Dead Gorgeous (A Mystery for D.I. Costello) (13 page)

Angela cut the line and sat with a puzzled look on her face.

“Anybody you know, Angie?” asked Gary.

“Somebody called Nigel Summers. We haven’t come across that name so far, have we?”

“It doesn’t ring a bell.”

Just at that moment Angela saw D.C.I. Stanway coming into the room, and she stood up. “Good afternoon, sir.”

Stanway returned her greeting as he stopped in front of the whiteboard, studying all the information relating to the case. “I’ve got an appointment tomorrow, so I’ll miss most of the briefing in the morning,” he said. “Will you bring me up to speed?”

“Of course.” Angela went through the results of their work so far, finishing with the password-protected pages on Kirsty’s computer.

“Oh yes; and what were they all about?”

“A few things, sir; she had copies of Ian King’s dress designs.”

“Oh, really? That’s interesting. Should the office-junior-stroke-in-house-model have access to such things?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so, sir, but we’ll be speaking to Ian King again later. I presume you’ve caught up with the news that he was attacked last night?”

“Yes. I want you to keep a close eye on that, Angie.”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“What else did you find on the computer?”

“She had a letterheaded page for a company called Massingham Models.”

“Which you’re checking out?”

“Oh yes. And the telephone number of somebody called Nigel Summers.”

Stanway smiled. “Ah, I’m ahead of you there, Angela. I took a look at the Ivano King website while the rest of you were doing all sorts of running around yesterday. He’s a co-director with Ian King, but he’s obviously the one with the business brain while his partner designs the frocks. Apparently he works from their premises in Chelsea, which I’ve no doubt is a very exclusive shop.”

“Big bucks in all this, I should think.”

“Oh, you can be sure of it.”

“I wonder if he had a relationship with Kirsty as well.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, I’m just thinking about what Darren Carpenter said when we first interviewed him. He knew that Kirsty was seeing Ian King, but he also thought there had been someone else before him; only he didn’t know who that person was.”

“Well, Nigel Summers’s number must have been hidden in Kirsty’s computer for a reason.” Stanway smiled and raised his eyebrows and Angela realized she was being gently sent off to her next task.

“Yes, sir; I’ll have one of the team ring and set up an interview.”

As suggested by the address, the outlet for Ivano King in the King’s Road, Chelsea, was very exclusive. A single, exquisitely cut suit formed the window display. Instead of a counter and a shop assistant, a young woman looking more like a receptionist sat at an antique Georgian desk. As Angela and Gary entered, she glanced up and smiled at them across the type of hush that can be produced only by fabric wallpaper and deep-pile carpeting. The two detectives were assiduous about wiping their feet thoroughly on the mat just inside the door. There weren’t many other garments on display, but then Angela guessed that shoppers probably didn’t come here “just looking”.

“Good afternoon, we’re here to see Mr Nigel Summers.”

“Ah yes.” The receptionist consulted a leather-bound book on the desk. “Detectives Costello and Houseman?”

Angela confirmed the identification, and the woman indicated they should each take a seat. She vanished into a room at the back of the shop, and they heard her mounting some stairs.

“So they own the whole building, then,” surmised Angela.

“I bet it costs a bomb to keep going,” said Gary.

Before Angela could reply, they heard footsteps descending the stairs; the receptionist reappeared, asking them to follow her.

The carpet pile was less deep up here, but Angela still felt her shoes sinking into it as she walked. Nigel Summers was standing up to greet them from behind a large walnut desk supporting one desktop computer and one laptop.

“Please sit down, Inspector,” he said, indicating a chair in front of his desk. “Can I get you anything? Tea, or coffee, perhaps.”

Angela sat down, declining his offer. Gary had already found himself a perch on one side of the room. “I just need to ask you a few questions,” she began, “about Kirsty Manners.”

“That was terrible, just terrible; what an awful shock.” Nigel shook his head in horror as he slid onto his seat behind the desk.

“Yes, I can imagine,” said Angela sympathetically.

