Now You See Me

by Sharon Bolton

  ‘None of the other families can remember their mothers getting any sort of warning letter,’ said Mizon. ‘We’ve got uniform going through the Benns’ dustbin just to be on the safe side. Both the notes and the press coverage were printed out on the usual A4 office paper on a completely bog-standard printer. We’ve got umpteen similar ones here, apparently. No prints yet.’

  ‘Thanks, Gayle,’ said Tulloch. She turned to the corner desk. ‘Mark?’

  Joesbury glanced down at his notes. ‘I ran them both through the box,’ he said. ‘Nothing on Catherine, the younger sister.’

  By ‘the box’, Joesbury was referring to the Police National Computer. Anyone who has ever been charged with an offence or accepted a caution will be on it.

  ‘The older one, though, Victoria, she was a different story,’ continued Joesbury. ‘Two reprimands on her record, both for being in the company of joy-riders. Shortly before the incident, she accepted a final warning for knowingly being a passenger in a stolen vehicle and for exhibiting abusive and anti-social behaviour.’

  ‘So we’ll have her fingerprints?’ said Tulloch.

  Joesbury shook his head. ‘It all happened on the street,’ he said. ‘No prints taken.’

  ‘They must have been printed,’ said Tulloch. ‘We’ve just been told the girls’ prints were on the condom packet.’

  ‘Yep, both girls had their prints taken that night,’ said Joesbury. ‘But they went back a couple of weeks later with their social worker and witnessed them being destroyed.’

  Tulloch muttered something under her breath.

  ‘The night Victoria disappeared, she was caught on camera breaking into a car in the city centre,’ Joesbury was saying. ‘They put out an APB on her, but never found her or the car. Technically, she’s still on Cardiff’s wanted list.’

  ‘They can join the queue,’ said Tulloch.

  ‘I spoke to everyone I know at Cardiff Central,’ Joesbury went on, ‘but none of them were around eleven years ago. They suggested I speak to a Sergeant Ron Williams. He’s not on duty till tomorrow.’

  ‘I talked to Social Services in Cardiff,’ said Barrett. ‘The girls’ mother, Tina Llewellyn, was a drug addict and an alcoholic. She served time when the girls were small.’

  ‘What for?’ asked Tulloch.

  ‘Dealing,’ said Barrett. ‘All minor stuff. She wasn’t a big player, but it wasn’t her first offence. The girls were sent to a children’s home in the city and then, when they were eight and six, they were fostered.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Tulloch.

  ‘The foster placement broke down when the older girl went to secondary school,’ said Barrett. ‘She had a history of truancy, abusive behaviour towards the teachers and suspected shoplifting, although that was never proved. They went back into the children’s home.’

  ‘Both of them?’

  ‘Yeah. The foster family were happy to keep the younger girl, but she wouldn’t be separated from her sister. There were several other foster placements over the years – apparently the younger girl was very pretty and could be quite engaging in a quiet sort of way.’

  ‘Did any of them last?’

  Barrett shook his head. ‘They followed a pattern, Boss. It worked for a while, then Victoria would get into trouble, the foster parents would give up and poor little Cathy got dragged back into care. In spite of that, she still managed to do pretty well at school. She was considered university material. Until the alleged rape, of course.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Barrett took a moment to look at his notes. ‘Well, ironically, Victoria seemed to pull herself together for a while. She stopped hanging round with the gangs, made an effort to sort herself out, even started trying at school. But the headteacher says she had a sense of real anger bubbling away inside. Several of the teachers became genuinely afraid of her. And it all started to go wrong for Cathy. She started missing school, she was suspected of taking drugs. There’d be very public rows between the two sisters. One day, Cathy just upped and left.’

  ‘To go where?’

  Barrett shrugged. ‘No one knows for sure. She’d said nothing to any of her friends, not that she had many left by this time. The view at the time was that she’d come here, to London, and was living rough. A few weeks later, Victoria left too. In the stolen car we’ve already heard about.’

  ‘Are they on the missing-persons list?’ asked Tulloch.

  ‘Haven’t checked yet,’ replied Barrett. ‘There’s just one snapshot on file. It was taken two years before the rape and isn’t that clear. I’ve blown it up as much as I can without losing too much clarity.’

