As the police went door-to-door, appealing for witnesses, Henley and Ramouter walked up the garden path of number 40. The front door opened before Henley had a chance to even place her hand on the brass knocker, and she found herself face to face with a man who looked to be in his late sixties with white unkempt hair, wearing a faded Leyton Orient football shirt and Star Wars pyjama bottoms. A bull terrier appeared at his side. Henley felt her nose twitch. The smell of cannabis was overwhelming.
‘Don’t worry about her. She’s harmless,’ he said, grabbing the dog by the collar. ‘I saw you two from across the road.’
‘I’m Inspector Henley and this is my colleague, Detective Ramouter.’
‘Inspector? Can’t be many of you lot in the force,’ he said.
‘You lot?’ Henley said, making no effort to hide the disdain and irritation in her voice.
‘Women inspectors, I meant. Young ones too.’
Ramouter tutted and folded his arms across the chest.
‘Is it a body? I didn’t think that Doug was the type, but then again if I had her as my girlfriend…’
‘Mr…?’
‘Bellamy. Ian Bellamy.’
‘Mr Bellamy, we don’t want to take up your time, but we noticed that you have CCTV cameras set up outside your house.’
‘Yeah, had them put up when I was getting some work done. Got fed up with people trying to dump stuff in my skip. Then there were a couple of break-ins last summer. All about security.’
‘They’re not just for show?’
‘Definitely not. Top-of-the-range. My grandson used to work in Maplin. Got me a staff discount.’
‘Do you mind if we come in and take a look at the footage?’
‘What, now?’ Bellamy looked nervously into his house.
‘We don’t care about the cannabis. We’re only interested in the footage. This is a murder investigation.’ Henley bent down and stroked the top of the dog’s head.
On the living-room coffee table was an ashtray with the remains of a spliff, a couple of empty snap bags and an open bag of tobacco.
‘It’s for medicinal purposes,’ Ian said. ‘For my back. Sciatica. Herniated disc. Haven’t been able to work for years.’
‘The footage,’ Henley said, ignoring him and his small collection of Class B drugs.
‘Over here. It’s hooked up to my computer. I’ve even got an app on my phone. I’ve got four cameras. One over my driveway, two focused on the street and the back garden.’
Ian walked, almost dragging his leg, over to the large iMac in the corner of the room and pulled out a battered office chair. Henley pretended not to notice the porn site that Ian quickly shut down.
‘I usually delete the footage at the end of the week.’
‘We just need to see the footage from last night,’ said Henley.
‘From about 10 p.m.’ Ramouter pulled a chair from the dining table nearby and placed it next to Ian. Henley remained standing.
‘That’s Doug and that’s his girlfriend,’ Ian said as the footage filled the screen.
‘It’s really good quality,’ Ramouter said to Henley.
‘Top-of-the-range, 1080p camera, two-way audio, night vision. It’s like Blu-ray.’
Henley watched as Doug and his girlfriend walked past the van and up the street. ‘OK, can you speed it up a bit?’
Ian nodded and increased the speed. A couple of kids rode by on mopeds at 10.30 p.m. and the front door to number 37 opened at 11 p.m. A woman stood on the step smoking a cigarette. At 11.15 p.m. Doug and his girlfriend came back and then the street was quiet for one, two, four hours.
‘Stop,’ Henley said. The clock in the top right-hand corner of the screen showed 3.18 a.m. She looked closer. A man in a black hoodie and jeans stopped at number 39. He wore a rucksack on his back and pulled a large wheeled duffle bag.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Ian as he looked across at Henley.
‘Let it play,’ was all Henley said. She gave Ramouter a knowing look. Even though the man was wearing a hoodie, they had both seen enough of his side profile to know that Henley had been right. It was Olivier.
The man walked up to the back of the van and placed a large duffle bag and rucksack on the ground. He opened the car door without issue.
‘It wasn’t locked.’ Ramouter shook his head. They continued to watch as the man checked both ends of the street before taking off his rucksack. Henley felt her shoulders tighten as, with some effort, he threw the rucksack and duffle bag into the van. It didn’t take a genius to work out what was in there.
‘Do you know what, that’s enough. Thank you. I’m going to be sending another officer round to take a copy of the footage and a statement from you. Is that OK?’
‘Yeah, I mean… That’s fine. Will you tell them about the weed?’ Ian looked over Henley’s shoulder and towards the coffee table.
‘Just the footage and a statement, Mr Bellamy. You don’t have to worry about anything else.’
‘I need coffee,’ said Henley as they walked back towards the car. The activity in front of number 39 was still ongoing. Henley saw Linh walking into the forensic tent.
‘How can you want anything after being in there?’ Ramouter nodded towards the forensic tent.
‘I’ve seen worse,’ Henley replied, pulling out her car keys.
‘Have you? Because I haven’t,’ said Ramouter.
Anthony’s trainee approached with a camera in his hand. ‘Inspector Henley.’
‘It’s Samuel, isn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘Anthony asked me to find you.’
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.
‘No, everything is fine. Well, as good as it can be. Dr Choi is in there now, but it will be a while before they move the body. Anthony wanted me to show you this.’
Samuel turned the camera screen towards Henley. ‘They found it in her—’ Samuel looked away. ‘It was in her vagina.’
Henley zoomed in on the pink driving licence. ‘We’ve got ID.’ Henley handed the camera to Ramouter. She watched as Ramouter’s expression darkened. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked as Ramouter handed the camera back.
‘I recognise the name,’ Ramouter said. ‘I’m sure that I’ve seen it before,’
‘Where?’
‘I think she’s one of the women who’s been writing to Olivier.’