“So,” Nigel focused their conversation, “how may I help you?” His gaze was open and direct and his smile pleasant, but he’d picked up a pen and was tapping the end of it up and down on his blotter.

“Did Kirsty ever come here?”

“No, as far as I know she hadn’t ever been in this shop. She would have no reason to. Kirsty was based at our unit in Wandsworth.”

“Would she have ever been required to come here – with a message, say?”

“Once upon a time, Inspector, maybe; but in these days of texts and emails, it just doesn’t happen.”

Angela smiled. “What about if she wanted to buy some clothes?”

Nigel returned her smile. “Well, yes, but I know what we were paying her and I can assure you she wouldn’t have been able to afford it.”

“How well did you know her?”

Nigel thought for a moment. The pen tapped a little more rapidly.

“I saw her in passing when I went to the unit, of course. Well, to be candid, one could hardly help noticing; she was hotter than
Hades
. It’s just dreadful to think of such a young life being destroyed.”

Angela reminded herself that Nigel Summers was a company director in an industry with an ability to talk up its products
sans pareil
; by the same token, he could probably stonewall for Britain. It was time to cut across the preliminaries. “Had you been having an affair with her, Mr Summers?”

The pen stopped tapping and the eyebrows went up into the forehead. “An
affair
, Inspector? That’s a bit of a leap from seeing her in passing, isn’t it? What on earth makes you think Kirsty Manners and I were having an affair?”

You haven’t answered the question and you’ve chucked the ball back into my court,
thought Angela.
OK, let’s bring up the heavy artillery.
“She had your mobile number stored in a secret file on her computer.”

There was an involuntary movement from Nigel and the pen dropped to the floor. “Excuse me… ah… Oh, there it is.” But it was too late. Angela had seen his true reaction. Though gone in a flash, it had unmistakably been, “Damn and blast the woman!”

Nigel scrabbled under his desk for the pen, sitting up again within seconds, smiling and urbane. He raised his hands in a
gesture of surrender. “OK, I’d better come clean. I
did
have a bit of a fling with Kirsty; but it didn’t last very long and, I can assure you, it was over and done with weeks ago.”

Hmm, so Ian King had a dalliance, Nigel Summers had a fling and Darren Carpenter was in love,
thought Angela. She considered her next question. Nigel must have taken her silence for disapproval because he spoke again. “She knew the score, Inspector,” he said, unable to keep a defensive note out of his voice.

“The score?” asked Angela.

“You know, that that’s all it was, just a fling.”

“I’m not the arbiter of your morals, Mr Summers. What was she like?”

A puzzled frown creased Nigel’s brow. “How do you mean, what was she like?”

“Just what I say; it’s important to get as complete a picture as possible of Kirsty, and we can get this only from the people who knew her when she was alive.”

“Ah yes, I see.”

“So, what was she like?”

“Well, let me see now… If you’d asked me that before I… before we… before our… er…”

“Fling.”

“Yes. Yes, I started off thinking that she was just about the most stunning-looking woman I’d ever seen. Then… after we… er… I amended my opinion to ‘stunning airhead’ but that didn’t last long.”

“Oh? So she wasn’t an airhead. Was she bright, intelligent?”

“Er… no, not especially; well, that’s not quite right. She was a long way from stupid. Cunning and calculating is more how I would put it. She had assimilated some fundamental lessons. She knew how to flatter, all right. If she was to be believed, I achieved a height of sexual prowess during our time together that even
I
wouldn’t aspire to. And as for my job; Ian’s lucky to have a man
like me. How I managed to keep the label going was just amazing.” An ironic grin appeared on his face. “I didn’t enquire how she came to that conclusion. As you can probably imagine, she agreed with more or less everything I said. We could have carried on a bit longer if she’d kept to her side of the bargain – you know, I’d have bought her the odd expensive bit of bling and kept her in frilly knickers and we’d have parted amicably when I was good and ready. To be honest, I’m surprised she was still with us. Ian planned to take on an intern and I’d put him in touch with a likely candidate, but it didn’t work out. So we kept Kirsty who was keen to learn about… well… about life lived at an executive level. She was very – er – what’s the expression? Single-minded, yes, that’s it. She knew exactly what she wanted and went straight for it.”

