Perfect Girls: An absolutely gripping page-turning crime thriller

by Alison James

  Rob sat down opposite her, tugging off a padded MA-1 bomber jacket with an Interpol logo on the left sleeve. Underneath he wore a fitted grey T-shirt which betrayed a gym addiction. Sod’s law that he’s really attractive, Rachel thought. A complication I really don’t need. He had grey eyes, slightly creased with tan lines in the corners, thick light-brown hair that sprung from his forehead with a life of its own. And, naturally, the standard issue good American teeth. He could have been a model for yachting apparel, Rachel decided. Despite herself, she shot a quick glance at the bare ring finger of his left hand.

  He ordered filter coffee for himself and toast and jam for them both.

  ‘You need to eat at US mealtimes,’ he told her when she attempted a refusal, ‘Only way you’ll power through the jet lag.’

  As they ate, he told her ‘I’ve got a written briefing note, but if it’s okay with you, I’ll just give you a quick summary so you can ask questions while we’re face to face.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Rachel spoke through a mouthful of toast. Annoyingly Rob was right: she was feeling better now her blood sugar levels were heading up. ‘This jam is bloody delicious. Or jelly, I suppose you call it.’

  He did not attempt to hide his pleasure at the way she was demolishing the food. ‘Glad I got that right. They make it in-house… Okay, so our victim is called Phoebe Stiles. Twenty-five years old, born in Weoley Castle, England.’

  Rob pronounced it Wee-olly, making Rachel smile. He caught her smirk and paused. ‘Sorry. Go on.’

  ‘She was here on a temporary work visa. From what we know, trying to find film or TV work in Los Angeles. The LAPD will give you more detail on that. Her remains were found in a dumpster behind a Macy’s, very badly decomposed. The Medical Examiner estimated she had been dead between four and six weeks at that point.’

  He paused again to let Rachel digest this. She put down her piece of toast.

  ‘There was no ID on or near the body, and the police had to rely on dental records. Fortunately, Ms Stiles had been seeing an LA dentist quite recently to get a set of veneers fitted, so a positive identification was possible.’

  ‘And the family have been informed?’

  He nodded. ‘They’re on their way to Los Angeles now. The troubling aspect of this is that they claim to have had very recent contact with Phoebe, up to a few days ago. But from the condition of her remains, the Medical Examiner is one hundred per cent positive that this is an impossibility. But, again, they’ll be able to tell you more when you meet them.’

  Rachel grimaced. ‘Family liaison work is really not my forte. But I’m definitely going to need to speak to them about the alleged recent contact with their daughter. It could generate a lead.’

  Rob grimaced too, in sympathy. ‘There are a whole bunch of questions you need to ask. We were contacted because Phoebe was a non-US citizen, but another female victim around the same age showed up in San Diego a few months earlier – an American – and there are some striking similarities with the Stiles case.’

  Rachel rested her chin on her hands, her interest piqued. ‘Really? That’s interesting.’

  He drained his coffee and pushed a manila envelope across the table to Rachel. ‘There’s more detail in there. When do you fly out to LA?’

  ‘This afternoon.’

  ‘You’ll have a little time to read through this then.’

  Rachel wiped the sticky crumbs from her lip with a napkin and their eyes met for an intense second.

  ‘Rob…’ Rachel interrupted her own train of thought. ‘Listen, thanks for this.’

  ‘Sure, no problem. Anything I can do; you have my email address, and my cell number should be on the email too.’

  Rachel smiled weakly. ‘Great.’

  For an insane split second she had been about to ask him if he fancied a drink later. But it really wasn’t relevant either way. Not only did she not have enough time in DC, but after Giles Denton she had vowed never again to become involved with someone working on the same case. That was her new, absolute rule.

  He stood and held out his hand. Their eyes met again. ‘Good luck, Rachel.’

  * * *

  The three hours before check-out were spent sitting at the desk in her hotel room and reading through Interpol’s briefing note.

