Untouchable (12 page)

And wonder if they’re aware of Kristen. Or was she another of Amanda’s secrets?

Hell, I think. Kristen. It hits me how bad she must be feeling right now. ‘Hey,’ I say to Anna. ‘Do you know where she lived? Amanda … Elisa, I mean.’

She releases my arm. ‘Not sure. Over towards Chiswick, I seem to remember. Why’d you ask?’

‘I thought I might go round and see her girlfriend. Check she’s coping. I emailed her yesterday when I heard, but I’ve had nothing back.’

Anna considers this as she buttons up her coat. ‘Try Janine,’ she suggests. ‘I’m pretty certain she knows. She used to hang out with them occasionally.’

‘Thanks.’

She leans forward and gives me a hug, a little longer and tighter than usual. Then stands back and examines my features. ‘Can I give you some advice, Grace?’

‘OK.’

‘Don’t get involved. I’m sure you mean well, but honestly, I think you’re better off staying out of it.’

She’s right. I know that.

But somehow this feels like something I have to do. The least I can do. For Amanda. For Kristen.

And maybe for myself.

18

Monday, 2 March

Kristen’s flat is in a two-storey terraced house in a narrow side road just off Chiswick Common. Pale London brick, a big bay window surrounded by a small paved garden, the front door freshly painted in high-gloss navy blue. The window box under the bay is filled with ivy and spring bulbs, while a pair of dwarf conifers stand like sentries each side of the porch.

Smart, yes, but somehow lacking the glamour I always associated with Elisa. It’s almost impossible to imagine her in a setting this prosaic.

I study the tags alongside the door bells. ‘Shelton, D’ in neat script by the lower one; above it ‘Mansfield/Grainger’ in black type.

Amanda Mansfield. Such an ordinary name.

I press the top bell once. There’s no sound that I can hear, but a minute later the door swings open and I find myself looking at a girl with light-brown hair pulled back in a short ponytail. Her face bare of makeup, her eyes puffy and dark.

‘Kristen?’

She squints into the sunlight. ‘Yes?’

‘My name’s Stella. You contacted me about Amanda?’

A blank look.

‘I emailed you the other day when I … when I heard. But you probably haven’t had a chance to respond.’ She carries on staring at me as I gabble. ‘I just wanted to check you’re OK. If there’s anything I can do or …’

I stop, feeling suddenly foolish. Anna was right. It was a mistake to come.

Kristen turns abruptly and walks back through the hallway. I pause in the entrance, then assume this is an invitation. I follow her up the stairs and find her waiting at the top, holding the door.

The flat isn’t large, but a skylight floods the lounge with light and the white walls are clean and fresh. A couple of giant canvases add big splashes of colour, and the outsized L-shaped sofa, which should make the room appear smaller, somehow gives it a more generous feel.

‘It’s nice of you to come.’ Her Scottish accent is soft – Edinburgh maybe, or somewhere further north – but her voice has the slow, heavy tone of someone still in shock. She attempts a smile, but it’s like her features have forgotten how; the corners of her mouth turn up for a second then subside.

We examine each other for a moment. She’s mid-height – barely taller than me. Pretty, but not spectacularly so. That said, there’s a quality, a certain vibrancy about her that I could imagine Amanda found alluring.

‘I hope you don’t mind me barging round like this,’ I begin. ‘I was—’

Without warning, Kristen bursts into tears. A snuffling, anguished howl, her arms hanging by her sides as if broken. I hesitate, then step forward and give her a hug. She lets me hold her for a few seconds before pulling away.

‘I’m sorry,’ she chokes, swiping at her face with the back of her hand. ‘I’m so exhausted. I can’t sleep and I’ve just got back from the police station. They’ve been asking me questions for hours.’

‘Surely they don’t imagine that you …’

She frowns. ‘I don’t think so, not really. They wanted to go over everything about Amanda – her work – you know. They’ve already been round the flat, taken her computer, her personal phone, other stuff.’ She sighs. ‘They took my laptop too – that’s why I never got your email. I’ve no idea when I’ll get it back.’

‘Why not? They can’t keep it, can they?’

‘They can, at least for as long as they need it for the investigation. I asked.’ Kristen looks out the window, chewing her lip. Then turns back to me. ‘Do you want a cup of coffee or tea?’

