At Your Door

by J. P. Carter

  But if he didn’t kill Holly then who did?

  Anna was about to open it up for discussion again when Walker seized her attention by holding aloft his mobile phone.

  ‘I’ve just taken a call from Sue Bond, the FLO who’s with Holly’s parents,’ he said. ‘She wants us to know that Rebecca Blake has decided to stage an impromptu press conference. She’s insisting the media are allowed into the mews so that she can speak to them in front of her house. And she’s told Sue that she’s got something important to announce.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  The team gathered around the television monitors to see what Rebecca was going to say. The BBC news channel had a satellite truck outside her home so its crew was set up to cover it live. There was a growing sense of anticipation as the cameras focused on her front door while an out-of-shot reporter explained what was happening.

  ‘Mrs Blake hasn’t spoken publicly since her daughter’s body was found on Barnes Common three days ago,’ he said. ‘Then in the past hour she announced through her office that she was going to address the media. Just a reminder that Mrs Blake is the Conservative leader of Westminster Council and is currently one of the candidates who will be standing in the forthcoming Mayoral election in London.’

  When she appeared she was wearing a sober grey suit and tinted glasses, and her ‘loyal’ husband had an arm around her shoulders.

  The couple stepped onto the paved street where the crowd of reporters and photographers were bunched together behind two uniformed police officers.

  Once in position, Rebecca squared her shoulders and inhaled a long breath before speaking.

  ‘It’s not easy for me to stand before you today,’ she said, her voice surprisingly clear and strong. ‘In fact, after what happened to our daughter, just getting through the day is a struggle. But I need to make an announcement regarding a decision I’ve made.’

  She paused there to fish a tissue from her pocket. She blew her nose with it before continuing.

  ‘I have decided to withdraw my candidacy from the London Mayoral election. It will be impossible for me to focus on the campaign and that would not be fair to those who support me.

  ‘The loss of our daughter is indescribable. Holly was a wonderful, kind, beautiful person and we loved her so much. The manner of her death adds to the pain, as does the revelation about her private life.

  ‘I just want to make clear that Holly was a vulnerable young woman who was taken advantage of by a much older man, a man whom she should never have trusted. I won’t be drawn on who I believe murdered our daughter because I don’t want to compromise the police investigation. But I will say that I hope the bastard rots in hell.’

  The questions came thick and fast.

  Did you know about your daughter’s relationship with the MP?

  Did Holly tell you she was going to sell her story to the Sunday Mirror?

  Is or was Mr Nathan Wolf a friend of yours?

  Do you rule out the possibility of running for Mayor at a later date?

  The couple took turns answering, but it quickly became too much for both of them. Rebecca started to sob so Theo hustled her back into the house.

  Anna was full of admiration for what Rebecca had done. It couldn’t have been easy to face the press like that and to subject herself to what was in effect an unsympathetic grilling.

  Nathan Wolf was looking even worse for wear when Anna faced him a second time across the table in the interview room. New lines were etched into his face and there was a vacant expression in his eyes.

  His lawyer Gavin Peake sat beside him. No doubt he had briefed him on the media storm that continued to rage on the outside.

  Anna explained that she had applied successfully to extend the length of time they were able to hold him in custody without charge.

  ‘We’re continuing our enquiries,’ she said. ‘And until we’re satisfied that you’ve told us the truth you won’t be going anywhere, Mr Wolf.’

  Peake objected and described the police actions as outrageous, but Anna didn’t bother to respond because it was the line taken by most lawyers when they failed to get their clients released.

  Unsurprisingly, Wolf stuck to his story that he went straight home on Tuesday evening after returning from Somerset. And he continued to insist that he had no idea how Holly’s blood-spattered driving licence got into his jacket pocket.

  ‘We’ve established that you wore the coat both on Tuesday in Somerset and on Wednesday to the office,’ Anna said. ‘Did you leave it unattended at any point?’

  He gave a slow nod. ‘Probably. It was a warm day and I would have left it over the back of my office chair while I attended meetings.’

  ‘So do you think that someone in the office placed the licence in your pocket while you were away from it?’

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose.’

  ‘But extremely unlikely unless one of your colleagues was involved in Holly’s murder and decided to frame you.’

  Wolf ran a palm over his forehead. ‘Why won’t you listen to me, detective? I’ve told you until I’m blue in the face that I don’t know what’s going on. I did not kill Holly. And I haven’t a clue how her driving licence got into my pocket. All I did was end my relationship with her and I really wish to God that I hadn’t.’

  The interview went downhill from there and Wolf struggled to hold it together as Anna tried to push him into making a confession. His answers became more incoherent and at one point he started to cry.

  It was his lawyer who demanded that the session be brought to an end, but Anna was about to do so anyway.

  The blood was thundering in her head as she walked out of the interview room and a tightness had settled in her chest.

  The first person she encountered in the corridor was Nash, who had watched the interview through the two-way mirror.

  ‘I don’t know what you think, sir,’ she said. ‘But my gut is telling me that Nathan Wolf did not kill Holly Blake.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  It was dark by the time Anna got home. She was exhausted, her eyes squinting with tiredness, her mind thumping out of control.

