Perfect Girls: An absolutely gripping page-turning crime thriller

by Alison James

  The space had been designed to within an inch of its life; a company recently valued at $25 billion was not afraid to make a statement. Rachel reclined on one of three crocus-yellow sofas at the atrium’s centre and gratefully accepted the espresso the receptionist brought her.

  ‘Paulie will be with you presently.’

  Rachel had wrongly pictured Paulie Greenaway as a young male, but a woman bounded up a few minutes later, and rather than extending a hand, lunged in for a hug. Aged somewhere between thirty and forty, her light red hair was scraped up into a messy bun. She wore cargo pants and trainers and sported multiple piercings.

  She led Rachel through thousands of feet of open desk space, breakout areas, circular meeting rooms (‘less hierarchical’) and a games room (‘We have an ethic of randomness, spontaneity and play’). Rachel wondered how an ethic of randomness would go down at the NCA. Some of her more cynical colleagues might say it was already in operation. She wished Brickall could see this place. He’d find it hilarious.

  Everywhere you looked there was wall art featuring the light blue app logo, and either the words ‘Mi Casa e su casa’, or the translation, ‘My home is your home’. What’s mine is yours.

  They settled opposite each other on non-hierarchical foam pouffes, and Paulie logged herself into one of the tablets that seemed to be lying around everywhere. She listened intently as Rachel told her about Phoebe’s death.

  ‘So you haven’t spoken to the press or made this public via an appeal?’

  ‘Not yet, no.’

  Paulie grimaced as though someone was suggesting root canal work with no anaesthesia. ‘I have to tell you; this would be disastrous for perception of the brand. Totally disastrous. We’re synonymous with security; it’s one of our key values.’

  ‘With respect, Ms Greenaway, this is a criminal investigation. Your brand’s profile is not our paramount concern. ‘

  ‘Paulie. Please. We think use of surnames is patriarchal.’

  Rachel pulled herself up as tall as she was able to on her ridiculous foam toadstool. ‘Paulie – a young woman has been murdered around the time her home was rented to a customer from your site. It’s possible that she was killed within that same home. We need to know everything you can tell us about the identity of the person who rented it.’

  ‘The privacy of our users—’

  Rachel glared. ‘Everything you can tell us.’ she repeated, folding her arms across her chest. ‘We wouldn’t want to go down the route of getting a warrant to seize all your systems hardware. Though of course we could.’

  Paulie glanced at Rachel’s face, then started tapping furiously on her tablet. ‘Okay, I have the listing right here. The account is in the name of Heather Kennedy.’

  ‘What information do you have on her?’

  ‘When members register we ask for a face photo, a home address, email address, phone number and a social security number. And a credit card number, the one that any rentals are charged to. They can write a short bio, but it’s optional.’

  ‘But you don’t run police checks?’

  Paulie shook her head. ‘That would take way too long and be far too expensive. It’s free to register as a guest. We just run a basic address validation. Heather Kennedy gave an address in Colorado Springs.’

  ‘You have a photo of her?’

  Paulie passed her the tablet.

  Rachel stared, feeling a chill stab of shock. A heavily filtered selfie of a young, blonde girl with generically pretty features and a vermilion-lipsticked pout. She could have been the girl next door. She could have been Phoebe.

  ‘No bio?’

  Paulie shook her head.

  ‘What about her account history? Has she stayed anywhere else?’

  ‘This was a new account, opened January 12th this year. The booking at Canton Place in Studio City was the first and only reservation “she” made.’

  She made quotation marks in the air, to indicate that the account holder could be any gender.

  ‘Give me a second.’ Taking out her phone, Rachel called the number on the account.

  ‘This number is no longer in service.’

  She tried sending an email from her own account to ‘heather.kennedy91’. It bounced straight back with an ‘Undeliverable’ system message.

  She handed the tablet back to Paulie. ‘Try putting a charge on that credit card number.’

