Nothing but Trouble (38 page)

‘I’ll lock the door and bar the windows.’

‘Shame you didn’t do that last Friday.’

Harry hung up and put in a quick call to Warren. There was no news from Walpole Close. Aimee Locke hadn’t gone out, and only
the cleaning woman had gone in. After being unceremoniously ejected from the casino last night, Harry had called it quits
and returned to Kellston. The surveillance was probably a waste of time now; Stagg would have tipped off Aimee and she’d know
that she was being followed. Would she challenge her husband about it? He thought it unlikely. Better, surely, to keep quiet
and let Mackenzie, Lind file a report that put her in the clear.

The sun was shining on the windscreen, making the car feel uncomfortably warm. He put the phone down, opened the window and
rolled up his sleeves. A motorbike roared past, leaving a trail of exhaust fumes, and Harry followed its progress
until it reached the end of the road and turned left. With less chance of getting snagged up in traffic, a bike was a good
way to tail people in London.

Whoever was out to get Jess obviously knew where she was living now. The threatening call at the supermarket proved that much.
But then it wouldn’t have taken too much brain power to track her down. Anyone who’d been following her movements over the
past six days could have guessed where she would be.

Harry thought about Becky Hibbert, mercilessly strangled on the Mansfield Estate. Murdered because of what she knew, what
she might tell, or for reasons completely unrelated to the Minnie Bright case? Valerie was clearly working along the lines
of the latter option, but then she wasn’t in possession of all the facts.

He picked up the phone again and stared at it. After the coolness of their meeting on Tuesday, he was tempted to keep his
distance. But he couldn’t let personal problems stand in the way of a murder inquiry. Reviewing the conversation in his head,
he was aware that he hadn’t told her everything.

Valerie answered her mobile straight away. ‘Harry,’ she said, her voice edged with irritation. ‘What is it? What do you want?’

He was unsure whether the tone of her response was down to him or whether he’d caught her at a bad time. ‘I won’t keep you.
I was just wondering how it was going. Any sign of Dan Livesey yet?’

Valerie hesitated, clearly unwilling to discuss the case with him. ‘We’re following up a number of leads,’ she said briskly,
as if she was talking to a probing journalist.

‘Right. Only … only I think there are a couple of things you should know.’

‘Really?’ she said coldly.

He knew that bringing up the subject of Jess wouldn’t do
much to raise the temperature, but there was no way round it. ‘Well, we’ve just found out that the fire at Jessica Vaughan’s
place
was
deliberate and that she was definitely the intended target. She’s had to go and see the police at Hackney, so you may be
hearing from them at some point.’ He decided not to mention that he was currently sitting outside the station. ‘I guess they’ll
want to liaise with you in case there’s a connection to the Becky Hibbert murder.’

Valerie gave a sigh. ‘Right,’ she murmured.

‘And there’s something else. Apparently someone looking very like Micky Higgs threatened Lynda Choi’s brother with a knife
about five months ago. David was trying to get some information on the calls Lynda made to the other girls on the night she
died, and Higgs seemed to take exception to it.’

‘Did Choi report it?’

‘No, and if you ask him he’s probably going to deny that it ever happened. He doesn’t want to cause any grief for his family.’
Harry squinted into the sunlight, screwing up his eyes. ‘But I suppose the big question is why Higgs – if it was him – would
go to all that trouble if his girlfriend had nothing to hide.’

‘And you didn’t think this was worth mentioning when we talked on Tuesday?’ she said crossly. ‘What’s the matter with you?
Is there anything else you haven’t told me?’

He pulled a face, aware that he’d blotted his copybook yet again. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ In his defence he could have said
that she hadn’t taken seriously the idea that there could be a connection to the Minnie Bright murder, but he was smart enough
to keep that suggestion to himself. ‘I’m sorry, okay. I just thought that with Livesey in the frame all this stuff was probably
irrelevant.’

‘Maybe in the future you could let me decide what’s relevant and what isn’t.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll do that.’

‘Do you have a number or an address for this David Choi?’

Harry had got David’s number off Sam Kendall but decided not to give it out. The least he could do was ring David first and
warn him that the law was about to come visiting. ‘Not a home address, but he works at a dry-cleaning place on the industrial
estate. His family owns it. I don’t know exactly where the unit is.’

