Fatal Act (6 page)

‘Everyone does it, Rose.’

‘Oh dad. You could get into trouble –’

‘Don’t be stupid, Rose. I was tired, all right. I just wanted to make the journey count and then I was going to pack up for the night. He didn’t care. He was loaded –’

‘You don’t know that,’ Rose interrupted.

‘I could tell. In any case, I don’t suppose he was paying for it himself. It would all have been on expenses, so what difference did it make? Only then I drove into that accident. Jesus. I tell you what, I wish I had kept to the main road.’

‘Serves you right,’ his daughter retorted.

T
HEY
DROVE
BACK
TO
the station without talking much. It had been a long day and Geraldine was worn out. Sam was tired too and they parted as soon as they arrived at the station. It was gone nine and they still had to get home.

‘See you tomorrow.’

‘Good night.’

‘Have a good evening.’

Geraldine nodded. As she turned away, she wondered whether Sam was also going home to put her feet up, or if she was planning to get changed and go out. It was Saturday evening, after all, and Sam was still in her early twenties.

A
lone, Geraldine made her way back through the evening traffic. The streets in Islington were crowded with pedestrians. Gangs of young women tottered on absurdly high heels, dressed in flimsy fabric and fake fur. Couples sauntered hand in hand, studying menus as they passed the cafes and restaurants along Upper Street. Other people hurried by on their way to the station. Later the mood would deteriorate as growing numbers of drunken revellers wandered the streets, but for now there was an optimistic atmosphere, everyone intent on having a good night out. Her flat felt empty when she closed the front door and kicked off her shoes. It was a relief to shuffle into her slippers, but the silence which was usually welcoming felt somehow oppressive. The contrast to the bustling Saturday evening streets was stark.

G
eraldine loved her flat. It was her own space. She could put her things wherever she wanted. Usually she stacked her small dishwasher as soon as she finished eating, but if she chose she could leave her dirty dishes in the sink without anyone criticising or nagging her. It was the same everywhere in the flat. Naturally quite tidy, there were times when she lazily left the place in a mess for days on end. To be fair, that usually happened when she was absorbed in an investigation and had neither the time nor the energy to bother with chores. But sometimes her solitude slipped into loneliness and she wished someone was there to greet her when she came home, someone else to put the kettle on, and ask her about her day. She tried not to think about her long term boyfriend, now married to someone else. It was a while since Mark had walked out on her and she rarely thought about him any more. But at times like this she couldn’t help missing him.

A
fter a quick shower she fixed herself a plate of pasta and settled down with a glass of Chianti to watch an old film on TCM. A good film generally succeeded in taking her mind off work, but this evening she wasn’t distracted by the cleverly executed twists of a Hitchcock plot, nor did she lose herself in the skilfully built suspense. Her mind kept wandering back to the white-faced girl in the mortuary, barely twenty years old and brutally murdered on a London street not far from where Geraldine was relaxing at the end of the day. As the black and white drama played out on the screen, she pictured a figure leaning forward over the wheel of a van, driving towards Anna’s Porsche. In her mind’s eye she watched the two vehicles crash. As Anna lay injured, possibly dying, her assailant reached in through the window and sliced through her neck with a sharp piece of glass, to vanish moments before a taxi cruised into the street. All that was missing from the scene was the identity of the van driver, and the killer who had appeared so suddenly, and disappeared without trace. If Geraldine had been superstitious, she might have been tempted to suppose Anna had been attacked by a supernatural force. Not only had the ghostly driver crashed into Anna’s car, he had mysteriously spirited her killer away. The whole scenario was impossible, like a teasing mystery film, only this story had actually happened, and there was no rational explanation for the strange series of events. The credits came up to tell her the film was over and she switched off the television with a sigh.

