“She didn’t say anything when you picked her up on Friday morning?”
“No. But I didn’t give her a chance. Beth was there and I – I put Harriet off when she tried to talk to me. I thought she was just worried that her mum would be angry I was taking her out of school. I didn’t think it would matter, once we were gone.”
Leaning forward, Gemma said intently, “I don’t see how Laura could have gone away with Harriet without alerting the neighbors. She’d have to have taken a few things-”
“You don’t know Laura. She could have had an emergency getaway kit stashed at the hospital-”
Gemma was shaking her head. “Tony, none of this makes sense. Laura wasn’t at the hospital. She didn’t show up for work on Friday. And she left Harriet with the child minder on Thursday night, saying she had to work night duty, but she didn’t. We’ve checked.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“You’re sure she wasn’t at home when you went in to get Harriet’s passport?”
“Of course I’m bloody sure! Do you think she’d have let me walk merrily out of the house with Harriet’s passport in my pocket?”
“If she wasn’t at work and she wasn’t at home, how could Beth have left Harriet with her?”
“But if Laura didn’t take Harriet, it must have been Beth, and that makes even less sense,” protested Tony. “Why would she do such a thing?”
“You tell us,” Kincaid said, still prowling the room. He could tell his movements made Novak nervous, and he wanted the man unsettled. “You’re the one who knew this woman well enough to take her into your confidence.”
“But I-” Tony picked up his empty mug, tilted it, set it down again. “I told you, she never said much. Odd, really, as most women tell you their life stories in the first five minutes.”
Gemma raised an eyebrow at this, but didn’t comment. Taking Tony’s mug, she stepped into the adjoining kitchen and snapped the kettle on. She plopped a tea bag and a few spoonfuls of sugar into the cup in the few seconds it took the water to boil, then carried the tea back to Tony. “How did you meet her?” she asked, perching again on the edge of her chair.
“In the George. One night a couple of months ago. I’d never seen her in there before. She was… different. Most women who come into a bar alone, they’re either obviously looking for company, or they’re obviously just there for a drink. But Beth… she had this aloofness, yet at the same time she never stopped watching everyone. It was as if she was working out what made them tick, and she didn’t much like what she saw. But when I saw her studying me, I offered to buy her a drink, and she accepted.” He looked as if it still puzzled him. “Then later… she went home with me. After that, she’d come over a couple of times a week, but we never talked much.” Tony stopped to sip at his still-steaming tea.
“Can you describe her?” Kincaid asked.
“Um, midthirties, medium height, brown hair… not beautiful, really, but attractive in an unusual sort of way.”
Another missing brunette? Kincaid’s eyes met Gemma’s and she gave her head a barely perceptible shake, as if warning him not to pursue it further. He let her continue.
“Tony,” she said quietly, leaning forward until she could almost touch him, “we’re going to need you to come down to the station to make a formal statement.”
Panic flared in his eyes again. “I – I can’t – I’ve got to find Harriet-”
“We’re going to help you find Harriet. I promise you.” She touched his knee lightly. “But you have to cooperate with us. There’s nothing you can do on your own that you haven’t already tried.”
“I-”
“You get yourself cleaned up. We’ll wait for you.”
“But I-” Tony picked at his shirt again, holding it away from his body as if suddenly aware of his revolting state. “All right.” He stood, still a little unsteadily, but when he looked at the open suitcase his eyes filled with tears.
“Here. Let me help you.” Gemma quickly knelt beside the case, fishing out shirt and trousers, clean socks and briefs with the practiced efficiency of a mother of boys. She bundled the articles into Tony’s arms and nudged him in the direction of the bathroom.
When he’d disappeared behind the closed door, Gemma turned back to Kincaid. Her face was strained.
“You realize we now have four missing women that potentially fit the description of one body?” he said.
Gemma knelt and dug through the suitcase again. “And a missing child who very well may not be with her mother.” With a grunt of satisfaction, she pulled out a framed photograph and sat back on her heels, studying it for a moment before handing it to Kincaid.
The girl stared into the camera with the defiant seriousness of a child refusing to smile for the photographer. She had wiry dark hair pulled back tightly from her thin face, and her gray eyes held an adult intelligence. She might, Kincaid thought, be heartbreakingly beautiful in ten years’ time.
Dusting off her knees, Gemma came to stand beside him. “I’m not so sure there are four missing women,” she said, touching Harriet Novak’s face with a fingertip. “Do you still have Elaine Holland’s photograph?”
Kincaid frowned at her. “No. I gave it to Bell. What are you-”
“Think about it. Elaine Holland left work every day on the dot, but several evenings a week she told Fanny she had to work late. She’d been hinting recently to a coworker that she had a boyfriend. She had clothes tucked away that Fanny never saw. She lied to Fanny about having a mobile phone, yet Tony had no number for Beth other than a mobile phone. And the physical description… Elaine has a striking face. Not beautiful, but you can see how a man could be fascinated-”
Kincaid’s phone rang. He snapped it open with a grimace of irritation, but his impatience vanished when he heard Konnie Mueller’s voice. He listened, nodding, then said, “And nothing yet on the other one? Okay. As soon as you have a result. Right.”
As he rang off, Gemma said, “Konnie?”
He nodded. “He’s narrowed our options by one. Whoever – and wherever – Elaine Holland may be, she didn’t die in Thursday night’s fire.”
It was another ordinary Sunday lunch in the Warren semidetached house in Peckham – Kath’s sixteen-year-old son shoveling his food, eager to finish and get out of the house; her thirteen-year-old daughter picking at hers, eager to resume an interrupted phone call in her room; Kath’s husband, a commercial traveler home for the weekend, eager to make the most of his well-deserved Sunday-afternoon nap.
Kath, who had long tried to practice a daily litany of counting her blessings, felt a tide of irritation threaten to swamp her. She slammed plates coated with congealing gravy into the sink and, for once, walked off and left them.
“I’ve got to go in to work for a bit,” she called out as she grabbed her handbag and keys.
“I’ll drive you,” her son volunteered. “What about that crazy guy?”
“I’ll be fine.” Tony Novak had not made another appearance, and Kath had more pressing things to worry about.
As she climbed into the car she realized she’d added another lie to the tally that had grown past counting. It wasn’t that she had to go in to work, but that she couldn’t bring herself to stay away.
When she reached Southwark Street, she found that the crime scene tape still fluttered round Yarwood’s warehouse like the ribbon on a giant Christmas package, and that the smell of burning lingered in the air like a fog. She ducked her head as she walked by, wondering if she would ever be able to pass the building without seeing the ambulance men maneuvering their burden carefully out the door.
The shelter’s residents were unsettled as well. She’d spent yesterday – without Jason’s help – comforting and consoling, and trying to quiet the rumors flying round the shelter like contagious ghosts.
She found Jason where she’d expected, in the office, head bent over a filing cabinet. She stood in the doorway for a moment, watching him, knowing he was aware of her presence, but that he wouldn’t look up until she spoke.