Find The Girl (DI Olivia Austin Book 1)

by Nic Roberts

  7

  Kitty Allen’s flat reminded Olivia eerily of her own in her early twenties. It was slightly jumbled together, as though it couldn’t quite decide its own identity yet, with some standard, flatpack furniture mixed in with some more statement pieces. A purple cat lamp caught Olivia’s eye almost immediately—both bizarre and fun. The whole place was humble while still feeling homey.

  “Sorry, it’s a bit of a mess.” The young woman had spoken as she had let the detectives in through the front door five minutes earlier. Her hair was a short bright pink pixie cut—not what she’d been expecting—and stuck up in all sorts of places. Her black shirt had the name of some indie band on it, and her chipped black nails gave a very different impression than the sort of young adult Ella seemed to be. Olivia wondered how they had become friends, although she supposed it wasn’t the most bizarre friendship there ever was.

  Kitty had immediately offered up tea after inviting them in. The detectives had politely declined, trying not to stare too hard at Kitty’s clearly distraught face. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, her nose bright red. Discarded tissues were scattered throughout the apartment. It was hard to blame her for the mess, and she could easily see from where she was standing that the poor young woman was struggling with the news.

  “Sorry to jump straight to the point,” Lawrence started after they had settled down onto the sofa and armchair in her humble living room “But, when exactly was the last time you heard from Ella?”

  Kitty pulled at her pink hair and bit her lip.

  “Um, she called on her way to the train station,” she answered. “She was upset, I could tell, even though she was trying to hide it. Glad to get away from the city for a bit.” Her description was accompanied by small sniffles here and there.

  Lawrence nodded while he wrote down some notes.

  “And did you know what she was upset about?” he asked, handing Kitty a tissue from the pack she had on the table. She graciously accepted it.

  “She didn’t say, but she didn’t have to.” Kitty replied, disgust filling her voice. “Gareth’s a piece of... He’s her boyfriend,” she added.

  It was Olivia’s turn to nod and step in.

  “Oh yes, we spoke with him. Sounds like you don’t like him. Any particular reason?” she asked, something close to concern stirring in her stomach. Parents not liking a partner was bad news, but parents and her best friend? Pieces were starting to click into place.

  “Oh my God! Honestly?” Kitty certainly had a flare for the dramatic. “No, I absolutely do not like him,” she huffed. “He’s a cretin. An arsewipe, pardon my French... and she’s better than him. But he has money, right? And apparently charm, and now… Well, now—before all this happened—Ella didn’t have much choice but to live with him.”

  The detectives glanced at each other.

  “She didn’t have a choice?” Lawrence urged on. “What do you mean?”

  Kitty paused hesitantly before she spoke.

  “She doesn’t have a job,” she answered. “And her parents are angry with her for leaving Uni. She relays on him financially so it’s not like she can just up and leave. She won’t come back to Peterly, either.”

  Kitty shook her head as she explained Ella’s predicament. Olivia noted trying to stay away from town?

  “I’m pretty sure he hits her, you know,” The young woman added, drawing Olivia’s attention away from her notepad.

  “I’m sorry?” Lawrence asked, obviously startled.

  Kitty nodded, gaining more confidence to speak with every passing minute.

  “Yeah. She’d get these, like, bruises every once in a while. Told me I must have a dodgy FaceTime connection or that she’d tripped down some stairs... the classic.” She took a deep breath. “If I ever brought it up on our calls, she’d get defensive and we wouldn’t speak for a week or two, so I gave up mentioning it. She was desperate to hide it, and I let her. I suspected it, and I did nothing.” Her voice broke and Olivia sighed, shaking her head.

  “It’s not your fault,” she soothed as best she could from her distance. “At least she knew you were there for her.” She understood. It was never easy watching a friend suffer abuse. She gave the young woman a moment to compose herself before continuing. “Do you remember when abouts that started?” she asked.

  Kitty dabbed at her eyes with the tissue clutched in her hand.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” she answered in a low defeated voice. “Probably about eight months ago. You know, when they officially moved in together.”

