Perfect Girls: An absolutely gripping page-turning crime thriller Read online

  Pamela put both hands to her cheeks. ‘I don’t know, it’s just… there’s something… off… about her.’

  ‘It’s just strange, seeing her like that.’ Derek put his arm round his wife. ‘It’s the shock.’

  Gonzales leaned forward in his chair. ‘I told you guys over the phone that the County Medical Examiner has agreed to release the body. So you just need to sign some papers, then you can go ahead and make arrangements for repatriation.’

  Pamela’s face crumpled again at this word.

  ‘I’m sure Detective Prince will be happy to give you any procedural assistance you need.’ He shot a forced smile in Rachel’s direction. ‘For as long as she’s still here.’

  * * *

  Early evening found Rachel back at the Ventana Vista, swimming in water that was now warm enough to be soothing rather than bracing, trying to get her thoughts in order. She was missing being able to talk through the case with her colleagues, especially Brickall. He had a sharp, logical brain and was good at sifting the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to create a picture. This is what we know, he would say, listing the relevant facts in order, and this is what we need to find out.

  She showered and sat at the small desk in her room with her notebook. She preferred to do this with pen and paper rather than a tablet or laptop; the process tuned in the analytical hemisphere of her brain.

  Apartment block – someone must have seen something

  Phoebe’s phone – she probably communicated with her killer – where is it now?

  Commercial producers – what did they notice/discover about Phoebe?

  Check timeline with Medical Examiner

  Friends P’s made in LA?

  Her phone pinged with a message from Joe.

  Tried to leave everything tidy on Saturday morning. He added a goggle-eyed emoticon. Where are you and when are you back?

  Rachel started typing – The States, and I have no idea – when the phone rang in her hand.

  ‘Frank Gonzales. You’ll probably want to get over here. We’ve made an arrest.’

  Chapter Ten

  Rachel arrived at Burbank Avenue just in time to see two armed officers hauling a good-looking young man from the back of a patrol car. He wore a ripped T-shirt and Havaianas, and had a road map of tattoos on his arms. She followed as he was taken into the building, then stood waiting as he was searched, photographed and fingerprinted, then led away to an interview room.

  Rachel turned to Brading, who had just appeared at her elbow.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Suspect is named Matt Wyburgh. Phone records show he was in a relationship with Ms Stiles, but she ended it, and he wasn’t too happy about it. Short time later, she’s dead.’

  ‘Beware of the post hoc fallacy, Officer.’

  Brading frowned. ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Post hoc ergo propter hoc – it’s Latin. Means that just because one event follows another, it’s not necessarily caused by that first event.’

  ‘Whatever. We’ll be running his DNA.’

  Gonzales waddled back into the lobby, his face shining, his shirt stained with dark patches.

  ‘Wyburgh’s exercising his constitutional right to have a lawyer present, so we now have to wait a while I’m afraid, Detective Prince.’

  ‘What do we know about him?’

  ‘Not much. Grew up in Sherman Oaks, Dad has a successful import business. Works part-time in a coffee shop and lives off his old man the rest of the time. Smokes pot, likes to party. Typical middle-class LA kid.’

  ‘Previous?’

  ‘A DUI; nothing else on his sheet.’

  Before Rachel could ask more, he cut in. ‘Maybe go grab a coffee, Detective Prince – shouldn’t be too long.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m good thanks. I’d like to see the phone records while we’re waiting though.’

  Gonzales jerked his head in the direction of the stairwell. ‘Tech guys will talk you through it.’

  * * *

  Mike Perez, North Hollywood PD’s chief technology officer, was not what Rachel had imagined. He had beautiful olive skin, aquiline features and biceps that strained against his shirt sleeves. She had, however, needed to go down to the basement to find him. That part of the IT guy cliché held up.

  ‘So you’re the British detective?’ His tone implied that she was not what he had imagined either.

  ‘I think so. Last time I checked, anyway.’ In the split second it took him to realise she was being ironic, she cut to the point: ‘Phoebe Stiles?’

