In Love And Murder, page 8
‘I think we left about one in the morning.’
‘Just the two of you?’
The girls exchanged glances again. ‘Yes,’ said Poppy in a weak voice.
‘Why didn’t Gina come back with you?’
The two girls glanced down at their hands. It was Miranda who looked up first. ‘Gina always did her own thing. She went to the party separately too. She said she had work to complete before leaving college, so Tyler had to drive us to the house and then come all the way back to pick her up. We thought it was a bit cheeky, to be honest, but that’s what Gina was like. So when it was time to leave we weren’t too surprised she didn’t come with us.’
‘When was the last time you saw Gina?’
‘Um, sometime before midnight?’ said Poppy. She looked to Miranda, who nodded her confirmation.
‘Weren’t you worried about leaving her behind?’ Ffion asked. ‘Did she say what she was planning to do?’
‘She said she might stay overnight if she got the chance,’ said Miranda, refusing to make eye contact with Ffion.
‘What kind of chance?’ She looked from one to the other.
A guilty look washed over Poppy’s face. She evaded Ffion’s question, saying, ‘We should never have left her behind.’ She burst into fresh tears and Miranda leaned over to comfort her again.
‘What kind of chance?’ repeated Ffion, beginning to exhaust her supply of sympathy for the two girls.
‘Gina was always snooping around,’ said Poppy, wiping her eyes. ‘You know, listening in to people’s conversations, taking photos when she thought no one was looking.’
‘Why would she do that?’
‘She fancied herself as a bit of an investigative journalist,’ said Miranda, somewhat scornfully. ‘I mean, she was only writing for the student newspaper, but she saw the parties as a chance to do some undercover work and poke her nose into the lives of the guests.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Poppy.
Ffion was starting to get the impression what while Miranda and Poppy were very close, Gina hadn’t been such a close-knit member of the trio.
‘We tried to tell her not to,’ said Miranda.
‘We were worried she’d get caught,’ said Poppy, ‘and that we’d all lose our jobs. It’s a really easy way to earn good money.’
‘But Gina wasn’t content just to earn a bit of cash,’ said Miranda. ‘She always had to push things to the next level.’
The girls fell silent, perhaps realising that they were sounding rather resentful of their dead friend.
‘Was Gina following anyone in particular?’ asked Ffion.
They shook their heads in unison.
‘We didn’t ask,’ explained Poppy. ‘We told her that we didn’t want to know anything about it.’
‘She told us that it was up to her what she did,’ said Miranda. ‘And that if she got caught, that was her problem.’
‘We had a bit of an argument about it, actually,’ said Poppy. ‘We said that if she got caught, it would become our problem too. We didn’t want to lose our jobs.’ She began to cry again. ‘And now she’s lost her life. Oh my God, I still can’t believe it.’
‘When was this argument?’
‘Last night. It was the last time we saw her.’ Poppy dissolved into yet another flood of tears.
Ffion waited impatiently a moment while Miranda consoled her.
‘Did Gina have a boyfriend?’
‘No,’ said Miranda. ‘She went out with one of the biologists in her first year, but that didn’t last long. Gina was a hard worker. She didn’t really have time for boys.’
‘So, was working as waitresses a regular gig?’
‘This was the first time this academic year,’ said Miranda. ‘We’d done it a few times last term. Mr Damon throws a lot of parties, usually one every couple of weeks.’
‘What do you know about Mr Damon?’
‘Not much,’ said Miranda. ‘He told us he runs a building company. He’s obviously very rich.’
‘And were your duties at these parties strictly limited to waitressing?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Poppy.
‘She means,’ Miranda explained, not making any effort to conceal the resentment in her voice, ‘were we required to provide sexual favours to the guests?’
‘God, no,’ said Poppy. ‘Of course not. What do you take us for?’
‘And yet a number of women were employed from an escort agency to entertain the guests.’
‘Well, yeah,’ said Miranda. ‘We knew about that, obviously. But we had nothing to do with any of it.’
Poppy concurred vigorously, nodding her head. ‘Mr Damon was a good employer. He always treated us well. And Brittany was really good too. She told us we didn’t have to put up with any sexual harassment from the guests, and to tell her if any of them tried anything.’
