by Alison James
‘Hi,’ Sophie said, with a shy little wave.
Rachel felt a little ripple of pleasure at his use of the ‘m’ word. He usually addressed her as Rachel. ‘Mum’ was his adoptive mother, Jane.
‘There are beers in the fridge, or I’ve got wine?’
Sophie accepted wine, Joe helped himself to a beer and Rachel poured herself a mineral water and set out a bowl of crisps. They chatted happily for forty-five minutes about Rachel’s work, Joe’s internship and Sophie’s fine arts course, then Rachel packed up a carrier bag with all the viable fridge contents and gave it to Joe, along with a set of spare keys to the flat before returning to her packing. She whistled tunelessly to herself as she threw clothes in the suitcase, happiness making her light-hearted. Seeing her son always left her like this. Happy, and so very grateful.
* * *
As the taxi pulled away down a near-silent Jamaica Road the next morning, Rachel phoned Rob’s number. It went to voicemail. She quickly checked her watch – it would late evening there, and she’d hoped to catch him before he went to bed. Then she cleared her throat.
‘Listen, it’s me. I know this is a bit sudden, but I’ve managed to take some time off and I’m coming over. To Washington DC; it makes most sense to start there and I got a seat on an early flight. So, guess I’ll see you soon. I’ll call when I arrive.’
Once she was in the departure lounge waiting to board, she texted Brickall.
I’m really sorry Mark…
She hardly ever called him by his first name.
I know you’re pissed off with me, but please understand I just can’t not finish this. I’ll see you very soon. R x
He was surgically attached to his mobile and always replied to texts instantly, unless he was driving or asleep. She checked her phone every few minutes, but there was no response. There was, however, an email from an address she did not recognise.
From: Abigail Harris
To: Rachel Prince
I hope this is okay. I was talking with Paige Chen about Tiffany and she gave me your card because she told me you were trying to find who would want to kill her, and I said I wanted to say something about that. I don’t know who killed her, but I’m not surprised somebody did want to. Tiffany Kovak was really mean. At school she was the biggest bitch. When we were in eighth grade and I got my period, she stuck her phone under the cubicle door in the toilets and took pictures of me. In tenth grade she told Tyler Roth that I was in love with him even after I begged her not to. She was absolutely awful to Mindy Poole, just because she was heavy. Used to call her a fat pig and to her face too. Anyhow I just wanted to tell you this, she was not a nice person. It was not me that killed her but I kind of wish I had. Sincerely, Abbie Harris.
Rachel read and re-read this. I’m not surprised that someone wanted to kill her. Exactly what Lauren had said about Phoebe.
The flight started boarding, but as she walked to the plane there was still no response from Brickall. Asleep, then? Fair enough. When she landed at Dulles and switched her mobile on again, she knew he would be only be sitting at his desk, going through arrest warrants. Still no reply.
She continued checking her phone screen intermittently while she was at baggage claim, and as she walked through the arrivals hall.
‘I said hi!’
She looked up. Rob was standing in her path.
‘I figured you’d be on this flight, so I thought I’d come and meet you.’ He swept her up in a hug. She surrendered to it completely. It felt good.
‘You came back,’ he said into her hair.
‘I did.’
They straightened up, and he took her bag from her, leading the way through the milling arrivals hall traffic. ‘Come on Miss Tenacity, you and I have got work to do.’
Chapter Thirty
She describes herself as ‘Part-time model and beauty blogger’. I read her blog and watch her YouTube videos. Product reviewing, tips for contouring and smoky eyes, fake wellness advice… yawn. You and all the millions of others, sweetie. She has a Pomeranian called Dorothy who appears in some of her vlogs, and Dorothy has her own zone in the apartment’s impressively stocked closet, featuring diamanté collars, tiny sweaters and even a miniature tutu.
