by Ali Knight
I tried a couple of the Middle Eastern supermarkets and a Jamaican patty shop on the same strip as the chemist, showed her photo, got politely and rudely shown the door. They thought I was immigration, they suspected I was from the benefits agency.
I showed the picture to passers-by in the street, women at the bus stops, no one knew who she was. It was like Warriner was a ghost.
I told Simona to get back to Foxtons and find the tenancy agreement for the Chelsea flat. ‘Tell them you’re probate and you can’t find her. That way we should get a previous address or a phone number.’
The only bright spot on otherwise gloomy and exhausting days was when Rory told me that he’d traced Gabe and Helene’s wedding witnesses and that Helene was born in Newcastle. He gave me another interesting bit of information: Helene had changed her name. She had been born Helen Davey. She’d lost her accent, made her name more exotic. I wasn’t against reinvention, but it made me wonder what else Rory might uncover.
Rory told me he was booking a train ticket to Newcastle.
CHAPTER 69
Maggie
Four days before
While Rory was working on tracking down information about Helene, I went back to Vauxhall to try and talk to Larry, who Dwight had said was a friend and neighbour of Milo’s. I sat down on the swings outside Milo’s flat. There was no shade and the heat was suffocating, but I was in full view of a lot of windows and corners and dark walkways so I figured someone would see me before long.
After a short while a mother and two kids turned up. I approached the woman, smiling, and asked her if she knew a black guy called Larry and where he lived. She didn’t speak English, so no joy there. I caught the attention of a young guy being bossed by his huge dog and asked him the same, and he couldn’t help either. I walked round the block and up to the windows of Milo’s flat, but the curtains were drawn.
I returned to the playground and sat down again and a few moments later a big black guy approached. ‘Why are you looking at Milo’s flat?’
I smiled. ‘Take a seat.’ I gestured to the empty swing next to me. ‘He a friend of yours?’
‘More than a friend of yours.’ He didn’t return my smile.
I stood up, pulled the skirt off the back of my legs where it had been stuck by my sweat. I held out my hand. ‘I’m Maggie.’ He didn’t shake it.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m a private investigator. I have a client who wants to know if everything possible is being done to find Milo’s killer.’ He grunted with dissatisfaction and pulled out a cigarette packet. I pulled out my lighter and after a moment’s hesitation he accepted. ‘Who do you think killed him?’ I asked.
He took a deep inhale, blew his smoke sideways. ‘Someone who’ll get away with it.’
I shook my head. ‘That isn’t likely to happen. Strange, though, when Gabe Moreau threw himself off that tower.’ He looked at me sharply but said nothing.
‘I heard Milo was close to Moreau’s daughter, Alice.’
He gave me a long look. ‘The ginger? Why you so interested in that? The family’s hired you, haven’t they?’ He scowled. ‘That Moreau was good at using people, at getting them to do things for him.’
‘Was the daughter the same?’
He frowned and then he laughed. ‘How would I know? Girls like that, they’re trouble if you ask me.’
‘In what way trouble?’
‘That friend of hers, the fit one with the long, dark hair?’ He nodded, a look of wary appreciation on his face. ‘That girl, she would bat her eyes, wiggle, give you the come-on and would only lead you to overreach yourself. A payday lender wouldn’t be far away.’
I gave him a wry smile. He was a good judge of character. ‘But Alice, was she really the same as her friend Lily?’
Larry shrugged and sighed. ‘I don’t know, man. Milo liked her, I reckon. He talked about her quite a bit. That was different.’
‘You were pretty close to Milo.’
‘He was a good friend.’ He looked at Milo’s flat. ‘Known him since I was nine years old.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
‘Not as sorry as I am, man.’
I pulled out my phone. ‘Have you ever seen this woman?’ I showed him a photo of Gabe’s woman from Chelsea.
He peered half-heartedly at my phone screen, trying to shade it from the sun. He shook his head. ‘Who’s she?’
‘Someone I want to tick off a list.’
‘Ain’t the police doing that?’
‘Yes, but this is a personal matter.’ I put my phone away. ‘Tell me about him. About Milo.’
I was in luck because Larry wanted to talk. He was in pain and talking helped. ‘Energy. The guy had so much energy, man. He had many aspects to his life, fingers in many pies, you see what I’m saying? The place just doesn’t seem the same without him.’
‘Did you have him as a drug dealer?’
He got angry. ‘That’s bullshit, man. I told the police that. No way was he going to be tarnished by gangs, drugs. That makes me crazy. I mean, Milo had all sorts of plans and schemes.’ Larry shook his head, as if he had tolerated one too many of them over the years. ‘But they just trampling over his memory with that crap.’
‘What’s your take on Gabe Moreau falling from up there?’
We both looked up at Connaught Tower. ‘I don’t care about Gabe Moreau. No way was he trying to sweeten the pill for the likes of us.’
I opened my bag to pull out a card to give to him so that he could ring me if he ever felt he needed to, but he had already stood up and begun to head off and even when I called after him he turned round, walking backwards as he spoke. ‘The likes of me, we’re fucked. I don’t need no private investigator to tell me that.’
