A Perfect Death (25 page)

Wesley caught Trish’s eye. It seemed as likely an explanation as any. ‘We’d like to look at her room. I take it you haven’t
found that letter my colleague phoned about?’

‘No, I would have told you. But I didn’t look very thoroughly. I mean she could have hidden it somewhere, I suppose.’

‘When we first spoke to you, you told us you’d had a break-in. When was that exactly?’

Caroline seemed momentarily confused by the change of subject. ‘Oh, er … it was the day after I last saw Nadia.’

Wesley glanced at Gerry and saw that he was listening intently. The break-in had been reported but there was nothing much
in the police files. No damage and apparently nothing much of value taken. But anything that was taken might now have acquired
a new significance.

‘So remind us,’ he said. ‘What did the burglar take?’

‘I’m not sure … I couldn’t see anything missing. In fact he only went into Nadia’s room – that’s the only way I knew we’d been
broken into. Nadia’s room was in a bit of a mess. The drawers and wardrobe were open as though someone was looking for something.
I just assumed he’d been disturbed before he could do the rest of the house or …’

‘Have you left the room how you found it?’

She shook her head. ‘The mess wasn’t that bad. It hadn’t been trashed or anything. I just put the things back in the drawers
and had a quick tidy round. I didn’t want Nadia to come back and find—’ She put her hand up to her mouth as though she’d suddenly
realised that Nadia would never come back.

‘We’ll need to send a forensic team over,’ said Wesley gently. ‘And take your fingerprints for elimination purposes.’

Caroline suddenly looked frightened. ‘You think it was her killer who broke in? You think her killer has been in this house?’

‘We don’t know that for sure, love,’ Gerry chipped in, trying to sound comforting. ‘It might just have been kids looking for
something to sell on. Like you say, they might have been disturbed.’

‘The constable who called said that either I’d left the place unlocked or they’d used a credit card to get in. He asked me
who had a key and I told him it was just me and Nadia.’ She swallowed hard. ‘She took hers with her when she went. I got the
locks changed and had a new mortise fitted after he said that. I thought that if Nadia came back and couldn’t get in, she’d
come and find me at the university and I’d give her the new set.’

‘Very wise, love,’ said Gerry. ‘I’m sure you’ll have no more trouble. So you’ve no idea what might have been taken?’

Caroline thought for a while. ‘I think Nadia had a few files in there – research papers, I think – but I don’t think they’re
there now. Whether she left them at the university or whether they were taken by whoever broke in, I don’t know.’

‘The private detective Nadia saw mentioned a box of old photographs. He said Nadia took it from the family home but she’d
only recently got round to looking through it. The letter we were asking about was hidden in the box.’

Caroline frowned. ‘Yes, there was a carved wooden box. It looked quite old. She’d put it up in the loft with some stuff she’d
taken from her dad’s house and she went up there a few weeks ago and brought it down. I think it was in her room. I remember
her saying it was quite pretty and she wondered if it was worth anything. But she didn’t mention finding a letter.’

Trish stood up and gave Caroline a sympathetic smile. ‘I’ll just have a quick look through Nadia’s
things,’ she said before disappearing upstairs.

Wesley didn’t hold out much hope of Trish finding anything significant. If there’d been any clue up there to the killer’s
identity he would have taken it with him when he searched her room. Because he was as sure as he could be that it had been
the killer who’d invaded the privacy of Nadia’s room. When he’d killed Nadia, he had probably taken her house keys. Then he’d
waited for Caroline to go out before conducting his search. He was glad that Caroline had had the presence of mind to change
the locks. He wouldn’t have liked to think of her being at the mercy of a killer who could come and go as he pleased.

Caroline stood and walked over to the pine dresser which stood against the far wall of the room. She opened the drawer and
pulled out a small book with a tartan cover. A diary or address book.

‘There is one thing I forgot to tell you. I found this stuffed down the side of the sofa a few days ago. It’s Nadia’s. It
must have dropped out of her bag.’ She handed the book to Wesley and he felt a sudden tingle of excitement. It was possible
that the killer hadn’t taken everything of interest.

