Spider - Michael Morley [109]
‘You’ve been through all these?’ she asked, waving a hand at the books.
‘Book by book, page by boring page. There’s nothing of interest to us,’ said Marco.
Orsetta’s heels clacked over the marble as she checked out the bathroom, then went through everything in the kitchen. A thin calendar hung on the wall near the sink. She lifted it off its drawing pin and thumbed through the months. Each one had a different recipe, tied to the seasonal use of food and wine, but Orsetta wasn’t interested in the culinary tips. Fixing her attention on June, she was disappointed at the absence of any jotted remarks on the ninth or tenth.
‘Tell me again about who saw her last on the ninth,’ she said, still peering at the calendar.
Marco let out a tired sigh. He’d gone over this info so many times he could recite it backwards. ‘Two friends, Mario and Zara Mateo, called round at about seven p.m., and invited her out to dinner. She said no thanks and they wentontheir own. The restaurant says they stayed until gone midnight, got a bit drunk and caught a taxi home. Next timing we have is the following day. Cristina’s mother wanted her to pick up some medicine and called her mobile, maybe six or seven times. By evening she was worried, so she and Cristina’s father came round to the apartment and raised the alarm. Local police booked the call at 8.33 p.m.’
Orsetta nodded and went back to flicking through the calendar. There was almost nothing on it, just an entry in the last week of May: ‘Diet and jogging start today!’ She smiled and felt a stab of sadness at the same time. There wasn’t a woman alive who hadn’t made similar dates with herself. She returned the calendar to its pin and followed Marco to the single bedroom. It was barely big enough to accommodate a three-quarter-size bed, a cheap dressing table and a white plastic chair that looked as though it should be in a garden. Orsetta opened a built-in, sliding wardrobe made of slatted pine. It was empty. ‘Clothes at the lab?’ she asked, already knowing the answer.
‘Aha,’ said Marco. ‘I’ve brought photographs and lists of everything that’s been removed and not put back. I knew you’d want to see.’
Orsetta took a stack of small prints from him. The first shot showed what the photographer had initially seen when he’d opened the door. Jeans on the left of the rail, followed by trousers, then blouses, skirts and finally dresses. They were plain and functional; none of them looked expensive or particularly new. She shuffled through the photos and found the print she was looking for. Shoes. Orsetta’s eyes widened.
‘Are these the only pairs she had?’ she asked, incredulously.
Marco peered over her shoulder. ‘Yes, that looks about right.’ One pair of high heels, two pairs of flat brown shoes, two pairs of flat black, and a pair of black boots. There was something wrong. Orsetta couldn’t put her finger on it, but she just knew that there was something wrong.
She dropped the prints on top of the dressing table and quickly went through the three drawers.
Nothing.
She sat at the dressing table, waiting for her mind to identify what was disturbing her. ‘Anything from these drawers still at the labs?’
Marco thought for a moment. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
Orsetta’s eyes searched the room, flicking over every corner of it, desperate to uncover the clue that she knew lay somewhere close to her. ‘What about a laundry basket?’
‘Done,’ said Marco, understanding where her thoughts were heading. ‘Three pairs of panties, a couple of T-shirts, jeans, not much else. All free of any trace samples or DNA other than the victim’s.’
‘That’s not what I’m thinking,’ said Orsetta, returning to the bottom drawer. She tipped the contents