Roxanne, page 12
To the girls, the man writing laboriously in the notebook perhaps appeared a little slow-witted.
Melanie Haines said, ‘Sevenish?’ She looked at the other girl, who said, ‘Might have been a bit after…’
Murray wrote again, slowly.
Waters said, ‘And that was your last contact with her? She didn’t call or text?’
Melanie said, ‘No, nothing. It wasn’t that unusual for her to stay somewhere overnight. When we’d heard nothing by Sunday afternoon, I called her number several times but she didn’t pick up. We sent her texts as well but it didn’t show she was reading them.’
He said, ‘She has read receipts switched on?’
‘Mostly. Not always.’
The house had that pleasant suburban quiet which comes at a cost – this would be an expensive place to rent by Kings Lake standards. Beyond the two girls on the sofa was a wide patio door, almost the width of the room, and beyond that an enclosed rectangle of neat garden. Waters could see a lawn, a stone birdbath and pink tulips in a border.
He said, ‘Did you go out yourselves that evening? I’m wondering whether Roxanne might have called back here after her date.’
Trudi Mercer was shaking her head but again it was the blonde girl who answered for them both.
‘No. We had a night in. We just watched movies.’
Waters made a point of observing Murray as he wrote this down as well, giving himself time to think. Saturday night? Three young women working as escorts and only one of them busy on a Saturday evening? Police Constable Nineham had suggested the girls were not coy about what they did to pay the rent for this place – in which case there might be nothing to be gained in being coy about the way they should be questioned now.
He said, ‘Roxanne’s date. Do you know anything about who that was with?’
The two heads were shaken in unison.
‘Was it a date or was she meeting a client?’
A moment of disclosure. The pencil paused in mid-stroke and Murray was watching them as well. Melanie Haines had unusual eyes. The blue in them seemed to change, as if they were composed of fragments of broken glass which caught the light from different angles. Now she was looking steadily back at Waters, and eventually she said, ‘I think it was a client.’
Waters said, ‘But you don’t know who. You don’t know anything about him.’
Stated in that way, they had no need to respond.
‘Do you know whether she had seen anyone else that day?’
Melanie said, ‘No.’
‘What about Friday night? Was she at work on Friday?’
‘Yeah. Well, I think so. I don’t think she was here, anyway.’
Trudi Mercer was watching Melanie as much as she was watching the detectives, and the thought went fleetingly through Waters’ mind that they could have been interviewed separately. He said then, because politeness sometimes gets in the way when you’re doing this job, ‘Were you two working on the Friday night?’
The question told her a great deal, of course – not least that although the detective sergeant might be young, he wasn’t naïve and he wasn’t afraid of her and what she did. Melanie Haines made the appropriate adjustments, and answered.
‘We were, yeah. I got back about one Saturday morning. Tru’s and Roxy’s cars were here when I did, so they got home before me.’
‘And you spoke to her on Saturday? Was she all right? Did she seem her usual self?’
‘Yeah, fine.’
Waters looked at the other girl and waited. Eventually she understood and said, ‘She was good. No problems. Just chatting away…’
Still looking directly at Trudi, Waters said, ‘What did she chat about?’
Hesitation, uncertainty – understandable enough. It might not be against the law but you could see why these girls felt uneasy answering questions from the police. Trudi said, ‘Can’t remember that. Just girly stuff, I expect.’
Murray said, ‘How did the three of you meet?’
For a big man, he was agile, and not only on his feet. It was a nice change of direction. Trudi said, ‘At the agency. We all joined about the same time.’
Murray said, ‘Which agency? Is it in Kings Lake?’
She looked at the other girl and said, ‘Yes. Elite Escorts. Their office is in town…’
‘And the agency books appointments for you? That’s how it works, isn’t it?’
Maggie seemed to have briefed Murray on most aspects of the business. Waters took it up then and said, ‘So, if Roxanne had appointments over the weekend, the agency should have the details?’
