Second Thoughts Read online

  Donny considered the list of names that Mr. Cadence had given him. The names of Isabelle's friends, or at least the ones that he could recall or knew anything about. Even with half of it in DS Tiedemann's hands, it was a long list. It seemed that Miss Cadence had enjoyed a prolific social life, and her father probably knew far more about it than she realized. Protective or overbearing? Donny wondered. Perhaps it reached a point where the difference no longer mattered. The number that Donny had dialled rang through to voicemail and he left a message. Consulting his list for the next name, he noticed that he had a message on his own mobile. It was from Alice, wanting to know if they could catch up for lunch. Reluctantly he admitted to himself that he didn't really have time. He texted back about the trouble he was having tracking down her friends, hoping she'd understand. His phone pinged again a second later. She was with Vanessa Pike. Donny stared at the message for a moment before typing his own. How do you know that?

  She posted on Isabelle's Facebook. Saying how she was hanging out with her right before it happened and how shocked she was. She got lots of nasty comments. Apparently they were on bad terms, they'd had a fight or something.

  He shook his head. Facebook. Thanks. Still don't have time for lunch. Make it dinner?

  Donny pulled Facebook up on the screen and searched for Isabelle Cadence. He grimaced at the obvious blue and white banner sprawling across the top of the page, looking furtively around the room in case anyone should get the wrong idea about what he was up to. Isabelle Cadence's page was covered in comments, and they were still coming in thick and fast. He made a quick search based on the name that Alice had just given him. There it was. He looked at his half of the list he shared with DS Tiedemann. There was no Vanessa Pike. "Hey Pete." He called across to his colleague as he hung up the phone. "Do you have a Vanessa Pike on your list?"

  Tiedemann checked his list twice. "No. Why's that?"

  "Look at this." he told him, gesturing to the screen which Tiedemann leaned over him to examine. "I guess we'd better find her then. She'd be worth talking to." Tiedemann returned with reluctance to his share of the still hefty list, while Donny started searching for Vanessa Pike.

  ***

  Alice was standing in the hallway already knocking on his door by the time Donny got back to his apartment. "Hey, sorry." He told her, unlocking the door and ushering her in ahead of him. "I got held up at work. You were right about Vanessa Pike, by the way."

  "Don't sound so surprised." Alice teased, making herself at home on the couch.

  Donny chuckled. "Well, thanks. You saved me a lot of running around."

  "So what do I get in return?"

  Donny made a show of considering the question. "Thai food. And my scintillating company." He told her, already dialling the store. They relaxed, chatting while they waited for their order. "How did your visit to the psychic go?" Donny asked.

  "Strange and disappointing." Alice summed up. "She didn't want to talk to me at all once she found out I was press. But one of her clients was there too and he told me something interesting." She said, remembering the exchange. "He said that the psychic warned Isabelle that she was in danger."

  Donny raised an eyebrow. "How did she know she was in danger?"

  Alice shrugged. "Her rare and precious gift, apparently."

  "Yeah. Sure." Cynicism dripped off every syllable.

  "She wouldn't talk about it at any rate. Actually she seemed really embarrassed by it. I would have thought she'd be pleased to be right. Maybe she was just upset about Isabelle."

  "Still open for business though, by the sounds."

  "Hmmm."

  "What is it?" Donny probed.

  "It's probably nothing at all I'm sure." She dismissed. "But she was wearing exactly the same ring as Isabelle always wore. It's probably just a coincidence. If it's in this season everyone's probably wearing it, I guess."

  Alice was surprised to see the sudden interest that this comment piqued from Donny. "What?" she asked. "Is that important?"

  Donny looked hesitant, provoking exasperation from Alice. "I won't print it. Yet. Until I can without getting you into trouble." She promised. "Just tell me, off the record. You're killing me right now."

  "Alright. Off the record." Donny conceded. "Isabelle was robbed, and all of her jewellery was taken, including a ring. A one off piece her father had made for her birthday, totally unique."

  "You think the psychic had something to do with her death?" Alice asked breathlessly.

  Donny shrugged. "She's not really on our radar. But it's suggestive, If it's the same ring."

  "I'm sure it is." Alice insisted. "It was sort of swirly looking. She's wearing it in all the photos on her Facebook. It looks like she wore it every day."

  It definitely sounded like the same one. Donny made a mental note to check it out tomorrow. "So what do I get in return for my valuable information?" Alice teased, only half in jest. "I really need something to print. Something none of the other papers would have."

  Donny shook his head, exasperatedly. "I can't tell you anything Alice, you know that."

  "I'm under big pressure here Donny. Can't you help me out? I just gave you that tip about the psychic. And I told you about Vanessa Pike!" she said.

  "I'm investigating a murder Alice; you should tell me anything you know." He said reproachfully.

  "Oh right. Of course my job's nowhere near as important as yours." The jibe had a sarcastic edge that put Donny's back up. "I didn't say that." He protested.

  "My job could be on the line here." Alice pressed.

  "And so could mine!" he fired back.

  A knock on the door told them that their dinner had arrived. Donny walked to the door and paid the delivery driver, bringing their meals inside. "Look." He said into the tense silence. "Why don't we just leave it. I've told you I can't tell you anything, there's no point in arguing about it."

