Killing a Stranger Read online

  ‘Not everything is your business,’ Naomi laughed.

  Patrick grimaced. ‘Is this to do with Rob?’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘I know you,’ he said pointedly. ‘I can’t see you leaving everything to Alec.’

  Naomi laughed. ‘It’s just a rumour that didn’t get followed up at the time,’ she said. ‘I thought of someone who might have some answers so I went to see her.’

  ‘But you can’t tell me about it.’

  ‘If it comes to anything I will,’ Naomi promised and Patrick, reluctantly, had to be satisfied.

  Discussion was interrupted by Alec’s arrival and he had something for Patrick to look at.

  ‘I’ve talked to my boss,’ he said. ‘But you’ve got to understand this is still unofficial but … anyway, take a look, Patrick, see if you notice anything odd.’

  ‘What is it?’ Naomi asked. She heard the slide open on the CD drive and Patrick clicking the mouse.

  ‘Copies of the files on Rob’s computer,’ Alec told her. ‘Not all of his emails, unfortunately, they were password protected and I’m still waiting on forensics to get back to me on that. It’s slipped down the priority list,’ he added irritably. ‘We’ve managed to get what was on the school system and they’d already pulled some of his chat room files off the hard drive. Nothing revealing that we could see …’ He left the comment hanging.

  ‘But I might, or Becky, or Charlie,’ Patrick said. He sounded excited and Naomi frowned.

  ‘Should you really be getting Patrick involved?’ she asked.

  ‘Probably not and we ought to check with your dad,’ Alec conceded. ‘I just feel bad about things. I tried to get some bodies allocated to this today, but no one can be spared apparently.’ He sounded even more irritable, remembering, Naomi assumed, the bureaucratic minefield he must have been walking through all day.

  ‘I’m just looking at stuff, Nomi,’ Patrick assured her. ‘What harm can it do?’

  ‘Well, if Harry agrees, you can take that copy away, but I’ll need it back. The official line is I’ve taken it to show to a computer expert. Thankfully no one asked me to specify what kind. Yet.’

  ‘Cool,’ Patrick was impressed by the fudged truth. ‘So now I’m an expert.’

  ‘So now you’ve got an essay on Hockney.’ Naomi reminded him.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be in until Thursday.’

  ‘By which time you’ll have more homework. Come on, Patrick, get the bad stuff out of the way first, then you can play. You’ve got to check it out with Harry anyway.’

  ‘I’m not five,’ Patrick said, objecting to her tone, but he was laughing too. ‘OK, OK, I’ll get the first draft done tonight. Deal?’

  ‘Deal. And don’t think just because I can’t see what you’re doing I can’t tell the difference between composition and detection.’

  ‘Naomi,’ Patrick said grandly. ‘Credit me with some sense. Like I’d try to fool you.’

  ‘Hmm, I’m trying to decide if you’re just being patronizing or trying for irony. Coffee?’ she asked Alec.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He followed her through to the kitchen and leant against the counter while she ground beans and played with the filter. ‘Dinner smells good.’

  ‘I’ve just made a casserole. I thought we could do with something to keep out the chill. It’s been a lousy day. I hate melting snow about as much as I love the dry stuff. I had a phone call,’ she went on.

  ‘From?’

  ‘Jodie Stuart. Remember her?’

  ‘Jodie the Madame. Of course I do and why would she be ringing you? Or do I really have to ask?’

  ‘No, don’t suppose you do. I got Harry to run me over to Pinsent on Saturday. I’d have told you about it sooner or later.’

  ‘Oh, would you really.’

  ‘Well, yes. I’m telling you now, aren’t I? Anyway,’ she went on allowing no room for his objections, ‘I saw her and I asked about Adam Hensel.’

  ‘I’m sure the local beat officers already spoke to Jodie and her girls.’

  ‘Yes, well. Jodie owes me. Anyway, I’ve got a lead the locals didn’t. Jodie’s set up a meeting for tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘In Pinsent? How are you getting there? Not that you should be going at all.’

  ‘Oh and why not?’

  ‘Because … because it isn’t your job any more.’

