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Love Lies Bleeding

I

II

III

IV

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Also by Jane Casey

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Love Lies Bleeding
I

‘There was nothing I could do. He ran right past me.’ The receptionist was twenty-something, five foot nothing and delicately built. She scrubbed her eyes with a soggy tissue and looked up at me piteously. ‘If I’d known, I’d never have let him in.’

That went without saying, I thought. ‘Just talk me through it again. You said he rang the bell.’

‘Yes. He was just out there.’ She stared in the general direction of the glass door that was the office’s only line of defence against a threat they hadn’t anticipated. Mitchford Bexley was a small solicitors’ firm housed in a narrow Georgian house on a quiet street behind Gray’s Inn. Everything about it spoke of quiet wealth and good taste.

Everything except the bloody footprints on the pearl-grey carpet and the red-brown smears along the edge of the glass door. It stood open so a crime scene technician could photograph the marks on the door. I had left Derwent upstairs, standing over the slight, huddled figure of Diana Bexley, the 48-year-old solicitor who had given her surname to the firm she co-founded. Her designer suit had looked a lot better before it was saturated with blood from a deep stab wound in her chest and shallower injuries to her hands and forearms. She had put up a fight, and lost. Even in death, her face was beautiful: high cheekbones, arched eyebrows, her pale lips parted to show white, even teeth.

‘He was dressed like a courier. I thought he was a courier. He was holding an envelope and he gave me a thumbs-up through the door.’ The receptionist blinked. ‘They’re supposed to take their helmets off but a lot of them don’t. I didn’t think it was strange, you know? It was normal. And then it wasn’t.’

Understatement of the year.

‘Does that camera work?’ I pointed up to where it blinked in the corner.

‘It’s motion activated. It records to my computer.’

‘I’ll need to see the footage. And if there are any other cameras in the building I’d like to see what they recorded too.’

‘The one at the back of the building isn’t working.’ She sniffled. ‘I only noticed it this morning. I was going to get it fixed. But it’s just a yard out there. A couple of us use it for smoking. Anyway, he didn’t go near that area.’

And when I watched the CCTV, I saw she was right. He had entered the building at twenty-three minutes past eleven and left four minutes later, before anyone had time to react, but after Diana Bexley’s last breath had left her body. He had moved straight through the hall towards the stairs, not looking left or right, heading for Diana’s office, a large room at the front of the building. ‘Do you think he had been here before? A client, maybe?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t recognise him. But he was in leathers. He just looked like a courier.’

‘So you said.’ I said it gently, though. I knew the receptionist felt guilty about the part she had played in the tragedy. ‘Did you know Mrs Bexley well?’

‘Not well. She wasn’t the sort of person who was chatty.’ She brightened. ‘She got me a card for my birthday, though.’

‘How many people work here?’

‘Eight. Two partners, two associates, three assistants, me. Mrs Bexley had the whole first floor for her office. The next two floors are shared between the associates and assistants. Mr Mitchford is right at the top on his own.’

‘Does the firm handle anything controversial? Any cases that might involve organised crime or sensitive subjects?’

‘No. It’s mainly commercial stuff. Licensing. I don’t really understand it. I’ve only been working here for six months.’

‘I presume Mrs Bexley was married.’

‘She’s divorced.’ That made sense: the dead woman had worn a big, showy aquamarine on her right hand but nothing on her left. ‘She lives on her own in Chelsea. It’s a gorgeous flat. She had it all done up. Antiques and everything. Lots of books. I never went there myself but Stephen did.’

I ran my pen down the list of staff members. ‘Stephen Hawkson? A paralegal?’

She nodded. ‘He got on well with Mrs Bexley, I think. They worked together a lot.’

‘He’s very efficient.’ The comment came from behind me where an ashen-faced man in a close-fitting dark suit was standing.

‘Mr Mitchford,’ the receptionist breathed reverently. ‘Are you all right? Can I get you a glass of water? A cup of tea?’