There was a short pause while Valerie wrote down the information. ‘And that’s it? You’re sure there’s nothing else you want
to share with me?’

Harry winced at the sarcasm in her voice. ‘No, nothing else.’

‘Well, in that case, I’d better get on.’

Harry was about to suggest that they get together for a drink sometime, but she’d already hung up. ‘Well done, Mr Lind,’ he
said softly. ‘Beautifully handled as usual.’ He leaned back and rubbed at his temples. Why did he have the feeling that another
large nail had just been hammered into the coffin of their relationship?

It was almost an hour before Jess finally emerged from the police station and climbed into the car beside him. She looked
tired and drawn, as if the very last of her energy had been drained away. He waited until she’d fastened her seat belt and
had a moment to gather her thoughts.

‘So, how did it go, or shouldn’t I ask?’

Jess gave a shrug. ‘I’m not sure. You know what coppers are like.’ She smiled thinly at him. ‘No offence, but you’re never
sure what they’re really thinking. They recorded it all, all the stuff about the Minnie Bright article, but then they kept
asking what other stories I’d worked on in the past six months and whether someone might bear a grudge. And then after that
they wanted to hear all the gory details of my personal life.’

‘I guess they’ve got to cover every angle.’

‘They seemed to think it was very convenient that Neil was away in Edinburgh when the flat was burnt down. I mean, what do
they imagine: that he tried to have me knocked off while he got himself the perfect alibi?’

Harry started the engine and slid the car out into a line of traffic. ‘Well, you can be highly annoying, Vaughan. Perhaps
he just couldn’t bear the prospect of being your boyfriend any longer.’

Jess put out her tongue and scowled at him. ‘Oh, thanks for that. You really know how to cheer a girl up. And Neil’s going
to be overjoyed to get home and find himself under suspicion for attempted murder.’

‘I’m sure it won’t come to that.’

‘Are you? Because I’m not sure of anything any more.’ Jess folded her arms across her chest and gazed dolefully at the road
ahead. ‘I’m beginning to wish I’d dropped this damn story weeks ago.’

Harry knew that it was only the tiredness talking. Jess had never walked away from trouble in her life and she wasn’t about
to start now. ‘I’ll tell you what. Let’s get back to Kellston and grab some lunch before we go and see Clare Towney.’

Jess gave him a sidelong glance and smiled. ‘In other words, stop your whining, Jessica, and just get the hell on with it.’

‘Your words,’ he said. ‘Not mine.’

Twenty minutes later, Harry and Jess were squashed into a corner at the back of Connolly’s. The café was doing a brisk lunchtime
trade and all the other tables were full. The noisy hiss of the coffee machine vied with the clatter of cutlery, music from
the radio and the general babble of conversation. While Harry tucked into a chicken salad, Jess picked unenthusiastically
at an omelette, sawing off tiny pieces and moving them aimlessly around the plate.

‘You going to eat that or just play with it?’ he asked.

Jess glanced up at him. ‘Since when did you turn into my mother?’

‘Only looking out for you, hun. I wouldn’t like to see you waste away.’

Spearing a morsel of omelette, Jess put it in her mouth, chewed and swallowed. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Happy now?’ Then she put
down her fork and heaved out a sigh. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to take it out on you. All this stuff, it’s just … I can’t get my
head around it. I feel like there’s something staring me in the face but I’m too blind to see it.’

‘You and me both,’ he said.

Jess topped up her glass from the jug of water on the table, then lifted it to her lips and took a few quick sips. ‘I mean,
when you think about it, it all comes down to what
really
happened on the day that Minnie Bright was killed. We know what the girls said to the cops at the time, but what if they
were lying?’

‘About what part of it?’

Jess’s brow furrowed in concentration. ‘Well, Paige, Kirsten and Becky claimed they ran off and left Minnie in the house.
But what if they didn’t? Or what if, like Lynda, they went back? Perhaps Minnie did what she was told and opened the door
for them. They all went in and … I don’t know, maybe there was some kind of argument or fight over what was being taken and
one of them pushed Minnie and she fell and …’

Harry pursed his lips. ‘That doesn’t account for Peck’s DNA being on her clothes.’

