Chimera (15 page)

Kyla blanched. “Oh my God.”

“Yes,” said Kate relentlessly. “We don’t do this job for fun, you know. Do you know how much time we’ve wasted already because we weren’t given the true facts?”

“I’m so sorry – I just – oh, my God—” Kyla stuttered. Kate continued to frown at her for a moment before she relented.

“The first thing you’ll have to do is amend your statement. After that – well, I’ll see if I can persuade DCI Anderton not to take things any further.”

Kyla nodded and went on nodding jerkily. “Yes of course. Of course I will. I’m sorry.”

“Fine. Come with me, then and we’ll sort that out now.”

Kate got up and Kyla did likewise. At the door, she caught hold of Kate’s arm. “I know this is asking a lot, especially after – after what you’ve just said, but is there – is there any way we can keep this from the press?” she asked, a little desperately.

Kate raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I’d like to say yes, Mrs. Mellors, but I’m afraid I can’t. These things do have a habit of coming out.”

Kyla nodded miserably. Kate was preparing to hand her over to the desk staff when something occurred to her. She took Kyla to one side. “Can I just ask you, did you ever meet Trixie’s cleaner, Rosa?”

Kyla blinked but, unlike Arlen, didn’t seem to question the relevance of the enquiry. “Rosa? Yes, quite a few times. She was there quite often.”

“What was she like? Did you ever talk to her?”

“No. No, I didn’t know her to speak to.” Kyla was looking a little nervous now. “Is she okay?”

“Rosa? As far as I’m aware. I’m just trying to track her down,” said Kate. “Can you tell me what she looked like?”

Kyla hesitated. “Well, she was a bit strange, actually. Really thin. I once thought she might have been quite pretty, if she’d only put on a stone or something. She had long dark hair…I’m not sure what else I can tell you.” She paused and then said reluctantly, “There was one thing - she – she had strange eyes. Her pupils were weird, really tiny pupils. Gosh, that sounds really bitchy, doesn’t it? I don’t mean it like that—”

She was obviously feeling guilty. Kate soothed her and thanked her. Once she’d handed Kyla over to the colleague who would supervise her statement, Kate walked back to her desk, thinking. The description of Rosa, unappealing as it had been, had sparked a memory; some sort of recollection of where she’d heard that description before. The tiny pupils in particular. Kate pondered and then realised with a start that she needed to let Anderton know about Kyla Mellor’s confession as soon as she could. She hurried down the steps, abandoning her thoughts about Rosa for the time being.

Chapter Twenty

Kate and Olbeck attended Adrian Fellowes’ post mortem the next day, and Kate was pleased to find that Andrew Stanton, who was performing the operation, had seemingly retained his new-found amiability. He greeted her and Olbeck with every sign of politeness and that awful stiffness that used to accompany his every remark to her had disappeared. In return, she found herself responding in a more natural, friendly way. It was one of the most pleasant post mortems she’d ever experienced.

“Well,” Stanton said, once he’d opened up the chest cavity of the unfortunate Mr Fellowes. “Cause of death is plain. Myocardial infarction.”

“Come again?” said Olbeck.

Stanton grinned. “Common or garden heart attack. Look here - you can see the severe build-up of plaque in the coronary arteries. A sudden increase in physical activity, not to mention ingestion of cocaine…either of those coupled with a tear in the plaque would have caused a blood clot that would have interrupted blood flow to the heart. Very common.”

Kate and Olbeck exchanged glances. “So it’s a natural death, then?” Olbeck asked, to be absolutely clear.

Stanton nodded. “Absolutely.”

Olbeck blew out his cheeks. “Is it just me, Kate, or do you suddenly find yourself longing for a straightforward, juicy murder?”

Kate couldn’t help smiling. “It is a bit topsy-turvy, isn’t it? The death we thought was suspicious turns out not to be, whilst all the so-called normal deaths turn out to be anything but.”

“Exactly.”

“Mind you,” Olbeck went on to say to Kate, as they made their way back to the car after the PM. “It’s not
exactly
non-suspicious, is it? Okay, so the poor bloke had a heart attack, but the fact remains that someone tied him up and left him there. Do you think they realised he was dead?”

Kate shrugged. “We won’t know unless we find them. Have we got any forensics back yet? Fingerprints or anything?”

“Don’t know. I don’t think so. We’ll start leaning on the labs once we get back.”

Olbeck was driving again. Kate tapped her fingers on her legs as they drove along, impatient to actually do something. “Can you do me a favour?” she asked, as she saw the sign for Arbuthon Green at the junction they were approaching. “Can we just try the Home Angels office again while we’re in the area?”

Olbeck looked surprised but nodded. “Okay. It’ll only take a minute.”

