Roxanne, p.13
Roxanne, page 13
Waters went on, ‘Thirty per cent of the fee. John has checked Elite’s website. Even after the fees, the girls earn a lot more an hour than you do, Clive.’
More laughter, but he could see Freeman waiting. And he could see that unwavering focus in her impatient glance around. It was time to move on. He guessed why the DCI had asked about the agency and said, ‘We should speak to Elite Escorts, ma’am, a formal interview. Roxanne might have kept in touch with clients from her time there. They should have a database.’
Freeman nodded to Greene, who wrote it down. Waters continued, ‘Melanie and Trudi agreed that they last saw Roxanne around seven o’clock or just after on Saturday evening. They assumed she was seeing a client but don’t know for certain. She didn’t tell them where she was going or whom she was meeting.’
He saw the look exchanged between Serena and Denise, and said, ‘Problem?’
Denise said, ‘Dunno. Three young women sharing a house, all in the same game? I’d have expected them to talk about it a bit.’
Serena said, ‘A lot.’
Freeman thought it over before she said, ‘There might be some ideas about client confidentiality getting in the way. It’s a question we might need to ask them again. Go on, Chris. When did they start worrying?’
‘On the Sunday morning they realised she hadn’t come home. They lock their doors for some privacy but they must have noticed her car wasn’t there. They said they called her several times during the day but the mobile went to message every time. When she was missing for a second night, they unlocked her room and saw no signs she’d been back. Then they decided to come into the station and report her missing.’
Freeman said, ‘I’m assuming you took their mobile numbers so we can eliminate their calls. They weren’t concerned when she was missing on the Sunday morning?’
‘Yes we did, and no, ma’am. They said that sometimes they get an all-night booking. They assumed that’s what had happened.’ Then he looked in Betts’ direction and said, ‘If anyone is interested, John has checked it all out on Elite’s website since we got back. An all-night booking costs a thousand pounds. That’s the basic rate. Some girls can charge more.’
Freeman looked at the surprised expressions around the table and said, ‘Serious money, people. Nine times out of ten, it’s either about sex or money, and now we’ve got both, in spades.’
Had Smith removed a page from one of his precious Aldwych notebooks, written down all his maxims and handed it over to Freeman on his final visit to Lake Central? He and Miriam were due to visit him tomorrow afternoon, and Waters thought he might just have to ask.
Freeman said, ‘Here’s where I am with this. Roxanne Prescott was obviously, as Denise said, a bit bonkers for several years. She was using. She gave it up at about the same time as she decided to become an escort – which is, you’ll agree, rather counter-intuitive, but according to her parents, who knew her better than anyone else we’ve spoken to so far, it’s what happened. We all know that users relapse all the time, and that you can’t always spot them doing so. It’s quite possible that Roxanne was taking stuff and her parents would never know. But what I do have a problem with is how she ended up where she did with that much ketamine in her system. If Robinson’s tests confirm what the previous one found, she couldn’t have driven the car any distance, if she could drive it at all. But there’s nothing in the car that we can see, no trace of what she took. So, she took it somewhere else and had a driver, or she took it in the car and someone cleaned up. Either way, someone else was involved.’
Put like that, it seemed simple enough, but they don’t teach that sort of thinking in school. Some people’s minds, Waters thought, operate like drones. They go up higher and see further – they get the bigger picture. Freeman was thanking Priti and at the same time managing to read a few lines, checking it was all there. Then she stood up and said, ‘Make the most of your weekend. We’re going to be busy on Monday.’
Usually it didn’t matter what time anyone arrived at The Blue Note, but over the past few weeks Friday nights had become a thing. There was a private room to the side of the main bar, and a group had taken to meeting there at eight, and eating a takeaway together before going out to listen to some music. Jason Diver and his sister Katherine were part-owners of the club now, and their names were on the licences; recently both had been present at these Friday night gatherings. There might be six or eight people, and sometimes a face or two was different, but the brother, the sister and Waters and Miriam had become the regulars. As a group, he thought it had some interesting characteristics; its members were unmarried and childless, successful in their careers and no longer in the first flush of youth.
Nothing had ever been planned but it had become an informal agreement that for the Friday nights to work, you needed to be sitting down by about eight o’clock. Tonight it wasn’t their turn to order the food but even so, Waters was running a few minutes late. He had his weekend bag open on the bed and pushed into it an extra change of clothes – he didn’t expect to be back in the flat until Sunday evening, and it might even be Monday. Tomorrow the two of them were due at Drift’s End for lunch with DC and Jo. There would be a longish walk planned without a doubt, and he found an extra pullover, because the weather forecast wasn’t ideal. He reminded himself to tell Miriam to pack something warm when he got there, which really should be – he glanced at his watch – in no more than twenty minutes.
He was standing by his desk, the bag in one hand and making a last check of the emails on his laptop when the doorbell rang. This in itself was a novel event. He closed the computer and walked across to the intercom, still holding his bag, pressed the respond button and asked who was there. No answer. He watched and waited. After thirty seconds or so, someone rang the bell again, and again he asked the question. It might not be working, but the more likely explanation was that the person downstairs hadn’t understood how the system operated – they needed to hold down the speak button to answer him. It could be a delivery of some sort.
