There were three new emails, all from Jitesh. Since her meeting with Erin he’d been hard at work trying to track down Queenie O’Leary online. He said that he was now almost certain he’d found her on Facebook. She hadn’t updated her profile page for two years but she was around the right age and she’d named her hometown as Brixton. It had her down as working in a pub on Coldharbour Lane. Jessamine would go over there tomorrow and ask around. He’d forwarded the other two emails from the Went/Gone inbox: he thought they were worth a closer look.
The first was from a woman who thought she might have seen Cassie walking across Hungerford Bridge, headed towards Waterloo, on the day she’d gone missing. The second was from their old friend Linus85. She wondered why Jitesh would bother to forward it. The emails were always nice and supportive but that was all they were, fan-mail. She was about to delete it when she saw Jitesh’s note at the top of the message: ‘Take a look at his theory about the sketch from Cassie’s diary. He might be on to something.’
Jessamine did as he asked and then, feeling excited, she read it again.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Still totally addicted to the show – keep up the good work! After listening to the last episode I went and looked at the mystery drawing you put up online. This might sound a bit bonkers but I’ve been in the building trade for twenty years and that sketch looks a lot like the room plans my clients give to me when they’re trying to explain how they want their new kitchen or living room. My guess, your woman Cassie was planning on having some work done on her house and this was the sketch she did to show the builder how she wanted it.
Jessamine brought up the photo of the sketch on her phone and turned it this way and that. Linus85 was right: the lines and demarcations could be a room plan. But what about the face Cassie had drawn and the X? Taken on its own, Linus85’s interpretation was just as he said, a bit bonkers, but Cassie had repeatedly called an architect in the month before she disappeared. She fired off an email to Miguel Hampson, asking to see him again, then got out of the car and made her way down the path to Marnie’s house.
Marnie’s mum opened the door.
‘Is Marnie home?’
She peered out into the dark and pulled her cardigan close. ‘You’re the one helping Marnie with her friend. Janine?’
‘Jessamine. That’s right. I’m a bit early.’
‘I’m Sandra. Come in. She won’t be long.’
Upstairs Jessamine could hear the thump and crash and ‘Pew-pew-pew!’ sound effects of a child at play. Presumably Jayden.
While Sandra went to make tea Jessamine took a seat in the living room. The gas fire was on full, the TV on low, the mantelpiece crowded with photos of Jayden as a baby. A cosy family home.
‘Did you know Cassie?’ she asked, when Sandra returned with the tea.
‘Marnie talked about her all the time, but I only met her once or twice at pick-up.’
Jessamine looked again at the pictures on the fireplace. ‘Is Jayden your only grandchild?’
‘He is.’ She got up, retrieved a picture off the mantelpiece and handed it to Jessamine. ‘His new school photo,’ she said proudly. ‘Got it last week.’
Jessamine looked at the little boy in the cardboard frame. He had a shy smile and a smattering of freckles across the top of his nose and cheeks. ‘Beautiful child.’ She got up to replace it on the mantelpiece but stopped at the sight of another large photo. A group shot of teenage girls and boys in uniform. Cadets.
She studied the picture more closely. There, in the second row, was a much younger Marnie. ‘Your daughter was in the Cadets?’
‘For years. She loved it. Then she got pregnant with Jay.’
Jessamine looked at the picture again. Sitting front and centre in a slightly different uniform from all the others was someone else she recognised. A man.
The metal shunk of a key in a door, followed by a blast of cold air. Marnie was home.
‘You’re here,’ said Marnie, taking off her coat. ‘Hope Mum’s been taking good care of you?’
Jessamine raised her mug of tea in proof.
‘I need to go and run Jay’s bath,’ said Sandra. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’
‘What’s going on?’ asked Jessamine, once Sandra was gone.
Marnie’s smile wavered briefly. ‘What do you mean?’
‘See that?’ She pointed at the picture on the mantelpiece. ‘The man at the front of that picture is Luca.’