  Paulie tapped some buttons. ‘Card declined.’ She shrugged. ‘The reservation was paid for using that card, but it looks like it’s now been cancelled. I don’t know what else I can do. We don’t have any further information on this person. The email service provider might be able to supply an IP address, I guess.’

  ‘Send all the details you do have to my email,’ Rachel handed her a card. ‘And I’d be grateful if you could organise a cab back to Mineta San Jose. I have to attend the victim’s funeral this afternoon.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll organise it right away.’ Paulie looked suitably chastened.

  As they headed back towards the door, Rachel paused. ‘Actually, there is one other thing, if you wouldn’t mind?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Do you have an account in the name of Tiffany Kovak?’

  Paulie sat down and started tapping at the tablet again. ‘Tiffany Kovak… yes, we have a host called Tiffany Kovak – she has a property in downtown San Diego, the Gaslamp district.’

  ‘Had. I’m afraid she’s dead too.’

  Paulie’s eyes widened. She set the tablet down slowly on the table in front of her.

  ‘Oh my God. Are you telling me these two deaths are related? That would be very bad news.’

  ‘For the brand?’ Rachel couldn’t resist.

  ‘Just bad news. Awful.’

  ‘It’s far too soon to reach that conclusion, but I’ll need you to send me Tiffany’s account details too.’

  ‘Sure, anything. I’ll need to discuss all of this with our CEO, and obviously we’d appreciate—’

  ‘We won’t be going public with this. Not at this stage, anyway.’

  Paulie looked so terrified that Rachel couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her. ‘But I have a feeling you and I are going to need to speak again.’

  * * *

  The flight to Bop Hope Airport was delayed by twenty minutes, landing at three fifteen. As the plane taxied, Rachel switched on her phone to look at a map and work out the quickest way of getting to Valhalla Memorial Park. Her email alert sounded.

  From: Robert J. McConnell

  To: Rachel Prince

  Subject: How’s it going?

  Hi Rachel, just thought I’d check in with you and find out how things are going. Our liaison officer here said the LAPD now has a suspect? Regards, Rob.

  There was no time to reply properly, so she simply wrote ‘Will call with an update. R.’ as she made her way through the arrivals hall, searching for a cab.

  The service had just begun as she crept into the crematorium chapel and sat in one of the rear pews. The white coffin, heaped with pink and white roses, was at the head of the aisle on its catafalque, and Snow Patrol’s ‘Run’ was playing on a hidden sound system.

  I’ll sing it one last time for you, then we really have to go…

  The stress from rushing to get there, the bleakness of the occasion, the bittersweet message of the chosen song all collided in a rush. They brought tightness to Rachel’s throat, and the sudden sting of tears. She looked down at her hands while she steadied herself, listening to Pamela’s animal cry of pain and Derek’s dry cough. There were only a handful of guests: a couple who looked as though they could be relatives from the UK, Gonzales and Brading, Marion Miller and two representatives from the British Consulate, one of whom stood to read a prayer.

  The memorial park official gave a brief cookie-cutter eulogy that must have been from the ‘Taken Too Soon’ chapter of the funeral officiants’ handbook, slotting in Phoebe’s name where applicable. Then the coffin, barely visible beneath its heavy mantl
e of flowers, trundled on invisible rollers through a red velvet curtain, to the strains of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. And that was it. Phoebe Stiles’s existence was officially over.

  The paltry cohort of mourners emerged blinking from the gloom of the chapel to a cerulean sky above sweeping sunlit lawns, crimson and violet azaleas and murmuring fountains. It was a surreal ending for the girl from Birmingham’s Weoley Castle.

  ‘Thank you so much for coming. It means ever such a lot to us, doesn’t it Derek?’ Pamela enveloped Rachel in a hug and Derek nodded stiffly, putting a hand on his wife’s back.

  Rachel disentangled herself and pulled Frank Gonzales to one side.

  ‘I’m just back from San Francisco, following up a lead that the IT guys found on Phoebe’s tablet.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted trip, Detective Prince.’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ Rachel said pleasantly. ‘Can I brief you on it later?’