Waters moved quickly then, to avoid one of those annoying cards and a trip to the post office. Bag in hand, he went down the stairs two at a time, and was relieved to see the figure still on the other side of the panel of frosted glass. Not a post office uniform though, he thought as he opened the door. No, not a post office uniform because it was Maya Kumar.
Chapter Fourteen
‘We’re leaving Hunston now, onto the coast road. On the next bend there’s the first proper view of the sea. And there we are, to our left. It looks a bit grey today, to be honest. We could have done with some more of yesterday’s sunshine.’
The audio description had become something of a habit whenever they were going somewhere new. Miriam’s memory was unnervingly good and she didn’t need the description a second time. Waters had tested her on this and discovered she could repeat word for word what he had told her months after they last made a journey. He had learned to be accurate and economical, as a result.
He looked at her. She had made a particular effort with clothes today, asking him again about the location of the cottage, where they might be walking, how did Jo dress for the outdoors. He’d been at something of loss with the last one, and his answer of ‘A warm coat at this time of year, I expect’ had been dismissed as entirely inadequate. He tried to step outside his own view of her and imagine how she would appear to the couple about to meet her for the first time. Honestly? They could not fail to be impressed.
Waters had woken up in the night, still wondering whether he should tell her about what had happened at the flat, and the real reason why they hadn’t arrived at The Blue Note until almost half past eight. What was to be gained if he did so? He might make himself feel better, but that would be at the expense of making Miriam feel worse, wouldn’t it? She might worry, she might be angry. And being blind, would she feel in some way more vulnerable than other women in such situations? He didn’t know; he didn’t have all the answers with her yet. In the end, he remained silent on the matter.
At the outer door, Maya had smiled up at him and said, ‘As I was still in town tonight, I thought I’d come round and view the flat.’
The first thing he noticed was that she had changed her clothes from what she’d been wearing at work earlier in the day. The office-grey slacks and white blouse had been replaced by a casual jacket, a short skirt and suede ankle boots. But she lived with her parents in Bury, a good hour and a half’s drive away – she hadn’t had time to go home, change and return.
Waters said, ‘Oh… Right. I’m just on my way out, though.’
He held the bag a little higher, as if she needed some sort of proof, and she said, ‘Going somewhere nice for the weekend?’
The smile was still there, but there was something wrong with it. Looking back, he had simply failed to realise just how much was wrong with it. He asked whether she’d spoken to the estate agent, because…
‘I’ll only be ten minutes. You keep telling me it’s only a small place!’
He had told her that just once, he was sure of it, but she took a step forward and he turned so she could pass him and then she was climbing the stairs. He was obliged to follow. She stood close to the door – he wondered later how she knew which of the three on the landing belonged to him – and he had to lean over her a little to push the key into the lock. She didn’t move away, not at all.
In the lounge, she stood in the centre of the room and stared at him. He pointed towards the kitchen, and even said lamely, ‘So, here’s the kitchen. It’s a gas boiler. Always plenty of hot water…’
Maya said, ‘Aren’t you going to offer me a drink? Supposed to brew coffee when you’re selling a place. I don’t mind something stronger, though.’
They were both off duty of course, but rank is rarely entirely forgotten, and Maya hadn’t forgotten it at all. She was deliberately and provocatively ignoring it.
Waters said, ‘I really am short of time.’
She looked at the bag he was still holding, and said, ‘You didn’t answer me. I asked if you were going somewhere nice.’
And his thought at that moment had been, this is going to be awkward next week, awkward in the office on Monday. I might need to mention this to someone.
He said, ‘I can spare five minutes. Have a look around and I’ll answer any questions.’ Then he put the bag on the floor and went into the kitchen as if he had something to do there. After a pause and a silence of ten or fifteen seconds, he realised Maya had come behind him – she was standing in the entrance to the kitchen, trapping him in that space of seven feet by nine. He turned and she said, ‘She’s blind, isn’t she? The girl you’re seeing?’
He said, ‘Yes.’
The smile that had frozen her face was thawing now but becoming something worse – an odd, intense look, the one he had glimpsed that morning. After examining the one-word answer, she said, ‘Do you find that interesting?’
Waters said in a level voice, ‘Contact the agent and make a proper appointment if you’re interested, now you’ve had a look inside.’
She turned her back and went away from the entrance – to keep her in sight, Waters had to follow. She stood in the lounge again, looking around.
‘Five minutes, you said. Can’t you even manage that?’
Instinct was telling him that the safest thing was to say and do as little as possible, to wait for her to leave without making a scene. She wanted some sort of a scene.
When he didn’t answer, she turned her gaze upon him again and said, ‘You seemed more than happy to spend an hour with a couple of hookers today. Five minutes isn’t too much to ask, is it? For a colleague?’
Waters remained in the doorway, several feet from her. He said, ‘Give the agents a call, Maya. I have to leave now.’
‘I’ve seen you looking at me.’
With each and every word, she was making this irreversible, he knew that. There was no going back to normality from here. He simply had no idea at that moment how this could be handled once the two of them were back in the sane world of the squad’s offices.