Ffion bristled at this further unsolicited praise of Brittany, but stayed focused on her questions. ‘And did any of the guests ever try anything on?’
‘After a few drinks some of them could get a little over-friendly,’ admitted Miranda, ‘but you were okay if you just kept moving. We didn’t stand still long enough for them to get their hands on us.’
‘What about Gina?’
‘What about her?’ asked Miranda.
‘Did she ever become involved with any of the guests?’
The girls exchanged glances. ‘Gina tended to make use of her good looks to get what she wanted,’ said Miranda. ‘I don’t want to say anything bad about her, but she knew how men looked at her, and she wasn’t afraid to turn that to her advantage.’
‘How?’
‘Well, if she needed a guy to do something for her, or if she wanted to find out some information, she might flirt a bit to get what she wanted.’
‘But she wouldn’t have slept with any of them,’ blurted Poppy. ‘I mean, she’d have had to be really desperate. They were all middle-aged men.’
‘Tell me about them. Do you know who any of them were?’
The girls looked at each other as if trying to decide whether or not to reveal something. Eventually it was Miranda who spoke.
‘Look, we’re not supposed to know anything about the guests. Brittany gave us strict instructions never to ask them any personal questions. We’re just supposed to smile and be helpful.’
‘And they wear those masks too,’ said Poppy. ‘They don’t even use their real names.’
‘Exactly,’ continued Miranda. ‘But we’re not stupid. One of them is a politician.’
‘And one’s a judge,’ said Poppy.
‘I think the rest are all Mr Damon’s business contacts.’
‘There was someone a bit closer to home present at the party last night,’ said Ffion, watching their faces.
‘You must mean Dr Frost,’ said Poppy.
‘Yes, Gina spotted him,’ said Miranda. ‘We were in the kitchen fetching trays of canapés, and she came in and said, “You’ll never guess who’s here.” I thought she was going to name someone really famous, like an actor, but then she said, “Dr Frost.” I had to ask her who she meant and she said that he’s the German lecturer, here in college.’
‘Had you seen Dr Frost at one of these parties before?’
Both girls shook their head.
‘What do you remember about his behaviour at the party?’
‘Not much,’ said Miranda. ‘Obviously, after Gina told us, we both went to see for ourselves. It was him, all right, wearing a Venetian mask. I think he’d had rather too much to drink.’
‘And did Gina mention him again? Or did you see him with her?’
‘No.’ Miranda frowned. ‘What’s all this about Dr Frost?’
‘He was found in bed with Gina’s body this morning.’
‘What? Oh my God!’ Poppy threw her hands into her face once more.
Miranda looked stunned. ‘But why –’
‘That’s what we’re investigating,’ said Ffion shortly. ‘What do you know about him?’
‘Not a lot. Poppy and I are studying English, and of course Gina was studying Psychology, not German. I’ve seen him walking between his room and the Senior Common Room, and he’s always on high table at formal hall, but I’ve never spoken to him.’
‘Me neither,’ said Poppy. ‘I know a couple of people studying German and they’ve never said anything about him either.’
That will soon change, thought Ffion. Frost’s reputation as the college’s nonentity would end forever once word got out that he’d been found in bed with a murdered student.
Somehow, Ffion couldn’t quite picture the German tutor as a killer. He might be a bit of a nutter and a conspiracy theorist, but he’d been surprisingly direct and frank in his interview that morning, which wasn’t how guilty people tended to behave. She suspected that he’d most likely found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps it had even been a deliberate set-up, as he claimed. In that case, the murderer must be one of the other party guests, or perhaps the host himself. The devil, in other words, in the guise of Nick Damon.
She thanked Miranda and Poppy for their time and told them that the police might need to speak to them again. ‘Let me know if you think of anything,’ she added. Then she headed back to the porters’ lodge to meet Bridget.
7
After taking her leave of Gina’s tutor, Bridget headed back to the gatehouse to wait for Ffion. The MP for Witney had not yet returned her call, so while she waited she rang his constituency office for a second time.
