‘That seems simple enough. And I guess you’re going to head off in another direction?’
Sam didn’t reply. He didn’t do words when silence would suffice. She followed him to the car. He extracted the promised anorak from the boot and handed it to her. He leaned forward and gave her a quick squeeze. ‘Thanks, honey. Now, go!’
* * *
More than two hours had elapsed since the detectives’ visit, but Zoe Fisher was still on the most dangerous of edges. So when the doorbell rang, she almost squealed. She stood stock still and waited. The bell rang again, more insistently this time. Her anxiety levels were bouncing around like helium-filled balloons in a wind tunnel. Perhaps the police had come back. They had found out that she had not told the whole truth — God only knew how they had found out — and they had come back to grill her again, maybe even take her down to the police station. She padded softly along the carpet and not for the first time cursed herself for not having had a spyhole installed in the flat door. Carefully she slipped the security chain into position. She took a deep breath and turned the catch, allowing the door to open just ten centimetres. She peered through the gap and saw a face she didn’t recognise. Red hair, bright wide-open eyes and a distinctly expensive perfume.
‘I’m a friend of Maggie’s. Alice King. I’ve got a message for you. She doesn’t want to ring you or come here in person because she’s worried that she is being tracked. Can I come in?’
Zoe slipped off the chain and let her in.
‘What the hell is going on?’ Zoe gasped before bursting into hysterical tears.
It took several minutes for Alice to calm Zoe down. She tried talking to her quietly, but that had no effect. She found a half-drunk bottle of white wine in the fridge and gave her a drink, but if anything that made things even worse. Finally, she removed Zoe’s glasses from her nose and gave her a single sharp slap. That worked.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Alice said. ‘It might help.’
So Zoe talked — about the police, about Maggie Rogers and about the letters. Alice was the perfect listener, occasionally asking a question, but mostly just keeping quiet and paying attention. Zoe wondered if Alice had had professional training. Maybe she worked for the Samaritans in her spare time.
When Zoe finally fell silent, Alice said, ‘Would you like a neck massage?’
‘Oh God, yes!’ Zoe replied. ‘A neck massage and then an early night is just what I need.’
Zoe sat up straighter and allowed her eyes to close. Sometimes she had clients who fell asleep while they were having a haircut. That was what she hoped would happen to her while Alice massaged. A lovely dreamless sleep.
And that was what did happen, in a way. Zoe felt something soft and gentle drift around her neck, but it was gentle only
for a second or two. Then it tightened viciously, so that she coughed and choked. ‘Alice!’ she gasped, as she tried desperately to claw herself free from the scarf, now tight around her neck. But in less than a minute she was unconscious and shortly after that she was dead.
‘Not Alice,’ the woman said as Zoe sank into oblivion. ‘Bridget.’
Bridget searched the flat methodically but with limited success. There were no more letters. No diary. No nothing, except for Zoe Fisher’s mobile. Amongst all the photos were two selfies of Zoe and Maggie in a bar somewhere in Oxford, taken three months previously. Not exactly world-shattering, but it did show that Zoe had been lying about the friendship. More fool her.
* * *
Sinead reached Penrith just after 9.30 p.m. If Sam had been with her, he would have insisted on driving around until they located an out-of-the-way parade of shops. But in her book it was a lot easier just to head for the large supermarket in the centre of town. She pulled up on the far side of the car-parking area where one of the overhead lights had failed. She swapped her leather jacket for the anorak, pulled up the hood and wrapped a scarf around her face. Then she made her way to the bank of cash machines, put in the card, entered the PIN that Sam has given her and withdrew £300. Simple. There was only a scattering of parked cars. A young couple in a battered Ford Focus nearly bumped into her as they exited the supermarket in a hurry. They were stuffing what looked like Krispy Kreme donuts into their faces.
Sinead walked unhurriedly back to her car, removed the anorak and put on her leather jacket, scanning the area again as she did so. Nothing and nobody to worry about. Inside the car, she studied the bank card for several seconds before tucking it into the zip pocket above her left breast. Then she started the engine and headed out of town and onto the motorway heading south. She drove for nearly an hour before pulling up at some services. After a visit to the toilets, she bought herself a black Americano and returned to her car where she stood, sipping it. Her right hand played some half-remembered tune on the zipper of her jacket, up down, up down. She barely noticed the chill northern breeze which was blowing a crisp packet across the tarmac. The coffee was strong but too bitter, and eventually she tossed the cardboard cup, still half full, into the nearest bin. She extricated her mobile from an inside pocket and flicked through the contacts list until she found the number she had been looking for.
She should have checked in earlier, at Penrith at the latest. Really she should have rung through after her meet-up with Sam. But Sam and she went back a long way. She spat the last of the bitter taste of the coffee into the darkness. She flipped the phone shut and stuck it back in her top pocket. To hell with Bowman. He could wait until morning.
* * *
Back in the kitchen, Maggie had located a bottle of Chilean Merlot. She poured herself a generous glassful and opened up her tablet. The house belonged to one of Sam’s friends, or so he had said. Maggie was doubtful, but Sam had known where to find a spare set of keys (hidden under a flowerpot no less) and she hadn’t been in a mood to question him. The heating worked, the cooker worked and so too (she assumed) would the Wi-Fi. She entered the password — conveniently written on a small square of ivory card pinned to the kitchen noticeboard — and waited.
Her brain was spinning. Sam had never mentioned Ellie getting into a car. Hadn’t he known? Did he not ask her where she was going that night? Did she regularly get into big black cars of an evening? When Sam had originally told her that Ellie had been killed in a hit-and-run, Maggie had imagined Ellie walking off up the road to the gym or maybe going on a run after dark. Carelessly cutting across the road as the rain came down, straight across the path of a car driven by a man with a mobile phone attached this ear. Bang! Then Sam had told her that Ellie had rung him up and blown her brains out while he was listening. Bang.
Maggie pushed these thoughts to the back of her brain. The internet had finally sparked into life on the tablet. She started to search. It shouldn’t be that difficult to find details, she told herself. She knew where Ellie had lived. She knew the date — or near as dammit. Suicides got reported. A woman obliterating herself with a bullet through the head was news, especially for the local press. Post-mortems were carried out. Funerals were held. Bad news was always good news as far as the media is concerned.
‘. . . I just can’t believe it, she was such a nice woman.’
‘Loved her daughter. Always ready to help.’
‘You would never have guessed she was so unhappy.’
Maggie could have written the newspaper reports for them. All that crap. So trite, but often true.
Almost immediately Maggie came up with several hits for Ellie Nelson. Mostly they were from several years ago, when she had appeared in court for taking part in demonstrations at the local airbase and a controversial bypass project. In one photo, she was standing next to a woman who had shrouded her face with a long scarf. She didn’t need to peer at that one to know who Ellie’s companion was. She could recognise herself even though the Maggie of those days carried a lot less weight than she did now. She moved on. There was a grainy photo of Ellie chained to a tree and a tall guy in a balaclava half turned away, anxious to preserve his anonymity. Sam probably. She stared at the screen, peering closer. Definitely Sam. Other articles revealed how Ellie had been fined on one occasion and given a short suspended custodial sentence on another. There was a more recent and less controversial moment — a photograph of her and Beth standing with various other mums, dads and children outside a family centre which had just been saved from the austerity guillotine.