Tony Hill u Carol Jordan 08 - Cross and Burn

information but agreed to call back and ask to be connected to the extension perched on a corner table. Paula had little confidence in the capabilities of the system, but she was happy to be proved wrong less than five minutes later. ‘Why are you asking about Nadia? Has something happened? Surely she’s not in any kind of trouble,’ the woman asked as soon as they were connected.
    ‘Do you know Nadia well?’ Paula was careful with her tense.
    ‘I wouldn’t say well. I’ve met her a few times. She’s a very friendly, open sort of person. And they think very highly of her here. But what’s happened? Has she been in an accident back home?’
    ‘Back home?’
    ‘In Poland. She emailed… let me see, it must be three weeks ago? Anyway, she said her mother had been diagnosed with stage three breast cancer and she asked if she could have compassionate leave to go home and be with her mother for the surgery. Because her mother’s on her own now, with her dad being dead and her sister in America. It was inconvenient, but you don’t want to lose somebody that’s as good at her job as Nadia, so the boss said yes, she could have a month.’ The woman stopped for breath.
    Baffled, Paula said, ‘You’re sure about that?’
    ‘I opened the email myself,’ the woman said. ‘And I had to email her only last week with a query about a customer’s repeat order. She answered me the same day. She said her mum was making a slow recovery but she’d be back next week.’
    It made no sense. Had Nadia made an unscheduled early return? Or had her killer sent the emails, pretending to be her, covering up the fact that she’d never left Bradfield? Was it an elaborate sham, a scam to cover Nadia’s disappearance? But the woman was talking again, cutting through Paula’s racing thoughts. ‘So has something happened to Nadia? Is that why you’re calling?’
    Paula closed her eyes and wished she’d asked someone else to make this call. ‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you that Nadia has died in suspicious circumstances.’ It was true without being anywhere near the whole truth.
    A moment’s silence. ‘In Poland?’
    ‘No. Here in Bradfield.’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘We’re still making inquiries,’ Paula said, stalling.
    ‘That’s terrible,’ the woman said, her voice faint. ‘I can’t believe it. Nadia? What happened?’
    ‘I’m afraid I can’t go into details. But we need help. We don’t have any addresses for her. Home or work. Or a next of kin. I was hoping you might have access to that information?’
    ‘Let me get Nadia’s personnel file on the screen,’ the woman said. ‘She worked from home, so there’s no office as such.’ One less place to take apart looking for answers to the questions raised by Nadia’s death.
    Ten minutes later, Paula had every scrap of information Bartis Health knew about Nadia. There wasn’t much, but it was a start. She had an address in the Harriestown district. She also knew that Nadzieja Wilkowa was twenty-six years old and had worked for Bartis for eighteen months. She had a degree in pharmacology from the university in Poznan and spoke excellent English. She visited head office every two or three months. Her territory covered the North of England and she had been one of the company’s most successful sales reps. The next of kin she’d given was her mother, with an address in Leszno. A place Paula had never heard of, let alone been able to point to it on a map. She wasn’t sure of the process involved in informing overseas next of kin, but she knew there would be one. At least that was one death knock she wouldn’t have to deal with herself. Or the interview to ascertain whether Nadia had been in Poland recently.
    Paula checked her watch. What she should do now was pass on Nadia’s phone to the techies, scoop up a couple of junior detectives and turn over her flat in a bid to find how her life intersected with her killer. But she was conscious of the promise she’d made to Torin McAndrew and that she’d done nothing to fulfil it. She had a few hours before the boy would be texting her. Nadia was dead, and Torin was very much alive.
    In one sense, it was no contest. But Paula had been drilled by Carol Jordan that her duty was to speak for the dead. And as well as speaking for the dead, she also had a responsibility to the living. A killer was walking free and it was her job to find him before he killed someone else. What could be more important