I lowered my hand, the card still in it. There was nothing I could say that would make a difference, and he knew it. A moment later he was gone.
CHAPTER 70
Maggie
Two days before
Miss L Warriner was very difficult to find. I went back to that pharmacy three times, spoke to different employees. I tried all the local shops again, accosted a couple of street cleaners pulling crisp packets out from between the railings around a housing block. Every time I showed her photo, everyone shook their heads.
The pharmacy was close to a large estate with a jumble of low-rise units plonked at odd-looking angles with patches of grass sandwiched between them. I walked around for a fruitless hour trying to spot her Porsche.
I was getting pissed off and I was running out of time. I was sick of hanging about here but I had nothing else to do, what with no clients to fill my time and lawsuits to fend off.
If in doubt, follow the money, I thought. Many of the clients I’d followed over the years were men who had paid for sex. It was an exchange the Neanderthals probably understood – here is some bear meat if you let me put it in there – that kind of thing.
I was pretty sure Warriner had been squeezing money out of Gabe, but for what was still unclear. But Gabe made his money not down here off the Old Kent Road but in Vauxhall, so I drove back to the estate. For all I knew there was another flat here she was holed up in.
I pulled off the Vauxhall roundabout and parked near the city farm. I took a long look at the whole area on Google Earth’s satellite view, spent time zooming in on the nooks and crannies, the cul-de-sacs and jumbled dead ends. I couldn’t do anything about underground car parks, but there wouldn’t have been many in this area. The easiest way to look for a Porsche was from the air. I got out of my car and opened the boot, pulled the drone from its black bag.
Simona rang as I was unpacking and getting it set up.
‘I got the information from Foxtons about the Chelsea flat,’ she said. I was excited but it didn’t last long. ‘For what it’s worth.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They had no contract with her. They usually let the flat for the management company, but in this case it was a temporary arrangeme
nt and they did it by word of mouth. No paperwork.’
‘Why did they do that?’
‘Someone from the company phoned up. They simply took a phone number, which is disconnected, and she moved in.’
‘Who was paying the rent?’
‘She paid in cash, on a weekly basis.’
‘Weekly, in Chelsea? That seems unlikely. Who’s the management company again?’
‘Some outfit called Mount Southern Holdings. I’m looking into them now.’
‘OK, let me know how it goes.’
I pulled the drone out of the boot of my car and set it flying over the estate. On my live feed I was searching in all those car parks, side alleys and blocked-off private parking areas for a grey vintage Porsche.
I knew I had little time. In an urban area with lots of people and windows and gardens, someone would complain and complain loudly (if they could even hear the drone over the construction noise) but it was a shortcut, and I needed all of those that I could get.
I watched the images as they came in on the feed, moving the drone as slowly as I dared. I found a Porsche, but it was the wrong colour. I saw upturned faces on pedestrians, dog walkers, mothers with buggies and fingers pointing as the machine passed overhead. I scanned as much of the estate as I dared, and manoeuvred the drone back to me. I got in my car and drove away.
I stopped in a side street in Pimlico and had a closer look at the images I’d taken. London looked so flat and grey from the air, acres of grey roof felt punctured by satellite dishes and air vents and a crazy-paving jumble of triangles of grass and grass-lined paths that cut through the estate. I couldn’t find her damn car. I began to watch the film again, but Simona rang before I got halfway through.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she began. ‘The instructions on the packet of pills from Warriner’s flat say “take morning and evening with food”. There were sixty pills in this pack, and it’s dated 12th of July. I’ve checked the medicine online and it’s for an ongoing condition. That means she’ll be needing a new supply every month.’
There was another maddening pause. ‘So?’ I asked.
‘She’ll be turning up to collect a repeat prescription, and since most people are creatures of habit, she’ll probably get them from the same doctor and the same pharmacy, probably in the next couple of days.’
I banged the steering wheel of the car with delight. ‘You’re a fucking genius, Simona,’ I almost shouted it down the phone. ‘I’m on my way to Peckham now.’
It was the first ray of light in the dark days of the recent past.
CHAPTER 71
Maggie
The day before
Warriner finally turned up at the pharmacy after I’d been waiting for another day. She had changed her hair, it was now dark brown, so the dye in the Chelsea flat was indeed hers, and she wore large dark sunglasses. If it wasn’t for her distinctive high heels and good clothes, I could easily have missed her. When she came back out of the shop, her hand was closed over a paper bag. I began to follow her down the street.
Warriner headed off the main road and cut through a succession of large housing blocks and on into a redbrick three-storey block of flats with a set of stairs at either end. She headed up to number 27 and let herself in.
I followed her to the top floor.
The kitchen window faced the walkway and was next to the front door. A net curtain obscured the view.
I knocked on the door.
There was no answer. I knocked again, she didn’t open up. I flipped the letterbox and looked into a shabby, narrow hall with nothing in it except a patterned carpet I’d last seen on sale in the 1980s and a scattering of fast food flyers. ‘Can I talk to Miss Warriner?’ I called. ‘I’m a private investigator working for Alice Moreau. I want to ask a few questions about Gabe Moreau.’
