Bolton, J. - Now You See Me

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tulloch gesturing to the other table.

‘You were very lucky,’ I said. ‘Tye, how many people were on the boat with you that night?’

For a second, Tye looked uncertain. His brows contracted, his lips pressed tighter together, as though he was trying to remember something. Then he shook his head. ‘There was six of us,’ he said. ‘Five people died and I survived.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what the inquest report said,’ I replied. ‘Three men, including you, and three women, including Catherine Llewellyn. Is that right?’

He shrugged. He supposed that was right. Over my shoulder, someone handed a photograph to Tulloch. She put it down on the table in front of Tye. It was the snapshot of the Llewellyn sisters.

‘Do you recognize either of these girls?’ she asked him.

He pointed to the younger of the two. ‘That’s her,’ he said. ‘That’s Cathy.’

I watched Tye’s eyes start to glint as he looked down at the photograph. ‘Was she your girlfriend?’ I asked him, sensing someone from the other table closing in.

He shook his head.

‘But you’d have liked her to be?’ I asked. Joesbury had approached our table. He crouched down, so that his head was on a level with ours.

‘Do you recognize the other girl in the photograph?’ he asked. ‘Did you ever see her with Cathy?’

Tye looked at the photograph again. He glanced up at me, then back down again. He shook his head.

‘When you knew Cathy,’ Joesbury said, ‘did you ever have the feeling that she thought someone might be looking for her?’

‘We’ve all got someone looking for us,’ Tye answered. ‘Filth, Social Services, families who can’t take no for an answer,’ he went on. ‘Toe rags who think we owe them money. No one gives us any peace.’

‘But Cathy specifically. Was someone looking for her?’

Tye looked at his plate for a second, then nodded.

‘Did she say who?’ Tulloch asked.

He shook his head.

Joesbury reached into his pocket and pulled out two twenty-pound notes. He put them on the table and laid his hand on top of them. ‘I don’t hand over money for bullshit, Tye,’ he said, ‘so don’t waste your time. Tell me something useful and I’ll leave this behind when I go.’

Tye’s eyes were on the money, working out what it would buy him and, somehow, I didn’t think he was planning a trip to the nearest Tesco Metro to stock up on salad and live yogurt.

‘Was she afraid?’ asked Joesbury.

Tye shrugged, gave a weak, half-hearted nod, shrugged again. ‘I know she didn’t want to be found,’ he said. ‘She would never move north of the river. I think that’s where this bloke – she never said it was a bloke, I just sort of assumed – I think that’s where he was. I think she knew he was north of the river and that’s why she wanted to stay this side.’

My three colleagues were exchanging glances. I kept my eyes on the young man directly opposite.

‘Did she ever mention a sister, Tye?’ I asked him. He looked at me vacantly for a second, then shook his head. ‘Do you think he found her?’ he asked me. ‘Do you think he cut the rope that night? Set the boat on fire?’ Tye took his eyes away from me to look at the others. ‘Do you think whoever did that to us was the one Cathy was scared of?’ he asked them.

Joesbury was looking at me. ‘Anything’s possible,’ he said and pushed himself to his feet.

71

Friday 5 October

‘I’M SENDING A TEAM TO CARDIFF,’ TULLOCH WAS SAYING TO the assembled throng as I pushed open the door of the incident room the next morning. ‘I’m not sure who yet. But we need to find any other photographs of Victoria, talk to people who knew her, try and find out where she might be staying.’

The door opened again and I turned to see Joesbury holding it for Gayle Mizon. She walked through holding two paper mugs from Starbucks. She held one out to him and he grinned at her as he took it. The smell of coffee came drifting over towards me. Joesbury’s hair was still wet from the shower. A phone started ringing. From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Barrett answer it.

‘We need to go over Cooper’s place again,’ Tulloch said. ‘We may have missed something. A partial print, anything.’

‘Boss.’ Barrett’s voice.

‘That outfit she wears, the black-hooded coat with squiggles on it, it may—’

‘Boss.’ Louder that time. We all turned to Barrett, whose normally glossy black skin had taken on a duller shade. ‘You need to take this,’ he went on. ‘The head’s turned up.’

Tulloch seemed to freeze. ‘Where?’ she asked.

‘The zoo,’ he answered. ‘It’s at London Zoo.’

*

‘This is one sick bitch,’ muttered Anderson, as we bypassed the zoo’s queuing system and went in through the main gates. A couple of uniformed constables were already in place. We’d passed another one on the street outside, patiently explaining to the growing queue why they couldn’t go into the zoo just yet. I hoped he wasn’t telling them the whole truth.

Ahead of us we saw two men in suits and a woman in black trousers and a green sweatshirt approach Tulloch.

‘The tall bloke’s local CID,’ muttered Anderson. ‘I knew him when I worked in Islington.’ He pointed over to a group of primary-school children gathered by the gift shop. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘The place is crawling with school parties midweek. Is it even Victorian?’

‘Strictly, it pre-dates Her late Majesty by a few years,’ I said. I’d done a quick Google search before we’d left the station. ‘Although she was on the throne by the time it opened to the public.’

‘My bloody daughter comes here,’ said Anderson.

‘Take it easy, mate,’ said Joesbury.

The tall detective introduced himself and the zoo’s general manager, a man called Sheep, comically enough. The woman was one of the head keepers. She was shaking.

‘How long ago was it found?’ asked Tulloch.

Sheep looked at his watch. ‘About quarter to ten,’ he said. ‘We’d only just opened. Luckily the place was quiet. Just a few dozen early birds and that school party you can see over there.’

‘Is there anywhere they can be taken until we can talk to them?’ asked Tulloch.

‘The Oasis might work,’ said Sheep. ‘The main site restaurant. It’s not far from here and there’s plenty of space.’

‘Thank you,’ said Tulloch. ‘Gayle, can you organize that? Coordinate with the keepers to get everyone over there, including all non-essential staff.’

‘It’s our busiest time,’ said the woman in green. ‘All the enclosures need to be made ready for the day, the animals all need feeding.’

‘I understand,’ said Tulloch. ‘We’ll keep the disruption to a minimum. Now, where can we see CCTV footage?’

‘My office is probably the best place,’ said Sheep. ‘I can take you there now.’

‘Can you take DC Stenning, please?’ said Tulloch. ‘Pete, get hold of everything for the last twenty-four hours for starters. We’ll take it from there.’

Stenning and Sheep set off towards the zoo’s main admin buildings.

‘OK, let’s walk and talk,’ said Tulloch. ‘How far do we have to go?’

With the CID detective, a man called John Hallister, in the lead, we set off down the hill and along the zoo’s main avenue. To our right were the original brick buildings of the aquarium and the reptile house. Tiny cafeterias on either side of the path had just started business for the day. The serving staff watched us with undisguised curiosity as we made our way past.

‘Our local office got the call at ten minutes to ten,’ said Hallister. ‘We followed down about fifteen minutes later. When we got here, uniform had already closed the zoo to new punters and roped off the enclosure. The zoo staff had to get the animals back into their sleeping accommodation. Wasn’t easy. They were very upset.’