This Dark Place: A Detective Kelly Moore Novel Read online

  “Tell me about Peter Ames,” Frame said, dispensing with any introductions. Apparently, everyone knew who Kelly was. “What’s your connection?”

  “Two years ago,” Kelly began, “I met Mr. Ames when I was assigned to another case. A colleague of his had been murdered. Ames was afraid he was next. He provided key information that led to us solving the case.”

  “And you were the lead investigator?”

  “I was, yes,” Kelly answered.

  “From the start?”

  “The lead investigator was reassigned, and I took over from there,” Kelly said.

  “What a coincidence. At the request of Mr. Ames, I suspect?”

  “There were extenuating factors,” Kelly said.

  Superintendent Frame peered over the rim of her glasses. “He was quite insistent on you coming out here,” she said. “Certainly, you know how influential he is.”

  “I do,” Kelly replied.

  Frame poured herself a glass of water from a pitcher on her desk. She didn’t offer one to Kelly.

  “You can get started reviewing the evidence and files we have. There is not much at this point. You likely know most of it anyway. Are you up to speed with the media coverage?”

  “I saw the news reports online in New York, and again this morning in London. There’s a piece from the Sunday Star that’s gone viral on social media.”

  Frame nodded. “Nigel Brickmat’s.”

  Kelly hadn’t made the connection when the journalist had introduced himself: Brickmat had broken the Priscilla Ames story. And he’d done an incredibly thorough job of it. He had nearly as much information as Kelly, and she had been briefed by Priscilla’s father.

  Priscilla had been studying theater at a college a few blocks away from her apartment on Halford Road. Her roommate was Avery Moss. The girls had been at university together in New York, and then had come to London together. They’d been inseparable since childhood, it seemed. Like sisters. Peter Ames had stressed this. The police force was called at 1:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, April 5th. They found Priscilla dead at the scene, and Avery silent, claiming to know nothing.

  Frame said, “I plan to keep DCI Jack Dunne as lead investigator. I hope that was clear in your talk with Mr. Ames. He may pull a lot of weight with your superiors in New York, but you’re here as a courtesy. We don’t need the NYPD to solve our crimes for us.”

  Kelly said nothing, stretching the silence out until Frame spoke again. No one who talked so readily would be good at interrogations, Kelly thought.

  “Right,” Frame said, looking at her watch. “The team will be reporting in a few moments. They’ll brief you fully.” She turned away from Kelly and shifted some papers around on her desk.

  Kelly had worked under several different supervisors in her years on the force, so she had seen people with the kind of bluster Frame had, though most of them were men. Kelly had quickly gotten used to being among the very few women around the precinct. The three station heads Kelly had worked with had fitted a nearly identical profile: middle-aged, dedicated, seasoned, and cynical—though always with heart and an underlying sense of humanity from having spent decades on the streets of the city. The London Met didn’t carry guns, and she knew it was tough for them, too. They also had their share of ganglords, gun-related incidents, knife crime, and terrorist attacks, in addition to department budget cuts and a lack of support from the politicians who made the big decisions.

  Frame was an unlikely fit; Kelly had a difficult time picturing her as a young cop. She seemed more like a disgruntled college professor, and Kelly wondered how she had paid her dues.

  There was a knock at the door and in breezed Dunne, the detective who had conducted the press conference with Frame. He was followed by a petite, spry Southeast Asian woman in her late twenties. Her jet-black hair was cut in a short smart bob and she had a gleam in her eye.

  “You must be Detective Moore,” Dunne said.

  Kelly nodded and reached out to shake his hand. “Kelly, please.”

  “Welcome,” he replied. “DCI Jack Dunne. This is DI Samantha Joshi. We’re missing DI Rodgers. He got called in to court on a case ’bout an hour ago. But he’ll be joining us later.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Kelly nodded, letting go of his hand to shake Detective Inspector Joshi’s.

  Joshi smiled slyly and gave her a curt nod.

  “I brought her up to speed,” Superintendent Frame said. “Dunne, I expect you’ll make use of Detective Moore in whatever capacity will be helpful. What do you need in terms of resources?”