  Phoebe Stiles. The name was familiar for some reason. Rachel took her laptop from her case and googled it. A huge hit of results, and a whole portfolio of images. A pretty, Cuprinol-tanned, fake-lashed blonde girl captured by paparazzi at D-list events, or as part of tabloid and gossip mag features. Of course. She was that Phoebe Stiles. A soap actress who had been sacked and then set off down the reality TV road, involving herself in more and more desperate attempts to take up column inches: drunken nights out, Instagram nudity, social media fights with rivals, on again-off again relationships with fellow reality show victims, plastic surgery and pregnancy scares. A career of sorts.

  Rachel clicked on a tabloid headline: Why I’ll take LA by storm, by Phoebe Stiles. There was a photo of Phoebe, all duck lips, fierce brows and custard-blonde angel waves. She was, she said, fed up with the negative attention and lies of the UK press and was going to Los Angeles ‘to further my acting career.’ She had an agent there, and several projects were in the pipeline. She was excited about her future.

  Rachel set up an alert for updates on her search, closed her laptop and zipped it into her case with a deep sigh. Phoebe’s future. Rotting in a dumpster at the back of Macy’s department store.

  Chapter Five

  Transport is the next step. A rental car, picked up and returned in the least conspicuous way possible.

  The airport is the obvious choice of location. Hundreds of cars are collected there daily, usually for short periods, and no one is likely to pay much attention. The trunk needs to be big enough to house a human-sized package, but in every other respect should be as bland as possible.

  So the free upgrade to a flashy sports car has to be refused, and a plain blue mid-size, mid-range family compact taken instead. Dragging the package to the car without being seen involves disabling the cameras in the building with the spray paint, and using the elevator at a time when partygoers have returned to bed but any workers on an early shift are not yet about. 4.45 a.m.: this works out to be the optimum time slot.

  Then a drive of around a mile and a half, headlights off, licence plates obscured, to the final location. The car is parked away from the building for the rest of the night, and the next day will be returned to the rental zone in the airport car park. Keys in a deposit box. A shuttle to the nearest public transit bus stop, baseball cap pulled down, shades on.

  Done.

  Chapter Six

  The bikini may have been a little optimistic, Rachel reflected, as she woke the next morning. The California sunshine was there on cue, but the air was cold enough for her to see her breath. She abandoned the planned dip in the hotel pool in favour of a run.

  This was not the Hollywood she had pictured. She had envisioned gracious homes bordered by lush landscaping, sweeping boulevards fringed with towering fan palms and the pale Pacific beaches. It turned out those were all in Beverley Hills, Santa Monica and Bel Air. The LA police district dealing with Phoebe Stiles’s death was North Hollywood, a dusty, flat valley suburb of sprawling strip malls on the far side of the Hollywood hills. The ocean might as well not have existed, and there was only a distant glimpse of the San Gabriel mountains. Rachel ran past endless fast food and auto part outlets on Lakershim Boulevard before finally finding a small park, full of early Sunday runners like herself. She paused long enough to have a breakfast burrito and coffee, then went straight to the North Hollywood PD building on Burbank Avenue, pulling her Interpol warrant card from her fanny pack and showing it to a poker-faced desk sergeant.

  ‘Wait here ma’am: you need to speak to Lieutenant Gonzales.’

  Frank Gonzales was a box of a man, as broad as he was tall. Sweat glistened on his round cheeks and on the edges of his black moust
ache, despite the morning chill and the air conditioning. He continued sweating once they were in his office and seated on either side of his desk. A lemon air freshener gave off an overpowering scent that filled the small room. Next to it were several framed family portraits with the awkward poses, forced grins and matching sweaters mocked in online memes.

  ‘Glad to have you here, Detective Prince.’ He was sombre as he shook her hand. ‘This is a difficult case. Sensitive, you know?’

  ‘Have Phoebe’s parents arrived?’

  ‘Yes, they flew in yesterday. They’re very distressed, very confused. As you would expect. One of my officers will take you to meet with them.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Rachel paused. ‘I’m here to do what I can for them.’

