Murder in Kentish Town: an elegant mystery set in Bohemian London

by Sabina Manea

  ‘What did you want to tell me that couldn’t be said at the station?’ mouthed Carliss in between deliciously oily morsels.

  ‘It’s not that. I could have told you anywhere. I just wanted to get out of there, you know? I hate being cooped up in that airless room all day,’ replied Lucia as she downed the rest of her coffee and signalled to Alex for a refill.

  Kentish Town station wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t anywhere as well appointed as Lucia’s old office at Creasy & Gotts, and even that engendered deep claustrophobia after a few hours. She just wasn’t made for staying put, and it showed in all areas of her life.

  She rested a forefinger on her temple, which meant that what she was about to say was very serious. ‘Have we fingerprinted the Aurora Borealis lot yet?’

  ‘It’s in the pipeline, as they say. I’ll chase it up. Why?’

  ‘I know whom that button belongs to,’ Lucia said with unabashed satisfaction.

  ‘Button?’ Carliss looked like she was talking complete nonsense.

  ‘Come on, that fancy button we found in Genevieve Taylor’s flat. The one you showed me in the forensics report, remember?’

  ‘Ah, yes. I know what you mean now. Go on, delight me with your story then. It’s bound to be far-fetched,’ muttered the inspector as he busied himself with the rest of his meal. He was clearly aggrieved that he had been lured out on false pretences.

  ‘It’s Marie Cassel’s,’ said Lucia, crossing her arms on her chest.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The clothes she was wearing when we went to see her at the gallery in Whitechapel. Do you remember what they were?’

  ‘Er, no, I can’t say I do. I’m not really interested in womenswear, but I thought you knew that already,’ replied Carliss with an indifferent shrug.

  ‘A dusty pink playsuit, with buttons just like the one found in Genevieve’s flat. I don’t remember seeing any missing, but she did have a belt around her waist, so that could have been disguising an empty buttonhole,’ continued Lucia.

  ‘You sure about this?’ asked Carliss, leaning forward with considerably more interest than he’d been able to muster thus far.

  ‘Positive. I bet you an evening’s open bar for two down the Red Lion that the prints on the button match Marie’s.’

  ‘That sounds a lot like an invitation, Miss Steer, if ever I heard one,’ joked Carliss with a playful glint in his eye that sent an involuntary tingle down Lucia’s spine.

  She elected not to indulge the comment and instead ploughed on determinedly. ‘I wonder how Marie’s button ended up in Genevieve’s flat. It’s not like they were bosom buddies, in fact quite the opposite. As far as we know, Marie wasn’t a big fan of Genevieve, what with Darius having a roving eye and all that.’

  ‘Maybe that’s it. Marie could have gone round to Genevieve’s flat to have it out with her,’ suggested Carliss. He looked very pleased with himself at this deduction.

  Lucia thought for a moment and was inclined to agree. ‘That would add up, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Well, there’s only one way to find out. Let’s spring a little surprise visit on our Miss Cassel,’ replied Carliss.

  Lucia couldn’t recall ever seeing her boss so thrilled to make his way to East London. A visit to the gallery was definitely in order. Marie Cassel had more to hide than first impressions had suggested, and there was plenty of digging to be done.

  Chapter 22

  Redline Space looked closed when Lucia and Carliss got there. The sign on the door announced that the gallery was open by appointment only. Undeterred, Lucia pressed hard on the doorbell and rang it for a good few seconds. After a couple of increasingly insistent goes, a door opened at the back, and Marie Cassel emerged. Judging by the scowl on her beautiful face, she wasn’t particularly keen to deal with unwanted visitors.

  ‘We’re closed. You’ll have to ring and make an appointment.’ Marie opened the door just enough to spit out the words and would have promptly slammed it in the detectives’ faces had Carliss not gently but firmly pushed it open. She clearly didn’t – or pretended she didn’t – recognise them.

  ‘Miss Cassel. Detective Chief Inspector Carliss and Miss Steer from the Metropolitan Police. We were here just the other day. We’ve got some questions for you, if you don’t mind.’

