Dead Gorgeous (A Mystery for D.I. Costello) (7 page)

“Ah, good morning, Angie! No, you can come here – I’m putting you in the driving seat. I went to the scene last night, but I just missed you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” said, Angela, annoyed with herself for blushing at the delicately implied criticism. “We spoke to the immediate neighbours and the flatmate, and set up the house-to-house, but I didn’t think there was anything else we could reasonably do. If we’d hung around we’d just have been in the way of the scene of crime team.”

“Absolutely, no problem,” soothed Stanway. “I just wanted to touch base with you all, right at the beginning. You can see I’ve assigned you the same bunch of miscreants you had on the Wimbledon case.” A burst of laughter met his quip. He turned back to the board. “It looks like you’ve got off to a flying start. I know it’s early days, but have any angles emerged yet?”

“Just a couple, so far, sir. Kirsty’s parents told me her boyfriend is a chap called Darren, but yesterday the flatmate –”

“Sandra Hodges.”

“Yes – said she was at the gym during the relevant time with
‘her’
boyfriend, Darren.”

“We’re talking about the same Darren, I presume?”

“I think we are, but that’s something we’ll be checking out, of course. It also seems, according to Sandra, that Kirsty didn’t limit herself to one boyfriend anyway.”

“Hmm… this could get mucky.”

“Possibly, sir.”

“What’s the other angle?”

“Well, Sandra didn’t lose any time pointing me in the direction of Kirsty’s workplace, and suggested we would find no shortage of candidates there.”

Stanway’s eyebrows rose up to his receding hairline. “Oh, did she, indeed?” He turned back to the board to refresh his memory. “Ivano King. Are we talking about the dress designer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hmm, wasn’t one of these people shot some years ago?”

“That was Gianni Versace; in Florida.”

“Ah, American gun laws, not so easy over here, but… hmm, maybe some of them live a bit close to the edge. Is there something about the fashion industry that makes it more likely for somebody to be murdered?”

“I don’t think so. It seems to me that Sandra may be pursuing some agenda of her own.”

“Ah well, I’ll leave you to it, Angie.” Stanway rose and ambled to the door. “You know how to proceed. Let’s hope it’s a simple case of the old eternal triangle and you can soon wrap it up,” he said, echoing something of Patrick’s remarks earlier.

Angela took his place, facing the team. “I don’t think we’ll be getting off so lightly,” she said. “If what the flatmate says is anything to go by, we’re talking about an eternal polygon.”

“Put it about, did she?” asked Jim.

“That’s the impression I’ve been given so far,” Angela replied. “But that could turn out to be wrong, of course.”

“Hope so,” said Gary. “A complicated love life won’t make our job any easier, will it?”

“Quite,” said Angela. “OK, then, let’s get on with it. Where’s her laptop and mobile?”

“With the lab,” said Leanne. “Well, the laptop is. No mobile was found.”

“Really? That sounds very odd.”

“Yes, guv, the scene of crime team searched everywhere.”

“Must be something incriminating to the perp on it,” said Rick.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Right, you keep a close eye on that, Leanne. You know what we want off them.”

“Yeah,” Leanne grinned. “Everything that’s on them.”

“Absolutely; and you and Derek stay on top of the house-to-house. The minute you find a neighbour who noticed so much as a pigeon landing on the roof of Kirsty’s flat yesterday, I want to know about it.”

“What’s the timeframe, Angie?”

“Quite wide, really. It could be several hours before the event. Even the previous evening, at a pinch. With no forced entry, she let someone in, or else they had a key. Kirsty’s bedroom is at the other end of the landing from Sandra’s. It would have been tricky, but not impossible, for someone to be there overnight without Sandra knowing.”

“There were plenty of neighbours out in the street watching what was going on yesterday,” said Gary.

“Weren’t they, just!” acknowledged Angela. “They weren’t bothering to hide their curiosity by that point, and I’m sure that among them there must be one or two who could curtain-twitch for England.”

“Specially if she had a rapid turnover of blokes,” said Jim. “The comings and goings might have been more interesting than watching the soaps, to someone.”

“That’s very perspicacious of you,” said Angela.

Jim formed his mouth into the shape necessary for saying “What?” – paused and said: “I’ll look it up.”