  ‘Appreciated,’ Gonzales pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face with it. ‘I think it will help them to speak to a law enforcement agent from their own country.’

  Rachel nodded.

  ‘For now, there isn’t a whole lot we can tell them. The autopsy report hasn’t been super-helpful, I’ve got to tell you.’ He dabbed his top lip. ‘The remains were skeletal only, but skull injuries suggest cause of death was a blunt force trauma to the back of the head. As for what else she might have suffered – sexual abuse or torture – that’s impossible to tell.’

  ‘No third-party DNA?’

  Gonzales shook his head. ‘No discernible traces. We tested the plastic sheeting and tape she was wrapped in but they were clean. I’ll let you see a copy of the report.’

  ‘And the photos, please.’

  ‘Sure. Give me the details of where you’re staying and I’ll have them sent over.’

  ‘And she was found behind a department store?’

  ‘Macy’s, just up toward Valley Glen.’

  ‘Anything on their CCTV?’

  Gonzales shook his head regretfully. ‘Their recordings are kept for four weeks. We’ve checked everything they have. Nothing.’

  ‘How about where she was living?’

  ‘Same situation at the apartment block. We’re in the process of speaking to the other residents: that might give us something, but there were no reports of suspicious behaviour.’

  ‘I’d like to take a look at Phoebe’s apartment.’

  He shook his head. ‘There’s really nothing to see. The CSI guys have taken as many samples as they can, which are still undergoing analysis. The place looks like it’s been cleaned though. Her laptop and cell have gone to the tech people for data analysis, and whatever they find looks like our best hope of moving this forward.’

  ‘I’d still like to take a look.’

  Gonzales shrugged. ‘All righty then. I’ll have someone arrange it.’

  ‘And in my Interpol briefing, I was told there could be similarities between this and another case?’

  Gonzales patted his armpits with his handkerchief. Rachel had never seen anyone sweat so much. ‘A body that was found in San Diego a few months ago. Database flagged up some similarities.’

  ‘Could you get me some more information?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can, but you gotta understand, it’s outside of LAPD jurisdiction. Crossing county borders… that’s a decision for the FBI to make.’

  ‘Anything you can get would be helpful.’ Rachel stood up. ‘I should go and change before I talk to the family.’

  The first thing she was going to do was have a long shower. The blend of the drying perspiration from her run, Lieutenant Gonzales’ sweat sheen and the sickly sherbet-lemon aroma was making her skin crawl.

  Gonzales heaved himself up and lumbered to the door to open it. ‘I’ll have an officer to you in an hour.’

  * * *

  Officer Dean Brading was already waiting for her in the motel reception after Rachel had washed and dried her hair and dressed in her preferred uniform of black trousers and white shirt. Clean shaven, with a mousey buzz cut and big, soulful brown eyes, he looked barely old enough to handle the 9mm Smith & Wesson on his belt. He addressed her as ‘Ma’am’, and only spoke when spoken to on their ten-minute journey.

  Derek and Pamela Stiles were staying in a budget hotel on the outskirts of Studio City. Rachel had offered to go up to their room, but they insisted they would come down to the coffee area (it didn’t warrant the word shop) in the lobby. They appeared looking red-eyed, dazed and pale; the stupor of grief written all over their faces. Derek Stiles hadn’t shaved; Pamela had made an attempt at make-up, which only accentuated her puffy pallor. Apart from that, Rachel reflected, they couldn’t have looked more ordinary. Just a regular middle-aged, middle-class couple, thrust into an unimaginable nightmare. Rachel stood up, wondering if she should embrace them, but the presence of the silent Officer Brading held her back. She extended a hand.

  ‘Rachel Prince. I’m an international division investigator from the National Crime Agency.’

  Hearing an English accent was too much for Pamela, who crumpled, weeping. The weeping continued for some time. Rachel guided her into a chair, pulling out one of the tissues she had put in her shirt pocket especially for this eventuality. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You’ve got to find out who did this to our Phoebe,’ Pamela sobbed. ‘Tell me you’re going to find them.’

  ‘We’re going to do all we can, Mrs Stiles.’