“And what was that?”

“As far as I could tell, to marry well and live a life of luxury.”

“Oh, not to be a supermodel?”

Nigel thought for a moment. “She probably started off with that ambition, but I think it changed. I can imagine her as the prettiest girl at nursery, in the class at school, at Girl Guides or whatever. She thought her looks were her passport to the good life, you know. If modelling was the route to take then that’s the way she’d go. But to be honest, once she’d got her foot in the door she must have started to realize the prettiest girl in the class was now surrounded by beautiful women. And the fact is, Inspector, not every girl who makes it as a model has a face that one can even call attractive. I have to be honest; I realized that she wouldn’t come up to scratch, socially, among my friends and acquaintances and dropped her fairly quickly, but she soon got her hooks into Ian; just so long as it was somebody of power and influence and earning a packet.” Nigel smiled and shrugged. “I’m surprised she didn’t bypass me and go straight for him in the first place, but maybe she didn’t quite have the confidence at the beginning.”

“So, you’re saying…?”

“What I’m saying, Inspector, is that she was a gold-digger; very decorative to be sure, but that’s what she was, nonetheless.” The ironic grin reappeared. “And who says the young have no drive and ambition these days?”

“Quite. Did you know she had a regular boyfriend?”

“Oh yes. Kirsty was the kind of young woman who would always have someone simmering gently on the back-burner. Poor Darren, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him from time to time. She should have stuck with him, really. But there you go. She had big ideas.”

“Do you own a bicycle, Mr Summers?”

“A bicycle?” Nigel’s eyes opened wide in surprise at the change of subject, but he recovered quickly. “No. No, I don’t. As a matter of fact, that’s something I didn’t ever get to grips with.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I suppose I could learn easily enough, but it’s not something I ever got around to.”

“Ah,” said Angela. “May I ask where you were at approximately three o’clock on Sunday?”

“Am I a suspect, Inspector?”

“It’s a box-ticking exercise at this stage.”

“OK.” Nigel raised his eyes to the ceiling as he thought the matter through. “At three o’clock on Sunday I was probably just approaching the fourteenth hole at the golf club I belong to.”

“I presume you weren’t playing alone.”

“No, there were four of us. Would you like their names?”

“Yes, please; my colleague will take them from you.” Angela rose from her seat. “Thank you for your time, Mr Summers. I can imagine how busy you must be. I’m sure you’re aware, as the investigation progresses we might need to see you again.”

“Naturally, Inspector,” replied Nigel, also standing up. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

Within ten minutes they were in the car from where Gary made a call to ascertain Ian King had returned to his office. They set off in that direction.

After a short while, Angela noticed that Gary seemed unnaturally quiet. “Wassamatta, Gazza?”

Gary grinned and threw a quick glance in her direction. “It’s a bit, I dunno… it’s all a bit depressing, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“Well, I suppose I can’t talk. My life isn’t lily-white, but some people seem to be such users, don’t they?”

“You mean Kirsty trying to sleep her way to a rich lifestyle, and Nigel Summers and Ian King just using her for sex?”

“Yes.”

“That’s nothing new, though, is it?”

“No, but… at the end of the day, what was Kirsty going to get out of it?”

“She was going to get precisely nothing, Gazza; certainly not the rich, luxurious lifestyle that she craved. Unfortunately, I don’t think she’d woken up to that reality.”

“Poor thing.”

“I don’t know. She seems to have been quite ruthless in her own way. She kept stringing her boyfriend along as first reserve, remember. And as for Nigel Summers and Ian King, she just wanted them for what she could get out of them. There was no indication she actually cared for them as people.”

“Yes. But it’s all very superficial, isn’t it? There’s got to be more to life and relationships than that, hasn’t there?”

“There is, Gary. There’s a whole lot more.”

Angela and Gary found themselves parking once again under the large, looping letters of the Ivano King label. Jenni appeared, ushering them into Ian’s office.