  Lawrence shook his head. He abhorred domestic abuse.

  “So, now we know he has the capacity for violence…” Lawrence trailed off, locking eyes with Olivia. Kitty let out a muffled cry at that, flinging her head into her hands.

  “Oh, Kitty,” Olivia crooned. She raised an eyebrow at Lawrence, instructing him to show some warmth and give her shoulder a squeeze. “I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Your answers are really helpful, though. Are you okay to keep it up for a bit longer?”

  Kitty sniffled, lifting her head.

  “Sorry I’m such a mess,” she whispered. “And yes, I can keep answering. I’m okay.” Her hands pulled her long sleeves past her wrists before she crossed her arms with the lift of her shoulders. It seemed as if she was giving herself a gentle hug.

  Olivia recognised the instinct to make herself small all too well.

  “Thank you, Kitty. We really appreciate it.” She tried to be as gentle as possible with her words, coaxing warmth into the rather drafty apartment.

  “Now that I’m thinking back, we last spoke before the train station, but she texted me later.” Kitty spoke with new vigour in her voice. “Here, let me see,” she muttered, scrolling through her phone. “Yeah. She sent me a text at 8.43 p.m. saying she had made it to the station, and then we texted for a bit about her trip. She mentioned that she was excited to get away from Gareth for a bit.”

  That comment made Olivia raise an eyebrow.

  “Can you say exactly what she said?” she asked, readying her pen.

  “Yep, she wrote, ‘so ready to have a break from Gareth. He’s been crazy cross with me lately no matter what I do. Over it.’” Kitty looked up at the detectives. “See what I mean? He’s a piece of shit.”

  The two detectives looked at each other before both scribbling in their notepads. They definitely needed to debrief later, but Gareth was looking more and more suspicious by the minute.

  “I hate to even ask,” Lawrence started, his voice lower to match the tone of what he was about to say. “But since we’re establishing a timeline here, what were you doing last night after you finished texting with Ella?” He always got to the ugly alibi questions with a decent amount of tact. Besides, they were starting to establish a good rapport with Kitty. Lawrence would push, Olivia would comfort. This worked best.

  “Really?” Kitty spat out the word with an exasperation that spoke to a bone-tired place of exhaustion that Olivia knew all too well.

  Lawrence gave a curt nod, prompting her to get past her dislike of the question and answer.

  “Right,” she sighed wearily. “Well. I was here in the flat all evening, if you must know. I didn’t have anyone over to verify that.” A sneer danced across the young woman’s lip, and Olivia couldn’t really blame her for that. It was hard to have to prove your own innocence when people you loved were at risk.

  “Did you maybe take any photographs last night on your phone?” Olivia was rather surprised at the question that came from Lawrence, but it seemed to spark a thought in Kitty.

  “Actually, now that you mention it, I took some selfies in the bathroom mirror. They should be time stamped.” Kitty pulled her phone out; Olivia noticed her hands were somewhat shaky as she did so. “Here!” she declared triumphantly, turning her device to display a string of selfies. Pictures of her with heavy make-up pouting into the camera.

  The detectives checked through a few of them, and just as Lawrence had expec
ted, they were all timestamped close to 9 p.m. Not to mention, the background of the photo mirrored the young woman’s apartment.

  “That’s great,” Olivia urged. “Again, we’re sorry we had to ask. It just makes the investigation a bit smoother.”

  “I guess I understand it,” Kitty conceded. “Even if I don’t like it.” She gave Lawrence a reproachful look; he offered a gentle almost-smile in return.

  Olivia glanced down at her notes.

  “You mentioned that Ella didn’t want to return to Peterly. Why was that?” she asked, glancing to Lawrence briefly. Pay attention to this, she urged with her eyes. He gripped his pen.

  “Her school and college experiences weren’t great,” Kitty started with a small grimace. “Her parents are lovely, don’t get me wrong, but they had a lot of expectations for Ella, and she found it hard. That, plus a really difficult breakup her last year of college just meant that Peterly brought up a lot of hard memories whenever she visited. I used to visit her often in London, but ever since she moved in with Gareth, that’s been hard too.” The young woman’s eyes brimmed with tears again as she spoke, her focus off somewhere beyond the wall in front of her.