  ‘Oh? And it’s your job to recruit a seventeen-year-old “computer expert”, is it?’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘Is it? Alec, I’m not doing anything dangerous. Jodie and I go way back and if I can get an angle we haven’t covered, surely it’s worth a little trip up the coast.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Alec said reluctantly. ‘She didn’t tell you anything more? Just that this woman recognized Adam Hensel.’

  ‘Not much, no. It sounds as though she worked for Jodie for a while, but she’s on her own now. An escort, Jodie said. She described her as very classy.’

  ‘Classy by Jodie’s standards? Hmm, anything that isn’t a complete dog.’

  ‘Oh, bitchy. Anyway, I’m meeting her tomorrow and we’ll see what we do see. That sounds like Harry,’ she added as the door bell rang. ‘I’ll let you do the talking, shall I?’

  Twenty-Five

  A part from the funeral, Ernst and Suzanna Hensel had met only twice since she had divorced his son. It wasn’t that they had parted on bad terms; not even Adam had managed to do that, Suzanna being a genuinely pleasant soul. It was simply that the circumstances which had once brought them together had now drifted them apart and there had simply been no reason to fight the inevitable.

  They still exchanged Christmas cards and, when Suzanna had remarried, both Ernst and Adam had sent their greetings, blessings and a little gift. Ernst knew that seemed strange, but the fact was, neither he nor Adam bore Suzanna any malice for the break-up of the marriage. Adam had made no concessions even when another person came to share his home and partake of his life. The amazement had been that Adam had managed to persuade anyone to marry him at all.

  ‘What attracted you?’ Ernst asked her.

  ‘He made me laugh. He was intelligent, kind. He caught me on the rebound from “The Big Romance”. I decided I was better off with intelligent and kind and safe. I was right, for a while.’

  It was strange, Ernst thought, how easily he had slipped back into such intimate conversation. ‘And you are happy now?’

  ‘Oh yes. Clive is both intelligent and kind and “The Big Romance”. It works better, you know, when the other partner in the marriage notices you exist.’ Her smile softened what might have been harsh words. ‘Adam didn’t need or want a wife. He wanted an equal partner in a business arrangement. One that provided conversation and support and sex, but which could be timetabled and organized and dismissed when necessary. I thought I might be able to change him.’ She laughed. ‘Some hope of that.’

  ‘And Clive. You hope to change him?’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘One thing I learnt from Adam was that you should examine the goods thoroughly before making the purchase. Marriage is a case of “buyer beware”. You shouldn’t fool yourself into thinking that a person has certain qualities or attributes, just because you hope they will acquire them in time.’

  Ernst thought of his own wife, his beloved Lisle. She surprised him constantly. Life long he never felt he truly knew every part of her. He missed her so much. Life had seemed a lot flatter, blander since she had gone.

  ‘It seems so strange to be back here,’ Suzanna said, observing the place that had once been her home too.

  ‘It must be. I’m grateful for you coming here. Especially under the circumstances.’

  She pursed her lips and nodded. ‘It’s a terrible thing, Ernst. An appalling thing.’ She fell silent for a moment or two, turning slowly on the same spot and interrogating the neat, blandly furnished room. ‘Now, she said. ‘What is it we’re looking for?’

  For the next h
our they examined paperwork and searched the room for clues. Moving into the bedroom and then the kitchen, Suzanna recalling that Adam kept utility bills in one of the kitchen drawers.

  It was no surprise to Ernst, knowing the meticulous and habitual qualities his son possessed, that Suzanna should still know where all things were kept and that Adam still kept them there. She noticed some changes.

  ‘He has a mobile phone now,’ she said. ‘The bills are here.’ She looked surprised. ‘He used it a lot too.’

  ‘I remember Jennifer teaching him to text,’ Ernst said.

  ‘The computer looks the same, though. God, it came out of the ark. He got it a year or so before I left. Did he still use it?’

  ‘I believe so. He said it wasn’t worth upgrading. He wrote letters and did his accounts, that was all. But it’s a funny thing, Suzanna, he protected it with a password. Why would he do that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She frowned. ‘Come to think of it, yes, I remember he did that. I had my laptop and never used his machine, but … You know, Ernst, I’d make a bet he hasn’t changed it.’

