It’s usually pretty quiet.’
‘But you didn’t hear anything like that last night?’
‘It was very stormy, so that kept me awake. But…’ Eliza shrugged. The sound of bad weather wasn’t what this woman was looking for. ‘Have you asked at the other flat?’ she said.
DC Barraclough looked surprised and checked her notebook. ‘The other flat?’ she said.
‘There are two flats,’ Eliza said. So much for efficiency.
‘Who lives there?’ It was the man this time. DC Barraclough was flicking through her notebook, frowning.
‘Cara…’ Eliza realized she didn’t know Cara’s second name. ‘A young woman and her baby,’ she amended. ‘She’s called Cara. I don’t know her…’
She was aware of a beat of silence, then DC Barraclough said, ‘There’s a baby?’
‘Yes.’ Eliza saw the two police officers look at each other. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Have you seen her today?’ the other woman said. ‘This Cara?’
Eliza shook her head, suddenly feeling uneasy. She remembered wondering why Cara hadn’t come wandering into the gallery the way she normally did. She remembered Mel sitting back on her heels, her eyes bright with excitement as she talked about the police on the towpath and the body in the canal.
DC Barraclough didn’t answer her. She was talking on her radio.
The Second Site Gallery wasn’t far from police HQ. Roy Farnham was there within fifteen minutes of getting the call. He pulled into the car park in front of the old warehouse, aware, with part of his mind, of the beauty of the old brickwork, the elegant arch on the windows and doors.
One of the officers was waiting for him. He’d noticed her before, the DC who always looked as if she had just got out of someone else’s bed. Tina Barraclough. What was it he had heard about Barraclough? Some kind of crack-up after a case that went bad a couple of years ago? There had been something about a suicide, a young man had jumped from a tower block…He couldn’t quite remember. He noticed that she looked rather ill and ragged as she came over and told him quickly about the young woman, known only as ‘Cara’, who lived in a flat above the gallery with a baby, and who hadn’t been seen that day.
‘Can we get access?’ he said.
Barraclough shook her head. ‘Dave West’s been up.’ She indicated the blocked-in stairway running up the outside of the building. ‘The bottom door was open, but the one into the building is locked.’
Farnham could hear the pathologist’s voice from early that morning. There’s a baby somewhere. This girl had a baby not so long ago. ‘We need to get in.’ As he spoke he was aware of someone coming from the gallery, a woman. He recognized her as she looked up. It was Eliza Eliot, the woman he’d met at the Chapman funeral – he’d forgotten for the moment that she worked at the gallery. He’d hoped if he saw her again it might be in a less formal setting. A funeral and a murder inquiry. Christ, Farnham, you know how to show a girl a good time. ‘Miss Eliot,’ he said. He saw recognition in her eyes. ‘You told my officers you haven’t seen the woman who lives upstairs all day. Is that unusual?’
‘Yes.’ She rubbed her arms against the cold. ‘Yes, it is. She usually drops into the gallery at some time. She’s a bit lonely, I think…’
‘Is there another way into the flats?’
‘I’ll get my key…’ she began, then said, ‘There are stairs in the gallery. It’s quicker that way.’ He followed her into the gallery, past an empty reception desk and through a turnstile. The gallery was empty, the long downstairs room in darkness. He could see the shapes of pictures on the wall, objects standing on the floor space, making odd, shadowy shapes in the fading light. Eliza Eliot led them to the back of the gallery and through a door that opened on to a staircase. She ran ahead and opened a heavy door at the top of the stairs.
Farnham found himself in a long, straight corridor. There were two entrances on the corridor, open lobbies that led into the individual flats. The door that led to the external staircase was at the far end.
‘That’s Cara’s,’ Eliza Eliot said, pointing to the first door.
Barraclough looked at Farnham, then knocked on the door. There was silence. She knocked again. ‘You heard her in the night?’ Farnham said to Eliza.
Eliza nodded. ‘She was seeing to the baby. It was crying.’
Barraclough’s face was tense as she listened. ‘There’s no one there,’ she said, addressing herself to the other officer.
Farnham nodded to West, who stepped back and kicked the door over the lock. It gave a bit. He kicked it again and it flew open. The small entrance lobby was dark. Farnham heard the click of a light switch, but nothing happened, then Barraclough’s voice said, ‘The light isn’t working,’ then, louder, ‘Cara? Police. Are you all right?’ He shone a torch at the ceiling. There was a bare bulb hanging from the light fitting. He went ahead and pushed open the door into the flat. The room was dark apart from the flicker of a candle. Heavy curtains were pulled across the window. It was icy cold. He pressed the light switch, but again, nothing happened.
West was over by the window, tugging at the curtains. They fell away, landing on the floor with a thump, releasing the smell of dust. They were just old blankets hooked over the curtain rail. In the dim light, it was like being in a child’s room, the nursery print on the bedspread, the teddy bear and the doll propped on the floor by the bed, the sheets and pillows disarranged, a rocking horse pushed against the wall at one side. There were the remains of a sliced loaf on the worktop, a mug, an open milk carton, a baby’s bottle, unwashed. There was a cupboard on one side of the room, the doors hanging open, and beside it a chest of drawers, the drawers pulled out, stuff scattered over the floor.
He heard Barraclough’s exclamation. She was leaning over a cot that was pushed close to the window. Farnham felt his heart sink as he saw the motionless shawl-wrapped bundle. He was already speaking into the radio as Barraclough began to run her hands over the infant. He saw Eliza Eliot standing by the door, her hands pressed over her mouth, her eyes shocked. He nodded sharply at West, who began to usher her back, back towards the door of the flat, the landing.
Then Eliza was outside the flat, and the young man was looking down at her. He was holding a photograph. Eliza noticed that he held it carefully, protecting it from his fingers with a tissue. ‘Is this her? The woman who lives here? Cara?’
Eliza looked at the photo. Cara smiled bewilderedly back, a very new baby held awkwardly in her arms. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Look, what’s…?’
Roy Farnham came out, still talking on the radio. His voice sounded brisk and efficient, and somehow this was more reassuring than shouting and urgency and exclamations. He looked at her. ‘We’ll need to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Would you wait downstairs?’
She shook her head. She found herself persuaded, firmly and inexorably back down the stairs to the gallery, back into the office where she sat down heavily. The sound of a siren was already audible in the distance, coming nearer and nearer. She was shaking. She looked wordlessly