There was no movement inside the flat. I tried again. ‘My name’s Maggie Malone, I’m not working for the police. I’m sure you’re aware that Gabe Moreau has recently died, and his daughter is looking for closure. She would like to talk to you.’
There was still no response. I couldn’t tell whether she was hiding in the kitchen or the room at the end of the corridor that had a partially closed door. The unkempt flat and its location were at odds with her clothes and car and I was unsure if she was living here. ‘It really would be better to open the door.’
I waited a few more moments, but she was stubborn and refused to appear.
Many people in my line of work were reluctant to talk, but rarely the mistresses. Being found out on some level appealed to their vanity. Knowing another woman, in this case his own daughter, had cared enough to hire someone to hunt for them didn’t go down so badly. I’d had more than one mistress sit me down, put the kettle on and pull out the biscuits. Justification, explanation, defence, it’s hard to not want to tell your story.
But not Warriner. Something was off.
I pulled out a business card and wrote a message entreating her to call me. ‘It really would be better to talk to me, otherwise Alice will probably call on you herself,’ I said, opening the letterbox and about to drop the card.
I heard a noise from inside. A moment later the door opened.
‘You’d better come in, it’s boring being shouted at from out there.’
I was finally looking at Warriner up close. She was tall and lithe with an age north of forty, but not by much. She was tanned and well preserved, but her mouth had a downward slant that expressed disappointment.
‘Thank you for speaking to me,’ I began, ‘I have a few questions—’
‘Doesn’t mean I’m going to answer them.’
She had an accent that was the same as Gabe’s. She was from the old country, and that made sense, a rekindling of some trace of his previous life, something Helene could never compete with.
She stood in the hallway, so the furthest I got into the flat was the corridor.
‘Alice is looking for answers about what happened to Gabe.’
‘She’ll wait a lifetime and then some.’
I tried to keep my manner neutral. I could tell she was easily riled and I wanted to keep her talking. ‘I understand that you were Gabe’s friend, confidante, what would you call it?’
She took a deep breath. ‘I was much more than that.’
‘How do you feel about his death?’
‘What does it matter how I feel?’
‘Ms Warriner, Gabe was giving you money, wasn’t he?’
‘So?’
‘Were you sending him threatening notes, writing on his wall? Were you blackmailing him?’
She snorted. ‘Why would I answer that?’
‘Well, you were pretty aggressive with the bathtub stunt.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
I was getting nowhere. ‘Is this where you’re going to stay, now that the Chelsea flat is no longer an option? It’s a pretty fast fall from grace, isn’t it?’
I saw a flush on her features, an anger that had bobbed to the surface. ‘If it’s a fall from grace, then you know all about that.’ I said nothing. She had been following the news all right. She must have sensed my defeat because I saw triumph on her face. ‘Tell your client I have nothing to tell. No comfort that can be given.’
She began to turn away. I had only one thing left to ask, and I was genuinely interested in the answer. ‘Did you love Gabe Moreau?’
She turned sharply towards me and blinked, fast. ‘Totally.’
I gave her a thin smile. ‘I was there at the tower when Gabe fell. You knew that, but you never asked me what happened, you never wanted to know. That’s not a sign of love at all.’
Now it was her turn not to answer. I had put her in her place, but it was a shabby victory. ‘Good day, Ms Warriner.’ I put my card on the hall table, turned and walked away.
CHAPTER 72
Alice
The morning of
Helene had thrown off Poppa’s death too easily. She began to go into w
ork earlier and earlier, taking phone calls late into the evening and acting with a new direction and purpose. I heard laughter in the house again. I didn’t like it and I began to indulge in fantasies that Poppa’s other woman loved him more, that she was sitting in an armchair with the curtains drawn, sniffling into a handkerchief in her grief.
This morning I found Helene humming in her bedroom before eight a.m.
She turned and saw me in the doorway. ‘Oh morning, Alice, I have to go in early today, do you want to come with me or come in later on your own?’
‘What are you doing?’
She had laid a black dress with glittering beads on it out on the bed, and was trying to match some scarves against it.
‘Tonight I’m having dinner with Peter Fairweather, you know, from Partridger. You met him at the charity auction.’ Her face was hidden from me as she was already pulling stockings from a drawer.
I tried to keep my voice neutral. ‘Why are you seeing him?’
‘He’s got a business plan to discuss.’
‘About GWM?’
‘Yes.’
‘What is there to talk about?’
‘I expect he wants to talk about buying some or all of the company.’
‘But it’s not for sale. Poppa never wanted it to leave the family’s hands.’
Helene turned and gave a tight little smile. ‘I’m aware of that.’
I felt a surge of dislike for Helene. She wasn’t there through the early years when Poppa built the company, when I was dragged up by a succession of au pairs and nannies, while both Poppa and I struggled through the grief and absence of Momma in our lives, yet somehow now this interloper was running the show. ‘Where is he taking you?’ I asked, straining to think well of my stepmother.