Perfect Strangers

‘I’m calling the police right now,’ said Ruth, pulling out her mobile.

The older woman put out a hand.

‘They are already on their way,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘The inspector in charge of Sophie’s case is due at twelve. He wanted to talk to me.’

‘Inspector Fox?’ said Ruth with a start.

‘That’s right.’

Ruth glanced at her watch – quarter to twelve. Damn, that didn’t give her much time.

Julia had walked through to the living room and was beginning to pick up some books strewn on the floor.

‘I don’t think you should touch anything, Mrs Ellis,’ said Ruth gently. ‘Why don’t you come through to the kitchen and I’ll make you a cup of tea while we wait for the inspector?’

Julia’s eyes were wide, shocked, as she sat down at the kitchen table and Ruth filled the kettle. She looked tiny and brittle against the big oak chair.

‘It’ll have to be Earl Grey, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘No milk you see. I told the milkman I was going to be away . . .’ She stopped and turned to Ruth, her mouth open. ‘You don’t think it was the milkman, do you? He was the only one who knew I’d be out of the country.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Ruth quietly.

Julia gave a mirthless laugh.

‘If whoever it was only knew we had nothing left to take. They should hav

e tried the Hendersons up the road. She’s always boasting about her silverware.’

She shook her head.

‘You know, a few weeks ago, I was standing here with Sophie,’ she said. ‘It was just after my husband’s funeral, and my daughter said that things were going to turn a corner for us. She said it with such sunniness, such confidence, that I almost believed her. But she was wrong, wasn’t she? So wrong.’

Ruth rummaged around the cupboards, finally finding a set of elegant bone-china cups with a pattern picked out in gold. It was all very tasteful; in fact, from what she could see under the mess, the Ellis house was the epitome of upper-middle-class commuter-belt living.

She put the tea in front of Julia and took a seat opposite her. Julia appeared not to notice, too busy stabbing her fingers at the digits of her mobile phone. She tutted loudly when there was no reply from the person she was calling.

‘Sophie, where are you?’ she said, gripping her fingers around the tea cup.

‘I’ve been trying her all morning,’ said Ruth softly. ‘I think her phone is off.’

Julia Ellis shook her head and then focused her full attention on Ruth. ‘You said she spoke to you. Did she give you any idea about where she was going?’

‘I saw her outside her apartment in Battersea, then I followed her to Chelsea. She met a man on a houseboat by Stamford Wharf. Do you have any idea who that might be?’

Julia shook her head.

‘A houseboat?’ There was a subtle look of distaste on her face. ‘Will – that was her last boyfriend, a very nice young man – lived just off the King’s Road. Not in a boat. I hope she hasn’t got in with a bad sort. Ever since the troubles, she hasn’t been herself.’

‘The troubles?’ asked Ruth.

‘My husband lost a lot of money in a bad investment scheme,’ said Julia, looking away; it was clearly not something she wanted to talk about.

‘Please, Mrs Ellis,’ said Ruth. ‘We are all worried about Sophie. Anything you tell me could be relevant.’

Julia hesitated. ‘Well, you’re American, so I suppose you’ll know all about it,’ she said thinly. ‘We lost everything through the Michael Asner Ponzi scheme. The stress of it all killed my husband from a heart attack a few weeks ago.’

Ruth tried to keep her face straight, but her journalistic instincts were tingling. Peter Ellis had invested in the Asner Ponzi scheme? Immediately her mind began to see the story laid out in print: British family wiped out by financial sting, brokenhearted father suffers heart attack, distraught daughter subsequently becomes a murder suspect. She could feel her pulse begin to race. Even for the Washington Tribune, with its emphasis on politics and world news, this was a better story than she had imagined. But still something didn’t quite fit. The Asner scheme had been such big news when it was exposed twelve months earlier because Michael Asner, a supposedly genius investor, had preyed on the East and West Coast super-rich. It was an insiders’ club for the wildly wealthy, and Asner had used their greed against them, providing high returns on investments that nobody thought or wanted to question. The news piece on Peter Ellis’s funeral had mentioned that he was an accountant with a practice in the City. He was clearly a well-off white-collar professional, but he hardly fitted the Asner victim profile.

‘Yes, I read about that,’ she said carefully. ‘Your husband was in financial services, wasn’t he? Is that how he came to invest with Asner?’