Perfect Girls: An absolutely gripping page-turning crime thriller

by Alison James

  Rob could not quite hide his shocked reaction. ‘Jesus, Rachel, that’s—’

  She put her fingers on his lips to stop him. ‘If you’re about to say it’s awful then think again. You wouldn’t want to patronise me, would you?’

  He held her wrist, her fingers still against his lips, holding them there for a few seconds. His breath on her fingertips set off a familiar tingle in her core.

  ‘Patronise you?’ he spoke very quietly. ‘That’s not what I want to do.’

  * * *

  They finished the wine, and Rachel stood up and collected up the empty bottle and cups. Rob followed her into her room, as she had known he would. You shouldn’t do this, the voice in her head said sternly. You’ve only just made the new rule and you’re already breaking it. Rob’s an important professional ally, and if you’re ever to have any hope of resolving this case you’re really going to need him. Romping around with him in a motel room is potentially risking that goodwill.

  ‘We shouldn’t do this.’ She voiced her thoughts out loud, as he stretched out on her bed, trying to make the move look casual. He caught sight of her expression and sat up again.

  ‘Hey, we’re just hanging out, aren’t we?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Rachel perched primly on the edge of the bed, steadfastly avoiding eye contact. It didn’t matter that she quite liked the idea of kissing him: she was not going to do it. Her mind was already flashing back to a similar scene in a hotel room in Edinburgh, when Giles Denton had stretched himself out on her bed. And that had not ended well.

  Her mobile rang.

  ‘Ignore it.’

  But her instincts and training forced her to glance at the display, and when she saw it was Mike Perez’s number she moved away from Rob and picked up.

  ‘Hi?’ she said, breathing a little more heavily than she would have liked.

  ‘Hi to you too. Hope I’m not interrupting something?’

  ‘No, no, I’m just… hanging out.’ She felt her face colour, and was glad Perez couldn’t see her.

  ‘I have something for you. D’you want to maybe get dinner?’

  Rachel laughed. ‘Sorry Mike, I’m afraid I’ve already eaten.’

  Rob disentangled himself and stood up. I’ll leave you to it, he mouthed at her, and left the room. As Rachel’s eyes followed him, she missed what Perez was saying.

  ‘Sorry, what was that?’

  ‘I said there wasn’t a match. That photo – it’s not the same girl as the one on the shampoo video.’

  ‘Really?’ Rachel straightened up. ‘Damn. But I guess that’s not so surprising. If you’re setting up a fake profile it makes sense to use a fake photo.’

  ‘Figures,’ agreed Perez. ‘I also got a buddy of mine to run the photo and a still from the video through the NGI-IPS. You don’t need to know what all those letters stand for, but it’s the facial database used by the FBI. They have access to thirty million mugshots, and driving licence photos from most states. No hit for the girl in the video, but we have a strong match for the profile photo. I’ll email you her details.’

  ‘That’s fantastic. Thanks so much, Mike.’

  ‘Be aware that the results sometimes throw up a false positive. It’s not proof of anything at all, just someone who needs to be ruled out… so, you sure about dinner?’

  What is it with these American men? Rachel wondered.

  ‘I’m sure. Thanks,’ she said firmly, hanging up.

  She knew Rob’s room number; she could go there now. She wanted to go there now. She picked up her key, walked to the door but stopped with her hand on the doorknob. She sat down on the bed again.

  She wasn’t going to go. That was definite. Tempting or not, she wasn’t about to become entangled with either Rob McConnell or Mike Perez. As she walked into the bathroom to undress and brush her teeth, the room phone started ringing. It could only be Rob: he was the only person who knew her room number. She ignored it and eventually it stopped.

  Her phone pinged.

  It was the email from Mike Perez. She decided to read it in the morning when she was less tired and could give it her full attention. For a while she dozed in front of the TV, ignoring the phone by her bed as it rang once, twice, three times. Eventually, at nearly midnight, it stopped. Relieved, she switched off the light and crawled under the covers.