  ‘What can I do for you ma’am?’ Mike had the grace to colour slightly.

  ‘Can I take a look at what you found on her phone?’

  ‘No handset was picked up at her property, but we subpoenaed her cell phone records.’ Mike swung his chair briskly to the left so that he was facing his computer and pulled up a document on screen.

  ‘Okay, so firstly what we have here are a bunch of WhatsApp messages from the victim’s phone to the suspect, Matt Wyburgh.’

  ‘And he was definitely her boyfriend?’

  ‘Looks that way. We’ve got messages going back a couple of months, and they seem to be pretty into each other.’

  He clicked the screen to enlarge part of the text. ‘See here…’

  Rachel read Phoebe’s message.

  Hey babes! Missing my boo so much today. Can’t wait to see you tonight!!

  There followed a series of heart, smiley and kissing emoticons. Wyburgh’s reply was along the same lines.

  Hey Sweetie… how’s my bae? Can’t wait to kiss you and love on that gorgeous ass of yours…

  There were many more messages in a similar vein, interspersed with cutesy selfies and soft-porn sex chat.

  Rachel pulled a nauseated face.

  ‘I know, right?’ Perez mirrored her facial expression. ‘The unusual thing is, these continue all day, every day until January nineteenth.’

  ‘So… that’s four days after her parents last spoke to her on the phone.’

  ‘Oh really? Well anyhow, there’s silence for twelve hours, then she starts messaging him again, but much less frequently, and cuts down on the schmaltz.’ He pointed to the timeline on his screen. ‘On twenty-first January he asks her what’s wrong. Silence for forty-eight hours, then she dumps him.’

  Sorry, but this just isn’t working for me right now. I need to concentrate on my career

  ‘He tries messaging her back, and then when she ignores him, he tries calling her number multiple times, but she’s blocked him.’

  Rachel looked at the date on the screen: 23rd January. Phoebe didn’t film the commercial until 2nd February, which implied she was very much alive on the twenty-third and that the dumping text must have come from her. But why the sudden change of heart? Then again, it seemed plausible that she might cool like this: perhaps she’d just tired of Wyburgh. The press coverage of Phoebe’s love life suggested that steadiness and fidelity were not part of her approach to romance.

  ‘I’d like a hard copy so I can go through the messages in detail. If that’s okay?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Sure.’ Mike tapped a key, and the whirr and slap of a printer started up. ‘There was another thing; something that turned up on her tablet.’ Mike clicked to another file. ‘Back in December, Phoebe opened an account with CasaMia.’

  Rachel knew about the online home-sharing phenomenon; everybody did. Most of her friends and acquaintances used it when they travelled and had the CasaMia app on their phones; a distinctive duck-egg blue icon with two hands shaking below a sloping roof.

  She frowned. ‘But she wasn’t renting her apartment through CasaMia. She had a long lease through a realtor.’

  ‘She was illegally subletting. CasaMia have her listed as a host. She could get four hundred bucks a night for that apartment in Studio City, so she was renting it out every now and then. I’m guessing to supplement her income.’

  ‘So where did she go when she had guests?’

  ‘Fro
m the earlier messages exchanged with Matt, it looks like she originally planned to crash at his place. He mentions here –’ he flipped back to the original document – ‘that he’s already given her a key. From what I can pull off her tablet she’d agreed a rental for the period January 18th through 22nd. Then she doesn’t show up at Matt’s after all, and he starts asking her why the change of plan.’

  ‘And that’s when she dumps him.’ Rachel was thoughtful. ‘Do we know who the sub-letter was?’

  Perez shook his head. ‘No, or even whether they went ahead with the rental. But whoever it is, you’ll probably want to talk to them. I’m afraid I can’t access CasaMia accounts from here: their firewall is pretty tight. I know their head of online security is called Paulie Greenaway, if you need a contact.’

  Mike closed down the screen, retrieved the stack of printed sheets and swung back to face Rachel, holding them out to her.

  Rachel took the printout and stuffed it in her bag. As she did so, her fingers grazed the Lovely Locks disc. She pulled it out. ‘Can I ask you another favour?’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Can you do some analysis on this footage?’

