Erika Foster 04 - Last Breath Read online

  ‘She met this Nico online?’ asked Erika.

  ‘Yes, online dating, a website…’ started Don.

  ‘Don. It was a dating app. An app is not a website,’ snapped Charlotte.

  ‘App, website, what does it matter?’

  ‘What do you mean, “what does it matter”? They need to know the correct details! Match.com, it’s called, the app.’

  ‘Had she met anyone before this through this app or any other social network?’ asked Erika.

  Charlotte shook her head. ‘No. Never.’

  ‘This Nico. Do you know how old he was? Where he lived? Do you have a surname or address?’ asked Moss.

  ‘No, and you should know this, we told Melanie all of this,’ said Charlotte. ‘I was against Lacey going, but this bloke seemed, well, she said she’d spoken to him on the phone. He had a Facebook profile.’

  ‘I was against her going too—’ started Don.

  ‘You were too busy watching telly to care!’

  ‘She’s… She was twenty-two!’ cried Don, tears in his eyes. He lifted his glasses again to wipe them away.

  ‘I didn’t want her to go,’ said Charlotte with pointed venom. ‘But she said it was only around the corner, the Blue Boar pub, and they’d be meeting in public… She was late back at first, which wasn’t unusual. But then it was two, three, four in the morning and she still hadn’t come home… I watched from that window. I always do it when she’s due home, and I’d see her. This time, I didn’t. We tried her mobile, but it was off… and…’ She crumpled against her husband again.

  Don put his arm around her and took over, struggling with his emotions.

  ‘That’s when it dawned on us that we’d have to phone the police,’ he said. ‘She’d just graduated last summer, from Northumberland Uni. She got a first. She had loads of friends there, had a whale of a time. It was the shock of coming back here, to the real world, that she found hard. Hotel Mum and Dad we called it. She paid us a little bit for housekeeping, and she was in her old room, but she was restless, waiting to start her life. This shouldn’t have happened. You think this kind of thing only happens to other people.’

  Erika and Moss nodded, giving them a moment to compose themselves.

  ‘Was Lacey working?’ asked Moss.

  ‘Temping through an agency in offices. Different one each week. You know, admin and the like,’ said Don.

  ‘There was no one new in her life, no new friends she talked about?’ asked Erika.

  ‘She didn’t have any friends here,’ said Charlotte. ‘She was bullied badly in high school, and was glad to see the back of Southgate. University was the making of her, she blossomed. She kept in contact with all of her university friends online. They were due to meet up next month.’ She looked up at Erika with swollen eyes. ‘They’re all coming down for the funeral; they’ve been calling, asking when it is… They want us to make her Facebook a Memorialised Account… I can’t bear it.’ She broke down again and hid her face against Don’s chest.

  ‘Was there an ex-boyfriend from school, before she went to university?’ asked Erika.

  ‘No. I told you she wasn’t happy here. There was a lad at uni, he was nice, came to stay once, but it fizzled out. She concentrated on her studies. She got a first; she had everything in front of her… everything,’ said Charlotte. She bit her lip. ‘Do you think she suffered?’

  ‘Did you view Lacey’s body?’ asked Erika.

  They nodded.

  ‘Then you saw what happened. I have a brilliant team of officers. I give you my word that I will find out who did this. They won’t get away with it.’

  Charlotte continued to sob, and Don pulled her closer, tears magnified behind his glasses. They looked to the Family Liaison Officer who had remained quiet; she gave Moss and Erika a subtle nod.

  ‘Would you mind if we took a look at Lacey’s bedroom?’ asked Moss.

  ‘Please, don’t mess anything up. Lacey had tidied up before she left, so keep it as she left it,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘Of course,’ said Erika, and she and Moss left the room just as flames sprang to life in the fireplace.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Lacey’s bedroom was at the back of the house, overlooking a smart garden with wooden decking. A wooden table and chairs were stacked against the wall of the house, and the silver feet of a large gas barbecue poked out from underneath a beige plastic cover. Towards the back of the garden, there was a swimming pool with a curved retractable roof, and beyond, a tall stone wall separated it from a strip of woodland. Through the trees a train clacking past broke the silence.

