Читать книгу Watch Me - Angela Clarke, Angela Clarke - Страница 13

‘I’m calling the number.’ Saunders had his phone to his ear. ‘Straight to voicemail. It is her number, yeah, your sister’s, sir?’

‘Yes. My phone recognises it. I don’t understand … Why would she send this?’ The DCI was holding his phone in both hands. Nasreen thought he was shaking it, then she realised he was shaking.

‘Do you have another contact for her, sir?’ Nasreen reached over her desk for the landline.

‘What’s her address?’ Chips ran round to his computer.

‘She lives in Greenwich. She’s a student at the university,’ DCI Burgone stuttered.

‘Undergraduate?’ said Nasreen. ‘How old?’

‘Sociology. Eighteen. She’ll be nineteen next month.’

Three years age difference to Chloe Strofton. A similar demographic. Young teenage woman. Student. Could she have seen the fuss around Chloe’s suicide online? Was this a contagious suicide attempt? ‘Any other telephone number, sir?’

‘Zero, two, zero, three …’

Nasreen wrote the number down as the DCI said it.

‘That’s her flat number.’ He blinked. Held his mobile to his ear. Nasreen heard the tinny sound of the girl’s voicemail message. ‘She lives in halls. There are five other flatmates. All girls. I think. I usually take her out for dinner. We meet at the restaurant.’

‘I’m sure there’s some innocent explanation,’ Chips said. ‘The lassie or one of her pals mucking about.’ Nasreen saw Saunders give him a look. The line rang in her ear.

‘Does she have any history of mental illness, sir?’ asked Saunders.

‘No, of course not,’ snapped Burgone. ‘Sorry. I know you’re just … following procedure.’ The words sounded cold. Callous.

Saunders cleared his throat. ‘And does she have any history of trying to harm herself?’

‘No. She’s happy. She’s really into running. Fitness. This isn’t her. She wouldn’t …’ His face paled. ‘I’ll send her a WhatsApp message. Sometimes it’s easier to contact her that way.’

The phone at the other end of Nasreen’s call was picked up. A woman – young, breathless, anxious – answered. ‘Lottie?’

She had been waiting for her call. Lottie wasn’t there. Had this flatmate received the same frightening Snapchat? Nasreen’s stomach fell away. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Nasreen Cudmore. Is Lottie – Charlotte …’ She looked at the DCI; he nodded his affirmation. She tried to keep her face neutral. ‘Is Charlotte Burgone there, please?’

‘Has something happened to Lottie?’ The girl sounded panicked.

‘Can I ask your name, please, miss?’ She looked straight ahead at her computer, away from the DCI.

‘Yes. Sorry. It’s Bea. Beatrice Perkins. I’m Lottie’s friend. Her flatmate.’

‘And is Lottie there, Bea?’ Nasreen felt the eyes of the room on her. Chips had paused from typing on his computer.

‘No. She’s gone. I mean, she went for a run this morning. But she never came back. I tried her phone but she didn’t answer. And I got this weird Snap. And oh god – have you found her? Is she okay?’ The girl’s words fell over themselves – fast, frantic. Nasreen looked up at DI Saunders and shook her head.

‘I’ll get on to the university.’ Saunders picked up his phone.

‘Christ.’ The DCI was staring at his mobile. ‘She hasn’t picked up the WhatsApp message yet. It says she hasn’t seen it. But if she’s running then …’

‘And at what time did she go for her run, Bea?’ Nasreen noted the times on her pad – the timeline of a missing person.

‘Six a.m. She always goes at the same time. She’s a morning person. Dani – our flatmate – she saw her leave. She was up to get to the library early. She’s got coursework due.’ The girl was babbling. They’d need to speak to the other flatmate. ‘Lottie always wakes me when she gets back. She’s always back at seven thirty. Always. But she didn’t come back today. I didn’t realise until after nine. I slept through. I missed my lecture.’

‘Does Lottie run alone?’

‘Yes. No one else can get up at that time each day. She’s a machine,’ Bea said. ‘I mean in a good way. Oh god. This is awful.’