“Ah good, the police,” said Ian, jumping to his feet as they came through the door. He indicated chairs for them to sit on.

“We’re calling about the events last night,” began Angela, once they were seated. “I know these things are very upsetting, but we’ve looked through the police report of the incident and on the face of it, there’s no reason to see it as anything other than a random attack.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s not the case, Inspector,” replied Ian. “It’s shaken me up, I can tell you.”

“No doubt,” said Angela. “It’s a frightening business, whatever the motive. Tell me, what makes you think it wasn’t random?”

Ian looked, just for a moment, as if he thought the question a stupid one. “The circumstances are pretty indicative, I would have thought; the attack on me so closely following on from the murder of my very recent ex.”

“You think whoever killed Kirsty might now be targeting you?”

“Isn’t that the implication?”

Hmm, is that vanity or genuine fear speaking?
wondered Angela, silently. “To be perfectly honest,” she said, giving him what she hoped was a reassuring smile, “I would expect the two events to be totally unrelated. You’ve got a good address, a very nice car, and I can tell that’s a highly expensive watch on your wrist. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if your attacker put these things together and took a chance on your having something
worth stealing. He didn’t hang around once somebody set up a chase, did he?”

“Well, no, there is that,” admitted Ian. “It was all very sudden and quite scary. I just assumed –”

“That’s understandable,” agreed Angela. “I think you’re wise to at least ask the question. We’re going to keep the matter on our radar, so to speak, just in case you turn out to be right. I know the police took a statement from you last night. Have you signed it yet?”

“I’m calling in at my local station to do that on my way home tonight.”

“OK, Mr King, we’ll make sure we have copies included in the file on the investigation into Kirsty’s murder. I’m sorry we can’t provide you with protection, but I’m sure I don’t need to remind you to be careful and cautious.”

“Absolutely!”

“Right, I think that’s all we can do. Hopefully, nothing like it will occur again. If you see anybody behaving at all suspiciously, get in touch with your local police again. I’ll make sure they alert us to any report from you.”

“Thank you, Inspector.” Ian stood up. “I feel a little better now and I hope you’re right, and it was just a random event.” He suddenly realized that Angela and Gary had remained seated. “Was there something else?”

“Yes; at least we think so. Kirsty had some protected files on her laptop and we’re wondering about some of the documents we’ve found, now our experts have managed to break the password.”

“Oh?” Ian sat down again.

“We found some designs with your initials on them.” Angela took a photocopy out of her bag and showed it to him. It was a pencil drawing of a very smart trouser suit.

“Yes! I knew it! I just f – I just knew it! Thank God you’ve found them.” Ian’s expression was an odd mixture of triumph
and fear. He took a set of keys from his pocket, selected one of them and unlocked one of the drawers in his desk. He pulled out a sheet of paper and turned it so the two officers could see what was on it. Angela and Gary were gazing at the same sketch of a trouser suit.

“Ah.”

“Yes, ‘ah’, Inspector; this is from my new collection. I must ask you to immediately forget you’ve seen these.”

“No problem, we won’t be talking to anybody about them.” Angela assured him. “How come Kirsty had them on her laptop?”

“That’s a very good question, and one I wouldn’t mind knowing the answer to myself. I can only imagine she went trawling through my computer when I wasn’t aware.” He flicked a glance across at them. “Asleep, maybe. There were one or two occasions when this could have happened.”

“What would be their value to Kirsty, though?”

“Hmm, hard to say; she knew most of us are paranoid about our work and would be horrified at anybody seeing them until they appear on a catwalk. That’s just the way we are. She might have thought it gave her a hold over me.”

“But you split with her all the same. Weren’t you worried that she would
publish and be damned
?”