B
efore she climbed into bed, she took her mother’s photograph out of a drawer. Since having it framed under protective glass, she had kept it on display beside her bed. She had only hidden it away because of Chloe’s visit. The faded picture was the one memento she had of Milly Blake, the mother who had given her up for adoption at birth. Geraldine understood her mother’s reasons for letting her go. At sixteen, and unmarried, she had wanted to give her baby a better chance in life than she could offer. On the face of it, Milly had been right to give up her baby. Geraldine had been raised in comfortable circumstances, by a caring family. After giving birth to a daughter, her adoptive mother had been unable to have any more children and the couple hadn’t wanted their child, Celia, to be an only child. Even when her parents had divorced, Geraldine had been well looked after by her mother, and her father had continued to support them financially. Geraldine had no grounds for complaint. She had been brought up as though she was her parents’ real daughter. But she wasn’t. Her looks and character had been completely out of place in her new family. Despite all the material benefits of her upbringing, she had never felt at ease in her adoptive family.

P
erhaps she would have fitted in more readily if she had known about her history all along, able to understand why she looked so different to the rest of her family. But her parents had never told her she was adopted. She had only learned about it on the death of her adoptive mother just over a year ago. Since then she had been ambivalent, desperate to meet her birth mother, yet afraid of the encounter. Until they met face to face, Geraldine could indulge in happy fantasies about their meeting, the instant rapport they would share, the immediate sense she would have of coming home. But the reality might prove very different. Her birth mother had left clear instructions with the adoption agency that she never wanted to meet her child. She still appeared not to want any contact with her. Geraldine had procrastinated over what to do for nearly a year. She didn’t even know if her mother was still alive. Finally, she had resolved to find her mother and had traced her to an address in London. But when she arrived, trembling with hope, Milly had already moved away. The disappointment had been harsh. She was aware that she risked even more acute disappointment if she did succeed in finding her mother.

A
wave of self pity turned to bitter anger against the mother who had abandoned her at birth. What right did she have to make a stranger of her own daughter? She thrust the photograph to the back of the drawer and slammed it shut. She didn’t actually need to search for her mother. She had no relationship with her. Work filled her life. By the time she retired, she might be settled in a relationship, with a whole new family. The future was full of possibilities without her absentee mother. She didn’t need to cling to a fantasy, and she couldn’t afford to waste energy focusing on the wrong search. Not only was it important to seek justice for its own sake, but if Anna’s killer wasn’t stopped he might strike again. If tracing Geraldine’s birth mother no longer seemed to matter, finding Anna’s killer was growing more important with every passing day.

P
IERS
WAS
DISHEVELLED
AND
decidedly bad-tempered after his night in a cell. His greying hair was a mess, his face had lost its healthy colour, even his eyes looked dull and had developed ugly pouches from tiredness. He looked at least ten years older than when Geraldine had first seen him.

‘What the hell is going on here?’ he demanded, his voice taut and high-pitched with frustration. ‘Where’s my lawyer?’

His personal solicitor had been summoned and joined them as Geraldine was ushering the suspect into an interview room. Tall and suave, dressed in a sober suit, white shirt and dark tie, he wouldn’t have looked out of place at a funeral.

P
iers leapt out of his seat.

‘Terry, at last! What the hell’s going on? Surely they can’t just keep me here without any reason –’

‘I heard about Anna,’ the solicitor said in a low voice as he took his seat beside his client. ‘Sit down. I’m sorry, Piers. I never met her, of course, but it’s a terrible shock all the same. Such a young girl. How are you?’

Piers shook his head vigorously.

‘How the hell do you think I am? First Anna, now they want to lock me up. I was in a cell last night! That can’t be legal.’

‘Don’t worry, Piers. We’ll have you out of here in no time,’ his solicitor assured him.

He sounded very confident.

‘But have you heard about the van?’ Piers muttered.

The solicitor hushed him.

‘All in good time, Piers. Don’t say anything. Leave this to me. I’ll sort it out.’

‘That’s what I pay you for.’

‘We’ll soon have you out of here. They can’t hold you.’

