'Whatever,' Stamey said. He took another slug from the can, watching Heather with amusement.
She was still rigid beside Foster. Time to start wrapping this up, he thought.
'Were Leonie and her mum close?'
'Beats me,' Stamey said.
'Not really,' his wife added. 'Like Mart said, Gillian had a lot of problems with the drugs and everything. She was off her brain half the time. Leonie was one of them girls who had to grow up quick. She had an old head on her, that girl. She basically brought Gary up herself. He was a little bit wild, even back then. Weren't his fault. He had no dad and his mum was a junkie. What chance did the poor little kid have? It always amazed me that Leonie turned out quite so well. And I don't blame her for running away, even if meant leaving Gary. Imagine finding your mum dead and thinking you might have to go into care.'
'She found her mother?'
'We think so,' Mrs Stamey said. 'She went missing the same day. She got back from school because her bag was at home. Her mum was dead in the bed. We reckon she just went downstairs, opened the door and ran.'
Foster and Heather shared a quick glance. He knew she was thinking the same as him.
Where was Gary?' Heather asked.
'He was at some behavioural clinic or class or something.
He was the one who got back and raised the alarm.
Well, he got back and watched TV for about half an hour and then started screaming at his mum to get up and make his tea. He didn't understand. He went and got the neighbour and she called the police.'
Foster stood up. 'Well, thanks for your time. You've been a great help. If we find anything else relating to Leonie, we'll be sure to get in touch.'
Stamey nodded, a glassy look in his eye. Foster guessed the can of lager he was just emptying might not have been his first. His wife showed them to the door.
'Where's Gary now?' he asked as she opened the door.
'Last we heard he was in a Council care home,' she said.
'Good luck finding that girl,' she added, and went back inside.
They stepped into the pouring rain and headed for Foster's car. Once inside he could tell she was still seething.
'What
do you think now? Black sheep or scumbag?'
Foster said with a smile.
'What a wanker. I don't know how some women do it,'
she said, echoing Foster's thoughts.
'What do you reckon?' he asked.
'Too many similarities. The mother dying on the same day as the daughter going missing. The fact it was her fourteenth birthday ... It could still be coincidence, I suppose. And there's nothing else to link them, other than circumstance and a DNA sample that could be shared with another half a million people. Do you think our charming Mart had anything to do with it?'
'Who knows,' Foster said. 'We'll come back to him, though.' He started the engine. 'Let's poke around a bit more and see what comes up.' He put the car in gear and slowly pulled away. 'But first we need to find sweet little Gary'
Horton and Sarah Rowley appeared to have been erased from the pages of history. At times when Nigel had lost the trail on other cases, he found sleeping on it helped; when he woke up, an idea of how to break the impasse was often there, fully formed. But that morning he remained stymied.
He was unsure what to do with his day. A heap of casework was piling up, but it palled against the prospect of helping Foster and Heather. Then there was the matter of his nascent television career. Since his humiliation in Kensal Green cemetery earlier that week he had heard nothing. He could only think that the programme-makers had seen his screen test and, after they'd finished laughing, started tracking down a presenter with a modicum of aptitude. He should be pleased - after all, he rarely watched television himself, being more of a radio man. Yet part of him was thrilled at the prospect of appearing on television and where it may lead. He imagined himself being recognized in the street. Worse, he imagined himself enjoying being recognized in the street. He, Nigel Barnes, a man who struggled to get recognized in his own sitting room. He fired up his computer and checked his e-mails.
Nothing from the producer.
He went to the kitchen, still in his striped dressing gown and pyjamas. A low pale early winter sun glancing through the window made him squint. He ate toast most mornings and saw no reason to change his routine. He carved the last slices from the brittle, stale sourdough loaf, made a mental note to get to the delicatessen to purchase another, and placed them in his eccentric old toaster. He flicked the kettle on and gazed out of the window, wondering when the house opposite, wreathed in scaffolding, would ever be finished. It had to be a year now and he was bored by the sound of poorly attached tarpaulin flapping in the autumn wind. What were they doing . . . ?
His thoughts were interrupted by the scent of burning.
When he turned, he could see his toaster billowing plumes of black smoke, forcing him to lunge over and manually evict the contents. Being averse to any form of waste, he grabbed a knife and flipped open his bin, attempting to render the pieces edible by scraping off the bits that were burned beyond repair. It soon became clear they were beyond saving. Nigel cursed to himself. Must get a new toaster, he thought. Or get the grill in the oven fixed so he could make proper toast. Of course Agas made the best toast, but they were hardly compatible with cramped London kitchens. Whatever, there was no point spending his hard-earned cash on freshly baked bread while his toaster was so temperamental. The two blackened shards in his hand could have been two stale pieces of sliced white. Only the gourmet equivalent of a DNA test could have revealed their true identity. He laughed to himself. Then stopped.
Now there was an idea.
Ethnoancestry was based in Ealing, in a nondescript redbrick hutch down an anonymous side street.
Nigel announced himself to a security guard doubling as a receptionist and was told to wait. Five minutes later Dr Chris Westerberg, bearded and blue-eyed, greeted him with a vigorous handshake.
'Good to see you again, Nigel,' he said warmly in a soft southern Irish lilt.
'You too, Chris. How's tricks?'
'Mustn't grumble,' he mumbled. 'Find it OK? Come by car, did you?'
'I came by tube. I don't drive.'
A look of amusement spread across the scientist's friendly face. 'Yes, I forgot. The man with no car and no credit card. The last of the bohemians. Ideal - you can carry on drinking because you don't have to drive and someone else picks up the tab. Let no one say you're not a canny man, Nigel.'
He smiled. He'd forgotten how much he enjoyed the Irishman's company and good humour.
'It's been a while, hasn't it?'
'It certainly has,' Nigel replied. He guessed eighteen months, at a drab family history convention in a provincial northern town whose name Nigel couldn't even remember. Westerberg was there touting his company and their DNA tests and kits. For two nights they drank well into the night, arguing furiously and drunkenly over the role of DNA testing in family history, both of them enjoying every second of it. Westerberg had been among the vanguard of those arguing that a genetic approach could revolutionize genealogy and family history. Nigel was a sceptic.
Westerberg led him to a lift, up one floor and down a sterile corridor to a small, cluttered office. 'I share this with a colleague, so apologies for the mess. He's from Scotland, that's all I can say. Coffee?' Nigel murmured his assent and Westerberg disappeared for a few minutes before returning with two steaming mugs. 'Instant not filter, I'm afraid,' he explained.
He sat down behind the desk and gave Nigel another friendly smile. 'So how's it going back at the coalface?'
Nigel pulled a face. 'It's improving.'
'You're joking me, aren't you?' he said, incredulously. 'I saw you all over the papers. Helping police catch a serial killer.' He let out a low whistle.