“Your girlfriend is Katia Rieika?”
“Yes. Estelle used to live in her place, that is how I know her.”
“Mr. Petrovich, I would really like to talk to you in person. Can I come and see you?”
Anna arranged to meet him at the hotel, but in the car park, as he didn’t want the management to think he was in any kind of trouble.
Barolli looked over as Anna grabbed her briefcase. “Where you off to?” he asked.
“Kingston Hill. Got someone who says he knew Estelle.”
“You want me to go with you?”
“No, it shouldn’t take long.”
Mikhail Petrovich was a handsome young man with slicked-back black hair. He was waiting in the small car park as Anna drew up in her Mini and wound down the window to announce herself. He got in to sit beside her.
“I thought you would maybe come in a police car,” he said.
“No, this is my own vehicle.”
“Very nice. I like this make of car, but I would have it convertible.”
“Do you mind if I tape this conversation?”
“No, I don’t mind, just so long as Katia doesn’t know about me calling you, because she is very jealous. That’s why she kicked out Estelle, because she knew I found her attractive. Like I said, I was quite fond of her.”
Mikail told Anna that he had been with Katia when she received Anna’s call that morning. He had not started his shift until noon, so he went into the café to help Katia open up. He said she didn’t know Kingston or any of the other places, but he did, as he lived at the hotel he worked in. He stayed with Katia on his days off. Petrovich was an undermanager and very proud of it. He had worked in England for seven years and had been dating Katia for almost eighteen months. He had met Estelle when she began renting the studio, and he had felt sorry for her.
“She had no immediate family, except an uncle who she wanted to meet up with, as she had never known him. She had little money and hated working for Mrs. Henderson, as she was so rude to her.”
“Did she contact this uncle?”
“I don’t know, but in secret we met, and she was upset because she said she didn’t have good clothes, so I took her to the charity shop in New Malden, also two more in Wimbledon, to buy things. They have nice secondhand clothes, expensive things going real cheap. I wait for her outside, have a cigarette.”
“Did you pay for the things?”
“Yes, I give her some money.”
“Was it a fifty-pound note?”
“Yes. I got my wages and give her fifty quid. The lady not want that big note, so I bought cigarettes to get change. Estelle keep the rest.”
Anna swiveled around to have a better look at him. “That’s a lot of money, and yet you say she was just a friend?”
“Yes, I say that, and I mean that. We didn’t do sex, she was not that type of girl — she was proper and innocent and I liked her. She was desperate, and all I wanted was to help her, but without Katia knowing, or she would go ballistic, very jealous. Nothing happened between me and Estelle, but I will be honest, I hoped when she came back, we would get to know each other better.” Anna showed him the photograph, and he nodded. “Yes, that is Estelle.”
He turned away to stare out the window before he brought himself to ask what had happened to her. Anna gave him only a few details, adding that perhaps Estelle was intending to go to Manchester. She also asked if Estelle was the type of girl who would thumb a lift.
“Maybe. You see, I couldn’t give her any more cash, and Katia had kicked her out of the studio because she owed rent, so she had no money for a ticket.”
“Would she have had sex for money?”
He sucked in his breath and his face tightened. “No. I tell you, she was a good girl, but with trouble — no job, no money, and that is why I tried to help her.”
“She was here illegally, wasn’t she?”
He hesitated, then admitted that she was not registered to work in the UK, but she wanted to make an application and hoped that her uncle would help her. He looked at his watch. “I have to go back to work.”
Anna asked when was the last time he had seen Estelle, and he recalled that it was the same day she had bought the new jacket for her trip to Manchester.
“So she was definitely going to travel from London to Manchester?”
“Yes. Her uncle was the only person she believed could get her the correct papers. Did she get there? Was she killed in Manchester?”
“No, she never made it there.”
He turned to look at Anna. His dark eyes were filled with tears, and he clenched his hands. “Money. I was saving for a car, so I did not give her any more when she needed it. Now she’s dead, and I will have to live with that. I really liked her.”
Anna watched him walking back to the hotel reception, his head bent. He took out a handkerchief, and she knew he was crying. She was about to drive away when Mrs. Henderson rang. She did have a call registered from her landline to Manchester, and four further ones to mobile numbers she did not recognize. At last the day was beginning to be a productive one. Anna fed the numbers back to the incident room and asked for the call to Manchester to be a priority. This would begin to pinpoint whether or not Estelle was heading there on the day she died — or was on her way back.
By the time Anna returned to the station, they had located Andre Dubcek. He was devastated to be told that his niece had been murdered, as he had expected her to contact him when she arrived in Manchester. He agreed to come down to London but couldn’t do so for a couple of days, as he had a business to run. Barolli had spoken to him and didn’t think they would gain much from interviewing him, as he had never met Estelle. He had asked a lot of questions about when it had happened and how she had been killed, and he appeared to be greatly shocked.
The fact that he had not contacted them after either the newspaper reports or the television crime shows was simply because he had no idea what she looked like; in fact, he said he had been surprised when she contacted him. Andre was married to a local girl from Chorlton, had three children, and ran a small bakery. He told them that Estelle was twenty-two years old.
It felt to everyone that they had made a breakthrough simply by being able to identify their victim. But it still left one more to go, and they were no closer to producing a suspect. Estelle’s photograph now had her name beneath it, alongside the pictures of Margaret Potts and Jane Doe.
Anna left the station at seven, satisfied that she had had a productive day, if not one that helped solve the women’s murders. She was in the car park when Langton drove in and did his usual erratic parking job. She waited by her Mini as he headed toward her.
“You’ve got some developments today?” he said.
Anna explained quickly how she had been able to identify Estelle and that they had contacted a relative.
“Good work, but we’re still almost at square one. Bloody unbelievable, isn’t it? She’s Polish?”
“She was, yes. Seems to have been quite an innocent.”
“Couldn’t be that innocent. Comes over here, no job prospects and an uncle who’s never met her. Do we know her age?”
“Twenty-two.”
He sighed and then gave Anna a pat on her shoulder. “Good work, though, Travis. Let’s hope tomorrow we go one better. This case is growing cold on us.”
Anna’s newfound relaxed interaction with Langton felt a little strained, as if he was going out of his way to be pleasant to her. Perhaps he was.
By the time she arrived home, she didn’t know why she felt so depressed. There were a few eggs in the fridge and little else, as her grocery list was still stuck to the fridge door. There was a half bottle of red wine on the kitchen worktop, however. Anna poured herself a glass and couldn’t be bothered to eat anything. She carried the glass into the sitting room and switched on the TV, propping her feet up on the coffee table.