Thinking fast, I crouched down and came up waving my pen in the air. ‘Sorry. Knocked it off my desk,’ I said, getting up.
He barely registered what I was doing. ‘Meeting was cancelled,’ he chuckled with a grin, reclaiming his seat. ‘Made my day.’
24
Tamsin Jones lived next door to Hazel on the nineteenth floor of Ledwick Tower, near Kings Cross. It only took me twenty minutes to get there on foot from the office.
‘I’ve already had visits from the police,’ she said, opening the door wide enough to allow a visitor only the size of a cockroach inside. She was chewing, half a banana in her hand. ‘I’m surprised there are more questions.’
I’d told her I was a psychologist working with the police. ‘People remember things a few days later… know what I mean?’ A pang of guilt caught in my throat. I wasn’t meant to be interviewing anyone. I knew that.
She sighed and stood back from the door, letting me in. ‘I’m on my lunch break, so I can’t be long.’ She took another bite of the banana. ‘And watch the toys – they’re a death trap.’
Plastic trucks, dinosaurs, a ship, and half the cast from Toy Story were strewn across the carpet like there’d been an earthquake. ‘My nephew,’ she said, by way of explanation. ‘Want a drink?’
I declined.
Tamsin looked in her forties but was dressed like a twenty-year-old, wearing a low-necked leopard-skin top, a short denim skirt, no tights and high summer sandals with cork platforms. She left me in the main room and wandered off to the adjoining kitchen. I saw her pour herself what looked like a can of lemonade, but could easily have been a ready-mixed gin and tonic.
‘Shit morning at work,’ she said, clinking the ice in her glass on her return. ‘You sure you don’t want something?’
I shook my head.
She pointed to a space on the sofa between newspapers and more toys. A lottery ticket fluttered to the floor as I took a seat. When I looked up, I noticed a photo of Hazel and Tamsin, their faces squashed together in a blown-up selfie. It sat on an electric keyboard in the corner in a bright pink frame. A cherished picture judging by the size of it.
‘How well did you know Hazel?’ I asked.
‘We were really good mates,’ Tamsin said, dropping her chin. She stared at her nails. Half were long and painted, the others chipped or broken. She swiftly put down her glass and hid them inside the pockets of her skirt.
I pointed to the photo. ‘When was this taken, can you remember?’
‘Oh… about two years ago. A few months after she moved in. She threw a party for her twenty-first.’
‘Did Hazel throw a lot of parties?’
Tamsin coughed out a laugh. ‘You kidding me?’ Her smile was tainted with nostalgia. ‘All the time. She knew loads of people and was the biggest party animal ever.’ Her voice broke. ‘Happy Hazel we used to call her.’
‘Do you have more pictures of her?’
Tamsin reached over to her phone, also pink, face down on the coffee table. ‘Hundreds on here,’ she said, snivelling. ‘I can’t bear to look at them.’
She let me glance through them. I soon realised Tamsin’s youthful outfit was an exact copy of one that Hazel featured in several times. I wondered if they could even be Hazel’s own clothes.
I handed back her phone. ‘You seemed to be having a lot of fun together.’
‘God, yes! She was a laugh. Game for anything.’ Tamsin’s face fell as she no doubt recalled what had brought Hazel’s life to an end.
‘Were you at the party the day she died?’
‘Of course.’ Tamsin reached over for a packet of cigarettes, slid one out and lit up, not offering me one. ‘She liked to have all-day parties now and again. Lots of our friends are freelancers or arty types who don’t have nine to five jobs.’
‘The police said around fifty people were there. Did you know them all?’
She mulled it over. ‘Pretty much.’
‘Anyone you didn’t recognise or were surprised to see?’
‘They asked me that. No, I can’t think of anyone who wasn’t meant to be there.’ Tamsin hesitated, looking down sheepishly. ‘Although I did tell them I wasn’t wearing my contact lenses.’
‘Right…’
‘Yeah, they play up when it’s windy sometimes – you know, grit and stuff – so I took them out.’
‘So, you couldn’t be certain who was there?’
She thought about it. ‘Hazel said she knew everyone. All part of our usual crowd, although even with my lenses