After a time in the job, intuition develops; he had wandered into an awkward area with that question. Trudi Mercer was silent. It was Melanie who said, ‘Normally, yeah. But Roxy went solo a few months ago, start of the year.’
Waters said, ‘What does going solo mean?’
‘She quit the agency. Girls come and go all the time. We’re old-stagers now.’
She looked at her companion with that reassuring smile.
He said, ‘She didn’t join another agency?’ and the answer was, ‘No. You can go it alone, plenty do. You get to keep all the fees that way. But it’s more work. You have to do pictures, website, all the marketing stuff. Roxy said she wanted to give it a go.’
‘And was it working out for her?’
‘Far as I know…’
Waters let it rest there for a moment. There were spaces here, and distances – it wasn’t possible yet to be sure of the relationships in the house. And as if she had read him accurately, Melanie Haines said, ‘We share the house. We don’t share diaries and secrets. Roxy moved in when the last girl moved out but she liked a bit of privacy. So do we.’
Waters glanced at Murray, who said, ‘So, you all have your own rooms here, obviously.’
Trudi nodded. Was she relieved that the edginess between her companion and the detective sergeant had passed? She said to Murray, ‘Our bedrooms are private. Invitation only, Mel always says…’
Murray said, ‘Do you lock your rooms?’ and the answer was yes. Murray continued, ‘And has anyone been into Roxy’s room since she disappeared?’
Another pause brought to an end by the older woman. She said, ‘The landlord leaves a pass-key on the premises, for emergencies. On Monday, before we went to the police station, we opened her door. We thought, maybe she left us a message. We’d look stupid reporting her gone if she’d left a note saying she was going to be away for a few days, or something. But we didn’t find anything like that.’
Waters frowned – a deliberate frown before he said, ‘Did she usually lock her door?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It wouldn’t make sense to leave you a note behind a locked door, would it?’
Melanie said, ‘I s’pose not. But we didn’t know what else to do. Her just disappearing like that didn’t make sense either. It still doesn’t. What happened to her? Where was she? Can’t you tell us anything?’
Waters said he was sorry. When investigations were at such an early stage, they had to be careful. But they did need to take a look at Roxanne’s room, that might be helpful. Melanie Haines stood up, straight-backed, aware of her good figure, looking him directly in the eye.
She said, ‘OK. I’ll show you.’
For a moment, Waters wasn’t paying attention, and it was John Murray who said, ‘We’ll both take a look.’
After they’d closed the door to the landing and waited until they heard Melanie’s steps on the stairs, Murray said quietly, ‘I’m not being the one who tells the DI either of us was alone with either of them,’ and Waters understood.
Then Murray went across Roxanne’s room to her desk, the plastic gloves tight on his fingers, and opened the Apple laptop. Waters checked his phone and found a message from Serena. It read The SIO wants away teams reporting on their interviews at Central 15.30. And Goldthorpe just found another phone in the car.
Chapter Thirteen
At 15.30 exactly, DCI Cara Freeman said, ‘So, as everyone else was busy at the time, I went down to Goldthorpe myself, as soon as the call came in. When I say “myself” from now on, that includes Priti. If anyone has any questions about what I said to the techs, how I got lost on the way or how fast I drove back, feel free to ask her.’
Freeman gave her scribe a reassuring glance, and Priti flipped back in her notes, thinking someone here might take her new boss up on her offer.
‘I have to say,’ Freeman continued, ‘I was impressed by the set-up down there. It was my first visit. SOCO missed this phone but it was easily done. It was wedged down between the driver’s seat and the handbrake. Goldthorpe only found it when they did because someone heard it bleeping every few seconds. The bleep is to warn you the battery is almost out, and I don’t think it had started doing this when the car was in the woods. The lady in charge at Goldthorpe called us as soon as they found it and before they removed it, so I was able to see exactly where it was located. You’d have to assume this has come out of a driver’s pocket, but as we already have the car owner’s phone, you might well be asking yourselves, who does this one belong to?’