  The ‘if you don’t mind’ part was said as if Marie Cassel had no choice but to let them in. She had played enough games, and her time was up. DCI Carliss was sporting a ferocious look that Lucia knew to mean he wasn’t best pleased at having been had by a nice bottom and a bit of shapely ankle.

  Marie Cassel turned noticeably paler, and the dismissive look disappeared altogether. She was obviously flustered.

  ‘Oh, OK. Yes, of course. Sorry… sorry I didn’t recognise you. Come in.’

  That’s better, thought Lucia. If we make her think she’s in trouble, she’ll hopefully crack. Lucia too had had enough of being lied to. She hadn’t been as duped by Marie Cassel as the inspector, but at the same time she hadn’t really sensed anything was amiss. The woman was clearly a lot wilier than the detectives gave her credit for.

  Marie Cassel led them into the same tiny office where they had spoken to her the first time they rocked up at the gallery. The room seemed even more cramped the second time around.

  DCI Carliss cut to the chase. ‘Miss Cassel, can you tell us what you were doing in Genevieve Taylor’s house?’

  Marie Cassel’s eyes nearly popped out of her head, and she opened her mouth hilariously wide, like a koi carp surfacing for food. She managed to maintain this ridiculous expression for a good few seconds, until it was swiftly terminated by a ‘What? No. I have never been to her house.’

  This wasn’t washing with Carliss. He narrowed his blue eyes menacingly and tapped two fingers impatiently on the table. ‘Cut the crap, Miss Cassel. We’ve got solid evidence placing you at the dead woman’s house. Are you missing a button, by any chance? A small, rose-shaped thing? Pink?’

  It was a bit of a gamble, seeing that the prints on the button hadn’t yet been definitively confirmed as Marie Cassel’s, but it was worth a shot, and they shouldn’t have waited any longer before they confronted her with it.

  Marie Cassel’s face crumpled into a despondent expression, like a child caught swiping sweets from the kitchen cupboard.

  ‘Ah. The button.’ That was all she could manage before she clasped her hands together and glanced down sheepishly.

  DCI Carliss was evidently on the warpath as he continued, ‘When did you go to Genevieve’s flat, and why?’

  Marie Cassel grimaced as she tried to gather herself. There wasn’t much of the cocky young Bardot left of her now. When she spoke, her voice was only slightly above a whisper. ‘It was on Thursday the 18th of March.’

  Lucia cut in, astounded at this revelation. ‘But that’s the day Genevieve Taylor died!’

  Marie Cassel nearly jumped out of her chair. She was as white as a sheet. ‘No! No! She was alive when I left. You can’t… I… No…’ She let out a pitiful wail and broke into tears. Lucia judged that they looked fairly genuine, or at least convincing enough.

  ‘So, you lied to us about your whereabouts that evening. You said you were with Darius Major at his flat, did you not, Miss Cassel?’ continued Carliss pitilessly. ‘Instead, you went to see Genevieve. Why?’

  ‘I wanted to tell her to keep away from us.’ This utterance from Marie was barely audible.

  ‘Speak up,’ barked Carliss.

  ‘I wanted to tell her to leave Darius alone. Stop stringing him along,’ croaked Marie in a louder, less controlled voice. ‘With her sweet eyes, and always so nice and friendly to him. He wasn’t thinking with his brain. He was thinking with his–’

  Carliss interrupted before a crude comment could make its way out of her mouth. ‘Alright, that’s quite enough. We get the message. So, you went to her house to confront her, tell her to stay away from your boyfriend. What time was that?’

  Marie thought
for a moment. ‘About six-fifteen, six-thirty. I’m not exactly sure. I was only there for about ten minutes. I shouted at her. She didn’t say much back, just that she was sorry I felt that way, and she never meant to give him the impression that she was interested in him. That made me even angrier.’

  The woman’s not doing much to ingratiate herself, thought Lucia. Out loud, she said, ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I left. Slammed the door hard behind me and left. It made me feel a little better – how do you say – giving her a piece of my mind. She really got on my nerves. So calm, so collected. And I really lost my shit in there,’ replied Marie, looking very much like she may well lose her shit again presently.

  ‘So, you left. Then what did you do?’ asked Carliss.