  "That breakup you mentioned, do you know if her ex is still around?” Olivia asked, leaning in.

  “Uh, no. Sam moved to Liverpool a few years back. I don’t think they’ve been in touch at all. I might still have his number, though,” Kitty offered, picking her phone up from the arm of the sofa.

  “That’s great,” Olivia encouraged. “If you don’t mind me asking, why exactly did they break up?”

  Kitty glanced up from her phone.

  “Uh, it was complicated and messy,” she answered before turning her attention back to retrieving Sam’s number. “Ella never really told me the whole picture. I think he kind of went off the deep end. She really was on edge that year. I feel awful even mentioning it, but she actually started seeing someone for her anxiety. Her mum made her.”

  That comment made Olivia raise her right eyebrow ever so slightly. Anxiety was normal for some, sure, but for it to seemingly happen out of nowhere… Usually, there was some sort of stressor. Couple that with a hard breakup, and there was maybe something there. Maybe the break in this case lay not in the hours leading up to Ella’s disappearance, but in her past. This was her childhood home, after all.

  “That’s very helpful, Kitty,” she reassured as all the information tried to connect itself in her head. “Is there anything else you can think of that might be helpful to finding Ella—a place she might go to feel safe, someone in town who would want to hurt her? Anything like that?”

  Kitty shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, I’ve been wracking my head all morning, wondering if maybe I could give you all something that could help the case but…” Kitty trailed off. “I dunno, maybe Sam knows something I don’t about anyone who doesn’t like her. She’s just such a gem, I can’t imagine anyone trying to harm her. It’s why I loathe Gareth’s guts so much.” Rage seeped into Kitty’s voice as she spoke about Ella’s boyfriend.

  “You’ve already been very helpful, Kitty. More than you know,” Olivia assured her again. She knew the dread of feeling incapable of helping in an investigation. That overwhelming sense of helplessness that snares its way around your neck, tightening ever so slightly with each new breath. “I know that these next few days—where we’re trying to piece together what’s happened to Ella—it will probably be very difficult. It’s okay to have a hard time of it. My advice? See if you can stay with a friend if possible, or a relative.”

  Kitty pinched her lips, fighting an internal war with herself.

  “Here’s my number,” Olivia offered, brandishing a business card. “Don’t hesitate to call us.”

  Kitty nodded, bringing the card into her lap and twirling it aimlessly through her fingers. Again, her eyes drifted off into some distance that neither detective could ever personally know.

  “If we can get Sam’s number, as well as a transcript of your text messages between you and Ella, I think that’s all we need for now,” Olivia continued. This seemed to snap Kitty out of her reverie, as she clutched her phone and continued her search for her old classmate’s contact information. She muttered it quickly.

  “His name is Samuel Mercer, if that helps,” Kitty explained. “How should I get you my texts with Ella?”

  “I’ve got a form you can sign which will allow our technical crew to work with your phone company to get those transcripts.” Lawrence had been quiet most of the interview, but his manner of sliding back into the conversation was surprisingly impressive, especially when considering he was asking a distraught woman to sign papers giving away her privacy. “It will only be shared with my team, and we’ll only be looking at your texts to see if there’s anything of note. It sounds like you two talked about Gareth quite a bit, so we might be able to establish a timeline that way.”

  “Um, of course,” Kitty mumbled, grabbing a pen as Lawrence deftly pulled a piece of paper out of his bag. “What exactly does the form say?” she asked, her voice slightly raising in pitch.

  “That Devon and Cornwall Police have permission to access your text messages to and from Miss Ella Hebden,” Lawrence explained calmly. “Nothing more, nothing less.” Kitty nodded at that.

  “Hand me the paper.” She quickly glanced over the form, confirming that what Lawrence said was truth. The flat stilled into silence, the only sound the scratch of Kitty’s pen. “Whoever took her, I hope you catch the bastard,” she spoke. Her voice was filled with rage once more.