  He passed round a sheet of A4 paper. Joesbury looked at it for a long time. Eventually it came to me. It had been taken in a photo booth, two young girls messing around. The older girl, whom we could only see in profile, was a Goth. Dyed black hair sticking away from her head at angles and falling down over her forehead to meet eyebrows that had been plucked to a pen-stroke. Her mouth had been painted in very dark lipstick and was pursed up as she pouted at the camera. She was wearing a torn black T-shirt that didn’t hide very generous breasts for a fourteen-year-old, and a black leather jacket with lots of metal.

  Twelve-year-old Cathy was quite plump, with a wide-mouthed grin and even teeth. Her fair hair was shiny as toffee. She was model-girl pretty and the glint in her eyes said she knew it.

  ‘And that’s that?’ asked Tulloch. ‘Nothing else?’

  DS Anderson held up both hands and shrugged. I shook my head. We’d found nothing. Whatever had happened to Victoria and Cathy over the last eleven years, they hadn’t claimed benefits, paid tax or utility bills or legally driven a car. They’d fallen off the grid, as so many do.

  ‘Tina Llewellyn, the girls’ mother, died of cancer seven years ago,’ said Barrett. ‘She was a lifelong smoker apparently, got a tumour in her lungs that spread very quickly. She died in a hospice in Mid Glamorgan. No father that we know of. The girls might not even have had the same father.’

  ‘Actually, Victoria did re-emerge briefly, after about twelve months,’ said Anderson. ‘The girl’s grandfather, their mother’s father, lived up in the Rhonda Valley. They hadn’t had much contact with him even when they were kids, but when he died he didn’t leave a will and the girls inherited his house. Went for about a hundred thousand quid. Victoria claimed it.’

  ‘All of it?’ asked Joesbury.

  ‘As far as I’ve been told,’ said Anderson. ‘If she’s a psycho, she’s a psycho with money.’

  ‘Is that it?’ said Tulloch.

  Nobody spoke. That was it.

  ‘OK, we keep looking. Lacey, we might need you to go out on the streets again, take a team with you, show that picture around.’

  ‘I can start now, if you want,’ I offered.

  ‘Actually, I have another job for you and Gayle first,’ said Tulloch. ‘Karen Curtis hasn’t been seen at work for two days, but according to one of her neighbours, she had an elderly mother living close to the river in Fulham. She used to visit her several times a week. It could well be where she’s gone to ground.’

  ‘You want us to go and check?’ asked Mizon.

  ‘The mother is frail, by all accounts,’ said Tulloch. ‘No point scaring her with the heavy brigade. Go and see if she can help.’

  65

  MRS EVADNE RICHARDSON, KAREN CURTIS’S MOTHER, lived on a street of houses that probably sold for over a million pounds each. It ran north, perpendicular to the river, and the kerbs were crowded with expensive-looking cars. Number 35 was shabbier, more old-fashioned than the rest.

  ‘Bet she bought this for a couple of grand fifty years ago,’ said Mizon as we stood on the tiny, tiled path that led to the front door. ‘Do you think this bell’s working?’

  I lifted the door-knocker and rapped. We waited. Mizon stepped back and looked up to the first floor. ‘Got a bad feeling about this,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t,’ I replied, because whatever bad vibes Mizon was picking u
p, I could sense them too. I leaned forward. ‘Someone’s coming,’ I said.

  I could hear footsteps approaching the door. Then the sound of a bolt being drawn. A key was turned and the door opened just four inches. A brass chain held it in place. I had to look down to make eye contact. A tiny, wrinkled faced stared up at me. Soft brown eyes behind thick, gold-rimmed glasses. Invisible lips.

  ‘Mrs Richardson?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded her head once, looking scared. I realized that with my bruises I probably wasn’t what a frail old lady would want to see on her doorstep. I took a step back. Mizon held up her warrant card so Mrs Richardson could see it through the gap in the door. The old lady took a step closer and her eyes narrowed.

  ‘Mrs Richardson, we’re trying to find your daughter, Karen,’ she said. ‘We were hoping to ask you a few questions.’

  A bluebottle flew out of the gap between the door and the frame and hit me on the forehead.