  * * *

  She was woken at eight by a knocking on her door. Rob was standing there with two cups of coffee, and seemed unfazed by the fact that she was wearing just T-shirt and knickers.

  ‘Peace offering,’ he held out a coffee.

  ‘Do we need to make peace?’ She took the coffee but did not invite him in. Fusty sheets and morning breath were not on her list of ways to impress.

  ‘Calling you last night. I wondered afterwards if that was a bit…’

  ‘Pushy?’

  ‘Yeah. When you didn’t pick up I debated with myself whether I should come over here in person. And while I was trying to decide, I fell asleep. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’ She gave him a rueful smile over the rim of the coffee cup. ‘I wouldn’t have asked you in.’

  ‘You have the prettiest eyes,’ he told her.

  ‘They’re mud colour: that’s what my dad used to say.’

  ‘Used to?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be; it was nearly eighteen years ago.’

  Rob was still scrutinising her face. ‘I’d say they were hazel. Kind of brown and kind of green.’

  Rachel had already started backing away. She was starting to feel uncomfortable, and annoyed with herself for giving him mixed signals the evening before. ‘Listen, I’m going to jump in the shower. I need to check in around ten, so I should get going.’

  ‘I’ll give you a ride to the airport.’

  * * *

  They didn’t talk much in the car; Rachel watching the California landscape that slipped past her. Strip malls, distant hills and in between them a thousand palm trees pushing up towards the sky. Even when they were pinioned in one of the inescapable LA freeway jams, Rachel remained silent. They arrived at LAX dangerously late for the London flight, and she was forced to flash her police warrant card to jump to the front of both the check-in queue and the line for security screening. Rob showed his Interpol ID to gain access to airside, and together they ran to the gate. He stopped at the top of the jetway and waved her on.

  ‘Go. Go! They’re closing the goddam door.’

  He reached forward to kiss her on the cheek, but she had already ducked away and was heading down the ramp, glancing over her shoulder as she went. He raised a hand in farewell, turning to go only once she had reached the door of the plane.

  The female flight attendant took her boarding pass with one hand and ushered her firmly with the other.

  ‘You’re almost out of time.’

  ‘No,’ Rachel corrected her. ‘I am out of time. Completely, one hundred per cent, out of time.

  Part II

  ‘There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.’

  Terry Pratchett

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘Tinned peaches.’

  Eileen Prince put two bowls down on the table. ‘I’ve got evaporated milk if you’d like it?’

  Rachel was at her mother’s house in Purley for the weekend, ensconced in a womb-like space of familiar scents and sensations. Nubbly candlewick bed cover, Pledge furniture polish, china muffled by tablecloths, faded curtain fabric that let in sulphurous-yellow street lighting, the faintest cloud of dust when you sank onto the velour three-piece suite. She had been greeted equally enthusiastically by both her mother and Dolly the American Cocker Spaniel. Dolly had once been fostered by Brickall, but Eileen had ended up giving her a permanent home when it became obvious that Brickall’s work schedule was not sufficiently dog-friendly.

  ‘What?’ Rachel looked up from checking her phone, absen
tly fondling the pale gold fur on Dolly’s skull as she waited for falling scraps. ‘Oh, no thanks. Just the fruit is fine.’

  ‘You should put that thing away at the table,’ Eileen said firmly. ‘It’s bad manners.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right.’ Rachel slipped it into her bag and turned her attention to trying to harpoon the peaches with the edge of her spoon as they slid around the china dish.

  ‘You’re not really here,’ observed her mother. ‘You’ve been like it ever since you arrived: twitchy, mind on something else.’

  ‘It’s the jet lag.’

  ‘You’ve been back two weeks already!’ scoffed her mother.

  ‘Sorry Mum, it’s been busy at work and I suppose I haven’t had a chance to unwind properly yet.’

  ‘Well, that’s what you’re here for,’ said her mother, ladling out more peaches. ‘A bit of R & R. Bit of looking after.’

  ‘I’m here because Lindsay gave me a telling off,’ Rachel said bluntly. ‘And to give you your birthday present, obviously.’

