All Things Nice Page 2

  Mark was already on his way to find them as Ellen and Abby made their way back down the hill.

  ‘Single puncture wound on the left side of his body, underneath the heart,’ he said. ‘Knife wound, I’d guess. Another stabbing I’m afraid, detectives. No outer sign of any other injury. Although I won’t know more until I examine him properly. I’ll organise a tox test, too. But you won’t get the results of that for at least a week.’

  ‘How long has he been there?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘He was killed somewhere between midnight and one-thirty, I’d say. Although again …’

  ‘I know,’ Ellen said. ‘You can’t say for definite until you’ve done the post-mortem.’

  ‘Mobile phone in his jacket pocket,’ Mark said. ‘And he had his wallet on him. Almost two hundred pounds cash inside. Which makes me think it might not be a robbery. There’s something else too. I can tell you who he is.’

  ‘You’re joking,’ Ellen said.

  Mark shook his head. ‘A student card in the inside pocket of his jacket. His name’s Kieran Burton. Lives in Ennersdale Road, Hither Green. I’m assuming you’ll want the full address?’

  Kieran Burton. They had a name. Soon, they’d have a history. It had begun.

  Two

  The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a slice of sunlight cutting through the hazy grey darkness of her bedroom. It was too bright and she closed her eyes. She was home. Safe in her own room.

  Traces of the dream lingered. The song. Always the same song. Distant now but still here. Fading in and out. Scared, Charlotte sat up, scanned the room, checking every corner to make sure the song was all in her head and nowhere else.

  Relieved to find the room empty, she sank back on the pillow. Scattered memories from last night skittered across her consciousness. She remembered a man, his body pressed close to hers. Another wave of panic hit her and she sat up. No one else there. Whoever he was, she’d dumped him before coming to bed. Good move. She searched the incomplete memory bank but couldn’t find a single hint that she’d done anything too terrible.

  So why the underlying sense that something bad had happened?

  She did another quick check through the bits she could remember. Cocktails, sushi, wine, more cocktails. A lot more cocktails. Her stomach rolled. She wanted to lie down, go back to sleep until the worst of it had passed, but a raging thirst made that impossible. The promise of a large glass of cool, sparkling water was strong enough to drag her out of the bed and down the two flights of stairs, into the kitchen.

  The house was empty and still as a corpse apart from the ghostly rhythm of last night’s music beating inside her pounding head. The detritus from the party was all around her. She couldn’t remember what time she’d booked the cleaners for.

  The kitchen, a huge white and chrome affair, took up the entire lower floor of the house. By the time she’d reached the fridge and managed to retrieve a bottle of water from its chilly depths, her legs were shaking with the effort of walking so far.

  Somehow, her fumbling fingers managed to unscrew the lid and get the bottle to her lips. Cold water trickled down her throat, across her chin and neck, soaking the top of the sweater she was still wearing. She drank until she could drink no more, until her insides were bloated from gas and liquid. When she was finished, she fell onto the cream sofa by the window, pushed a pile of paper plates off it and curled up in the corner. The sudden hit of water turned her body cold and she started shivering as she waited for the nausea to pass.

  She picked up the remote control and flicked it at the flat-screen TV on the far wall. A pretty female presenter was interviewing Xavi Cheval, the celebrity chef who was all over the tabloids at the moment after leaving his wife and three children for a man twenty years younger than him. Charlotte watched with detached interest. She’d met Cheval several times and knew his sexuality was no secret to anyone in the restaurant business, least of all his wife.

  The story made her think of Nick and she wondered where he was. She had no memory of seeing him at the party. She told herself she didn’t care. Just like she’d told herself yesterday she didn’t care that he’d forgotten her birthday. It wasn’t like it was the first time.

  The air inside the house stank of last night. A memory came to her. Bent over, vomit spraying from her mouth. Something else lurked in the shadows of that moment. Not something. Someone. A man. Her stomach clenched with fear. A name came to her. Declan. She relaxed. A stranger. She didn’t care about that. She tried to picture Declan’s face but nothing happened.

