Valentine Read online

  “Anything wrong?” she asked.

  Olbeck looked up and smiled briefly. “No, it’s nothing. It’s just – oh, you know how sometimes you get a bad feeling about something? A case, I mean.”

  “Yes,” said Kate, cautiously.

  “Well, I’ve got one about this one. The pig hearts, I mean.”

  Kate crossed the floor of his office and shut the glass door. Then she returned to his desk, seated herself opposite him and fixed him with gaze. “Go on.”

  Olbeck leant back in his chair with a sigh. “This reminds me of something.” He saw Kate sit up a little and said hastily, “Not the pig hearts themselves. I’ve never known of anything like that around here. No, it was a domestic incident case I was working on, years ago now. Long before you joined. Started out quite innocuously, if you can say that about a domestic violence case, and ended up with a whole family being killed.”

  “What?” Kate said, shocked.

  “I know. You’d probably remember it, it made the national press.” He named a name that Kate did indeed recall, from a variety of newspaper headlines. Olbeck went on. “Maybe I’m wrong about this. God, I hope I am. But it’s just…” He trailed off, pushing a pen around on his desk top. “I’ve just got a bad feeling about it, that’s all.”

  “A feeling is not evidence,” Kate said, mock-sternly, trying to cheer him out of his mood. It worked, sort of. Olbeck laughed and then sighed.

  “Well, anyway,” he said. “Keep me posted on any developments.”

  Kate threw him a salute, which he acknowledged with a grin, and then took her leave. Her desk phone was ringing as she left Olbeck’s office and she ran quickly to answer it.

  “Kate? It’s Paul Boulton. I’ve just had a call from Miss Dee, Kiki Dee. Isn’t she one of the ones who—“

  Kate interrupted him, feeling a jump of something – unease? Excitement? “What did she want?”

  “She called to report someone’s killed her pet cat. Left it on the doorstep for her to find. I know it’s not normally something you’d be interested in but I thought—“

  Kate spoke over him again. “You thought exactly right, Paul. Thank you. Can you give me the details and I’ll take it from here?” She scribbled down what he told her, said goodbye and then ran back to Olbeck’s office.

  *

  Kiki Dee lived in a large, three-storey Victorian house. Kate, pausing outside to look up at the exterior of the house, thought it an enormous place for one young woman to live in. A moment later, she chastised herself for her stupidity. Of course Kiki didn’t live there on her own – she shared the property with other girls, probably all students at the Abbeyford School of Art and Drama. The house was a monument to femininity – or perhaps the dramatic arts. Piles of clothes were draped here and there, the air was perfumed with a multitude of different scents, and a feather boa was draped artistically around the banisters of the stairs, shedding pink feathers that had dropped to the dirty hallway carpet below.

  Kiki Dee was composed but red-eyed when they introduced themselves. She was a tiny girl, no more than five foot two, and as dainty as a china doll. Unlike the publicity photograph on the Decadence club’s website, she wore no make-up and her skin was as smooth and unlined as a baby’s.

  Kate and Olbeck were ushered into a sitting room, stuffed with worn armchairs and an old leather sofa covered in knitted throws and furry rugs. There was a light fitting over the mantelpiece in the shape of a huge, red mouth, pursed in a smiling pout. A pair of gold, sparkly stilettos stood by the empty fireplace, one shoe fallen over on its side. Kiki obviously saw Kate’s gaze drawn to the shoes and explained “Those are mine, I use them for the show. I’m a dancer. Only part-time, of course.”

  “Yes, so I understand, Miss Dee.” Olbeck seated himself on the edge of the sofa amidst a pile of soft furnishings.

  “They must be terribly hard to walk in,” said Kate.

  Kiki Dee gurgled a laugh. “I don’t have to do much walking, actually. Just gyrate around a chair, twirling my nipple tassels.” Kate caught the quick sideways glimpse Kiki gave her as she said this. The girl seemed extremely confident for one so young – she couldn’t have been more than twenty – but perhaps that was the attitude one needed as a burlesque dancer.