  ‘They’re posh aren’t they?’ said Moss. ‘Look at that wardrobe. That didn’t come in here in bits. Nor did the bed, or the desk there under the window.’

  The bedroom was frozen in time, from when Lacey was fifteen or sixteen. There was a row of cuddly toys on the bed, and on the wall were posters of Lily Allen and Duffy. The desk was covered in make-up, some bottles of perfume, and a big mirror was propped up against the wall.

  ‘I really want to know what’s on her laptop,’ said Erika, indicating a square in the dust on the desk. ‘We need to keep chasing the Cyber Team.’

  ‘If she was using a dating app, it would be on her phone,’ said Moss.

  Erika went to the mirrored wardrobe and slid it open. There was a huge number of clothes packed in on the rails, and it was a mixture of casual and skimpy clothes, all high quality, and some designer labels. Moss went to one of the bookshelves, took down a heavy brown photo album and started to flick through. Erika looked out of the window again. Charlotte had emerged in a long black Puffa jacket and was throwing bits of old bread onto the snow. A flock of birds came swooping down to feed.

  ‘Boss, look at this…’

  Erika went to Moss who was perched on the bed. The photo album was open on a page of polaroids. In all of them Lacey was pictured with the same pouty young girl with long mousy hair. One was taken on a summer’s day in the garden by the pool, where they wore bikinis; in another they posed in front of the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. The third was taken underwater – they were grinning with their eyes wide open, hair spread out like halos, and bubbles escaping from their noses.

  ‘Do they look like they’re more than friends?’ asked Moss. She turned the page with a creak of cardboard, and there were more polaroids of the girls, singing into a mirror with hairbrushes, and lying together on a bed; the mousey-haired girl was nuzzling Lacey’s shoulder.

  ‘The polaroids are thicker here, don’t you think?’ asked Erika, running her fingers over the cellophane-covered square edges.

  Moss carefully peeled back the clear cellophane, and lifted out the polaroid which felt thicker. Underneath it was a polaroid of both girls naked. They were pictured side on, pressed against one another with their heads turned to the camera, and under it was another where they faced the camera completely naked, arms slung over shoulders.

  ‘This was taken in front of the wardrobe in this room,’ said Moss. ‘Why didn’t Charlotte and Don mention this when you asked about relationships? It looks like this was more than just a friendship.’

  Erika looked back at the photo of the two girls pressed against each other.

  ‘We need to know who this girl is, and if Lacey was still in contact with her. She might know something.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ‘I can see why they call this Brutalist architecture,’ said John, looking up at Peterson from under his wooly hat. They had emerged from the tube station onto the Barbican Housing Estate, which was devoid of colour, the grey sky matching the concrete tower blocks. Blake’s Tower rose up directly in front of them: a seventeen-storey block that housed the YMCA youth hostel, a gym and a small cafeteria.

  They went through the doors of the Youth Hostel, relishing the warmth. Inside it was quiet and starkly lit, with a long polished Formica front desk and bare concrete walls. A woman in her twenties sat at the desk. She had long scrappy red hair and thick bla
ck glasses which reflected the glow of her computer. There was a smell of old gym shoes mixed in with cleaning fluid and floor wax, and behind her were rows and rows of small lockers, many ajar with keys hanging from the locks.

  ‘Hi, are you Sada Pence?’ asked Peterson.

  ‘It’s pronounced Shaday,’ said the girl, disinterested, her eyes not leaving the computer screen.

  Peterson and John pulled out their warrant cards and introduced themselves, explaining that they wanted to talk to her about the murder of Janelle Robinson.

  ‘I spoke to the police already,’ she said, continuing to type. She had a slight northern accent.

  ‘We’d like to talk to you again,’ said Peterson.

  ‘So talk,’ she said, the spindly office chair squeaking as she sat back and crossed her arms.

  ‘How long did Janelle Robinson live here?’