  ‘She’s not here,’ said the old lady.

  ‘Can we talk to you for a few minutes?’ asked Mizon.

  ‘Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at five o’clock. That’s when she comes.’

  I forced a smile. ‘Mrs Richardson, we need to ask you some questions,’ I tried. ‘Is it possible to come in?’

  The woman disappeared and after a second the door was opened.

  ‘Close it behind you,’ she told us, as she made her way back along the corridor. ‘Make sure it’s locked.’

  The hall floor was covered with black and white tiles that looked as old as the house. The walls were covered in pictures, decorative plates and mirrors. A wooden staircase led up to the next floor.

  The house didn’t smell too good. It wasn’t strong but it was nasty. Like damp. Like rubbish that had been left too long in the bin. Like something gone off. Mizon wrinkled her nose at me as we followed Mrs Richardson along the corridor. As she pushed open a door we could hear the soft buzzing of houseflies.

  We were in a sitting room, large but so full of furniture it seemed cramped. There were lots of family photographs over the fireplace and on the lid of an upright piano in the corner. I could see a dead housefly in Mrs Richardson’s silver hair and several more buzzing around the large bay window.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ asked the old lady, once we were all settled in easy chairs.

  At my side, Mizon shook her head. ‘No, thank you,’ I said. ‘We won’t keep you long. Can I ask when you last saw Karen?’

  ‘Monday night,’ she replied. ‘She comes at five, cooks me some dinner and helps me have a bath. She goes about half past seven. Just as Coronation Street starts.’

  ‘So you’re expecting to see her tonight?’ I asked. Today was Wednesday.

  Mrs Richardson was nodding at me. ‘She’ll be here at five,’ she said. ‘She comes straight from work.’

  I glanced at my watch. It wasn’t far off five, but Karen Curtis hadn’t shown up at work for the last two days.

  ‘Mrs Richardson, how did she seem on Monday?’ asked Mizon. ‘Was she her usual self?’

  Evadne Richardson nodded. ‘Just the same,’ she said. ‘She’d had a phone call from Thomas. Said he had a new girlfriend.’

  She pushed herself to her feet and crossed to the fireplace. Her hand went up and she seemed to be counting off the frames that were lined up along it. When she got to the fifth, she stopped. ‘This is my grandson,’ she said, taking down a photograph of a boy in graduation robes. ‘Thomas.’ She held the photograph out. I took it and passed it quickly to Mizon, just getting a glimpse of a dark-haired boy. He was smaller and slimmer than the other boys we’d met. The cox of the rowing team.

  ‘Did she say anything about planning to go away?’ I asked.

  Evadne looked puzzled and shook her head. ‘She doesn’t go away,’ she said. ‘Not without arranging for a home help to come in and see me. I have health visitors calling every day,’ she said. ‘Just for ten minutes. They make sure I take the right pills. But they don’t do any cooking or cleaning up.’

  ‘Did she seem worried about anything?’ asked Mizon.

  ‘No. What would she be worried about?’

  ‘Hopefully nothing,’ said Mizon. ‘I don’t want you to get worried, but she didn’t go to work today. Can you think of anywhere she might be?’

  The old lady was on her feet again. ‘I’d better just phone her,’ she said.

  Mizon and I watched Evadne cross the room to the phone, dial a number and wait to be connected to her daughter’s answer-machine. I saw Mizon bat a fly away. Evadne put the phone down.

  ‘Mrs Richardson, is there anything you can tell us, anything unusual about her vis—’

  ‘She went upstairs,’ Evadne said.

  ‘Upstairs?’ repeated Mizon.

  The old lady nodded. ‘I heard her,’ she said. ‘The music on Coronation Street had just finished and I heard her going upstairs.’

  ‘And that was unusual?’ I asked.

  ‘We don’t use the upstairs rooms,’ she said. ‘I can’t manage the steps any more. My bedroom’s downstairs in the room we used to call the back parlour. A few years ago, we had the pantry turned into a bathroom. I haven’t been upstairs in years.’

  ‘But your daughter went up?’ I asked.

  ‘Did she come back down again?’ said Mizon.

  The woman looked startled. We were scaring her. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘After about fifteen minutes. I remember because the ads were on. I heard her come back down and go out the front door.’