  Her aim was to get an early night and be up at the crack of dawn to return to the office. Tomorrow she would review every aspect of the case – her notes, the forensic reports, the CCTV logs, photographs of the body on the common, the new batch of phone records. She needed to pull all the threads together in her head and try to make sense of things.

  She was one of the few people who didn’t believe that Nathan Wolf had killed Holly. She wasn’t convinced he had lied to them, and the evidence against him just felt somewhat contrived.

  But before she left the office DCS Nash made it clear that he thought there was enough evidence to get a conviction.

  ‘I believe that what I saw in that interview room was a first-class performance,’ he said. ‘The man knows how to fool people, and I reckon that’s because he’s had plenty of practice as an experienced politician. Your gut might be telling you otherwise, Anna, but to my mind the evidence is overwhelming.

  ‘Holly set out to destroy him and he reacted by telling her she’d regret it. He doesn’t have a foolproof alibi, and he cleaned his car straight after the murder was committed. And to top it all he can’t explain how her driving licence got into his pocket.’

  Anna was the first to admit that when put like that it sounded pretty convincing. But something wasn’t right about it. She could feel it in her blood. It seemed too pat. And she was sure that if he was lying then she would have seen through it during the two face-to-face conversations in his home and the two formal interviews at HQ.

  One problem was the lack of a conclusive piece of evidence to rule him out. Without it the pressure would build to charge him with Holly’s murder.

  The other problem was that she hadn’t yet established a credible alternative.

  Anna jotted down a few notes on a pad. Then she put a ready meal in the oven and poured herself a large glass of whit
e wine. She took it out onto the patio where she lit up a cigarette and sat on her favourite rattan chair. It was a balmy night and the sky glistened with stars. At any other time she would have settled back and relaxed, but not tonight. She had work to do.

  She looked at the notes she’d written and read them out loud to herself.

  ‘As I see it there are five scenarios. First – Nathan Wolf murdered Holly at an unidentified location, then dumped her body on the common in the dead of night or early hours of Wednesday morning. Second – Ross Moore committed the murder after stalking her. Third – she was killed by a stranger, possibly a taxi driver. Fourth – the murder was carried out by someone whose aim was to stop Holly’s mother becoming Mayor of London. Fifth – her stepdad killed her, perhaps because she found out about his affair with Charlene Hamilton.’

  Anna put a line through number four. She no longer believed that it was a worthwhile line of enquiry even though Rebecca had thrown in the towel on the Mayoral race. Having given it some thought, Anna decided it was time to put it on the back burner.

  She also scrawled a line through number one, having made up her mind that unless she could be persuaded otherwise then the MP wasn’t the perp.

  That left Ross Moore, Theo Blake and an unknown subject – what the police called an unsub. It was not a good position to be in three days after Holly’s body was found and five days after she was murdered. There were still far too many questions that remained unanswered.

  Where was the crime scene?

  If Holly was the victim of a sex predator then why wasn’t she raped?

  Where was she going when she left her flat so late on the night she was stabbed to death?

  Was there more than one killer?

  Was she being stalked by someone other than Ross Moore, someone who’d become obsessed with her after following her modelling career?

  The ringing of her phone wrenched her out of her thoughts. It was Tom, and it took her a few moments to switch her mind away from the list of questions.

  He wanted to know if she was OK, and told her that he’d been following the case during the day.

  As much as she was glad he had called she didn’t want to be drawn into a protracted conversation. For that reason she didn’t open up about the investigation, and instead got him to talk about the visit to his daughter in Portsmouth.

  It had gone well, he said. They’d had lunch and Grace had said she was hoping to visit him in London before the start of the new university term.

  ‘I told her that you and I would spend some time with her,’ he said. ‘If you can get a few days off perhaps we can take her up west, stay in a hotel for a couple of nights, maybe go see a show.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Anna said, and she meant it. She was fond of Grace, a pleasant girl who shared her father’s good looks and easy charm.

  The small talk continued for a few more minutes until Tom brought it to a close by saying that he had to crack on with some work.

  Anna finished her wine before going back inside. By the time she took her dinner from the oven she’d lost her appetite. She picked at it as she returned her thoughts to the investigation, and then continued to wade through the facts and theories while she soaked in a hot bath and prepared herself for bed.

  At ten o’clock her phone rang again and this time it was Jack Keen on the line. Her private investigator sounded excited as he told her about a new development in the search for her daughter.

  ‘The Evening Standard called me earlier to say that another woman rang the hotline that was included in their article,’ he said. ‘Her name is Jamila and she works at a hairdressing salon on Shoreditch High Street. I just came off the phone to her and she claims she had a young customer in today who’s a dead ringer for Chloe’s age progression image. She’d seen it in the paper. What’s more the girl told her that her name is Alice and she’s twelve years old.’

  Anna felt the blood stiffen in her veins.

  ‘Did she go to the salon by herself?’ she asked.

