Cambridge Blue - Alison Bruce [61]
‘You’re a detective, aren’t you?’ she said. Her lips barely moved as she spoke, but they parted just enough to demonstrate that her teeth were straight and gleaming white.
Goodhew figured that working at the Excelsior Clinic had its perks.
He introduced himself formally. ‘DC Gary Goodhew.’
‘Whatever.’ She shrugged, looked at her cigarette, stubbed it out and reached for another. ‘I saw you here when she first went missing. And now I suppose you want to know more about dear Lorna?’
‘We all want to know about her.’
Victoria blew a thin plume of smoke in the general direction of her coffee. ‘That figures. Men all over the place, even when she’s dead.’
‘I heard you’d fallen out.’
‘Lorna was a bitch.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘I’m supposed to say, “But I didn’t want her dead.” I can promise you I’ve frequently wished her dead. I imagined something less attention-grabbing though, quietly rotting away with an untreatable strain of syphilis. You know, something appropriate. Have I shocked you?’
‘Did you want to?’
‘Don’t give a shit. Bet no one else is saying she was a bitch. Well, they wouldn’t, would they?’
‘Because she’s dead?’
Victoria leant towards Goodhew and ran her forefinger along the edge of the table as if feeling the finish. He noticed her nail was pierced, with a small diamond dangling from it. ‘No, because they didn’t know it. I didn’t know myself until we spent just a bit too much time together. She stole my boyfriend – or did you hear that already?’
Goodhew mimicked her body language and leant a little closer to her. ‘Yeah, I heard,’ he said. ‘That’s all I heard, though. They suggested I get it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.’
‘Right, so either Alice told you or Richard did. They don’t gossip, not really; they just stick to the facts.’
‘How did they know you’d fallen out?’
‘Oh, shit. The whole world knew. We weren’t exactly subtle about it. Well, I wasn’t anyway. That was the big difference between us. With Lorna it was all about getting her own way, and if that meant being two-faced, she’d do it. I couldn’t do that myself. She’d done the dirty on me and I wanted everyone to find out.
‘I’d split up with my boyfriend, and I’m the first to admit that. But she was in there with him, in my bed, within hours. Not days, just hours. Friends don’t do that, do they?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps he wanted to make you jealous? It happens.’
‘Not with him. He screwed around while we were together. That’s why I dumped him.’
‘But you wanted him back?’
Her hand flew up into the air in irritation, and remained poised by her ear as if she wanted to slap him. ‘No I fucking didn’t! Wanker.’ Goodhew wasn’t sure if ‘wanker’ was directed at himself or the boyfriend. Either way, he decided not to take it personally, and hoped she moved her hand before her nail decoration got tangled in her hair.
Goodhew sighed. ‘I don’t get it. You dumped him and didn’t want him back, so what difference did it make?’
‘Do you have a serious gap in your education where women are concerned? She was supposed to be my friend.’
‘Oh, I see. You decided he was a bastard and you needed your friend to think so too.’
‘No!’ she snapped indignantly.
‘What, then?’
She sat quietly and thought about it, then corrected herself. ‘You put it across in a pretty tactless way but, fair enough, that is one way to look at it. Just not the way I see it.’
‘Fair enough,’ he echoed. ‘What was his name?’
‘I’m not prepared to say.’
‘You can’t do that. We need to know. This is a murder investigation.’
‘OK, then. It’s John.’
‘John what?’
‘Smith.’
‘Seriously?’
She didn’t answer, just glared at him in full-throttle disdain. He decided to come back to the name question later. ‘And when did you last see him?’
‘Don’t know.’ She thought for a minute. ‘I really don’t know. Way back, I guess.’
‘I’ll need to contact him. Can you let me have his address?’
‘Sorry, no. Like I say, I haven’t seen him since and I lost touch ages ago.’
‘No phone