.”

  “She does speak English well, but not as well as you do.” It was true. Yumi’s speech was halting and she hesitated before each new clause, groping for bits of vocabulary. She seemed to understand everything I said but I couldn’t be sure. “Your English is amazing.”

  “I’ve had a lot of time to practice.”

  “Have you lived here long?”

  “Twenty-four years.”

  It was pleasant to have a conversation that wasn’t going to end up with someone being arrested; it didn’t happen often enough in my life. While we waited for the girl I found out how Akiko had met Mr. Larkin (Paris, 1988, studying at the Sorbonne) and whether she missed Japan (yes, but her life was here with her children) and whether she liked her job (some days yes, some days no). I hoped she didn’t mind the questions. I couldn’t help myself. Curiosity was more than a habit now and I could no longer switch it off than I could stop blinking.

  To prepare for the interview with Takahashi Yumi, I told Akiko what we needed: evidence that the man who had been her boyfriend would make a good suspect in the Gentleman Killer case. “Did the inspector give you the name of the girl who was killed in Japan?”

  “Grace Brumberger. She was American.”

  “We’ll need him to send us the file on the investigation.”

  Akiko called him back whi
le I did an Internet search on Grace Brumberger and turned up a treasure trove of information—her Facebook page, updated since she died with messages from grieving friends and acquaintances, a memorial page, a Grace Brumberger scholarship her parents were offering at the school she had attended, and most useful of all, a sixteen-page article from her local newspaper investigating what had happened to her in Japan. She was from Connecticut. She had been a cheerleader. Her parents were well off and she was an only child. She was bright, and diligent, and a good friend to those in need.

  And she looked more or less exactly like Angela Poole.

  I felt like bouncing up and down in my chair, but the presence of Akiko inhibited me. And anyway, the fact was that I was no closer to proving anything. Stuart had walked away from the investigation into Grace’s death—he wasn’t even alluded to in the article I’d read, which mainly focused on Grace’s high hopes for her trip, the way the Brumbergers had found out the news and their journey from grief to acceptance.

  But now I was absolutely sure I was right.

  Akiko hung up the phone and immediately it rang again: reception, downstairs, to tell me that there was a Miss Tacky-something waiting to see me. I gathered up Akiko and my notebook and went to find her.

  * * *

  Takahashi Yumi conformed to the absolute template of a St. Martins College fashion student, in that she was so determined not to conform. She was wearing lace-up red shoes with exaggerated, curved heels and a platform sole: they looked like an illustration from a fairy tale. Her tights were black but they had been embroidered with white thistles and ivy that snaked up from her anklebone to her thigh. She wore tiny black leather shorts and a big white fluffy jumper that was unravelling at the neck and cuffs. No coat, on a day when the temperature wasn’t likely to rise above seven degrees, but she did have an umbrella with a duck’s head handle. Small and slender, she wasn’t quite pretty but she had dramatic eye makeup and had painted her mouth to match her shoes, creating a 1920s-style Cupid’s bow. I stared at her for a good couple of seconds, taking it all in, before I remembered what I was supposed to be doing.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  She nodded. “How can I help you?”

  Time to be direct. “I think Stuart might have harmed some women, but I can’t prove it yet. I need to know if he ever did anything that made you uneasy, or if he hurt you, or if he acted in any way that made you suspicious of him.”

  Three or four rapid blinks. Her false eyelashes had tiny hearts glued to the ends, I noticed. I couldn’t begin to imagine how long it took her to get dressed in the morning.

  “There were some things…” She trailed off.

  “Can we start at the beginning? How did you meet him?”

  “He was my teacher in school.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, but we did not have a relationship then. We were friends.”

  “I see.”

  “I taught him Japanese and he helped me learn English. I wanted to come to London to study but I was very bad student.”

  “So you helped each other.”

  “For a year. And then I finished school and we became more than friends.”

  “You moved in with him.”

  She nodded, biting her lip gently. “My parents were sad. I was in love with him.”

  “How long did you live together?”

  “Two years, almost. I would not go abroad to study or leave Takayama. I wanted to be with him. I stopped doing everything that made me happy. No fashion, no dressing up. No Internet. No friends. He was everything.” Her voice broke and she twisted her hands together, striving to keep the tears back.

  “Was he controlling?”

  She looked blank. Akiko leaned forward and offered a phrase in Japanese that made her nod. “Yes.”

  “He made you follow his rules.”

  “And would not let me speak with my parents.”

  “Was he nice to you?”

  “Yes.” She looked away. “No.”

  “Was he violent?”

  Two tears slid down Yumi’s cheeks. “Yes. No.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was but it was what I liked. I thought I liked it. I didn’t know any different.”

  Again, Akiko leaned in and said something softly, and Yumi replied to her, the words rapid. When the two of them were in full flow the sound of their voices reminded me of running water or gloved hands clapping. There was no harshness to it at all, no edge despite the subject matter.

