Guilty Conscious, Oliver Davies [small books to read TXT] 📗

revolved around a café and a cat. Billie struck me as the sort of person who found it hard enough to get up every morning, let alone go out into the city in the night and bludgeon a boy to death. She also struck me as too smart, that if she wanted someone dead, we wouldn’t really know about it. It wasn’t a welcome thought, an invasive thing that I quickly dismissed, but Greenberg was right about her. She knew why we were there, knew we needed to ask questions, and had bid us to just get on with it. A welcome change from the usual brick walls and sour-faced shrugs we received when interviewing people.

I was also glad to know that Mills and I were firmly on the same page which we might need to be when Sharp got wind of us looking more into Stella’s case than Edward’s. But they were linked, I knew they were, and somewhere in the two, we would find one person who tied it all together. Somehow. Billie remained a suspect, she had to really, and I was eager to find her and Stella’s father as well and see what might be made of him.

“Did you still want to talk to the others?” Mills asked, pulling over to the side of the road outside an old Georgian style row of houses. “Edward’s friends?”

“Billie mentioned that Fiona was the only one she missed,” I recalled. “Maybe they stayed in touch?”

“Worth trying to get her on her own then, as you said before,” Mills muttered. “If she was on the fence back then, she probably has a less biased opinion than the rest of them.”

I nodded my agreement, climbing out of the car and crossing the street. We walked to a house in the middle of the row, where a sign on the railing indicated that Dr Kumar’s workspace was situated in the basement below. We walked around the railing and headed downstairs.

“I almost got one of these flats,” Mills muttered when I knocked on the door, looking around the damp, small space we stood in.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Not enough light,” he told me. Never were in these places. It’s why students were usually so fond of them.

The door opened to a rather surprised looking woman holding a bowl of salad in one hand and pushing her glasses up onto her head with the other.

“Yes?” she asked, taking a large bite.

“Dr Kumar?” I asked.

She nodded, still chewing, and we pulled out our warrant cards. Her dark eyes flicked over them once, brows drawing together, and she gave a little dip of the chin, letting us into the lower floor.

You could see where it had been turned into a flat, with an open kitchen and living space, a bathroom tucked into the corner and a bedroom that now looked more like a personal office space. The walls were painted white, fake greenery hung about on tables and in large pots, and the space had the calm, clean feel that therapists managed to cultivate wherever they were situated. I noticed a set of stairs still ran up to the house above and thought she probably owned the whole building.

It took home office to a whole new level.

“How can I help?” Dr Kumar asked, setting her bowl down and wiping her hands.

“We’re here to ask about Stella Helman,” I said, watching as her face fell slightly. “Her sister, Billie, told us that you might be able to help us.”

“I thought the investigation was closed?” Dr Kumar said. “Suicide.”

“We’re here on another investigation,” I told her, “one that we believed is linked.”

“How so?” she asked politely.

“We’re investigating the murder of a student called Edward Vinson.”

Dr Kumar’s confusion wiped away immediately, the name as familiar to her as I hoped it would be. She let out a low exhale of breath.

“You’ve just been to see Billie?” she asked.

“We have.”

“How was she?” Her questions felt more like orders, and her calm face didn’t shift as she looked us over.

“Shocked,” I told her. “As she would be.”

Dr Kumar nodded. “And how I can help?”

“We want to know as much about what happened with the Helman girls and Edward Vinson as we can,” Mills told her. “Billie said you might enlighten us into anything Stella shared in her last sessions with you.”

“Well, I shared what I could with the officers who looked into her death,” she muttered, “but I suppose you two come with a different set of lenses?”

I smiled. “Something like that. Billie also said that we have her permission if it’s needed.”

Dr Kumar nodded and rolled her shoulders back, leading us into her office where she waved at the sofa against the wall, walking herself over to a tall filing cabinet and swishing the drawer open.

“Stella had been seeing you for about a year?”

“Just over,” Dr Kumar replied, pulling out a file and sitting on her chair, which she then wheeled over towards us, pulling her glasses back down onto her face. “I saw Billie a few times after she died, but she’s not been back for a while. I hope she gets in touch,” she added quietly, “or sees someone.” She cleared her throat and opened the file, looking up at me expectantly.

“What did Stella tell you about that night?”

Dr Kumar breathed in deeply. “Not much,” she said. “She blocked a lot of it out, really. She had pictures, flashes, but the brain is good at protecting itself. I think when the attack happened, she shut down. So, the details are hazy, but she was adamant that she knew who did it.”

“Edward Vinson?” Mills said, and the doctor nodded.

“Did she ever talk about anyone else? Any of the people from the party?”

“Never directly. She often expressed some worry for Billie, that she’d lost her friends, but Billie herself didn’t seem to mind. I don’t think they were very close, from what she told me.”

“And did anything change?” I asked her. “In the weeks leading up to her death?”

“If anything, she was