Marnie managed to maintain her smile for a few seconds more but then she gave up and, after checking her mum was still upstairs, closed the living-room door. ‘I can explain.’
‘Why have you been lying to me?’ said Jessamine.
Marnie went over to the picture and squinted at her younger self. ‘I was thirteen when this was taken. I was three months pregnant with Jayden but I didn’t know it yet.’
‘And Luca?’
‘Is Jayden’s father. We were in love – at least, I thought we were. He dumped me not long after I told him about the baby. But I still loved him and I didn’t want him to get into trouble so I never told anyone, not even Mum. We lost all contact, years went by and then Jayden started school.’
‘Matteo was in his class?’
‘It didn’t take me to long to work out who he and Cassie were. Scolari.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘It’s a distinctive surname.’
‘Did Cassie know about your connection to her husband?’
‘She had no idea and I made sure to keep it that way. At first I was jealous that Luca had married her and they had a family, but then I started noticing things.’ She rubbed at her wrist, as if to soothe a bruise. ‘Luca would sometimes get a bit physical when we were together. Cassie tried to cover it up with clothes or makeup but now and again I’d see it, a blue tinge by her jaw, a flash of purple on her arm. He was hurting her, just like he used to hurt me.’
‘And Cassie’s diary?’
‘I was always curious about her, about her life. Then one day, the day before she went missing, she put her bag down on the floor during pick-up. It was right there so I took it. I was going to put it back but I never got the chance.’
‘What about the girl outside the cadets centre?’
‘Turns out me and him weren’t a one-off. He has a thing for teenage girls. She’s his latest. I was there to warn her but she wouldn’t listen. She thinks they’re in love.’
‘You could have reported him.’
‘And leave Matteo without a mother or a father? No, thanks.’
Jessamine considered this. Cassie had grown up in care. There would be a horrible irony if Matteo ended up the same way. Still. ‘It’s up to you whether you want to come forward about what happened to you. But, just to be clear, you were a child. He groomed you. You were a victim. The new girl, the babysitter, this is going on right now and if you don’t do something about it I will.’
Marnie nodded, defeated.
Jessamine got to her feet. ‘I should go.’
‘I’m sorry I lied,’ said Marnie, following her out into the hall. ‘But this shouldn’t change anything. Cassie is still missing and I still think Luca had something to do with it. Please, don’t let this put you off.’
‘I’ve no intention of stopping the investigation, but after I’ve gone I want you to call the police and tell them what you just told me about that girl. Are we clear?’
Another nod of defeat.
As Jessamine left, she could hear Jayden upstairs in the bath playing battleships in the bubbles: ‘Pew-pew-pew!’
Thursday 26 January
Present day
Jessamine
Jessamine arrived at the Green Man pub just as they were taking delivery of a load of beer barrels into the cellar. She waited until the last had been dispatched from the truck and approached the man standing half in, half out of the opening in the pavement.
‘Can I help?’ said the man, signing the delivery note. He handed the clipb
oard back to the driver.
‘I’m looking for someone who works here. Queenie O’Leary?’
The man laughed like he’d just remembered the punchline to a particularly funny joke. ‘What do you want with Queenie?’
He knew her. Jitesh had done well.
‘I’m looking into the disappearance of a woman from a few months back. There’s a chance Queenie might have some information.’
The man lowered one half of the wooden doors back into place. ‘Queenie hasn’t worked here for years.’ He nodded down the road, towards Loughborough Junction. ‘You’ll find her in the park most days, though I’m not sure how much use she’ll be.’
‘What do you mean?’
He reached up and lowered the other door so that it was resting on top of his head. ‘There’s a reason she no longer has a job.’ He ducked out of sight and then he was gone.
A five-minute walk down Coldharbour Lane, and she reached a small park, a square of patchy grass, with a path running around its perimeter and up to an old bandstand in the far corner. Aside from a few drunks dotted on benches here and there, the park was empty. She spied an elderly gentleman sitting alone near the bandstand. Unlike his fellow park-goers he was smartly dressed and had two walking sticks placed against his knees. She decided to try him first.
