by Eva Hudson
“I… Oh God. I… slept with Madison.”
49
Ingrid had suspected a liaison ever since Alex Shelbourne’s revelation her sister and Faber had fallen out over a man.
“I don’t need you to judge me. It was a mistake. One I bitterly regret.” He sniffed. “My God, that’s an understatement.”
“How did it happen?”
He was bewildered by the question. “How do these things usually happen? We got together at the end-of-term Christmas party—you know the sort of thing—too much booze, a letting off of steam… a slow dance.” He opened his eyes wide. “Jesus, if I’d known then…”
“How often did you see each other… romantically?”
“We didn’t! It was a one-night stand. Instantly regrettable. Quickly forgotten. For me at least. But Madison had other ideas. All over the holidays… she wouldn’t leave me alone. Texts, phone calls. Visits to my house.”
“Your house? How did you explain that to your wife?”
“Madison’s clever. She made sure to come round when she knew my wife would be out. Which means she must have been watching the house. I mean… watching the house, for God’s sake.”
“What did she do?”
“She’d bang on the door, scream at me through the letterbox until I let her in. She said she just wanted to talk. She was interested in my mind, she said. But the number of phone calls increased. She started calling me in the middle of the night. I told Claire the phone calls were from marketing companies. Claire threatened to answer my phone herself, give the marketers a mouthful. It was a constant struggle to get to it in time. I couldn’t risk my wife speaking to her.” He ran a hand over his face. “In the end I agreed to meet with Madison—to spend some time with her on New Year’s Eve—it was the only way I could think to get her to stop… harassing me.”
Ingrid despised him. An arrogant man in a position of power over young women thousands of miles from family and friends. A bit of her admired Madison for standing up to him. “What did you say to her?”
“I explained I couldn’t see her again. I mean, sleep with her. I told her I wouldn’t betray my wife. She seemed to accept it. She was very mature about it, in fact. She even apologized for the calls and visits. I was so relieved.” He rubbed his eyes. “Unfortunately the relief was short-lived. When the new term started, she kept her promise to leave me alone. But went too far the other way—she was positively hostile towards me.” Younger sounded rehearsed. “Her treatment of the other students in the program deteriorated, generating more complaints than before. The only way to deal with it was to let her work alone. She devised her own experiments and executed them quite separately from the rest of the group.”
“But in a way the situation was resolved? She’d stopped harassing you.”
“It was resolved temporarily. As I said before, things came to a head in January. It all… it all got out of control.”
“What did?”
“I take full responsibility. I should never have let it happen. I’m weak. I know I am. There’s absolutely no excuse.” He looked down at his hands resting on the table. “In the middle of January—the twelfth, to be precise—I started seeing Lauren.”
“Seeing her?”
“Do you need me to spell it out?”
“It was a sexual relationship?”
“Of course it bloody well was!”
He was a pitiful sight. A once mighty alpha male slayed by his own libido.
“No one knew,” Younger said. “We were very discreet, Lauren and I. Such a sweet, sweet girl. I fell for her. I hated myself, yet could do nothing to stop it. I still love my wife.”
Ingrid made no comment.
“I know what you’re thinking. I know how pathetic I must sound… I’m not going to blame a midlife crisis. There was something very special about Lauren.” He sighed. “Oh God, if I’d known… Somehow Madison found out about us. I don’t know how, Lauren swore she never told her. Madison probably spied on Lauren, going through her mail, her text messages. Who knows what else? I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
“What did Madison do?”
“That’s the incredible thing. I would have expected her to go straight to the college registrar—report me for gross misconduct. Or worse—tell Claire about it. But she did nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing to me. She let rip with Lauren though. They had a huge row. Madison started throwing things, breaking Lauren’s stuff. Lauren had to move out of the apartment in a hurry. It was obvious Madison wasn’t going to leave. I’m not even sure Lauren managed to pack all her things before she left.”
Something was nagging at Ingrid, some fact that didn’t fit. “So that was it?” Ingrid pushed back her chair, indicating she would leave if he didn’t come up with something that resembled actual facts and believable evidence.
“Far from it. She was just biding her time. She visited my house—actually had tea with my wife. Chatted with her as if she were an old friend. Claire said she practically had to throw her out. But Madison never breathed a word about my relationship with Lauren. She was planning something though. It’s amazing how clear hindsight is. I realize now that annoying little things that were happening then must have been her doing.”
“Such as?”
“Items of clothing going missing. Expensive things: a silk tie, a cashmere sweater, some kid leather gloves. I still don’t know what she’s done with them. Maybe she has something else planned.” He blinked rapidly as if he were imagining what that something might be.
“When did those things go missing?”
“I don’t know for certain.”
Ingrid was getting fed up. “When was the last time you saw Faber?”
“She…” He gulped and stared into space for a moment. “I still find it almost impossible to believe.”
The constable opened the door and looked at them both. “You need anything?”
Ingrid eyeballed him. “No. Thanks.”
Alone again, Younger continued. “Madison Faber is evil. She’s trying to frame me. You have to trust me. I have nowhere else to turn.”
“The last time you saw her?” Ingrid prompted.
