‘When will we get the DNA results back?’ Tartaglia asked Dr James Moran.
‘Should be sometime tomorrow, if we’re lucky.’ The last word was distorted by an explosive sneeze. Moran took a crumpled handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose loudly a couple of times. ‘Sorry. There’s something doing the rounds here. I hope I’m not going down with it.’
They were standing in one of the recently refurbished suites of rooms in Westminster mortuary. Moran’s pudgy face was pale and sweaty and Tartaglia didn’t hold out much hope of his resisting whatever bug was threatening to lay him low. Maybe he had caught Arabella Browne’s flu. Moran was roughly his own age and had recently transferred to the Westminster-based team of pathologists, from another location somewhere out of London. He was short and a little overweight, with a receding hairline and old-fashioned steel-rimmed spectacles, which gave him an earnest look. From what Tartaglia had heard, he was struggling with the increased hours that working in the capital involved, on top of the daily commute home. Wondering if Moran would last the pace, or whether Moran’s wife would put up with the strain on their family life, Tartaglia stared down at the blackened skeletal frame laid out on the gurney in front of him.
The smell coming from the remains was powerful and made him want to retch. The flesh on some of the body parts had clearly been decomposing before the parts had been set on fire. The logistics of assembling a body the way the killer had done, suggested he must be storing the parts somewhere, most likely a freezer. He recalled the area of waste ground where the green Fiat Panda had been found, next to the Sainsbury’s car park in Lambeth, and ran through in his mind the video footage from the crime scene, taken just after the car had been found. Although the entrance to the waste ground from the road had been boarded up, part of the fencing between it and the car park had been vandalised and it was being used as an overspill when the Sainsbury’s car park was full. The Panda had been reported stolen from outside a house in Tooting five days before the fire was discovered. They didn’t yet know whether the killer had transported the body parts in the boot of the car, or covered up on the back seat, or even separately in bags or a suitcase. An appeal for witnesses who might have noticed when the car had been left there had so far drawn a blank. CCTV footage, which barely extended to the outer limits of the car park, let alone the area beyond, was inconclusive. The best estimate was that the car could have been sitting there for anything up to twenty-four hours before the fire was spotted and the fire brigade was called out. It was also unclear if the car had been dumped by joy riders, and the killer had used it opportunistically, or whether the killer had stolen the vehicle as part of his plan.
There had been two possible identities put forward for what they had believed was a single body in the burnt-out car. The first was a vagrant who went by the name of Dodger. Described by those who came across him as being anything between the ages of fifty and seventy, rumour had it that he was an ex-soldier who had seen action in the first Gulf war. He had been a regular in the area for a while and had often been seen at the back of Sainsbury’s at night, sitting by the warm air vent from the bakery. He hadn’t been seen since the fire and the first assumption had been that it was his body in the back of the car. However, they didn’t have much to go on; just an artist’s impression of him, which revealed little more than a heavily bearded face. They needed to find out Dodger’s real identity and try to trace any living relatives to see if they could get a familial DNA match. If he wasn’t one of the four victims, they needed to find him urgently to ascertain if he had seen anything suspicious on the night the car was set on fire.
The second possible murder victim was a businessman named Richard English, whose wallet containing driving licence and credit cards had been found on the ground beside the burnt-out wreck, still just about intact enough to be identifiable. A set of keys had also been recovered close by, the fob bearing the initial ‘R’. English had been reported missing two years previously and none of the cards had been used since that time. English’s wife, Lisa, had been briefly interviewed and had given permission for their young daughter to be swabbed to see if there was a familial link.
‘Can you check to see if any of the body parts have been frozen?’ Tartaglia asked Moran.
‘No problem. I’ll get back to you tomorrow, if that’s OK.’
‘And we’ll need to establish how old the bones are, although something smells pretty recent.’
‘I’ll call in an anthropologist, if you’re OK with the cost?’
Tartaglia nodded. ‘Were the bones all cut up in the same way?’
‘Yes. As you’ll see when you get the images, they were dismembered quite cleanly at the joints, using some sort of a serrated blade, probably a hacksaw. There are also a few traces on some of the bones of a sharp-bladed knife having being used.’
‘A professional job?’
Moran sniffed loudly. ‘Hard to tell. Could just be somebody with basic butchery skills, or access to the Internet.’
‘And you’re saying the arms and legs are female?’
‘That’s right. And the hands. I might have picked up the mismatch sooner if it had been the pelvis or skull. Much easier to spot. The skull and torso belong to two different males.’
Tartaglia stared at the pieces. Why bother to get hold of four bodies, cut them up and fit them together somehow to make one. A number of people had access to body parts or whole bodies: medical students, or mortuary or hospital attendants, for starters. But without having an idea of the age of the various parts, let alone some sort of ID for the bodies, it was impossible to know where to start. In the meantime, how the hell was he going to keep it all quiet?