In my opinion she’s not especially good at being a vlogger, and her mediocre follower numbers bear this out. There’s no evidence of any commercial sponsorship. Nor is she tall enough or distinctive enough to be a successful model. So how is she supporting herself? I sit at her desk, take out the file she’s helpfully labelled ‘Tax and Invoices’ and start looking through the paperwork. And there it is. A bunch of pro-forma time sheets, dated at fairly regular intervals, from an office temp agency. So, in reality, she’s a secretary.
The great thing about this is that it means she doesn’t have a fixed place of work. Every few weeks or so, when she’s not vlogging or ‘modelling’, she shows up to work at a place where no one knows who she is. They know nothing about her other than name and social security number; they’re unlikely even to have seen a photo. I take the agency’s number from their payment slip and call them, telling them I want to work now. This week. Today even. I should go to the Elite Staffing website and log into my account, they tell me, and fill in an online request with the dates and hours I’m available, along with any preferences for type of work. I tell them my internet is down. The woman on the other end of the line, whose name is Marianne, bitches and moans that this messes up their paperwork, but eventually agrees to see what’s available and get back to me.
Marianne calls me back after a couple of hours. I spend the intervening time going through the contents of the overflowing closet, trying on and co-ordinating potential workwear outfits. I can start that afternoon at a downtown law firm, but they only need help with filing and general clerical duties. Marianne stresses it’s not the kind of executive-level PA work they normally find for me. I tell her that’s just fine: it’s only short-term. It occurs to me that if they’d found me something where I had to take shorthand I might be in trouble. Do people even do shorthand any longer? I’ve never worked in an office, so I don’t know. I dress in a silk blouse, a tight pencil skirt and high-heeled pumps, and I really love the effect. Like Rachel Zane out of Suits.
People in a commercial law firm are far too busy to notice temps, or care what they do. Only the woman who shows me where I’ll be sitting speaks to me; to say I might like to wear more comfortable shoes next time, as I’ll be on my feet going through filing boxes a lot of the time. I’m well suited for the work, given that I’m very methodical and I like to organise. I like the light, bright offices, the super-clean staff kitchen, the soothing background hum of noise. Occasionally the male lawyers walking past my desk give me a curious second look, and after I’ve relaxed a little I allow them brief eye contact, give a half-smile in return. I don’t talk though. The less I say, the safer I am.
The same woman comes to me at the end of the day and says I’m doing a great job and would I be prepared to stay for the rest of the week? I say I would.
Chapter Thirty-One
‘Time to join up the dots.’
Rachel and Rob were in a coffee shop next to the budget hotel she had booked, and he was arranging photos on the table in front of them, much as Rachel herself had done when Brickall visited her flat, only this time a photo of Melissa Downey joined the gallery of pretty young blondes. Rachel showed him the email she had received the day before from Abbie Harris.
‘She’s no wordsmith, but I think we get the picture.’
‘Phoebe Stiles’s classmate had something very similar to say about her. Almost identical, in fact.’
Rob took a sip of his coffee and thought about this. ‘That’s very interesting.’
‘Is it though?’ Rachel remembered Brickall’s bullying statistics. ‘Clearly neither Tiffany or Phoebe were very nice people…’
‘Little bitches, you might say.’
‘Exactly. But that’s hardly a sub-sector of society. There are
a hell of a lot of little bitches out there.’
‘Trust me, I know.’ Rob grinned. ‘But it implies a type, and in victimology that’s significant.’
‘Victimology? Is that even a thing?’ Rachel asked, even though she knew full well it was.
‘Sure it’s a thing. There are loads of studies and books on the subject. And d’you know why?’
‘I’m sure you’re about to tell me.’
‘Because the victim leads us to the criminal. Victimology tells us why there is a link between two otherwise unconnected parties, and in a case like this, which isn’t about spontaneity or gratuitous violence, we need that.’
Rachel was shaking her head slowly over the rim of her mug. ‘I’m still not sure how we move past mere coincidence.’
Rob tapped the picture of Melissa. ‘That’s where this young lady comes into it. The serial killing rule is at least three. So, the way I see it, if Melissa Downey fits the same type then we move from coincidence to a definite pattern.’
