When Riley brought the mugs into the living room, Palmer sat and eyed her steadily, waiting. He knew she’d have questions. Some of them would be disguised as throwaway comments, but she’d still be angling for answers. In his experience, women invariably had the edge when it came to interrogation techniques. It was something passed across at birth along with the DNA.
He didn’t have long to wait for the first one.
‘You never said why you and Helen broke up.’
Palmer sighed. This wasn’t something he felt good talking about. Not that he had any reason to feel guilty, but saying nothing wasn’t an option. ‘Actually, we didn’t so much break up as move on. When it was over, it was over.’ He took his mug and stared into it. ‘Ships that pass, I suppose.’
‘I know what you mean.’ Riley sat facing him.
He smiled gently. If there was anyone who understood the transient nature of relationships in their respective trades, it was her. He didn’t know every aspect of her private life, and didn’t pry, but he knew she was still coming to grips with a lengthy split from former army officer, John Mitcheson, who was somewhere in America. Palmer knew Mitcheson as a likeable, cool, yet detached individual who seemed hell-bent on ploughing his own furrow, even if that took him away from Riley. But he also knew it wasn’t as simple as the divergence of paths: there were questions in Riley’s mind over Mitcheson which even Palmer wasn’t sure about. Some of those questions concerned just what his moral limits were when it came to doing his job, which was partly centred on private security work. It was the ‘partly’ which raised some of the most searching questions.
As if reading his mind, she said simply, ‘Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?’
He nodded and looked at his coffee. ‘Do you have anything stronger than this crap?’
‘You ingrate. That’s best Colombian — a grade five. I’ve got some Kenyan, but it’s only a three. I keep it for any girlies who come round.’ She stood up and went into the kitchen, returning immediately with a bottle of whisky and two glasses, already poured. ‘You had me worried, there. I thought you’d gone teetotal on me.’ She put down the bottle and handed him a glass, and took a deep pull of her own to lead the way, wincing as the liquor burned its way down her throat. ‘You’ll have to talk to the police, Frank. A DI named Pell seems to be the lead man.’
Palmer nodded and took a sip of his drink. ‘What’s he like?’
‘Reasonable. Professional… but I got the impression he’s a bit of a rebel on the quiet.’ She explained about being allowed at the crime scene, a favour for a favour between Pell and his colleague in forensics. ‘He wants to get results, but he’s thorough.’
‘I’ll call him.’ Palmer twisted his glass, then said, ‘Tell me about it.’
He listened as she went through it, leaving nothing out. She began with the receipt of the phone call from Pell, dragging her out of bed and into the night, with terse instructions to tell nobody. She described the scene with the SOCO team and the rain-soaked glare of lights, the position of the body, and the way Helen Bellamy’s wrists had been tied, the bruising around her face. There was a dull flatness to her voice, the telling as unemotional as possible, and he knew she was finding this the most difficult of all.
He waited until she finished, making no comment. He had switched on that part of his brain that was analytical and calm; the part which his RMP training had instilled in him — the ability to remain detached and objective — seeing the subject of the investigation as no more than a set of facts, events and figures.
‘What do they reckon?’ he said finally. He meant how did the police think Helen had died.
‘Pell didn’t say. Or wouldn’t. They only wanted me there to see if I could identify her.’ Riley flicked a hand, indicating her face. ‘At a guess, I’d say she was hit. Hard. There were marks, but it wasn’t easy to tell what they were under the lights. They didn’t allow me get close enough to judge.’
Palmer’s expression was grim. ‘If she was tied up, it was to keep her subdued. She must have got involved in something. You said there was a car?’
She described how the vehicle was buried deep in the undergrowth, adding to the images in his mind. ‘It looked like a Golf. Was that what she drove?’
‘Yes. An old one.’ Palmer was puzzled. If the car was found by the first walker who came along, it wasn’t exactly well hidden. Why flag up the location in that way? He sat back, unravelling the facts in his mind, slicing and dicing until he had some sense of order. Riley had her way; this was his. He didn’t have all the information right now — not even a fraction of it — but it was his way of teasing out all the possible answers until he had something to work with.
The other question was why she’d had Riley’s name and phone number in her car. Plans for a girlie exchange of information, perhaps? Or a work thing?
‘There’s nothing significant about her last assignments,’ Riley told him, ‘at least, as far as I could tell.’
‘You checked already?’ Palmer lifted an eyebrow. ‘That was quick work.’
‘I mentioned it to Donald and he gave me a lead.’ She shrugged. ‘I thought it best to check it out.’ She explained briefly what she had learned at Copnor Business Publications. ‘It was standard work. They don’t cover commercial frauds or anything like that, unless it has a wider market impact, so they’re not exactly into anything murky or overtly criminal. But Helen did let drop that she was hoping to get into something more interesting.’
‘Like what?’ Palmer was surprised. From what he remembered of Helen, she had enjoyed her work.
‘The editor thought she was bored with the same old same old. I can relate to that. His assistant said she’d asked recently if they’d ever covered the Russian oligarchs as a topic.’
‘Rich Russians?’ He chewed it over. They were as much in the news for buying football clubs and large chunks of the London property market as they were for their on-off relationships with Moscow. Maybe Helen had stumbled on a juicy story and was testing the water.
‘She also rang last week and asked for any outstanding fees to go to a woman at an address in Hampshire.’
Another surprise. Helen had centred her life on London, apparently eager to be where the action was. She’d never mentioned anyone outside the capital. ‘A family member?’
‘I was hoping you’d know the answer to that.’
‘We didn’t get to that level.’ He was aware that his voice was probably tinged with regret. ‘She didn’t talk about herself much,’ he explained. ‘But then, neither did I.’ He held her gaze. If Riley had any thoughts about men’s lack of curiosity about the women in their lives, she wasn’t saying anything. ‘It seemed to suit us both. You’ve done good work. Thanks.’
Riley stood up and dug out the sheet of paper Emerald had given her. ‘Here’s the address. We could take a look tomorrow, if you like.’
He scanned the details. Helen had definitely never mentioned a connection with Hampshire — certainly nobody close enough to have sent money to. ‘Why wait?’ He glanced at his watch, suddenly taken by the idea of doing something positive. ‘Like now.’
‘I can’t.’ Riley waved an apologetic hand. ‘I’ve got a meeting this afternoon to pitch for a job. I have to get my glad rags on and act civilised. You know how it is.’
Palmer knew. Like Riley’s assignments, most of his jobs came along by word of mouth or through Donald Brask. But every now and then, he had to do his own legwork to help things along. The brutal reality was, if freelances didn’t pitch, they didn’t eat.