  “Joshi’s already started in on the Ames family’s background, Priscilla’s electronic records, phone history, all of it. Might have to pull in advanced technology, depending on what we turn up. Joshi will let me know there.”

  DI Joshi nodded in agreement.

  “I’ve sent a couple of constables over to doorstep the neighbors. See if anyone heard anything, saw anyone coming or going. They’ll pick up any neighborhood CCTV footage while they’re at it.”

  “All good,” Frame said.

  “We’re expecting the father?” Dunne asked.

  “Yes,” Frame replied. “He should be arriving early in the morning. He’s aware that he’ll need to speak with you right away.”

  “And the mother?” Dunne asked

  “Deceased. Six years ago.”

  Dunne’s chiseled face softened briefly.

  Dunne turned to Kelly. “The three of us can go around to the London School of Art and Drama. Rodgers will catch up with us there. I’ve arranged to meet the dean and we can have a sniff around. We’ve also arranged a meeting with Avery Moss’s boyfriend, Roane Davies. Rodgers will meet us there. He and Joshi will pick up the CCTV footage and get cracking on it straight away.”

  He looked at Superintendent Frame. She paused before dismissing them, saying, “Keep me up to date on any new developments.”

  Dunne turned to leave, and as they followed him, Joshi eyed the top of Kelly’s head. “I like the hair,” she said, flashing Kelly a mischievous smile.

  Kelly nodded her thanks. “I like to mix it up,” she said. “Keeps me on my toes.” She closed the superintendent’s door behind them, glad to be out of the office.

  She found her suitcase and went into the women’s room to freshen up after all the traveling and meetings.

  This case is already full of leaks. How could Nigel Brickmat have reported the facts of the case before the press conference? Why were there no other facts or evidence to report, more than twenty-four hours after Priscilla Ames’ death? Nothing, she reminded herself, necessarily worked as it did in New York.

  The sound of English accents was starting to grate on Kelly’s nerves; they brought back memories of her fruitless search for Cass all those years ago. She could feel the drive to be busy, to get going on the case: to go to the morgue and the crime scene, to talk to the victim’s friends. She considered how Peter Ames must feel; his only daughter dead, her best friend accused. A man as powerful as Ames would see that someone paid for his daughter’s death.

  Kelly had been through enough to know nothing could be ruled out. No one was beyond suspicion. Even old friends in high places, as she’d do well to remember.

  4

  Dunne pulled the aging patrol car up against the curb, hit the brakes with a jolt, and was already standing on the sidewalk before Kelly’s body had finished bouncing back against her seat.

  “If I’d wanted a roller-coaster ride,” Joshi complained from the backseat, “I’d have gone to Brighton for the day.”

  Outside, a bulky detective with light brown skin, a smoothly shaved head, and delicate features looked down at Kelly with a wide, open smile.

  “Looks like you’ve been introduced to the joys of riding shotgun with our man Dunne.” Kelly recognized the slightest hint of a Caribbean lilt behind his British accent. “That’s why he’s got the last Jam Sandwich in town,” he chuckled as he patted the cruiser, stepping back as Kelly extricated herself
from it. She looked down at the bright-orange stripe running along the middle of the white patrol car. It did look a bit like a sandwich.

  “That’s what you call that thing?” Kelly exhaled.

  “Only if you’re trying out for a starring role in The Bill circa 1986,” Joshi answered.

  Dunne cleared his throat loudly. “Detective Inspector Richard Rodgers,” he said, “Meet Kelly Moore, NYPD.”

  “Pleased to meet you, detective,” Rodgers said. He stood about a head taller than Kelly and was solidly built. She wondered if his disposition was always so sunny. “Joshi and I are going to campus security to pick up CCTV from the last few days,” he said. “Maybe we’ll catch a glimpse of Priscilla Ames.”

  “’Nuff chitchat, boys. Let’s get on with it,” Joshi piped up from between the two men.

  Rodgers and Joshi went off to look for the security office and the surveillance footage.