“She arrived at the lab long after all the other students had gone and… Madison tried to seduce me. Right there in the lab. What was going through her mind? I told her in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t interested in her, not then, not ever.” He stood up. “God—especially not then. Maybe she thought she’d strike while I was vulnerable. While I was still grieving.”
“Wait.” Ingrid got to her feet. “Grieving? When was this?”
“Just a day after Lauren’s death.”
Ingrid had seen her that day. The girl was still numb from discovering the body. They had walked across the campus—it had been the morning the whore graffiti had appeared—they had drunk coffee. The girl had seemed detached, but not deranged.
“She said that now that Lauren was dead, there was no reason we couldn’t be together.”
Ingrid planted her elbows on the table and interlocked her fingers. She stared hard at Younger.
“What she actually said was ‘Now that Lauren is out of the way.’” His eyes bored into hers. “You have to believe me, I’ve got no proof, but I’ve gone back over that night again and again, and there was something in the way she said ‘out of the way’…” His words trailed off.
Ingrid rested her chin on her hands, bringing her head closer to Younger’s. “Are you saying Faber killed Lauren?”
A tear fell from his left eye. “I’m convinced of it.”
50
Ingrid asked the desk sergeant to phone Detective Inspector McKittrick for her. When the call was connected, he handed over the receiver.
“Natasha, hi, it’s me.”
“This is Detective Inspector McKittrick’s office.” It was a young woman’s voice.
Oh. “Can I speak to Natasha? This is Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg from the US Embassy.”
“The inspector is in a meetin
g right now.”
Damn. “Is Ralph Mills around?”
“One moment.”
Ingrid rested her head on the counter while she waited.
“He’s in the same meeting. Can I take a message?”
“Please ask DI McKittrick to call me urgently. It’s to do with the Shelbourne case. I may have more evidence.”
Ingrid grabbed her helmet and ran up the stairs to ground level to get a phone signal. She reached reception and dialed McKittrick’s cell and left a message. While she was speaking, her phone bleeped with an incoming call. She didn’t even check the number before answering.
“Hi.”
“Is that Ingrid Skyberg?” The woman’s voice was tentative.
“Speaking.”
“This is Gail Mooney, Madison Faber’s neighbor.”
“Yes, hi.”
“You wanted to know if she showed up. Well, she’s here. Just bolted up the stairs.”
Ingrid ran her fingers through her hair. She wasn’t expecting that. “Great. Right. Thank you for calling.”
“You want me to give her a message?”
Ingrid thought for a second. “No, probably best not to.”
Ingrid looked at the doorway she knew led toward McKittrick’s incident room. She considered making a run for it. Slipping past the reception staff and tracking her down, yanking her out of her meeting and… and what? She had no evidence Faber killed Lauren. McKittrick had interviewed the girl herself. As she said, Faber was found covered in Lauren’s blood but had been eliminated from the investigation. The neighbor had confirmed her arrival at the apartment at eight in the morning, hours after the time of death. Ingrid couldn’t tell an inspector in the Metropolitan Police, even if she was a friend, that she had let the killer go without giving her some proof.
Ingrid pushed on the door and stepped into the bright spring sunshine. She texted Mills as she walked. Are you with Natasha? I really need to speak to her about Lauren Shelbourne. Ingrid unlocked her bike, pulled on her helmet and kicked the Triumph into life.
Ingrid didn’t know if Faber had killed Lauren, but she thought it was entirely plausible she had used Lauren’s death to put Younger in the frame for murder. She didn’t know if Faber was capable of smashing Lauren’s head against a coffee table, but she was convinced she was more than able to persuade her former roommate to take a cocktail of drugs that contributed to her death.
She accelerated through the streets of south London, fairly sure she could find her way to Faber’s apartment without checking the route. Her phone rang and she tapped the Bluetooth headset attached to her helmet to take the call.
“What’s so bloody urgent?” McKittrick’s voice.
Ingrid needed to concentrate on the traffic. “Hi. I’ve just spoken to Younger. He asked to see me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you think he did it?”
McKittrick sighed. “That’s why we charged him. You know how it works.” She sounded fed up.
“Listen, I’ve been doing some background checks into Faber. You know she has a history of making allegations against her teachers?”
McKittrick said something to someone, her hand over her phone. “I’ve got about two minutes before I need to go back into this meeting. It’s a major case review for a multiple homicide.”
“Do you think there’s any chance Faber was involved in Lauren’s death?”
McKittrick came back quickly and emphatically. “No.”
Ingrid filtered down a line of cars and came to a junction she didn’t recognize.
“We eliminated her from our inquiries. The postmortem report exonerated her. Her story was confirmed by the neighbor. She didn’t get to Shelbourne’s apartment until eight hours after the estimated time of death.”
“But that doesn’t mean she didn’t visit the night before, does it? Just because no one saw her the first time doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. Have you even found a witness confirming Younger was at Lauren’s apartment that night?”
“We’re still checking the CCTV recordings.”
“So you don’t have confirmation Younger was there at the time of death either?”
“No. Listen, mate.”
Ingrid didn’t like the way she said ‘mate.’