  When they were all seated, Olbeck leant forward. “So, Miss Dee, I understand you found your cat this morning, dead on the doorstep?”

  Kiki’s blue eyes filled with tears. “Yes. I opened the door this morning – I thought I’d go to college early for once – and poor Frosty was lying there on the doorstep. Just like the other day, when I found the – the heart.”

  “What did you do?”

  Kiki wiped a hand under her eyes. “I moved him. I had to. The others would have had to step over him otherwise and – and I didn’t want to leave him there.”

  “No, that’s understandable.” Olbeck looked down at his notebook. “You think that somebody may have deliberately killed him? He couldn’t have died from natural causes.”

  Kiki’s face hardened. “His neck was broken. I could feel it, once I picked him up. It was horrible.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it must have been.” Olbeck scribbled something down and looked across at Kate, who took up the cue.

  “Do you have any idea who might have done this, Miss Dee?” she asked.

  “You can call me Kiki. It feels strange being called Miss Dee.” Kiki gave her a watery smile. “And no, I can’t think of anyone. I can’t think of anyone who would do anything so awful.”

  “You haven’t received any threats, strange messages on social media, anything like that?”

  Kiki shook her head. “No. No I don’t remember getting anything that I thought was weird.”

  Kate persisted. “Have you recently broken up with a boyfriend, a partner? Anything like that?”

  Kiki’s blue gaze dropped. “Well – I kind of did break up with someone recently. Fairly recently.”

  “When was this?”

  “About a month ago. But she wouldn’t do something like this, I’m sure of it.” Again, that quick sideways glance at Kate, checking whether she was shocked. Kate smiled blandly back.

  “Who was this, Miss – Kiki?”

  “Laura Ellis. She’s on my course at college. But she wouldn’t – we didn’t really have a serious thing going on, you know? It was a bit of fun, quite casual, you know.”

  “We might have to talk to her anyway, Kiki. Could you give me her phone number and address details, if you have them?”

  Kate scribbled in her own notebook and then looked across at Olbeck, wondering whether she should continue along this line of questioning. It was some time since they’d interviewed together – Olbeck was a bit too senior now for the routine enquiries – and while it had been a while, Kate was pleased to find that they both still worked well together, batting the questions back and forth, working as a team. It was still a partnership, despite the difference in rank. A bit like a marriage, she thought, with an inner grin.

  “Had any arguments with anyone, lately?” asked Olbeck. “Any rivalries at college, things like that? Anything you can think of that might have sparked this?”

  Kiki shook her head at all his questions. She looked tearful again. “I’m getting quite frightened,” she whispered, as Olbeck finished speaking. “What if there’s someone out there who really wants to hurt me?”

  “I’m quite sure there’s not,” Olbeck said in his most fatherly and reassuring tone. “But if anything else happens – anything at all – don’t hesitate to call us. If you’re actually threatened, then dial nine nine nine at once. You might also want to think about getting a personal alarm of some sort. Now, do your friends – your housemates – know about this?”

  Kiki nodded. “They do about the heart. I couldn’t keep that from them. Jenna almost stepped in it.”

  “Well,” said Olbeck. “I’d also keep them abreast of developments, if I were you. The more people looking out for anything suspicious the better.”
/>   Kiki looked at him gratefully. “Thank you, DI Olbeck. You’ve made me feel better already.” There was something almost flirtatious in her gaze and Kate smiled quietly to herself. Wasting your time there, Kiki…

  “What do you think?” she asked Olbeck as they drove away from the house.

  Olbeck made an indeterminate noise. “Not sure. I still don’t like it much. Of course, there’s a good possibility that that cat died of a road accident or something and the person who hit it thought they’d leave it there on the nearest doorstep. Not very kind, but it does happen.”

  “Really?” Kate said dubiously. She thought for a moment of getting home herself one night and finding Merlin’s dead body on her doorstep. She had to physically stop herself from shuddering.