The industrial estate looked just as deserted as it had the first time, with one exception. There was a large black Range Rover parked outside the Office Angels building. Olbeck took one look at it and drove past.

“What—” Kate began but he gestured at her to pipe down. He drove to the end of the street and pulled into the car park of another building, slowing the car and swinging it around to face the way they came.

“What is it?” whispered Kate, tense in her seat.

Olbeck leant forward, staring at the Range Rover. “I know that car,” he said quietly. Then he leant forward even more. “Get down,” he said suddenly.

Kate didn’t stop to ask why. She dived floorwards, as did Olbeck. They exchanged glances from their crouched position on the car seats. Distantly, Kate heard the engine of the Range Rover start up and then the sound of the engine gradually faded away.

Olbeck cautiously eased himself up in his seat and peered through the windscreen again. “It’s okay,” he said to Kate and she straightened up. “I just didn’t want him to see us.”

“Who’s ‘he’?”

Olbeck looked grim. “Stelios Costa.”

“
No
,” breathed Kate. “What was he doing?”

“Coming out of your Home Angels office building with a box file.”

“No,” said Kate again. “The Costa brothers are involved with a
cleaning
company?”

Olbeck pressed the accelerator and the car began to move forward. “If the Costa brothers are involved, it’s quite possibly
not
a cleaning company.”

They drove back to the office in silence. Kate knew what Olbeck was thinking. The Costa brothers, Stelios and Yannis, were local crime lords. Kate had rubbed up against them in her first case in Abbeyford, the kidnapping of Charlie Fullman and the murder of his nanny. She hadn’t relished the experience.

“What do we do now?” she asked as the police station came into view.

Olbeck was indicating to turn into the car park. “I’m going to ask Anderton if we can put a tail on Stelios Costa. We must be able to scrape up something from the budget for that.”

Kate nodded. Olbeck parked the car and they made their way back to the office. Kate’s head was aching. She felt breathless, as if she was missing something important. So many different things to do and she wasn’t sure where to even start. The sudden appearance of Stelios Costa in connection with the Home Angels office was a complication that she hadn’t anticipated. Was it possible that Home Angels was actually a legitimate firm? In some ways it must be, given that it had supplied what seemed like a
bona fide
cleaner to the Arlens, and possibly to Adrian Fellowes. Kate thought back to Adrian Fellowes’ house; dusty and musty, and uncared for. Surely he hadn’t had a cleaner? Why, then, would he have had that business card? Had he been thinking of employing someone?

By this time, Kate had seated herself at her desk. Theo looked up from a pile of cardboard folders.

“Forensics are in,” he said, handing her a couple of the folders. “Take a look at this. Fingerprints found at the Fellowes house match the ones found in the Arlens’ bedroom, the ones we couldn’t pin down.”

“Arlen seemed to think it was from their cleaner, Rosa,” said Kate, flipping through the report inside the folder. “I was just thinking that perhaps Adrian Fellows was employing her too, seeing as we found the Home Angels business card at his house.”

“Yeah,” said Theo. “That’s a possibility. But seeing as we haven’t even managed to track this woman down, it could be completely wrong.”

“I guess you’ve run it through in case it’s on file?”

Theo rolled his eyes. “Uh, yeah – don’t you think that’s the first thing I did? There’s no match.
But
—” he paused, theatrically, “there
is
a match for a second set of prints found at Fellowes’ house.”

Kate put the folder down. “Yes?”

Theo got up and came round to her desk, propping himself against the side of it. “Yes. A set of female prints all over the living room.” He reached across to his desk and yanked over a piece of paper, which he handed to Kate. She looked at it, at the police mug shot of a young, dark woman, scowling at the camera.

“Maria Todesco,” she read from the sheet. “Convictions for soliciting, drug offences…” She looked up at Theo. “So Fellowes was using a prostitute? Is that right?” She looked back down at the rap sheet and thought for a rapid moment. “Hang on. What’s this got to do with Trixie Arlen?
Has
it got anything to do with Trixie Arlen?”

“I think it has,” said Theo. “Forensics found two sets of women’s prints all over the living room of Fellowes’ house. One of them belongs to Maria Todesco. The other belongs to the unknown woman whose prints we found in Trixie Arlen’s bedroom, who we believe to be Rosa the cleaner. Right?”

Kate nodded. “Right.”

Theo leaned forward a little. “What if Rosa the cleaner is supplementing her cleaning income with side-work as a prostitute, a prostitute who robs her punters?”

Kate put her head on one side, considering. “Well, I suppose it’s a possibility.” She looked once more at the surly face of the young woman on the sheet of paper she held in her hand. “I guess the first thing we can do is track down Maria Todesco and see what she can tell us.”

Theo pushed himself upright. “Exactly.”

