'You've informed the local nick?'
'Vanessa had done that herself. I checked. They've promised to have a car drive by at intervals through the night; increase foot patrols.'
'How did she sound? Vanessa?'
'A little nervous. Concerned not to be wasting my time.'
'You think one of us should go and talk to her?'
'I'm not sure what she could tell you that's any different. My guess, in the circumstances, it's her imagination working overtime.'
Karen pushed her chair back away from the desk and stretched her long legs. 'I thought I'd drive out and see Estelle Cooper. Talk to her on my own this time. See if I can't get her to loosen up a little. Might learn something useful.'
'Woman to woman,' Elder said.
A smile passed across Karen's face.
'What?'
'Shirley Brown, Stax, '74. I used to play it all the time.'
Elder had no idea what she was talking about.
When Karen arrived in Hadley Wood, Estelle Cooper wasn't at home. The children, according to one of the neighbours, were having a day off school. An inset day, isn't that what it was called nowadays? Estelle had taken them out for the day. Somewhere in London. The Science Museum?
Karen returned to her car. She would try again after the weekend; no sense trying to talk to Estelle when there was a chance her family were around. What she wanted was Estelle Cooper alone.
Maybe, Vanessa thought, she just hadn't been in the mood. Coke and a bucket of popcorn. The Odeon, Camden Town. Wind down. Relax. Love, Actually. They had to be kidding, right? And of course, sitting there on her own hadn't helped. She remembered when she'd been to see Bridget Jones's Diary with Maddy. How they'd loved it, every minute, right down to the slushy ending. Practically wet themselves with laughter.
Poor Maddy. God, she missed her!
Somehow she didn't fancy the Tube home and waited fifteen minutes for a bus instead, her and a couple of dozen others, half of them hungry from the pub and scarfing their way through burgers or chicken chow mein, the stink of onions, kebabs and hot sauce, fast-food litter swirling round their feet. She was just about to give it up as a bad job, walk back to the Tube station after all, when there it was at last, veering towards them from the lights, a 134.
The lower deck was crowded and she went up on top, a spare seat beside the window near the back, and as she sat down a man sat next to her, leaning for a moment quite heavily against her as the bus lurched away.
'Sorry,' he said, and then, 'Vanessa? It is Vanessa, isn't it? Almost didn't recognise you.' A quick, apologetic smile. 'Miles away.'
He was holding out his hand.
'Steve. Steve Kennet. I used to -'
'I know, I know.'
'Haven't seen you since… must be ages. Couple of years, at least.'
Vanessa nodded and said nothing. One of the last times she'd seen Steve Kennet, one evening in the pub, when Maddy had gone to the loo he'd leaned across and said, 'How about meeting up one night, just the two of us? What d'you think?' Afterwards he'd tried to pass it off as a joke, but she'd never been sure.
'Terrible, wasn't it?' he said now. 'What happened to Maddy. Couldn't believe it when I first heard. You don't think, do you? Someone you know.'
Vanessa shook her head.
'So, anyway, where've you been?' Perkier now. 'Tonight, I mean. Not working, I hope?'
'Cinema.'
'Anything good?'
'Not really.'
'Pirates of the Caribbean,' Kennet said. 'You seen that?'
'No.'
'It's good. A laugh, you know?'
'That what you saw tonight?'
'Me? No. Just out for a drink, few beers.'
Vanessa looked out of the window. They were moving slowly along Kentish Town Road, passing close to where she worked. Superimposed on the upper storeys of buildings she could see Kennet's reflection, the thickness of his hair, the collar of his leather jacket turned up against his neck, his eyes watching her. At Tufnell Park she made as if to get up.
'This isn't your stop,' Kennet said.
'Isn't it?'
'Not unless you've moved.'
'How do you know where I live, anyway?'
'We walked past there one night, remember? You and Maddy and me. Going back to her place. That's my street, you said.'
'Well,' Vanessa said, standing. 'Not any more.'
He swung his legs out into the aisle, leaving just enough room to let her pass.
'I'll get off if you like. Walk you home.'
'Don't bother.'
She just made it down the stairs before the doors closed. She stopped herself from looking back up at the bus as it drew away, knowing she would see his face at the window, looking down. She had bought herself a good twenty-minute walk and why? Because she'd been uncomfortable sitting pressed up next to him, certain that any moment he would say something she didn't want to hear, a proposition of some kind?
Two-thirds of the way along Junction Road, she turned right down St John's Grove, cutting through. At the end of her own street, she hesitated, then quickened her pace; it was only as she neared the short path leading to her front door that it occurred to her Kennet might have been the man standing in shadow outside her house a few nights before.
The keys slipped from her hand.
Her skin froze.
Only with the door finally open, did she turn.
Nothing, nobody there.
Vanessa, she said to herself, for God's sake get a grip.
In bed less than fifteen minutes later, she lay listening to each sound; another hour almost before she finally drifted off to sleep.
33
The early rain clouds had disappeared, leaving the sky above Primrose Hill a clear, crystal winter blue, the light glinting off the roof of the mosque at the edge of Regent's Park below. From his vantage point near the top, Elder watched Robert Framlingham striding up from Prince Albeit Road like a landowner out to survey the vastness of his acreage and his EC subsidy. Framlingham wearing his Barbour jacket and a pair of softly polished, hand-stitched brogues.
'Frank, good to see you.' His grip was firm and warm. 'Sorry if I'm a couple of minutes late.'
'Sit or stroll?' Elder said.
'Oh, stroll I think, don't you? You can fill me in as we go.'
For the best part of a circuit Elder talked and Framlingham was mostly content to listen, the Hill busy with dog walkers, young mums and the ubiquitous au pairs, students and skivers and OAPs, all making the most of the morning sun.
When Elder had finished, they continued to walk for a while in silence, Framlingham running it all over in his mind.
'Kennet, your mind's pretty made up then?'
'Not necessarily.'
'And Shields? What about her?'
'There's not a lot else for her to latch on to.'
'So far, Frank. So far.' Framlingham paused to ease something off the sole of his shoe. 'That business with Mallory and Repton, that young PC in the car. I wonder if I'd let that go for nothing, after all.'
Elder fixed him with a look. 'You know something that I don't.'
Framlingham allowed a smile to spread slowly across his face. 'A good deal, Frank, a good deal. And much of no conceivable use to man or beast.' He rested his hand for a moment on Elder's arm. 'All I'm saying, don't lose sight of the bigger picture.'
They shook hands.
'Your daughter, Frank. I heard just a little. I'm sorry. If ever there's anything I can do.'
A wave of the hand and he was on his way.
The Brent Cross shopping centre was just off the North Circular Road, no more than ten minutes in the car from where Elder was staying. By mid-morning, the car parks were close to full.