  ‘What kind of analysis?’

  ‘Facial recognition.’

  Mike stared at her a beat, then held his hand out for the disc. ‘May I?’

  He played the commercial, frowning slightly at the screen. ‘We don’t really have the right software for this.’

  ‘Know anyone who does?’

  ‘We sometimes use a place called PsyLab in Pittsburgh. They’re the leaders in 3D analysis. They can do biometric authentication up to a hundred frames per second.’

  Rachel grinned. ‘Wow.’

  ‘Hey, you know we geeks love our geek speak, right? Want me to send it to them?’

  ‘Yes please.’ Rachel handed him her business card, and stood up. ‘And now if you’ll excuse me, I’d better go and see what our suspect has to say.’

  * * *

  By the time she returned to Gonzales’s office he had gone, his interrogation of Wyburgh already underway.

  ‘You’re welcome to watch through the one-way glass,’ Brading told her.

  ‘Of course,’ Rachel gave a brief smile. Starting the interview without her was a way for Gonzales to mark his law enforcement territory, underlining her status as visiting officer. As she turned to go, she caught sight of the file on Gonzales’s desk. Tiffany Kovak, it said on the front. It also bore the official stamp of the San Diego Police Department.

  ‘Is that the other case Lieutenant Gonzales told me about? The one that may be linked?’

  Brading gave the briefest of nods then, as Rachel tried to pick up the file and look at it, added a firm ‘Let’s go, ma’am’, reflexively touching his holster.

  Matt Wyburgh was seated on one side of a small table, his lawyer to his left. Opposite him were Gonzales and his superior officer Captain Steve Dench, a balding fifty-something wearing button-down shirt and khakis.

  ‘I’d like you to account for your movements between January 21st and February 3rd.’ Gonzales was nervous, his fingers straying frequently to his black slug of a moustache.

  Wyburgh leaned back in his chair, looking straight at the police officers while keeping both hands in the front pockets of his jeans. He seemed tense, but not afraid, Rachel thought.

  ‘The weekend of twenty-fourth to twenty-sixth I was in Reno at my friend’s bachelor party.’

  ‘We can corroborate that,’ his lawyer interjected.

  ‘And after that?’

  Wyburgh shrugged. ‘I was at work, or at my apartment.’

  ‘But you must have left the apartment some time.’

  Wyburgh’s lawyer objected. ‘Of course he did, to run his regular errands, but my client can’t be expected to have total recall of such a wide time period.’

  ‘Did you make contact with Phoebe Stiles? After she’d broken off the relationship?’

  ‘I already told you guys: when she didn’t answer my messages I tried calling her. I don’t see why that’s such a big deal. Anyone would do that, right?’ He glanced sideways at his lawyer, who nodded affirmation.

  ‘How many times?’

  ‘I don’t know – a few, I guess.’

  ‘So you were mad at her?’ asked Dench.

  ‘No. I was surprised, for sure. A little pissed off maybe. But this wasn’t, like, this big serious relationship. We’d hang out, we’d have sex. It wasn’t a massive deal, you know?’

  ‘Did you go round to her apartment after she’d ended it?’

  Wyburgh glanced sharply at his lawyer, who gave the slightest nod. ‘Yes. I did go. Once, just before I left for Reno. But there was no one home. Or if there was, she didn’t answer.’

  Gonzales dabbed his face triumphantly.

  Brading, who had left Rachel watching alone, reappeared.

  ‘Lab results are back,’ he whispered. ‘DNA found on the couch cushions is definitely Wyburgh’s.’

  Rachel was itching to get inside the interview room, convinced that she would make a much better job of getting through to the impassive young man. Thus far, she found his account of events perfectly credible. She resisted the temptation to voice her doubts out loud.

  Instead she said: ‘Look, the tech guys have thrown up some interesting stuff, so there are some new avenues it could be helpful to go down with Wyburgh, if I—’

  Brading held up a hand, his chocolate-drop eyes doleful. ‘Only officers who have Los Angeles operational jurisdiction can question a suspect I’m afraid, ma’am.’