‘Excuse me.’
As soon as she opened her mouth he reared up from the bench. Using one of the walking sticks to balance he started swinging the other one towards Jessamine, as though he was trying to smack her in the face.
‘Roger! Roger, leave her alone!’ One of the men from a nearby bench came up behind him, took hold of the flailing walking stick and gradually pushed it back to the ground. Now mumbling and fussing under his breath, Roger let the other man guide him back to his spot by the bandstand. Once he was settled, her good Samaritan returned to Jessamine, who was making sure to keep her distance.
‘He’s harmless but when he gets frightened he has a tendency to lash out.’
‘Thank you.’
‘What did you want anyway?’ He took in her coat, bag and shoes. ‘You lost?’
‘I’m looking for someone. Queenie O’Leary?’
He scanned Jessamine up and down, as though he was trying to decide whether or not to trust her. ‘Most days you’ll find her over on the bench by the rose garden.’ He motioned to a bank of flowerbeds on the opposite side to where they stood. ‘She likes to watch the birds.’
Jessamine thanked him for his help and made her way over to the roses. Just as he’d said, a woman was sitting on a bench tossing tiny bits of bread to the sparrows at her feet.
She must have been no more than thirty but she seemed older. Her face was bloated, the skin on her hands dry and sun-thickened.
‘Queenie? Queenie O’Leary?’
The woman looked up and blinked. The whites of her eyes were yellow and shot through with veins.
Jessamine sat next to her. Up close she could smell alcohol mixed with urine and sweat.
‘I’m not doing anything wrong.’ The woman sat up a little straighter. ‘I’m allowed to sit here.’ Her voice had an addled, sleepy quality. It was a like a slowed-down tape recording, each word stretched wide from vowel to consonant.
‘I wanted to ask you a few questions about an old friend of yours.’ Jessamine showed her the photograph. ‘I think you knew her as Rowena?’
Queenie continued throwing bread to the birds. Jessamine felt the slouch of disappointment. She’d thought that finding Queenie would be the hard part, that after she’d tracked her down it would be a simple matter of asking questions and listening to the answers. She’d never considered the possibility that Queenie might not be able to respond to her. She was scrabbling around for an alternative – maybe she could go back to Erin, ask her for some other names – when Queenie spoke. ‘She said they’d come looking for her.’
‘When did she tell you this? Have you seen her recently?’
Queenie ran her thumb tenderly against Cassie’s cheek in the photograph. ‘She gave me some money.’
Cassie had got in touch with Erin, whom she hadn’t seen since she was a teenager, and now it seemed she’d also tracked down Queenie.
Queenie picked up the photograph and held it close to her face, as if studying it for detail. Then she placed it back on the bench, upside down.
‘She told me what happened to the child, the boy. Someone hurt him.’
‘She told you about Matteo?’ asked Jessamine, trying to make sense of what she was saying. Maybe Luca was involved, after all. ‘Queenie, did she tell you about her son? Was her husband hurting her son?’
‘She was scared of what they might do to her. She had to go away.’
Jessamine decided to try a different tack. ‘How about this?’ she said, showing her Cassie’s sketch. ‘We think it’s a room plan. Any idea why this might have been important to her?’
Queenie looked at the picture and, for a brief moment, her expression changed. There was a new clarity to her gaze. Jessamine felt this wasn’t the first time she’d been presented with the drawing. But then the clarity was gone. Her eyes rested slackly on the birds.
‘He was hiding something. She knew.’ She took a thick crust from her bag and started tearing it into tiny pieces that she scattered at her feet. The birds ventured nearer. ‘She said there were racing cars. In the wall. That’s what upset her the most.’
Jessamine tried to follow what she was saying but it was becoming more and more nonsensical. She got two twenty-pound notes out of her purse, opened Queenie’s free hand, placed them inside and gently closed her fingers around the cash. But Queenie was oblivious, still babbling, still throwing crumbs to the sparrows that hopped and bobbed below.