  “Look, if something else happens, we’ll get someone to take a quick look at the cat.” The body of poor Frosty was, at that moment, in the boot of Olbeck’s car, wrapped in a large evidence bag. “If it’s a case we’re building, we’ll need all the evidence we can get. But – and I say this with some trepidation – at the moment, it’s just conjecture. The only real evidence we’ve got is those hearts, and that could quite easily just be a malicious prank.”

  Kate smoothed an errant wisp of hair back from her face. “That’s not what you said earlier.”

  “I know. I’m just saying now that there’s nothing more to go on. Like you said earlier, feelings are not evidence.”

  Kate made a noise of agreement. “Shall I check up on the other two women, Valerie Houghton and Caroline what’s-her-name, Spendler, and see if they’ve got anything else to report?”

  “Yes, good idea.” Olbeck drove in silence for a few moments and then said, “You know, I think that’s partly what’s making me uneasy about this case.”

  “What is?”

  “The fact that Valerie Houghton is involved. It’s just not the kind of thing that happens to people like her. Finding a dead heart on the doorstep, I mean. That’s why I can’t help but think it’s just some random nutter.”

  “Why isn’t it the kind of thing that happens to her?”

  Olbeck shrugged and flicked the indicator to turn into the station carpark.

  “Oh, you know. She’s not the type that has things like that happen to her. She’s so, you know—“

  “Boring?” Kate said, unclipping her seatbelt as the car came to a halt.

  Olbeck gave her a look. “Respectable, I was going to say.”

  “Oh, respectable,” Kate said, heaving herself from the car. “Well, you know what they say – the quiet ones are always the worst. Come on, let’s get back to the office.”

  Chapter Four

  The interior of Valerie Houghton’s house couldn’t have come as more of a contrast to that of Kiki Dee’s. Instead of startling lighting statements and feminine fripperies lying here, there and everywhere, the Houghton residence was furnished in all that was in safe good taste. Boring, thought Kate and hid a grin as she was shown into the living room.

  “No, there’s been absolutely nothing else untoward,” Valerie Houghton said, bringing in a tray on which reposed a white china milk jug and two matching cups and saucers. A silver and glass cafetiere steamed beside a plate of biscuits. “Absolutely nothing. Which is a relief, I have to say.”

  “I’m sure it must be,” Kate said, pleasurably anticipating the biscuits. It was only eleven o’clock in the morning but breakfast seemed like a long time ago.

  Valerie handed her a cup of fragrant coffee and sat down on the cream-coloured sofa on the far side of the room. “It’s a shame Mark – I mean, Detective Inspector Olbeck – couldn’t come today.”

  “He’s very busy, I’m afraid, Mrs Houghton,” Kate said with a neutral smile. It got like this sometimes, when you knew people outside of work. They got to the point where they thought you were their own personal police officer. She brought herself back to the point. “This is just a routine follow-up, Mrs Houghton. One of the other women who reported the – the same sort of incident as you did – has had something else happen to her which might be suspicious, so we’re just following up to see if anything else strange might have happened to you.”

  “The other women?” Valerie said blankly.

  “Yes, were you not informed?” Kate asked, a little puzzled. “Two other women reported having a pig’s heart with an arrow through it on their doorstep, the day before Valentine’s Day. You weren’t aware of this?”

  Valerie Houghton had gone a trifle pale. “No. No, I had no idea. I thought – I thought it was just me.”

  Kate watched her keenly. “Of course, the fact that it happened to two other people means it is more likely to be just a random individual playing a malicious trick. We’ve not been able to ascertain any kind of link between the three of you, so far.”

  “Yes,” said Valerie. “Yes, I can see that. Who are these other women?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t divulge that information at present, Mrs Houghton. But if anything develops, we will, of course, let you know.” Kate paused, aware of the tension emanating from the other woman’s body. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me, Mrs Houghton?”

  “What do you mean?” Valerie asked sharply.

  “Oh, nothing serious. I just meant, have you anything else to tell me that you think might be pertinent to this inquiry?”