‘Take a deep breath for me, Bea, you’re doing great.’ Nasreen kept her tone even. ‘Does Lottie ever go anywhere else straight from her run? The library? Another friend’s perhaps? A boyfriend’s?’

‘No. She comes home to shower. She wouldn’t go anywhere else before that. She likes her hair to be done.’ Bea sounded small, far away. Nasreen wished she could put her arm around the girl.

‘And has Lottie been upset about anything lately?’ She knew what she was asking, in front of her boss, in front of Lottie’s brother.

‘No! She wouldn’t kill herself! She wouldn’t!’ Bea’s voice wavered and smashed like porcelain on kitchen tiles.

Even those closest to suicide victims don’t always suspect that anything is wrong. ‘Is there anyone else there with you, Bea? We may need to send an officer to come and speak to you.’

‘Dani will be back soon. She should be. Oh god. Lottie wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t.’

Nasreen looked at her watch. ‘You’re doing great, Bea, just a few more questions. So the last time any of you saw Lottie Burgone was at six o’clock this morning?’ When I was coming home from sleeping with her brother. ‘So she’s not been seen for the last three and a half hours?’ It wasn’t normally a priority at this stage, but Lottie had sent a suicide note. As far as Nasreen knew, DI Saunders and Chips had never met Lottie Burgone, and she certainly hadn’t. Why would she send a suicide note to all their phones? How would she have their numbers? You have 6 seconds to read this and 24 hours to save the girl. Her gut contracted. This sounded more like a ransom note.

‘We haven’t seen her since then. I should’ve woken up earlier. I should’ve gone to look for her.’

Nasreen looked at Chips as he picked up his handset. ‘I’ll get onto the local force,’ he said. ‘Get some eyes on the ground.’ His voice was gruff, focused.

‘Bea, I’m going to need a list of all Lottie’s friends, boyfriends, anyone she’s been hanging out with recently. Do you think you can do that?’ Nasreen asked.

Bea Perkins took a big breath in. ‘Yes.’

‘Thank you, Bea.’ Chips was now onto the Greenwich force. He gave her a nod. ‘Bea, we’re going to have someone with you very shortly to go through that list. They’ll be in uniform. In the meantime, I’m going to give you my number here and my mobile as well. If you hear from Lottie, or think of anything else before my colleagues get there, call me immediately. Have you got a pen?’ She heard the girl rummaging in the background, imagining the chaos of a student bedroom. This girl shouldn’t be doing anything more than worrying about her classes today. She gave Bea the number.

‘I’ve put in a request for some floaters.’ Chips was talking as if it was just another job. As if they weren’t talking about the guv’s sister. ‘We’ll run a cell site check on her phone, see if we can pinpoint where she was when that message was sent.’

Burgone nodded.

She wouldn’t interrogate him, but they needed to get as much information as possible. The DCI hadn’t seemed to blink for over a minute. Chips stood awkwardly, unsure whether to offer a pat of comfort to his boss and friend. DI Saunders was on his own phone at the other end of the office, his back turned to them, his voice low, rolling out the plan. Nasreen spoke gently. ‘Is there anywhere else she might go, sir? Friends from home?’ She didn’t even know where Burgone was from. ‘A boyfriend’s? What about your parents’?’

‘Oh god – Mum and Pa.’

Nasreen flinched at the affectionate term. Under normal circumstances, that would have earned a gruff laugh from Chips. It was like seeing something soft and intimate, and Nasreen didn’t want to intrude further than they had to. Burgone seemed to summon strength from inside, his face taking on its usual self-assured expression.

‘Our parents are in the South of France. I’ll call them. She doesn’t have a boyfriend. That I know of. I’ve met some of her uni flatmates – Bea, who was on the telephone to Cudmore, and another, Dani. They’re nice girls. I doubt they’ve had any involvement with the police before. I don’t know about the others she lives with. Before college Lottie was a boarder at Bedales, I think she’s still in touch with some of the girls from there.’ Worry lines fanned out from his eyes. ‘She spends a lot of time on social media, particularly Instagram – she has a number of sponsorship deals.’

