Chapter 8
‘And you have no idea who ND is?’ DI Colin Burton is wearing the same suit and tie he was wearing yesterday, and Nadeeka wonders if it’s a kind of uniform; if he’s one of those men who find it easier to wear the same thing each day.
‘None at all.’ Nadeeka watches Colin’s face as he turns the pages of Jamie’s desk diary. They’re sitting in a café around the corner from the police station, slotted into a booth which offers little protection from the frigid air that blasts in every time the door opens.
‘The coffee here’s my guilty pleasure,’ Colin had explained, when he’d arrived.
Nadeeka had been early, turning the laminated menu over in her hands without reading it.
‘The machine at the nick’s on the blink, so it’s instant or nothing.
’ He’d smiled at the waitress. ‘Americano with oat milk, please.’
‘I think ND is someone Jamie was meeting,’ Nadeeka says now. She stirs the latte she doesn’t remember ordering.
‘A woman?’ Colin says it gently, watching her face for a reaction.
She nods, her lips pressed tight. She doesn’t want it to be true, but what other explanation is there? ‘I’m wondering if it’s someone he works with. A colleague, or even a client.’
Colin slides the diary into a transparent plastic bag and secures it with a tag. He flips open a small booklet and fills out a receipt in neat, joined-up handwriting.
‘Adam Bennington is Jamie’s boss,’ Nadeeka says.
‘He’ll be able to give you a list of employees.
We need to see who has the initials ND, then establish if they match the description of the woman the neighbours saw coming to the house.
’ Her coffee is still untouched. ‘Jamie had to have a photo taken for his pass when he started, which means HR probably have everyone’s picture on file.
Although they don’t call it Human Resources, actually .
. .’ Nadeeka frowns. ‘People and something, the receptionist called it.’
‘Sounds as though you have this all sewn up.’ Colin tears off the receipt and hands it to her.
Nadeeka flushes. ‘Sorry. I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job.’ She pushes the receipt into her pocket.
‘It’s fine. I imagine you feel better when you’re doing something constructive?’
Nadeeka nods.
‘These things are all happening, I promise, and much, much more.’ Colin interlaces his fingers.
He wears a slim gold wedding band, too loose for his finger.
‘I know it must feel as though everything is moving frustratingly slowly, and, believe me, I wish I had a more concrete update for you, but there’s a whole team working flat-out to find the person responsible for Jamie’s murder. ’
Tears prick at Nadeeka’s eyes. ‘I know. It’s just that it feels like . . .’ She searches for an explanation. ‘Like being in a snow globe.’
The corners of Colin’s mouth twitch. ‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘Like someone snatched up my life and gave it a hard shake, and now everything has settled in a different place, and nothing looks the same any more.’
‘I see.’
‘So I do want justice for Jamie, of course I do – I want to find out who killed him – but I want other answers, too. I want to know who he was seeing. I want to know . . .’ Nadeeka’s tears start to fall. ‘I want to know why I wasn’t enough for him.’
Colin passes her a napkin from the plastic dispenser on the table. It’s hard and scratchy, and not remotely absorbent, but she presses it to her face gratefully.
‘May I see the messages he sent you?’
Nadeeka opens WhatsApp. She leans awkwardly across the table so she can show him the relevant exchanges, trying her best to scroll quickly past the hearts and memes and – Nadeeka is mortified to now realize – the suggestiveness and innuendo.
If Colin notices the sexting, he’s gentlemanly enough to ignore it. ‘This is really useful.’ He pulls an apologetic face. ‘I know this is going to be inconvenient, but I’d like to borrow your phone and get these messages downloaded as potential evidence.’
‘Can’t you just take screenshots? Or I could forward them to you?’ Nadeeka’s hand closes automatically around her phone, the way Maya’s does around the remote when it’s time for bed. ‘If the school needs to contact me, or—’
‘If I take it now, I can have it back to you tomorrow afternoon.’ Colin looks at his watch. ‘Tomorrow morning, if I bribe the analysts with some decent biscuits.’
Nadeeka can let the school have her work mobile number, she supposes, and if she wants to find out the truth about Jamie she can surely cope without a phone for twenty-four hours.
Somewhat reluctantly, she exchanges her phone for another slip of green paper, and dutifully writes down her passcode on -Colin’s copy.
‘Is there anything else on your mind?’ Colin seals her phone in another plastic bag.
‘I wondered whether you’d found anything out about the anonymous caller?’
‘Unfortunately not. Someone has come forward to say they saw a man using the phone box around the time of the call, but we’ve been able to trace and eliminate that individual.’
‘This might be nothing,’ Nadeeka says, ‘but there was an arson attack on a shop around the corner from us, and someone made an anonymous call to the occupants just as the fire took hold.’ She outlines her theory, feeling faintly ridiculous as she does.
He’ll think she’s one of those ‘true crime’ obsessives, creating connections and conspiracies out of thin air.
But Colin listens intently, writing down the information and pushing Nadeeka for more details.
‘I’ll be frank with you,’ he says, when he’s finished writing.
‘Everything we’ve learned about Jamie’s murder so far suggests this was personal, which means it’s unlikely to be connected to the arson, but let me look on the system and see where the investigation’s at. ’
‘Thank you.’
‘As for our investigation . . .’ Colin’s expression grows serious.
‘As I said, the incident room is working flat-out, but I don’t want to give you false hope.
The quality of your neighbours’ doorcams is variable, and, although we have footage of a vehicle in Cedar Walk around the time of the murder, the registration plate isn’t visible. ’
‘What about fingerprints? DNA?’
‘Our crime scene investigators managed to lift a number of prints from your property, but there’s no match on the Police National Computer, which means our man – or woman – doesn’t have a criminal record.’
‘But somebody must have seen something!’ Nadeeka’s voice rises. She thinks of Maeve’s grandpa and his inflatable snowman; of the couple next door but one, who say hello on bin day. Surely someone in Cedar Walk at least glanced out of their window while Jamie was being attacked?
‘We’ve taken statements from all your neighbours. Apart from the dark-haired woman who’s visited the house in the past, who may or may not be connected, nobody saw anything unusual on the day of the murder.’
‘A murderer can’t just disappear into thin air . . .’
Colin glances across the café, to where an elderly woman is eking out a pot of tea for one.
He drops his voice, perhaps in the hope that Nadeeka will do the same.
‘Hopefully this diary – and the messages from your phone – will open up a line of enquiry, and we’re still getting calls from the public in response to our appeal. But . . .’
His shoulders lift in the hint of a shrug, and Nadeeka feels a flash of anger. This isn’t just a police investigation, these are people’s lives. Jamie’s life. Her life. Their life.
‘So what? What are you saying exactly?’ she demands.
Colin holds Nadeeka’s gaze. There’s a long pause before he answers.
‘I’m saying that, right now, we have no leads.’