Henley fidgeted in her seat and checked the time on the car dashboard. It was almost quarter to eleven. Ramouter was back at the SCU arranging appointments with the jury from Olivier’s first murder trial. She had arrived at Snaresbrook Crown Court earlier than planned and had been sitting in the car park browsing through the Carole Lewis murder investigation file. Henley felt an odd sense of detachment as she scanned the witness statements and CRIS reports on her iPad. She missed the feel of paper between her fingers. There were times where she was convinced that she could almost smell a victim’s blood through an officer’s notebook.
Henley didn’t flinch when the crime scene photographs appeared on the screen. Carole had made no attempt to run. Her handbag, clasped shut and splattered with blood, was no more than a few inches from her head. The blue floral dress that she was wearing was hitched up around her waist. She was wearing no knickers and the blood from the stab wounds to her stomach had run like a river and congealed in her pubic hair.
There had been evidence of sexual intercourse. Spermicide and lubricant were found in her vagina and there were traces of semen in her throat. DNA from three different men had been recovered from her body.
Henley understood why Lancaster’s attention had quickly switched to the husband. Jealousy, adultery, younger woman and an older husband. Ramouter had also discovered that the location where Carole Lewis was found was popular for dogging. All of the boxes were ticked for a crime of passion and for defence lawyers to jump on the ‘loss of control’ defence on behalf of her husband, but none of that sat right with Henley. Four condoms and Carole’s wedding and engagement rings were found in her bag, but her mobile phone was missing. An eye-witness had given a statement that a woman matching Carole’s description had bumped into him and his wife as they were leaving the park. The wife had said that the woman had run into them as though she was late for something, not running away from someone.
Henley was sure of two things when she closed down the file. Carole Lewis had known her killer and she had arranged to meet him.
Alan Lewis wasn’t much of a looker. His thinning grey hair was pulled back tightly into a ponytail. The skin on his scalp was red and flaky. His brown eyes, which sat uncomfortably on folds of pale white skin, darted up from Henley’s warrant card to her face. He licked his thin lips before he answered.
‘I’m busy. Can’t this wait?’
‘Well, I’m more than happy to chat to you here,’ replied Henley, sitting on the white, crackled Formica-covered table.
The security gate beeped manically in unison with Alan’s irritated puffs as he walked through them and headed towards the door.
‘So, it’s not enough that I’ve got to put up with you lot fronting up at my house whenever you feel like it and turning the place upside down, but I’ve got to put up with you turning up at my place of work as well,’ said Alan as he walked in the direction of the large pond that was flanked with Canada geese. He stopped at a bench and pulled out a bag of tobacco and cigarette papers. ‘Where’s that other one? The brunette. Sergeant Lancaster.’
‘I’m not with Wood Green CID.’ Henley walked around Alan and sat down on the bench. The view of the pond was more enticing than a court building that had once housed unwanted children.
‘Who are you with then?’
‘The Serial Crime Unit.’
Alan stopped rolling up his cigarette and flakes of tobacco floated down onto the grass. ‘Why on earth would you lot want to speak to me?’
‘Because I don’t think that I’m sitting here talking to Carole’s murderer, that’s why. I’ve got a few questions for you and a request.’ Henley kept her eyes focused on the geese making their way into the water.
‘You believe me. You believe that I didn’t kill her?’
Henley turned to look at Alan just in time to see his shoulders sink with relief.
‘They had me in that police station for over two days. Do you know what it’s like to sit in a cold cell where you can smell your own piss and shit and then they have the bloody cheek to ask you if you want breakfast?’
Henley waited until Alan had regained his composure. ‘Your wife. How long were you married for?’
‘Six years.’ Alan pulled a lighter out of his back pocket and sat down on the other end of the bench. ‘I met her… I met her in the park.’
Henley noticed the hesitation in his voice. ‘What were you doing in the park when you met her?’
‘The sort of activities that don’t involve an actual dog, if you get my meaning, Inspector.’
Henley didn’t ask him to elaborate.
‘We met up a few times. I asked her out for a drink. She was nice, we liked the same things and the rest is history.’
‘Her body was found in the park in Highgate Woods.’
‘I know. We agreed that when we got married that we would stop the dogging and we did for about five months; but then she wanted to go back. It’s like she needed the attention. I didn’t want to share her but she’s… was stubborn. I wasn’t enough for her. I just wanted her to be careful. I would take her, not to watch because I’m not into that now, but I knew that there were times when she went on her own.’
‘So, when she didn’t come home you weren’t surprised.’
‘No, I was. She always came home. She was good like that. I have a second job. I work security at a club in Kings Cross. I would get home from there about 4 a.m. and she was always home by 4.30. That was the time the buses would start running again. The morning she didn’t come home, I knew something was wrong. I called her phone, but it kept ringing. I went to the park to look for her, but she wasn’t in the usual place. I called the police and told them that she was missing but they just shrugged it off. And then later in the afternoon that bloody DS Lancaster was at my front door.’ Alan took a long drag of his cigarette.
‘You told DS Lancaster that you were with Dawn Bradley the night your wife was killed but your alibi didn’t check out.’
‘Have you met Dawn’s husband? I’m not surprised that she denied it. Knowing Dawn, she must have used a different name.’
‘Did Carole ever talk to you about being a juror on the Peter Olivier murder trial?’
‘Did she talk about it? She wouldn’t shut up about it. She thought that she was so important traipsing up to the Old Bailey every day.’
‘What did she tell you about it?’
‘I told you. Everything. That she was a juror on the Jigsaw Murderer case. How he cut up the bodies. How attractive she thought that Olivier guy was, that he was—’ he grimaced. ‘Charming? Can you imagine? There were times that I actually thought she was sick in the head.’
‘What about the other jurors? Did she ever talk about them?’
Alan flicked the butt of his cigarette towards the water’s edge. ‘A couple. She talked about a girl called Zoe. They used to meet up for drinks sometimes.’
‘Anyone else?’ Henley scribbled the information down in her notebook.
Alan rubbed at the greying bristle on his chin. ‘There was some woman that she couldn’t stand. Called her Agatha Christie on cocaine. Then there was him.’
Henley stopped writing. ‘Him?’
‘I can’t remember his name. But he used to phone her all the time. I took a look at her phone and I saw the text messages from him.’
‘Was she sleeping with him?’
‘She denied it, but the things that he was saying. You don’t talk that way unless you’ve been intimate. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Can you remember his name?’
Alan shook his head. ‘Nah.’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘How much longer is this going to take?’
‘I’m nearly done. I just need your permission.’
‘Permission for what?’
‘To exhume your wife’s body.’
Alan’s face paled. ‘What the fuck for?’
‘We believe that her murder might be connected to a series of murders that the SCU is currently investigating.’
‘You want to dig her up?’ He shook his head in disbelief, the cigarette smouldering away between his fingers. ‘And you think that this same person killed my Carole?’
‘It’s a possibility, but we can’t be sure until we—’
‘Dig her up?’
Henley nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘What you apologising for? You didn’t kill her.’ Alan stamped out the cigarette on the bench and flicked the butt towards the pond. He breathed out so sharply that it sounded like a whistle. ‘Fine. Do it. Do what you need to do. As long as it puts me in the clear, you can dig her up.’