‘Hold on … I think this must be it,’ says Elliot, backing towards her, his eyes trained on the TV.
She turns off the wok and goes to stand beside him. He wraps one arm around her shoulders. She feels tiny at just over five two compared to his nearly six feet. They watch as BREAKING NEWS flashes onscreen and then a well-dressed news presenter with an immaculate blonde bob is talking over a series of photos that show the entrance to Kew Gardens and the police outside.
‘There has been a serious incident today at Kew Gardens in London. Police had to evacuate visitors and clear Kew Road directly outside the popular tourist attraction over fears of a terrorist attack. Personnel at Kew Gardens received an anonymous tip-off, at approximately four twenty-five p.m., claiming a bomb had been left in the grounds. A duffel bag was located by specialist police but we’ve since been informed that it was a hoax, and the bag contained an old transistor radio.’
The presenter moves on to another story and Elliot switches off the TV, placing the remote on the coffee-table. He moves over to the hob and she follows, her mind mulling over the news item.
It’s very familiar.
‘Probably teenagers thinking they’re funny,’ he says, as he dishes out the stir-fry. ‘It’s serious, though. If they got caught …’ He looks up and must see the expression on her face because he asks her what’s wrong.
She shakes her head. ‘Nothing. It’s just … I dunno. A bit weird.’
‘What?’
‘In my first book – you know, The Fire Starter …’
‘How can I forget?’ he says, his eyes softening. They’d met in a café while she was writing it, nearly eleven years ago. She was going through the divorce and renting a little flat with Jasmine after Jonas had bought her out of their marital home in Twickenham. She’d always wanted to write a novel but after university she’d taken a job on a local newspaper. She’d just landed a role as a staff features writer for one of the Sunday supplements when she found out she was pregnant with Jasmine. She’d been twenty-three, broke and living with Jonas, whom she’d met in her first year at university in Brighton, and the pregnancy hadn’t been planned. As soon as she’d broken the news to Jonas he’d proposed and they’d married a few months later: a small, somewhat rushed affair at the local register office.
After Jasmine was born she couldn’t afford to go back to work full time: the nursery fees would have eaten up her modest salary and her parents lived too far away to help – not that they would have done even if they’d lived in the same town – so she freelanced when she could. When Jonas left her she used the time while Jasmine was at school to write a book about a female detective with a no-nonsense attitude. Someone strong and ballsy because at that time she’d felt so weak and impotent.
Elliot had wandered into the riverside café on his lunchbreak from visiting a client. Her first impression of him was that he had warm brown eyes. Kind eyes. They’d got chatting after she’d asked if he could watch her laptop while she went to the loo.
‘How did you know I wouldn’t run off with it?’ he’d asked later.
‘Because you have a trustworthy face,’ she’d replied.
He still uses that against her now when she accuses him of taking the last bag of crisps or using up the remainder of the coffee. What – me? But I have a trustworthy face!
‘What about it?’ he asks now, rooting in the cutlery drawer.
‘Well,’ she says, as she carries the plates to the oak-topped dining table. ‘I wrote about this happening. A hoax call. A duffel bag with a transistor radio inside, left at Kew Gardens, remember?’
He dumps the knives and forks on the table with a clatter. ‘These things happen. It’s London. It’s just a coincidence, that’s all. You wrote that book years ago.’
Of course it’s a coincidence. That’s just the kind of rational thinking she loves about her husband. She always goes from zero to a hundred. But he’s right, it’s just one of those things. It will be kids mucking around, she suspects.
Like in her book.
Elliot turns back to the island. She watches him, trying to push away the niggling feeling that this is too much of a coincidence. It’s been eleven years since she wrote her debut, and it’s not like she can remember it word for word. But it’s coming back to her now.
When the bomb scare happened at Kew Gardens, her main character, DI Miranda Moody, was travelling along Kew Road on a bus that had to be evacuated.
Just like she had been.
3
‘Ma’am. It’s this way. She’s up there …’
DS Saunders is pointing to the wind-battered building overlooking the sea front. It’s late afternoon, the sky is a thick white and Saunders stamps his feet against the cold. Either that or he’s running out of patience. It’s hard to tell with him. I’m his boss so he can’t very well tell me to hurry the fuck up, although I’m sure that’s what he’s thinking. I don’t tell him I busted a gut to get here, or that when I received his call I was trying to persuade my elderly father that the wife he doted on – my mother – really would be better off in a nursing home. Or that my ex-husband has just announced he’s getting married again.
In the five years we’ve worked together I haven’t told him a thing about my private life. It’s better that way. Although, because he never stops talking, I know all about his. Not that there’s much to know except a lot of drinking in pubs with his mates after work, and the women he falls for hard and fast but never seem to return his feelings.
We flash our badges at the two uniformed officers who are guarding the property and stop to put on shoe covers. Police tape is already erected around the site. They step aside to make way for us. We duck under the tape, careful not to touch the front door as we head into the hallway and up the stairs. The brown carpet is threadbare, the walls a salmon-painted woodchip.
The smell hits me as soon as we reach the top of the stairs. The door to the bedsit is open and the scenes-of-crime officer is already in the small bedroom just off the hallway. Saunders and I stand at the threshold of the bedroom, careful not to touch anything, waiting to be allowed into the room. From where we stand we can see the victim is lying on the bed on her back, her hands and feet tied. She’s wearing a teal satin nightdress, the front soaked with blood.
The SOCO looks up. It’s Celia Winters. Mid-fifties and fierce. We know better than to walk into the room while she’s doing her job. Her whole demeanour is serious, professional. You wouldn’t know that we’re friends, or that we regularly go out drinking, more often than not ending the night singing tunelessly at the karaoke bar in Plymouth town centre.
‘Stabbed,’ she clarifies. ‘Multiple times. Time of death to be determined but I’m thinking she’s been dead at least twelve hours. And there’s something else.’ She walks over to the victim’s leg. ‘Here on the ankle …’
I turn to Saunders knowing that his expression and the adrenaline rush will be mirroring mine. We hold our breath expectantly. Waiting. Already knowing what she’s going to say.