  "Fine." Alice agreed stiffly. They put the case aside and ate in frosty silence.

  ***

  Donny, Gould and the rest of their team gathered in the incident room first thing in the morning as their shift began. Once again Gould led the briefing. "Isabelle Cadence's things have been found, all bar the ring that her father gave her. They were dumped in the canal tied up in a bin bag. They washed up near Bath row this morning. If this was a mugging, we would have expected the mugger to hang on to anything of value but that hasn't been the case here. None of her cards have been used or taken either. Which makes it all the more important that we find out who she was with that night, and who might have had a personal motive against her." He recapped. "Her phone was in that bag as well but it's pretty waterlogged. We shouldn't count on getting anything from it. Plunkett, O'Dowd, what did you manage to turn up?"

  "Three clubs on Broad St. can recall her being there with a gaggle of other girls in tow. One of the bouncers says he had to break up a heated row between her and one of the girls she was with. He couldn't give us a name, just a description. Early twenties, average build, about five foot six. Heavy makeup, cheap clothes."

  Gould snorted. "Didn't he have anything vaguer?"

  "It sounds like it could be Vanessa Pike, sir. She was with Miss Cadence the night she died." Donny brought them up to speed with what he and Tiedemann had found so far.

  "You've spoken with Miss Pike?" Gould queried.

  "Not yet, I'm going to interview her this morning."

  "Good. Ask her about the argument. Did the bouncer have any idea what the argument might have been about?" Gould directed the question to Plunkett. "He wasn't sure, but he thought it might have been about money. Apparently Miss Pike, if that's who it was, was livid. Miss Cadence was just trying to calm her down."

  "We need to know what that fight was about." Gould mused. "Any news on who else was there that night?"

  "No-one yet. I'll be asking Miss Pike who else was there."

  "Right. O'Dowd and Plunkett, how did you go with the pawn shops? Her ring was missing from that bag so it could still b
e out there somewhere."

  O'Dowd shook his head. "We've circulated that picture to all the pawn shops but nobody's seen anything yet."

  "Right. Help Callow and Tiedemann talk to Miss Cadence's friends. That's it folks, let's get going."

  "Actually sir," Donny interjected. Gould and the others turned to look at him, paused halfway through leaving. Donny was slightly embarrassed. Maybe he shouldn't mention this. He didn't know if it would come to anything. "Spit it out Callow," Gould growled impatiently.

  "I've had a tip about where that ring might be." He explained, telling the group about Anais Raven and her connection to Isabelle and the ring that Alice was sure that she had seen. A few eyebrows raised at the mention of the psychic but Gould seemed to consider the possibility. "Alright. It's probably a bunk but we should check it. Talk to her as well. See if you can confirm it's the same ring." The meeting broke up, each of them fanning out to tackle the tasks that they had undertaken.

  Donny found Vanessa Pike at her flat in Ward End. She was actually his second stop for the morning, having dropped in to see Anais Raven briefly on the way over. In sharp contrast to the mysterious psychic, Miss Pike was a flashy young woman, from her bleached blonde hair to her brightly painted toenails. There was something else too, that Donny was struggling to put his finger on exactly. Just something not quite right about the woman in front of him. A sluggishness that ill matched the vibrancy and melodrama that appeared to be Vanessa Pike. In all likelihood she was just tired and grieving, Donny thought, but the suspicion lingered stubbornly. "How did you know Isabelle Cadence, if you don't mind me asking?" Donny began. The little flat and the woman who inhabited it seemed a far cry from Isabelle and her lifestyle. He chided himself for being a snob, but couldn't help being curious.

  "We were at school together. I was there on a scholarship. Her father, obviously, could afford the fees." She explained. "but that isn't why you're here."

  "No. A witness says that Miss Cadence was having an argument with a young woman last night. Can you tell me anything about that?" Donny probed.

  She shook her head, but her body language had grown defensive.

  "Actually, the witness's description sounded a lot like you."

  She blushed. "Well um. Ok. We may have had some words." She admitted.

  "About what?"

  "I borrowed some money from her. She wanted it back but I couldn't repay her yet."

  Donny thought that her version of events ill fit what the bouncer had described. "The witness thought that you were much angrier than she was. Why would that be?"

  She shifted on her couch, suddenly uncomfortable. "Well I didn't see why she had to pester, that was all. It's not like she couldn't spare it."

  "What was the money for if you don't mind me asking?"

  "Actually, I do mind you asking." She bit back. Donny continued pressing her, but their conversation turned in circles without yielding anything of use and after a time he made to excuse himself. At the door the young woman knocked her handbag from its hook and the contents clattered explosively across the floor of the flat. She seemed more flustered than grateful as Donny bent to help her collect and replace the chaos of items that had spilled from her bag. It didn't take him long to realize why. He scooped a small bottle up off the floor. According to its label it contained Oxycodone; a powerful painkiller that could only be issued via a prescription. "Who is Laura Keefe?" He asked, showing the prescription label bearing that name to the blushing woman before him. "Oh, um. I don't know. They must have made a mistake at the pharmacy. I never noticed." She babbled.