  ‘Let’s leave it until we see how Wyburgh checks out. We’re still following up his alibis.’ Gonzales pulled out his pocket square and wiped the back of his neck.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He was in Reno for approximately forty-eight hours at the bachelor party, and he showed up for work every day as usual, but he can’t account for all his movements the rest of the time. That still gives him plenty of opportunity to go to Phoebe’s apartment, have a fight with her, kill her.’

  Rachel shook her head firmly. ‘With respect, Lieutenant, that’s exactly the problem: the time frame is too wide. Which of us can remember exactly which stores we visited, who we spoke to, everything we did a month ago? If we have evidence she was still alive to film the commercial on the second of February and her parents spoke to her on the fifteenth January, then that gives us almost three weeks. And what about witnesses?’

  ‘Witnesses?’

  Rachel bit back her first response. ‘Anyone who can place Wyburgh at the scene? Anyone who heard a fight?’

  ‘Not yet. But he has a cast-iron motive,’ said Gonzales stubbornly. ‘She dumped him, and he couldn’t take it. Crime of passion; story as old as time.’

  Rachel was still shaking her head. ‘I read all the messages between them, and I just don’t buy it. It doesn’t feel like that kind of relationship. Did you speak to his previous girlfriends?’

  ‘So far we’ve only identified one.’

  ‘And?’

  Gonzales mopped his brow vigorously. ‘She denies there was any violent behaviour.’

  Rachel inclined her head slightly.

  ‘But that doesn’t mean he didn’t just snap. And his DNA is the only sample found in that apartment.’

  Rachel struggled to maintain a professional demeanour in the face of rising exasperation. ‘He was her boyfriend. He visited. The presence of his DNA links him to the apartment, not to the crime. And what about the other hair in the vacuum cleaner?’

  Gonzales looked smug. ‘Purchased non-native hair. Matched the profile of imported Russian hair used by the salon where Phoebe had extensions put in.’

  The cemetery staff were politely ushering the guest towards their cars, but Rachel stayed doggedly with Gonzales. ‘Have you bailed Wyburgh?’

  ‘For now. We don’t have enough to charge him yet,’ he conceded.

  ‘Then the case remains open.’ Again, Rachel kept her tone as pleasant and non-confrontational as she could manage. ‘So, I’d like to come by Burbank Avenue and brief you on my trip. Also, I need to look at Tiffany Kovak’s file, if that’s okay.’

  Gonzales glanced sharply at Brading, then back to Rachel. ‘I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.’

  ‘But I saw it in your office.’

  ‘Sorry; it’s now been returned to San Diego PD.’

  Marion Miller marched past in an ostentatiously large hat and designer black cashmere, using her sunglasses to avoid eye contact.

  Rachel abandoned Gonzales and went after her. ‘Ms Miller?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, I have another client appointment. Call my office.’

  ‘Could I hitch a ride?’ Rachel called after her retreating back, but Miller pretended not to hear, climbing into her waiting town car and disappearing down the long drive. One dead client buried, another living one to represent.

  Rachel turned back to see that Derek and Pam were also watching the car, their expressions bleak.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, squeezing Pam’s shoulder. ‘We will find whoever’s responsible.’

  * * *

  Back at the Ventana Vista, Rachel changed into her bikini, grabbed her phone and laptop and went out to the pool, flopping onto a lounger. For a few minutes she closed her eyes and didn’t move a muscle, soaking up the warmth from the last rays of early evening sun. She ached all over, with a bone-deep weariness.

  Her phone bleeped. Reluctantly she sat up and looked at it. The text message was from her new pet IT guy, Mike Perez.

  Have had facial recognition results in from Pittsburgh. 99.9% certainty woman in the shampoo commercial NOT Phoebe Stiles. Have emailed their report.