  Valerie frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean.” She clearly then recollected how defensive she sounded and smiled placatingly. “I’m sorry, Detective Sergeant, but all of this is quite new to me. I have no idea as to who could have done this, if that’s what you want to hear.”

  “You haven’t had any strange phone calls? Any strange emails or letters?”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “There’s nobody you know who might harbour a grudge against you?”

  Valerie blinked several times in quick succession. “Nobody. I’m – I’m not the sort of person who has enemies.”

  “Quite,” said Kate, bending her head to her notes to hide an incipient grin. Boring. “Well, if there’s nothing else, I’ll be on my way. But—“ She looked up again and fixed Valerie Houghton with a steady gaze. “If anything comes to mind, anything at all – you will let me know, won’t you? Mrs Houghton?”

  Valerie’s gaze met hers, equally steadily. “Of course I will. Thank you.”

  Once she was out of the house, Kate hesitated for a moment by her car. Then, acting on impulse, she crept back towards the house and around the side, making for the kitchen window. Keeping herself flattened against the wall, she watched as Valerie Houghton entered the kitchen and moved with quick, decisive steps towards the kitchen dresser at the back of the kitchen. Kate watched as Valerie took down a bottle of brandy from the top shelf of the dresser, poured herself a generous measure and downed it in one gulp. Kate saw her put the empty glass on the lower shelf of the dresser with a shaking hand. Then Valerie just stood there, gripping the edge of the dresser with both hands, her head bowed.

  Kate watched for a moment. Then, frowning, she crept away again.

  “I think she’s hiding something,” said Kate. She swung the swivel chair in Olbeck’s office back and forth, kicking her legs to keep the momentum going.

  “Would you stop that? You’re not six.” Olbeck was trying to answer emails, listen to Kate and book a table for dinner that night at an Abbeyford restaurant, all at the same time. “Yes, I’ll hold. Thanks. Now, look, Kate—“ He grabbed the receiver from between his shoulder and ear. “Oh, hello. Yes. Eight thirty would be great. Thanks. Bye.”

  He put the receiver back in its holder with obvious relief. “Now, what were you saying?”

  “Valerie Houghton,” said Kate. “She’s hiding something. She was nervous as hell when I interviewed her this morning.

  “Well, she’s not really had a lot of dealing with the police before,” Olbeck said reasonably “And it probably shook her up a good deal to find a dead body part on the doorstep.”

  Kate gav
e him a look. “Oh, come on. You know if I think she’s hiding something, it’s going to be more than that.”

  “True.” Olbeck gave up on his emails and turned to face her fully. “So, what is it?”

  Kate told him what she’d seen when she left the Houghton house that morning. “She’s obviously worried about something. Either that or she’s got a drinking problem.”

  Olbeck looked troubled. “I don’t think that’s the case. I can’t say I’d ever noticed any of the signs whenever I’ve seen her.”

  Kate raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Well, all I’m saying is that she’s definitely hiding something.” She gave the chair one last wild swing and then got up. “But, as she’s the victim in this scenario, it’s probably not something that important – or that criminal.”

  “Okay.” Olbeck turned back to his computer. “Anything else before I get on?”

  “Theo’s gone to interview Laura Ellis – you know, Kiki Dee’s former girlfriend. Just to see if she might be the culprit behind this.”

  “But how can she be?” Olbeck demanded. “Why send dead hearts to two complete strangers as well as Kiki?”

  Kate raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know. Camouflage?” She thought for a moment and then added, slowly, “Or there’s a link between them we haven’t found yet.”

  She and Olbeck stared at one another for a moment. Then Olbeck blew out his cheeks and slumped back in his seat. “I’m starting to think this is all a waste of time,” he said. “It’s not as if we haven’t got some more serious cases to worry about.”

  “Well, you were the one who thought this might…escalate.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Olbeck said with a frown. “I said I had a bad feeling about it. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong.”

  “’Maybe’?” Kate said, and gave him a wink. He grinned and waved a hand, dismissing her.