Cambridge Blue - Alison Bruce [68]
‘On balance, I’d say she was outgoing and popular, though not very professional.’
Goodhew scribbled notes across the original message as he tried to keep up with her. They would need to take a statement from her, too, so Goodhew arranged that for the following morning.
Faith Carver had just finished confirming the arrangement when she suddenly gasped, ‘Oh yes, there is something else I forgot to mention. Lorna slipped off to lunch at twelve, and didn’t come back until one-thirty but, before she went, I heard her mobile phone receive several text messages.’
Goodhew replaced the handset, unaware that someone else had entered the room, and he jumped when he heard a discreet cough. DI Marks stood in the open doorway. Expressionless.
‘Why are you still here?’ he demanded.
Goodhew shrugged. ‘Nothing decent on TV.’ But Marks wasn’t about to be moved by flippant comments, so he added, ‘I decided to take another look at Colin Willis’ file, but I’ve just been speaking to the Exelsior Clinic receptionist, Faith Carver, instead. How soon will we have Lorna Spence’s phone records, do you think?’
‘Coincidentally, right now.’ Marks held out a wodge of faxes. ‘They’re the up-to-date listings from all the phones you’re checking, from the last bill paid until yesterday and including Lorna’s extension at work. Don’t stay too late. I’ll be in my office, if you need me.’
Goodhew settled down, keen to study the new pile of paper, but he knew he was getting tired as he stared at the lists of numbers and found them totally meaningless. He wandered round to the drinks machine, downed two black coffees in quick succession, then returned to his desk with a slightly clearer mind.
Lorna had made a lot of phone calls and, judging by the variety of numbers, made them to many different people. Then, two weeks and two days before the end of the statement, the calls had suddenly stopped. So that tallied with Victoria Nugent’s claim that Lorna had changed her phone, and therefore left him with no way of checking who she’d been texting on the morning of her disappearance.
His extension rang. It was Marks. ‘Go home, Gary.’ The DI sounded tired, his voice gravelly.
‘It looks like Lorna Spence was using a second mobile the day she died. Victoria Nugent said much the same, and reckons the old one is at the Excelsior Clinic. Could the new one still be at her flat?’
‘I doubt that; the premises were thoroughly searched.’
‘I know, but perhaps it was missed.’
‘Read me the number.’
‘I don’t have it, but I do have a list of mobiles that she was in the habit of texting. We need to know who they belong to, and whether they started texting her on the new number.’
‘I’ll get that checked. Any other progress?’
‘No, apart from that, nothing really. We’re visiting the half-sister, Jackie Moran, first thing in the morning.’
‘You and Kincaide?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Now go home, get some sleep and start fresh tomorrow.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
Goodhew managed a fitful doze from just after 3 a.m. until 5.35 a.m., and awoke to the sound of incessant rain and the silence of birds. He lay on top of his bed, bare-chested but still wearing jeans; a slight improvement on a fully clothed crash-out on the settee.
He sat on the edge of the bed until his head cleared, then crossed to the window, wanting to see the downpour. Some days the rain sounded worse than it actually was, amplified by the water gushing through downpipes and dripping from the guttering. But today it was just as wet as it sounded, if not wetter.
The rain fell in sleet-thick sheets, and the sky was bruised and grey, like a battered lead lid nailed down close above the rooftops.
He made the few hundred yards to work much longer by detouring via Parkside pool. But he stopped swimming after only ninety lengths, worried that he might keep Kincaide waiting, and so arrived at his desk promptly on the dot of 7 a.m.