  She stood up, unable to bear the claustrophobic smell and the mess and the general chaos of the place. Through the fog of her hangover, another sensation clawed its way to the surface of her consciousness. A craving. She moved around the room, rooting through the dirty napkins, discarded food and turned-over glasses. Her hand hovered for a moment over a half-empty bottle of Sauvignon Blanc before she changed her mind. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep it down.

  When she’d finished with the living room, she searched the kitchen. Still nothing. Not a single cigarette in the entire house. Unbelievable. She steeled herself for the effort required to go outside.

  There was a small alcove off the inside porch where she kept her day shoes. She rooted around the neat rows of trainers and boots until she found her current favourites – the white YSL pair. They were dirty. Streaks of mud criss-crossed with splatters of red wine. Too often her clothes were the map that allowed her to find her way back to the things she’d done the night before. Vaguely, she remembered spilling wine. A red stain on her sleeve that looked like blood. She shook her head and the memory dispersed.

  Trainers on, she got her purse and went outside to face the unexpected brightness of a perfect early summer morning. In a less desperate state, she might have noticed straight away that something was wrong. As it was, she’d reached the top of Heath Lane before she noticed the pair of uniformed policemen walking towards her. At the same time, she saw the lines of black and yellow police tape criss-crossed back and forth in front of her, preventing anyone from entering or leaving.

  The first thing she felt was irritation. Followed closely by panic. If there was some sort of ‘incident’ – wasn’t that the euphemistic phrase the police used for all sorts of human tragedies? – then she bloody well hoped it wouldn’t stall her attempts to get to the shop for her Marlboro Lights.

  ‘Sorry, Ma’am.’

  The pair of plods positioned themselves in front of her, blocking the way.

  ‘What is it?’ Her voice sounded scratchy, like she’d done a lot of shouting the previous night. When she spoke, it felt like someone was grinding sandpaper against her vocal chords.

  ‘You live here?’

  They were both tall and dark and good-looking in the way that working-class young men sometimes are. All lean muscle, stubble-shadowed jaws and close-cut hair. The taller of the two – greeny-blue eyes that reminded her of a holiday in Morocco many years earlier – was doing all the speaking. He had a deep, rich voice and an accent that was pure south London.

  ‘Of course I live here,’ she snapped. ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you to go back home,’ he said. ‘We’re not allowing anyone in or out at the moment.’

  A stab of irrational, guilt-laced fear hit her. Again, she trawled through her damaged memories, trying to remember if there was anything she needed to worry about.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

  The greeny-blues flickered from her face to somewhere behind her. She turned around.

  Heath Lane was a hill that curved up from the end of St Joseph’s Vale to the top, where Charlotte stood. The bend in the hill meant she was unable to see all the way down to the bottom. She could see enough, though, to know that whatever ‘incident’ the police were dealing with, it was serious. Men and women dressed in white were spread out along the lane, creeping their way slowly up the hill.

  Charlo
tte turned back to the two policemen and asked them, again, what had happened. Instead of answering, the tall policeman took her gently – oh so gently – by her right arm and started guiding her back down the path, telling her that she’d better come inside, that there was something they needed to speak to her about.

  Don’t worry, he said, but how could she not worry? How could she not associate that moving force of white bodies with the noise and chaos and jumble of images that made up the incomplete picture of last night?

  As they reached the front door – the policeman’s arm still linked in hers, his voice still talking, telling her not to worry, that there was no reason for her to worry – she remembered something else. She remembered running across the heath away from her house and her party, running as fast as she could, her face wet with tears. No matter how hard she tried, though, she couldn’t remember what it was she’d been running so fast to get away from.

  Inside the house, she led the two men through the entrance hall into the large living room at the front of the house.

  ‘I had a party last night,’ she said, waving her hand at the mess.

