Moonflower Murders Page 25
‘Well, it turned out that their biggest earner was a brothel in the Ravenswood district and the youngest girl working there was fourteen years old. Fourteen! She’d been trafficked into the country and she was being forced to service three or four men a night. If she refused, they beat her and starved her. Now, is that something you think your readers would enjoy? The continued rape of a fourteen-year-old child? Maybe Atticus Pünd should have been sent out to investigate that one!’
‘I don’t understand why you’re telling me this,’ I said. ‘Of course it’s horrible, what you’re describing. But was Stefan Codrescu involved?’
‘No … ’ He stared at me as if I’d missed the point.
‘Then what you’re saying is, he must have killed Frank Parris because he was Romanian!’
Locke let out something close to a snarl and got to his feet so quickly that his chair would have toppled backwards if it hadn’t been screwed to the floor. ‘Just get out of here,’ he said. ‘And get out of Suffolk.’
‘Actually, I’m driving to London.’
‘That’s good. Because if I get the impression that you’re obstructing my investigation into the disappearance of Cecily Treherne, I will arrest you.’
I stood up. But I didn’t leave yet. ‘So what do you think has happened to Cecily?’ I asked.
He stared at me. But then he answered. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘My guess is that she’s dead and that somebody may have killed her. Maybe it was her husband. Maybe they had an argument and he stuck a knife in her, although we haven’t found a trace of her DNA on him or anywhere else it shouldn’t be. Maybe it was that creepy guy who lives with his mother and works nights. Maybe he had a thing for her. Or maybe it was a complete stranger who just happened to be walking along the River Deben with an erection and a sick mind.
‘We may never know. But I’ll tell you one thing that it wasn’t. It wasn’t somebody who was named in a stupid detective story written eight years ago. So get that in your head and go back home. And stop asking questions. I won’t warn you again.’
Lawrence Treherne
I stopped at a service station on the edge of London and picked up my emails. Still nothing from Andreas. A confirmation from James Taylor: seven thirty at Le Caprice. And a long note from Lawrence Treherne, which I read over a coffee and a croissant so stale and doughy that it bore no relation to anything you might ever buy in France. The email was very well timed. Here was a step-by-step account of what had happened at Branlow Hall, told from a single perspective. It was interesting to see how it connected with what I already knew. I could also use it as a reference when I met Lionel Corby the next morning.
This is what I read.
*
From: Lawrence Treherne <[email protected]>
Sent: 21 June 2016 at 14:35
To: Susan Ryeland <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: Cecily
Dear Susan
You asked me about my memories of the wedding day. I’m writing this with assistance from my wife, although you will have to forgive the absence of any particular style, which is to say I am not much of a writer, I’m afraid. The story that Alan Conway wrote is very different from what happened at Branlow Hall in 2008 so I do wonder how any of this can be of very much use to you, but at the same time it can’t hurt to have the facts set out, at least in so far as I remember them.
You might like to know how Aiden and my daughter met and I’ll start there because I believe it is part of the story.
At the start of August 2005, Cecily was in London and she was thinking of leaving the hotel. As I may have already mentioned to you, and it pains me to say it, she and her sister had always had quite a difficult relationship. I don’t want you to read anything into that. Two girls growing up together are always going to argue about music, clothes, boyfriends and things like that and my two were no exceptions. Lisa has always said that Cecily was our favourite but there’s no truth in that. She was our first child and we loved them both equally.
At the time, the two of them were grown-up and they were working together at Branlow Hall. The idea was that they would take it off our hands eventually but the relationship wasn’t working. There was a lot of tension between them and I’m not going to go into the details as it was nothing more than tittle-tattle, but the upshot was that Cecily decided to strike out on her own. She’d lived her whole life in Suffolk and she fancied having a crack at the big city. We offered to buy her a flat in London, which may sound extravagant but it was something we had been thinking about already. We liked going down to theatres and concerts and in the long run it would be more economical. So that was why she was there.
She found a place in east London that she liked the look of and Aiden was the estate agent who showed her round. They hit it off immediately. He was a couple of years younger than her but he was doing very well for himself. He’d already saved up enough money to buy himself a place on the Edgware Road, near Marble Arch. Not bad for someone in their twenties, even if it was only one room. While they were talking, Cecily discovered that it was actually his birthday that day and she insisted on going off with him and meeting his friends. That was very much how Cecily behaved. She liked to take the bull by the horns and she told me later that she knew that the two of them were compatible from the very start.
We met Aiden soon after and we liked him very much. As a matter of fact, he did us a huge favour because he was as keen to leave London as Cecily had been to go there and he persuaded her to stay at Branlow Hall. He didn’t like the city and he didn’t think she would either, but they would keep his flat as a useful bolt-hole if they needed to get away. But as a matter of fact, after he arrived Cecily’s relationship with Lisa got a lot better. It was two against one, you see. Aiden gave her self-confidence.
I’m attaching a couple of photographs of Cecily, by the way. You may have seen some of the pictures in the newspapers but none of them did her justice. She’s a beautiful girl. She reminds me so much of her mother at that age.
Aiden and Cecily moved into Branlow Cottage six months before they got married. Lisa had been living there but we persuaded her to move into a place we owned in Woodbridge. It made sense, particularly after Roxana was born. Aiden took over the PR side of the business. He did all the brochures, press releases, advertising, special events – and he did a very good job. It was about this time that Pauline and I realised that we could retire with a clear conscience. Lisa was doing a terrific job too. Despite what she said to you the other day, I don’t think she disliked Aiden. I rather hoped he’d jolt her into getting married herself.
And so to the point of all this. June 15th 2008. The wedding weekend.
I’ve gone over every minute of it, starting on the Thursday, and all the problems that came our way. First off there was a bust-up over the phone with the contractors who were supposed to be delivering the marquee. Their lorry had broken down and they were going to be late, which is one of the poorest excuses I’d ever heard. It didn’t come in until lunchtime on Friday and it was the devil’s own work to get it up on time. Cecily was in a state because one of the bridesmaids had come down with bad flu and she’d managed to lose a pen which I’d lent her. It was a 1956 Montblanc 342 with a gold nib – a really lovely piece, in its original box and never been used. I was actually quite angry with her although I didn’t say anything at the time. Anyway, I’d wanted her to have it because it was something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.
Lisa was always convinced that Stefan must have taken the pen. He was in and out of the house carrying things and it was just sitting there on the table. I mentioned that to the police but it was never found. In the end, Cecily had to make do with two coins, one of Pauline’s brooches and a ribbon.
What else? Cecily hadn’t slept well all week. Last-minute nerves. I’d given her some diazepam. She didn’t want to take it but Aiden and Pauline insisted as we didn’t want her going down the aisle looking like a zombie! She needed to look her best and feel her best for the big day. At least we were lucky with the weather. Friday was absolutely glorious. The forecasters getting it right for a change. Our guests started arriving. The marquee finally went up. And we were all able to relax.