Jessamine
At five fifty Jessamine was rushing along Shoreditch High Street towards Mai, Hampson & Oakes. She needed to get there before the firm closed at six or she’d have to wait another two weeks to see Miguel. Tomorrow he was flying to São Paulo for a yoga retreat, during which he would be uncontactable.
She was almost at the glass cube that marked the entrance when she heard someone shouting her name. She stopped and turned: Dougie was on the other side of the street. She hadn’t seen him since New Year’s Eve and considered pretending not to notice him when he started weaving through the traffic to where she stood.
‘I thought it was you.’
‘How’ve you been?’ She looked at the glass doors, torn between common courtesy and not wanting to miss her chance with Miguel.
‘You never replied to my texts.’
On the other hand.
‘I’m late for a meeting.’ She started to move but he stepped in front of her, blocking the way.
‘Did I do something wrong? Did I annoy you?’ He searched her face, concerned. ‘I thought we had fun.’ He seemed genuinely hurt.
‘It’s not that.’
‘Then what?’
She looked at the cut and swoop of his jaw and softened. He was a good-looking man. But then she remembered the plod of their conversation on New Year’s Eve. ‘It’s just not a good time for me right now. I’m sorry.’
Platitude delivered, she said goodbye and went inside.
The receptionist had already turned off her computer and was putting on her coat. After a minute or so of pleading, she took pity on Jessamine, showed her to Miguel’s office and left.
He stood up from behind his desk. ‘Miss Gooch.’
Sporting a shirt, hacking jacket and a pair of jeans, he was a little less well put together than at their last meeting. There were dirty marks on his cuffs and creases in the underarm of his jacket.
‘Thanks for fitting me in at such short notice.’
He held out his hands and shrugged. ‘You said you had something you wanted to show me?’
She reached in her bag for the diagram. ‘The woman who was calling you, Cassie Scolari. I found this in the back of her diary, I couldn’t figure out what it was but a few days ago one of my listeners
suggested it might be a room plan.’
She handed it to him and, after studying it for a few moments, his mouth twitched. A whisper of a smile. Keeping hold of the sketch he went over to one of the shelves containing the brown cardboard tubes. He bent low, his fingers dancing across the writing on the white plastic bottoms, selected one and pulled it out with a flourish.
‘Let’s see.’ He popped the white plastic end from the tube, pulled out a sheaf of rolled-up drawings and spread them across his desk. ‘I thought so.’ He pointed at a drawing in the top right-hand corner. ‘Here.’
Jessamine looked at the collection of lines and shapes, trying to understand.
‘This is one of my original plans for a very high-profile renovation I did back in 2003.’ He placed Cassie’s diagram next to the corresponding section. ‘This is the second floor. For some reason, your woman sketched this part of it.’
Jessamine felt her pulse quicken. ‘Which building?’
‘You know it well,’ he said, his eyes twinkling. ‘Broadcasting House. In 2003 we were the firm charged with renovating and reconfiguring the place. We demolished this clumsy post war-extension and replaced the sloped roof.’
‘What?’ Jessamine was aghast. ‘Why would Cassie be carrying around a sketch of Broadcasting House?’
‘That’s not the main question here.’ Miguel brought forward another drawing from the tube. ‘This sketch matches up to my original plans for the building. See? But those rooms were only configured like that for a short time, a few weeks at most. Once the walls were up the top brass came in for a look around and decided it wasn’t going to work. We had to change the whole layout at the last minute. Very frustrating.’ He pointed to the second version of the architectural plans. Jessamine recognised the dimensions of the studios and meeting rooms she’d frequented for the last eleven years. ‘Your missing woman knew what the place looked like before those changes were made, and the only way she could have known that was if she’d somehow had access to the initial plans, which is unlikely, or if she was actually there, in the building, while the work was being done.’
The Dangerous Kind Page 24