Kate got up too. She felt that welcome pulse of excitement, an almost electrical impulse, as things slowly began to fall into place. “Let’s re-interview Jack Harker as well – you know, the guy who reported a similar robbery to Adrian Fellowes – see if he recognises Maria as one of the women who robbed him.”

They immediately went to Maria Todesco’s last known address, a half-way house for women who had recently been released from prison. It was two streets over from the house where the bodies of the two young men who’d overdosed had been found. Kate said as much to Theo as he parked the car.

“Could be a coincidence,” Theo said, “but it might not be. Mind you, this is a shit-hole of an area. You’ve got prostitutes, druggies and dealers all about.”

“Yes, I know,” said Kate. She put her hands to her head for a moment, rubbing her temples. “What if there is a connection, though? What if every single case we’ve had in the past month is connected?”

Theo stared at her. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Kate said frustratedly. “Every time I think I’m getting a handle on it, it slips away again.”

“Well, let’s just see if we can find Maria to start with,” Theo said. He knocked at the shabby front door of number fourteen, Pleasant View Drive. Kate, looking up and down the street, thought it was spectacularly badly named.

The door was eventually opened by a fat, stoned-looking girl, with long greasy hair. Her sleepy eyes widened in alarm as Kate and Theo showed their warrant cards.

“It’s all right,” said Theo, “We’re just looking for Maria Todesco. Does she still live here?”

“Who?” asked the girl, which told Kate all she needed to know. Theo persisted, showing the girl the photograph of Maria’s face.

“Oh, her,” said the girl. “They, like, threw her out of here. She’s a junkie.”

“Do you know where she is now?”

“Nah.”

“How long ago did she leave?” asked Kate.

The girl shrugged one massive shoulder. “Dunno. Weeks ago.”

“Have you heard of someone called Rosa?”

“Rosa? Nah.”

She could tell them nothing else. Baulked, Theo and Kate returned to the car.

“Where could she be?” Kate asked, almost rhetorically.

Theo turned the key in the ignition. “She’s a prostitute and a junkie. She could be dead. She could be in prison.”

“Junkie…” Kate said the word slowly, staring unseeing through the windscreen.

Theo glanced over at her. “What?”

“Trixie Arlen – you said she was a junkie too, remember? When we were doing the search?”

“Yeah,” said Theo. “So what?”

Kate raised one forefinger. “Rosa was an employee of Trixie Arlen. She’s also an associate of Maria Todesco, who is apparently a heroin addict.”

“Right,” said Theo, frowning.

Kate raised her other forefinger and entwined it with her already raised digit. “So, what if Rosa is supplying Trixie and Maria with heroin?”

Theo changed gears with an impatient shove. “So this Rosa is a cleaner, a prostitute
and
a smack dealer? Busy lady.”

Kate brushed off his flippant tone. “Don’t you think it’s possible?”

Theo half shrugged. “I guess so.”

Kate opened her mouth to say more and then realised she didn’t know exactly what she was going to say. She muttered, “We just have to
find
her.”

“Yeah, but how? The agency’s a dead-end, she doesn’t have a record. We don’t even know her surname.”

“I don’t know,” said Kate, hearing her own annoyance mirrored in Theo’s snappish tone. “Has Anderton done the press conference yet?”

“I think that’s going out this afternoon.”

Kate tapped her lip with her finger, thinking. “Could we put out an appeal? Anyone with any information on these women contact us in strictest confidence, that sort of thing? Put Maria’s details up and say we’re anxious to speak to anyone who might know an associate of hers called Rosa?”

In answer, Theo pulled over to the side of the road, pulled on the handbrake and handed Kate his mobile phone. She looked at him, startled.

“It’s worth a try,” Theo said, simply.

After Kate had spoken to Anderton, they drove to Jack Harker’s house. He apparently worked from home as a graphic designer, and his affinity with colour and visual art was clear from the moment Kate and Theo walked through the door of his small terraced cottage. The walls were painted in dark dramatic colours, the floorboards a glossy dark grey, and pictures and photographs were carefully framed and displayed on the walls like an art gallery. It wasn’t exactly a welcoming house, but it certainly had style.

Jack Harker received them with his usual aplomb and another lascivious glance at Kate. She could feel Theo bristle on her behalf and wanted to laugh. Coming from him, affront at another man’s lustful eyes was pretty rich.

They showed Jack Harker Maria’s photograph and asked him whether she was one of the women he believed had drugged and robbed him.

He looked at it for a long moment. “I think so,” was all he said, eventually.

“You
think
so?” Theo asked, and Kate saw Jack Harker frown at his aggressive tone.

“It was a while ago now,” Harker said in a similarly prickly voice. “I was pretty drunk at the time. Not to mention the roofie they slipped me.”