“I’ve had another job offer,” Anthony said as he held the door open for Henley and Ramouter. He looked smaller without the billowing white material of his protective suit. “Actually, it’s the same job offer but with more money.”
“It’s always the same job, and one of these days one of those private firms is going to tempt you away,” said Henley. They followed him into the open-plan office, which was unusually empty. Even on their busiest days there were a few members of Anthony’s team lurking about as they picked up their job sheets or completed their reports. “Can I be selfish and say that I don’t want you to go?”
“Of course you can. It gives me a warm glow inside. Anyway, you’re not here for my career woes. Your dead pastor.”
Anthony pushed through another door which led to the CSI laboratory. On a large table was everything that had been taken from the crime scene: clothing, shoes, bloodstained Bible, altar cloth and candlesticks.
“As you can see, these are the exhibits taken from the church area,” said Anthony as he pulled on a pair of gloves. “So, here is the clothing that Annan was wearing.”
Anthony pointed to the bloodstained shirt, jumper and trousers. The once white shirt was now stained a dull burgundy color. The black briefs and socks had hardened. Anthony picked up the jumper and turned it over. “Can you see that?”
Both Henley and Ramouter leaned forward as Anthony traced the bloody swirls on the jumper.
“That is a clear footprint. We also recovered footprints on the carpet. Our footprint expert has confirmed that whoever stamped on our man’s back was wearing size seven Gucci running shoes.”
“So, we’re looking for someone who wears a size seven. Great,” said Ramouter. “Narrows it down.”
“He’s a bit snarky this afternoon, isn’t he, Henley?” said Anthony.
“Ignore him. I think he needs feeding. So, size seven. I’m putting my money on it being a woman’s shoe.”
“Bingo,” Anthony replied. He turned to the computer monitor on another table. “So, one footprint recovered from the jumper. Take a look at these photographs.” On the monitor were images of the bloody footprints that had been taken off the navy church carpet. Even to her untrained eye, she could see that she was looking at two different sets of footprints.
“And if you take a look at these photos...” Anthony tapped the mouse and the screen switched to an enlarged image of a desk covered with loose papers, a lamp—it was the pastor’s office.
“Is that blood?” Ramouter pointed at the four dark specks on the back of the computer monitor.
“Yep, that’s the pastor’s blood,” Anthony confirmed. “We found blood spatter on the computer, the desk and the office carpet on the ground floor. No footprints in there, but we did find two different sets of prints by the pastor’s body.”
“We’ve got two people downstairs in the church when Annan was killed?” Henley asked. Ramouter appeared to have brightened up at this news.
“Definitely. Your second person stepped in the blood and left a perfect footprint behind. Our footprint expert says that they’re a size eleven. Men’s shoes. Posh ones. Prada. If you take a closer look, you’ll be able to make out the D and the A on the heel. I asked my son how much a pair would set you back. He said that he could get them for £150, but down in Selfridges, £460. Waste of bloody money if you ask me, but there you go.”
“Gucci, Prada? Whoever they are, they’ve got expensive tastes.”
“Shit,” said Henley. She sat down on the stool in front of the table and slowly absorbed the significance of this.
“So, the first set of Prada footprints appear about 71.12 centimeters from the pastor’s body, and the Gucci footprints are 30.48 centimeters from the body,” Anthony explained. “The footprint on the pastor’s back is the right foot. The Prada prints then join the Gucci prints, but if you look at the next photo...”
Anthony clicked to where the Gucci prints were smeared and were then followed by long bloodstained streaks.
“It looks like whoever was wearing the Prada trainers dragged the person wearing the Gucci trainers,” said Henley.
“Exactly,” said Anthony. “You then follow both sets of footprints toward the entrance. The Prada prints fade out first, which suggests that whoever was wearing the Gucci trainers was standing in the pastor’s blood for quite a bit of time.”
“Two killers?” Ramouter asked. “A man and a woman, but it looks as though it was a woman who put the knife in the pastor’s back.”
“Something still doesn’t make sense to me,” said Henley as she took Anthony’s place at the computer monitor and clicked through the photographs. “We found the pastor by the altar. If he was stabbed in the office, why wouldn’t he run straight out of the front door? He would have been in the middle of Deptford Broadway and could’ve flagged down help. Or why didn’t he just run down the corridor and out the back? Why did Annan run deeper into the church?”
