“In terms of Amy’s movements, there isn’t much that she could add. Amy went missing on Friday 21st June 2005, when this housemate was at her boyfriend’s house. The last time she saw Amy was on the Friday morning, when they both had a lecture at the university. As far as she knows, Amy was planning to have a quiet night at home.”
“What else?”
“She agrees that Amy wasn’t herself for a good while before she disappeared. She thinks that she perked up a bit, just before she went missing, but she still reckons Amy wasn’t just down in the dumps, she was keeping secrets.”
Ryan’s focus sharpened.
“What kind of secrets?”
Phillips glugged down more coffee before answering.
“She reckons there was a man involved, somehow, which tallies with what her father told me yesterday. One night around the Christmas before she disappeared, Amy came home late and looked like she’d been crying. Apparently said she didn’t want to talk about it and clammed up, which was unusual because Amy was usually the ‘open’ sort.”
“The housemate didn’t mention any names?”
“She thinks he was a bit older, but she never met him and can’t remember his name. She thought he might have been married and that’s why Amy didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Recent events concerning Keir Edwards didn’t jog any memories for her?”
“Nope, she’d never heard of Edwards until she saw it all reported on the BBC World News, last year and never associated him with Amy.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah,” Phillips agreed, scratching his chin. “She reckons it could have been this bloke to set her off along the wrong track, then Amy turned private and apparently their friendship was on the rocks.”
“She said that?”
“Yeah,” Phillips flicked his finger against the notes of his conversation with Amy’s housemate, from the night before. “She says that living with Amy had become difficult. She was withdrawn, a bit selfish, a bit of a slob. She was thinking about moving out and leaving her to it.”
“Doesn’t sound like the same ‘Amy’, does it?” Ryan commented, considering the girl staring back at him from a picture on the wall.
“Tends to happen when people are depressed though, doesn’t it?” Phillips said knowledgeably and then tried to think of something to change the subject. It wasn’t so long ago that Ryan had gone through a rough patch.
Thankfully, he was saved by the timely interruption of Ryan’s mobile phone, which pealed out the tinny theme tune from Indiana Jones.
Phillips regarded Ryan with an indulgent look.
“Not one word,” Ryan warned him, before hitting the green button on his touchscreen.
After a few moments, he returned the phone to his pocket, all humour gone.
“We need to take a trip to the mortuary. That was Pinter – apparently he’s finished Claire Burns’ autopsy and there’s something we should see.”
“Do we have to?” There was nothing Phillips hated more.
“He said it was for our eyes only.”
“Oh, goody.”
The Bee Gees soared over the chilly air of the mortuary at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, their falsetto lyrics encouraging the listener to shake the white suit out of mothballs and give in to the fever of the night. Phillips had some fond memories of such a suit, and the corresponding platform heels he had worn on many fun nights out on the Tuxedo Princess, the boat-cum-nightclub that had laid anchor on the River Tyne, many moons ago.
He sighed, thinking of the good old days. There was none of that now. It was all American-style diners straight off the set of Pulp Fiction.
They found Jeff Pinter in his laboratory scrubs, his hair and face masked to protect the body of Claire Burns from further contamination. Ryan and Phillips kept a respectful distance, with Phillips in particular keeping his eye line a good few inches above where the body rested on a metal gurney, covered by a long white sheet.
“Afternoon, fellas,” Pinter greeted them in his usual jovial manner. “You’re in luck; I’ve just finished the post-mortem.”
“What can you tell us?”
“Quite a lot,” Pinter began. “As I mentioned before, Claire Burns suffered no head wounds, as Amy Llewellyn did. Instead, I found a small puncture site in the tissue of her neck. Toxicology indicates that she was injected with a large dosage of Lorazepam.”
“What’s that, when it’s at home?” Phillips asked.
Ryan could have told him. It was precisely what the medics had found swimming around his system when they’d peeled him off the floor of his apartment, with Natalie dead beside him.