  ‘And do you know this password?’

  ‘I did,’ she said cautiously.

  ‘Can you remember? Try, Suzanna. Please try.’

  They fired up the antiquated machine and she pulled up a chair, sat frowning at the screen. ‘It was something really stupid,’ she said. ‘Something really Adam.’ She sat and thought some more until Ernst was persuaded that she could not recall – after all, why should she after all this time? Then she leaned forward, her fingers tapping away at the keys. She clicked the return key and the blue screen faded out, the familiar icons began to appear.

  ‘You did it? Suzanna, you’re a genius.’

  ‘No, just have a memory for stupid things. There were two related words and for a little while I just couldn’t think which.’

  ‘And in the end.?’

  ‘Oh. Compulsive. That was the password. I couldn’t remember if it was that or Obsessive. I guessed right.’

  ‘A very Adam thing,’ Ernst agreed softly. ‘Very Adam.’

  Twenty-Six

  In the end, Naomi had an escort to Pinsent for her meeting with Jodie; Alec decided that he could call it police business and so drive her there. She refused point blank to let him come with her into the café, making him go for a long walk along the promenade.

  ‘Jodie might not be bothered, but we don’t know about this other woman. I want her to talk to me, not do a runner out the back door. Go for a walk. The fresh air’s bracing. I’ll phone you when I’m done.’

  Jodie called to her, ‘Over here, love, let me give you a hand.’

  Naomi felt around the entrance door with her cane, vaguely remembering there had been a small step. She felt someone take her arm. It was Jodie. ‘Right this way. Sit yourself down. This is Angel, the young lady I was telling you about.’

  Naomi took a seat and extended a hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Hello. Right. Um, I’m Angel. Well, it’s Angela really but Angel is better for the work. More appealing to the clientele.’ She giggled nervously.

  ‘Thanks for meeting me,’ Naomi told her. ‘Oh, a cappuccino, please.’ She moved her hands cautiously across the table top, mapping out the objects already on the table before her drink arrived.

  ‘Jo says you were …’

  ‘A Detective Sergeant. Yes. Car accident,’ she added, anticipating the next question.’

  ‘Wow. How do you manage?’

  ‘Very well, really. I have good friends and I have a dog, though he’s not much use to me today. We’re off his normal route.’ The ‘wow’, Naomi thought, made her sound very young. She wondered how old Angel was, what she looked like.

  ‘Sorry? I thought they could take you anywhere you wanted to go.’

  Naomi smiled. ‘No, they have to be trained for familiar routes. Napoleon is intelligent, but he can’t read maps yet.’

  Angel giggled. ‘Right. I never really thought about it. So, if you want to go to your local shop, or something …’

  ‘Napoleon can help me get there. He knows all the places I visit regularly and we’re adding stuff all the time, but it’s been a bit of a learning curve. For both of us.’ She was used to this kind of curiousity now. People asking questions with varying levels of shyness or discomfort. But always the curiosity. At first, she’d resented it terribly and given any interrogator, however benign, short shrift. Slowly, she had learnt that people were just trying to build bridges and that it could actually be a way of getting them to talk about themselves.

  ‘I couldn’t do it,’ Angel informed her emphatically.

  ‘I didn’t think I could either, but life goes on and you have to shift your boundaries to match. I don’t think I could do your job.’

  ‘Oh, well, no.’

  Naomi bit her lip. ‘I mean, I don’t have the looks for it anyway, or the figure.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Change the hair a bit, and some men go for the skinnier birds anyway. My clients tend to prefer the voluptuous, you know.’ Naomi felt the table shift slightly as she leant forward. ‘Do you know how much these boobs cost? Mind you, he did a fantastic job and if you want the real money, you have to invest, same as anything. Speculate to accumulate as they say.’

  Jodie set the coffee down in front of Naomi. ‘Can you find it OK?’ she said anxiously. ‘Your friend the other day, I noticed he helped you.’

  ‘Harry fusses over me,’ Naomi said. ‘I let him because he likes it and it’s nice sometimes. But yes,’ she felt carefully, finding the rim of the saucer and then the handle of the cup.

