Dead Gorgeous (A Mystery for D.I. Costello) (6 page)

The following morning, in the general office at Ivano King, Eleanor remembered that Raj had been planning to gatecrash a showbusiness event during the weekend. “OK, so did you get into the after-show party?” she asked him, as they poured their first coffees of the day.

“Oh, my dear, yes, all the humble pie I ate to get there was worth every morsel. I was
this
close to Lady Gaga.” Eleanor widened her eyes, suitably impressed, as Raj brought his palms to within inches of each other. “I say, sweetie, are you OK?” said Raj, breaking off his narrative and staring at her. “You winced just then.”

“Toothache,” replied Eleanor. “It’s been with me on and off since last week but I’ve got a dentist’s appointment this afternoon.”

“Oh, poor you. So there I was rubbing shoulders with the great and the good, when guess what?”

“What?”

“My contact, the one who got me in, had been rumbled and was being removed from the building.”

“Oh dear, so –”

“Yes, it was only a matter of time before I met the same fate. This heavy bore down on me and thrust his face in mine in a most unfriendly manner. I don’t know why he bothered, it’s not like I wasn’t going to go quietly.”

“Sounds most unpleasant.”

“Yes, I went from a study of Lady Gaga’s perfect
maquillage
to making a close acquaintance with the bouncer’s ugly open pores. Well, to be honest, they were more like slightly ajar; you know how I hate to bitch.”

Eleanor was full of sympathy. “Oh, what a shame for the evening to end so badly.”

Raj widened his large, brown eyes in astonishment. “Badly? What are you talking about? It was a fabulous evening. Imagine, being thrown out by Lady Gaga’s bodyguards. It beats the time I was thrown out of the Brits by One Direction’s driver.”

Eleanor laughed. “You’re amazing, Raj, you really are.”

The sound of footsteps pounding along the corridor outside startled them both. As they looked up, the door flung open and Jenni burst in, evidently very upset. Her breath caught in a sob, and she sank down onto a desk chair, gasping. Her colleagues exchanged alarmed glances and advanced towards her.

“Jenni? Are you all right?” asked Eleanor. “What’s happened?”

Tears welled up in Jenni’s eyes as she stared up at Eleanor. “I’ve had the most dreadful shock,” she said. “She rang here. Well, I’m the office manager, she would ring me, of course,” she gabbled.

“Who rang you and what was the message?” asked Eleanor, speaking quietly and calmly. This worked. Jenni took a deep breath and gathered herself together.

“Kirsty’s flatmate rang me to say that Kirsty wouldn’t be in to work. I was just getting the sickness book out, thinking, ‘Oh she’s picked up a chill, or something – when she said that she… she’s…
dead!
”

“Dead!” exclaimed Eleanor. She and Raj turned stunned eyes to each other before giving their attention back to Jenni.

“Jenni, that can’t be right,” said Raj.

Completely calm now, Jenni was ahead of her two workmates. She gazed at them with a solemn expression.

“She’s not only dead. She’s been murdered.”

The viewing room of the public mortuary was devoid of any adornment whatsoever. The walls, the ceiling and the sheet covering Kirsty were all uncompromisingly white. Angela and
Patrick were silent as they stood respectfully by the body as it lay on the steel mortuary tray. “Well, at least it was quick,” said Angela. The forensic post-mortem confirmed death by strangulation, identifying the scarf Angela had seen, trailing out from under Kirsty’s hair, as the murder weapon; the time of death very close to three o’clock the previous afternoon. There had been no signs of a struggle. As far as the pathologist could ascertain, the girl had been caught unawares, from behind. It would all have been over in a matter of moments.

“I don’t suppose that will be much comfort to her parents right now,” observed Patrick, grimly. His duties that morning necessitated him being at the mortuary. Angela had to attend the post-mortem, and this gave them a rare opportunity to travel to work together.

“No, of course not,” she agreed. They were silent for a few moments before Angela spoke again. “Jim’s the only one who mentioned it yesterday, but I can see what he means about her looks now,” she said, taking in the neat, regular features surrounded by an abundance of luxuriant brown hair. Kirsty had been about five feet five inches tall, with not an ounce of spare flesh on her slender body. “That’s something her parents asked me about. Having been told she was strangled, they thought her face would be bloated.”

