‘So,’ Vera said. ‘She liked to dress up.’ She looked at the labels at the necks of the jacket and the blouses. ‘Some of it from Robbins,’ she said. ‘But not all of it. She wouldn’t have got these at discount. She must have spent all her spare cash on clothes.’
And that, in the end, was all they learned about her. Nothing else in the room gave a clue to her life. They waited in the kitchen for the search team to arrive, not speaking, glad when they heard the van pull up in the street and they had an excuse to leave.
Chapter Fifteen
Lily’s flatmates were staying with a friend who lived in the same road. Another big house, this time on the corner, with a garden at the back. It didn’t seem to be split into flats. A student house, maybe. Vera rang the bell, hit it again when there was no response. She was about to ring it a third time when there were footsteps and the door opened. The young woman standing in the doorway was tiny, with chopped blonde hair, the build of a ten-year-old, eyes expertly made up to look enormous.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Annie’s out.’
‘I’m not looking for Annie.’ Vera flashed her warrant card and walked in without waiting to be asked. ‘It’s Emma and Louise I’m after. Lily’s friends.’
The woman seemed flustered. ‘Of course. Sorry to keep you waiting. Annie’s taken her daughter to ballet. Lou and I were having a late breakfast in the garden. After hearing about Lily, then camping out here, neither of us slept very well. Come on through. I’m Emma.’ Not a local voice. Southern. Rich.
She was wearing leather flip-flops and tripped ahead of them, talking all the way. Not a student house after all. No beer cans or loud music, unsafe wiring or peeling wallpaper. A family lived here. There was a small bicycle propped against the wall in the corridor, a child’s paintings on the kitchen notice-board. But still wealthy. If Annie was a single mother she wasn’t struggling financially.
‘Is Annie a student too?’ No reason for needing to know, but Vera had always been nosy.
‘No. She’s older than me. She lectures. On the course Lily was taking, actually. She’s a sort of cousin of mine. Her husband works away a lot and when we were flat-hunting, we thought it would be nice if we could find somewhere close.’
‘Very convenient,’ Vera said, wondering what it was about this woman she disliked so much.
‘Yes.’ Emma turned briefly then led them out onto a flagged patio where four wooden chairs stood around a table. The garden was small, surrounded by a high wall. Blackbirds were calling somewhere in the ivy.
Emma continued talking. ‘This is my flatmate, Louise. Lou, it’s the police.’
Louise seemed still to be wearing pyjamas. Her feet were bare, her hair unbrushed. She nodded to them, played with the croissant flakes on her plate.
‘I’ll just put on some more coffee,’ Emma said.
Vera sat down heavily. ‘Not for us, pet. This isn’t a social call. We’ve not much time. We just wanted to talk about Lily.’
‘Of course.’
‘How long have the three of you been living together?’
‘Well, we met up in the first year. Same hall of residence, though we were all doing different stuff. Lily was into English, Louise did languages and I’m a medic. That’s why the three of us are still here when most of our friends have left. Our courses last longer than the standard three years and Lily was doing a PGCE. We shared a kitchen then, got on OK, decided to move in together.’
‘How could you afford to live in a road like this, like?’ Emphasizing the accent, playing the dumb cop. It never hurt if they underestimated you.
‘Well, it was down to my dad, actually. He thought he might as well buy somewhere. Thought it would be a decent investment. We’d pay enough rent to cover the mortgage. I mean, it’s still not cheap, but when you look at some of the places other students live… My parents are great. They give me an allowance.’
‘But Lily didn’t come from that sort of background, did she? How did she keep up with the rent?’
Emma shrugged. ‘She never said. I think her dad was made redundant at the end of her first year and gave her something to start her off. She didn’t pay as much as us, because her room is a bit smaller. And she worked on Saturdays and in the holidays.’
‘Tell me about her. Living together that long, you must have known her as well as anyone.’
For the first time Emma seemed lost for words. It was Louise who answered.
‘Nobody knew her very well.’
‘But three lasses together. You must have confided in each other.’
‘Not really. Not Lily.’
‘There’d have been nights out in town, a few drinks. She’d let down her hair then.’
‘I don’t think Lily ever let go in that way, Inspector. She was very controlled, very focused. Ambitious, I suppose. Something to do with the background she came from. She worked much harder than the rest of us.’
‘Was she ever ill?’
‘Nothing serious. A cold, throat infection. Just like the rest of us.’
‘You never worried that she might be depressed? Keeping herself so isolated.’
‘No. I don’t think she was that isolated. She just didn’t include us in the rest of her life.’
‘Where were you both last night?’
Louise answered. ‘It was my birthday. We went out for a meal. A whole gang of us.’
‘What about Lily?’ Vera asked. ‘Were you expecting her to be there too?’
‘I asked her of course, but I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t turn up. It wasn’t really her thing.’
Why not? Did you make her uncomfortable with your confident voices and your parents’ money?
‘Did she have a boyfriend?’
There was a silence. The women flashed a glance at each other. ‘We think she must have done,’ Emma said at last. ‘There were nights when she didn’t come home. But he never came to the flat. At least, not when we were in.’
‘And she never talked about him?’
‘Not to us.’ Emma paused. ‘Look, Inspector, in some ways Lily was a model tenant. Thoughtful, tidy. That’s why I wanted her to come in with us in the first place. But we were never friends. Not really. I can’t think of any reason why anyone would have wanted to kill her. But I wouldn’t know. Her life was a mystery to us.’
It was lunchtime and Vera brought the team together, bought in sandwiches, proper coffee, doughnuts. Anything to keep up the energy levels. After the catnap in the car she felt on top of the world, but she knew the younger members didn’t have her stamina. Still, they were a bit more alert now. A second body. A bright young woman. Somehow that made the case more exciting. They hadn’t been able to get worked up about a lad with a learning disability, but a pretty student and suddenly they were buzzing. She told herself she was too cynical for her own good.
She filled them in on the visits to Lily’s parents and the flat, walking backwards and forwards at the front of the room, in and out of the light streaming in from the windows.
‘The lasses she shared with are camping out at a neighbour’s house until the search team has finished. Of course we asked if Lily was at the flat on the night Luke Armstrong was killed. She wasn’t there. It wasn’t unusual for her to stay out. That’s why they presumed she had a boyfriend.’
‘Didn’t they ask about him? They must have been curious.’ This was from Holly Lawson. Eager, fresh-faced, looked like a sixth-former. ‘I mean, you might say you respected someone’s privacy, but really you’d want to know. Wouldn’t you?’ She looked around her.