The House in the Woods (Atticus Priest Book 1) Read online

  He took out his Maglite, switched it on and started to investigate the flat. It was split onto two levels and wasn’t particularly generous: the first level offered access to two bedrooms and the bathroom; there was then a short flight of stairs up to a half-landing that, in turn, opened out onto the kitchen-diner. Atticus started here. Lamza had IKEA furniture: he recognised the same sofa and dining table that he had bought with Mack. There was a bookcase filled with books, and a flat-screen television had been fitted to the wall. He looked at the books; there were titles on meditation, on career change, and, next to that, an introduction to hairstyles through the ages. He dropped down to the next shelf and found a framed Diploma in Hairdressing from the College of Northwest London dated eight years previously.

  He went to the breakfast bar and shone the light over a pile of documents. There was a stack of bank statements showing an account that was £3000 overdrawn. Atticus shuffled through the pile and found a statement from Lamza’s American Express card. Again, he had run up a lot of debt: more than six thousand pounds. He was obviously in financial difficulties.

  Atticus arranged the statements on the bar and, with the Maglite held in his teeth and shining down, he took photographs of them one by one.

  He went to the low coffee table in the centre of the room and saw a pile of holiday brochures. The holidays were high-end and expensive: the Maldives, Tenerife, St. Lucia. Atticus flipped through the pages of glossy images of glamorous models in luxurious surroundings.

  He took the stairs down to the hall and went into the first bedroom on the left-hand side. There was a neatly made bed with bedside tables on either side of it and a desk with two lights and a laptop. The desk also held a jam jar full of coloured pens, another with coloured pencils and a tidy with paper clips and erasers and a mug of cold coffee. Atticus automatically made a number of deductions: he assumed from the two desk lamps that Lamza was accustomed to working through the night, and confirmed what he already knew—that he was right-handed—by the fact that the mug of cold coffee was to the right of the laptop, with its handle pointing to the right.

  Atticus tapped the keyboard to wake the screen; the computer was locked.

  He went to the bedside table: he saw loose change, a packet of Marlboro Lights and a lighter, a glass with an inch of water in it, and a copy of the latest Lee Child thriller. He pulled out a drawer and found a leather-bound notebook. He opened it: two yellow Post-it notes had been stuck to the first page. One of them looked interesting. Someone had written out a long combination of letters, numbers and symbols that looked similar to automatically generated passwords.

  Atticus took the notebook to the desk, woke the screen on the laptop and, when he was prompted for the password, tapped out the string of characters.

  He pressed enter and the screen unlocked.

  Easy.

  There was a chair behind the desk. Atticus sat down and took out the DataTraveler flash drive that he always carried in his bag. He fitted the drive with a USB-C adaptor and slid it into one of the MacBook’s empty ports. He opened the email client that Lamza used, selected all the emails, and dragged them over to the drive to copy. He did the same for the files stored in the Documents folder and on the desktop. The computer reported that it would take twenty minutes to complete the operation.

  Atticus was about to start to read the documents when he heard the sound of a muffled voice coming from the corridor outside the flat. He froze, listening, his stomach falling as he heard a key being pushed into the lock and the same squeak of the hinge as the door opened.

  53

  Atticus looked at the laptop screen. The transfer of the files to the USB stick was not complete, with the bar showing a final third still to fill. He got up from the chair as quietly as he could, sliding it back into the position that he had found it in, and listened as Lamza walked into the kitchen. He was on the phone, speaking more than loudly enough for Atticus to be able to hear his side of the conversation.

  “That’s what I said. Salisbury. I know. Pretty, but so boring. I don’t want to go back, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve got to finish giving the evidence.”

  Atticus looked back to the screen and saw that the bar was edging to the right, still not quite all the way there.

  Come on.

  He turned away from the screen so that he could look around the bedroom more carefully. There was a freestanding cupboard, but it didn’t look sturdy enough to bear his weight should he try to hide inside it. The bed was raised off the floor a little, just enough for him to slide underneath. That looked like it might be the best that he could do. Freddie was in the kitchen and would see him the moment he stepped outside the bedroom.

  Atticus checked: not quite finished.

  Come on.

  Lamza was pacing, his feet noisy across the wooden floor.

  “I was supposed to be staying with Matt and Helen this weekend. I know. We were going to go for a walk in the forest, country pub for Sunday dinner and all that shit, but she’s ended up sick or something and they bailed. I came back this morning. I thought I might as well go into the salon and do a couple of hours’ work.” He laughed at something the other person must have said. “I know. It’s not like I need the money, but it’s better to keep appearances up. I don’t want to make it too obvious. Anyway, I’ll probably end up investing some of it into the salon anyway, at least once I’ve had a little bit of fun. Did I tell you what I decided? Two weeks in the Maldives. Next month.”

  The computer bleeped as the transfer completed; Freddie stopped talking. Atticus swiped the drive out of the port, closed the lid of the laptop, and hurried across the room to the bed. He dropped down to his belly and slid beneath it. It was a tight fit, with the wooden rails that supported the mattress pressing against his shoulder blades.

  He heard footsteps.