  Sada shrugged. ‘Nine, maybe ten months.’

  ‘So she moved in here… late in 2015?’

  ‘Sounds about right: November time. She started off paying, then she ran out of money close to Christmas, and asked if she could work in exchange for accommodation.’

  ‘Is that normal?’ asked John.

  ‘Depends what your notion of normal is? You look like guys who can afford to live in London.’

  ‘I live near Bromley,’ said John.

  ‘Just answer the question, please,’ said Peterson.

  ‘It wasn’t up to me. The guy who manages the place makes the decision. He liked her and took pity…’ She leaned forward, her eyes wide and magnified behind her glasses. ‘There was a rumour that she blew him, but I dunno.’

  ‘Was Janelle working here up until she vanished?’

  ‘No, she just did the Christmas and then went back to paying her way.’

  ‘How did she do that?’ asked John.

  ‘When the weather got better she ran a coffee bike.’

  ‘A coffee bike?’

  ‘You know, one of those little coffee machines in the back of a bike. She biked around and sold coffees. She did well.’

  ‘Do you know where she sold coffee?’

  ‘All over. Covent Garden, London Bridge, Embankment. She didn’t have a permit though, so she was moving around a lot.’

  ‘Where did she get the bike from?’ asked John.

  The girl smiled. She had a grey front tooth. ‘I didn’t ask. Ask no questions and you get no lies. It was a nice one, chrome and classy. It was her dream to run her own coffee place.’

  ‘You think she stole it?’

  The girl grinned again and shrugged. ‘The manager let her keep it here in the bike store when things were quiet.’

  ‘Did you ever meet any of her friends or family?’

  She shook her head. ‘Family, no. Janelle’s mum died when she was little. She didn’t know her dad. She was brought up in a children’s home, but ran away just before her sixteenth birthday.’

  ‘Why did she run away?’

  ‘A couple of the men who worked there had wandering hands,’ she said, pursing her mouth at John’s question.

  ‘Did she mention any of the men she dated?’ asked Peterson.

  ‘Sometimes, in passing. But there were lots of men. She liked men, and sex. She was always dating someone new.’

  Peterson received a text message, and pulled his phone out, seeing it was from Erika.

  ‘Did she ever mention a man with the name Nico?’

  Sada shook her head.

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘We had a row. It was the twenty-third, or the twenty-fourth of August. We had a big group of cyclists from Holland staying, and I’d told her she couldn’t keep the coffee bike here because the bike store would be full. She left that morning, telling me to fuck off and she took the bike with her. It was the last time I saw her.’ A tear formed in the corner of her eye, and she wiped it away. ‘I can still see her, pushing it across the forecourt outside. It was a nice sunny day too.’

  ‘So this was the twenty-fourth of August. Can you remember what time?’

  ‘I dunno; nine in the morning.’

  ‘She didn’t say she was going?’ asked John.

  ‘I told you, we had a row.’

  ‘What did you do when she didn’t come back? What about her belongings?’

  ‘She didn’t have much stuff, and she usually took it with her. As I say, I thought she fucked off cos she was annoyed with me.’

  She took out a tissue and blew her nose. ‘You lot are on the back foot, aren’t you? The only reason you finally tracked me down was cos Janelle been to give blood at one of those vans they set up in library car parks. She’d put my name and this place on the next of kin form… When I went to see her body in the mortuary, it was like she’d been bled out. Bloodless, like wax. Even the cuts and scratches on her body were faded. I organised a whip-round to pay for her funeral.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Peterson. ‘Just a couple more things. Was she on social media?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Are you on social media?’ asked John.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Really? Not even Facebook?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘I think Facebook is a surveillance tool… A friend of mine has an iPhone, and he’s on social media. He says that when he talks about stuff with his mates, you know, like a type of flat-screen telly or a kind of beer they like, he starts to see adverts popping up for them on his phone. And this is stuff he hasn’t searched for on Google or nothing. So I’m off the grid.’ A look passed between John and Peterson. ‘Well, apart from when I’m at work,’ she said, indicating the computer on the desk in front of her.