  Dunne and Kelly walked down a brick path and entered an aging concrete building where the dean’s office was located. They stopped in front of a door labelled “Professor Michael Donaghue.”

  Dunne knocked, but there was no reply.

  “You thought he’d be in?” Kelly asked.

  “He knows we’re coming,” Dunne replied, and knocked again.

  They could hear a shuffling sound inside, then a man opened the door. He was tall and pale, with shoulders that sloped forward. He wore a blue Oxford shirt, unbuttoned at the top, and a gray cardigan that covered his lanky arms and a protruding belly. His thinning brown hair was peppered with gray.

  “Professor,” Dunne said.

  “Yes, yes. You must be the Inspector I spoke with on the phone… Ahh, Spenser was it?”

  “Dunne,” Kelly offered. “And I’m Detective Moore, NYPD.”

  “Spenser, Donne; I never could keep those poets straight.”

  The professor stared glumly at his shoes. “Tragic,” he said. “She was so young, with so much of life ahead of her.” He hesitated and looked at the detectives. “Let’s have a look ’round, then. I can show you where the students spend their time.” He shut and locked his office door without glancing back.

  Donaghue led them down a hallway with doors to either side, several of them open. Light streamed in from a window at the end of the hall.

  “What’s down here?” Kelly asked.

  “Oh,” Donaghue said. “Nothing of note, really.”

  “More faculty offices?” Kelly asked.

  “Well, yes, some,” Professor Donaghue replied. “Offices, lecture rooms, administration…” He trailed off absently.

  This is going nowhere fast, Kelly thought.

  They left the building through a side door. Outside, the sky had turned a hazy gray, and a thin mist hung in the air. They walked down a sidewalk past two low, brick buildings. Kelly felt the fog seeping into her bones, and looked at the soft shine that the moisture gave the lawns. Here and there, a few students darted between buildings.

  “What’s in there?” Dunne asked, motioning toward the nearest building.

  “Classrooms, mostly,” Professor Donaghue replied. “The only place of any worth to anyone is the Baxter Theatre. That’s where we’re supposed to meet Avery’s boyfriend, Roane Davies. If he’s not there, well, I suppose he’ll turn up.”

  “You think he might not show?” Kelly asked.

  Donaghue shrugged carelessly. “Who knows. He’s a decent sort. Not very reliable, though. But in this case…”

  Past the two brick buildings, the detectives saw a larger, older building with a domed roof at the back.

  “Here we are,” Donaghue said. “The main stage. There’s a smaller stage on the other side of campus. We use other venues around London as well for performances and events. But this is where we are at most often.”

  Kelly and Dunne followed him into a large, spare lobby. Three sets of double doors dominated the far wall. Professor Donaghue opened the middle one and they walked down the aisle. It was dark inside. Kelly stopped for a moment to let her eyes adjust.

  Twenty or thirty rows of tiered seats covered in worn red velvet arced around a wooden stage where one oversized globe on a stand cast a faint glow.

  “Ghost light…” Donaghue’s voice carried effortlessly across the room; it was transformed from his previous disinterested drawl into a clear, bell-like arrow.

  A shiver ran up Kelly’s spine and she felt Dunne shift slightly in the aisle behind her as Donaghue’s silhouette appeared at center stage. Previously drab and flaccid, the professor now stood tall, backlit by the single bulb.

  “It’s an old theater tradition, you know,” he said, gesturing dramatically to the light behind him. “It’s always lit to keep the ghosts from getting too comfortable and bringing around their ill will. Superstitious lot, we actors are. Such a lovely room. I’ve taught Monologue here for years. Also Voice and Physical Theatre, Building Characters. Lately, I’ve run a seminar called ‘Through the Looking Glass.’ We block out scenes from classic films that reference photographic media. Rear Window, Blow-Up, Peeping Tom... Classics from a golden age. That last one was made just up the road from here in 1960. The same year I was born. There’s something of the voyeur in us all, don’t you think?”

  “Hard to say, Professor.” Kelly heard her own voice carry in an arc across the room. “Movies aren’t really my thing.” Kelly racked her mind trying to remember the last one she saw. Probably that remake of RoboCop.