  “It’s nothing,” Lamza said. “I thought I heard something.”

  Atticus slid further beneath the bed and turned his head so that he could look out from beneath it to the doorway. The angle was shallow, and all he could see were the bottom of Lamza’s legs up to his knee. His legs were clad in black fishnet stockings and he was wearing a pair of red high-heeled shoes. It was incongruous, and it took Atticus a moment to process it.

  “They had the drag karaoke,” Lamza said, answering a question that Atticus couldn’t hear. “Yeah—at the Two Brewers. Clapham. Danny was there. I know—Sum Ting Wong. It was hilarious. I mean, he looks like he put his makeup on while he was wearing a blindfold, but he can sing. Was a good night. I know—I’m pissed, and I’m supposed to be going back to Salisbury today so that I’m there for tomorrow. It’s such a drag.” He tittered. “Pardon the pun.”

  Atticus realised he had left his phone on Lamza’s desk, next to the computer. He couldn’t see it from where he was hiding, but, as he patted his pocket, he knew he didn’t have it.

  Shit.

  He held his breath. He watched Lamza approach the bed. He turned around and then lowered himself down, the mattress pressing on Atticus’s shoulders a little harder as Lamza reached down with his hand to take off his left shoe and then his right. He dropped the shoes on the floor, and Atticus saw the red soles that said they were Louboutins. They looked new, too, with only mild scuffing to the underside. Atticus knew that Louboutins were expensive. Lamza wasn’t shy about showing off his newly found affluence.

  “I’d better go to bed now,” Lamza said. “I need to sleep and I know I’m going to have a pig of a hangover. I’ll speak to you when I get back. Love you. Kiss, kiss.”

  Atticus heard the beep as the call was ended and closed his eyes in exasperation as Lamza flopped back on the bed, his feet kicking up into the air as he straightened out. He didn’t know what he would do if Lamza saw the phone on the desk; the evidence that he had found would be admissible despite the fact that it had been obtained illegally, but the value of his discovery would not protect him from burglary charges. He was wondering whether he might be able
to strike a bargain with Lamza when he got up, yawned volubly, and padded across to the bathroom.

  Atticus waited until he could hear the sound of Lamza urinating, and slid out from beneath the bed. He crept to the desk, swiped his phone and made his way as quietly as he could out of the bedroom and through the flat to the front door. He turned the lock, winced as the hinges creaked once again, and stepped outside. The door creaked again as he closed it, but he didn’t wait around to see if Lamza had heard it. He descended the stairs hastily, pushed open the door to the outside, and headed straight for the road.

  Atticus walked back to Waterloo Station, arriving as the first light of dawn stained the sky between the high-rise buildings on the South bank. The first train back to Salisbury left in an hour, and he had something that he needed to do first. He googled nearby internet cafés and found one—Caffe Deniro—on Webber Street. It opened early, and light from inside cast a welcome glow onto the pavement as Atticus approached. He paid for an hour and sat down at an empty desk. He took out the flash drive and, after plugging it into the computer’s USB port, he selected the most interesting emails and documents and moved them into a folder, one by one. He opened the browser, navigated to Gmail and created a new account. He opened a second window and found Dafyd Cadogan’s email address, copied it and pasted it into a new email. He dragged the folder to the email so that its contents would be added as attachments, and pressed send. There was no need for an accompanying message. The documents would speak for themselves.

  Atticus closed down the browser window, retrieved the flash drive, emptied the terminal’s cache and left the café. He looked at his watch: it was twenty past five. He had a few minutes to get to the station if he wanted to catch the first train.

  54

  Wilton Shopping Village had been running a Christmas ice rink for the last few years, and it had become something of a Jones family tradition to visit it in the week before the big day. The rink was built on the lawn within the inner courtyard that had once been used to stretch out the carpets that were woven here, with wooden sheds erected around the perimeter where local traders could sell their festive goods. There was a mulled wine stall and Mack had already enjoyed a glass. It had been a little stronger than she had expected, and had gone to her head a bit. That was the reason—and not any innate lack of balance or ability—that had led to her unsteadiness. That was what she told herself, in any event.

  They had enjoyed a pleasant weekend so far. They had gone to Andy’s parents’ for his mother’s birthday yesterday, putting on a brave face for the benefit of the assembled relatives. The kids raced around the house, always on the verge of knocking something over, but they had been happy and hadn’t bickered and, eventually, Mack had been able to relax. Andy had offered to drive home, and she had enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine, the alcohol relaxing her enough that she was able to rest a hand on her husband’s knee as they drove back.

  Today had been fun, too. She shuffled around the edge of the rink, gripping onto the rail with her left hand and extending her right for additional balance. She watched as her kids slid across the ice. Both Sebastian and Daisy were able to stay on their feet, which was more than could be said for her. Her parents had never taken her to anything remotely similar when she was growing up, and her first time on skates had been two years ago. She had been awful then and she was only marginally less awful now, mulled wine notwithstanding.

  She had reached the end of the rink and was about to try to negotiate the stretch without a rail when she felt her phone buzzing in her pocket. She anchored herself with her left hand and fished out the phone with her right.