  ‘Did she speak to you again?’ I asked. ‘Call out goodbye or anything?’

  The lady shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘She’d already said goodbye.’

  I had no need to look at Mizon.

  ‘Mrs Richardson, have you let any strangers into your house over the last few days?’ I asked. ‘Anyone you hadn’t seen before?’

  ‘No, dear, I’d never do that. Wouldn’t dream of it.’

  I was starting to breathe again.

  ‘Only the nurse,’ said the old woman.

  I waited for a second. ‘Which nurse was that?’ I asked.

  ‘The new one,’ said Evadne. ‘The one that came on Monday. About mid afternoon. She had a card and a uniform and everything. Should I not have let her in?’

  ‘I’m sure it was fine,’ I said. ‘Did she come to give you your pills?’

  Evadne shook her head at me. ‘No, dear, I’d already had those,’ she said. ‘She came to give me a health check. I’m not sure she checked much, though. Just talked to me for a few minutes, asked when Karen was due. Then she left.’

  ‘Did you show her out?’

  ‘She said not to get up, that she’d show herself out. I heard the door, though.’

  I looked up at Mizon. She was pale, her hands clasped tight in front of her. I stood up.

  ‘Mrs Richardson,’ I said. ‘Do you think we might look round the house?’

  66

  THERE WAS NOTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY ON THE ground floor, but we hadn’t expected there would be. I wasn’t even surprised to find a nearly empty rubbish bin in the kitchen and a fridge in which everything seemed fresh. There was nothing to explain the bad smell. Two minutes after starting our search, Mizon and I stood at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘We could call it in,’ she said.

  ‘What if we’re wrong?’ I replied.

  ‘We didn’t bring gloves.’

  ‘We’re only going to look.’

  Still we didn’t move.

  ‘We have to,’ I said, and before I could change my mind, took the first step up. That seemed to bring its own momentum and I was soon at the top. Mizon, to do her justice, was right behind me. There were five closed doors on the first floor.

  ‘Start at this end,’ suggested Mizon, indicating the door nearest to us.

  ‘Not sure that’s necessary,’ I said. Mizon followed my sight line and gave a quiet moan when she saw the cluster of flies hovering around the furthest door.

&nb
sp; ‘I’m calling this in,’ she said. She got her radio out of her bag.

  ‘Wait just a sec.’

  The corridor wasn’t wide enough for two of us so I led the way towards the front of the house. When we reached the door, I pulled my sleeve down over my hand and pushed it open.

  Behind me, Mizon made an odd gulping sound and stepped back into the corridor. I could hear her on the radio, contacting Control, requesting immediate presence. I took a step further into the room. Quite close enough. The flies sensed an intruder and their steady drone took on an angry sound.

  The body of Karen Curtis lay on the large double bed. The bedspread was the old-fashioned type that I think is called a candlewick. Long narrow grooves ran across the fabric. The grooves had acted as channels for Karen’s blood, taking it away from her terrible wound, across the bed and down on to the flower-patterned carpet. Karen had been overweight, dressed in blue trousers and a brightly patterned smock. Her shoes on the pillow looked expensive and she’d been killed wearing a chunky amber necklace. It lay at the foot of the bed.

  I heard Mizon come back into the room.

  Karen hadn’t been tortured that I could see. She’d probably been killed quickly. All this was assuming, of course, that it really was Karen I was looking at. Because it was impossible to be sure. Mizon and I had seen Karen’s photograph downstairs, we knew exactly what she looked like. It wasn’t going to help us much. This woman’s head was nowhere to be seen.

  67

  ‘I DON’T THINK SO, DEAR,’ SAID THE POOR OLD LADY. ‘SAME colour hair as this one, but …’

  Evadne Richardson was in the interview room at Lewisham. Shortly after calling in news of Karen Curtis’s death, we’d taken her mother out of the house and I’d driven her back across London. She knew we hadn’t been able to identify formally the woman found upstairs in her house, but the description she’d given us of Karen’s clothes left little doubt. She’d asked several times to see her daughter and couldn’t understand why we kept telling her it wasn’t possible.

  She was braver than I think I would be, in her situation.