  She stared at the text for a few seconds, then opened her laptop and checked her emails. Before she got to PsyLab’s report, she saw another unopened email in her inbox, marked with a red ‘Urgent’ flag. It was from Paulie Greenaway, with the subject line ‘Thought you should see this ASAP’.

  Rachel opened it and scrolled through the booking history on Tiffany Kovak’s CasaMia account. There had been eight reservations in the last nine months. Rachel clicked through them all in turn, finding nothing unusual. Then she reached the last one. The guest account was in the name of Stacey Gunnarson. And the profile photo was a familiar blonde twenty-something. Blandly pretty with artful make-up and a bright red pout.

  Heather Kennedy.

  Sitting bolt upright, she grabbed her phone again and tried phoning the number filled in under the account details. Out of service. She tried emailing the contact address: message undeliverable, just as before. She made a note of the property address, closed her laptop and dived into the pool, crawling several lengths until her heart had stopped thumping and her pulse slowed. She flipped onto her back and floated, staring up at a deepening indigo sky, car headlights twinkling and dipping on the horizon as they wove through the Hollywood hills. This had to be the connection between the deaths of Phoebe Stiles and Tiffany Kovak. It couldn’t simply be a coincidence…

  ‘Ma’am?’

  The voice startled her, deflating her buoyancy. She flapped her arms to stop herself from sinking, then rolled over onto her front, her right foot just making contact with the bottom of the pool. Dean Brading stood a few feet away from her, his holster at eye level.

  Rachel pushed her hair back from her forehead, water streaming over her face and down her neck, snot smeared over her top lip and chin.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, ma’am. There’s been a development.’

  Turning his gaze from her cleavage, Brading waited a few seconds, as though expecting her to emerge. She hopped through the water to the side of the pool and grabbed her towel, wiping down her face.

  ‘Officer?’

  He spoke as though reading aloud from a crime report.

  ‘During the search of suspect Matt Wyburgh’s home residence, officers found a blunt instrument with the victim’s blood on it. He has consequently been charged with her murder.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Phoebe Stones?’

  ‘Phoebe Stiles.’

  ‘I’m sorry ma’am, I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘The client was Lovely Locks, and the date of the shoot was February second.’

  ‘Mmmm hmmm…’ There were background sounds of rustling paper and scribbling. ‘You know what – I’ll speak to my manager and get someone to call you right back. Where did you say you were calling from?’

  ‘I’m from the National Crime Agency in the UK, international division.’

  ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘I’m an
Interpol officer. And I don’t have time to wait for a call back. Tell your manager that I’ll be coming to your offices tomorrow, and I expect to get access to all information regarding that shoot. Is that clear?’

  There was silence for a beat. ‘Yes ma’am.’

  Rachel hung up and planted her forehead on her hand for a few seconds. Then she checked the time on her watch. Eight fifty. Her rental car was due to be dropped off in a few minutes.

  She opened her laptop and checked Rob McConnell’s details. A phone call would be most efficient, given the time restraint. His mobile went straight to voicemail. She hesitated, then decided she was at risk of waffling and hung up. She composed a text instead.

  On my way to check out the case that was similar to Phoebe’s. IP = Tiffany Kovak, I think. LAPD not exactly being cooperative, plus it’s out of their jurisdiction, so I’m out on a limb here. Anything you can get me about the case and contacts who might be willing to speak to me would be fantastic. Status urgent – only have a few hours. Rachel.

  She added a kiss then deleted it. No more work-centred flirtation: that was the new rule, she reminded herself. Grabbing her bag, she went outside to wait for her hire car.

  * * *

  It was now Thursday morning, and she was flying back to London on Sunday. Three days left, and so much still to do. Nigel Patten had phoned the previous evening and demanded an update. It was the middle of the night in London, and in the background Rachel could just hear the faint sound of a mewling newborn.

  ‘Night feed?’ she enquired.

  ‘Something like that,’ sighed Patten. ‘If you’re wide awake at four in the morning, you may as well make use of the time difference. That’s what I’m telling myself.’