All the Rage

Adam Fawley
11 April 2018
12.25

The incident room is crowded now. People are perched on desks, eating sandwiches from the Tesco across the road. And at the front, by the whiteboard, is Baxter.

`˜So,' asks Gallagher, `˜what's all this about?'

Baxter turns and points at an enlargement of Isabel Parker's bus ticket.

`˜The DI asked me to get some more tests done on this and it turns out he guessed right. There are two sets of prints on this thing.'

Quinn frowns. `˜Don't bus drivers hand the tickets out? So they'll be his, right?'

Evidently Quinn doesn't spend much time on public transport. As if you couldn't guess.

`˜The tickets are issued straight from the machine,' says Asante quietly. `˜Only the passengers handle them.'

`˜So one set are Isabel Parker's,' begins Gallagher. `˜But the others `“'

`˜The others,' says Baxter, `˜are a perfect match for Leah Waddell.'

But people don't get it; not immediately anyway. I can see that from the confusion in their eyes. I get up and turn to face them.

`˜OK. This is what I think happened. Patsie, Sasha and Isabel left Summertown on foot that night, just like Nadine said. They met up with Nadine at the footpath and then they all went down to the river. God only knows what they told Sasha to persuade her to go along with that, but whatever it was, she must have believed it. Meanwhile Leah Waddell waited in Summertown on her own, and eventually caught that 9.43 bus. That ticket there, on the board `“ that's hers.'

`˜But it's a ticket for Headington,' says Everett, evidently still confused.

`˜Right. Precisely. She bought a ticket for Headington. Only she didn't stay on that far. She got off at the very next stop, and walked back home from there, arriving `“ as we know `“ at 10.15. And the following day, at school, she gave that ticket to Isabel, so she had something to prove her alibi if she needed it.'

Quinn lets out a long breath. `˜The cunning little mares.'

`˜But that bus driver spoke to Isabel,' says Everett, clearly still confused. `˜He identified her. I don't get it `“ she had to have been on that bus.'

I nod. `˜And she was. Patsie walked home from the river but Isabel went back down to the main road and caught the bus to Headington from there. The same bus Leah had just got off only a few minutes before. I reckon Isabel probably had her hood up when she got on so the driver wouldn't notice her hair, but she must have taken it down later. She wanted to make damn sure he'd remember her.'

`˜Fuck me,' says Gislingham under his breath. `˜Someone remind me about this, will you, next time I say I want daughters.'

* * *

Somer's flat doesn't have the space of Saumarez's house. Or the dГ©cor. Or the view. The sitting room is tiny, she has only the one bedroom and the bathroom doesn't even have a window. But it doesn't seem to bother Giles. It's one of the things about him that intrigues her. For someone who's clearly spent a pile of money and time on getting his own surroundings exactly as he wants them, he seems to have a talent for being at ease wherever he finds himself. Which, right now, is sprawled on Somer's sofa, watching TV.

He doesn't turn it off when he sees her, but he does get up, pulling her into his arms and burying his face in her hair.

`˜Missed you,' he says.

`˜It's only been a few days,' she laughs, but it's been a shit of a few days, and she feels suddenly on the edge of tears. She breathes him in, the heat of him, the smell. Sea air and skin and clean laundry. Perhaps this is what love is like, she thinks suddenly. Perhaps she's been searching for this `“ exactly this `“ all her adult life. She just never knew.

She pulls away now and hauls off her coat.

`˜I'm going to make tea,' she says, heading for the kitchen. `˜And then I'm going to have a shower. Do you want anything?'

`˜No, I'm fine.' He drops back on to the sofa and swings his feet on to the coffee table. If any of her previous boyfriends had done that she'd have seethed. But it's early days, as she keeps reminding herself `“ for this and many other reasons. Stuff like that only starts to jangle your nerves after at least six months.

It's a true crime show he's watching, surprise, surprise; Somer recognizes the woman doing the voiceover. A rich, arch American accent she can't quite place geographically. The west coast somewhere?

Her phone pings as she tips water into her mug. An email from Ev. She puts down the kettle and opens it up.

`˜Shit,' she says. `˜Shit shit shit.'

* * *