“The eighteenth of November,” I said, checking my notes. “Why?”
“It’s just . . . that’s the anniversary. Of our mother’s death. It seems . . . oh, I don’t know.” She frowned. “It just seems odd, because Nel usually called me on the eighteenth, and last year was notable because she didn’t. It turned out she was in hospital, for an emergency appendectomy. I suppose I’m just surprised she would have been spending her time buying diet pills when she was in hospital for emergency surgery. You’re sure it was the eighteenth?”
• • •
BACK AT THE STATION, I checked with Hairy. I was right about the date.
“She could have bought them on her mobile,” Callie suggested. “It is really boring in hospital.”
But Hairy shook his head. “No, I’ve checked the IP address—whoever made the pur
chase did so at four-seventeen p.m. and they did so from a computer using the Mill House router. So it had to be someone in or near the house. Do you know what time she went into hospital?”
I didn’t, but it wasn’t difficult to find out. Nel Abbott was admitted in the small hours of 18 November for an emergency appendectomy, just like her sister said. She remained in hospital all that day, and they kept her in overnight, too.
Nel couldn’t have bought the pills. They were purchased by someone else, using her card, in her home.
“Lena,” I said to Sean. “It’s got to be Lena.”
He nodded, grim-faced. “We’re going to need to talk to her.”
“You want to do it now?” I asked him, and he nodded again.
“No time like the present,” he said. “No time like immediately after the child has lost her mother. Christ, this is a mess.”
• • •
AND IT WAS about to get messier. We were on our way out of the office when we were waylaid by an overexcited Callie.
“The prints!” she said breathlessly. “They’ve got a match. Well, not quite a match, because there’s no match to anyone who’s come forward, only—”
“Only what?” the DI snapped.
“Some bright spark decided to take a look at the print on the pill bottle and compare it to the print on the camera—you know, the damaged one?”
“Yes, we remember the damaged camera,” Sean replied.
“OK, well, they match. And before you say it, it’s not Nel Abbott’s print, and it’s not Katie Whittaker’s. Someone else handled both those objects.”
“Louise,” Sean said. “It has to be. Louise Whittaker.”
MARK
Mark was zipping up his suitcase when the detective arrived. A different detective this time, another woman, a bit older and not so pretty.
“DS Erin Morgan,” she said, shaking his hand. “I was wondering if I could have a word.”
He didn’t invite her in. The house was a mess and he wasn’t in the mood to be accommodating.
“I’m packing to go on holiday,” he said. “I’m driving to Edinburgh this evening to pick up my fiancée. We’re going to Spain for a few days.”
“It won’t take long,” DS Morgan said, her gaze slipping over his shoulder and into the house.
He pulled the front door closed. They spoke on the front step.
He assumed it would be about Nel Abbott again. He was, after all, one of the last people to see her alive. He’d seen her outside the pub, they’d spoken briefly, he’d watched her head off towards the Mill House. He was prepared for that conversation. He wasn’t prepared for this one.
“I know you’ve already been over this, but there are a few things we need to clarify,” the woman said, “about events leading up to the death of Katie Whittaker.”