‘Tell me about Carlotta, Tanya.’
‘I told you about her. When you come to the flat.’
‘What happened to her?’
She looked vacantly at him.
‘Is she still alive?’
‘Course she’s still alive. What you on about?’
‘Then where is she?’ asked Sergeant Troy.
‘Having the time of her bloody life, I should think. Halfway round the world on a cruise ship.’
‘And how did that come about?’
‘An ad in that stage paper. She auditioned about ten days before she was due to go down the Rectory. They offered her the job, topless dancing. A year’s contract. She jumped at it.’ Tanya looked across at Sergeant Troy and for the first time showed a spark of animation. She said, ‘Wouldn’t you?’
Troy did not respond. It would not have been appropriate but also he didn’t want to. He remembered his first meeting with this girl and how touched he had been by her appearance and larky chatter and the sad fact that she did not know who her dad was. Probably just another lie. He tightened his lips against the chance of a smile, unaware of how sanctimonious it made him look.
‘So whose idea was it that you go to the Lawrences instead?’ asked Barnaby, pleased that at least he knew now why the flat had been cleaned out. ‘Yours or hers?’
‘Terry’s. He liked the thought of being able to keep an eye on me. Mind you, he’d get up the Smoke when he could. He was here when you turned up. Hiding in the bedroom.’
Barnaby cursed silently for a moment. But his voice was even as he said, ‘So you knew him before?’
‘For ever. On and off.’
‘Must have been mostly off,’ said Sergeant Troy. ‘All the time he’s been banged up.’
‘Yeah, mostly.’ Tanya looked across at Troy then with grave contempt. Troy flushed with resentment and thought she’d got a bloody cheek. Even so, he was the first to look away.
‘But you pretended otherwise?’ said Barnaby.
‘S’right. He didn’t want the connection to show.’
‘Because of the grand plan?’
‘Partly. But also it’s his nature to conceal things. It was the only way he ever felt safe.’
‘So how was it supposed to work?’
‘It was brilliant. We had two plans, one for day, one for after dark, depending on when Mrs L took off. I lifted some jewellery, old-fashioned stuff she were keen on.’
‘It belonged to her mother.’
‘Yeah, whatever.’
Barnaby held out his hand. ‘You wouldn’t happen . . .?’
Tanya hesitated.
‘Come on, Tanya. You’ve admitted taking them. Giving them back will look good on your sheet.’
Tanya opened her bag and put the earrings in Barnaby’s hand. They looked very small. Small but beautiful.
‘Now you’re going to flog ’em, ain’tcha?’
‘That’s right,’ said Sergeant Troy.
Barnaby asked what happened next.
‘When she come to my room about it I went mad, tearing up stuff and screaming me life was over. Then I ran away. We knew she’d come after me ’cause she was like that.’
‘Concerned,’ suggested Barnaby.
‘It worked perfect. If it hadn’t, Terry’d got plenty other ideas up his sleeve.’
‘She thought she’d pushed you in,’ said Barnaby. ‘She was frantic.’
‘That was the point,’ Tanya explained patiently. ‘She ain’t going to pay up if I’d jumped, is she?’
‘Why should she pay up at all?’ snapped Sergeant Troy.
‘Because she can afford it. Because she’s got a bloody great house and somebody to clean it for her and somebody else to do the fucking garden. And because she’s never done a stroke of work in her life!’
‘I take it you didn’t like her,’ said Barnaby.
‘Ohh . . .’ Tanya sighed. ‘She weren’t too bad. It were holy Joe I couldn’t stand. Always touching you. Accidentally on purpose - know what I mean? Hands like damp dishcloths.’
‘So where did you get out of the river?’
‘Same place I got in. Terry had floated an old tyre days before. Tied with a rope to a hook under the bridge. I grabbed it, hung on till she’d run away then climbed out.’
I knew about the tyre. Barnaby flashed back to the river-bank search report. A patch of scrub - crisp packets, a pushchair frame, an old tyre. Used as a swing, the description had said, because it still had the rope round it. And I passed on that. Perhaps Joyce was right. Maybe it was time to pack it in.
‘Then where did you go?’ Sergeant Troy was picturing her, despite himself, cold, shivering and soaking wet in the late dark.