I shake my head. ‘I’m fine. Really. I only popped round to see if you were all right. And to tell you how terribly sorry I am. Amanda was lovely, truly one of a kind.’

Kristen’s mouth starts to tremble. She sinks on to the enormous sofa. I lower myself into the leather beanbag opposite.

‘We bought this place together three years ago,’ she says, her voice quivering. ‘We were doing it up before we got married.’

‘Married?’ My voice betrays my surprise and Kristen looks at me.

‘We’d set a date. June next year, our seven-year anniversary.’

‘Oh.’ I can’t think what else to say.

‘She was going to stop, you know, stop working.’ She’s talking faster now, the earlier lethargy in her voice superseded by a kind of manic energy. ‘We had an agreement, you see, that she’d carry on till the wedding. By then she planned to have saved up enough for us to set up a business together.’ Tears start to roll down her cheeks again.

‘Doing what?’

‘Graphic design. I’m an artist and Amanda’s going to classes in Quark,’ she says, seemingly unaware that she’s straying into the present tense. ‘So she can handle the layout side of things.’

I take this in. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Kristen stares at me for several moments. ‘Do you want something to drink, Stella? Tea? Coffee?’ she says, forgetting she’s already asked.

‘No, honestly, I’m fine,’ I repeat. ‘And please, call me Grace. My real name is Grace.’

She drops her head into her hands, running her fingers through her hair before looking back up at me. ‘I don’t suppose you have any idea who she might have been seeing that day?’

I shake my head again. ‘None. We never talked about work that much. Only the things we did together …’ I pause, suddenly embarrassed. ‘You know, like the parties.’

Kristen nods. ‘The thing is, there wasn’t anything on her computer – I checked, before the police took it. She always kept a record of appointments, their duration, that sort of stuff, but there was no mention of this one – in fact, she had nothing down at all for the day she disappeared. Or for the next few days. We’d been toying with the idea of going somewhere for the weekend and she was keeping her diary clear.’

‘She must have got a call. Went straight out without making a note of it.’

Kristen screws up her face. ‘She wouldn’t. Amanda was always so thorough with things like that.’

I keep my expression neutral. What can I say? Maybe Amanda didn’t want Kristen knowing about this one. Most escorts in long-term relationships deceive their partners on some level – too much honesty being as corrosive as too little.

‘What do the police think?’

‘The obvious,’ she shrugs. ‘That Amanda met up with a client in a hotel and he screwed her, then strangled her.’

‘That’s how she died?’

‘Apparently. Death by asphyxiation, they called it.’

I shudder. An image of Amanda’s long neck surrounded by her silk kimono.

Kristen leans her head in her hands, elbows on her knees. ‘That’s what I don’t understand, she was always so careful. Religious about security, calling them back on their mobile, checking them out beforehand. And she told me about every appointment, always – who she was seeing, their number, where they were meeting, for how long. She never forgot.’

Her fingers work at the furrows on her brow, kneading and massaging. ‘But this time, nothing … she simply upped and left without a word.’

‘Were you at work?’

She shakes her head. ‘I’m freelance, I work from home, but I went out to pick up some stuff for supper and when I got back there was no sign of her. I assumed she’d gone for a run or something, over in the park, but when she didn’t return after an hour I called her. Her work mobile and her personal one – they were both off.’

‘You must have been frantic.’

She nods. ‘When it got to around half seven, I rang the police, but they weren’t interested. She hadn’t been missing twenty-four hours.’

‘Did you tell them what she did? Her work, I mean.’

‘Not then. I was worried about telling them, about them knowing. But I did later, the next day, when she still hadn’t come back.’

‘What did they do?’

Kristen pulls a face. ‘Nothing, I suspect. I imagine as far as they were concerned she was a prostitute and going AWOL was par for the course.’

‘And then they found her.’

‘Yes. In a crappy three-star hotel on Westbourne Grove, can you believe?’ Kristen looks at me, bewildered. ‘As if Amanda would be seen dead in a place like that.’

I grimace at the irony, but she appears not to notice. ‘Like I said, it doesn’t make sense.’

‘No, I can see it doesn’t,’ I admit. ‘I mean, if she went out to meet this guy, how come he waited three days to kill her? And how come they only checked into the hotel the night before?’

‘Precisely.’

‘So the police have no other theories?’

