Cambridge Blue - Alison Bruce [31]
‘Alice’ sat at the untidy desk, adding up a list of figures with a desk calculator which whirred and churned out tally roll each time she hit the + key. Adding figures was clearly her forte, as the spewing list stretched to three feet and looked to be growing at several inches per minute. Her gaze flashed up to them, then back to her list. ‘One minute, please.’
It was more an instruction than a request.
The woman looked in her early or mid-thirties. She wore a white man’s shirt folded back to the elbows and chocolate-brown trousers. Her hair was short and her footwear sturdy and, by rights, she should have resembled a male manual worker but, in reality, the effect was wholly feminine.
A tiny amethyst pendant on a fine gold chain sparkled in the hollow of skin exposed by the unbuttoned neck of the shirt. It was her only item of jewellery.
Here was a woman whose appearance implied great understatement, since she knew she could let her bone structure do the hard work for her. High cheekbones and a delicate jawline gave her a face that would turn from above average to striking as the years progressed. She sat upright, making the most of being five eight.
The calculator gave an extra judder as she finished adding, whereupon she copied the final figure from the display, then put her pen to one side. ‘Sorry to keep you, but I was right at the end.’ She stood and shook hands with both of them. ‘I’m Alice, Richard Moran’s sister. I work here part-time. Thanks for coming.’
Kincaide did the talking. ‘I’m DC Kincaide, and this is DC Goodhew. We understand your brother is concerned about one of the staff. Lorna Spence?’
Alice nodded. ‘It’s probably nothing, but we can’t get hold of her.’ She screwed up her nose and looked apologetic. ‘Richard panics,’ she added.
A year planner was pinned to the wall above the coffee station. Goodhew wandered over to inspect it. ‘How long has she been missing?’ he asked.
‘She didn’t turn up this morning, or even phone in.’
‘One day?’ spluttered Kincaide ‘You mean she was in yesterday? That’s not missing; it’s throwing a sickie.’
Goodhew continued to read the holiday chart.
‘I told you,’ Alice sighed. ‘Richard panics.’
‘I am not panicking, I’m concerned,’ snapped an unseen man’s voice. They all looked towards the open door, and it was obvious that the voice belonged to Alice’s brother. Richard Moran was taut and angular, his bone structure like his sister’s, but with less flesh to cover it. He was clean-cut and clean-shaven. He even had her skin colour and the same dark hair. Otherwise, he was dressed in chinos and an open-necked linen shirt, and they looked close enough in age to have been twins.
He closed the door behind him and stabbed the on-off switch to kill the fan. ‘Why do we need this bloody thing in here, Alice? We’re running the air-conditioning and yet you make this place like an ice house.’ He held a pen in his hand and twiddled it between his fingers, and although he was, in effect, standing still, he shifted his weight from foot to foot with an agitated rocking motion.
Kincaide suggested he sat down, just as Goodhew opened his mouth to do the same. Instead of taking the spare chair, Moran perched awkwardly on the edge of his sister’s desk.
Kincaide spoke in an even, unhurried voice. ‘Lorna was due at work this morning at what time?’
‘She usually gets in between eight-thirty and nine.’
‘Why are you so concerned that you decided to report her as a missing person at only eleven? By then she was less than three hours late.’
‘I . . . um . . .’ His voice was tight with nervousness. He coughed to clear his throat and started again. ‘When I couldn’t get hold of her on the phone, I popped round to her flat. Then I heard word that you’d found a woman’s body, though I don’t have any reason to think it’s her.