  ‘I went home.’

  ‘Home, as in your place, or Darius’s?’

  ‘My place. I wasn’t in the mood for company. You have to believe me, Inspector.’ Marie’s eyes welled up again. ‘She was alive when I left.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can believe anything that comes out of your mouth anymore, Miss Cassel,’ cut in Carliss sharply. He’d lost his patience with this one, Lucia could tell. ‘Someone from the station will be in touch tomorrow to take your prints. Make sure you provide them.’

  Marie Cassel’s face was frozen, as if she’d run out of any emotions. She still hasn’t twigged that we effectively tricked her into confessing she’d been at Genevieve’s house, thought Lucia. Once she and Carliss were outside, Lucia couldn’t hold it in any longer.

  ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do. She hasn’t got a proper alibi for the Thursday evening, and neither has that boyfriend of hers. Liars, the pair of them. Covering up for each other.’

  ‘Yes, but what are they covering up for?’ asked Lucia, somewhat unconvinced.

  ‘Killing Genevieve Taylor? But why? I get that Marie didn’t see eye to eye with her, but Darius? You don’t do someone in just because you’ve got the hots for them.’

  ‘No, perhaps you don’t. Or perhaps we don’t know the whole story,’ replied Lucia pensively.

  Chapter 23

  It was coming up to noon. Lucia stood in her bedroom, alone with her thoughts and in no hurry to get to the station. A couple of days had passed since the detectives’ revealing encounter with Marie Cassel. During that time, the fingerprints of all remaining members of Aurora Borealis had been taken. This confirmed that the prints on the button and one set of prints found at Genevieve Taylor’s house belonged to Marie. As Lucia and Carliss had already surmised, the other two sets of prints at the house were identified as belonging to Ana Dineva, the cleaner, and Edoardo da Carrara.

  That day, however, a more pressing matter loomed. Lucia had dressed herself carefully. Before heading out, she gave herself a last once-over in the mirror. Soft, wide-legged jeans, a plain white shirt that she knew suited her particularly well. A little bit of judiciously applied make-up that just hit the mark to emphasise the best of her features. A simple but elegant outfit, just on the right side of enticing, and perfectly pitched for meeting someone with whom a rekindled acquaintance might prove a fruitful source of information.

  The rendezvous that had been arranged was at a small Italian restaurant just around the corner from the Creasy & Gotts offices. It had been a lunchtime favourite with the crowd from the firm, who were generally more inclined to do lazy drunken lunches on a weekday than most City solicitors. Things had never been conventional at Lucia’s old workplace, and this was just one example. She aimed to be ten minutes late, so that she wouldn’t be the first to arrive. She wanted to have a good look at her lunch ‘date’ before embarking on the intended fact-finding mission.

  Lucia’s lateness paid off. Her lunch companion was already settled at the table as she walked in. They hadn’t seen each other since she left Creasy & Gotts, but he hadn’t changed one bit. She had shared an office with Matthias Schoen for a whole year. It was the way the firm organised associates’ working arrangements, not out of a concern that people shouldn’t be stuck in a room on their own, but more out of a motivation to pitch them against each other, make them more competitive and consequently increase their billing hours, out of which the partners profited quite nicely.

  Lucia and Matthias had fortunately got on well, on the surface at least, despite the fact that she didn’t reciprocate his not particularly well-hidden romantic interest in her. She didn’t pay much attention to his attempts to make this materialise, and as a consequence their relationship mellowed into a work friendship that bumbled along. Lucia had been reluctant to become involved with him. There was something in his personality that had put her off: an underlying coldness, a sensed nasty streak that she instinctively recoiled from. As a workmate, the man was entertaining enough. Good banter, fun down the pub and so forth. She had always had the good sense to leave it at that. Today, however, a little bit of charm had to be deployed. She was adamant she needed to get the lowdown on what Rosie Venter was really like, and she knew full well that she and Carliss would hardly have been able to obtain it straight from the horse’s mouth. The woman was not naïve enough to open up to a couple of coppers fishing for information.

  Matthias eventually looked up from the menu and spotted Lucia. His face stretched into a sly smile that didn’t quite reach the eyes, just like Lucia remembered.

