by Eva Hudson
“No.” Ingrid tucked her short blond hair back under her baseball cap. “I’m not.” She forced a smile.
The mugging victim stared at her intensely. “I can see it myself. You do look a bit like her. Except for the short hair, of course. What’s her name? Charlize… thingummy…”
The skaters already had their phones out and were filming her. She really didn’t need to end up on a viral video on Facebook. “Call me,” she shouted, and accelerated back along the river path to continue her run. If it wasn’t for the huge smile on her face, it was almost as if nothing had happened.
Her phone buzzed as she was slipping it back into the armband, and she glanced at Sol’s message. Her smile quickly disappeared: the murder victim was only twenty-two. She didn’t have time to waste: she took the steps up to Westminster Bridge three at a time and flagged down a black taxi.
2
Ingrid reached her hotel in Marylebone in fifteen minutes. After a quick shower, she chose a somber dark gray pantsuit from her small collection of work clothes. Yet again, she made a mental note to visit Banana Republic to purchase one or two alternative suits. She had only intended to stay in London for five days, and living out of a suitcase was getting tiresome. Her posting to the FBI’s overseas Legal Attaché Program was supposed to be temporary, but it had stretched out to four months, and she was bored of wearing the same clothes. She was also over the glamor of hotel living. Ingrid dabbed a smudge of mascara under her left eye and promised herself she’d do something about her wardrobe and her living arrangements soon.
Ingrid picked up her helmet and belted leather jacket and took the stairs down into the hotel’s underground parking lot. Her Triumph Tiger 800 didn’t compare to her beloved Harley back home, but it was perfectly suited to weaving in and out of rush-hour traffic in central London.
The GPS led Ingrid to New Cross, a suburb she hadn’t been to before, south of the Thames. She parked the bike at one end of a wide side street lined with cherry trees in full blossom. Fifty yards from where she stood, blue and white police tape fluttered in the stiff breeze outside a large, detached, five-story Victorian villa.
Her cell phone buzzed in her bag, vibrating noisily against her metal water flask. She swiped it and checked who was calling. Marshall, her fiancé. Not for the first time in the past few weeks, Ingrid didn’t feel like talking to him and let it go to voicemail.
She locked her helmet into the top box and smoothed down the pants of her suit. A few feet from the police tape was a frizz-haired, middle-aged woman in a dark raincoat and patent leather boots arguing with a weary constable. The woman wagged a finger in his face, and Ingrid heard her shout something about press freedom. Ingrid recognized her from her very first assignment at the embassy: Angela Tate, an investigative journalist for the main London newspaper, the Evening News. Tate, Ingrid had learned, had a knack for finding out about stories before any of her colleagues. Press freedom? Tate seemed to have plenty.
Ingrid approached the police cordon and flashed her ID. None of the officers were armed. Strict UK laws meant only specialist firearms officers carried weapons, a rule that also applied to Ingrid and her Bureau colleagues.
“Don’t I know you?” Tate said.
Ingrid pushed through, keen for the hack not to remember who she was.
“I never forget a face,” Tate shouted after her.
In the entrance of the house, standing at the top of wide stone steps, was a familiar face Ingrid was much happier to see. Detective Inspector Natasha McKittrick was the closest Ingrid had to a friend in London. They had met at a training session Ingrid had delivered to the Metropolitan Police on child protection, the area of law enforcement she had specialized in before her deployment in London. The two women had discovered a similar sense of humor and taste for tequila and had enjoyed several ‘putting the world to rights’ sessions. She beamed at the detective.
“You got here fast,” McKittrick said.
“I’ve been trying to tell you to get your motorcycle license.”
“And I’ve tried to tell you how much I like my limbs in their current unbroken state.”
Any anxiety Ingrid had about working with her friend instantly evaporated. “So what have we got?” Ingrid asked. “Murder one?”
“Pathologist says it’s too close to call. Could just be an accident. We’ll have to wait for the preliminary autopsy report.”