“I know you like to be all superhero about this stuff, but we do know what we’re doing. If you think we’ve charged Younger on the basis of hearsay, you can fuck off.”
“Shit.” Ingrid braked hard to avoid a pedestrian stepping out between parked cars.
“What?”
“I know you’ve got more than that, Natasha, and I appreciate you’re very busy, but there’s something about Faber that isn’t stacking up.”
“Ingrid, I like you. I consider you a friend, but you are pushing our friendship to the absolute fucking limit right now.” She was in fearsome form. “Yesterday, we carried out a second search of Younger’s property. With dogs this time.”
“A second search, why?”
“Something that came up in Faber’s statement prompted us to check again.”
“But you can’t trust anything she says. Whatever she’s told you—”
“Enough!”
Ingrid was gripping the throttle too hard. She was going way too fast.
“There’s some shit you don’t know,” McKittrick said, fury soaking her words. “At the back of Younger’s garden, in the vegetable patch, sniffer dogs found a half-burned cashmere sweater.”
Ingrid was listening.
“The burned remains of Younger’s sweater was drenched with blood. The case is closed, Ingrid, a slimy predator of vulnerable young women is behind bars, and I really don’t need your shit right now.”
McKittrick hung up, leaving Ingrid in no doubt how close she’d come to burning their friendship. It took a few blocks for her to calm down, but she eventually got her bearings and found Faber’s street. There was no answer from Faber’s intercom. She tried the ground-floor apartment.
“You just missed her,” Gail Mooney said.
Ingrid slammed her hand against the wall of the house before the locked clicked and Ingrid pushed open the door. Gail Mooney was standing in the open doorway to her apartment. “You might want to come and take a look at this.”
She beckoned Ingrid inside and led her into her kitchen at the rear of her flat.
“See that?” She pointed out the window to a large garden. A row of fruit trees lined the edge of an overgrown lawn.
“What am I looking at?”
“The smoke.”
Beyond the trees, a narrow plume of smoke curled up into the sky.
“She was out there for about twenty minutes, and then a cab came and took her away.”
Gail Mooney unlocked her back door and Ingrid ran down some stone steps, across the lawn and dashed between the fruit trees. In the middle of a neglected vegetable garden was a trash can, flames licking up the sides. Ingrid rushed over to it and peered in. The heat pushed her back. She looked round for a stick.
“I was right to call you, then?” Gail Mooney appeared between the trees in her slippers.
Ingrid pulled out a bamboo cane that might once have supported beans and prodded the fire. The flames leapt higher. Shielding her face, Ingrid looked again. A hunk of smashed metal smoldered, its surface blackened. It took her a moment to realize she was looking at a hard drive.
Ingrid turned to Gail. “Is there a hose here, a pail?”
“I don’t know. The garden’s not really my thing.”
Ingrid pushed past her and ran toward a dilapidated shed. She almost ripped the door off its hinges. She searched for a watering can or a bucket of some kind. She scanned a selection of rusted tools and half-used tins of paint. On the floor she looked for anything she could put the fire out with, any way she could preserve evidence. For some reason her eyes were drawn back to the paint tins. Why am I staring at the goddamn paint?
Sun Dust 2. By Dulux.
Ingrid wheeled round. Damn you, Faber. She ra
n down the side of the house. There had to be a faucet. Or a hose.
She found a brass spigot and used all her strength to turn it.
“I’ve got this. If it helps.”
Gail proffered a washing-up bowl. Ingrid swiped it from her and shoved it under the flow of water. Why wasn’t it filling more quickly? Come on! Half full she grabbed it and dashed back to the trash can, trying not to lose too much water. She sloshed it into the can, releasing a geyser of sizzle and steam.
“Can you fill this again?”
Gail ran back to the outdoor tap. Ingrid picked up the bamboo and prodded. Definitely a motherboard. There was no way she could lift anything out without burning the skin off her fingers. She thought she could see bits of broken keyboard. She grabbed her phone and snapped away, hoping a forensics team could confirm it was the make and model of Lauren’s laptop. Maybe they’d be able to read the serial number. Gail came back and tipped more water onto the dying flames.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Ingrid scratched her scalp. “You said a taxi took her away. Any idea where she was going? Did you speak to her?”
Gail pulled her cardigan tight around her. “No, but it wasn’t the local cab company, if that helps. Had a sticker on the passenger door. Heathrow Transfers.”
Ingrid felt the air escape her lungs. She bent over, resting her hands on her knees. “She was heading to the airport?”
51
Ingrid told Gail Mooney to put the fire out and make sure no one touched the trash can. Ingrid ran back through Gail’s apartment and out onto the street. She clasped her phone, wondering who to call first.
“Jen, it’s me.”
“Hi, Ingrid. Where are you?”
There was no time to answer. “I need your help. Madison Faber is booked on a flight out of Heathrow. I need you to find out which airline, which terminal and text me, OK?”
“I’m on it.”
“You’re a star.”
Ingrid switched her phone to Bluetooth settings, pulled on her helmet and sat astride her bike. She dialed McKittrick and got her voicemail yet again. She didn’t want to sound like an idiot, and she didn’t want to piss off her friend.