  ‘Lucia. Lovely to see you.’

  He kissed her on both cheeks, lingering just a touch too long. Lucia shuddered a little but determinedly kept her cool. She had to see this lunch through, keep her eyes on the prize.

  ‘Hi, Matthias. It’s been too long.’

  In return, she graced him with the most endearing smile she could muster under the circumstances. It worked. His grin stretched even wider.

  ‘This place is a blast from the past, isn’t it? So many liquid lunches in here when we should have been hard at work,’ quipped Matthias.

  His brown eyes behind severe, square-framed glasses were fixed on Lucia’s face, watching her every move. She didn’t remember him being this intense, but then it had been a while since they spent any time together.

  ‘Happy memories, eh?’ she replied casually. ‘Though there’s a lot I don’t remember from these lunches. Must be all that delicious Italian wine that kept flowing.’

  ‘Oh, there was plenty of that. Still is, as it happens, though it seems to be less frequent these days. Everyone’s a little more worried about their jobs, I guess,’ said Matthias as he tapped his foot on the floor.

  Lucia picked up on an almost imperceptible wobble in his otherwise assured demeanour. ‘Really? Are they letting people go then?’

  Whatever Matthias had inadvertently let slip was promptly buried deep, well out of sight. He smiled lopsidedly. ‘Nah, not really. Just cracking the whip. But then, that’s hardly news to you. That’s how they’ve always been. After the big money. We’re just cannon fodder, but we get paid off handsomely for our troubles, so we don’t complain much.’ This last thought he imparted with unabashed bitterness.

  Lucia thought she’d change tack before returning to a more relevant line of gentle questioning, so as not to clam him up.

  However, before she could say anything, Matthias cut in.

  ‘Anyway, how are you? It was a surprise to hear from you, out of the blue.’

  His eyes were now inquisitive, with just a touch of suspicion which Lucia intended to dispel. She knew he knew her new line of work, and that she’d already been at the Creasy & Gotts offices interviewing everyone, though she had intentionally left him to Carliss and made her excuses. She decided to cut straight to the chase; a change of subject would have looked highly irregular now.

  ‘Matthias, you know I was here the other day.’

  ‘I know. You work for the police now. Good job?’

  ‘Good enough. Keeps me out of trouble.’

  ‘Public service and all that. I didn’t have you down as the altruistic type.’

  Lucia knew this w
as a barbed comment intended to point out the obvious, namely that she wouldn’t be getting paid anywhere near as much as a copper as she had been as a corporate lawyer. They really are a nasty breed, she reflected with some distaste, glad to be shot of the profession inasmuch as she could distance herself from most of her old habits. ‘I like the challenge,’ she said calmly. ‘It’s like solving a puzzle.’

  ‘You were always good at that, Lucia. Coming up with a solution to the impossible,’ Matthias said, taking a large sip out of the wine glass in front of him.

  ‘All water under the bridge now. I’ve moved on,’ Lucia replied.

  ‘Am I making this up, or did you use to be a decorator before you joined the filth?’ Matthias quizzed her.

  ‘Interior designer, if you’re going to be pretentious about it. But yes, I was effectively a decorator.’ She didn’t feel altogether comfortable as interviewee. The intention had been that she should be asking the questions, but she had clearly forgotten that Matthias was a wily one, a very smooth operator indeed. He must have smelled a rat and was consequently keen to gain the upper hand.

  ‘That’s quite a change from corporate law. What made you go for a manual labour job?’ Matthias said this with evident distaste for a job that involved what Lucia would have described as proper work, rather than sitting behind a computer screen concocting dubious law-evading schemes for the rich.

  ‘I fancied a change. I was sick of being chained to a desk and having no life,’ she retorted with an edge in her hitherto calm voice.

  Matthias shrank a little in his chair and gulped down the rest of his red wine. One point to me, thought Lucia with some pleasure.

  ‘How’s work these days?’ she asked. ‘Got a nice roommate?’

  ‘Yes, she’s good value. Rosie. Rosie Venter. Do you know her?’ Matthias tipped his head back at the sudden realisation. ‘Of course you do. You’ve interviewed us all.’