“The front door was deadlocked,” said Anthony. “You could only open that door from the outside.”
“So, it’s possible that the killer, or killers, locked him in,” said Ramouter. “There must be CCTV on Deptford Broadway. Or maybe Prada man stopped the pastor from heading to the back door and he had no choice but to go into the church.”
“Where the woman was waiting and stabbed the pastor to death, stood on him and pulled a knife out of his back,” Henley concluded.
“South London’s answer to Bonnie and Clyde,” said Anthony as he picked up a pair of men’s black briefs. “Well, there’s more. Ramouter, can you do me the honor of turning off the lights, please?”
Ramouter obeyed while Anthony picked up a UV wand. On the front of the briefs, streaks of dried fluid glowed against the material.
“Do I even have to ask what we’re looking at?” said Henley as she screwed up her face.
“Is that semen?” asked Ramouter.
“And vaginal fluid overlapping each other,” Anthony answered. “DNA results confirmed that the semen belongs to Annan, but the vaginal fluid...”
“I have a strong feeling that you’re going to tell me that it’s not his wife’s,” said Henley. “It wouldn’t be the first. A woman named Raina Davison accused him of rape, but he said that it was consensual. Is it her?”
Anthony smirked and shook his head. “As per usual we took DNA samples and prints to see if we could eliminate certain people, including the cleaner who found him.”
“You have her samples?” Henley asked. She recalled how reluctant Uliana had been to provide her DNA and her fingerprints.
“Yeah, she called yesterday afternoon,” said Anthony. “I sent Samuel to her flat to get her samples straightaway.”
“Are you about to tell me that her DNA is on Annan’s boxers?” asked Henley.
“No way,” said Ramouter as he switched the lights back on.
Anthony shook his head. “Semen can be detected for up to a year, so I can’t tell you when Annan had sex with the cleaner, but—”
“Uliana. Her name is Uliana Piontek,” said Henley.
“We also found his semen and her vaginal fluid on the sofa in the pastor’s office. It’s definitely Ms. Piontek’s DNA. A full profile, and you know that you can’t get much better than that.”
“Well, that explains why she was so reluctant. She didn’t want us to find out that she’d been sleeping with Annan.”
“Then why did she bother to give us her samples?” asked Ramouter.
“People are strange,” said Anthony. “Maybe she thought that you wouldn’t be looking for signs of sexual activity because you were investigating a murder. There is one other thing. We’re still going through the room where Brandon Whittaker was found. We’ve recovered three sets of prints. One matches the pastor but the other two are unknown.”
“Where were the prints recovered from?” asked Ramouter.
“The bucket, light switch, Bible... Everywhere, really, including Whittaker’s body, but that’s not the interesting thing.” Anthony turned back to the computer monitor and switched to an image of Whittaker’s face.
“Samuel took this photograph before Linh realized that Whittaker was still alive,” Anthony explained. “Take a look at his forehead.”
“It just looks like black smudges,” said Ramouter.
“Are you sure? Take a closer look.”
Anthony picked up a pen and traced it along the markings. Henley mouthed along silently as she followed Anthony’s pen.
“What on earth...” Henley said. Her phone began to ring. It was DC Stanford calling.
“Are those letters?” Ramouter asked as he leaned in closer, and Henley stepped away to answer the phone.
“There are a couple missing but it looks like L, E, don’t know what that is, then maybe a V and that’s just a smudge,” said Anthony. “If you ask me—”
“It looks like someone was writing ‘leave’ on his head,” said Ramouter. “Why would—”
Henley held a finger up to her lips as she mouthed “wait” to Ramouter before walking to the other side of the room.
“Hey, Stanford, what’s up?” Henley asked. “No, we’re in Borough with Anthony.” A pause. “Are you sure? When was it called in? OK. We’re leaving now.”
“What is it?” Ramouter asked as Henley ended the call and picked up her coat from the back of the chair.
“The council sent pest control to one of their flats in Tanner’s Hill. When they got there, the door was open. They thought that the tenant had just left the door on the latch. Long story short, they went in and found a woman. Bible, holy water, same paraphernalia that was found next to Brandon Whittaker.”
“Is she still alive?” Ramouter asked.
“No. This one is very dead.”