  There’d been no chance to shop in Los Angeles, but Rachel had grabbed the most expensive old-lady-friendly perfume she could find in the Heathrow duty free when she landed.

  Eileen Prince sighed. ‘It’s different for Lindsay. She’s very settled so she doesn’t always understand how things are with your work.’ Her mother gave another exaggerated sigh as she started to clear the dishes. ‘It would be nice if you could settle down outside of work though. You need a nice boy.’

  ‘Mum, I’m forty years old.’ Since she was not a fan of parties, Rachel had let this milestone slip by a few months earlier with no more than drinks with a few colleagues. ‘I don’t need any kind of boy. Anyway, I’ve got a boy: he’s called Joe. It’s hard enough trying to find time to spend with him.’

  ‘You know what I mean. You need to find yourself a nice man. Like that Howard. He was nice. I still don’t understand why you saw fit to end it with him.’

  Knowing that it would provoke, Rachel asked, ‘How do you know I haven’t already found one?’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘No.’ Rachel kept her head down, stacking plates in the dishwasher. She had never told her mother about her brief car crash of a relationship with Giles Denton, and she was not about to do so now. And she certainly wasn’t going to mention her almost-involvement with Rob McConnell.

  ‘Why don’t you go for one of your jogs?’ Eileen asked. ‘That might blow away the cobwebs. You can take the dog.’

  ‘Mum, nobody calls it jogging anymore.’

  But she went upstairs and fetched her running shoes and pounded the twilit suburban streets of Purley with Dolly until tiredness started to set in. Then she and her mother settled themselves in the sitting room with the Radio Times (potential viewing ringed in red biro) and a bag of humbugs. They did the crossword together, watched a show about antiques and then a Danish drama, which Eileen insisted on having turned up very loud, despite the subtitles. This was followed by the ritual mug of Horlicks and a digestive biscuit, before retiring to the lumpy single bed she had slept in as a teenager. The following morning, after a cooked breakfast that she didn’t really want, Rachel helped her mother weed the flowerbeds and drove her to a pub that boasted a Sunday ‘carvery’.

  ‘I’d better get back,’ she told Eileen once they’d driven back to the modest 1930s semi on a pleasant tree-lined street. The very model of Middle England, one that had provided Rachel with both a stable upbringing and a burning need for excitement.

  ‘I’ve made a Victoria sponge.’

  ‘Oh, go on then,’ Rachel conceded, allowing herself to be force-fed tea and cake, despite not being in the least bit hungry. The slabs of carvery beef and rubbery Yorkshires sat like concrete in her stomach.

  ‘Make sure you bring that lovely grandson of mine to visit soon,’ Eileen said as she reached up to kiss her daughter goodbye.

  ‘I will,’ Rachel promised. ‘As soon as I can.’

  It was dark when she drove back to Bermondsey. For once she wasn’t looking forward to being back there, or to returning to work in the morning. When she had returned from California two Mondays ago, she had taken a cab straight from the airport to the office, as promised. Nigel Patten had called her in for a debrief, but he was officially still on paternity leave, and it had been short and perfunctory. Back at her desk, her caseload seemed to have mushroomed while she was gone, and little work had been done on her existing files. There were over 300 emails to answer, statements to read, endless updating, chasing, reviewing. For the foreseeable future she would be deskbound.

  If Brickall was pleased to have her back, he went to extreme lengths to hide it. He was unusually subdued. His resentment, on the other hand, was out in the open. There were frequent references to ‘people who skive off’ and ‘sunning yourself in foreign climes’ (she couldn’t hide her Californian tan). When she tried to discuss the Stiles case with him, he yawned theatrically or changed the subject. There was something up with him, and Rachel intended to call him out on it.

  Meanwhile, she desperately wanted to talk to him about the case, to go through all the twists and turns and dead ends and find out what he thought. She had been plunged into an intense experience then yanked away from it, and was now expected to behave as though it had never happened. But it had happened, and it was still happening, spooling in her brain like an endless movie trailer. Scraps of images and scenes all sliced together: Washington’s stately streets, Officer Brading’s gun in its holster, a girl in a red dress laughing in the rain, the yellow sofas at CasaMia, Phoebe’s coffin, San Diego’s palm-fringed bay, Paige’s tattoo needle, Matt Wyburgh’s five o’clock shadow. Rob’s expression as he tried to kiss her.

