‘What did Donald have to say?’
She led the way through to the living room and slumped on the sofa, the cat bagging the place next to her and staring at Palmer in disdainful triumph. Palmer stuck his tongue out and opted for the armchair.
The cat lifted one leg to a lithe ninety-degree angle and licked its bottom.
Riley told Palmer about the message from Henry Pearcy, and how she had first met the newsman, ending with Donald’s news of the discovery of the body on the Embankment. ‘It could simply be a bit of final housekeeping on Henry’s part,’ she said. ‘He probably heard of the girl’s death the same way Donald did and wanted to tip me the wink.’
‘For old times sake?’
‘Why not? Henry was ok. I’m surprised he’s still around, though, let alone in the business.’ When Palmer looked puzzled, she explained: ‘He suffered from depression… and he drank a lot.’
Palmer nodded. ‘Bit unusual, though, this girl — woman — turning up dead after all this time. What was it — ten years? Didn’t her parents ever hear from her?’
‘I don’t know. I lost touch years ago.’ Riley hoped they had made contact, even if only for their peace of mind. Apart from offering a reward for information, they had put up dozens of posters wherever they thought it might do some good. It had been carried out, she recalled, almost as an act of self-protection more than hope, as if it might somehow alleviate the awful pain of realising their daughter had chosen to leave of her own accord, with no explanation. It was painfully obvious even then that the event had permanently marked their lives, numbing them into a state of paralysis from which they had seemed unlikely to recover.
She gave Palmer a keen look. ‘For a coffee-break visit, you’re asking lots of questions.’
‘Am I? I thought I was just being matey. Are you going to follow it up?’
Riley shrugged. After all this time she wasn’t sure she wanted to get into Katie Pyle’s life again. It had affected her enough the first time round; she wasn’t sure she needed another dose of family sadness and grief to deal with. Besides, hadn’t she moved on from following that kind of news trail? She was now, if her recent track record was any guide, more into high-level fraud, gang-busting and political chicanery than family tragedies and missing teenagers.
‘Hey-ho.’ Palmer drained his mug and stood up. ‘Time’s-a-flying. Better get back to his Highness the Prince of whatever.’
‘He’s a real prince?’
‘So they tell me. His lackeys seem pretty impressed.’ He looked at her. ‘What is it?’ Her attention had drifted away while he was speaking and she was staring out of the window with a faint frown.
Riley shook herself. ‘Sorry — I was just remembering something about the chronology of the Katie Pyle case. It’s not important.’
‘Ok.’ He waved and drifted towards the door. ‘What are you working on at the moment?’
Riley looked at him. The question had been almost off-hand, but there was something not so relaxed in the way he had put it. ‘I’ve just finished a piece about forged papers and phantom airport workers. Why?’
‘No reason. Just asking.’ He waved a vague hand at the four walls. ‘Nice. Who else lives in the house apart from you and the other two?’
‘Jeez, Palmer. If you must know, just the three of us. Mr Grobowski helps out at the Polish Community centre, and the old dowager type upstairs, whose name I don’t know and is a spit for Miss Marple, comes and goes at odd hours. I think she might be a vampire. Satisfied?’
‘Great. So, no chance of any wild parties, then.’ He smiled and left.
Riley listened to his footsteps fading down the stairs and shook her head. Palmer was getting paranoid. He’d spent his life watching people and probably couldn’t drop the habit. New faces and new places meant somebody else to keep an eye on, just in case.
She scooped up the phone and dialled the number she’d written down. With full wakefulness, her mind had started working on Donald’s information. Activity was the only way to get to the bottom of it. Who knows, it might lead to a decent story.
As the phone rang at the other end, the thought that had been bothering her before suddenly crystallised in her mind. It was so obvious she wondered if she had got it wrong. But she knew she hadn’t.
Katie Pyle had disappeared a full twelve months before Riley had left The Reader and begun working with Henry Pearcy. Twelve months in which the story had faded and died, superseded by a thousand other events that changed lives and claimed public attention. In many ways, Riley felt that her inability to discover what had happened to the girl had been a failure on her part — certainly too much to want to talk about it a year later with an experienced hack like Henry. Which meant that in news terms, as far as Henry Pearcy was concerned, any connection between her and Katie Pyle had simply never existed.
Frank Palmer walked down the path from the front door and paused at the gate to look back at the building. He was just out of sight of Riley’s window. He was already holding his mobile in his hand, so leaned down next to a street lamp just outside the gate and pretended to talk to someone while rubbing at the ID plate. He stared up at the bulb and made gestures towards the house, then shook his head and put the mobile away. With a bit of luck it might convince any watchers that he was a conscientious official from the lighting department going about council business.
Especially the two men in the white van with tinted windows fifty yards away.
He walked past the vehicle, noting the registration, and wondered why they were scoping Riley’s building.
Chapter 3
The area around Heathrow airport was busy, the lights hazy through an impenetrable early-morning drizzle steadily turning the roads to a slick, shiny gloss. A large jet thundered in, trailing twin lines of vapour from its wingtips, and Riley mentally crossed her fingers until it touched down with a squeal of rubber and disappeared into the mist.
She peered through the windscreen of the Golf, trying to recall the locations of the main hotels along the Bath Road. Her few infrequent trips to Heathrow usually ended at the car parks, with little or no reason to familiarise herself with the surrounding geography other than a passing awareness of alternative roads in and out.
She spotted the building she wanted on the north side of the road, its presence anchored in the grey light by a large blue-and-gold logo. Nosing beneath an open chevron barrier, she found a parking space not far from the main entrance between two growths of berberis. As she flicked off the lights, she caught a glimpse of movement in the glass-lined foyer and a flutter of curtains on the first floor. Evidently some guests were already up and about, no doubt preparing for imminent travel and trying to suppress nerves and catch an early breakfast.
When she had dialled Henry’s number from her flat, she’d got his answer machine. But in place of the normal request for callers to leave a message, Henry’s plummy voice had spoken directly to Riley. ‘Remember me? It’s been ages, I know. I’m on the move and have to switch this off for a while. It’s important I see you, so please call me later.’ The message had clicked off without another word, leaving her staring at the phone in puzzlement. Was that a slur in his voice… or simply the toll of the years? By the tone of urgency, it was obvious he’d been waiting for her to call and had left the direct message to make sure she kept trying.
She had given it another twenty minutes before dialling again. This time he’d picked up on the first ring, wasting no time on catch-ups, his words spilling out with urgency. ‘Riley, are you mobile? Sorry I couldn’t speak earlier — I had to switch off the phone. I must speak to you, but there’s not much time.’ His voice had been clearer, the slightly cultured drawl coming back to her over the years. Henry had been expensively educated, she remembered hearing, with a good degree from Oxford, although it wasn’t something he had ever talked about.