A familiar haughty female voice answered after three rings. ‘Mr Avery-Blanchard’s constituency office is now closed for the weekend. If you would like to make an appointment to see Mr Avery-Blanchard between the hours of –’
Bridget hung up. If the MP didn’t return her call, she would have to try his home number the following morning.
When Ffion arrived, they swapped notes on their respective interviews, and Bridget offered to give her a lift to wherever she wanted to go. It had been a long day and there was little more they could do now. In the morning, it would be time for a team meeting and the laborious task of bringing together all the various witness statements and forensic evidence that had been gathered during the first twenty-four hours. They would need to take a view on whether or not to charge or release Frost. And Bridget would have to meet Gina’s parents and take them to the morgue to formally identify the body. But that was all for the following day.
Ffion declined Bridget’s offer of a lift, setting off at a brisk pace on her long legs in the direction of the city centre. Bridget assumed she had plans for the evening ahead, presumably involving Jake.
Bridget, too, had firm plans. It was Saturday night, and she was determined not to let Jonathan, her date for the evening, down again. So many times she’d had to cancel their plans at the last minute, or had been called away on urgent business, sometimes even during a date. She wasn’t going to let that happen tonight.
She checked her watch. Five o’clock. Enough time to go home, take a shower – she worried that the odour of chlorine from the pool that morning still clung to her skin, making her smell like a public bathroom – and put on something more attractive. She clambered into her Mini, turned up the volume on Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and headed home.
The village of Wolvercote in North-West Oxford had been almost subsumed into the city but still retained a feeling of separateness, shielded from relentless urban encroachment by the protective barrier of the Oxford Canal and the railway tracks. The common ground of Port Meadow lay to the south, and to the north and west, mile upon mile of farmland stretched out. Bridget and Chloe occupied a tiny terraced house overlooking the village green. It was just big enough for the two of them. Her sister, Vanessa, who was married to a wealthy businessman, lived in a huge detached property on Charlbury Road in leafy North Oxford. While Vanessa employed a small army of cleaners, gardeners, painters and decorators to keep her house in show-home condition, Bridget made do with her own somewhat lackadaisical efforts at keeping the house clean and presentable. But she had made slightly more of an effort in anticipation of tonight’s date, in the hope that Jonathan would come back with her afterwards. She was pleased to be met by the scent of wood polish and lemon air freshener as she let herself in at the front door.
Chloe was spending the night at a friend’s house, which meant that Bridget and Jonathan would have the place to themselves. At fifteen, Chloe was growing up fast. She was now in Year Eleven and would be sitting her GCSE exams next summer. Bridget had been trying to impress upon her the importance of the coming year at school but she worried that the message hadn’t yet fully sunk in.
‘There’s more to life than taking exams,’ was Chloe’s usual retort. Or, ‘It’s ages yet, Mum. Chill.’
But it wasn’t just concern about Chloe’s grades that was bothering Bridget. Her own younger sister, Abigail, had started to go off the rails at precisely this age. Once a promising student, Abigail had got in with the wrong crowd. She’d started staying out later and later, defying their parents’ requests to come home at a reasonable time. And then, at sixteen years old, Abigail had been found strangled in Wytham Woods, her killer never caught. This tragic event was the defining moment of Bridget’s life, shaking her comfortable, middle-class existence to the core. It was what had driven her to join the police, to try and make a difference in the world. While Vanessa cocooned herself from the outside world with her coordinating soft-furnishings, Bridget strove after justice for those who couldn’t get it for themselves. It wasn’t surprising that she was hyper-sensitive to Chloe’s behaviour.
She called Chloe’s mobile now, and was reassured to learn that she was at Olivia’s house and they were planning to get a home-delivered pizza and then watch a film.
‘Are you going on your date, Mum?’ asked Chloe.
‘I’m just about to get ready.’
‘Don’t screw it up this time,’ said Chloe with a sigh. ‘You know what always happens. You have to cancel or leave early because of work. You’re not in the middle of a murder case right now, are you?’
‘Well…’
‘Mum!’
‘Don’t worry. I won’t mess up this time,’ said Bridget. ‘I promise.’
