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.’
She takes a deep breath. ‘Trevor? He was in the police back then. Was it him? Was he working on the case at the time?’
Trevor might not be the praying-mantis murderer, but he could have been having an affair with Louise’s mum. Maybe he stabbed her, then made it look like she was murdered by the serial killer. But if that was the case then Elliot is Ash. She inwardly groans. She’s just going around in circles.
DI Murray’s voice breaks into her thoughts. ‘No. At that time Trevor was working in Vice on another case.’
‘So …’ she’s confused ‘… what are you saying? Do you think you know who it is?’
‘I’m keeping an open mind right now, but think back to your conversations with Louise. I suspect all this is still linked to someone you know. Why did Louise target you in particular?’
Emilia places a hand on her forehead. She feels hot, like she’s coming down with something. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t think straight right now …’
‘It’s late. Just consider what I’ve said and I’ll speak to you tomorrow. Goodnight, Emilia. Try to get some sleep.’ The line goes dead. Emilia sighs, clutching her mobile to her chest. She feels even more confused.
‘Who was that?’
She looks up. Ottilie is standing in the doorway. She’s wearing a long floral kimono with cream silk pyjamas underneath, her blonde hair flowing behind her. She has a mug in her hand, which she places next to Emilia. ‘Hot chocolate. I thought you might need it.’
Emilia takes it gratefully, wrapping her hands around the mug. It’s not hot, but warm, and she drinks it all. Then she looks up at Ottilie’s expectant face. ‘It was DI Murray.’
‘What did she say?’
Ottilie steps back so that she’s standing in the middle of the room. The cat suddenly trots into view and Ottilie bends down to scoop it up. The tartan collar. Emilia’s heart drops as a memory surfaces: the photograph on Louise’s mobile. She’d pushed it under her nose that night in the restaurant when she talked about getting a cat. She remembers it vividly because she’d been a bit envious, knowing how Elliot feels about pets. The image sharpens in her mind’s eye: a photograph of a black cat with a tartan collar and a white bib. The pink nose. Hamish. A boy. And she’s suddenly hit with the certainty that the cat Ottilie is holding in her arms is Louise’s.
‘Where did you get that cat?’
Ottilie looks up in surprise, the moonlight reflecting in her sea-glass eyes. ‘What?’
‘The cat?’
‘It’s my friends’。 I told you.’
‘It looks like Louise’s.’
Ottilie frowns and flicks her hair over her shoulder. ‘Louise had a cat?’
‘Yes.’ Emilia places her mug on the table and walks over to where Ottilie stands. ‘A male cat. I’d forgotten. But now I think about it, nobody mentioned seeing a cat at Louise’s flat at the scene, or afterwards.’
Ottilie shrugs. ‘Maybe it ran off.’
‘Can I see?’ She reaches out to take the cat but Ottilie moves away.
‘She’s nervous of strangers.’
‘I think you’ll find that cat is a he, Ottilie.’
Ottilie’s body stiffens but she keeps hold of the cat.
How could Emilia not have seen what was staring her in the face for so long? DI Murray’s theory was right. A girl not a boy.