He opened the book and leafed through the pages, aware of Gerry looking over his shoulder. It was half filled with scribbled
notes and addresses. To Wesley at that moment it looked like newly discovered treasure. Surely her killer would be mentioned
somewhere in this insignificant-looking book. Perhaps this was even what the intruder had been looking for.

‘Thank you very much, Ms Tay,’ he said trying to
keep the excitement out of his voice. ‘Someone will go through this and trace everyone who gets a mention.’

He couldn’t resist taking another look, just to see if there were any familiar names in there. And he wasn’t disappointed.

They were all there: Ian Rowe’s address in Carcassonne and his e-mail address; a number with the name M Crace next to it and,
under that, the number of Eva Liversedge’s direct line; Yves Demancour’s home and work numbers and Forsyte Wiley’s office
phone. There were other names in the book too, most of them unfamiliar, but they would have to be contacted. Wesley was rather
surprised to see Professor Karl Maplin’s name amongst them. And there was a scribbled address at the back of the book with
no name beside it: an address Wesley had come across before but it took him a few seconds to remember where. It was Wendy
Haskel’s last known address: the one Forsyte Wiley had discovered for her.

Someone had broken in to look for something and there was always the chance that this book was what they wanted.

At that moment Trish appeared again, walking slowly down the stairs. ‘There’s nothing much in her room,’ she said. ‘Just clothes,
the usual. If she kept any papers up there, they’ve gone. No sign of any letters apart from official ones … and no sign of
a carved wooden box containing photographs, come to that.’

‘Nicked by our burglar probably,’ Gerry said. He had made himself comfortable on the sofa as though he intended to be there
for the duration.

But Wesley began to make for the door. There was someone he wanted to see as a matter of urgency. When he reached Caroline
Tay’s front door he pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and dialled Neil Watson’s number.

Tackling two problems at once would do wonders for police efficiency.

Gerry Heffernan wore the expression of a child who’d been told that his friend couldn’t come out to play, Trish Walton thought
as she sat beside him in the patrol car that was driving them back to Tradmouth.

As soon as they’d left Caroline Tay’s house Wesley Peterson had driven off, saying something about seeing an archaeologist
he knew and taking some of the photographs they’d found in Nadia Lucas’s locker at the university with him. Gerry had reminded
him not to be too long as they had a meeting with Sir Martin Crace at four that afternoon.

Trish would have liked to meet Sir Martin herself. When she’d seen him on the television talking about the Third World and
the tragedy of AIDS in Africa, she’d thought he seemed like a man you could admire – and there weren’t many of them about
these days. But as she was a lowly detective constable she’d have to deal with more routine matters while her superiors dealt
with the great and good.

She felt her arm being nudged gently and turned to face Gerry Heffernan, who now had an earnest frown on his face. ‘Tell you
what, Trish, we’ll call at this Wendy Haskel’s last known address in Tradmouth. I’m
not expecting to find anyone there who knew her but, you never know, she might have been blessed with nosey neighbours.’

‘This was back in the eighties, sir,’ Trish said. She had been on many wild goose chases in her time and she suspected this
might be another.

‘Watch and learn, love. Watch and learn.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘If you can find yourself a pensioner who’s lived
there for years with too much time on their hands and a taste for gossip, you’ve cracked it.’

‘And what if there’s no one like that about?’ she said, unable to hide her scepticism.

The chief inspector shrugged his large shoulders and Trish saw his shirt buttons straining dangerously across his stomach.
‘They’re the forgotten army, love. Loads of them around, only people don’t notice. Specially you young people.’

Trish smiled to herself. In a couple of years she’d be hitting thirty and she didn’t feel particularly young.

They’d just arrived in the police station car park and DCI Heffernan held the door open for her to get out. She mumbled her
embarrassed thanks and they began to walk away from the station towards the centre of the town.

‘Nice day,’ the boss commented, making conversation. ‘I fancied taking the boat out but …’ He let the sentence trail off and
they walked in silence around the side of St Margaret’s church, where Trish knew he sang in the choir when work permitted.
Once past the church, they climbed a flight of steps and found
themselves on the street where Wendy Haskel had lived all those years ago.

