“I’m sorry,” she said then, unable to meet his gaze. “Not just for that . . . I know I’m being bloody cheeky coming here like this but I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Lytton pulled a wry face, flexing his fingers experimentally. “Flattery will get you everywhere.” He nodded to the debris-strewn countertop aware that he was still teetering on the far reaches of anger. “I see you’ve made yourself at home.”
“I’m sorry,” she muttered again. “I waited but when you didn’t come back after normal close of play I sort of assumed you weren’t going to and—” she shrugged, “—I haven’t eaten.”
She sounded beaten-down weary. Lytton sighed, moved further into the room. “Well now you’ve started keep going.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw the way she tensed as he came past her. He merely went to the cooler and pulled out a bottle of Beck’s. “Drink? I certainly need one after that.”
She shook her head. He dug out an opener and flipped off the lid then drank from the neck not bothering with a glass. “How did you get in by the way?”
She’d turned back to the hob, answered over her shoulder. “Not difficult with the security you’ve got.”
“I had the front door locks changed only a few months ago when . . . when Veronica lost her keys. The guy told me they were nine-lever, whatever that means. He reckoned they were fairly secure.”
Her lips hitched upwards and almost made it to a smile. “Should have got him to change the ones on the sliding windows at the same time then,” she said. “They’re a joke.”
Lytton didn’t point out that the balcony onto which those sliding doors opened out was on the fourth floor because he’d heard the cracks in her voice despite the light hearted words. He put down his beer and studied the strain in her face.
“What’s happened Kelly?”
She had been holding herself rigid but the gentleness of his voice seemed to crumple her. She looked away sharply, took a deep breath before she raised her head again.
“Remember Tyrone?” she asked.
He frowned, was about to ask but then an image of the big black kid she’d been working with opened up in his mind. He nodded.
She took another breath shaky this time. “He’s dead,” she said flatly. “He was murdered today at a crime scene we were supposed to be cleaning in Millwall.”
“Christ,” Lytton said. “When did you find out?”
She fussed for a moment with the pan on the hob turning down the gas to a low simmer before the onions turned to caramel. “When I woke up,” she said in a voice so low he thought for a moment he’d misheard her.
“When you . . .?” he began then stopped. No wonder she’d overreacted when he came in. “My God . . . you were there.”
And crowding in on that thought came a bunch of others. He’d read the trial reports after her manslaughter conviction—about the blackout and the murder. That there’d been no previous history or medical evidence presented to suggest Kelly might be prone to such traumatic lapses. Nothing to say she wasn’t lying about the whole thing.
Clearly judge and jury had believed she was.
So why should he trust her now?
“It happened again,” he said but she shook her head and raked a distracted hand through her short choppy hair. He noticed the bandage on her arm as she did so. Had her victim fought back this time?
“No,” she said more determined now. “I’m beginning to think it never happened in the first place.”
She waited fiercely for his incredulity. He schooled his face not to present any, leaned his hip against the countertop and folded his arms. “So, what did?”
“I think I was framed,” she said twisting restlessly away and beginning to pace. Lytton’s eyes fell onto the knife she’d been using to cut the vegetables. It lay casually on the chopping board in full view but he made no moves to stop her getting back to it.
“I think they gave me something—Rohypnol maybe,” she went on. “Something to make me compliant and make me forget. Then it was just a case of sticking the knife in my hand and leaving me in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Didn’t they test you for possible drugs last time?” he asked.
“Eventually,” she agreed. “And—surprise, surprise—nothing showed up. That’s why I took this.”
She yanked open the fridge door and pulled out a small ziplock bag. One corner was filled with liquid that was a dark rich red.
“Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is?”
She nodded to the bandage on her arm. “I improvised before I left the scene. I was out for half an hour or so and got away from there just before the cops showed up. Maybe whoever did this miscalculated the dose or whatever. Or maybe they couldn’t afford to have me actually unconscious when the cops arrived. Too many awkward questions.”
“And you want to get that tested—independent of the police this time?” he guessed.
She nodded and he saw her desperation in the way her shoulders had begun to sag. If what she said was true he realised she must be in shock to some degree and close to nervous exhaustion. Not to mention suffering a chemical hangover to rival anything induced by alcohol.
But . . .
Lytton put his head on one side. “Why did you come here Kelly?”
She gave him a tired smile. “Process of elimination,” she said. “All this kicked off because I asked questions about your wife’s death. Either you killed her and tried to set me up because I spotted it or you’re completely innocent and you’ll want answers just as much as I do. More, perhaps.”
He met her eyes. “And how do you know which is the truth?”
“By what happens next.”
35
“Good evening Vince. You’re pulling a late one.”
DI O’Neill glanced up from signing the on-scene log to see the lead CSI approaching.
“Hiya Bob,” he said. “I just heard we ID’d the victim. Kid called Tyrone Douet. That makes it one of mine.”
Bob Tate, a tall cadaverous Scot, lifted the crime-scene tape for him to duck underneath. O’Neill was already wearing booties and gloves. “Oh aye?”
“Douet worked for a specialist cleaning crew—McCarron’s,” O’Neill said. “Couple of nights ago the boss was beaten up pretty badly. Now this.”
“Poor sod,” Tate said, pushing his glasses further up his long nose with the back of his own gloved hand. “I knew Ray McCarron when he was one of us. I hadn’t heard.” He paused. “You think there’s a connection?”
“Doesn’t hurt to look.”
Tate sighed. “Well it’s going to be a wee while before we’re done here I’m afraid. The scene suffers from an embarrassment of riches as it were. It doesn’t help that there was another death here only yesterday.”