Angela laughed.
You’ve worked with me before,
she thought. She looked around at the rest of her team. “OK, then, we’d better get ourselves over to Ivano King. Kirsty’s colleagues have
managed to rouse her flatmate’s suspicions. Let’s see if they’ll have the same effect on us. In any case, that’s probably where we’re going to find this Darren, and he’s got to be the first one we speak to.”

Father Martin Buchanan sat patiently in the Immaculate Conception parish confessional. A good-sized room for its purpose, it had originally been used as an office at the back of the church. A screen at right angles to the door hid Martin from anyone coming in, allowing penitents the option of remaining anonymous behind a covered mesh opening in the screen, or moving beyond it to sit face to face with him. Confession was available after every Mass, but he didn’t really expect to get many takers this early on a Monday morning. He had come to value the quietness, just sitting here. A light glowed above the door, announcing his presence. He picked up his breviary to take this opportunity of saying the next part of the Divine Office. He’d no sooner opened the book when he heard the front door slam. Almost immediately a shape appeared at the frosted glass panel in the confessional door and it was pushed open. A young woman, who obviously didn’t care for anonymity, moved past the screen into the body of the little room.

In a previous life, before his ordination, Martin would have opened his eyes very wide at the sight in front of him and said,
“Wow!”
However, he’d changed a lot in his journey to the priesthood. He had learned to look behind a pretty face, for one thing, and he could sense a great deal of tension in this woman – even fear. Her eyes kept darting towards the door and she held her head at an angle, as if listening for a sound from outside. He smiled pleasantly at her and put his breviary down on the ledge at his side. “Good morning,” he said, adjusting the purple stole round his neck.

She saw the gesture. “Please,” she said, “not confession.” Her accent wasn’t English; some sort of Eastern European, he thought.

Puzzled, Martin lifted the stole from around his neck, brought it briefly to his lips and put it to one side. “Are you a Catholic?” he asked.

“
Tak
– yes.” She perched on the edge of the chair, her whole body trembling, rigid, poised to fly.

“Then why…?” Martin stopped. It wasn’t his place to ask. “No matter,” he said. “How may I help you?”

But she volunteered an explanation. “If I confess, you not be able to tell peoples.”

Martin’s stomach turned over. “What’s the problem?” He struggled to keep his voice steady.

“I come here for fashion industry, meet peoples, many fashion designers here and I choose one with same name like me.” Martin’s brow furrowed at this and he wondered what she meant but he didn’t want to interrupt the flow. “He say he help but I no see him any more. Now, I am prisoner. They want me do bad things, with mans – men, at parties. The other girls, they accept but I no want do this –” She broke off, apparently unnerved by the sound of keys being jangled in the aisle beyond the door.

Martin kept his voice to a whisper. “Young lady, I can help you. Stay here and I will help you.” His mouth felt dry. The room suddenly darkened and the young woman jumped. Martin peered round the screen and caught sight of a huge shadow passing by the frosted glass panel in the door. He got a fleeting impression of close-cropped hair and a dark bomber jacket – and bulk; the size of the man…

“Is Igor,” she whispered. “He not look for moment and I run from house. I run round corner, along this street, that street. I think I escape, but then I see him. I see church, I run in.”

Martin’s stomach churned again. The idea of being watched by that giant was not a pleasant one. “Please let me help you,” he said.

She looked at him. “Is no good; I have to go.” She put her hands up to her cheeks; tears started in her eyes. “I frightened, I think they steal my looks. I need my looks.” Gazing into her pretty face, Martin’s heart went out to her. The shadow appeared again at the glass panel. “Hide so he not see you!” she said on a note of rising panic. Martin let himself be persuaded by the fear in the woman’s voice. He moved further back behind the screen and crouched down. The door opened and he heard an angry grunt that sounded like “asher”. The woman answered him. “Is quiet, empty; nice to pray here.” Martin could hear the fear in her voice. Another grunt, this time more peremptory in tone, sounded from the doorway and the woman got up and left the confessional. After a moment, Martin rose and went into the main body of the church. He was just in time to see the front door swing shut.

Jenni saw the police car arrive. All morning she’d been drawn time and time again to the window, from her desk where she’d hardly done a stroke of work. She couldn’t have said exactly what she was looking out for, but when she saw an unfamiliar car draw to a stop just by Ian’s Porsche she knew it was the police and felt, strangely, as though a burden had been lifted from her. She didn’t have to be anxious about the murder any more; the police were here to take over.