“Inspector, I know a great many more people in this industry than Kirsty. She would soon have found every door slammed in her face. In any case, although we’d split, I made sure I left things a bit open, so to speak. Until I knew for certain what she had, I planned to string her along with the thought that we’d get back together again.” Ian put the page back in his drawer and relocked it. “Calculating, I know, but you have to take precautions when there’s a loose cannon about, and I couldn’t be completely certain that she had my designs. Er –” He raised his eyebrows at them. “I do like to have control over all the copies.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t return them to you just at the moment. They might turn into evidence. I’ll give you a receipt for them, though. We’ll keep them perfectly safe.”

Ian pursed his lips as though he might protest, but merely gave a curt nod. “OK.”

Father Martin Buchanan closed the door of the presbytery behind him and gazed in both directions along the street. He had two things, some free time before Confirmation classes started and a plan.
To the right first,
he said to himself, and struck out. Martin tended not to wear clerical dress in his spare time, so he looked like any other thirty-something young man as he ambled along in sweats and trainers. He’d given a lot of thought to the frightened young woman in the confessional the day before, and the more he thought about it the less he liked it. Once he’d shared the story with Angela and Patrick he’d felt a bit better, but it still wasn’t enough. Even though they’d reassured him about his actions, he still felt bad for ducking down behind the screen.

Somewhere in a house in one of these highly respectable suburban streets, one of his flock, kept against her will, faced who knew what awful threat for not complying with the wishes of her captors. She might even now be suffering a punishment for having tried to escape. Martin had decided to turn his private prayer into a walking event. He planned to trawl the streets around the church and see if he could find the house. They couldn’t stay indoors all the time. What had the young woman said? “They want me do bad things, with mans – men, at parties.” Unless the parties took place in the house itself, the women would have to come out, no doubt escorted by a hulking giant like Igor. And if they happened in the house, then guests would arrive. Either way, it would cause traffic. And he might just manage to pass at the right moment.

He knew it was a very long shot, and possibly naive of him, but he had to do something.

Eleanor and Jenni left the unit at the same time that evening, and made their way to the bus stop. They were both more tired than usual.

“This business about Kirsty is draining, isn’t it?” remarked Jenni.

“You can say that again,” agreed Eleanor. “It seems strange to be doing my normal work. I keep thinking everything should stop, and then I think, ‘Why?’”

“I know what you mean. It’s all a bit unreal. We’ll have to get over it, though.” Jenni looked at Eleanor, making her eyes big and round. “London Fashion Week looms.”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!” screamed Eleanor, feigning horror. “Actually,” she continued, “I’m quite looking forward to it this year. Ian’s gone out on a limb with his new collection, and it’ll be interesting to see the reaction.”

“He’s certainly had a bit more spring in his step lately,” agreed Jenni. “I was getting worried. Some of our regular buyers haven’t put in an order for ages, and I’ve seen a couple of articles in magazines where they’ve come right out and said he’s lost his edge.”

“I think he’s got it back now,” said Eleanor. “Some of this latest stuff is very exciting. I shall be after one or two pieces myself once they hit the high street.”

Jenni looked across at her colleague. “I suppose that’s all part of the transformation job you’ve done on yourself since your mum died,” she said. She hesitated. “I think it’s paying off,” she ventured, wondering if Eleanor would pick up the hint and the conversation could lead into what was happening in Ellie’s private life. Both Jenni and Raj had their suspicions about Eleanor and Ian, but they didn’t feel free to ask.

Eleanor smiled back at her. “OK, I’ll put you out of your misery. Ian and I are having a thing and it’s been going on for about a month.”

“I did wonder,” replied Jenni, then she stopped. “A month… but wasn’t he –?”

“Yes, he asked me out before he’d dropped Kirsty, though that followed very soon after. It really put her nose out of joint, I can tell you. I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but she behaved like a complete pig to me about it.”

“I can imagine,” said Jenni. “There was something quite feral about Kirsty, wasn’t there?”

Angela invited Gary in for a coffee when they got home that evening. He still seemed a bit flat in his spirit; if Maddie was in, she would probably cheer him up.

In this she wasn’t wrong.

“Hi, Gaz,” she said, bounding into the living room ten minutes later, just as Angela was handing him a cup.

He brightened immediately. “Hey, Mads; how’re you doing?”

