I focus on his Twitter, Facebook and Instagram on the days leading up to, the day of, and the days following KT’s murder. There was nothing posted from New York on that day. The day before KT’s murder he was in London. Two days after the murder he was photographed in Dubai. One thing he shares a lot is his transport. Cars and motorbikes and helicopters. But in particular his jet. A Gulfstream G650 with the tail number JK9022P. There are photos of Kandee posing beside his two large dogs and their designer leather-clad travel crates. The jet is white. Nothing distinctive from the outside. There are a couple of Facebook photos from inside the cabin. It has a small kitchen and a main area and a rear bedroom. Three zones. The floors are carpeted and the walls look like they’re cream leather. He uses a private airport north of London called Biggin Hill, and for New York he uses a private airport in Teterboro, about twelve miles west of here as the crow flies. I find a plane-spotting online community. I search photos using the tail number of his plane. It’s blocked, apparently. I access the plane-spotter blogs and start sifting through Teterboro airstrip photos, jets landing and taking off. Lots of celebrities use the airport so they make up the majority of the posts. What I want to find out is if Bogart DeLuca was in New York that day. If he’s some kind of assassin rather than a PI. Maybe not an assassin, but Kandee’s security detail, someone with specialist skills who can get rid of inconvenient problems for him.
Susan refills my coffee again and says, ‘My shift’s over in forty-five minutes; I finish at five.’
I look at my watch and take a deep breath. I need an hour or two of sleep before KT’s cremation service. I can’t not sleep at all, I’d collapse.
‘Could I get some toast, please?’
‘Cinnamon raisin French toast?’
‘Just regular toast.’
‘No problem.’
Cross-referencing the plane-spotter blogs with a website using historical playback facilities of recorded jet flight plans, I locate the flights for October taken by James Kandee’s aircraft.
The plane flew on the day my sister was killed.
My vision is blurry, I’m so tired. So wired.
It travelled from London Biggin Hill at 8.50 a.m., landing at Teterboro at 11.35 a.m., and it took off again that night from Teterboro at 6.10 p.m., landing at London Biggin Hill at 5.50 a.m.
There were two pilots on board.
There was no flight attendant on the plane.
There was one passenger listed as flying into New York on the day my sister was killed.
James Kandee himself.
Chapter 22
I didn’t sleep a minute.
By the time I left for the hostel, early-morning commuters were speed-walking down Sixth Avenue with their backpacks strapped tight and their phones in their hands. The sun wasn’t up but the city was awake.
I went to bed at five-fifteen a.m. and I lay there next to my baseball bat until nine. Until I heard Mum and Dad talking quietly in the next room. I couldn’t make out their words; I think they were speaking in hushed voices so as not to wake me.
The window in my room is rattling in its frame. The storm is set to peak late tonight, at about the time we fly out of JFK. If it’s not safe to take off I’ll insist we delay. I will demand it.
I put on my robe and slippers and pace to the end of the hall and call Martinez.
‘Detective, it’s Molly Raven.’
‘Hello, Molly. How can I help?’
I pause. Everyone around me can hear my voice; all the strangers in their beds in the rooms behind these thin walls. Better for them to hear than Mum and Dad. They need to be insulated from the facts until after the cremation. I need to protect them, especially Mum.
‘I need to talk to you about what I’ve found.’
‘You had any more trouble from the phoney investigator?’
‘No.’
‘Good. What have you found out?’
‘It’s about James Kandee, the British heir and entrepreneur. I’m fairly certain his private foundation funded KT’s Columbia scholarship.’
‘OK.’
‘And his private plane landed at Teterboro on the morning of KT’s death. It left that same night, a few hours after she was killed.’
‘Keep going.’
‘I think you need to look into it, detective. From his Instagram I can see he flies young women, all around my age, KT’s age, around the world to show off to his rich friends. I think he maintained a kind of harem.’
‘Harem?’
‘I don’t know.’ I rub my eyes. This seemed like such concrete evidence at four-thirty this morning and now it seems so flimsy. ‘You need to question James Kandee.’