Chapter THREE – Think About It
"Helga, you were reported missing three years ago, yes?" Started Grace, in an attempt to get the ball rolling.
"Yes. I got... involved with someone, just completely left my old life. He was very insistent that I started afresh with him. My parents are dead and the rest of my family just assumed I had settled down in England."
"This is the man who was arrested recently?"
"Yes. I was young and naïve, it seemed exciting... what is all this about?"
"We found your driver's license in connection with another case." Said Grace, carefully choosing her words as she showed Helga Kuhse a photo of the drivers license. "Did you lose it, was it stolen?"
"Three years ago?" Grace nodded. "I don't really remember. When I left we were staying in a house – in West London somewhere."
"Who's we?"
"Me, the people I came here with, some other students..."
"Peter Abelard and Martin Heidegger?" Asked Grace, reading the names from the post-it note Spence had given her just a few moments earlier.
"Yes, and some others. Peter was my boyfriend at the time."
"Do you know where he is now?" Kuhse shook her head. "Can you remember any other names?"
"Um... they all came and went; I knew them by first names or nicknames only... There was a Leo... a René, um, David – I think his surname was Hume – a Jean-Paul... that's all I can remember."
"All European students? Where was the house?"
"I don't remember. I was only there for a month."
Grace couldn't really think of anything else to push the woman with. She obviously had no idea why somebody else had her wallet – or why that person had ended up floating in the Thames near the Isle of Dogs.
"Where are you going to be now, Helga?" She asked, finally.
"I'm moving back to Germany in a few days."
Grace nodded. If there was going to be anything else to ask, she had better think of it soon. Taking contact details from Helga Kuhse, Grace walked the woman out, and wandered back to the office.
- - -
Eve smiled. Stella looked so adorable – her hair all fluffed up at the front, little girl wide eyes and an almost embarrassed look on her face, hovering awkwardly in a room of evidence and dead bodies. Well, one dead body.
"I'm not about to do anything you don't want to do Stel." She said, walking forward and brushing Stella's hair neat again with her fingers. Stella stood there, enjoying the feel of Eve's fingers gently grazing the sides of her face. "So regardless of whether we should or not... do you want to try?"
Stella bit her lip. Yeah, she did a bit.
"We could... go out for a drink or something after work?" Suggested Eve, doing her best to come across casual.
"Can I think about it?"
"Of course."
"Ok." Stella slipped away, leaving Eve with a mouldy old face that needed excavating, and fingers that needed re-inflating. No sooner had she pulled on another pair of gloves then her mobile started having a furious beeping fit behind her.
She opened the text.
'Ive thought about it.' It read. 'youre buying.'
Eve grinned.
'If i must' she replied, and got back to that face.