‘Yeah. I guess you could say that. He always liked to keep an eye on her in a big brother kind of way. But don’t get me wrong, they also argued and bickered a lot, usually about nonsense – just like siblings do, I guess – but there were a couple of times that he flew off the handle with her.’

‘Like when?’

‘When he found out that she’d been sleeping with her ex, and that she’d been inviting guys over to her house all the time. He told her to have some respect for herself, to behave better.’ She pushed a strand of loose hair behind her ear and brushed the underside of her nose with her hand. ‘Personally, I didn’t have a problem with it. It’s her body. She can do what she wants with it, so long as she’s being careful.’

‘But she wasn’t, though, was she?’

Tomek was referring to her pregnancy, and he wondered if Rose knew about it.

‘Well, no… No, I guess she wasn’t.’

So she did know.

‘When did Angelica tell you?’

‘She didn’t have to. The warning signs were there. I mean, Johnny and I have never tried for children – thank fuck, not after what he’s just done – but I know what to look out for. She tried to hide the morning sickness as much as she could, but I eventually cottoned on to the fact something was wrong. I mean, I’ve worked with her every day for the past six or seven months, so there was no hiding it. She tried to fight it, bless her, to deny it, but in the end, I convinced her to go for her scans. I was more than happy to go along with her. But she begged me not to say anything to anyone.’

‘Johnny wasn’t the only one keeping secrets in the marriage then.’

The words had slipped out of his mouth before he realised. Yet Rose’s reaction wasn’t what he’d expected.

‘They’re hardly the same,’ she said calmly. ‘He was sleeping with someone behind my back while I was looking out for his sister. They’re completely different.’

Tomek nodded. ‘You did what you had to do. Did you know that she’d told Roy as well?’

Rose nodded. ‘She’s always been much closer to her dad than her mum. That’s just the way it seems to work, isn’t it? I mean, me, I was never close to mine, but they were really close. And I’ve often thought of Roy as a father figure. He’s kind, considerate. But he has a temper on him as well. He lost the plot when she told him. And I mean lost it. You thought Johnny was bad the other day? You should have seen him.’ She turned to face the green carpet, lost in a sudden thought. ‘I wonder what he told Daphne happened to the vase in the end.’

Tomek thought of the former airline pilot for a moment. On the two occasions Tomek had seen him, the man had come across as even tempered and well mannered, not the aggressive individual Rose had just described.

‘Has he ever hit Daphne at all, or have you ever heard of any abuse in their relationship?’

Rose pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘Johnny’s never mentioned it.’

‘Have you ever seen him lose his temper in any other instance?’

Rose lowered her gaze to her lap and began picking at her hot pink nails. A few moments passed before she spoke. Tomek allowed her the time and space to feel comfortable.

‘I guess you could say he’s been aggressive towards me,’ she said. ‘Not at me. Towards me. Indirectly. Shouting and arguing with Johnny about me. At the start of the relationship, Johnny told them I wasn’t very devout, but neither are Johnny and Angelica, which is a truth they’re not willing to hear, and Roy didn’t like that, said Johnny needed to be with someone of the same faith, someone who had the same values and believed the same things as they did. It caused a lot of arguments between them, and I thought there was a time where we might have to break up, it got that serious. But throughout it all, I had Angelica.’ A tear began to form as Rose thought of her sister-in-law. ‘She was there for me when I was new to the family. She helped me come to terms with my new life, with my new mother- and father-in-law. She was my rock. Every time we went to a family function where I didn’t know anyone, she was always by my side, doing the job my husband should have been doing – introducing me. Instead, he was off getting pissed with his cousins and flirting with his second cousins once removed or whoever the fuck they were.’ She caught a tear with her finger, but it was useless against the heavy stream of them coming down her face. Tomek reached for the box of tissues on the table and passed it to her. ‘In those moments, I really felt alone, and when I needed my husband most, he was elsewhere. But I had Angelica by my side. That was the type of person she was. Compassionate, loving, heartfelt, without a bad bone in her body. It’s just… it’s just such a shame she went through what she went through.’

Tomek’s interest was piqued once again. He was learning more from this woman than her entire family combined.

‘Why do I get the feeling you’re talking about something other than her murder?’

Rose began fiddling with the tissue between her fingers. ‘You mean you don’t know yet?’

‘You’re going to have to enlighten me.’

‘She was depressed,’ she said, then paused a beat. ‘Now, I know that word gets thrown around a lot, but hers was seasonal. It was really bad during the winters – every winter. Whenever summer and her dream job as a flight attendant was over for the year, she get really down. Like some days, it was a struggle to get her to come in. Some weeks she’d go out drinking all the time, sometimes going to the club on her own, sleeping with a lot of guys. I don’t know what it was or what kick-started it, but she was crying out for help massively, and nobody seemed to do anything about it. None of us were equipped to deal with it, myself included. I hated seeing her do that to herself. The alcohol, the drugs⁠—’

‘Drugs?’

‘Cocaine, weed. Never anything else. But nobody else knew. For some reason, she always told me what she’d taken.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I guess she always saw me as an older sister that she could look up to and trust. I just wish I’d done something to protect her.’

‘You shouldn’t blame yourself.’

‘I guess.’

Tomek leant forward, placing his elbows on his knees and smiling warmly at her. ‘How long has this been going on?’