  Akiko turned to me. “There was an element of sadomasochism in their relationship. She says that Stuart was unable to have sexual relations with her properly and only became aroused if he was choking her. He liked her to play dead and then he would masturbate on her.” There was something very odd about hearing those words come out of Akiko’s mouth but she wasn’t embarrassed. She went on: “She says she had come to enjoy it and look forward to surrendering to him, but then on one occasion he choked her until she passed out. When she came round, he was elated, not sorry. She was terrified that the next time he would kill her. She refused to do it any more.”

  “What was his reaction?”

  “He started to go to the nearest city and visit prostitutes. He refused to speak to her. She apologized and told him she would do whatever he wanted.”

  “And?”

  Akiko turned to Yumi, who faltered through a few sentences before dissolving into tears.

  “He choked her again and again she fell unconscious, but when she came round her eyes were bruised and swollen. She couldn’t see anything for two days. The doctors were concerned that she could lose her sight but she recovered. After that, she knew he was too dangerous to stay with, and she left him.”

  Yumi was crying properly now, a handkerchief pressed to her face. She peeled her eyelashes off and laid them on her knee, where they lay like two dead centipedes. “I did not know anything else. I thought he did those things because he loved me. And I loved him.”

  “Are you scared of him?”

  She nodded. “But he hasn’t tried to contact me. Not since last October.”

  Around the time Grace Brumberger died. I thought of Stuart killing her and realizing he could make his fantasies a reality. It made me feel sick, but it also made sense.

  “Are you willing to make a statement about Stuart?”

  She looked horrified. “I don’t want to tell everyone what he did.”

  “You don’t have to be embarrassed,” I said gently. “He was the one who decided to behave that way.”

  Yumi muttered something and shook her head.

  “May I?” Akiko murmured to me.

  “Please.”

  I couldn’t guess what the older woman was saying to Yumi, but as she spoke the tears welled up in the fashion student’s eyes again. Akiko kept talking, persuading, cajoling, and at last Yumi nodded.

  “She’ll give you a statement. I will help her,” Akiko said.

  Yumi stood up, wobbly as a newborn fawn. “I must go to the bathroom, I think.”

  I showed her where to go. Once the door was closed behind her, I turned to Akiko.

  “What did you say to her?”

  “I told her I have a daughter. I told her my daughter is twenty, and very beautiful. I told her I worry about her. I told her the girls Stuart Sinclair killed had parents who loved them very much.” Akiko smiled, but her eyes were sad. “I told her she was lucky.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  I was pretty good at being a copper, which was lucky because I could never have been a burglar. The flat was empty, and I knew it was empty, but my heart rate was toward the upper limit of survivable. Perspiration was making my gloves slip a little on my hands. I pulled them further up my wrists and blew hair out of my face.

  “Good to go?”

  “Yeah.” Maitland stood behind me, in a heavy overcoat, with a police radio in one hand and a camera in the other. He looked as tense as if he was going on a picnic, and he grinned at me. “
Don’t worry. We’ll get plenty of warning if he shows up.”

  “Are you sure that works in here?” Reception could be patchy. I really didn’t want any surprises because the radio was only getting static.

  “I’ve checked.” He folded his arms in front of him and looked at me expectantly. “But the longer you take, the riskier it gets.”

  “Okay, okay. Don’t hurry me.”

  We were standing by the front door in the narrow hallway that ran down the middle of Stuart Sinclair’s flat. It was dark but smelled chemically clean. On my right was a bedroom, with a small bathroom beyond it. On my left, there was a living room and an equally small kitchen.

  “At least you don’t have many rooms to search.”

  “That can be harder.” I could see telltale signs that he was both neat and a pack rat: an overfull bookcase stood at the end of the hall, with boxes stacked on top of it and piles of magazines underneath, all squared off and organized. Chaos would have been easier to rummage through. “If everything is jammed in together, I’ll have to take it all out to see if there’s anything useful.”

  “Go on, Chuckles. What are you waiting for?”

  The truth was, I didn’t know. I was waiting for the blinding flash of inspiration that would show me where Sinclair had stashed everything that related to his little hobby. I was also on edge in case he was expecting a visit from the police and had booby-trapped the place accordingly. Under the terms of our search warrant we could go through the place without getting his permission to be there. I had a feeling he wouldn’t grant it, if he was offered the option. I didn’t want to tip him off that we’d been there if we didn’t find anything—we’d need to set up surveillance on him and try to catch him doing something incriminating, which would only work if he was confident our attention was elsewhere. So I was keeping my eyes peeled for stray hairs, black threads or artlessly arranged piles of paper that would give the game away. It was a lot easier to set a trap than to avoid springing it. That was why I’d been sent in on my own, with Maitland for muscle, just in case. The fewer people there were in Stuart Sinclair’s flat, the less chance there was we’d leave a trace.