  Olivia knew it was an easy way to stay on top of your emotions. It felt a lot easier to have the motivation to keep going on when vengeance was on the table.

  “We won’t stop until we do,” Lawrence promised, kindly taking the paper back before standing back up.

  “Thank you again, Kitty. And don’t forget that you can always call us,” Olivia promised as she joined her partner.

  “Just catch him, detectives. And find Ells. That’s all.” Kitty walked quickly to the front door, peeling it open to reveal the quaint hallway of the building, which smelled faintly of old beer and cigarettes.

  “We’ll get to the bottom of this, Kitty,” Lawrence reiterated as he passed her. “Just remember, if anything comes back to you—anything at all—let us know.”

  The pink-haired woman nodded one last time before closing the door to her flat, sealing the detectives off from her small world of tissues and purple cat lamps. Olivia and Lawrence shared a glance that carried with it more than any words could.

  “Right then. Onwards?” Lawrence asked, gesturing down the hallway towards the outside world.

  “Onwards,” Olivia grimly agreed. Where are you, Ella?

  8

  “I don’t think either of us suspected Kitty Allen in the first place, but I think we can agree now that it wasn’t her,” Lawrence spoke once they were safely back in the confines of their vehicle.

  Olivia nodded enthusiastically.

  “Absolutely. And again, not to make broad assumptions, but our killer is almost definitely male. I definitely want to look into this Sam guy.” Olivia shot a quick text to Clara to start pulling together any information she could find about him online.

  The interview with Kitty had given them more leads, something that meant more manpower but also more possibilities of finding Ella.

  “Same,” Lawrence agreed. “I wonder what could have caused her anxiety that last year of college. I still think it’s Gareth Finch, though,” he added. Olivia had been so focused on Kitty’s interview that she hadn’t fully processed the anger Lawrence held towards Ella’s boyfriend. She could see it now—his grip on the wheel was bone-white, his jaw clenched tightly. Even his breath seemed shorter.

  “You really don’t like him, do you?” Olivia studied her partner’s face as she asked the question.

  “No one should beat their partner,” Lawrence fumed, eyes glued to the road. “Ever.”

  Olivia h
ummed in agreement. You’re not the only one with old scars, she chided herself as she looked over at her partner. Open your eyes and maybe for once you’ll recognise this isn’t the Olivia show.

  “You’re right,” she agreed, settling further into her seat. “He’s a scumbag regardless.”

  Lawrence pursed his lips as he gave a single nod of his head, and although he didn’t say it, it was evident that he wanted to say no more on the matter.

  “What do we want to do next?” Olivia asked, shifting the conversation as she received an enthusiastic confirmation text from Clara that she’d investigate Samuel Mercer right away.

  “About that. I get the feeling we’re going to have a long night with interrogating Gareth once he arrives. I think it’d be good if you took a break, let yourself breathe a bit—get ready for a gruelling interview. I’ll go to the station and follow up with Clara and Collins and then bring together a report to update you with once you come back.”

  Olivia was slightly taken aback at the suggestion. The thought of going home right now, even for a brief moment, seemed ghastly.

  “You’re joking,” she huffed.

  Lawrence turned his head to lock eyes with her.

  “Actually, I’m not,” he replied, shifting his eyes back to the road. “There’s not a lot we can do currently until we have more information from our current leads. I’ll call if the search team finds anything or if I get another break. But Liv.” He paused at this statement. Olivia rolled her eyes. He was usually quite subtle, but sometimes he did have a knack for the dramatic. “If Gareth’s our killer, you’re going to be in that interrogation room for a while trying to get as much as possible out of him. Go home. Freshen up. Grab a bag with anything you might need to get you through a long night—or two—at the station.”

  Olivia’s cheeks flushed at that comment, thinking back to the incident at the medical examiner’s office. Storming off to the bathroom wasn’t exactly the most subtle thing in the world, and she was sure that was what had triggered his assumption that she needed a solid break away. Does he know that I’m taking Diazepam? she wondered, though he seemed oblivious to her mental gymnastics.