Ingrid peered beyond McKittrick into the main hallway of the house. There were two doors on the left, another on the right, with a flight of stairs in the center leading up to the next story. The walls were scuffed, and a bicycle leaned against the banister.
“Cause of death was most likely severe loss of blood,” McKittrick said as they turned to go inside. “Victim has a huge gash in her head. Seems a hard, sharp object went into her temple with a lot of force.”
“You found the murder weapon?”
“If you can call a glass and steel coffee table a weapon, sure.”
“She fell and hit her head on a table?”
“You sound disappointed.”
Ingrid checked herself. She was a little.
“The next question I’m sure you’re itching to ask me is ‘was she pushed, or did she fall?’” McKittrick said.
“And?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out.” McKittrick stopped on the stairs. “It’s not that I’m not pleased to see you, but why exactly are you here?”
There wasn’t a quick answer.
“Please don’t say ‘protocol.’”
“Well, when an American citizen dies in mysterious circumstances, it’s diplomacy,” Ingrid said, deliberately avoiding the word protocol, “for us to assist local law enforcement in any way we can.”
“So you’re not here to spy on me?”
She kind of was. “Of course not. I’m here to look out for the interests of American citizens, and that means ensuring the crime, if one has been committed, is thoroughly investigated.”
They reached the top of the stairs. “So you are here to spy on me!”
Ingrid cleared her throat. “The US Embassy has total confidence in the investigatory competence of the Metropolitan Police.”
“You rehearsed that.” McKittrick gestured toward a pile of overshoe bootees and all-in-one Tyvek suits. “We’d better get togged up.”
Togged up? Ingrid imagined she could live in England for the rest of her life and still not understand everything that came out of Brits’ mouths. Once they were in the protective clothing, McKittrick filled her in on what they knew about the victim.
“Her name is Lauren Shelbourne. Twenty-two. Postgrad psychology student at Loriners College, which is part of the University of London.” McKittrick led Ingrid up to the third-floor landing, then through a narrow door into a single-room apartment. Bright lights bathed the studio room in a magnesium glare, making every surface and object look strangely artificial, as if on the set of a horror movie. The CSI team fussed round the crumpled body lying next to the low coffee table, taking photos and collecting samples.
Ingrid was engulfed by sadness when she caught sight of Lauren Shelbourne’s body. She was fully clothed, her arms flung out in front of her, her legs folded awkwardly beneath. A dark red pool of congealed blood had spread across the floor. A piece of her forehead was missing. Ingrid pulled herself together. “Estimated time of death?”
“Some time between midnight and four a.m.”
“You’ve spoken to the other residents?”
“Working through them, one by one. They’re not all home.”
“Inspector!”
Angela Tate was hovering by the door.
“Care to make a comment, detective?” Tate said. “Or perhaps the US Embassy would like to make a statement?” She smiled insincerely at Ingrid.
“How the bloody hell did you get past the cordon?”
The reporter took a step inside the room.
“Stay exactly where you are!” McKittrick rushed toward her.
“You’re contaminating the crime scene.”
“So you are treating this as murder?” Angela Tate held her ground.
McKittrick grabbed the reporter’s arm. “Mills!” she hollered.
A flush-cheeked face appeared in the doorway, an embarrassed, almost pleading look in his wide brown eyes. “Sorry, boss. I thought the uniforms had everything under control.”
Tate snatched her arm away from McKittrick and pointed at the tall man. “You lay a hand on me, Ralph Mills, and I swear my paper will sue the arse off you.”
The apologetic detective held his hands up high, palms facing toward Tate.
“Are you linking this death to the suicide at Loriners last week?” the journalist shouted before Mills herded her toward the stairs.
“Get her out of my sight, Mills,” McKittrick said.
“I’ll just be outside, Agent Skyberg,” Tate said. “You can speak to me later.”
