‘I’m sorry,’ said Poppy, slouching down as far as she could in the passenger seat of Annie’s small car. She looked as if she were trying to shrink or make herself disappear. ‘I just couldn’t sleep. I mean, it really hit me. About Dad. That I’ll never see him again. I didn’t mean to lose my temper but they were just so snotty and mean to me.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Annie. ‘I’ll send you the bill. You OK now?’
Poppy nodded. ‘I’m all right.’ She gave a wan smile. ‘I could do with a drink and a snort, but I’m OK.’
‘Valium?’
‘Already taken two.’
‘We’re all set, then. I’ve got to make a call at your dad’s house first. The search team’s turned up something they think I should see. I want you on your best behaviour if you’re to come in with me. And don’t touch a thing. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Mummy.’
‘That’s enough of that.’
‘Then what? If I can’t stay there, where am I supposed to go?’
‘You might be better off at home.’
‘You mean I’m free to go back to London?’
‘Yes. It could be a while yet before your father’s body is released for burial. There’s no point your hanging around up here and wrecking our hotels.’
‘You should have seen Mad Dog wreck a hotel room. Gave Keith Moon a run for his money. He once threw a mattress from the sixth floor of a Holiday Inn. Anyway, the rates hotels charge, I think you should be entitled to do a bit of damage.’ Poppy smiled at the memory.
Annie had to think for a moment before she realised that Poppy was talking about Nate Maddock, her deceased rock-star boyfriend, and Keith Moon, The Who’s late drummer, who had a reputation for smashing up hotel rooms. Even she knew that.
She approached Rivendell on the lane through the woods and saw the CSI and search team vans parked outside, as well as Poppy’s red sports car.
‘You probably shouldn’t be driving,’ Annie said. ‘Not after the Valium and whatever you had to drink in the middle of the night. Not to mention the cognac.’
‘Only a couple of miserable minibar vodkas.’
‘Even so.’
‘No matter. I don’t feel like driving anyway. Too tired. Can I at least leave the car where it is?’
‘I don’t see why not. I can give you a lift to the station in Northallerton.’
‘Station? What do you mean?’
‘The train station.’
‘A train? You wouldn’t catch me dead on one of those bloody things. Can’t you drive me home?’
‘You must be joking.’
Poppy folded her arms. ‘Fine. I’ll take a taxi, then.’
Annie swallowed her surprise and parked beside the CSI van. A taxi to London. How the other half lived.
‘I don’t want to go in,’ said Poppy. ‘Is it all right if I just stay out here in your car until you’re finished?’
‘As long as you don’t wreck anything.’
Poppy looked around the car’s interior. ‘As if anyone would notice.’
Annie laughed and got out. It wasn’t a bad day, now she finally got the chance to sniff the air. A bit cloudy, but not too cold. Annie crunched over the gravel and let herself in the open front door. It was easy to see what Frank had meant about CSIs being thin on the ground. There were only two of them painstakingly checking the large mansion for fingerprints and trace evidence, anything to show how and why Laurence Hadfield had been found dead on Tetchley Moor. There had been nothing up there, so now they had moved on to the house.
Frank Naylor was in the kitchen pouring himself a cup of milky coffee from his vacuum flask. He turned when she walked in. ‘Ah, Annie,’ he said.
‘And no more jibes.’
‘Sorry. Sorry. Good time last night?’
Annie smiled. ‘Great time, thanks.’
‘Good. I’m sorry to drag you away. I suppose it could have waited, but everyone’s been stressing just how little there’s been to go on so far. I thought you should see this for yourself.’ He reached for a plastic evidence bag on the island beside him and passed it to her. ‘What do you make of that?’
Annie held up the bag and peered at the object. ‘Well, it’s pretty obvious,’ she said.
‘Maybe to you, but not to me. Like I said, it looks like some sort of piece of jewellery.’
‘It is. It’s a charm.’
‘As in charm bracelet?’
‘Right. But not just any charm bracelet. It’s a charm from Pandora.’
‘Is that good? Rare?’
Annie laughed. ‘I’m afraid not. Very popular. But it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing. For a start, it’s not the sort of thing you’d expect a man like Laurence Hadfield to be wearing, that’s for sure. Where did you find it?’
‘Bathroom. Round the back of the toilet. Any number of ways it could have got there, but most likely someone dropped it and it bounced or rolled and that’s where it ended up. They probably didn’t even notice.’
Annie examined the charm again. ‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘It’s a treble clef, silver encrusted with cubic zirconia.’
‘You never cease to amaze me,’ said Frank. ‘Expert jeweller as well as ace detective. Are you going to be able to find out where it was sold and to whom?’
‘I told you, Frank, these things are very popular. You can buy them from lots of places, including online. No, I don’t think it’s going to lead us to a particular person, but it does tell us one thing we didn’t know before.’
‘What’s that?’
‘That Hadfield must have had at least one female friend in the house.’
‘A young woman?’
‘Not necessarily young. These Pandoras cross a number of age ranges. But that’s most likely. And we’ve no idea how long it’s been there, though I’m sure Adele Balter will swear she cleans behind the toilet every time she does for Mr Hadfield. Even so, we’d better get the CSIs to give the rest of the bathroom a good going over. If someone lost a Pandora charm there, then there’s always a chance of hair or something down the plughole, stuck to the side of the bathtub, whatever. There may even be a possibility of DNA traces. Can I take it for a moment, Frank? Something I want to check.’
‘Course.’
Annie walked back out to her car. Poppy was still in the passenger seat, and when she saw Annie, she guiltily flicked away her cigarette and put up the window. Annie got in beside her and decided to say nothing about the smoking. There was no point treating Poppy like a wayward child the whole time, even though that was exactly how she behaved. Instead, she sat down and showed her the charm. ‘Do you recognise this?’ she asked.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a treble clef from a charm bracelet. Pandora. Is it yours?’
Poppy handed it back as if it were contaminated. ‘Mine? Mine? What the fuck do you think of me? I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing that fucking bling.’
Annie glanced at the bangles on her wrists and the chains around her neck and guessed they were not bling. Or Pandora.
‘So it’s definitely not yours?’
‘Definitely. Never seen it before.’
‘Have you any idea whose it might be? It was found in the bathroom here.’
‘No idea.’
‘A girlfriend of your father’s?’
‘I doubt that he’d be seen with anyone who wore that sort of thing, either, but there’s no accounting for taste. Anyway, I know nothing about the girls he hung out with.’
Annie reached for her phone.
Poppy looked nervous. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Calling you a taxi. Which part of London did you say you lived in?’
8
Sunday had brought nothing in the way of developments in either case, and it was already lunchtime on Monday. Toxicology on the sleeping pills Adrienne Munro had taken still wasn’t ready. Though they were fortunate at Eastvale HQ in having a top-notch Scientific Support Department adjacent to the police station, and their Crime Scene Manager Stefan Nowak worked closely with the Scientific Support Manager Keith Atkinson, they still couldn’t make nature move any faster.