G
eraldine interrupted their subdued exchange to go through the lengthy process of initiating the interview. On television this would be conducted in a matter of seconds. Real life formal police interviews weren’t so quick and easy to set up. At last she finished the detailed introductory rigmarole, Piers had given his full name, the solicitor and attendant police officers had been announced, and they were ready to begin.

‘Mr Trevelyan, can you tell me where you were between one and three on Saturday morning?’

He flung himself dramatically back in his chair, and ran his hands through his hair.

‘Oh Jesus Christ, do we really have to go through this all over again? I’ve already answered that question. Check your notes, or did you forget to keep any?’

G
eraldine kept her voice even. She stared directly at Piers.

‘Mr Trevelyan, a young woman died on Friday night –’

‘I’m painfully aware of that,’ he interjected. ‘Anna. My girlfriend. Some arsehole used my van to cause an accident that killed her. She’s dead. This might be all in a day’s work for you, but she was my girlfriend. I happened to love Anna, very much. So I’d like to go home and begin the process of grieving, in private.’

He stood up.

‘Mr Trevelyan, please sit down. We haven’t finished.’

‘You may not have finished, but I have.’

‘Piers –’

The solicitor put a restraining hand on Piers’ arm and nodded at the chair, gesturing to him to sit down again.

‘The police have to ask questions. The quicker we get through this interview, the sooner you’ll be going home.’

He turned to Geraldine.

‘My client is prepared to co-operate in any way he can to help you find the driver who is responsible for this accident.’

Geraldine inclined her head.

‘Thank you.’

P
iers shrugged his shoulders.

‘Look, this has all been a huge shock. I don’t want to seem unhelpful, but you have to accept there’s nothing I can tell you about whoever was driving my van on Friday night. Do you think I wouldn’t help you if I could? You think I don’t care about what happened to Anna?’ He took a deep shuddering breath. ‘Someone must have stolen the van and driven her off the road. Presumably he was off his face on drugs. It was nothing to do with me.’

‘The person who killed her was driving your van,’ Geraldine pointed out.

‘Well, I can’t be responsible for whoever was driving my van, can I?’

‘Unless it was you at the wheel.’

‘Oh for goodness sake –’

‘My client has already stated he was at home, in bed, at the time the accident occurred,’ the solicitor reminded her.

He gave Piers a warning glance.

G
eraldine turned to another line of questioning.

‘You’re telling us that a person or persons unknown stole your van from the street outside your house and followed Anna on Friday night. Can you think of anyone who might have done that?’

‘A lot of maniacs might have stolen my van from the drive and followed her, just because of who she is – was. She drove men wild.’

‘Was she being stalked?’

‘God, yes, of course she was. Don’t be naive. It goes with the territory. She was a good looking girl, a former glamour model. There were photos of her… She had plenty of fans, believe me, plenty of men ready to chance their luck.’ He turned to his solicitor.

‘Get me out of here, for God’s sake. What the hell am I paying you for? Have you seen where I slept last night? Or rather where they kept me cooped up. I didn’t get much sleep.’

G
eraldine stared at the grey-haired man sitting across the table from her. He seemed more upset about his night in a cell than his girlfriend’s death but she knew that grief affected people in strange ways and perhaps the truth hadn’t yet sunk in. Piers turned back to her with a scowl.

‘Let’s try and apply some common sense to this, shall we? It seems pretty obvious what must have happened. Some crazy fan of hers found out where she lived. He watched her drive off. Seeing she was on her own, he thought he would seize his chance. He didn’t want to lose her, so he broke into the van and followed her. He was pissed, or high, driving too fast, and ended up leaving the van in some godforsaken street where she was driving, and she crashed into it and that’s what killed her. If that’s not muddled thinking, I don’t know what is. He smashed up both vehicles, killing the poor girl in the process. Realising he had destroyed his idol, he did a runner. Clearly he’s insane. You should be out there looking for him, not sitting here with me. It wasn’t my bad driving that killed her. How many times do I have to tell you? I wasn’t there.’

He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.