Ingrid admired the reporter’s determination, but she had absolutely no intention of telling her anything.
After talking to the crime scene investigators, Ingrid followed McKittrick downstairs and back out into the front yard. “Who called the police?” Ingrid asked her. “Who actually discovered the body?”
McKittrick nodded toward a shell-shocked, ghostly-white young woman sitting half-in, half-out of a police car. She was shivering despite the foil blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
“Have you questioned her yet?”
“Not beyond the preliminaries. We’ll interview her formally down at the station.”
“She lives here in the house?”
“No. A few streets away, apparently.”
Ingrid watched as the young woman rose unsteadily to her feet. She seemed completely disoriented. She was wearing a blue Tyvek suit like Ingrid’s.
“She’s not a suspect?”
“Not at this stage, but her clothes are covered in blood. She found her, so I’m not ruling anything out. We’ll find out more when we question her.” McKittrick turned to Ingrid. “I suppose you’ll want to sit in when we do.”
Ingrid frowned, not taking her eyes from the staggering figure wrapped in the silvery blanket. The young woman got out of the car and wandered toward the house. She stared directly at Ingrid and McKittrick. A uniformed female officer attempted to guide the girl back to the police car.
“Madison Faber—also studying psychology at Loriners,” McKittrick explained. “Also an American citizen.”
“Really?”
That meant Ingrid had to offer her consular assistance. “Are you planning to arrest her?”
“I expect her to come to the station voluntarily.”
“Does she understand that? Maybe I should speak to her.” The young woman in the blanket wriggled her arms free from the cop. “Looks as if she isn’t about to volunteer to go anywhere.”
Madison Faber dragged the foil blanket from her shoulders and threw it at the feet of the female constable, who glanced toward McKittrick for help before Faber shoved the uniformed cop, who staggered backward.
“What the hell does she think she’s doing?” McKittrick ran out onto the street.
Two more officers tried restraining the ashen-faced student, who batted their hands away and drove her fist into the face of the nearest officer. “Don’t touch me!” she screamed.
Ingrid ran toward her as Angela Tate fired questions from the cordon. Faber looked up at Tate, the confusion on her face obvious. “Who are you?” Faber yelled.
A male officer stepped forward and grabbed both Faber’s arms. The bewildered student kicked out at him, her right foot hitting hard against his shin.
“Let me go! I have to get out of here!” She struggled, kicking him again to slip from his grasp. She ran down the street.
“How was she when you first spoke to her?”
Ingrid and McKittrick hurried into the road.
“Shocked. Quiet. Traumatized.”
“Let me speak to her.”
McKittrick held firmly onto Ingrid’s arm. “It’s OK. We have this under control.”
Her friend’s expression told her she was in danger of taking over. Ingrid nodded.
Two more officers ran toward the distraught young woman, arms held out wide, as if capturing a wild animal. One grabbed her shoulders, another held onto her arms, and a third attempted to attach wrist restraints. Faber screamed at them to let her go.
McKittrick looked at Ingrid. “Contrary to my earlier statement, it seems we are indeed arresting her. You might want to sort out legal representation for her.”
3
The interview suite in Lewisham police station smelled of freshly laid carpet. Ingrid sat next to a blank-eyed Madison Faber now wearing a gray sweatshirt and pants the police had given her. She hadn’t spoken since Ingrid had introduced herself over an hour ago. They were waiting for the embassy-appointed attorney to show up, even though Ingrid had put the request in while she was still outside Lauren Shelbourne’s apartment.
Faber had sat perfectly still for over twenty minutes, staring straight ahead at a bulletin board crammed with local notices. She was prim looking, with a neat mousy bobbed hairstyle and single pearl earrings. Her large blue eyes gave the impression of seeing everything while revealing nothing. There was something owl-like about her.
“Can I get you anything?” Ingrid asked her. “A glass of water?”
