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Leaving him to it, Gemma glanced briefly into the bathroom. Towels hung on the warmer, bottles of shampoo and bubble bath crowded the tub’s edge, and on the basin, a ceramic cup held two toothbrushes.
She carried on into the back bedroom, undoubtedly Harriet’s. The hastily made bed sported a navy coverlet with gold stars. Under the window, brightly colored plastic crates held a jumble of books and school projects, and above the desk, a corkboard was jammed with drawings and photos of pop singers and movie stars, cut from glossy magazines.
Next to the desk stood a wardrobe, one of its doors half open, spilling out a jumper and a pair of frayed-bottomed jeans. Opening the doors all the way, Gemma checked the built-in drawers and found them stuffed to bursting with T-shirts and panties and mismatched socks – all expected, and all heartbreakingly ordinary.
Hearing a step behind her, Gemma turned as Doug came into the room. “I’ve had a look upstairs,” he told her. “There’s a box room and an office. The boffins will have to have a go at the computer, but I found this under the desk blotter.” He handed her a piece of scratch paper. In blue ink, in a neat, firm hand, was a list of women’s names.
Mary Talbot. Amy Lloyd. Tanika Makuba. Clover Howes. Ciara Do
The first three and the last had been checked off; the fourth and fifth bore tiny penciled question marks.
“It could be anything,” said Gemma. “An invitation list for a birthday party, or a school outing. A professional group…” She took out her notebook and copied down the names, then glanced up at Doug. “But it was under the blotter?”
“Just a corner showing. There was nothing else obviously interesting on the desk itself, just the usual bills and household paperwork, and stacks of literature from different causes, mostly neighborhood things – meals for the homeless at St. John’s Waterloo, the food bank, family violence outreach. Oh, and the file drawer containing personal documents was standing half open. Seems to support Novak’s story about the passport.”
Gemma’s phone rang. Even from her pocket the sound was unexpectedly loud in the quiet house. Her first guilty thought was of the boys, needing her at home, but a look at the ID told her it was Kincaid.
When she answered, he said without preamble, “I’ve just had a call from Ko
Gemma felt her doubts dissolve, leaving a hard and implacable certainty, and a spasm of grief for a woman she would never meet. “It’s not Chloe Yarwood, is it?”
“How did you know?”
She thought of the dirty dishes in the sink, the kicked-off shoes, the unopened mail, all the small telling details of a life interrupted. “Because Laura Novak didn’t run off with her daughter,” she said. “Because when Laura Novak walked out of this house on Thursday night, she had every intention of coming back.”
“We need to talk,” said the message from Kincaid as Gemma checked her voice mail an hour later. “Ring me and we’ll meet somewhere… How about the Anchor, Bankside.”
Gemma stood by her car in Ufford Street, having just come away from an exhausting visit with Wi
But Fa
As Gemma spoke, Fa
“I don’t think there’s any doubt. Tony Novak identified Elaine’s photo. It explains so many things, including why she left without telling you on Thursday night.” Gemma reached out and took Fa
“No. I – no. No, I can’t imagine.”
“Did she ever say-” began Gemma, then stopped as she saw Wi
Fa
Gemma felt the skin tighten between her shoulder blades as she remembered Fa
And if it was Laura Novak who had died in the warehouse, who had killed her? Where were Elaine and Harriet, and how did Chloe Yarwood fit into it all? For if they had proof of anything, it was that Chloe Yarwood had been in the warehouse that night.
Kincaid was right; they had to talk.
Setting a fire in daylight took nerve and cu
The pleasure had been more intense than any he’d experienced, and yet it had left him with a niggling shard of discontent. He’d held the open flame of the pocket lighter to the furniture – oh, yes – but he’d missed the careful pla
But this one, this one he’d worked out well in advance. He knew the building from a job he’d had some years ago, and he’d marked it then on the map he carried always in the back of his mind. The place was perfect, a neglected Victorian warehouse, set back from any main thoroughfare. This meant not only that he’d be less likely to be seen, but that the blaze would have more time to take hold before it was reported. And best yet, he knew the building had an illegal propane tank. Once he’d set alight the cardboard boxes accumulated on the ground floor, the warehouse would burn like fury.
They would come, the firemen – firefighters, he corrected himself, his lip curling at the politically correct term – like little gods in their coats and helmets and boots, and he would show them.
He thought of the photograph he kept by his bed, a faded sepia image of a Victorian fire company, all Southwark men, in full regalia. They might look like Gilbert and Sullivan caricatures to the modern eye, with their luxuriant whiskers and pointed helmets, their mongrel dogs in their laps, but these men had been real firefighters who had fought real fires. Heroes. They had been heroes the likes of which the fire service would not see again.