She watched three men and a woman emerge from the car, before getting up and heading along the corridor towards the stairs leading down to the pleasant, airy reception area.

Jim was just about to ring the bell when the door opened and the detectives found themselves staring into Jenni’s mild, thirty-something eyes.

“Good morning, I’m Detective Inspector Angela Costello –”

“Are you here about Kirsty?”

“Yes.”

Jenni stood aside to let them pass into the building. “So it’s not a horrible mistake, or some sort of joke in very bad taste, then?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Angela.

“I’m Jenni, the office manager. You’d better come into the general office, where I’m based,” said Jenni, leading them up the stairs. As they went along she gabbled on about what a terrible shock it had been to receive the news. Angela made sympathetic noises as she walked, taking in her surroundings, walls arrayed with large photographic poses of models in elegant and stylish clothes. These were interspersed with a different type of picture – receptions, launches, gala occasions, celebrities, people in beautifully cut suits with smiling faces and champagne glasses. Here and there she could see the type of plaque that could only be an industry award of some sort.

Once in the general office, Jenni offered them seats. Angela introduced her colleagues.

“How was she killed?” asked Jenni, once they’d all turned down the offer of tea or coffee.

“It wouldn’t be right to talk about the way in which Kirsty died, not at the moment, anyway,” said Angela. “But there’s no question of it being anything other than murder, which means we’re going to have to talk to all the people who worked here with her.”

Jenni nodded. “This is awful,” she said. “It’s like something from the telly or the films. Everybody’s very shocked. I don’t suppose much work is being done out there.” She cocked her head in the direction of the corridor.

“I can imagine,” replied Angela. “Would you have a list of the personnel here?”

“Hmm, we’re not big on personnel as such,” answered Jenni. “Most of the people working here are on a contract. We employ a lot of casuals, in the stitching room for example, and there’s Raj, the pattern cutter and Ellie, the head stitcher. They always work here even though they’re on contract. Mind you, Ellie’s not here at the moment. She had a dentist’s appointment today.”

“The thing is,” said Angela, “we’ll need to speak to everybody here, whatever the terms of their employment. Are you a permanent member of staff”

“Yes.”

“OK, thank you for your help, Jenni. We don’t want to disrupt your work any more than we can help. We’re looking, first of all, for someone called Darren Carpenter.”

Angela saw speculation flare behind the other woman’s eyes and could immediately imagine the conversation at lunch with Jenni’s confidantes:
“She hadn’t been in the place five minutes before she was asking to see Darren. You take my word for it; they’ve got him in their sights already.”

“He’s downstairs at the back. Despatch is his official job, though he does some maintenance and a few bits and pieces, as well.”

“OK, D.S. Wainwright and D.S. Driver will start with the stitching room, while we’re talking to Mr Carpenter, if that’s all right.”

“No problem,” replied Jenni. “If you go down the stairs we’ve just come up and along the little passage leading to the back, you’ll find Darren.” She nodded at Rick and Jim. “I’ll take you up to the stitching room.”

Downstairs, Angela and Gary found themselves walking through a cluttered room lined with wheeled clothing racks, packed with garments shrouded in plastic bags and sheets.

A man strode towards them through wide double doors set into the back wall of the unit.

Angela took in the bulging biceps, the top pulled tight across a muscular chest and the powerful-looking legs straining against a pair of combat trousers as he moved.

She raised her eyebrows. “Cor, thunder thighs,” she murmured.

“Looks like a bruiser doesn’t he?” agreed Gary. “You wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him.”

“Oh, you never know, he might be a gentle giant.”

“Yeah… right.”

Angela was still chuckling at Gary’s cynicism as the man reached them.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Good morning. I’m Detective Inspector Angela Costello, and this is Detective Constable Gary Houseman. We’re looking for a Mr Darren Carpenter.”

“That’s me.” He stood back to let them pass, indicating a smaller room to one side. The two detectives entered to find themselves in a tiny office; clearly Darren’s personal domain. A couple of speed bike posters decorated the walls, and snaps of riders lined up to start a race. Darren could be clearly seen in two of them, looking very solemn. One showed him as a competitor and in the other he held aloft the starting pistol. The office had only two chairs and very little room; Gary, glancing back into the despatch room, spotted a low stool which he commandeered, seating himself more or less in the doorway. He took out his notebook.