  She sat down on one of the pretty, floral-patterned sofas and motioned for the policemen to sit on the one opposite. They both perched on the edge of the sofa as if they were afraid of contamination. Neither man asked for a drink and she didn’t offer, either. She didn’t have the energy to play hostess.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

  ‘A body has been found,’ Blue Eyes said.

  Another clitter-clatter of panic across her chest.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘We don’t have any details at the moment,’ the other guy said. He had a soft Scottish accent that surprised her. Nothing London about him at all. Funny, she thought, how your first impressions could be so wrong.

  ‘But you must know something.’ She directed the comment at the Scottish one, wondering what it was about his accent she found so appealing. Until she realised it didn’t matter. There was a dead person lying yards away from where she was sitting.

  Her daughter’s face flashed before her.

  ‘Can you at least tell me if it’s a man or a woman?’

  The two men glanced at each other before the cute guy with the lovely eyes responded.

  ‘A man,’ he said. ‘More than that, I can’t say.’

  ‘I had a party,’ she said. ‘Last night. My birthday. You’ll want to know who was here, I suppose. I’m not sure I even know half the people who turned up. But maybe it’s someone else. I mean, just because they were here doesn’t mean … lots of people walk through this way, it’s a short-cut between Lewisham and Blackheath. Well, parts of Lewisham.’ She was babbling, needed to stop talking, but it was like her mind had lost the ability to control her mouth. ‘What happened to him, anyway? You haven’t told me that. I mean, did someone attack him or was it a heart attack or … no, not a car. Well, maybe. I mean, cars do come down this way, but …’

  Her voice trailed off. She slumped back on the sofa, exhausted.

  The Scottish guy stood up.

  ‘How about I make us all a cup of tea?’ he said. ‘And then we can have a proper chat.’

  They stayed for longer than she would have liked but after they left, part of her wished they were still here. The house felt too big, too lonely. She wanted to go back outside, to walk down the hill and see what was going on there. It would be all cordoned off, of course. The police wouldn’t let her anywhere near the body.

  They hadn’t told her what had happened but she knew it wasn’t good. Their presence and the probing questions they’d asked told her that. Oh they’d been kind enough. They just wanted to know so bloody much. Why had she had the party? Who had been here? Did she often throw parties like this? Were there any arguments? Why were there people here she didn’t know? Was she in the habit of letting strangers into her house? And on and on and on.

  She wished Nick was here. He might be a pain in the arse but at least he’d know what to do. Her weakness and indecision were two of the things Nick disliked most about her. Right now, Charlotte could understand why. She’d done nothing wrong, nothing at all, and here she was, hiding out in her own house like some sort of criminal. Whatever had happened at the bottom of her road, it had nothing to do with her.

  She stood up and her resolve faltered as a wave of nausea washed over her. She waited for it to pass then went upstairs. The stink of stale booze in the bedroom made her gag. She ripped open the white silk curtains and pulled up the large sash window. Cool air on her warm skin. She stood by the window, looking out across the woods at the back of the house, waiting for her heart rate to slow down.

  When she was able to move, she crossed over to the mahogany bedside table and picked up her phone. She’d been planning to call Ginny but when she switched her phone on, she saw that she had two missed calls and one voicemail.

  The missed calls were from Freya. Why was her daughter trying to speak to her? It wasn’t as if they had the sort of relationship that involved frequent phone calls to each other.

  She dialled her voicemail, the clamouring in her chest getting worse as she listened to Freya’s message.

  ‘It’s me. Kieran didn’t come home last night and I’m just wondering … It’s not like him to stay out. Can you call me? Please?’

  She told herself it didn’t mean anything. Coincidence. Nothing more than that. Except Freya’s voice … she sounded so lost. Vulnerable. Her little girl. A latent instinct kicked in and suddenly the need to see her daughter, to be with her and to make sure no harm came to her, was overwhelming.

  Charlotte picked up her bag, stuffed her phone inside, and ran.

  Three

  Ennersdale Road in Hither Green was a ten-minute drive from the crime scene in Blackheath. Victorian terraces lined the road, in various stages of disrepair and regeneration. Ellen guessed the properties were a mix of private owners and council housing stock.

