The Doll's House

118

Alastair and Gemma Lansley stood stock still, barely able to breathe. Helen watched them closely. She could tell that, like Daniel Briers, they had found news of their daughter’s death hard to credit. But they had done the right thing and flown over from Windhoek to be confronted by the grim reality of Isobel’s murder. She lay on the mortuary slab in front of them, her body discreetly covered, but her pale, thin face unveiled. Her opaque eyes stared up at her parents, giving them none of the love they craved. She had been dead for over a year.

Helen was surprised to see that while Alastair’s eyes were already brimful of tears, Gemma’s eyes were dry, as if they hadn’t yet taken in what they were seeing. Usually it was the other way around, the husband desperately trying to be strong for his wife. But that was not the case here. Helen had already established in their preliminary chats that Alastair was very close to his daughter – his only daughter. When he and his wife had retired abroad, Alastair had hoped that Isobel would eventually join them – a life in the sun – but she had cleaved close to Southampton and her studies. Alastair had picked up a note of cynicism, even weariness in her recent tweets and texts that perhaps tokened a change in attitude to her surroundings and this had raised his hopes of a reunion. But these had turned out to be somebody else’s fabrication – a revelation that was too big, too horrific for this elderly couple to process.

Having concluded the identification, Helen moved them into the relatives’ room.

‘I know this is hard, but I need you to tell me as much as you can about Isobel. Her friends, her study schedule, her habits. We’re working on the assumption that Isobel’s attacker was not known to her, but rather someone who she came into contact with in daily life.’

‘We could have told you that,’ Gemma Lansley said curtly. ‘Isobel didn’t have any friends.’

‘Gemma…’ her husband murmured, a gentle note of warning in his voice.

‘They need the facts, Alastair,’ she shot back quickly, her voice wobbling for the first time. ‘There’s no point dressing things up.’

There was a pause and then Alastair looked straight at Helen.

‘When Isobel… when she was a teenager, she was the victim of a sexual assault.’

‘Go on.’

‘She was walking home from school. Took a short-cut across the heath. The man… the man responsible was caught and imprisoned.’

‘Eight years with time off for good behaviour,’ Gemma added bitterly.

‘But it left a lasting impression on Isobel. She hated open spaces, hated to be outside. She hardly ever left her flat and didn’t really want to share. She had trust issues, I think the psychiatrist said. Hence she lived alone.’

‘She had a limited social circle?’ Helen asked.

‘Limited was the word,’ Gemma said. ‘She deliberately cut herself off from her family, her friends -’

‘Please Gemma, you’re not helping -’

‘Cut herself off from anyone who might have cared for her.’

Gemma Lansley lapsed into silence now, overwhelmed by misery and grief.

‘So she wouldn’t have let someone she didn’t know into the flat?’

‘Have you been listening, Inspector?’ Gemma replied acidly. ‘She wouldn’t let people she did know into the flat. She felt safe only when she was alone behind a closed door.’

Helen nodded, suddenly feeling huge sympathy for the spiky Gemma. Her bitterness was the result of her daughter closing the door on her. Had she too hoped for a reconciliation, a greater closeness later in life?

‘She was security-conscious?’ Helen offered gently.

‘Of course. She didn’t go to great extremes – didn’t have the cash – but she had a very strong lock, a spyhole in case anyone rang the doorbell. And she’d always tell deliverymen to leave things on the doorstep. She hated the idea of coming into contact with strangers.’

‘And yet she must have come into contact with them every day on her way to and from college?’

‘She did, but it was on her terms. She always took the same route at the same times of day, she knew the faces along her route extremely well – not that she’d ever talk to them of course.’

Helen tensed, sensing a breakthrough.

‘Do you remember her route?’

‘Of course. We walked it several times with her when we were over. We stayed in a hotel – obviously.’

‘That’s very helpful and if you can I’m going to ask you to sit down with one of my officers and go over that route. It could be of crucial importance to know where she went and what time of day she went there.’

Gemma nodded without enthusiasm.

‘You think that whoever did this… saw her on her route to and from…’ Alastair petered out, unable to finish this unpleasant thought.

‘If she had few friends and was security-conscious, then yes, it might be that he followed her home.’

Alastair closed his eyes – not wanting to go there – but Gemma looked straight at Helen. She wanted – she needed – the details.

‘Did he hurt her? Was there… a fight?’

‘We don’t think so. When we interviewed the tenants, nobody remembered hearing anything like that. There was no sign of a break-in, no sign of a struggle -’

‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ Alastair butted in. ‘She wouldn’t let anyone in. They must have forced their way in.’

‘Unless they had a key.’

Gemma’s thought hung in the air. Helen had come to the same conclusion already, but hadn’t wanted to say it out loud.

‘Would she have given a key to anyone? A trusted friend? A figure of authority?’ Helen asked.

‘Absolutely not. Not even if she’d been threatened with eviction or expulsion from college – she would never compromise her security in that way,’ Alastair shot back. ‘I really think you’re barking up the wrong -’

‘She had her lock changed,’ Gemma said suddenly.

‘When?’ Helen asked, without hesitation.

‘About… about six months before you say she…’

‘Went missing. Why did she change the locks?’

‘Somebody wrecked the old one. Squirted superglue into it. We thought it was kids at the time, but now…’

It was all starting to make sense.

‘So she got her locks changed?’

‘Yes. I remember it was quite a to-do. She asked her college tutor to come round as she didn’t want to be alone with the locksmith. He obviously thought she was mad but obliged anyway.’

‘Do you remember who changed the lock?’

‘No, but the receipt might be in her effects. She was quite particular like that.’

‘Do you know how many keys were provided?’

‘Two I think. She kept one on her key ring and wore one round her neck as a back-up.’

‘Would she have slept with the key round her neck?’

‘No, she wasn’t that mad. Why?’

‘It might be important, but let’s focus on the keys. So you believe there were two and neither was out of her possession.’

‘No, that’s not quite true,’ Alastair offered. Helen swung her gaze towards him.

‘She had some more cut. I know that because she sent one to us. She gave the other one to her landlord, I believe. Much against her better judgement, but those were the rules.’

‘And do you know where she got the extra keys cut?’

There was a long pause as both parents racked their brains for a half-forgotten memory, the tiny events of yesteryear, before eventually Alastair looked up and wearily said:

‘I’m afraid we’ve no idea.’