“Ha! Readers of detective fiction,” remarked Patrick. “But it doesn’t always follow in real life, does it? Have they been in yet?”

“Yes, I was here when they formally identified her.” Angela clutched Patrick’s hand and let it drop again. “Rather harrowing.”

“I can imagine. Where are they now?”

“I’ve left them with the Family Liaison Officer. I’ve got to talk to them, but I thought I’d give them a bit of time to move on from the initial shock.”

“Of course.”

Kirsty’s parents were huddled together in the interview room when Angela joined them a few moments later. Tears fell unchecked over haggard cheeks. One of Mrs Manners’s tissues was in shreds on the table and another was going the same way. Mr Manners had an arm round his wife and his head on her shoulder. Angela nodded at the FLO, took out her notebook and sat down near the grieving couple.

“Mr and Mrs Manners,” she began in a gentle voice. “I can’t begin to imagine how you must be feeling at the moment, but we have to set our investigation in motion as soon as we can. We want to catch the person who did this dreadful thing.”

Both parents nodded and Mr Manners spoke. “We understand. We know you’ve got to ask us some questions.”

“First of all, do you have any idea who might have done this?”

The couple shook their heads. “We’ve got no idea,” said Mrs Manners. “It’s hard to believe anybody would want to… to… She was such a lovely girl, Inspector.”

“Beautiful,” added her husband. “My beautiful little princess.” He dissolved into weeping.

“She hadn’t mentioned that she was worried about anybody?”

“Worried?” Mrs Manners’s brow furrowed.

“Yes, in the sense of, perhaps a friendship that had gone sour and the other person had taken it badly, or somebody with a grudge for some reason.”

Angela had been trying to keep things general, but Mrs Manners homed straight into one type of relationship. “She always had lots of boys after her,” she said. In spite of her grief, her voice held a note of pride.

“Oh yes, no worries there. Well, she was so stunning, wasn’t she, Babs?” said Mr Manners, rallying.

His wife nodded. “Right from when she started senior school; they were like bees round a honeypot, weren’t they, Ray?”

“Yes.” Ray turned to Angela. “With her looks, we told her she should be choosy.”

“Choosy?” asked Angela.

“Yes, you know. Go for someone with a bit of class – well, class and money; someone who could keep her well. We told her she should be ambitious – that she could
be
someone. With her looks she could have been a supermodel.”

There was something tragically naive about this notion, and Angela’s heart went out to them. She thought back over what Sandra had said about Kirsty, and the suspicion that she was in a relationship with some kind of high-flyer. It seemed that Kirsty had taken her parents’ advice on board.

“So, did she have a boyfriend?” she asked.

The look on both their faces gave Angela part of the answer. “He was a nice enough lad,” said Barbara, damning with faint praise, speaking more to her husband than to Angela; evidently she had reiterated this opinion frequently.

“Bit too Neanderthal for my liking,” said Ray, addressing Angela.

“Who are we talking about?” asked Angela.

“She met him at the gym,” replied Barbara, “but they work at the same place too, now. He got her the job, in fact. She’d finished with him, actually, but he was still hanging around.”

“No, they don’t want to get the message, do they?” added Ray.

Ah! This looks promising,
thought Angela, remembering her conversation with Sandra. “I’ve been told Kirsty worked for Ivano King,” she said.

“Yes, she’s the in-house model! Top designer’s place, it is.”

“She’d hardly begun there when she started turning heads – isn’t that right, Babs?” said Ray, his voice full of pride.

“So – going back to the boyfriend,” Angela persisted. “What can you tell me about him?”

In the small hiatus following this question, Angela realized that the last thing either of them wanted to do was talk about the boyfriend, ex or not.

“I think he’s a hard-worker,” began Barbara, in much the same tone she’d used to describe him as a nice enough lad.

“She could have done better for herself though,” said Ray.

“What was his role at Ivano King?” asked Angela, intrigued.

There was another silence. Ray and Barbara cast quick glances at each other. It dawned on Angela that they were slightly embarrassed.

Ray shrugged and bowed to the inevitable. “I think he worked in the despatch department or the storeroom, or something,” he said.

Barbara gave a small laugh. “OK, ’nuff said.”

Angela was on the verge of asking them what was wrong with that when she realized that the “top designer” would be more what Ray and Barbara had in mind for their daughter. She decided to steer into safer waters. “What’s his name?” she asked.