She had everyone’s attention. You need a lucky break in most cases but they don’t come along like this very often.
‘Or, to rewind that just a little,’ said Freeman, ‘we now have two phones, one of which probably belonged to Roxanne. We know her number but just ringing it won’t work because both phones are now dead, so we can’t be certain which is which until we get into them, and we can’t do that until we’ve been through Lake Central’s evolving procedures for using the kiosk. I say “evolving” because the superintendent’s consent form didn’t cover the eventuality of an ownerless phone. There was a missing tick-box. Consultations are going on at the highest level as we speak…’
Waters thought, in many ways they are two very different characters, but there are times, just occasionally, when it could be Smith sitting there, delivering those lines with a dead-pan face, rather than Cara Freeman.
She said, ‘Anyway, Goldthorpe had to take the seat out to retrieve the phone safely. They bagged it up and we brought it back with us. It’s gone straight into evidence, but,’ and here she got Priti Hussain’s attention, ‘I asked Sergeant Dunham, our go-to print man, to have a quick look. He just got back to me. He’s only inspected it through the bag but he says it’ll be smudges and smears, no clear prints. We all know what that implies.’
It implies someone has wiped the phone with the intention of removing incriminating prints. You can be unlucky – the person in question happens to have cleaned the device just before losing it – but if it was wiped, what was it doing wedged into the space between the seat and the handbrake? Waters could see similar thoughts on the faces of the detectives around the table.
Freeman said then, ‘We will get into these phones but I can’t say when, as yet. I’ll keep the pressure on. Thankfully, the satnav is more straightforward. Tom?’
DI Greene took it up in his unflappable, evenly-paced way.
‘As you’d expect, the satnav in the Mini is bang up to date and fairly sophisticated. The regs surrounding our access to it aren’t so strict either. Mobiles are thought to contain more personal data and be more of a threat to privacy, but the links between phones and a car’s communication and navigation systems mean that lots of data now crosses over. If the girl was using Bluetooth, we can get all sorts from the car, including her contacts and call records. We should get all the info on recent journeys – dates, destinations and times. Mary Tate at Goldthorpe has agreed to get someone to work on this over the weekend. We should start getting data on Monday.’
Freeman looked around at everyone – there were always windows for questions but they were small ones, and on this occasion none were forthcoming. She said then, ‘Denise and Serena – the parents.’
Sterling began with a summary. This was a pretty grim interview. Both parents were in shock but in different ways. Roxanne’s mother was reluctant to say much initially but by the end she had shown them dozens of pictures, her youngest child’s life in images. The detectives only needed a couple for investigative purposes but the stories had shed some light on the girl. Roxanne had been a bright but wayward child, sometimes loving but often careless of the attention they had showered upon her – that was Denise’s own impression. Roxanne was petite, and pretty from an early age. She had always been the subject of that sort of interest, according to Mrs Prescott, and they had had to be careful with her from about ten years old. Roxanne sometimes played up to the interest others showed in her.
In the pause that followed, Freeman glanced at Priti’s notes. She wanted this written down, and Smith, of course, would have approved. It was one of his maxims: to catch your killer, study the victim. Freeman said to Denise, ‘Go on.’
‘OK, ma’am. You were there when they told us some of it the first time. By her mid-teens, Roxanne was right off the rails. School was a disaster, and she started taking drugs, following the usual path. They actually got her a place at an arts college in Norwich, trying to get her out of it, to break the cycle, but she never completed the course.’
Freeman said, ‘Art college? She could paint? Draw?’
‘No, ma’am. Dance. Mr Prescott had a video clip on his phone, of her dancing on a beach somewhere up on the coast. He showed us. She obviously had some talent…’
When Sterling’s voice tailed away, Serena said, ‘She definitely could dance. It was a horrible moment, them looking at the clip. After it, her dad said “Our tiny dancer.” I think it was a nickname they had for her.’
