‘If I knew her well enough that we were going to work together, I think I’d have remembered by now, don’t you?’ Riley was irritated by his probing, as if he was reluctant to extend his investigation much beyond the close confines of this car. Right now, all that her memory would give her of Helen Bellamy was a vague image of an elegant, willowy woman, friendly and self-assured. A freelance reporter like herself. No more, no less.
‘Do you know anyone else who might know her, then?’ He was clearly trying a different tack. ‘Circle of friends, work colleagues, boyfriends… girlfriends?’
‘No. I’m sorry.’
‘You’re in the same profession.’
‘Pell, I know lots of journalists, but none of them particularly well. Like you and other coppers — you’re not all best buddies, are you?’
He pulled a face in wry acknowledgement. ‘Good point.’
‘Why,’ asked Riley impulsively, ‘do you think her hands were tied?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ he admitted, echoing the forensics man. ‘She’d been restrained and possibly hit, that’s all we can tell right now. The tape on her wrists might have been to subdue her while they were on the move. You didn’t get that from me, by the way.’
‘Of course.’ She focussed on the dashboard, trying to process the image of Helen being alive but restrained, unable to free herself or offer any resistance. The idea was macabre. Awful. ‘You don’t normally drag people out to crime scenes in the middle of the night — especially journalists. Why couldn’t this have waited until the morning?’ She waited, but he didn’t answer. ‘Particularly as you had an idea who she was before I got here.’
Pell opened his mouth, then shut it again. The expression in his eyes was indecipherable. If he had any ulterior motives, he was keeping them to himself. ‘She was discovered just after midnight by a man walking his dogs. He said the car definitely wasn’t there earlier in the evening at ten o’clock, when he last came by, so it must have been dumped after that time. That’s confirmed by a residue of warmth on the engine block. We’re still trying to narrow down the timing.’
‘I see.’
‘I needed quick confirmation of her ID — from you if I could get it — so we could back-trace her movements.’
‘You knew I was a journalist?’
‘One of the SOCO team recognised your name. He’d read your stuff. He’s a fan. I figured it was worth a try calling you. We’ve got a hell of a caseload at the moment and we need all the help we can get.’ He scrubbed at his face with his fingers, suddenly looking bone-weary, as if any energy he’d been harbouring until now was seeping away with the approach of daylight. Riley guessed he had broken with procedure by calling her in at this stage and was now regretting it. His next words confirmed it. ‘I’ll be in deep shit if my boss knows I did this.’
Riley felt a flicker of sympathy, and glanced across to where the man in the forensics suit was stepping carefully around the edge of the ditch, pointing a large flashlight at the ground. ‘Is that why he was so unfriendly?’
‘Yes. I had to lean on him to let you in.’
‘Will he tell anyone?’
‘No. He owed me a favour. Now I owe him a bigger one.’
Pell eventually let her go, with instructions not to publish anything and to call him if she thought of anything relating to the dead woman. In spite of a reluctant smile, which softened his face considerably, the implications behind the first instruction were clear: the presence of her name on a piece of paper at the death scene meant that Riley was far too close to this case to be allowed any leeway as a reporter.
She climbed out of the white suit and returned to her car. As she drove away down the track, she passed other vehicles, some with interior lights on behind misted windows. Crime-scene members snatching a quick break in an attempt to dry off and down some refreshments. As she hit the main road, more cars were arriving and heading up the lane. Probably the press pack, all vying for an exclusive on the story. That was going to make Pell even more unhappy.
She checked the dashboard clock, surprised to see it was already gone five. A pale dawn was nudging through the heavy clouds like a wash. With the arrival of daylight, the investigators would be able to get a clear scan of the surrounding area. She didn’t envy them the hours to come. For once, she was relieved not to be part of the press melee.
She pulled in at the first lay-by and dialled a number. The recipient wouldn’t thank her for waking him this early. But circumstances warranted it.
What she hadn’t told DI Pell was that she was aware of one person who had known Helen Bellamy a lot better than she did. Just a few months ago, Frank Palmer, a former military policeman, now a private investigator, had for a brief while been close to Helen. Work had thrown them together by chance and something had clicked. During that time, Palmer had gone around with a soppy smile on his face. Then circumstances and the pressures of their respective worlds had tugged them apart.
The other thing she had avoided telling Pell was that she had met Helen a couple of times, although both occasions were fleeting, and there had been no time to gain more than the briefest of impressions. Frank Palmer liked Helen, which was good enough for her.
The phone rang four times before switching to Palmer’s voice-mail. She didn’t leave a message; she couldn’t trust herself not to sound like the voice of doom. Instead, she switched off and thought about what to do next. Sooner or later, Pell and his colleagues would unearth something to show that Palmer had known the dead woman. When they did, they would descend on him like vultures on a corpse. Ex-army man, a bit of a loner, private detective and security consultant, for which some would read bodyguard and therefore no stranger to violence; they’d salivate and find plenty of precedents for making all the wrong assumptions.
She wondered what Palmer’s reaction would be when he heard.
She dialled another number. This one was in Finchley, north London. It rang twice and was answered. She said simply: ‘I’ll be with you in forty-five minutes. Can you trace Palmer? It’s urgent. There’s been a murder. He knew the victim.’
The man on the other end sounded not the least bit surprised at being called so early in the morning with such news. ‘Will do,’ he replied, his voice plummy and rich. In the background she heard a high-pitched electronic two-tone and the purr of another phone. ‘I’ll get some croissants and coffee on the go.’
‘Good idea. Make it strong, will you? I need the hit.’
She switched off the phone and headed towards Finchley.
4
Donald Brask listened intently while Riley explained what she had seen in the dark wetness of the Essex countryside. He sat with Buddha-like stillness, absorbing her words like a sponge, his plump chins clustered above a shimmering silk dressing gown and fat hands clasped over his stomach. A mug of coffee and a croissant sat untouched beside him, forgotten in the shock of her revelations. For once, Riley had stolen a lead on a breaking story before one of Donald’s contacts in the Met had been able to drop a whisper in his ear.
As her long-time agent, she knew he had grown to rely on her professional approach. She never over-glossed a story, no matter what the circumstances, and always stuck to the facts. It was something she had heard him lament on long and loud about a couple of his other clients who could be relied on, as he’d put it acidly, ‘to turn a cow-pat into a Faberge egg — with trimmings.’
‘I don’t think Palmer had seen Helen Bellamy for a while,’ she concluded, after describing the crime scene. ‘A few months, maybe. But we need to find him and let him know before anyone else does.’
Donald pursed his lips. ‘He’s a big boy. He’ll know how to handle it.’
‘True. But a thing like this?’ Frank Palmer was something of a contradiction. He was probably the most irritatingly laid back man Riley had ever met, with a tendency to under-play most situations like a sloth on Valium. But he was also the most loyal and committed friend she’d ever encountered — and the toughest. Show him a friend in peril, and it was like lighting the blue touch-paper.