  * * *

  Rob was in her thoughts yet again as she swung into the office on Monday morning. She hadn’t heard from him since she left Los Angeles, but since it was he who had taken responsibility for following up leads on her behalf, she would just have to wait for him to make contact. She pushed him from her mind as she sat down heavily at her desk, spilling coffee on her files as she did so.

  ‘You’re such a klutz,’ observed Brickall. ‘And you needn’t have bothered sitting down – Patten wants us in the conference room in five.’

  ‘Happy Monday to you too.’

  * * *

  ‘Human trafficking.’

  Patten slammed a large file on the desk for dramatic emphasis. ‘Specifically bringing young girls into the UK to work in the sex trade.’

  Brickall rolled his eyes. Patten ignored him. ‘We’ve had intelligence from the Nigerian Crime Commission concerning one Florence Obatola, aged forty-eight.’ He pulled a mug shot out of the file. ‘Apparently she approaches young girls in isolated villages in Nigeria, offering them the chance to study at a “college” in London.’ He’d made air quotes, prompting another discreet eye roll from Brickall. ‘They’re scooped up and taken to the airport in Lagos and never seen or heard from again. The Met have had a tip-off about a property in North London where they believe girls are being held against their will. The witness says he saw some young women through an upstairs window who appeared to be IC3, and reported sounds of screams and loud cries.’

  ‘So what’s our involvement, sir?’

  ‘Ultimately, if this tip-off proves correct, act as liaison when it comes to getting Obatola to court. But first I’d like you to do some onsite surveillance.’

  Brickall groaned. ‘Isn’t that Plod’s job?’

  ‘I want us to have oversight from the start, and that involves building a picture of what’s going on,’ Patten told him firmly. ‘You’ve both got plenty of tactical ops experience: grab yourselves an unmarked vehicle, vests and tasers and get yourselves over there.’

  * * *

  ‘Well this is a great way to spend eight hours,’ Brickall observed, as they sat parked in a narrow street near Turnpike Lane.

  Opposite them was the shabby terraced house that had been reported to police. The grimy windows were
obscured by pieces of cloth that had been pinned up in place of curtains. There were no signs of life, nor had there been for the past hour. A couple of boys sped past on skateboards, the occasional pensioner shuffled past. Brickall was in the passenger seat, with his feet up on the glovebox. He leaned forward and started drumming rhythmically on the dashboard with his forefingers. When this elicited no response from Rachel, he took a box of matches from his pocket and started lighting them and blowing them out one by one. When he got to the tenth match, Rachel snapped.

  ‘For God’s sake, Brickall, you’re not twelve! Why don’t you go and buy us a coffee and something to eat? I’ll be okay here for five minutes.’

  Leaving his stab vest on the front seat, Brickall sloped off and returned with two milky coffees (he knew full well that Rachel drank hers black), a couple of chocolate bars and a packet of crisps, which he proceeded to eat noisily and messily, spraying the interior of the squad car with greasy potato dandruff. Once the food and drink had been consumed, Brickall amused himself collecting up the burnt matches, making holes in the box and sticking them in so that the whole thing resembled a bizarre carbonised hedgehog. Rachel kept her eyes fixed firmly on the front door of the house. Once or twice, the makeshift curtains twitched, but no one came in or out.

  ‘Good weekend?’ Brickall asked eventually.

  ‘Went to my mum’s house. So, pretty unexciting. Apart from Sunday lunch at the local carvery, which counts as exciting in my mum’s book.’

  Brickall started to dismantle the hedgehog. ‘See Joe?’

  She shook her head. ‘Too busy with his social life. I think there might be a girl on the scene. You?’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘Look, Mark, I know there’s something bugging you. Just tell me what it is.’

  ‘Not now, okay? Not while we’re on obs.’