3. Cherchez la femme
Sam sipped at her takeaway coffee as she stared out of her windscreen at the unremarkable semi-detached house. The car still smelled of the bacon and egg muffin that she'd bought at the cafe earlier, and she opened the window to draw in some of the cool, fresh morning air. Outside, birds sang brightly in the trees over the low background hum of rush-hour traffic.
Terry had called her with the address earlier that morning. He had a cousin who worked at the taxi company who owed him a favour and apparently this was where the taxi driver she'd seen leaving the park yesterday had dropped off his passenger.
Now here Sam was, watching the sun burning off the early morning mist and glistening on the glossy red door of the house as she waited for a glimpse of the elusive blonde. Terry, diligent as always, had also checked the electoral register and found the names of the residents: Becky and Sarah Cook, aged twenty-two and twenty-four respectively. Sam assumed they were sisters.
It was a nice-looking semi-detached house in a good area. The garden at the front looked neatly kept and two small, nearly new hatchbacks crowded the driveway. It certainly didn't look like the kind of place you'd expect to find a drug dealer. Sam sat up a little straighter as a woman exited the front door. She was tall and good-looking, dressed in a smart black pants suit. She ran a hand through her shoulder-length blonde hair and she searched for her car keys in a matching navy handbag, then slipped into the front seat of one of the cars and slipped on a pair of sunglasses.
She did kind of look like the woman in the park yesterday, she was the right height and build, and had the right hair colour, but it was hard to tell if it was definitely her. In fact, she looked more like an estate agent or a receptionist than a drug dealer Sam thought as she watched the woman reverse out of the driveway then disappear down the road. It was hard to tell if she was the younger or older sister without seeing her sibling. Sam was pondering whether to follow her when her mobile rang. It was Terry again.
"Hey, Terry, what's up?" she said, taking a sip of her coffee.
"Hi, so my contact's checked out Alan Hemming's financial records but there's nothing unusual. No big unexplained incomings or outgoings."
"Hmm, okay. Well I guess we keep him in mind but move onto the other names on the list."
"Yes, I've got some information on the second name, Eliza Dixon," he said. "You got a pen?"
"Hang on," Sam said, placing her coffee in the cup holder and taking out her pad. It sounded like Alan Hemmings wasn't a likely candidate for their thief, so she was hoping Terry would turn up something interesting for Eliza. "Okay, fire away."
"So Eliza is thirty-four years old and she's worked at Kleinwert for five years. University educated, has always worked in pharmaceuticals. Like Hemmings, I can't find any evidence of her being in trouble with the police. Um, she's widowed, her husband died two years ago. Suspected heart attack, nothing suspicious according to the report. Currently lives alone at twenty-two Sycamore Road, that's in the suburbs to the west. No financial problems, as far as I can tell."
"So she's not looking like our thief either?"
"Well, you can never tell, but she doesn't have a criminal background."
"Is she blonde? Tall?" Sam asked. Looking up, she spotted another woman coming out of the house.
"Nah, she's a red head, five foot six, so not particularly."
"What about Sarah and Becky Cook? Do they have any connection with Eliza or anyone that works at Kleinwert?"
"Not as far as I can tell, but I'll keep looking for a connection."
"Okay, listen I've got to go, but let me know if you find out anything else."
"Yep, no problem."
Sam followed the bright red hatchback through the town centre. Annoyingly, the two sisters looked similar, both tall-ish and slim with shoulder-length blonde hair. The woman she was following was dressed in a tight, Lycra aquamarine top stretched over black leggings and carrying a rolled-up yoga mat so Sam wasn't surprised to see her pull up at a car park behind a gym. She parked a discrete distance away, then followed her inside.
"Hi, can I help you?" a receptionist said, intercepting her as she tried to follow the woman inside.
"Um yes, I'm thinking of taking yoga classes," Sam said, improvising.
"Oh, OK. Are you a beginner?"
"Yes."
"Well, it's fifteen pounds a session, or a hundred pounds for a course of ten. We've got a class going on now, if you want to take a look."
"Oh really? Yes, if you don't mind."
The receptionist lead her a short way down the corridor to a door that felt warm to the touch.
"This is an intermediate class," she explained as Sam pressed her nose against the little glass window cut into the door. Inside, eight women stretched and posed, contorting their bodies into shapes that Sam suspected she wouldn't be able to attain without a team of personal trainers.
"Oh, I think I know her, isn't that Sarah Cook?" Sam said, figuring she had a fifty-fifty chance.
"No, that's her sister Becky, although it's an easy mistake to make, they look quite similar," the receptionist informed her.
"OK, well, thanks, I'll have a think about classes and let you know," Sam said, as the woman lead her back to her reception.
Sam retreated to her car, writing up notes and checking her mobile until Becky came out of the gym about an hour later. She watched the woman stop to take a call on her mobile, leaning on the red brick wall of the gym near a corner, her blonde hair bright in the sunshine. Sam grabbed her mobile and strode towards the gym, pretending to be on a call herself. She stopped near the blonde, occasionally saying the odd word as she listened into her conversation.
"Yeah, I passed on the stuff yesterday," Becky was saying.
Then there was a pause as the other person said something.