He waved the suggestions away. He was bald, with deep-set dark eyes and a hawkish look. I noticed the signifiers of wealth – the tailored suit in an undoubtedly expensive fabric that had creased rather badly, the silk tie, the handmade shoes.

‘Paul Mitchford.’ He held out his hand with a flash of metal from the heavy Rolex he wore on his right wrist. All the better to show it off, I thought, even if an allergy to the metal had raised a welt on his skin. What did that matter when you were impressing people with your wealth?

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Maeve Kerrigan.’

‘Thank you for coming so quickly.’

‘It’s my job.’

He nodded. ‘Of course. Of course. This is just such a shock to us all.’

‘You were Mrs Bexley’s partner.’

‘In business. Not in life.’ The hollows under his cheekbones deepened a fraction. ‘We worked together for fifteen years. I admired her so much. She was a wonderful colleague. Humbling. A remarkable woman. She studied for her law degree in her spare time, you know, after she got divorced. She came up the hard way. Everything she had was down to hard work and a little bit of good luck.’

Luck that had evidently run out this morning.

‘Did you see what happened?’

‘No. I was in my office. It’s on the top floor, away from everyone else.’ He gestured vaguely. ‘When I’m working I shut my door and listen to music through some very effective headphones. I find it helps with my concentration. I didn’t hear or see anything at all. I didn’t know it had happened until it was all over. I came downstairs and found them all gathered around her. But it was too late.’

‘Was Mrs Bexley worried about anything? Was she behaving as normal?’

‘She was the same as ever. Absolutely committed to the business. A total professional.’ For an instant I saw his eyes go dark with pain. ‘I have no idea how we’re going to manage without her.’

Stephen Hawkson was tall, fair and not quite handsome: his chin a fraction too long, his forehead too broad. He had small, close-set eyes that were fixed on the wall behind me rather than my face as he explained he had spent a lot of time with Mrs Bexley – Diana. In fact, he had been in a relationship with her, although it wasn’t commonly known in the office. They had kept it quiet, at her request.

‘Did you live with her?’

‘No. I share a house in Hackney with some friends.’ He swallowed. ‘She didn’t like coming to stay with me. We always spent time together at her place.’

‘She was a lot older than you, wasn’t she?’ Derwent was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, his expression remote. Anyone might have thought he didn’t care about this case. Anyone might have been wrong. Experience had taught me that the more distant he seemed, the more he really did mind. ‘Sixteen years is a hell of an age gap.’

‘I never noticed it. She was beautiful.’ Hawkson’s throat worked convulsively. ‘She never made a big deal out of being older and I never mentioned it.’

‘How long had you been together?’ I asked.

‘Two years.’

‘And you still hadn’t moved in?’ Derwent again.

‘I didn’t – she didn’t ask me to.’ He dropped his head. ‘She didn’t want anything conventional. Marriage, you know. She’d done it before, she said, and it was a mistake.’

‘Did she have children?’

‘No.’

‘Family?’

‘Her parents died when she was a teenager. She had a brother but he lives in Canada, I think.’

‘So you must have been important to her,’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘It didn’t seem that way, to be honest with you. I was useful to her. Discreet. She didn’t want to date. She didn’t even want to be seen in public with me. No meals out, no concerts, no hand-holding.’

‘How did it start?’

‘She invited me to her flat one night. I thought it was for work but she asked me if I minded if she seduced me.’ A smile that transformed his face for an instant: yes, I could see he might be attractive when he wasn’t frozen with grief. ‘And it went on from there. She warned me not to tell anyone at work, or talk about her to my friends. But I hoped she would change. I took her to Paris last weekend, as a surprise, and she was so different. So loving. She kissed me on the Pont Neuf and I told her I loved her. She seemed happy. She told me she wanted to travel. To change her life completely. I thought she was just saying it, though.’ He shook his head, his expression bleak. ‘I knew it would end one day, but not like this.’