‘Very good.’ I’m tempted to applaud. ‘Hey, what do you think to this?’ I clear my throat. ‘I am the star and I mark out the way. To Jesus, the Lord, as the prophesies say.’
Understandably, she’s flummoxed.
‘It was my one line in the Nativity,’ I explain, grinning. ‘I rehearsed it so much, I can still recite it, word for word, over twenty years later. Amazing, right?’ I tap the side of my head. ‘Funny how things stick when you practise them enough times.’ She swallows hard, getting the message, but I prattle on, leaving her to squirm. ‘Yeah, I was gutted, I don’t mind telling you – auditioned for Mary, got cast as the bloody star! Thought I was going to be trooping around the stage, looking all noble and dignified, clutching a Tiny Tears doll. Ended up suspended on a wire, dressed in leggings and gold lamé.’ I sigh. ‘But then that’s life, eh? Never quite works out the way you planned. Although you’ve got Poppy, of course. She seems like a sweetie – did she have a good time at Hobbletown?’
‘Hobbledown,’ she corrects. I laugh at my own mistake, putting her at a tiny bit of ease again. ‘And yes, she did. She got to walk a llama. And then she saw another llama looking after a lamb, which was the sweetest thing ever, apparently.’ Her eyes are shining, shoulders soft.
How to Tell When Someone’s Lying: Part 2:
Displaying obvious signs of relief that the difficult subject has been dropped.
Providing unnecessary, un-asked-for details about llamas.
‘She went for her sixth birthday, right?’ Serena nods, blissfully unaware of the oncoming ambush. ‘So if Poppy’s six now, you must have been . . . um—’ I tilt my head, pretending to grapple with the maths – ‘four months pregnant when the whole Clapham thing went down?’ I make a low whistle. ‘Christ, I bet you didn’t need that. I mean, you’re not long out of the hell of the first trimester, hoping for a bit of quiet time, maybe a bit of pregnancy “glow”, and then, wham, you’re in the middle of a murder investigation.’
Her smile slips. ‘I suppose you’re going to try to claim pregnancy affected my eyesight.’
‘No, but I think it affected your judgement.’ I slide her statement across, pointing to the other nugget I’d noticed as I’d trawled back through her lies. ‘This is what you said to me about the client you were seeing: He’d been doing coke. I hadn’t – I swear on my daughter’s life, I only had a couple of glasses of wine.’ Another whistle, this one disapproving. ‘Hey, you know, I try to live and let live about most things, Serena, as long as they’re within the law, obviously. But a couple of glasses of wine while pregnant? You do know the dangers, right?’ She bristles, but it looks forced. ‘And – and this isn’t really my business, but . . . sleeping with a client when you’re pregnant? Isn’t that a bit . . .’ I stop abruptly, putting my hands up in apology. ‘Ah no, scrap that, sorry. Honestly, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not my place to judge, I’m only here for the facts.’ I give her a tight smile. ‘We’ll need your client’s details, of course.’
She tugs at her ponytail again. ‘I don’t have them. I haven’t seen him since that day.’
‘A name would be a start.’
‘I only ever knew him as Dave.’
Dave. She isn’t even trying now. At least she used to tell a good lie; a solid eight out ten for creativity. Buying Lady Gaga tickets from a phantom conman in a pub ranks a thousand leagues higher than ‘I only knew him as Dave’.
‘OK, how about the address of where he was staying? We might be able to trace him that way.’
‘I don’t remember.’
I give her a puzzled look. ‘Serena, you’re not being overly helpful, given it’s in your interest for us to find him. “Dave” can corroborate your story. He can confirm you were really there that day.’
‘My story? And what do you mean, of course I was fucking there.’
Swearing now. Interesting.
‘Then why can’t we find one single sighting of you on CCTV?’
‘I . . .’ She falters quickly. ‘I don’t know. I can’t answer that.’
I rub my chin. ‘I suppose, in fairness, it was raining. Lots of people under umbrellas. You could have been one of them.’
‘Yeah, I must have been.’ She nods, happy that’s sorted, then looks at her watch. ‘Look, it’s gone five, I need to get back. I take it I’m free to leave?’
‘Except you didn’t have an umbrella. That was one of the reasons you remembered Holly, because she didn’t have one either.’
‘I said, can I leave?’ She picks up her bag, presumptive.
Problem is, it’s not entirely presumptive. I can’t stop her from leaving. Like Steele implied, we’d struggle to get this past the CPS at the moment, and I’m still not even sure what this is.
Still, might as well go for it; hurl the kitchen sink at her.
‘One more question, then you can leave. But think carefully before answering, because my boss is already bandying around terms like “Perverting the Course of Justice”.’ Her breath quickens; my hoped-for response. ‘Have you ever come across a man called Simon Fellows?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Who is he?’
Face completely blank. At a guess, I’d say genuinely blank.
Not my hoped-for response.
‘So, to be absolutely clear, a man called Simon Fellows did not pay you, or influence you in any way, to say you saw Holly with Masters? Because the type of money Simon Fellows could pay would come in very handy to someone facing the prospect of single motherhood. He’d pay a lot more than £500, if he thought you could be useful to him.’
She stands, mouth puckered. ‘Could he? Great! Then give him my number, whoever he is. Robbie’s about to be made redundant and the car needs a new gearbox.’
It pains me to admit it, but for the first time I think I almost believe her.
Almost.
24
‘Meet me at South Kensington’ sounds more like a 1950s rom-com than an instruction from a senior officer, but less than an hour later I’m striding down Montrose Grove, heading back to Oliver Cairns’ place. Up ahead, Steele’s standing under a cherry blossom tree a little way down from the house, tapping away on her phone, her small frame engulfed in pink. There isn’t a breath of wind and the branches are eerily still, as if the heat has zapped all their energy and they can’t be bothered to move, like the rest of us. As I get closer, I notice that two petals have dropped onto Steele’s head – perfect pink on perfect black. I should probably tell her or move them. But I don’t. They look pretty.
And here, my wistfulness ends. Steele’s straight down to business.
‘News?’ she orders, sliding her phone into her bag as we start walking.
I take it from the top, filling her in on the Bailey interview. Her claims she was mistaken. My belief she’s talking bullshit. The convenient unknown whereabouts of her alibi, ‘American Dave’. A lie about an umbrella.
‘I think she was telling the truth about Fellows, though. I doubt she’s going to be our link.’