The Memory of Blood(40)

‘You’ll have to take a look for yourself. I don’t do stairs.’

Longbright made her way to the upper floor and let herself into Anna’s neat, light bedroom. Bryant had found his biographer through Dr Harold Masters, who insisted that Anna was far too good to be transcribing documents for academics at a pittance. But she was also employed by government agencies, helping to prepare white papers, so she was required to keep a secure area in her office for documents of a sensitive nature.

A cheap IKEA desk stood against the back wall, with books arranged in tidy piles. There were hardly any photographs or personal belongings on display. A small threadbare teddy bear that had probably been a childhood friend sat on colourful cushions at the head of her single bed. A window overlooked the untidy back garden. Two unlocked cupboards were filled with research folders, reference books and magazines. Apart from a flimsy wardrobe of clothes and a high-backed chair, there was nothing else.

This was Anna Marquand’s small world, a haven away from her overbearing mother, a place of safety and comfort. Longbright felt suddenly overwhelmed by sadness.

She took up the frayed rag rug and found it underneath, a slim steel cabinet neatly recessed into the floor, locked with a single standard Yale key. Not exactly impregnable, but it probably fulfilled the conditions of her contracts. Dan had lent Longbright his key kit, and she managed to open the safe in a few seconds. Inside were around thirty CD-ROMs labelled with the names of their clients, their contents numbered according to a system that Anna probably matched up in her notes. Simple and effective, but hardly secure. Nothing from Arthur or the PCU. Then she remembered; Anna had only just returned from town and would not have had time to refile the disc. She relocked the safe with its contents intact.

She picked up the single framed photograph from the desk and studied it. Anna in happier times, with her father and mother on a bright Spanish beach. There was hope back then, and happiness. No sign of the future, of lives derailed and unfulfilled. She set it gently back down and closed the bedroom door as quietly as possible, as if Anna was sleeping inside.

‘Your daughter went outside and found the shopping bag on the step,’ she reminded Rose Marquand. ‘Do you still have the contents?’

‘No, I unpacked it and put everything away.’

‘There was just shopping in it, nothing unusual?’

‘No. But she’d been working on her laptop and had some discs. I think I put them on the sideboard.’ Rose pointed across the cluttered lounge. Longbright sifted through the stacks of TV listings magazines and gossip papers but found nothing more.

‘I don’t see them here.’

‘I don’t know where anything is anymore. Look, can you put a stop to those Hagan kids? They made the last few moments of my daughter’s life a misery. She was shaking when she came in. She told me she was frightened, and I could see the fear in her eyes. It was probably why she accidentally cut herself in the first place. I should have prepared supper for her. I want you to arrest them.’

‘I promise I’ll see what I can do.’ Janice searched through the sideboard and underneath it, but found nothing. Anna had taken the disc with her when she had gone to see Arthur, but didn’t seem to have returned home with it.

‘Did your daughter have another place where she kept things safe?’ Longbright asked. ‘Somewhere outside of the house?’

‘I don’t know. She didn’t tell me much about her work. It was just, you know, writing.’ She made the last word sound absurd, like some kind of incomprehensible and pointless hobby.

‘Did she ever mention going somewhere that struck you as unusual?’

Mrs Marquand tried to think, but looked blank. ‘Only the lido. I said, what do you want to go there for?’

‘A swimming pool? Which one?’

‘The open-air one up in Tooting Bec.’

‘Why did you think it was so odd that she would go there?’

‘She used to swim every day when she was a little girl. But that was years ago. Tooting Bec’s miles out of her way. That, and the weather.’

‘What exactly did Anna say?’

‘She called me after seeing your boss on Monday afternoon. I asked her to pick up some dinner and she said she’d be a bit late. That she had to go there on the way home to see someone.’

‘Can you remember who?’

‘A girl with a similar name. Diana or Donna. That’s it, Donna. Perhaps she can tell you more.’

‘Thank you.’ Longbright paused in the doorway. ‘Would you say Anna was happy?’

‘I don’t know. I think she wanted a fella. We all do, don’t we? She shouldn’t have died like that. It don’t seem fair. What did she get out of life?’