Rachel leaned back, sipping her coffee and staring at the photos. ‘So we obviously need to know more about Melissa.’
‘You got it.’ Rob started shuffling the papers together. He stopped long enough to place his hand lightly on hers. ‘How long did you say you were here for?’
‘It’s Wednesday. Allowing travel time to the UK I have to leave no later than a week on Saturday. Eleven days.’
‘Then we don’t have time to waste.’ He finished gathering up the exhibits. ‘Go and get your stuff, we need to make a move.’
‘But I haven’t even checked in yet.’
‘Even better. We’re going to pay our respects to Miss Teen North Carolina.’
* * *
For most of the forty-five-minute flight from Washington DC to Raleigh–Durham – her thigh pressed up against Rob’s, her arm brushing his – Rachel was not thinking about Melissa Downey, but about sleeping arrangements. Rob had said something vague about checking in somewhere. Surely he didn’t mean the same room? She thought she’d made her position clear at the end of her last trip.
The idea disturbed her. Of course, he was gorgeous. Brickall had not been far off the mark about him being Jason Bourne made flesh. But too much proximity was not going to work. It was too much of a risk. If she allowed anything or anyone else into her headspace, everything stopped working. Or you ended up drastically compromising the investigation, just as she’d done with Giles Denton. They were investigating parties held by a child grooming ring in Edinburgh, only for Rachel to discover that Giles had attended one of the parties as a guest. It became messy, to put it mildly.
She needn’t have wasted the time worrying. At the bland, cookie-cutter airport hotel that they drove to in their rental car, Rob requested two rooms. ‘Keeps things professional,’ he said with a brief smile, as he handed her the key. ‘Meet me in the lounge in five.’
He was on the phone when she returned to the reception area, and she hovered awkwardly, waiting for him to finish.
‘That was the Raleigh PD,’ he said when he hung up. ‘They’re emailing me a copy of the crime report right now, and I’ll print it off in the business centre here. I think we need to read that before we go any further? Agreed?’
Rachel nodded and waited while he strode off, returning a few minutes later with two printed copies of the report. It made grisly reading. Melissa had died from ligature strangulation and an estimated thirty-six to forty-eight hours later, her body had been packed and sealed inside a heavy-duty shipping crate. Clayton Hill had died later, probably soon after the packing process had taken place, and had been found at the deposition site, bent over the crate. Rachel scrutinised the crime scene photos. It looked as though he was embracing it, or shielding her.
‘So what do we think?’ demanded Rob. She liked that he read and absorbed information as quickly as she did. She liked so many things about him.
‘If this was our Miss XX, then I think the strangling was an unintentional departure, probably because the blow to the head method failed for some reason.’
‘I agree. But what do you make of the difference in the times of death?’
Rachel considered this for a while. ‘The boxing-up before disposal and the choice of site are very deliberate, very staged. We saw the same thing with Phoebe and Tiffany. Does Clayton suspect something and follow Miss XX and then she manages to bash him when she’s confronted?’ She frowned. ‘I don’t know… that doesn’t feel right. I don’t think she would allow for a mistake like that.’
‘He’s surely more likely to call law enforcement? And if someone confronts you, someone much bigger than you are, how do you conveniently get behind them and hit them? It just doesn’t work, in my mind. She needs the element of surprise.’
‘He can’t have suspected anything. He must have been lured to the location somehow.’
Rob was nodding. ‘And then his truck’s dumped elsewhere. Also by Miss XX, presumably. So if he drives himself there, how does she get to the location of the theatre?’
‘Did you find any CCTV footage. That’s what we need.’
Rob shook his head. ‘The main office was closed.’
Rachel stood up and shouldered her bag. ‘So what are we waiting for, Agent McConnell? Time to pay a visit to the scene of the crime.’