  While she waited for the sobbing to subside she addressed Derek. ‘Mr Stiles, can you tell me when you last had contact with Phoebe?’

  ‘That’s the dreadful thing about this: we don’t even know.’ He had a thick West Midlands accent. ‘We thought we’d heard from her just last week, but the police here are telling us she must have already been dead then.’

  ‘When you say you’d heard from her?’

  ‘Messages, you know… on the WhatsApp. She was on that thing all the time. Chatting away, almost every day she’d do the little picture things, or send us a photo of something. But it’s got to have been someone else, someone who’d got hold of her mobile.’ He looked up at the ceiling for a second, then shook his head repeatedly. ‘It makes me sick just thinking about it. Why would someone do that?’ Rachel rested her hand on his arm as he struggled to breathe away the tears. ‘Sorry. I’ll be all right, just give me a second.’

  She waited while he took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘Okay? So thinking back, when did you hear from her and know for sure it must have been her? Talking on the phone.’

  ‘It was on Skype,’ Pamela said thickly. ‘The fifteenth of January.’

  ‘The fifteenth? You’re quite sure of the date?’

  Pamela nodded. ‘Yes because it was my mother’s birthday the next day, and I distinctly remember her blowing a kiss and saying “Give that to Nana”.’ She turned to her husband. ‘She did, didn’t she.’

  Derek nodded slowly. ‘That’s right. After that, she kept saying she’d phone or Skype, but she was always too busy. But we heard from her regularly, so we weren’t worried…’ He drew in his breath heavily, as though even speaking was distressing him. ‘We’ve told the police all of this already, and they took our phones from us to check.’

  ‘Well that’s good,’ said Rachel, ‘It gives us a definite timeline to work on.’

  ‘She was all excited too, because she’d got some work,’ said Pamela. ‘Wasn’t she, Derek?’

  ‘She was. She said her agent had got her a shampoo commercial, to go on the television, and it would be very decently paid. She was worried about running out of money, you see, what with the car, and rent, and agent’s fees.’

  ‘And getting her teeth done,’ said Pamela. ‘That cost something ridiculous. Twenty-five thousand dollars, I think she said.’ She shook her head sadly.

  ‘So she had financial problems?’

  Pamela’s head-shaking became more vigorous. ‘I wouldn’t exactly put it like that. But being here was a lot more expensive than she thought it was going to be, and she didn’t have her press and appearances and stuff she normally relied on. She’s not a celebrity here.
’

  Becoming a ‘celebrity’, the unfortunate career choice of so many girls with more ambition than talent, thought Rachel.

  ‘I think she definitely found it harder with nobody knowing who she was over here,’ reflected Derek. ‘But she was determined she was going to make it.’

  This brought on a bout of fresh weeping from Pamela. Rachel fetched them cups of stale overheated coffee from the drip machine in the corner.

  ‘Not like a proper English cup of tea, eh?’ Pamela managed a weak smile as she sipped the weak coffee.

  ‘I’ll need the details for her agent if you have them.’

  ‘She’s called Marion. Marion Miller. That’s all we know. She hasn’t been in touch.’ Pamela looked up at Rachel. ‘Can we see her, do you think?’

  ‘The agent?’

  ‘No. Phoebe. We just want to, you know… say goodbye.’

  Rachel felt Brading stiffen beside her. She hesitated.

  ‘I’ll certainly talk to Lieutenant Gonzales about that. Leave it with me.’ Rachel despised herself for not having the guts to tell these people that little remained of their daughter beyond bones and liquid putrefaction. And the pricey veneers.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Pamela reached for Rachel’s hand and gave it a little squeeze, intensifying her guilt. But she had to trust her gut when it came to judging how much these grieving parents could bear. Dealing with a victim’s relatives was certainly not her favourite part of the job, but she considered it the most important. And their distress drove her to do her best.

  ‘Why don’t you two go and have a rest, and we’ll speak later. And don’t worry: I’m going to do everything I can to find the person who did this to Phoebe. I promise you that.’