‘I honestly don’t know, they haven’t exactly told me. They just say they’re pursuing “various lines of inquiry”.’ She laughs, presumably at the cliché, then stares out the window at the darkening sky. Clouds seem to have massed out of nowhere, obscuring the sun. The flat feels chillier, the walls less brilliant white than cold grey.

Several tears inch down Kristen’s cheeks. We both ignore them.

‘So who registered the room she was found in?’ I ask. ‘I mean, that should give them some clues.’

‘She did, apparently. They said she paid for it up front, on her credit card.’

‘
She
paid for it?’ I don’t bother to hide my astonishment.

Kristen nods miserably. ‘That’s another thing that doesn’t make sense. Why the hell would Amanda pay to meet up with a client?’

‘Perhaps he said he’d give her the money,’ I suggest, but the instant the words leave my mouth I realize how stupid they are. No escort would fork out for a room on the promise of a punter.

Christ, I think, my stomach growing heavy. Maybe Amanda was fooling around. Yet somehow I can’t bring myself to believe it.

‘But that’s not the only thing,’ Kristen continues. ‘I asked to see her bag. I wanted to know what was in it. They weren’t keen, but eventually they showed me the contents, though they were in plastic bags and I couldn’t touch them or anything. It was all there – her work phone, her personal one, her make-up, her client kit—’

‘Her client kit?’

‘She always carried it in the side pocket, so she wouldn’t forget. It wasn’t much, only a small bottle of Astroglide, and five condoms in a silk purse.’

I remember it now. Green silk, with sprays of pink cherry blossom. Exquisite. Probably a gift from a client.

‘And that was the thing,’ Kristen says, reaching round and pulling a tissue from a box on a little lamp table. ‘All the condoms were there. I checked.’

I look at her. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not following.’

‘They said they found evidence that she’d had sex, but no semen, only lubricant, so whoever it was used a condom. But there were five left.’

‘Five condoms?’ I’m beginning to feel a bit thick. What does she mean?

Kristen catches my puzzled expression. ‘Oh sorry, I assumed you knew. Amanda always took five condoms along to every appointment. It was one of her things. You know what a control freak she could be.’ She laughs, gloomily. ‘I always said she had a touch of OCD.’

‘So hang on a minute, you’re saying none of them were used?’

She nods.

‘Perhaps he brought his own?’

Kristen shakes her head. ‘She always insisted on using this particular brand. She ordered them from the US. Said they were the only ones that didn’t make her sore.’

I run my teeth across the top of my tongue. Come to the only other conclusion I can think of.

‘Perhaps she went bareback, Kristen. It happens. Some clients will pay a lot extra for the privilege.’

I say this as gently as I can. But not gently enough. Kristen gives me a fierce look. ‘No, Stella—’

‘Grace,’ I repeat.

‘Like I said, there was no semen.’

‘He may have pulled out …’ Come on her, I nearly add. Plenty of men are into that too.

‘No, you don’t understand. There was no DNA at all, the police said.’ Kristen’s tone is emphatic, her eyes glistening. ‘Just traces of a spermicide they use on condoms.’

‘OK.’

‘Besides, Amanda wouldn’t ever do that – go bareback, I mean. She was totally fucking paranoid about catching something – or getting pregnant.’

‘Pregnant?’

‘She didn’t use contraception,’ she explains with exaggerated patience. ‘We didn’t need the pill, did we? That’s how I know she’d
never
take that kind of risk.’

I stare back at her, at the intense expression hardening her soft features.

‘So you’re saying that … what … she was raped?’

Kristen presses her lips together before speaking. ‘She carried an alarm, in her bag, but she hadn’t used it. And there were no signs of a struggle, the detective said, no bruises or marks.’

I let this sink in. She’s right, it doesn’t make sense. ‘Have you said all this to the police?’

She nods, then snorts, gritting her teeth in disgust. ‘They said it could be somebody else. Perhaps a lover.’

‘But you told them about you and her? That she doesn’t like men?’

‘Of course. I reckon that was one reason they came here, to check out whether I was telling the truth, that we weren’t just flatmates or something, that I hadn’t simply made it up.’ She gives a short bark of a laugh. ‘You know, when it comes down to it, it’s surprisingly hard to prove you’re someone’s partner.’

I press my lips together as I mull this over. ‘So what’s your theory, Kristen? About what happened?’