* * *
They left the confines of the airport and headed towards the CBD. Rob drove while Rachel stared out of the window, enchanted by the spring blossoms beneath a forget-me-not blue sky: magnolia, dogwood, cherry and a reddish-purple tree she’d never seen, that he told her was called redbud.
‘They thought long and hard about the name of that one,’ she laughed.
The Fairfield Theater was a brick cube of a building standing alone in a parking lot the size of a football pitch. The police had done their work and left, and the place appeared deserted.
‘This is where they found them.’ Rachel pointed to the rear left-hand corner of the building. Rob was scanning for cameras. There were none at the rear of the building where the packing crate was placed, but there was one at the front, facing the parking lot. He tried the front door, which opened.
‘Let’s see if we can find someone; if the door’s open there must be someone around.’
The foyer was carpeted in brick dust, and there was plastic sheeting everywhere, loose wiring hanging from the ceiling.
‘Hello!’ Rob called. Silence. They looked into the auditorium, which was completely empty, all the seats removed. Eventually, after fighting their way through cabling and piles of loose flooring, they made their way to a back office where a solitary security guard was swilling Mountain Dew with his feet up on the desk.
‘Already gave a copy to the police,’ he grumbled when Rob showed his badge and asked to see footage from when the bodies were dumped.
‘You’ll have the original on here though?’ Rachel said, pointing to the hard drive. ‘We only want a very quick look.’
The security guard found the right digital file and disappeared for a cigarette break. The grainy images showed the front of a pickup truck. It was only just in shot, with not much more than the bumper visible. Then after a few seconds, the back view of Clayton Hill appeared, carrying the large box, swaying slightly under the weight. Behind him was a smaller, slighter figure in jeans and T-shirt, hair covered by a baseball cap.
‘She’s got something in her hand – look!’ said Rachel, pointing.
Rob rewound the tape and they watched again. It was a tubular metal object, like a wrench or a tyre iron. Then both figures disappeared from shot, heading past the camera towards the left side of the building. Less than a minute later, the nose of the truck could be seen reversing out of shot. There was nothing more.
Rob sat back in the security guard’s chair. ‘Wow. She makes him carry his own girlfriend’s corpse. That’s so fucked-up.’
‘Do you think he knew?’ Rachel mused. ‘Could it even have been him who strangled Melissa, at Miss XX’s bidding?’
&nbs
p; ‘No,’ Rob shook his head. ‘That doesn’t fit. I’m pretty sure she killed them both. From what we know so far, using an accomplice isn’t in her wheelhouse. She’s a lone operator.’
‘So…’ Rachel breathed out slowly, ‘in that case he had no idea what was in the box.’ The room felt suddenly cold. The two of them sat for several seconds in the chill silence.
* * *
As they walked back to the car, Rachel asked, ‘Do you think we can take a look at Melissa’s apartment?’
‘It’s probably still undergoing forensics, but I guess it’s worth a try.’
They headed for Fayetteville Street, an inner-city neighbourhood packed with bars and galleries. Melissa’s condo was in a pre-war building, and their access to it was barred by an officious uniformed security guard.
‘Uh uh,’ he said shaking his head. ‘Oh-ficial crime scene.’
Rob pulled out his Interpol badge, Rachel even produced her NCA warrant card, but the concierge remained unmoved. ‘I don’t have the authorisation to let you in. You’ll have to come back with a warrant from Wake County.’ He retreated huffily into to his cubicle.
‘Oh crap,’ said Rachel, turning back to the building’s foyer.
‘Hey, Miss Tenacity, you’re not giving up?’ Rob pulled a lighter from his pocket. ‘Watch this.’ He struck it and held the flame under the smoke detector. Within a few seconds the lobby sprinkler system kicked in, with a squealing alarm accompanying the jets of water. The concierge came running, but not before Rob had grabbed Rachel’s wrist and pulled her through the fire door. They collapsed, laughing, against the wall.
‘That was a pure Bonnie and Clyde moment,’ Rachel said. ‘I’m impressed. Although not so much that you’re a closet smoker.’