‘Sponsorship for what?’ Was Jack’s sister famous? Had he ever even mentioned his family to her? This felt all wrong: she should have been finding out about him casually in a pub over dinner, not during a criminal investigation.

‘Companies, mostly sports ones, I believe. They send her products and pay for her to feature them on the site.’

‘She’s famous?’ asked Chips. Burgone didn’t respond.

Nasreen wanted to know what the DCI’s sister looked like. ‘Which brands?’

‘I’m not sure. My mother will have a list, she helps Lottie do her accounts.’

Saunders was walking casually over, hands in his pockets, as if strolling in the park. Did he know something already? Something from his phone call? Or was he just acting calm, trying not to distract the DCI? Her brain automatically ran through the questions and connections she would draw if they were talking to anyone else. She woke her desktop and searched for Lottie Burgone and Instagram on Google. Chips and Saunders were standing behind her, Saunders’s citrus aftershave enveloping them all. The DCI was pacing.

‘There.’ Chips pointed at the first search result.

Lottie’s account opened on the screen; she was called LottieLondoner. Her profile picture showed the same classic bone structure as her brother, but instead of his short, dark ruffles of hair, Lottie had long blonde tendrils that hung around her tanned face, her cheeks still soft like a child’s. She was thin, and very toned. There were countless photos of her in yoga positions that Nasreen knew, from the odd class she’d taken, took time, dedication and real strength to perfect. She must spend hours exercising. Could someone who’s flooded with endorphins be a credible suicide risk? Lottie’s account was full of taut, tanned skin: acres of it. The scoop of a traps muscle bisected by a bright green vest strap; the slice of a shoulder blade highlighted by a peach racerback; a hewn stomach underscored by tight, pale blue leggings. At no point was Lottie naked or even provocatively dressed, but as she scrolled past photos of her doing handstands, legs split apart, knees bent into right angles, her torso bending backwards, Nasreen felt there was something sexual about them – even if the girl wasn’t conscious of it. It made her uneasy. This job had a way of making you view everything through the cynical eyes of society’s undesirables. There was Lottie on the beach. In the park. In the gym. And a number of photos of food: white plates of brightly coloured fruits; sliced avocados; and Lottie smiling and sipping green juice through a pink straw. Perfection.

‘Athletic lass,’ Chips said.

‘I have those protein shakes.’ Saunders sounded impressed. Burgone hadn’t come to look at his sister’s page.

‘Yeah, but you can’t stand on your head, can you,’ Chips said.

‘I can do the splits,’ he said. It was a ludicrous mental image. He shrugged. ‘I did a lot of gymnastics when I was a kid.’ Subject closed.

Nasreen tried not to smile at the idea of alpha-male Saunders in a leotard. She hadn’t made it to spin class this week, and, she thought guiltily, she’d had cereal for dinner three out of the last four nights. Along the top of the screen were the account’s stats. Lottie had posted 2,253 times. ‘She’s got 24,000 followers?’ Incredible!

‘Has she?’ Burgone smiled to himself, as if he expected no less of her. She swallowed the lump forming in her throat. Chips was frowning.

She clicked the first image: Lottie in the park, balancing on one leg, the other stretched back and up, like an arabesque. She was laughing, her hair falling forwards in soft waves around her face. It had 340 likes. ‘She has fans,’ she scrolled through the seventy-seven comments:

@Boinggirl Beautiful hair!

@Reasontolive Lottie I love you. I don’t know how you do it! <3 <3 <3 Please follow me back!!!

@CarlyAngel86 You’re such an inspiration. Thank you for sharing the real you.

Why would a girl with a seemingly perfect life kill herself? And why send the suicide note via Snapchat? And why to them? Tell us where you are, Lottie. Tell us how to help you.

Nasreen looked from the sunshine of Lottie’s Instagram account to Burgone. He didn’t meet any of their eyes. She longed to tell him everything was going to be all right. But she didn’t. Training and experience taught you not to make promises you couldn’t keep – not to a victim’s family. And that’s what he was now. No longer the guv. No longer in control. Jack Burgone was on the wrong side of the investigation.