The briefing was silent for a few seconds before Freeman said, ‘It’s always horrible for someone. Did they give you anything on the escort business?’
Sterling said, ‘Yes, ma’am, plenty. It wasn’t clear exactly when Roxanne got involved in it, but everything changed when her friend died. You remember they told us?’
Freeman nodded and said, ‘The friend’s name was Kristi.’
‘Kristi Arnold, ma’am. After her funeral, Roxanne was different. A week or two after it, she told her parents what she was going to do – work as a professional escort. She said she knew she’d wrecked her own education but she wasn’t going to work in a shop or a factory. She’d looked into it and how to do it safely and properly. It sounds bonkers, and I can’t imagine my kid ever telling me anything like it, but Roxanne was obviously a bit of a character.’
Freeman was listening intently. She said, ‘This was the plan her father mentioned?’
‘Only phase one of it. She said she’d do it for five years. Her plan was to get qualified in something else, using the money. She was training as a masseuse.’
Clive Betts looked knowingly around, unprepared for the sharp look and sharp words he got in return from his detective sergeant – Sterling said to him, ‘And she was doing it properly. She was registered at a college in London, and she’d already completed parts of a diploma.’
Wisely, Betts said nothing. Sterling turned back to Freeman.
‘And they were convinced she hadn’t used anything since that all began, ma’am. Like they told us on Wednesday.’
If true, thought Waters, it’s one of the most puzzling things about this. If Roxanne had relapsed for some reason, would ketamine have been her first choice of drug? Not after what he’d read online last night, surely.
Freeman had also been thinking. She said to Denise Sterling, ‘This new phase in Roxy’s life would have begun about two years ago, then?’
Sterling said, ‘Yes. More than enough time for it all to go wrong, for the cracks to show. But they didn’t as far as her parents were concerned. They hated what she was doing but in a funny sort of way, they were proud of her. It was the first time in her life she’d stuck at something and thought about the future. Roxy told them she’d have her own business one day, and they absolutely believe she meant it.’
Freeman nodded and then her phone buzzed with a message. Without thinking, Waters glanced at Serena and found her eyebrows were raised in his direction. But this time the DCI shared what was there. She said, ‘We’re OK to use the kiosk on both phones as soon as we have reasonable grounds. There’s no chance of getting that going today, though. Tom, can you speak to DI Terek about Monday? As soon as Dr Robinson finds something iffy, I want those mobiles cracked open.’
Again she checked that Priti was getting everything significant said and done by the senior investigating officer, but Freeman need not have worried – the pen was busy on the paper.
‘Good. That gives us one view of Ms Prescott. What about the housemates, Chris? Is it a good fit?’
Freeman always expected more than a factual report. One way or another, she invited judgements based on your experience and expertise. It was respectful in a professional sense but also a responsibility. Draw the wrong conclusion and you might find yourself the reason why an investigation had taken a detour into a vast, desert wilderness – the land of no charges and no convictions. Every eye was upon him now, even Maya’s for the first time since the odd moment that morning.
Waters said, ‘The girls told us they’d met Roxanne through the agency they worked for. It’s the Elite Escorts agency, based here in Lake. John has the details. They moved in together last summer. Melanie Haines and Trudi Mercer were living there first, and then Roxanne joined them. Last January, she left the agency and continued working as an escort on her own.’
Freeman raised a finger and he paused. She said, ‘These agencies arrange appointments and keep lists of the blokes who use them, don’t they?’
Waters answered. ‘Yes. That’s what Melanie Haines told us, ma’am. They take a sizeable cut for it.’
Clive Betts said, ‘How much?’
‘Thinking it might pay more than detective constable?’
Denise Sterling hadn’t quite forgiven him yet, and there was friendly laughter at Clive’s expense. Waters sensed too that the interview with Mr and Mrs Prescott had got to his fellow detective sergeant; she was defending the victim against lazy assumptions about her character and personality.