‘Okay, then. Have fun.’
‘You too.’
She ended the call. Chloe knew her only too well. She checked her watch and realised with a shock that she only had half an hour to get ready. She jumped in the shower and scrubbed her body with a mesh sponge doused in lavender gel in an attempt to remove any lingering scent of eau de chlorine. Then she put on her best underwear and what she hoped was a stylish dress. It showed off her curvaceous figure, and Chloe had assured her that it was suitable for a date. To her relief, it still fitted. She applied a quick layer of foundation and a smear of nude lipstick, then ran a comb through her bobbed hair, but it was still damp at the ends when the doorbell rang. She rushed to get the door.
It was Jonathan, wearing a dark coat over smart trousers and a burgundy shirt. ‘You look lovely,’ he said, leaning forward to plant a kiss on her lips. ‘Are you ready?’
‘I’m ready,’ said Bridget. ‘Let’s go.’
*
After leaving Wadham College, Ffion chose to walk rather than to accept Bridget’s offer of a lift. She’d planned to go for a run this morning, but they’d been called to the house in West Oxfordshire instead. Now she was missing it. For Ffion, running wasn’t merely physical exercise, it was moving meditation. Being alone and outdoors gave her the mental space she needed to think.
She walked south from the college, crossing over Broad Street and passing the Radcliffe Camera, the circular domed building that formed part of the Bodleian Library. From there she turned left onto the High Street and headed towards Magdalen Bridge. Her gear was still at Jake’s place where she’d spent the previous night.
She’d been seeing Jake for a month now and it had been going well. Ffion had enough self-awareness to know that she was a complex character, and could be difficult to get on with at times. Jake had rebuked her once or twice for being short with him, or for failing to show due consideration, and she hadn’t minded. Jake had a natural gift for empathy that Ffion knew she sometimes lacked, and she was willing to learn and to change. A relationship was a continuous two-way flow, and no doubt she’d forced some changes on Jake too. There was less football in his life these days, and less beer. But a lot more sex.
Leaving the dreaming spires of central Oxford behind her, she darted across the Plain roundabout, dodging the buses, cars and cyclists that jostled for space, and headed east down Cowley Road. This was where Oxford changed from a city dominated by medieval quadrangles, Gothic towers and eighteenth-century libraries to a multi-ethnic, bustling community packed with diverse restaurants, bars and small shops. Ffion liked the alternative vibe in this part of town. Now that the new term had started, the road was bustling, as freshers headed out for the evening, keen to explore some of Oxford’s lesser-frequented pubs and eateries.
She soon arrived outside the launderette below Jake’s one-bedroom flat. The washing machines were all whirring away, emitting a warm, soapy smell from within. The Indian restaurant next door was just opening up for the evening. The Chinese takeaway on the other side was already doing a brisk business with people popping in to buy dinner on their way home. Ffion fished in her pocket for the key that Jake had given her and unlocked the door that led in from the street. She scooped up the day’s mail that had landed on the mat – mainly advertisements for pizza delivery services and taxi companies – and climbed the narrow staircase up to his flat.
‘Hi! It’s me!’ she called, but was disappointed to find that Jake wasn’t yet home. Surely he couldn’t still be at the house with Brittany. She called his phone, but the call went straight through to voicemail. ‘Hi, where are you?’ she said, unable to keep the irritation from her voice. ‘I’m in your flat.’
She dumped the mail on the table in the living room and glanced round in despair at the general clutter and mess. She was sure she’d tidied up the previous evening, but it looked just as bad as ever. Since she’d started spending nights here she’d laid down a few rules, and Jake had begun to make a little more effort, but he still tolerated a far messier environment than she ever could. One of the first things she’d done was to buy him a laundry basket so she wouldn’t have to bear the sight of his dirty clothes heaped in the corner of the bedroom. She insisted that they wash up after eating so that they didn’t have to face the dirty dishes the next morning. And she had forbidden him from ever leaving the cap off the toothpaste in the bathroom. But even so, the flat was far too disorganised and dirty for her to sit and relax while she waited for Jake to come home.