“Darren. Well, she called him Daz, of course.”

Oh my, my. Are you the same Daz Sandra was talking about yesterday or are you a different one? Whatever,
thought Angela.
I shall be having a little chat with you before either of us is very much older.
“Oh yes,” she said in a carefully neutral voice. “I spoke to Kirsty’s flatmate, Sandra, yesterday, and she mentioned a Darren.”

Barbara and Ray exchanged looks before Barbara spoke, more to Ray than Angela. “The coast’ll be clear for her now, won’t it!”

“Did Sandra have her eyes on Kirsty’s boyfriend?” asked Angela. She couched her question specifically to fall in line with their perception of their daughter. Ray’s response proved that her strategy had been the correct one.

“Somebody’s always got their eyes on Kirsty’s boyfriends,” he said. “That’s the way it’s always been. The boys all want Kirsty and the girls are always jealous. Not surprising, with somebody who looks like she does… did.” Reality hit him again and his eyes filled afresh with tears.

I think that might be my question answered,
thought Angela. “How did Kirsty feel about that – about Sandra’s interest in Darren?” she asked.

Barbara gave a smug little smile. “She could handle it. It was no problem.”

“Let’s face it, she had enough experience,” Ray added.

Angela didn’t feel she could gain any more in pursuing Kirsty’s attraction for men. It was time to change tack. “How did she and Sandra get on?” she asked. “Were they very good friends?”

Ray and Barbara looked at each other as they considered this question. “Well… they got on all right… I suppose,” said Ray, eventually. “I don’t think they were especially close, though. It just worked out for them, being flatmates.”

“Yes, they met about a year ago at the gym Kirsty went to. It turned out Sandra needed a new flatmate and Kirsty wanted to move at the time. Like Ray says, it suited them. I doubt they’d have been best pals, though; they weren’t the same type of person at all.”

“Oh, really?” Angela’s tone was inviting.

“Well, Sandra’s a model too – I think that’s why they were introduced. She does a lot of catalogue work, from what I can gather. But she’s sporty – I mean,
really
into it,” said Barbara. “Did you notice her muscles? She works on them all the time. I don’t think that’s very feminine, personally. Our Kirsty had a nice little figure and she just went to the gym to keep in trim. That’s all you need to do, if you ask me.”

“He was no different, was he?” added Ray.

“No different…?”

“Darren… always working out, lifting weights. And he rode that bike everywhere. Still, better than being a couch potato, I suppose. But the gun worried me.”

“The gun!” Angela’s eyes opened wide.

“Yeah, he does a lot of cycle races and once, when he was laid up with a pulled muscle or something, he was asked to do the starting pistol business. That got him into guns, and he got a real one in the end.” Ray glanced at Angela and misinterpreted the interest in her eyes. “He’s got a licence and a proper secure place for it. He’s law-abiding, he’s not a bad lad; but what I say is, why would anybody want a gun?”

Why indeed?
thought Angela.

Angela decided she had gathered as much information as she could use. She thanked them for their assistance, mentioned that she might have to speak to them again, offered fresh condolences, and left as soon as she decently could without seeming hurried.

She popped her head round the door of Patrick’s office on her way out. He looked up at her from his computer screen. “How was it?” he asked.

“Not as bad as I’d feared. I’ve got my first possible signpost on the way.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, there’s confusion over whether a chap called Darren was Kirsty’s boyfriend or her flatmate Sandra’s.”

“Ah, the old three-sided love tussle! It’s never very far away, is it? With any luck it’ll turn out to be a jealousy killing – you’ll charge either one or the both of them and be home in good time for dinner.”

“If life were only that simple!” said Angela. “I’ll see you later –” she blew him a kiss.

“
Ciao,
sweetheart,” said Patrick, returning the gesture.

Half an hour later, Angela hurried into the incident room to find her boss, Detective Chief Inspector Stanway standing in front
of Kirsty’s case board taking in the information they had so far pinned or written there. Jim, Rick, Gary, and two other detective constables, Leanne and Derek were grouped around on chairs or the edges of desks. It pleased Angela to see them all together. This team had worked with her on the murder at the Wimbledon tournament, her first case after her promotion to D.I. and she couldn’t help but feel a bond with them. She slid onto a vacant chair, just as Stanway turned round to face the room.