We call this process the audit. It involves going through any rubbish we can find, from theatre tickets to the fluff in their pockets. We once found a runner from a dumped photo album. After drawing a blank everywhere else, we’d noticed snaps of a tiny village near St Tropez, southern France. It was a long shot, but that’s where we found him one afternoon, drinking a cold Stella at a bistro in the local square, enjoying his new life.
So he’d thought.
Five thirty in the afternoon is evidently a quiet time in the world of sweatbands and leotards, and from our vantage point in a café across the road, we count three people entering the gym. All are young-ish, good looking and self-aware in the latest sportswear, which draws from Reece a sour comment about some people having no jobs to go to. He’s still having trouble with the crossword.
“What’s the story here?” he says with a sigh.
“Slim,” I tell him, like the information we’d been given by Jennings. “Ex-army, a private investigator. Her brother is worried about her and reckons she might have been threatened by somebody — possibly from a past job. A couple of her regular clients say she hasn’t reported in, which isn’t like her.”
We give the last fitness freak two minutes, then leave the café and push through a set of glass doors. The foyer shows photos of muscular men and women doing unnatural things with complicated equipment, and the décor is a mixture of Greek tiles, thick carpets and tinkling fountains. A vague smell of air-freshener and soap hangs in the air, with that faint gamey element wherever bodies gather together in exercise.
Behind the desk is a friendly looking young woman with an orange tan and big hair. She takes one look at Reece and thrusts out her chest. I don’t even rate a glance.
“Mandy,” Reece says smoothly, eyeing the badge on her chest. “I wonder if you can help me?” His tone makes it perfectly clear that she can and, even if she can’t, it might be fun anyway. Mandy swells with anticipation and I look away.
Much more of this and I’ll get a bucket of cold water.
Two minutes later, Mandy is sashaying down the corridor on her high heels. If she’d had eyelashes painted on her rear, we’d have both been winked to death.
The moment she disappears, I slip behind the desk and run Melinda Blake’s membership card through a swipe machine.
“You didn’t promise her anything, did you?” I say, while the machine clicks and whirs.
“I asked for details of the company’s lawyers,” he replies. “Said I’d slipped and fallen in the showers a couple of weeks ago, and need details of her people so my people can contact their people.” He smiles proudly at his inventiveness.
I look at him. We’d discussed tactics on the way here, such as which ruse to employ to gain access to their customer records. Somehow, his plan seems almost half-hearted, like Indiana Jones waving a silk handkerchief instead of a bullwhip.
“That’s it? You slipped? I thought you’d come up with something like...”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something interesting... daring.” The computer stops clicking and reveals an address — a new one.
In the background I hear a familiar clattering of heels in the corridor.
We’re up and out of there in seconds, before Reece can be called to task by the pneumatic Mandy.
The new address turns out to be a small flat above a letting agency. Access is by a flight of metal stairs from a service yard at the rear. We hang back, watching the place, and I call Jennings as instructed.
“Okay, leave it for now,” he says, which surprises me. He usually likes to get these things done and dusted. “I’ve got something urgent for you.”
Ours is not to reason why, so we go to check on this other job. It keeps us busy for a couple of hours, by which time the traffic in the area has died down.
We park the car and Reece leads the way up the metal stairs. The door at the top is fitted with a simple Yale lock. At least, it had been.
Someone has kicked the door in.
Reece and I exchange a look. Shades of the late Mr Bream. This doesn’t look good.
We step over splinters of wood into a short, carpeted hallway. The atmosphere has a dead, musty sadness about it, as if the soul has fled the scene. No memories, no presence, no trace of past warmth and not much future.
The bathroom is empty save for some washing on a line and a faint smell of soap and perfume. A pair of tights lies coiled in the bottom of the bath like a wet snakeskin, and one of the taps is dripping into a brown stain on the enamel with a plunk-plunk sound.
Across the hall is a small kitchen. It smells of fried food and spices and needs a clean.
“Alec.” Reece is standing just inside a bedroom along the hallway, looking down at the floor. I join him.
A woman is curled on the carpet, clutching her stomach. She’s face down, as if trying to bury herself in the worn pile. A pair of spectacles are a yard away and her shoes are lying nearby. One heel is broken off, the nails shining like a rat’s teeth.
I check her pulse. She’s gone.
Closer inspection reveals a soggy area of tissue just below her ear, and by the way the fingers of her right hand are twisted into her clothing, she’d been hit in the stomach first, doubling her over. The killer blow had come from above. No matter what the chop-socky experts claim, it’s a blow which requires considerable force.
“Still warm.” Whoever did this isn’t long gone. We might even have passed him in the street.
I survey the scene, trying to read what happened. I check out the living room, and find a briefcase sitting on top of a folded blanket on the settee. It’s empty save for a crumpled sandwich wrapper, a three-day-old Standard and a Starbucks napkin. A travel bag on the floor holds some casual clothes, the sort you’d take if you were going on a trip and weren’t fussy about creases. Apart from that, the room is depressingly clueless.
We check the rest of the flat. Nothing stands out; no paperwork, no receipts, none of the detritus of an established life. On top of the wardrobe in the bedroom, in a recess behind a moulded surround, is a Jiffy bag containing a photograph in a plain black frame. It’s the sort issued by official photographers, where necessity and cost triumph over style. A group of men and a woman in army camouflage are smiling self-consciously at the camera. The woman looks like the one on the floor, but as we haven’t actually seen her face full on, it’s difficult to tell. She looks confident and tough and her head is cocked to one side as if she’d been caught off-guard. Not for the first time, I consider sadly.
“Provost,” says Reece, pointing to a spot on Blake’s uniform. “Army cop.”
That figures. As a military policewoman, she’d have been drawn naturally to working as a private investigator.
In the kitchen, a pair of faded Marigolds are hanging over the edge of the sink. While Reece watches the street I do a thorough search of the place, starting with the back of the wardrobe, then a chest of drawers. They yield layers of dust and cobwebs but little else.
The bed and bedside cabinet yield nothing, so I move on to the kitchen and bathroom, checking cupboards, boxes and air vents. There aren’t many places to look because there’s so little furniture. Ten minutes later it’s clear that whoever killed Blake has cleaned out anything which might have helped fill in her background. No correspondence, no letters, no invoices. No character.
“Nobody’s life is this empty,” I mutter. Even after a few days you pick up some rubbish. I check the bin in the bedroom. Not even a liner. Unnatural.