To Maya, his silence represented some sort of victory. She smiled again, unnervingly, and added, ‘You can’t deny it, can you?’
He said, ‘I look at everyone, every day.’
‘You know what I mean. It’s not just looking. It’s watching. I’ve seen you watching me.’
‘No. You’ve got that wrong. I’m sorry if-’
‘Oh! Now you’re sorry. You tell me all about this place in the locker room. Did you think I didn’t know why? Then when I get here, you’re sorry.’
It’s a fact of life that if you work in the police service, you will regularly have to deal with people who range from the slightly disturbed to the clinically insane, but mostly, thought Waters, they’re on the other side of the fence.
He said, ‘Let’s end this now, Maya. We can either forget about it or talk in the office on Monday if you like. But you have to leave now.’
Her expression had darkened. The stare had become a glare now, as she said, ‘So you’re just throwing me out?’
‘Yes. But you threw yourself into this.’
Had that been the wrong thing to say? He still wasn’t sure as they passed the first sign to Marston. She had said to him then, in a different voice, ‘Are you sure you want to end it like this?’ and Waters had thought, yes, frankly, any sort of an ending will do. He’d nodded to her, and the last thing Maya Kumar said to him was, ‘Just remember you said that…’
He’d stood in the flat, listening until he heard the outer door close. It was like the faint echo of an explosion, and he’d felt a little numb, as if he had been involved in a terrorist incident, as if he was a shocked but fortunate survivor. A look at his watch told him it was almost eight o’clock, and he was seriously late. He took out his mobile and thought, I should make this call now but I am seriously, seriously late…
Had he then made the right decision?
There had been a leisurely lunch involving seafood and salad. The two of them were used to working together on projects like this now, but as Waters described the plate of food to Miriam, he was aware of the interest taken by their two hosts as they watched and listened. When Waters had explained the location of everything using the clock-face method, and before they began to eat, Jo said, ‘There are a hundred things we just don’t think about, aren’t there?’, which followed on from an earlier conversation about blindness – as soon as it was clear Miriam was happy to discuss it, there had been a number of thoughtful questions.
In answer, Miriam had said, ‘It’s actually three hundred and sixty-eight things,’ and that produced more amusement. Waters had hoped the day would go well but it had been better than that. DC was still considering the layout of the food on his own plate. Then he looked up and said, ‘Prawns at six o’clock. Sounds like some sort of old-fashioned duel.’
Miriam had taken to him straight away – either she did or she didn’t, as far as new people were concerned, and Waters had been ready with an early exit strategy. But now they were sitting in the lounge of Drift’s End after the lunch and after the long, bracing walk across the saltmarsh. Any moment now, DC would head for the kitchen and make a fresh pot of tea. After his comment about prawns at six o’clock, Miriam had said, ‘We fight many battles every day. Some restaurants are a nightmare, and others seem to get it. Blind diners tend to be very loyal to a small number of establishments! I do have aids I sometimes take with me. You can have plates with an extra deep rim so you don’t push food off them. Cups and glasses that are unsighted friendly’ – Waters saw the look between Jo and DC then because the tall-stemmed wineglasses at lunch had been rather challenging – ‘but when all else fails, you just order pizza and a can of Coke.’
Jo had laughed and asked about the best places in Lake for Miriam to eat, perhaps planning some future invitation, but Smith had looked at his new guest for long seconds before catching Waters’ eye. Nothing would impress his former detective sergeant more than good humour in the face of adversity, and courage in the face of calamity. Miriam had both, and Smith’s silent expression was saying plainly enough to his former detective constable, well, well, you’ve got something here.
There had been moments of alarm, especially when quite early on Miriam had mentioned the excellent lady saxophonist they’d heard at the club last night. Smith had asked for details and Miriam had said, ‘She’s an old university friend of Katherine’s. She’s actually a doctor!’
Smith had looked at Waters in some consternation and mouthed the name ‘Diver?’ Long, long ago, when Waters was very young, his sergeant had threatened to lock him in a cell for his own good rather than allow him to continue seeing the crazy young woman who had just inherited a private investigations business in Kings Lake. Their lives had moved on in different directions as Smith well knew, but certain events remained as landmarks by which he navigated the past and perhaps, one day, the future.
Yes, Waters had said, the same Katherine Diver.
Smith said, ‘I see their agency still advertises in the local rag.’
That was a question, obviously, and Waters answered it with, ‘Doing very well. Jason runs the online security side of it and Katherine deals with the commercial investigations business. She has two American contracts now. They’re also taking on some conventional work in Norfolk. They have a couple of people self-employed as agents.’
‘She offered me some of that,’ Smith said.
Jo was watching and listening. Waters had never passed on the offer that Katherine had asked him to make, but he wasn’t at all surprised she had then contacted Smith herself, though this was the first he knew of it.
Smith went on, ‘But it was much too soon after you-know-what. A quarter of an hour in the office with the Divers and I’d have to have had a lie down for the rest of the day!’
In the quiet after that, a bird called out over the water beyond the bank, a long, mournful, musical cry. They all heard it and Smith said, ‘Curlew. A spring migrant, on his way north.’