  Dunne cleared his throat. He had walked up to the foot of the stage and was taking the steps two at a time. “House lights switch this way?” he asked as he pushed aside the curtain stage left and looked into the darkness. Kelly followed. She could just about make out the outlines of a dizzying array of knobs and sliders and switches.

  “Looks like Boris Karloff was your electrical engineer,” Dunne commented.

  Donaghue slid some smaller switches, sending an even light around the theater.

  “Crikey!” Dunne stage whispered. “What’s that one for?” He pointed toward a huge U-shaped switch with a wooden handle that was set slightly above eye level.

  “That bit of ancient bric-a-brac,” Donaghue said dismissively, “is known around here as ‘The Bride,’ as in, ‘The Bride of Frankenstein.’ It’s left over from the building’s original wiring. No one, to my knowledge, has ever used it, but legend has it that it’s the master switch for the whole building. I’d guess it was disconnected years ago.”

  “If you don’t mind, Professor,” Kelly said, “Priscilla Ames. Was she in any of your classes?”

  Donaghue shook his head and said, “No,” in a soft voice.

  “You knew who she was, though?” Dunne asked. “You’d talked to her?”

  Professor Donaghue looked out over the empty seats. “I had,” he said. “We spoke at the school orientation. I meet with all the new students. She seemed bright and sociable. At the time, I thought that I might be able to help her find an internship with an acquaintance of mine. But, it never came to anything.”

  In the wings, Kelly could see a door marked “Props.” It was slightly ajar and voices could be heard coming from behind it. She heard a woman say, “I mean, have you done that before—used actual blood onstage?”

  “No, but it is doable,” a man replied. “Pig’s blood or something, of course. Not human!”

  “Yeah, I guessed,” the woman said. “I mean, unless we could get the real thing.”

  They were laughing as the door swung open onto the backstage.

  A woman stepped out, stopping when she spotted Donaghue and his guests. She stared intensely at Kelly. Her bluntly cut hair was dyed black with a deep-blue sheen, shaved close above her ears. She wore a black tank top, showing off a vividly colored tattoo on her left shoulder. It was done in a Japanese style and pictured a woman’s severed head dripping blood, the broken blade of a sword piercing it on a diagonal.

  “Good afternoon, Jenny,” Donaghue said to her.

  “Heya, Professor,” she replied. “Yo
u giving the grand tour of the grounds? Quinn and I were just discussing my next project.”

  A skinny twenty-something young man with a blonde buzz cut and smooth white skin stepped out from behind her. He was wearing black jeans with a silver-studded belt and a black sleeveless T-shirt. He had a soapy, clean smell about him. “What do you think, Professor Donaghue,” he said. “Real blood or fake?”

  “I’m a believer in Kensington Gore myself, it comes in a handy little bottle. Though a little ketchup and corn flour will do in a pinch. The problem with pig’s blood, you see, is that it coagulates too quickly. It’s difficult to control.”

  “Probably doesn’t smell so good, either,” Kelly added.

  Jenny curled her lip and twitched her nose. “True,” she said, looking Kelly in the eye. “Pigs’ insides are pretty rank.”

  Donaghue made a short sound through his nose. “These are Detectives Dunne and Moore.” His voice lowered slightly. “They are here looking into Priscilla’s death.”

  Jenny looked at the two detectives coldly. “I heard about it yesterday,” she said. “It’s terribly sad.” She turned toward the exit, hooking her arm around her friend. “C’mon, Quinn. Let’s go finish our talk at the coffee shop,” she said, guiding him through the door.

  Donaghue pointed to a stairway in the corner which Kelly hadn’t noticed.

  “Let’s go this way,” he said, and started up the stairs. “Roane should be meeting us in the projection booth.”

  “Who were those two charmers?” Kelly asked.

  “Jenny Hooks and Quinn Shaw. Jenny is a second-year student, our resident Queen of Darkness. Quinn’s on staff. He works for me, keeping track of costumes, sets, and the like. He’s what we call ‘prop master.’”

  “Did they know Priscilla Ames?” Dunne asked.