  ‘No, her mother dropped her off there. Unfortunately Jamila didn’t twig the likeness until after her mum picked her up an hour later, so it didn’t occur to her to ask questions.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘However, the girl did say that her mum had gone off to book a foreign holiday for the pair of them. So tomorrow I intend to visit the area to check on local travel agents. It’s a long shot, I know, but worth pursuing.’

  ‘It sounds promising, but I’ll try not to build my hopes up,’ Anna said.

  ‘Well, there’s one other thing that’s worth noting,’ Jack said. ‘Shoreditch High Street is within walking distance of Oakfield School in Bethnal Green. That’s where one of the other sightings was reported. So it’s possible the same girl was spotted by two different people.’

  ‘Have you heard back from the school’s headmistress yet?’

  ‘No, but I’ve sent her another email asking if the pupil in question happens to live in Shoreditch. I’ll let you know if anything comes of it. So keep your fingers crossed.’

  Anna was wide awake suddenly, and her heart was drumming in her chest like cannon fire.

  Instead of heading for the bedroom she went into her study, where she sat at her desk surrounded by photos of Chloe.

  She hadn’t thought about her daughter during much of the day, which was a good thing in that she hadn’t been distracted from the investigation. But all the same it made her feel guilty.

  Was it really possible that she was actually getting closer to finding Chloe after all this time? If so then she had the age progression image to thank for it. But what if it was inaccurate and looked nothing like her? The forensic artist who’d created it had used a lot of guesswork, after all. He’d focused on Chloe’s bone structure, the shape of her eyes, the dimpled chin and button nose. But it wasn’t an exact science. Perhaps her features had developed in a different way over the past ten years. Or maybe Matthew had taken steps early on to alter her appearance in some way. He’d been callous enough to take her away from her mother so Anna would not have put it past him to subject her to some form of cosmetic surgery.

  Despite those lingering doubts, Anna clung to the slim hope that the image was a true likeness and that Chloe had blossomed into a beautiful girl. If that were the case then maybe fate would be kind to her for once and they would soon be reunited.

  That prospect filled her with a different kind of nervous anticipation.

  How would Chloe react to me? Would there be an instinctive, instant connection between us? What would I say to the daughter I haven’t seen grow up?

  More unsettling questions.

  More anxious thoughts raging through Anna’s mind.

  As she stood up and headed for her bed, she could feel an ache swell in her chest, the throb of tears behind her eyes.

  And she knew she wasn’t going to get much sleep tonight.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  It was eleven o’clock and Sophie was still up. Thankfully Alice had been in bed for an hour, having crammed as much of her stuff as she could into two suitcases and a shoulder bag.

  She had used her own mobile phone to send selfies to three of her friends so they could see her new haircut. And she’d told them she was going away on a surprise holiday so they wouldn’t be seeing her for a couple of weeks.

  Sophie knew it was going to break Alice’s heart when she learned they would not be coming back to London after leaving the all-inclusive resort.

  Sophie had now made up her mind that she couldn’t risk it. There was too much at stake. Anna Tate’s private investigator was breathing down their necks, and there was no knowing when or where he would show up.

  And then there was Bruno Perez, the demon from her past. The man who had murdered James and who had vowed to make her suffer for what she had done to him.

  His face kept pushing itself into her thoughts, and she recoiled as the memories of their time together came flooding back.

  According to Lisa
he had returned to London from Spain. Was that because his employee Michael Taylor had tipped him off after stealing Lisa’s phone? The thought of it chilled Sophie to the bone, made her wonder if she should leave the flat tonight and succumb to the panic that was growing inside her.

  But of course that was impractical. She had left it too late. She still hadn’t packed her own cases or sent the resignation email to the cleaning company. She’d spent the best part of the evening surfing the web, looking up schools, apartments for rent and job vacancies in and around Lloret de Mar. It seemed to her to be the best option to begin with. There was enough money in the bank to cover a six-month lease on an apartment there and she was sure she’d be able to find work in a bar or a restaurant. It wasn’t ideal and it was going to be hard. But what choice did she have?

  She got up from the kitchen table and crossed to the window for the umpteenth time. There were still people on the street outside, but she didn’t spot anyone watching the flat or acting suspiciously.

  She inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with a calming breath. She didn’t feel tired enough to go to bed. Instead she started checking all the drawers and cupboards, looking for things she didn’t want to leave behind. But most of what was in the kitchen belonged to the landlord, and those items she had purchased could easily be replaced in Spain.

  It was much the same in the living room. She picked up a few small items, including a framed photo of James and Alice on the beach in Puerto de Mazzaron. It was taken when Alice was five, at a time when Sophie truly believed that the bad times were behind her.

  In her bedroom it was a different matter. That’s where she kept her jewellery and paperwork, including their passports, bank statements, the lease on the flat, and the fake birth certificate that had her name on it as Alice’s mother.

  She didn’t have that many clothes, and most of them were old, so she took only her favourite garments from the wardrobe and drawers. One drawer contained the two editions of the Evening Standard that featured the Anna Tate story. She’d hidden them under some folded bed linen so that Alice wouldn’t see them.