  "What doctor prescribed them?" he asked.

  "I don't remember."

  Donny raised an eyebrow and Vanessa Pike blushed more deeply, confirming the falseness of her already transparent lie. "I was in a car accident." She offered, trying to fill the painful silence. "I needed surgery on my leg. I've just about got more metal holding me together than bone in places," she tried to laugh it off but it was clear she felt caught out.

  "You seem to have recovered well." Donny commented, smiling. "When was your accident if you don't mind me asking?"

  "Three years ago," she admitted.

  "And you still need painkillers?" he asked, surprised.

  "Yes." She said lamely, but the flush on her cheeks, now almost glowing with embarrassment and resentful anger, was the real answer to his question.

  "Unfortunately Miss Pike, since these are a class A controlled substance, and they are not prescribed to you, I'm going to need you to come down to the station to answer some questions. If it's just an error I'm sure we can get this cleared up, no problem."

  "What? No." she blustered, "You can't do that. I'm not under arrest am I?"

  "No, but you can be very easily if you don't cooperate."

  Her attitude curbed for the moment, she followed Donny meekly to his car and allowed herself to be taken to the station.

  ***

  Alice was intrigued by the sinister implications that had come out of last night's discussion with Donny and decided she needed to find out a little more about Anais Raven. The question was where to start? Anais Raven was almost certainly a pseudonym. Alice couldn't find any information relating to that name going back more than eighteen months or so. So either she had only just started up as a psychic then, or she had operated under a different name. Alice's money was on the latter. She started searching for psychics in and around the area, trying to find old articles or references, anything that might tell her something about where Anais Raven had come from eighteen months ago. A newspaper article caught her eye. It was around five years old, and Raven's striking features glowed out from the photograph that accompanied the article, flanked by two men, both shorter than she was. She was clearly the eldest of the three, who looked to Alice like siblings. The two glowering men appeared to be fraternal twins. The same dark hair, one curly one straight, the same set of the eyes and sullen twist of the mouth. She brought her focus back to the psychic. Though there could be no doubt that it was the same woman, the caption referred to her as Charisse Dove. But it was the headline that had intrigued Alice. "Local Psychic Implicated in Fraud Charges". It was looking more and more as though Donny might be right about the nature of the woman that Alice had secretly hoped would be the real deal. The article was from a newspaper in Bristol, but Alice couldn't find anything more regarding Anais Raven or Charisse Dove in either city. She wondered if she could convince Donny to take an interest. If she was implicated in fraud her real name was bound to be on file somewhere. She put what she had managed to find into a text message, hit send, and waited. Donny's reply came back. Sounds interesting. I'll get back to you. Alice sighed. Her curiosity was killing her and she was dying to have something more interesting to print. More to the point her boss was dying for her to have something more interesting to print. As morbid as it was, the murder of Isabelle Cadence was big news, and her boss wanted the Daily Bulletin to stand out with a new angle on it. Some angle that no one else had covered yet, but so far Alice had come up empty. She rested her cheek against her hand, propped up on the table while she thought. Suddenly she sat upright and got back to work, reinvigorated by a new idea. If she didn't have a fresh angle on the case, maybe she could come up with a fresh angle on the woman herself. Starting with her commitment to charity.

  ***

  Donny put the bottle of pills prescribed to Laura Keefe down on the table between himself and Vanessa Pike, studying the table top in the sparse interview room. "Illegal possession of class A's can carry of sentence of seven years. Did you know that?"

  She ignored him.

  "Your story about a mix up at the pharmacy isn't going to hold much water unless you can tell me which doctor prescribed them to you."

  The resentment boiling off her tense frame was palpable but she remained silent.

  "Where did these come from?"

  Silence.

  "Alright. Then why don't you tell me what really happened that night with Isabelle." />
  She met his eye with a sullen glare. "In return for what?"

  "In return I will tell the court that you cooperated in a murder investigation."

  She glared at him with savage eyes and pursed lips but eventually relented.

  "Alright. I had an argument with Izzy."

  "About?"

  "Money. I wanted her to lend me some money. I'm nearly out of pills." She admitted bitterly.

  "It got quite heated I understand." Donny prompted. "A bouncer had to break it up."

  She shrugged. "She was getting all holier than thou on me. Told me she wouldn't give me the money because I didn't need the pills. She said I have a problem. Told me to get help."

  "It sounds like good advice."

  She glared at him. "The only problem I have is my injury."

  "Then why don't you have a prescription for these pills?"

  She retreated again into silence, having no answer for Donny's question.

  "What happened after the bouncer broke it up?" he prompted.

  She stared at him. "Don't you lot talk to each other?"

  "I'm sorry?"

  "I was arrested. Drunk and disorderly. My mum had to come and bail me out."

  Donny made a note. If she was telling the truth it was about as iron clad as an alibi could get. "Who else were you out with that night?"

  "No one." She hesitated. "She did get a message though. Some other friend of hers wanted to meet somewhere."

  "Do you know who the friend was?" he asked. "Or where they asked to meet her?"

  She shook her head. "It wasn't someone I knew and I didn't see the message."