‘What was his background?’ asked Carter.
‘He’s done a few interviews about his tough upbringing. He seems to have lived alone with his father. His dad died when he was seventeen. Cause of death: liver failure brought on by alcohol abuse.’
‘No sign of the mother?’
‘No. They were already divorced at the time of his dad’s death.’
‘He was their only kid?’
‘Yes.’
‘So he worked his way up the ladder. Determined type. Admirable. Can’t have been easy living with a father who drank himself to death,’ said Carter.
‘He bought out the other partner in Mermaid Yachts at the end of the ’90s and Ellerman and his wife bought a big house in Richmond. It looks like things started to go down for Ellerman after that,’ said Pam. ‘The company accounts show a sharp decline in profit.’
‘How does he afford to stay in the house in Richmond?’ asked Robbo.
‘He has another business. He’s the director of a company renovating houses in Spain,’ answered Pam. ‘He looks like he draws a salary from that.’ Pam’s azure-blue eyes flicked back on Carter.
‘Can we see some of these houses?’ Carter asked as he helped himself to coffee.
‘I’ve had a look for a website – it’s amateur at best. It’s more of a one-page advert than an interactive website. There are a couple of pages of photos of houses, that’s it. There doesn’t seem to be anything else about it online. The company’s called Hacienda Developments; it’s based in Spain although registered here.’
‘If he makes money from it, he must advertise it somewhere.’
‘You’d think so,’ said Robbo. ‘Everything’s online these days.’
‘Unless he’s doing one bespoke project at a time,’ said Hector. ‘I saw something like that on one of those building TV programmes. This one was for a wealthy Brit and it cost a million. If you were in charge of that project, you could expect a fair whack.’
‘So – we think he’s got two high-profile businesses going on? Restoring expensive Spanish homes and selling just as expensive yachts?’
‘The yachts haven’t been doing well for a while,’ said Pam as she looked at the screen over her glasses. They were glam ones – leopard-print with winged sides.
Carter turned to Hector.
‘Did you ask him where he was on Sunday afternoon and evening?’
‘At home.’
‘When was the last time he had contact with Olivia?’
‘They texted one another a lot, said Hector. ‘Last time looks like a week ago. They sent a text to one another first and then there were a few phone calls between them. The last one we have is one from Olivia to him saying: “Great to chat, looking forward to putting plan into action. Very exciting!!!”’
‘She seemed to like him,’ said Carter.
‘Yeah, there are a lot of calls between them, long ones, sometimes lasting more than an hour,’ Hector replied, looking at the lists of phone records. ‘There is also a six-month period a year ago when Ellerman was texting her every day; looks like a basic, round-robin text – he says the same thing every time: “Hello, gorgeous, how’s things? I’m so hot for you right now. Miss you, love you…” That kind of thing. They must have felt a connection—’
‘I’ll interview him myself when we bring him in,’ said Carter.
‘Won’t he recognize your voice from the call about Naughties?’ asked Robbo, who was opening another pack of Haribo. He was trying to get down to one a day. He took out five sweets and folded over the packet top, jammed it under the stapler.
‘I’ll let Willis do most of the talking. I’ll sit in on it – I don’t think he’ll remember my voice – he was too busy panicking at the time.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Personal stuff. She should be back by now.’ He checked his phone and rang her number.
‘I’ll be there in two minutes, guv. I’m just parking the car.’
‘Go straight to the Whittington – I’ll see you there.’
Hector began tapping on his keyboard frantically. ‘I’m into Olivia’s profile now.’
‘You got past her password?’ asked Carter.
‘Wasn’t so hard in the end – she put it in the reminder section on her phone.’
They crowded round to have a look at Hector’s screen.
‘This is not strictly legal,’ Robbo said as he scrolled down the images of the men she had messaged. ‘But well done.’
‘Good job,’ said Carter.
‘I can only look at the past thirty messages on this and that just takes us back a month. We’ll need to get permission to look further. It will mean bringing in the companies’ computers. It’s not going to be easy. It looks like she surfed the net most evenings. Some people have noticed her absence. There are a few “where are you?” messages.’
‘We have to wait to get permission to use the information from the website. It’s an infringement of these men’s human rights,’ said Robbo.
Carter opened the file on the desk and looked at Ellerman’s photos. He was posing by yachts, his company logo and emblem emblazoned all over his T-shirt: blue sky and a golden mermaid figure in the middle. Miranda was written in the circle around the mermaid. Carter stood and took his coat from the hanger behind the door.
‘Has Ellerman tried to get in touch with Olivia?’
‘Yes,’ answered Hector.
‘Smug git,’ Carter said as he turned to leave.
Carter drove down to the Whittington and parked in one of the spaces allotted to the mortuary.
‘You okay? How did it go?’ he asked Willis as she joined him, carrying her coat. Carter thought she looked slightly different. She’d worn a colourful blouse to see her mother. It looked too big for her. He wondered if she’d borrowed it from Tina. Still the same black work trousers though; but she had made an effort – she couldn’t help herself. She nodded.
‘Fine. But have you seen Dr Harding’s car?’ Carter shook his head. ‘I just parked up next to it. You want to see it – it’s a mess.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Carter as he examined the damage. ‘The driver’s window is smashed.’ He walked around the car. ‘Also looks like there were several attempts at smashing the passenger window too. The tear in the roof alone will cost a fortune. She must have seriously pissed someone off. This is going to cost five hundred quid to put right.’
He rang the bell and spoke into the intercom:
‘It’s Detective Inspector Carter and DC Willis. Is Dr Harding free? We need a word.’
They found Harding in her office. Mark was sitting at the other desk. He got up to leave as they came in.
Harding indicated for Carter to pull up the chair Mark had just vacated. Willis perched on the side of Mark’s desk.
‘First things first – what happened to your car?’ asked Carter.
Harding looked a little ‘caught out’.
‘Just parked it in the wrong place, that’s all.’
‘What, and someone did that?’
‘Obviously.’
‘Did you report it?’
‘No. I didn’t see what happened.’
‘There could be CCTV in the area. Are you claiming on the insurance?’
‘No. It’s not as bad as it looks.’
‘Seriously? You want to get a crime number, that’s a few hundred quids’ worth of damage. Thank God you weren’t in it at the time – they were obviously trying to get in. Where did it happen?’
‘I don’t remember exactly. I was visiting a friend.’
‘Where?’
‘In the East End. Look, I don’t really want to discuss it, if you don’t mind. I can’t remember exactly where and when my car got damaged. It’s just one of those things.’
Carter looked at Willis and raised an eyebrow as Harding turned back to her desk and clicked on an image of Olivia Grantham’s post-mortem test results.