‘Come in. Damn, I wish people would stop leaving the door open.’ She flicked the latch off and allowed the main door to close properly.
‘Hello, Lauren, may we have a word with you? Sorry to intrude on such an awful night.’
The young woman smiled. ‘Don’t worry. It’s probably the best night to come. I think we have a full house so anyone you need to speak to should be in.’ Lauren waved at Corrine as she came out of her apartment with a bin bag. Corrine did her coat up over her pyjamas and pulled her hood over her head. Curtis came out with a roll-up between his lips and as he opened the front door, he clicked the latch on again.
Gina followed Lauren upstairs and into her apartment. It was a far cry from Amber’s. Lauren had a place for everything and her bookshelves were perfectly stacked in colour order and baskets for her work stacked next to them. She had a little table and her laptop screen was filled by a photo of a dog with a huge nose. Textbooks were stacked up to the right with little bookmarks and Post-its marking out reference pages. ‘It’s lovely and cosy in here.’
‘Can I get you a drink?’
Gina thought back to their travel mugs in the car. Time was running short and she wanted to get back as soon as possible to not miss anything. ‘Thank you but time is against us tonight.’
‘I think I told you all I know.’
‘There’s something we found in Amber’s flat that I need to tell you about. Would you please take a seat?’
The woman’s chirpy expression quickly changed and worry lines appeared across her forehead. ‘Okay.’
‘There’s no easy way to tell you this but our investigations have led to the discovery of surveillance equipment in Amber’s apartment, more specifically her hallway, and you and Amber are on it.’ Gina took a seat at the table as Lauren sat. Wyre gave her a sympathetic look.
‘No… no way.’ She swallowed. ‘Not when we…?’
Gina nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Did Amber do that to me? She was my friend.’
‘It wasn’t Amber.’
‘Who was it? Was it that bastard landlord, Vincent? He’s always around here looking creepy and messing about with things under the guise of maintenance.’
Gina shook her head. ‘We have made an arrest but I can’t share the details with you yet. It isn’t your landlord. We’ll need to speak to you further about this when you’ve got over the shock. Are you okay to come to the station at some point and we can tell you where we go from here?’
Lauren nodded and held the back of her hand to her red cheek. ‘I’m all hot now. I can’t believe someone did this to me and to Amber.’
‘You didn’t mention that you and Amber were in a relationship when we interviewed you.’
‘That’s because we weren’t.’ Lauren began playing with the zip on her onesie, pulling it up and down by a couple of inches. ‘It was one drunken night, that’s all. Amber had well moved on from that. I still liked her but I know she wasn’t really into me. I’m sorry I didn’t mention it.’
‘We’ve since found that she kept another phone, an unregistered phone.’ Gina nodded to Wyre who removed her notepad.
‘Oh, the “date phone” she called it. She didn’t give out her main number to people on AppyDater. If anyone gave her grief, she said she could just vanish online and bin the phone. She wanted to keep her contract mobile number separate. The last person she was meant to meet, she gave him her proper number though. She seemed to like him more.’
‘Did she ever mention being in a relationship with anyone from her course?’
‘Yes, but that was over weeks ago. She slept with her lecturer a handful of times and joked about it. She just wanted to know what it would be like but then things got awkward for her in lectures. I didn’t approve, obviously, but it was him doing the cheating. Amber wasn’t married. Amber said she wasn’t his first fling, he apparently had one on the go with every year group. She wouldn’t really say much more to me, especially after our night together.’
Lauren stared at the dog on her screen. ‘Amber was just enjoying life. Her father would never let her out when she lived at home and I suppose she went a bit mad, partying and one-night stands. He was really strict with her. When she first moved in he was here all the time. She had a big row with him and told him he was stifling her.’
‘Did she ever take drugs?’
Lauren bit her lips. ‘I don’t, ever, but I know Amber took the occasional tab and those weird canister thingies, but then so does everyone.’
The sound of Wyre’s pen scraping on her pad came to a stop.
‘What will happen to that video of me and Amber? I know we were only kissing in the hallway.’
‘It’s currently in police evidence. From what we have, I can see that it hasn’t been uploaded to any public sites.’
‘At least that’s some good news, I don’t think my mother could take the shock. I still can’t get over the fact that some sicko was spying on us while we were… It doesn’t bear thinking about.’ Lauren exhaled and wafted her hand in front of her face. She too had suffered a violation in all this.