‘But it would account for why the three of them didn’t want the case re-examined. And there could be reasons for the DNA.
Minnie was lying on the floor, wasn’t she? There could have been contamination.’ Jess picked up her fork again and tapped
it against the edge of her plate. ‘If all three girls stuck to the same story, they’d be free and clear. Who was going to
suspect them when Minnie’s body was lying in the home of a known sex offender?’

Harry could see where she was going but he wasn’t convinced. ‘They were only ten years old, Jess. They were just kids.’

‘Streetwise, though. And if the police already had Peck in the frame, how hard were they going to question them? Those girls
had forty-eight hours to get their story straight. So long as they kept it simple and consistent …’

‘But why would Paige and Becky have agreed to talk to you if they had something to hide?’

Jess gave a shrug. ‘I don’t know. Because fourteen years had gone by and they thought they’d got away with it? Everything
revolves around fame today, about having your photo in a magazine or the paper, about being the centre of attention even if
it is only for five minutes. Maybe the lure of that outweighed any minor risk of the truth coming out.’

‘Not for Kirsten Cope, though.’

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Not for Kirsten. Which means either that she’s smarter than the others or she’s got more to be afraid of.
She was the one who was on the phone to Lynda Choi for over forty minutes on the night Lynda died. Now correct me if I’m wrong,
but Kirsten doesn’t strike me as the type who spends vast amounts of time on Friends Reunited, so what was so fascinating
about that conversation?’

Harry recalled his last glimpse of Kirsten Cope at the flat in Chigwell, sitting on the sofa and biting down on her knuckles.
Yes, she’d certainly been worried.

‘Lynda Choi remembered something that the others didn’t
want coming out,’ Jess continued. ‘Why else would they lie about her calling them?’

Harry finished his chicken salad and pushed the plate aside. It was a theory but it had a lot of loose ends. ‘So where does
Clare Towney fit into the scheme of things?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Jess said. ‘Why don’t we go and find out?’

Palmer Street, running in an easterly direction off the high street, was only a short walk from Connolly’s. The terrace was
much the same as all the others in the area: a row of small red-brick houses with one window on the ground floor and one on
the first. Most of the square front yards were concrete or gravel, the limited space filled by council wheelie bins.

‘This is it,’ Jess said, stopping outside number 36. The exterior of the house was neat and tidy, the paintwork in good condition.
A pair of starched white nets obscured her view of the inside, but she thought she sensed a movement behind them. She checked
her watch. Five minutes early.

‘So, how are you going to handle this?’ Harry said.

She glanced up at him, realising that despite a great deal of thought, she hadn’t yet come to any firm conclusions. ‘With
tact and diplomacy?’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

They walked up the path and Jess rang the bell. The door was answered almost immediately by a tall, slim girl who looked
closer to eighteen than twenty-eight. She had a pretty heart-shaped face, wide hazel eyes and long red hair that reached almost
to her waist. Her skin, pale as porcelain, had an almost translucent quality to it. Her features were perhaps too individual
to be classed as beautiful, but she was certainly striking.

‘Clare Towney?’ Jess asked.

The girl nodded. ‘I’m Clare.’

‘Hi. I’m Jess Vaughan and this is my colleague Harry Lind. He’s a private detective.’

Clare looked from Jess to Harry and then back at Jess. Her eyes narrowed a little. ‘You didn’t say that you were bringing
someone.’

‘You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to,’ Harry said. ‘If you’d rather see Jess alone …’

Clare studied him for a moment, but then gave a shrug and stood aside. ‘It doesn’t matter. You’d better come in.’

Jess stepped into a room that was overstuffed with furniture and knick-knacks. The wallpaper was old-fashioned and flowery,
the large pink blooms more suited to a bedroom than a lounge, and the grey carpet had one of those busy patterns that would
give you a headache if you stared at it for too long. The curtains, heavy and pulled partly across, blocked out most of the
afternoon sunlight. From the room beyond came the sound of a television.

Clare gestured vaguely towards a dark corduroy-covered sofa.

‘Thank you,’ Harry said, moving a cushion and settling into a corner. ‘We’ll try not to take up too much of your time.’