Angela sat down on one of the chairs Darren sat on the only other one. He picked up a cable tie, used throughout industry to close plastic refuse bags, and fiddled with it. Angela decided to use his obvious hobby as a starting point. “I see you’re a keen cyclist, Darren. Do you mind if I call you Darren?”

“Nah, s’all right; yeah.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah, I’m into cycling.” Silence reigned in the little room, Darren clearly waiting for their next question.

Angela reminded herself that this man had just lost someone close to him and she couldn’t know how he was dealing with it. She looked at the photographs of Darren with the starting pistol, and gave it another try. “I see you’ve got an official position in some races,” she said.

Darren glanced briefly up at the photographs. “Yeah, I’d pulled a tendon; couldn’t race for a while.”

Another silence. A movement from Gary indicated that he wished to ask a question. Angela cast a glance at him and nodded her permission.

“Is there much difference between a starting pistol and a real gun?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Is it easy to tell them apart?”

“If you’re an expert.” All Darren’s utterances came out of his mouth and dropped like dead weights into the ether. Gamely, Gary battled on. He smiled; his tone keen and interested.

“Ah, you’re an expert, then?”

Darren nodded and looked quickly at Angela. “Got a licence,” he said.

Angela nodded and gave up on easing gently into the interview. Darren obviously didn’t do conversation. “We’re here about Kirsty Manners,” she began.

Tears welled up in Darren’s eyes and overflowed down his cheeks. “Yeah,” he sobbed. “I knew you’d…” He was unable to continue. Angela waited, letting him regain his composure. “I knew you’d turn up,” he said eventually, in a shaky voice.

“You’ve obviously heard what’s happened.”

“Yeah.” More tears poured down across his face. “I was told last night.”

“Who told you?”

“Sandra, my… her… Sandra.”

“Sandra Hodges?”

“Yeah.”

“I see. I’m sorry to distress you, but I’m sure you realize I have to ask you some questions.”

Darren nodded. “Yeah, s’all right; I know.”

“I believe you’d been in a relationship with Kirsty.”

“Yeah, we’d… split up.”

Hmm, I bet this wasn’t a clean break,
thought Angela. Her speculation was immediately answered by Darren’s next words. “Well, she’d split with me, but I… well, I had, too, sort of. I was going with her flatmate, Sandra… er…” He stumbled to a halt.

Hello, hello,
thought Angela.
I bet you’d taken up with Sandra in an attempt to make Kirsty jealous and get her back.
“When did you split up with Kirsty?”

“’Bout four weeks ago.”

“And had you seen her at all in that time?”

“Yeah, well, at the gym – we use the same gym – and when I came round to the flat to see Sandra.”

“You didn’t find that awkward?”

Darren shrugged. “Nah, it happens, you just get on with it.” He paused. “I don’t think it was working out for her.”

“What wasn’t working out for her?”

“Her relationship, the one she’d split up with me for.”

“Oh, really? She was seeing someone else?”

“Yeah, well, that’s why she split with me; but something had gone wrong – according to Sandra, anyway.”

“You’ve no idea what?”

“Think she was being dumped. Sandra heard her in her room on the phone. She said it sounded like she was arguing and pleading. And she thought Kirsty had been crying a couple of times but tried to hide it. It looks like it happened straight after she told me she didn’t want to see me any more.” He gave a
small satisfied smile. “Serves her right, she should’ve stuck with me.” He broke off and cast a swift calculating glance at Angela. He secured the ends of the cable tie so it couldn’t come undone and pulled on the resulting circle of plastic with both hands. “I was thinking, maybe…” He shrugged and ground to a halt.

“Were you thinking that if her new relationship wasn’t working out, maybe you and she could get back together again?”

There was a very long pause.

“Yeah.”

“Tell me about Kirsty,” said Angela, gently.

A large sigh escaped him, causing him to shudder. “She’s lovely, a real looker; couldn’t believe it when she said she’d go out with me. When the job came up here, I put in a word for her. She always said she wanted to be a model. She sent pictures to agencies and had done a bit of photographic, but she wanted to do the catwalk. So I thought this job would give her a taste of it, like. She was so keen.” Tears coursed down his face again. Angela and Gary exchanged glances.