‘What samples were taken at the post mortem?’ he asked. It had been carried out earlier that day, while he had been busy at the Dillon Hotel.
‘We managed to get a few soft-tissue samples here and there, particularly from around the tops of the legs and the thighs, but I’ve also taken samples of bone and some teeth.’
‘Any news on the DNA sample we sent to the lab from Richard English’s daughter?’
‘I’ve been chasing it. We should hear back by tomorrow.’
‘What about the age profile of the victims, or any other identifying characteristics?’
‘As you know, these things aren’t precise, but I’d put victims B and D, the owners of the torso and legs, in the mid-twenties to mid-forties range, although D is at the younger end of the spectrum. No sign of cause of death for either. As for victim A, the owner of the skull, he’s older. Looking at the cranial sutures, they’re getting really smooth, so he’s got to be post-middle age. There’s a depressed fracture to the top right-hand side of the skull, indicating a blunt-force injury of some type. Although it’s difficult to say categorically without seeing the rest of the body, the blow would have been sufficient to cause death on its own. Based on bone density, victim C, the female, is elderly. As with victims B and D, no sign of cause of death. I’ll send you a full analysis some time tomorrow.’
Tartaglia felt suddenly woozy, questions multiplying like flies, answers nowhere to be seen. Where did Richard English fit in? Was it sheer coincidence that his wallet had been found at the scene, or was he one of the victims? According to the file, he was in his late fifties, so not an instant match for either victim A or B, although as Moran had said, such things weren’t precise. Not for the first time that day, Tartaglia had the uncomfortable feeling of being out of control, nothing making sense. The charred remains in front of him swam in and out of focus, the stench unbearable. He needed to get out of there. He looked up at Moran, tried to stifle a yawn and failed.
‘Anything else I should know?’
Moran shook his head, giving him an appraising look. ‘That’s about it for now. I’d go and get some sleep, Mark. I think you’re going to need it.’
Minderedes pulled up outside Tartaglia’s house and Tartaglia got out of the car. As he turned in through the gate and walked up the path, he heard music coming from inside. He unlocked the front door and let himself into his flat. Music filled the room from his new Bang & Olufsen system and he recognised the song. ‘Down’ by Jay Sean. Donovan had always liked it but it brought back less than pleasant memories for him. The last time he had heard it, he’d been with her, in a bar off Shepherd’s Bush, when she had told him she was leaving the Met. ‘I’ve had enough. I’ve just come to the end of the line. Nothing personal,’ she’d said. He could still hear her words, the song linked to that memory. He wondered if she remembered as well.
She sat curled up on the sofa, legs tucked under her, staring vacantly ahead. Her bags were still by the front door of the flat, where he had left them a couple of hours before. Apart from plugging her iPhone into the sound system dock, it didn’t look as though she had moved.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, taking off his jacket and boots, which were wet from the rain. He had to repeat himself before he got her attention. She shook her head. ‘Glass of wine?’ She looked blearily over at him and he mimed raising a glass to his lips, then mouthed the word ‘wine’. After a moment, she nodded.
He went into the kitchen and opened a bottle of Barolo from a case his father had sent him. It was just as well she wasn’t hungry as he’d had no time to shop. He had a quick check in the cupboards and the fridge. Sardines on toast was about as much as he could cobble together, but that didn’t really appeal. Perhaps he should get a takeaway, maybe Indian, or Thai, or maybe Sushi . . . He ran through the list of local options in his head, but nothing really grabbed him, and he felt too tired to wait. Still mulling it over, he took the two glasses of wine back into the sitting room and handed one to Donovan. She took it from him automatically, barely glancing up.
He sat down in a chair opposite, put his feet up on the coffee table and lit a cigarette. She gazed away into a far corner of the room. It was as if he wasn’t there. He still couldn’t fathom why she had decided to stay with him. The song that was playing, something catchy by Taio Cruz, segued into Plan B’s ‘She Said’, which was more to his liking. He had decided to let her have his bedroom and he would sleep on the sofa. Even if he had had the energy to clear out the box room and blow up the air mattress somebody had lent him, it was cold and uncomfortable. He needed a decent night of sleep if he was to survive the next day. He had half-hoped to find her already tucked up in bed by the time he came back from the mortuary. He wanted to be by himself and let the events of the day gradually fall into place in the peace of his own home. But that wasn’t to be. How was he going to be able to move her into the bedroom so that he could go to bed? He finished his cigarette and decided that if he was going to sit there listening to music for a while, he must have something to eat. After a moment’s thought, he took his phone from his jacket pocket, went back into the kitchen, where it was quieter, and ordered a selection of meze from a Lebanese restaurant around the corner, plus a couple of beers. Maybe if she saw him eating she would feel like having something too. They told him they would deliver it to his flat in fifteen minutes and he loaded a tray with plates and cutlery and went back into the sitting room.
