The Woman Who Lied(82)

‘He’s gorgeous,’ she says, stroking his soft coat and leaning back against the huge velvet cushions. She’s suddenly utterly exhausted. She needs to tell Ottilie about the beanie she found, but she’s so tired.

‘It’s a she. I’ve made up the spare room,’ says Ottilie, fussing around her, tucking a throw either side of her legs, careful not to dislodge Smudge who is now asleep on Emilia’s lap. Before long she feels her eyes grow heavy too.

When she opens them the room is dimly lit. She must have dozed off, which she’s surprised at, but now she feels groggy, her tongue thick. She can hardly believe she was able to sleep with all the adrenaline that had been coursing around her body. Smudge is no longer on her lap, and Ottilie isn’t in the room. It’s gone ten. Perhaps she’s gone to bed, although that’s way too early for Ottilie. She’s left a table lamp on in the corner that throws shadows on the opposite wall, but other than that the room is in darkness.

She gets up, no longer tired, anxiety bobbing to the surface again. She still has on the denim jacket she’d grabbed on the way out of her front door, and reaches into the pocket for her phone. She can see she’s had three missed calls. One from Trevor and two from DI Murray. Both have left voicemails. She stands at Ottilie’s large bay window and parts the heavy curtains. The moon is up, fat and bright in the sky. She listens to the message from Trevor first, flinching at the desperation in his voice.

Where are you? I came back to the house to check on you and to see if you’ve heard from Elliot but you weren’t there. I hope you’re okay. Please call me.

Emilia listens to the other message from DI Murray.

Hi, Emilia. Please call me as soon as you can, it doesn’t matter how late. I’ll be at the station until stupid o’clock anyway.

Is ten too late? She decides to call anyway. She might have information about Elliot.

‘Emilia? Where are you? Are you okay?’ She sounds like she’s driving.

‘I’m staying with a friend tonight.’ She closes the curtains and sinks back into the armchair.

She’s about to tell DI Murray about Elliot and the beanie but the detective charges on before Emilia can speak. ‘Listen, there’s been a development here. The praying-mantis murderer struck again last night. A colleague followed up and Trevor’s boss confirmed he had a fall at work yesterday. That Elliot came to pick him up. Was Trevor staying with you last night?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then Trevor can’t be our guy.’

She exhales in relief. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted from her shoulders. Trevor can’t be involved, so Elliot was telling the truth about not being Ash. There has to be another explanation for the beanie. Maybe he bought it a long time ago and didn’t realize he had it in his drawer. It’s a popular brand.

‘There is a suspect we’ve had our eye on for over a year now. A Martin Butterworth. I mentioned him to you before.’

Emilia vaguely remembers. ‘Right?’

‘Anyway, we went to visit his son as we thought he might be Louise’s Ash. He isn’t. But his wife, Sharon, has just got back in touch with us. It turns out she went to university with Louise when she was known as Daisy. Small world.’

‘Okay …’

‘Except it wasn’t at Exeter University. It was Leeds. Apparently Louise was at Exeter for a term, but left and took the rest of the year out before starting at Leeds the following year. Anyway, Sharon remembers Louise telling her she’d left Exeter because of an intense female friendship that went wrong. That’s all she remembers her saying, but she rang to tell me, wondering if it could be important. So, I interviewed a few of Louise’s colleagues and, apparently, she was bi-sexual. So I’m thinking we may have been looking in the wrong place. Ash could, in fact, be female.’





58





Emilia’s head hurts and she feels groggy. ‘It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,’ she says. ‘It could be anyone.’

‘It could. But …’ She hesitates, and Emilia wonders what she’s not saying. ‘Where are you now?’

‘I’m with my friend, Ottilie Bentley-Gordon, in South Kensington.’

‘Did you say Bentley-Gordon?’

‘Yes. But I’ll have to go home tomorrow.’ She gathers the throw around her knees. She can’t really concentrate. Too many thoughts and questions are crowding her brain and she’s still worrying about Elliot’s bike and she feels a bit disoriented from her sleep, a headache pressing behind her eyes.

She tries to recall the Daisy sections of Her Last Chapter. Apart from a few alterations, she never changed any of Louise’s storyline about Daisy and Ash, even sticking to how it was written because she liked that it stood out from her own style. Now she thinks about it, Louise never specified pronouns. It was just Ash. But she’d always assumed Ash was a man.

DI Murray continues, ‘I’m also considering that Louise’s mother wasn’t killed by the praying-mantis murderer, like Louise thought. Maybe someone made it look that way. He had killed two other women at that point. It was very early on. It was just when the police – when I was realizing what kind of killer we were dealing with. No one knew about the carving of the praying-mantis head. Only those working on the case at the time.’