‘A few years,’ Rose answered. ‘Four, maybe five. But Daphne and Roy don’t want to know anything about it. They’re living in denial. It’s got progressively worse as the years have gone by, but this winter, surprisingly, it got much better. She was coming in on time. She was happier. She was her usual self, you know?’

‘Any idea why?’

Rose took a moment before replying. ‘I’ve been thinking about this a lot since she died, and I remember this one time she told me about a guy she’d met on a flight once. Eccentric millionaire-type character who invited her to a special, adult-themed club on the flight. I… I think she went along to it once, but I don’t know if she ever went back. Either way, ever since then it was like she was back to her old ways.’

Tomek felt his pulse quicken.

‘I’m going to need you to tell me everything you can about this man and this adult-themed club.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

By now, my darling angel’s been unconscious for half an hour. The chemicals that must have been given to her by someone else have taken hold of her. Her pulse has quietened, the blood slowing across her body. She looks calm, restful, peaceful. Angelic.

And now it’s time to begin the next phase of the evening.

I’m no surgeon, but I like to think I’ve got a steady hand – steady enough to cause as little damage as possible, anyway. On the floor lies the plastic tube, coiled in circles like a snake. At one end is the needle, sticking out of one end of the tube like a tongue. At the other is a large plastic pouch. I reach for the needle, then roll Angelica’s body over to one side. The movements must be careful, tender, delicate. She is delicate, a statue carved out of marble by God, by the best sculptor in the world. Her body and soul must be treated that way. Nothing can go wrong.

When she is in position, I hold her leg firmly in place, and inject the needle into the back of her knee. The needle enters the skin with ease. A little blood spills, but I catch it with a wipe. And after a few seconds of squeezing the pouch attached to the cable, creating a vacuum, blood begins to flow through it, smooth, steady, graceful. Within an hour, the bag will be filled and her body will have nothing left to survive. I place a hand on her wrist, feeling for the pulse. It’s smooth, steady, like the flow of blood from her leg. She is none the wiser, completely oblivious. I could not imagine doing this if she was awake, or if she had died beforehand. That would not have been right. Instead, it is better for her to pass like this.

I sit beside her, crouched by her stomach, holding onto her hand. I give the bag a few more squeezes now and then to speed the process up, but I’m happy for this to take as long as it takes. I want to be by her side. I need to be by her side, watching over her, protecting her, cleansing the body, taking it in for the final time.

Gradually, as the blood slowly leaves her body, her pulse begins to weaken, the bones on her hips and ribs becoming more prominent. The life is literally being sucked out of her, like the air escaping from an inflatable mattress, and as the last of it is pulled from her, I watch her intently, finger stuck to her wrist, feeling her pulse.

Weaker. Weaker still.

The gap between each beat of her heart grows greater and greater.

Until the rise and fall of her chest becomes flat, almost invisible, but the moment she dies, I can tell. The pulse suddenly stops, the breathing falters, her chest freezes, and then a moment later her body deflates as her soul leaves her body and journeys to the next life.

At last, she is dead.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Rose Whitaker knew little about the adult club Angelica had told her of. Her sister-in-law had been shy on the details, both before the event and after, and all Rose knew for certain was that it was an invite-only affair, a prestige place for people to gather, presumably for social drinks with perhaps a darker, sordid side to it. Tomek hoped it wasn’t the Southend Seven, a local gentlemen’s club in the heart of Southend, formerly operated and run by the city’s political elite. Now abandoned and closed down, it had once been the home of a small sex-trafficking ring. Tomek’s immediate thoughts had jumped to that conclusion, that Angelica had been swept up in it somehow, but he quickly dismissed it as soon as Rose had confirmed it was somewhere outside Southend, somewhere in the Essex countryside.

In the meantime, following the meeting with Rose, Tomek had sent Oscar and a team of scenes of crime officers and uniformed constables to search for the invite inside Angelica’s flat. It was a printed document, Rose had said, no larger than A5, with Angelica’s name on it in a cursive, handwritten font, the date of the event and the organiser’s contact details on the reverse. Now they had a brief description of what they were looking for, it was hoped that they might find something that had previously been overlooked in the original search of Angelica’s flat. Despite the detailed description, however, and despite the number of people looking for it, Oscar and the team had been unsuccessful, and after a six-hour search which had taken them close to the early hours of the morning, they had called it a day. It was nowhere to be found.

Tomek had lain awake throughout the night, turning thoughts over in his mind. Thoughts of the case, and of the argument with Abigail. It had been more than twenty-four hours since their bust-up and he hadn’t heard from her. Not a text, not a phone call. She hadn’t even sent him a funny meme or video on WhatsApp, which in today’s world was sacrilegious for some. He had run through the argument several times in his head, playing it through in different scenarios, imagining how it might have gone differently if he’d shouted louder or responded with certain comebacks (hindsight was a wonderful thing in those situations), and by the end of it, he’d decided he had nothing to apologise for. Sure, he’d overreacted, shouted in her face, had a go at her. But she’d pushed him over the edge, overstepped the mark and crossed the boundary. Not to mention she’d insulted his integrity and called into question his capabilities in his role. His first time managing an investigation, and she’d belittled him. Added to the earlier grilling he’d received from Victoria and Nick, for a brief moment, he’d questioned whether he was capable of the task, whether he had what was required.