A girl was leaning over the banisters as Anna looked up the wide, old-fashioned staircase. The hall was dusty, and a large table bore mail stacked in rows for the tenants. Mounds of flyers were heaped beneath it, along with old free newspapers and circulars.
Katia turned out to be a very attractive dark-haired girl dressed in a black woolen skirt and sweater. She ushered Anna into the studio room, which was spacious, containing two beds, a large wardrobe, and a small kitchen alcove. It was untidy, with clothes strewn around, and on a table were dirty mugs and food cartons.
Katia was impatient and had her mobile phone out, ready to show Anna.
“Did Estelle use your phone?”
“Yes. Only when she needed it, but it is my phone, I pay for it. I can prove it. I got the last bill two days ago. You want it?”
Anna said that she would like to see it. She then sat on an old floral-covered easy chair and opened her briefcase to show Katia the photograph of Estelle. The other girl recognized her and was distressed when told she had been murdered.
“I need to know everything you can tell me about her,” Anna said.
Katia picked up a box of tissues and wiped her eyes, then sat by the table, getting over the shock. Estelle had been living with her for a while but couldn’t find work until Katia told her about Mrs. Henderson.
“I tell Mrs. Henderson that I go back to Poland, but I just didn’t want to work for her anymore. Pay was not good, and I did not like her, and she made me do cleaning and ironing as well as looking after the children. So I suggested Estelle work for her, as she needed money. She owed me rent and kept on borrowing from me. I work two jobs now, one in the café, and then I work nights in a club. I earn three times the money.”
Bit by bit, Anna learned that Estelle had not registered to work in the UK and had come to England via France eighteen months ago. She had met Katia at the Polish embassy, and they became friends. At first she had slept on Katia’s floor, as there was another girl sharing the studio, but when she left, Estelle moved in. She had then taken over Katia’s job with Mrs. Henderson.
“When she didn’t come back here, didn’t you feel concerned?”
“No, I think she live in with Mrs. Henderson, and my boyfriend was here, so it was okay.”
“But she used your mobile phone?”
“Yes, sometimes, but I ask for it back because I need it.”
“Did Estelle have a boyfriend?”
“No. I don’t think she have one. She was doing house-cleaning for a while, but not much money.”
“Did she have any friends that I could talk to?”
“No. She didn’t know nobody, and I work early in mornings, so I didn’t see much of her, and she lived in at Mrs. Henderson’s.”
“But that was only on weekends.”
“Look, I tell you everything. I got someone else living with me now. I don’t know nothing else about her.”
“What about family?”
Katia shrugged and said that Estelle maybe had someone she knew in Manchester, but who it was, she didn’t know. She got up and opened one of the wardrobes, taking out a large cheap canvas suitcase. “I got this, all her things inside, but she don’t come back for it. I don’t want it, I need the space.”
Anna sighed and tried to think of a way of getting more information out of Katia, but the girl was becoming impatient to leave for work.
“Did you notice anything else missing?” Anna asked.
“No. There was a backpack — is that what you call it? A small thing, and an overnight bag. They not here; she maybe took them with her.”
By the time Anna left Katia’s studio with the suitcase, it was nine-thirty. She decided she would go home and check the suitcase in at the station the following morning.
Anna showered and made herself a sandwich before she opened the suitcase. She laid it on her bed, and as she removed each item, she noted it down: two pairs of shoes, two skirts, sweaters, and T-shirts with some underwear. There was nothing else, no passport or notebooks or makeup. The clothes were all worn but clean and well pressed. Anna knew about the haversack or backpack but not the overnight bag. Could that have meant Estelle was leaving London to visit the person Katia said she knew in Manchester?
She had hoped that the itemized bill for the mobile might be of use, especially if there had been one to Manchester. However, Katia had given her the names of all the calls, and these also included ones made by Estelle to her, and she said there were no other numbers listed for which she didn’t know the recipient. Estelle had given the phone back to Katia a month ago. Frustrated and tired, Anna repacked the suitcase and went to bed.
The next morning, Anna dragged the case into the station, and there were plenty of jokes about her filling up the property locker, as every item she had brought in had to be recorded in the exhibits book and bagged. She made out her report of the meeting with Katia and added the notes to the incident board. Then she sat at her desk, listed the Polish embassy, the Walton Street address, and the Earl’s Court studio. She was wondering why Estelle had bought from a charity shop in New Malden, a good distance from where she’d worked and lived. She had also tried to pay with a fifty-pound note, and this would have been after she left the employment of Mrs. Henderson. Anna tapped her teeth with her Biro, flicking through all her notes, sensing that something didn’t add up. She put in a call to Katia. There was no reply for such a long time that Anna was about to give up when Katia answered, the clatter of crockery and the hiss of a coffee machine audible in the background.
“I’m so sorry to disturb you, Katia, it’s DI Anna Travis. I just wanted to ask you if you knew anyone living in New Malden?”
“New Malden?” Katia repeated slowly.
“Yes. We know Estelle bought something from a charity shop there, and it’s quite a way from Earl’s Court.”
“I have never been to this New Malden,” Katia growled.
“Do you know anyone living there?”
“No. I do not know where it is.”
“It’s not far from Kingston, Wimbledon, Raynes Park—”
“No. I don’t know any of these places.”
Anna sighed and thanked Katia, who yawned as she hung up. It was catching; Anna yawned as she closed her notebook. She next rang Mrs. Henderson, apologizing for any inconvenience and saying she wondered if there had been any calls made by Estelle on her boss’s landline. Mrs. Henderson said that she doubted it, as she made a point of asking anyone employed at the house not to use the private phone. She did agree, however, to check her phone bill.
“Could you keep a particular lookout for any calls to New Malden or Manchester?” Anna asked. She doubted that Mrs. Henderson would get back to her, but at least she felt she had covered everything possible in trying to ascertain Estelle’s whereabouts before she was murdered.
She decided to go to the property locker to retrieve the English books found in Estelle’s rucksack, in the hope that they might reveal whether Estelle was going to any particular evening classes to study English. However, none of the books had any college listed. It was yet another dead end.
Shortly after lunch, Barbara took a call from a man by the name of Mikhail Petrovich. He asked to speak to Anna Travis.
“Did he say what it’s about?” Anna asked.
“No. Just wanted to speak to you.”
“Put him through, please.” Anna picked up her desk phone. “Anna Travis speaking. How can I help you, Mr. Petrovich?”
“It’s about Estelle. I knew her, and I’ve been told she’s dead. I am very sorry and I want to help you.”
Anna switched on the tape to record the call. The man did seem to be genuinely distressed. He said he was a waiter working at a small hotel on Kingston Hill in Surrey. Anna became tense listening to him as he explained that he knew Estelle because she lived with his girlfriend in Earl’s Court.