“OK, thanks; I started looking for a job today. I wasn’t expecting to see you back here so soon.”

Gary’s face took on a sheepish expression. “I think Angie’s being a ministering angel.”

“Oh, really?”

“He struck me as being a bit down,” explained Angela. “I just invited him in for coffee.”

“Oh poor you; wassup?” asked Madeleine.

Gary shrugged and the sheepish expression became stronger. “Oh, I just felt a bit fed up, that’s all. It’ll pass.”

“The life goals that some people pursue can seem shallow and depressing to others,” said Angela.

“I assume that’s about the case you’re on, so I’d better not ask,” said Madeleine. “Anyway, it’s nice to see you’re a sensitive
soul; that’s good in a bloke,” she added, and they all laughed. Gary looked for an instant as though he would have continued with the subject; instead he shrugged, got on with his coffee, and the conversation passed to other matters. But Angela remained curious and picked up on it again as she was showing him out about half an hour later.

“You looked as though you were going to say something else earlier, Gaz, when we were talking.”

“Oh, it was only that I was thinking what a shame it is when a gorgeous woman loses her life so young.”

“It’s a shame when any young person dies, Gaz.”

He smiled. “I’m being sexist, aren’t I? It’s a shame whether she was young and pretty or not.”

Angela smiled. “Exactly; night, Gaz.”

“Night, Angie,” he replied, setting off down the path. “See you tomorrow.”

She remained for a few moments in the hall after she closed the door behind him, a smile playing around her lips. The better acquainted she became with her detective constable, the more she warmed to him. She suspected consideration for Maddie’s feelings had motivated his reticence earlier, and that pleased her. Perhaps he didn’t want Madeleine to think that he had an eye for the ladies. Perhaps he was interested in Maddie. Angela wandered slowly back into the living room.
Hmm
, she thought to herself.
This could get interesting.

As she entered the house that evening, Eleanor couldn’t help glancing up at the ceiling, to her mother’s bedroom. She immediately thought of Ian’s visit on Sunday. It had been particularly good. Suddenly her memories of Sunday passed to an earlier moment from that day when she had acted completely out of character, and she moved quickly into the kitchen and began to get the things together for her evening
meal in a brusque and angry manner. That was something she definitely didn’t want to dwell on, thank you very much. She went cold and shaky at the very thought of it.

After her meal, however, she thought about the front bedroom again, with its still-very-obvious evidence of Sunday’s activity. She hadn’t cleared up in there at all and had no plans to do so immediately.
I’ll just go up,
she thought,
and sit there for a while
. She couldn’t have said why she did this, but she supposed that she wanted to savour the memory – the same room, the bed still in disarray, the empty champagne bottle and flutes abandoned on the night tables, and remember the time with Ian, remember she was desired. She didn’t kid herself she was loved, and that made this affair a very bittersweet one.

Eleanor never had been one to harbour illusions.

The Tone-Up Gym reception area was empty when Sandra entered it that night. Tony saw her and raised his eyebrows. “I wondered if I might see you here tonight,” he said. He lifted up a steaming jug of coffee and looked questioningly at her.

“Yes, please, Tone,” she said, sitting down at the nearest table to the tiny counter. She let out a huge, heartfelt sigh.

“I can guess what sort of a day you’ve had,” he said, putting a mug of coffee for each of them down on the table.

“It was awful,” she replied. “Thanks for giving me the heads-up they might be on their way.”

“Turned up, did they?”

“Yes. I reckon they must have phoned to say they were coming as they were driving away from you. They spoilt my lunch, really.”

“How did it go?”

“Can’t tell, really; they don’t give anything away, do they? I don’t get why they’re harping on about me seeing his bike. All I did was notice the freaking bike in the lean-to and there’s, like,
this major enquiry going on. What’s the bike got to do with Kirsty’s murder, anyway?”

Tony took a sip of his coffee and looked at her with a thoughtful expression. “You’ve got to look at it from their point of view, Sandy. Darren must be in the frame for it, so they’ve got to check out his alibi.”