  She sighed. It was the station. She was tempted to ignore it, but knew that she couldn’t. They wouldn’t call on her day off unless it was important.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, boss. It’s Francine.”

  DC Francine Patterson was a newly qualified detective. She was young, smart and eager to make progress in her career. Mack liked her and, as a woman who had blazed the trail before her, had decided that she would do everything that she could to ease Patterson’s transition into plainclothes.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you on a Sunday.”

  “It’s fine. What is it?”

  “We’ve had a walk-in.”

  “And?”

  “It’s the Mallender case.”

  Mack straightened up a little. “Go on.”

  “It’s a woman—she says she has information for us.”

  “Did she say what kind of information?”

  “Says she’s a doctor, was treating Cameron Mallender before he died.”

  “Treating him for what?”

  “She wouldn’t say anything more than that—she’ll only talk to you.”

  Mack sighed. There was no way she was going to be able to get out of this. “All right,” she said. “Where is she?”

  “I’ve got her in an interview room.”

  “Tell her I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  She put the phone back in her pocket, her foot sliding out from underneath her as she struggled to fasten the zip. She caught herself on the rail before she could fall, but it was far from a graceful recovery.

  Andy slid over to her. “Careful.”

  “I’ll never get the hang of this,” she muttered.

  “Probably help if you weren’t on your phone?”

  “I have a problem,” she said.

  “Please don’t say that was work.”

  “I’m sorry—I have to go in.”

  “On a Sunday?”

  “I know.”

  “Jesus, Mack,” he hissed. “It’s nearly Christmas. We come here every year. You can’t go to work now.”

  “You know how it is—I don’t get to choose.”

  “Bullshit,” he said. “You’re a DCI. Send someone else. Call Lennox—he can bloody well do it. Call Best or Boyd. Get one of them to go in for you.”

  “You think I want to go in?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, suddenly sullen. “Do you?”

  “No, I don’t. But it’s the Mallender case. I don’t have a choice.”

  “You’d better make sure he goes down,” he said, “because this isn’t feeling like it’s worth it at the moment.”

  He pushed off.

  “Andy!”

  He spun around so that he was facing her and sliding gently backwards. “Go. I’ll tell our children why Mummy can’t be here for the rest of the afternoon.”

  He spun around and skated away before Mack could say anything else. She was aware of a sharp pain in her lip and realised that she had bitten down on it, hard. She wanted to go after him, to rail at him that it was unfair to make her feel guilty, that it wasn’t her choice that she was going, but he was already too far away and, if she was honest, she knew that he was probably right. She knew plenty of coppers who ended up with other coppers; it made sense. Sometimes only someone who worked the same job and suffered the same unsociable hours and demands could understand what police work was like. Her thoughts jerked to Atticus, and how he would have understood what it meant, before she banished the thought of him from her mind.

  The affair had been a mistake.

  A dreadful, weak, dangerous mistake, and one that she was never—ever—going to repeat.

  A mother on the rail between Mack and the changing area where she could remove her skates looked at her and stumbled as she slid out of the way. She had a look of alarm on her face, and it was only when Mack was past her that she realised why: she was wearing a ferocious scowl.

  55

  Mack called for a car to pick her up and take her to the station. She went up to the CID room. Francine Patterson was waiting.

  “Where is she?”

  “In the interview room.”

  “Anything that I need to know before I talk to her?”

  “Not really. She wanted to wait for you. I don’t know anything more than I’ve already to
ld you.”

  “Okay. Come in with me and take a note.”

  She led the way to the interview room, knocked on the door and went inside. The interview rooms at Bourne Hill were reasonably new, and in much better condition than the ones that they had replaced before the constabulary had moved here. They were used by officers for interviewing suspects and witnesses, and by solicitors who needed privacy when consulting with their clients. The room was painted in two tones of grey, with a small table against the wall and three chairs. One of the chairs was occupied by a middle-aged woman. Mack would have estimated that she was in her late forties. She had a thick head of naturally curled dark hair, a slender and almost elfin face, and was dressed in clothes that were obviously on the more expensive end of the scale.

  “Hello,” Mack said, offering her hand. “I’m Detective Chief Inspector Jones.”

  The woman stood up. “Audrey Sandeau.”

  “Thanks for coming to see me,” Mack said.

  The woman nodded a little nervously. “I’m not completely sure I’m doing the right thing.”

  “I’m sure we can work that out.” Mack gestured to the chair. “Please—sit down. Have you been offered a drink?”

  “I’d love a coffee.”

  Mack turned to Patterson. “Could you get a couple of coffees, please?”

  “Right away.”

  Patterson went outside and closed the door behind her.

  Mack decided to get started. “You said you had information about Cameron Mallender?”

  Sandeau looked down at the digital recorder on the table. “That’s not recording, is it?”

  “Not now,” Mack said.

  Sandeau turned and gestured up at the camera fixed at the junction of the wall and ceiling. “And that?”

  “That’s off, too, but if you think you have something that might be relevant to the trial, we’d have to go on the record and switch them on.”