  Their victim’s address was Flat 2, number 19 – a large, semi-detached property near the top of the road. Ellen parked outside the house and climbed out of the car. She was overdressed for the sudden sunshine and unzipped her jacket while she waited for Abby to join her.

  ‘Patrol car will be here in a second,’ Ellen said. ‘We won’t go in until that arrives.’

  Like most streets around here, Ennersdale Road was quiet at this time on a Saturday morning. Very little traffic and only a handful of people out and about. As Ellen walked towards the house, a couple approached, coming down the hill from Hither Green Lane. They had a small girl with them. She was riding a tricycle and giggling as she wheeled her way – dangerously fast, in Ellen’s opinion – towards the spot where Ellen stood. At the last moment, the child swerved left, entering the garden of the house beside number 19. The couple came after her, smiling and nodding to Abby and Ellen before disappearing through the gate after the child.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay to be here?’ Abby asked.

  ‘If you’re going to ask me that every time we see any children,’ Ellen said, ‘it’s going to be a long day. I’m fine. I’ve already told you, the kids are at their friends’ house. When it’s time to pick them up, I’ll go. But in the meantime, you’re stuck with me.’

  Abby meant well, but the constant checking was getting on Ellen’s nerves. Her new working arrangements meant she no longer worked weekends. Except with the children both on a playdate, what the hell else was she supposed to do with her time? She’d only popped into the office to pick up some files. Hadn’t planned to stay. Sod’s law – or a stroke of luck? – that the call about the dead man had come in at the same time. That’s the way things happened sometimes. Nothing Ellen or anyone else could do about that. And she meant what she’d said. The moment it was time to collect her children, she’d be gone.

  A marked patrol car appeared at the top of the hill and drove down the road. When it was parked, Ellen walked across and leaned down to speak to the two officers inside. She knew one of them.<
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  ‘Okay, Maurice?’

  Maurice Alter had been a uniformed officer longer than Ellen’s entire time in the force. Reliable, consistent and unflappable, he was one of her favourite old-timers.

  ‘Not so bad,’ Maurice said. ‘You want us to wait here?’

  ‘To start with,’ Ellen said, ‘I don’t want to go in mob-handed if we don’t have to. If there’s anyone in, chances are they’re going to be very upset. No need to make things worse for them if we don’t have to.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Maurice said. ‘Me and Jamie here, we’ll be ready when you need us.’

  Ellen patted the roof of the car and walked back to Abby. Together, they went into the garden of number 19. The house was one of the better maintained properties on the street. Painted a sunny yellow colour with a tidy front garden, it was obvious whoever lived here looked after the place.

  Each of the two doorbells was neatly labelled – Flat 1, the lower one, and Flat 2, the upper one. Ellen rang the bell for Flat 2 and waited. Not for long. The sound of someone clattering down a flight of steps was followed by the creak of the front door as it opened. A plump, pasty-faced woman with mousy brown hair stood in the doorway.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mrs Burton?’ Ellen guessed.

  The woman frowned. ‘Sorry, I think you’ve made a mistake. It’s Mr Burton you want. Kieran.’

  ‘Ah. I thought you might be his wife,’ Ellen said.

  A flicker of something across the woman’s face. Fear? It passed too quickly for Ellen to tell.

  ‘Has something happened?’ the woman asked. ‘To Kieran, I mean?’

  Ellen held up her warrant card and showed it to the woman.

  ‘DI Kelly, Lewisham CID,’ she said. ‘This is my partner, DC Roberts. Could we come inside, do you think?’

  The woman’s eyes flashed from Ellen to Abby and back to Ellen again. She stood back and gestured for the two detectives to come past her into the house.

  Inside, the woman closed the door, submerging the narrow space into sudden darkness. Ellen blinked, waited for her eyes to adjust. When they did, she saw she was standing in a well-maintained, communal entrance hall. The door to one flat on her left, a flight of stairs in front of her.