Faber turned and stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. She tried to speak, but only managed a low croak. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
“You will, don’t worry. Just as soon as—”
“No! I mean now.” She stood up.
Ingrid pulled her back down. “Everything’s OK. A lawyer will be here real soon, and I’m here for you in the meantime.”
“How can you say that? Everything’s not OK!” She struggled against Ingrid’s grasp.
“You don’t have to answer any of their questions if you don’t want to.” Ingrid was deliberately trying to sound calm. The girl had just been through one of the most traumatic experiences of her life, and she implicitly understood why Faber had lashed out when the cops restrained her. “You have the right to remain silent, just like back home. Is that clear?”
Faber’s face was expressionless.
“It’s important you understand me. Are you clear about the questioning?”
Faber nodded slowly.
“Good.” She patted Faber’s arm. “I’m on your side. Everything is going to be OK.” She regretted the platitude the moment it left her lips.
“Everything is not going to be OK! My friend is dead.” Faber pulled away from her and got to her feet. “I have to get out of here. I need to call Lauren’s parents. They should hear the news from a friend, not some English cop.” She could not keep the sneer from her voice when she said ‘English cop.’
Ingrid stood up. “The embassy has that under control. Lauren’s parents have already been informed.” She kept her voice low, gentle, reassuring. “Right now, my job is to worry about you.”
“Me?” Faber’s eyes widened. “I’m fine.”
She was anything but. “You don’t seem it, Madison. You’ve seen something awful this morning; it’s bound to have an impact.”
The girl peered into Ingrid’s face, scrutinizing her. Ingrid found her impossible to read.
“I’m scared.” Faber dropped her voice to a whisper.
“That’s understandable. You want me to call someone for you? Your parents?”
Faber clenched her jaw. “No.”
“I can stay with you just as long as you need.”
Faber slumped back onto the couch.
“The lawyer should be here any minute,” Ingrid said. “He’ll explain your rights, but like I said, you can remain silent if you choose to.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Faber’s eyebrows knitted together. “My friend is dead. I want to help the police all I can.”
“They’ve arrested you, Madison. Yes, you want to he
lp them with their enquiries into Lauren’s death, but you hit a police officer.”
The girl sniffed and stuck out her bottom lip.
“Though I’d say it’s likely they’ll drop the charges, given your evident distress.”
Ingrid stared into Faber’s face, and an unbidden image filled her mind. She screwed up her eyes in an attempt to banish it. In an instant she was back in Minnesota, fourteen again and feeling more helpless than Faber did now. Not this, not here.
“Are you OK?” Faber asked her. “What just happened?”
Ingrid forced a smile. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Obviously it does. You said I could trust you, but now you’re scaring me.”
Ingrid placed her hand on Faber’s knee. “I’m sorry. Old memories.”
Faber looked puzzled. “Oh my God, this happened to you, didn’t it?”
Those eyes didn’t miss much.
“Not quite,” Ingrid said. “But I did lose a friend.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was years ago.”
“But you’re not over it.”
“Creeps up on me sometimes.”
“Was your friend murdered?”
Ingrid had said too much. “This isn’t about me. Let’s focus on what you need.”
“But I thought—” The door to the interview room opened, and McKittrick entered with Ralph Mills, the tall detective who had escorted Angela Tate from the house in New Cross.
“Feeling calmer?” McKittrick asked Faber. There was no trace of sympathy in her voice. Ingrid had never worked with McKittrick before, so had no idea how her friend operated professionally. “We won’t talk about the assault charge without your solicitor here—”
“Go ahead. Agent Skyberg is looking after me.” Faber grabbed Ingrid’s hand.
“—but I would like to get a statement from you about what happened this morning. Are you up to that, Madison? I can call you Madison, can’t I?”
“Sure.” The girl shrugged.
“Thank you.” McKittrick sat down and opened a fresh notebook. DC Mills did the same. “Can you tell us the exact time you discovered Miss Shelbourne?”