Henley couldn’t pull herself away from the photographs of Daniel Kennedy and Zoe Darego. Fated lovers. The pull to find their killer had grown stronger but it was the connection that she felt with Zoe that was driving her. Like Melissa, her story had been cut short. She had been a daughter, someone’s friend. A sister. From her nail polish and lipstick, the black and purple braids that looked to Henley freshly done, this was a woman who had cared about her appearance. But her fingernails, ragged and split, told a different story. Signs that she had tried to escape from somewhere. She had scratched and had clawed to get out, to get away, but away from where?
‘What do we know?’ Henley asked Ramouter.
They were sitting in a room two doors down from what Ezra called his laboratory. The room was quiet and cool but Ramouter was starting to look flustered. Henley knew that he wanted to question her about what Olivier had said to him earlier. She lifted up her shirt, just above the belly button.
‘Olivier stabbed me when I tried to arrest him.’ She pointed to the scars on her stomach. ‘I spent a week in hospital, and he was charged with my attempted murder. Any questions?’
‘No. None at all.’
There were a few seconds of awkward silence as Henley tucked her shirt back in.
‘What do we know?’ she asked again. Ramouter consulted his notes.
‘Daniel Kennedy and Zoe Darego had been in a relationship for about two years, but they didn’t live together. Zoe worked at Lewisham Hospital.’
‘And Kennedy was in the park when his tag went dead, and Zoe was found in the park,’ said Henley.
‘There’s a gap of four days between Kennedy disappearing and his body being found, but the rest of Zoe was found after five days. Dr Choi says that her arm was cut off first and the rest of her was cut up one or two days later. So, what did our killer do? Keep Zoe around for a few days to watch her suffer before he finished her off? It’s sick.’
Ramouter leaned back in his chair.
‘We know that Kennedy was fully compliant with his bail conditions,’ said Henley. ‘He’s a creature of habit but something, not necessarily someone, forces him to remove his tag. Now, what would make you do something that you didn’t want to do?’
‘My sister-in-law.’
Henley couldn’t help herself. She almost smiled. ‘Someone other than your sister-in-law. Lesson number one, don’t jump ahead. Always listen to the question. The question is not who but what? What would make you do something that you didn’t want to?’
‘A threat. If someone was threatening me or someone close to me – but there is something else that’s bugging me. Kennedy’s tag. Why would he take the time to cut off his tag and break it if he believed that Zoe was in danger? If that was me, I wouldn’t bother. I would take my chances with the judge when they arrested me for breach of bail and the tag. The tag went dead in Ladywell Fields but we found it broken and under his bed. How did it get there?’
‘That’s good but we’re still missing answers to the where, who and why? Where were they killed, who killed them and why?’
‘The connection between Zoe and Kennedy isn’t enough, is it?’ said Ramouter.
‘No, it isn’t.’ Henley closed her notebook. ‘So, what are our next steps? What other evidence have we got?’
‘CCTV from the area where Zoe was found and also CCTV from Greenwich Council but no actual footage of the riverbank.’
‘What don’t we have?’
‘Eye-witnesses and an actual complete body for Daniel Kennedy. We’re missing his right arm,’ Ramouter said with a grimace.
Henley looked at her watch. ‘It’s late. You should go home. I’ll be here first thing. Ezra told me that you were trying to access the original case files.’
‘I wasn’t snooping or anything like that,’ Ramouter said quickly. ‘I just thought it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.’
‘To see if we missed something?’
Henley put her hand to her chest, as though she was offended.
‘What? No. Of course not… I just…’
‘Calm down. I’m only joking. You’re a fresh pair of eyes. See if there’s anything about the original investigation that jumps out at you.’
As Henley watched Ramouter pack up, she couldn’t get rid of the one thought that was running through her mind. What if Ramouter discovered that she had missed something?
Ramouter sat on his living-room floor wearing a pair of shorts and his ancient number 8 West Bromwich Albion football shirt. He had opened all the windows but the overpriced fan was doing nothing but pushing around hot air. He picked up the last spring roll and dipped it in sriracha chilli sauce. He was ashamed of his current diet. The contents of his fridge hadn’t expanded beyond the two pints of milk, half a loaf of bread, eggs and sausage rolls that he’d bought on Sunday night.
He had printed out the investigation file from the memory stick. The papers were fanned across the floor, held down by the remote control, mobile phone and a 12kg kettlebell. He picked up Olivier’s arrest photo. He had smiled for the camera, his face all sharp angles, but there was a handsome ruggedness to him, a magnetism. Ramouter could feel himself being drawn in when he met him. In the photo he had a cut lip and dried blood on his nose. His left eye was swollen and bloodshot. According to the report, Olivier had been apprehended by Pellacia and resisted arrest. From the look of Olivier, Ramouter was pretty confident that Pellacia had done more than taser him after he’d stabbed Henley.
Over the course of eight weeks Olivier had murdered seven people and dumped their bodies in various locations across south-east London. Ramouter picked up another photograph, smudging sauce on the bottom of the page. The last victim. Unidentified and to date they had never recovered his head. Ramouter’s laptop pinged with the arrival of an email. The email was from the visitor’s department at Belmarsh prison. Olivier had no family or friends to speak of but in the past three months forty-three people had applied to visit him. Olivier had only agreed to see one person.
‘Who the fuck is Chance Blaine?’ Ramouter asked the empty room.