‘Good old Peterson, taking one for the team,’ joked Moss, adding, ‘What is it?’
Erika crossed back to the bed. ‘Did forensics come in when it was a missing persons?’
‘No, Sparks came and had a poke round. I think Simon or Diana was with him though, so it wasn’t thorough.’
‘There’s something underneath the bed that looks fishy,’ said Erika.
They knelt down, pulling latex gloves out of their coats and slipping them on. Erika got down on her front and slid under the bed. Moss flicked on a torch and shone it under the bed as Erika examined a floorboard which was cleaner than the rest, tracing its seams. Erika pulled out her car keys, fitting a key between the floorboards, and levered it up. However, the board was long and the bed was low, so it wouldn’t properly lift out. Erika replaced the board and shuffled back out. They took an end of the bed each and pulled it out a few feet with great difficulty.
‘Jesus, that’s no IKEA shit,’ grimaced Moss. Erika moved round and got the floorboard up.
Inside a cavity underneath was a mobile phone box. Erika gently lifted it out, and opened the lid. The moulded cardboard housing was still inside, but there was no phone. There was, however, a bag of small white pills, a small dark block of what looked like cannabis resin wrapped in cling film, a pack of large Rizlas and a box of Swan Vestas filters. There was also a small instruction booklet for an iPhone 5S, and a hands-free kit that was still in its little plastic bag. Erika lifted out the moulded cardboard. A small white receipt was nestled in the bottom. It was printed on thin shiny paper, and along one edge was a sticky yellow substance that had blurred the ink. On the reverse it was blank, apart from the words “your my baby x” written in blue ink, in a childish hand.
‘It’s a mobile phone top-up voucher,’ said Erika, turning it back over.
‘But there’s only half a transaction number,’ said Moss. ‘What is that gunk?’
Erika put it to her nose. ‘Dried egg yolk.’
‘What about the stash?’ asked Moss, looking back in the mobile phone box.
‘I don’t know. Sadly, it’s fairly run-of-the-mill. Six tablets could be ecstasy. An ounce or two of cannabis resin? That’s personal use,’ said Erika. ‘Let’s bag this up and call in a CSI to check out the rest of her bedroom.’
When they came back downstairs, Simon and David were showing a doctor to the front door.
‘Is everything okay?’ asked Erika. Simon thanked the doctor and opened the door. The doctor hurried down the path through the rain of camera flashes, clutching at his leather bag, eager to get out of the firing line. Peterson and Linda joined them as Simon closed the front door.
‘No, everything is not okay. My wife is suffering severe trauma. I think I’d like to ask you to leave, please.’
‘We found this under Andrea’s bed,’ said Erika, holding up a plastic evidence bag with the mobile phone box, and the drugs.
‘What? No, no, no, no, no,’ he snapped. ‘My children do not do drugs! How do I know you didn’t plant this?’
‘Sir, we’re not interested in the drugs. What we are interested in is the fact we think Andrea had a second phone. In this box was a mobile phone top-up voucher dated four months previously. Were you aware of its existence?’
‘No. Let me see that . . .’ Sir Simon took the thin plastic bag housing the receipt, and studied it. David and Linda watched with curiosity.
‘Whose writing is this?’
‘We don’t know. Could Giles have written it?’
‘He went to Gordonstoun. He’d know the different between “your” and “you’re”. How do you know this is even hers? It could be an old box.’
‘Could your secretary have organised a second phone for Andrea?’
‘No! Not without telling me about it,’ said Simon. ‘What do you two know about this? Was Andrea taking drugs?’ he added, turning on David and Linda.
‘We don’t know anything, Daddy,’ said Linda, flicking her hair. David shook his head along with her.
‘Okay, thank you, sir. Please let us know if you find out anything more. In the meantime, I’ve asked a forensics team to take a look at Andrea’s bedroom.’
‘What? You’re asking my permission?’
‘I’m informing you that in the interest of furthering this investigation and finding who killed Andrea, I need a team of forensic officers to look at Andrea’s bedroom, sir,’ said Erika.
‘You people do what you want, don’t you?’ snapped Simon. He walked off to his study and slammed the door.
When they reached Erika’s car on Chiswick High Road, her phone rang.
‘It’s DCI Sparks. I’m at The Glue Pot. It’s about the e-fit you tried to arrange with that witness, Kristina.’
‘Yes? Did you find her?’ asked Erika, hope rising in her chest.
‘No, and according to the landlord, there’s no one called Kristina who works here.’
‘Where did you find the landlord?’
‘He lives in a flat two doors down.’
‘Then who was the girl I talked to?’
‘I asked the bar staff. A girl matching her description, called Kristina, works casually, cash-in-hand, covering when the other bar staff need nights off. One of them had an address for her, so we checked it out. It’s a bedsit near the train station, but it’s empty.’
‘Who owns the bedsit?’ asked Erika.
‘Landlord lives in Spain, and as far as he and the letting agent were aware it’s been unoccupied for three months. So this Kristina was either squatting, or gave it as a fake address.’
‘Shit. Get forensics into that bedsit, dust for prints. So far she’s the only one who saw Andrea with this mystery man and woman.’
18
They arrived back at Lewisham Row Station just after five. The team in the incident room looked to be flagging when they returned, but heads rose expectantly from their desks when they caught the smell of coffee.
‘Grab a cup, and there’s doughnuts,’ said Erika. They had stopped at Starbucks on their way back to the station. People stretched and pushed themselves away from their desks. Crane came over from where he’d been reviewing the CCTV images.
‘You’re a star, boss. Decent coffee!’ he said, rubbing his eyes.
‘I’m hoping you’ve got some good news about the CCTV coverage of London Road?’ asked Erika hopefully, offering him the bag of doughnuts.
‘We’ve been cross-checking bus timetables and routes, and we’ve requested CCTV from TFL for all the buses that travelled along London Road, past the museum and train station, on the night Andrea went missing. Also, loads of black cabs now have CCTV, so we’re working on tracking those down – but we won’t get the bus CCTV until tomorrow at the earliest.’ Crane’s hand hesitated above the bag of doughnuts.
‘Go on,’ said Erika, and he plunged his hand in. ‘Put pressure on them, time is ticking. I take it you’ve heard about the vanishing barmaid, Kristina?’
The team nodded, chewing on their doughnuts and sipping coffee.
‘What about Andrea’s phone and laptop? Did you pull off anything interesting?’ asked Erika.
‘No. Well, we found most of the photos we’ve already seen on her old Facebook profile, and there are endless games of Candy Crush Saga. She seemed to be obsessed with that game. She appeared to just use her laptop for games and the usual iTunes. The iPhone recovered from the crime scene is virtually empty. No photos or video, and barely any texts.’
Chief Superintendent Marsh poked his head around the door to the incident room. ‘DCI Foster, can I have a word please?’
‘Yes, sir. Moss, Peterson – can you brief everyone on what we found under Andrea’s bed?’ asked Erika. She put the last of her doughnut in her mouth and left the incident room, following Marsh to his office, where she brought him up to speed about the mobile phone box under the bed with the receipt, and the vanishing barmaid from The Glue Pot.