  * * *

  After a couple of days staying at the Ventana Vista, Rachel had developed a routine. She would walk down the street to the nearest drugstore and buy something for her evening meal. Avoiding the aisles of massed salted snacks and neon-bright sugary drinks, she would head to the chiller cabinet for a pre-prepared salad and some fresh fruit. Back at the motel, she would swim as the sun sank in the sky, then shower and eat in her bathrobe, watching one of the news channels until she fell asleep. Which was early, the jet lag having not quite worn off. It wasn’t that different from her usual evening routine in London, now that she was single. Except there she had regular visits from Joe. She already missed him.

  This evening she turned the volume low on the TV, opened up her laptop and started searching travel websites. Her phone buzzed. The message was from Brickall, even though it was around 3 a.m. in London.

  Patten’s had the sprog. Another boy, called Algernon.

  She typed a reply:

  Algernon. Jesus.

  Kidding, Prince. They’re calling it Max or Oscar or something equally middle-class. P.S. Still pissing with rain here.

  All the more reason to do some work, you lazy git. Get to sleep.

  Smiling, she tossed her phone back onto the bed and went back to looking at available flights to San Francisco. It was odd working a case without Brickall. She relied on him, not just as a colleague, but as a friend and confidant.

  Her phone rang.

  There was a brief silence on the other end, then a flat voice said, ‘DI Prince, it’s Derek Stiles.’

  ‘Call me Rachel, please. What can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s about the arrangements for Phoebe. We’ve decided not to fly her – the body – back home to the UK. There’s… there’s a lot of rules and regulations. It’s difficult and expensive, with the zinc-lined coffins and suchlike.’ There was a little muffled gasp. ‘Sorry.’

  Rachel leaned back with her left hand on her forehead, staring up at the ceiling through her fingers, ‘It’s okay. Take your time.’

  ‘Because of what happened to her… the state of, you know… we thought it would be best to have her cremated here and just take the ashes back with us. We’ll have a proper memorial service for her in our local church when we’re home again.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s sensible. I think I’d do the same, if I were in your position.’ Was that reassuring? She hoped so.

  ‘The service
is going to be tomorrow, at Valhalla Memorial Park. We’d like you to be there.’

  Tomorrow. Rachel’s heart sank slightly. ‘Of course. What time?’

  ‘Three o’clock.’

  Rachel opened a fresh page on her laptop and consulted an online map. The Valhalla cemetery was less than two miles from Bob Hope airport in Burbank. If she booked a return seat around lunchtime, she would just about make it. Just.

  ‘Of course. I’ll be there.’

  ‘Thank you, DI… Rachel.’

  Rachel completed her reservation, making sure her return flight landed at Bob Hope, then started to read through the very humdrum exchanges between Phoebe and Matt. ‘Renting out my place for few days next week,’ she had written on 12 January, ‘Will be crashing at yours every night.’

  Matt responded with an icon of an aubergine followed by an ogling face with tongue hanging out, presumably in anticipation of a greater intercourse quotient.

  Rachel sighed and carried on scanning down the pages, eventually falling asleep with a blur of emoticons dancing in front of her eyes.

  Chapter Eleven

  San Francisco Bay was there somewhere, Rachel’s taxi driver assured her, but it was masked by the drifts of fluffy white Pacific fog that softened the morning light. From the plane, the city had looked as if it was enrobed in a cloud, like a magical kingdom. And down on the ground it was chilly, at least twenty Fahrenheit colder in the San Fernando valley.

  After a forty-five-minute journey from San Jose airport, during which she could see very little, Rachel was dropped on Brannan Street, outside the renovated art deco building that housed CasaMia’s San Francisco headquarters.

  The immense atrium featured circular windows and extruded glass meeting rooms that appeared to be suspended in space, and an interior pitched roof structure that mimicked the brand’s roof icon. On the wall above the reception desk was the brand’s strapline in three-feet-high letters: MY HOME IS YOUR HOME.