  ‘Right you are,’ Jodie said. ‘You two been getting acquainted?’

  ‘Like a house on fire,’ Naomi said. ‘How long have you been working?’

  ‘Oh,’ Angel thought. ‘For myself, the past five years. It’s been a good move. I advertise and I pay my taxes and I’ve got my own little flat that I never take the clients to.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Nope, no way. I’m an escort, now. I employ a guy to take me where I need to go, pick me up when I’m done and check in with me every hour if it’s a new client. First sign of trouble, he knows what to do. A bunch of us share the security costs, you know.’

  Naomi nodded. Jodie had always used this system with her girls. It kept the pimps out of the equation. Privately, Naomi wished all sex workers could be as organized.

  ‘So, as an escort, it’s more than just sex?’

  ‘Sure. Dinner, nice hotel, payment in advance. My security guy takes it for me, though for the regulars we can do Visa now and Debit.’

  ‘Really? How does it appear on the statement?’

  ‘Oh, I’m also a personal trainer and life coach,’ Angel said without any trace of irony. ‘I took the courses and got the certificates. Of course, I keep that side separate and my other clients don’t know about the more intimate services.’ She paused. ‘I get a lot of women coming to me too. In fact, another year or two and I’ll switch the whole of my business over to that side. Go completely legit.’

  Naomi nodded. ‘Impressive,’ she said. ‘And Adam Hensel. Which sort of client was he?’ She sipped her coffee. It was still far too hot.

  ‘The man in the picture you mean? He didn’t call himself Adam or Hensel. He was Ian Manning for all the time I’ve known him, though, of course, there may have been a different name on the credit card, there often is. They seem to just hope we won’t notice. And he was, well, a bit different.’

  ‘Oh? How?’

  ‘Oh,’ Angel said matter of factly. ‘We often had dinner and a chat. He liked to talk, and if he booked a room, it would be for the night, though I never stayed that long. An hour was usually plenty for what he wanted.’

  ‘And what did he want?’

  ‘Well, I’m telling you, that was the funny thing. Ian or Adam or whatever he was called, he’d just sit there while I did my thing. He was a voyeur, I suppose. He didn’t do anything, in fact, I was never even sur
e he could, if you get what I mean; he just liked to watch.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean anything,’ Alec said as they drove home. ‘Being a voyeur doesn’t equate with being impotent.’

  ‘No, I know. Besides, Angel said he used her website as well. It’s subscription only past the first couple of pages, and he paid with the same credit card. She only gives the web address out to specific customers, but—’

  ‘You got it from her.’

  ‘Sure did. I think she agreed to give it to me because she can’t for the life of her see how I’d make use of it.’

  ‘Hmm, shows a distinct lack of imagination on her part, I’d say.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Sure, you can listen and I can do the descriptions.’

  ‘Alec Friedman. You should be ashamed. Anyway, it’s another piece of information. Worth checking his credit card statements, just to make sure, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well yes, but another piece of information leading to what? He’s a single man, who is maybe taking the safe sex message more seriously than most. I don’t know, Naomi, I’m reluctant to stir things up any more than I have to if that’s all there is to it. The family have been through enough. Some people get terribly upset if they think their loved one has been paying for sex. However discreet they were about it.’

  ‘Oh, I know. But I also think we’ve got to keep going on this one. Now we’ve opened the can of worms, it seems cowardly to slam the lid back on without … I don’t know, doing whatever you do with worms in a can.’

  ‘I know, I know. It just goes against the grain, digging the dirt when the poor bugger’s already dead and nothing’s going to change that. Surely, the family will be better off remembering him as they do now.’

  ‘You think it’s such a big thing? Him using an escort? He didn’t even have sex with her.’

  ‘What I think is neither here nor there. Anyway, it gets us no closer to knowing what Rob had against him.’

  ‘True. But we should travel hopefully. No, don’t roll your eyes.’

  ‘You don’t know I rolled my eyes.’

  ‘Oh yes I do. Supersonic hearing I’ve got now. I can hear them scraping round the sockets. You always roll your eyes when I come out with platitudes.’