The small, colourwashed houses on that steep, narrow little thoroughfare were all slightly different, which gave the street
a pleasing and picturesque appearance. That was why Trish had a dreadful feeling that things might have changed since the
1980s. Now these houses would be second homes and holiday lets rather than the homes of the curious elderly. However, she
said nothing to the boss. She didn’t want to be labelled an incurable pessimist.

Gerry Heffernan didn’t waste time. He lifted the anchor-shaped knocker on Wendy Haskel’s old front door and banged it down
hard several times. Inside the house it must have sounded like thunder, Trish thought.

The door was answered almost immediately by a youngish woman in shorts with two toddlers clinging to her bare, pale legs.

Trish saw the DCI hold up his warrant card and she did likewise with an encouraging smile on her face to show they weren’t
intending to arrest the woman on the spot. ‘Sorry to bother you, love. Police.’

A short conversation followed during which they learned that the house was now a holiday let but that the elderly couple who
kept the key for the landlord lived next door. From Gerry Heffernan’s triumphant smile as the door was shut on them, Trish
knew he was bathing in the glorious satisfaction of being right.

Luckily the elderly couple were in. In fact it didn’t look as if they managed to get out much. The small,
birdlike woman who introduced herself as Mrs Mabel Cleary walked with the aid of a zimmer frame and her husband, who clearly
used to be a large man but had now acquired the look of a burst balloon, sat slumped in a shabby armchair.

‘We’d like to ask you if you remember a lady who lived next door back in the nineteen eighties,’ Gerry began.

Trish perched on the edge of the tapestry sofa, listening for the answer, and when it came she had to concede defeat. The
DCI had been on the right track all along.

‘You mean Dr Haskel?’ She turned to her husband. ‘You remember Dr Haskel, Bert?’

‘Peculiar one that,’ was the man’s growled and damning reply. ‘Divorced.’

‘A young woman came asking about her … must have been about ten days ago. Said she was her daughter.’

Trish caught Gerry’s eye. This was getting better.

‘Was her name Nadia Lucas?’

The woman looked amazed, as if he’d just pulled off some extremely clever conjuring trick. ‘That’s right. How did you know?’

Trish saw the boss hesitate but after a few moments he seemed to decide against breaking the news of her death. That could
come later.

‘Can you tell us everything you told her, love? It’d be a great help,’ he added encouragingly.

‘It’s a long time ago. That’s what I told the daughter. But I remember Dr Haskel all right. She used to ask me
to feed her cat. Ended up killing herself, she did. Walked into the sea and left her clothes on the beach. Terrible.’

‘And she left you to look after the cat full time?’ Gerry guessed.

‘That’s right. Not that we minded, did we, Bert?’

Bert shook his head.

‘I’ll tell you something for nothing – you could have knocked me down with a feather when I found out she had a daughter.
The girl said she’d been brought up by her dad.’ She shook her head in disbelief at Wendy Haskel’s lack of maternal feelings.
‘I never knew she had a kiddie. Fancy her killing herself like that when she had a kiddie. Selfish, that’s what it is.’ Mabel
pressed her lips together disapprovingly.

So far Wendy Haskel had been described as peculiar, selfish and, by implication, an appalling mother. Trish wondered what
other goodies they were about to uncover.

‘So what else can you remember about Wendy Haskel?’ Gerry prompted.

‘She was a quiet woman. Apart from when the other one came round and they had rows.’

Trish saw the DCI sit forward, listening intently, and she held her breath.

‘The other one? Which other one?’

Mabel gave another pout of disapproval. ‘She lived alone but this other woman was there a lot. Older, she was. I thought she
was a relative at first but then I wasn’t so sure. And she wasn’t the only one who visited her. There were men too. She lived
on her own but she wasn’t on her own much, if you know what I mean.’

Trish thought she saw Mabel wink but she could have been mistaken.

‘So let’s get this straight, love,’ said Gerry. ‘Wendy Haskel had lots of visitors, men and women.’

‘A few men but just one woman. Just this particular one.’

‘And she had rows with the woman. Did she row with the men as well?’

‘Not that I heard.’

‘Probably did other things with the men,’ Bert chipped in. This time the wink was obvious.