  ‘Can we get a list of all the people who were staying here in the month up until Janelle went missing?’ asked Peterson.

  ‘What? That’ll take ages…’

  ‘I want it fast, or we’ll have to organise a warrant and that could be disruptive for your boss,’ said Peterson, sliding his card across the desk.

  She took it and nodded.

  * * *

  An hour later, John and Peterson emerged into the cold air.

  ‘What’s the link? There’s nothing to link Lacey and Janelle,’ asked John.

  ‘They were both pretty girls,’ said Peterson. ‘Both worked in jobs which took them around London. Lacey was a temp; Janelle had her coffee bike. He could have been anywhere; he could have seen the girls anywhere…’

  ‘In a city of nine million people,’ added John. It started to snow again and a freezing gust of wind blew across the stark concrete. ‘Come on, let’s get a coffee and get out of here.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  There had a been a tense scene when Erika and Moss had come back down to the living room and asked Charlotte and Don about the girl pictured with Lacey in the photo album. And then much to their surprise, Charlotte had rushed out of the living room, locking herself in the bathroom. It had been left to Don to confirm that the girl’s name was Geraldine Corn.

  ‘We both knew Lacey and Geraldine were close,’ he said. ‘They got to know each other at high school; Lacey hated it there, and Geraldine seemed to be her only friend… For a time, she was here a lot after school; she stayed for supper and… slept over.’

  ‘When did you find out they were more than just friends?’ asked Moss.

  Don took off his glasses and rubbed his face. ‘Charlotte walked in on them, one evening… They were in bed together.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She went bonkers. Banned Geraldine from coming over again. Charlotte said that it would have been the same if we found Lacey with a boy, but the fact it was a girl, it really bothered her.’

  ‘Did she carry on seeing Geraldine?’ asked Erika.

  ‘I think so. She wasn’t allowed to have her here, but they were together at school; I’m sure at the weekends too. Charlotte didn’t want to know, and it was just brushed under the carpet, as long as Geraldine didn’t come here. I’d told Charlotte it was a phase, and I
was right. When Lacey went off to University she drifted apart from Geraldine, and she had a boyfriend at university, nice lad he was, but it fizzled out.’

  ‘And you’re sure it was a man she was meeting for this blind date?’ asked Moss.

  He looked up at them and put his glasses back on.

  ‘Well, yes. That’s what she said. Do you think different?’

  ‘We don’t know. We’re still waiting on Lacey’s phone and computer records. Thank you, Mr Greene,’ said Erika. ‘The only reason we ask about this is so we can talk to Geraldine. I’m disappointed that you didn’t come forward with this. We asked you specifically to tell us about the people Lacey knew,’ said Erika.

  ‘This was years ago!’

  ‘We need to know. When you lie, you stop us being able to do our job. Please, no secrets. I promised you I would find who did this, but I need you to be honest and open with us.’

  Don nodded, put his head in his hands and started to weep. Erika briefly laid a hand on his back, and they quietly left.

  * * *

  ‘You shouldn’t make those promises, boss,’ said Moss, when they emerged from the house and got into the waiting squad car.

  ‘Promises?’

  ‘Promising them you’ll find Lacey’s killer.’

  ‘I do it to hold myself to account,’ said Erika. ‘And I’ve never broken a promise.’

  ‘But those promises have almost broken you…’

  Erika looked at Moss for a moment and then her phone rang. It was Peterson. She listened as he relayed the information they’d learned from Sada at the youth hostel in the Barbican. When she came off the phone she told Moss.

  ‘We should get in touch with the transport police – sounds like Janelle “acquired” this coffee bike; maybe one was reported stolen. This also puts Janelle at any number of locations across London before she went missing,’ Erika finished.

  ‘I’ve got details for Geraldine Corn,’ said Moss, consulting her phone. ‘She works at the local pharmacy, it’s about a mile away.’

  ‘Good. Let’s see if she can give us anything,’ said Erika.