Donovan still hadn’t moved, although she seemed to have drunk some wine, which was a good sign. He sat down again, leant back heavily into the cushion of the chair and put his feet back up on the table, his thoughts turning automatically to the next day’s work. There was the team briefing in the office at seven, after which he and Minderedes were due to drive over to the car park in Lambeth where the burnt-out Panda had been found. The priority was to find the homeless man known as Dodger, who might have witnessed what had happened. After that, they were due to interview Richard English’s wife, Lisa. As the music changed to Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’, he glanced over at Donovan. Her expression had changed and he saw tears flood her eyes and stream down her cheeks. She put her glass on the coffee table and covered her head with her arms, her body shaking.
He waited a moment, then, wondering what was the best thing to do, got up, crossed the room and sat down beside her. Without thinking, he put an arm around her and pulled her to him. She felt as rigid as a block of stone, but he continued to hold her, stroking her, trying to soothe her, until he felt a gradual, almost grudging release of tension. After a few minutes, her shoulders stopped shaking and she pulled back and looked up at him.
‘Sorry. This song . . . Makes me think of Claire.’
‘It’s fine. Don’t worry. Shall I put something else on?’
She nodded and he got up and took her iPhone off the dock. He went and got his phone and sat down again beside her, tabbing through until he found a playlist of old stuff he’d put together to help him wind down late at night. He quickly checked the songs. It probably wasn’t her cup of tea, knowing her and Claire’s taste in music, but at least it wouldn’t have any painful associations. His phone synched with the speakers, he pressed play and Moby’s ‘18’ filled the room.
‘I keep thinking . . .’ she said, after a few moments. ‘I keep thinking “why”. I mean, why Claire?’ She spoke quietly, her words a little slurred, and he could only just make out what she said over the music.
He didn’t know what to reply. It was the question that everybody asked who had lost someone. There was usually no good answer.
‘I need to know why,’ she continued. ‘Everything I did before . . . with work . . .’
‘I know how difficult this is for you. But we don’t know why yet.’
‘What happened? What was she doing in that hotel? Did you see her? Please . . .’
Again he tried to blot out the images of Claire from that morning, as though somehow there was a risk that Donovan could telepathically see them too. He held his fingers to her mouth. ‘No, Sam. You know I can’t tell you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I can’t. And it’s best you don’t know.’
She shook her head. ‘Steele said . . .’ Tears welled again in her eyes as she stared at him. ‘She said Claire’d been strangled.’
He nodded.
‘In a hotel room.’
He nodded again, wondering how much she had been told, although he was sure Steele had kept it to the bare minimum. Even though Donovan was a former colleague and friend, in her current state there was little point revealing more than was absolutely necessary.
‘She asked why Claire was there, like she was . . . she sort of implied she was . . .’
‘An escort?’
She nodded.
‘It’s an obvious question, as you know. It has to be asked.’ Steele had put the same question to him: was there was any chance that, either for kicks or money, Claire Donovan had visited a stranger in his hotel room. He had told her that, based on what he knew of Claire, plus the fact that she had booked the room with her own credit card, made it seem highly unlikely. ‘She knows Claire was a successful lawyer,’ he continued. ‘She didn’t need the money and I made it clear that it couldn’t possibly be that, so don’t worry on that score.’
She frowned. ‘But why was Claire there, in a man’s room? Who is he? I mean she must’ve . . .’ The words tumbled out haphazardly, as though she was talking to herself and didn’t expect an answer.
‘We don’t know who he is or why she was there.’
‘She must’ve known him, trusted him. She . . . Was she—’ She stopped and looked up at him again. Raped. That was what she wanted to ask, but he wasn’t going to fill in the gaps for her and raise further questions, nor would he lie. He needed to stop the flow.
‘We need to wait for the post-mortem.’
‘You saw her. What did she look like? Did she suffer?’
‘Please, Sam. Don’t.’
She shook her head. ‘Don’t ask. I know. Sorry. It’s got to be someone she knew.’
‘It looks that way.’
‘Not a stranger.’ She turned to him. ‘Tell me what you think? Please.’
He sighed, not knowing what to say and wondering how to stop the questions. ‘She wasn’t abducted. From what we can tell, she went up to his room of her own accord. Knowing Claire, I don’t think he was a stranger.’
It was as though she hadn’t heard him. ‘His name’s Robert Herring. Herring, like red herring. Like Mr Kipper. Do you think—’
‘I can’t tell you anything more about Claire,’ he cut in, although he had had the same thoughts initially. Mr Kipper, the man who had abducted and presumably murdered the estate agent Suzy Lamplugh nearly thirty years before, the crime still unsolved. But the MO had been totally different. Whether or not the name was some sort of allusion to a red herring was not something worth wasting time over for the moment. ‘However hard it is, you need to try and stop thinking about it and let us get on with the investigation. Anyway, as of this evening I’m off the case.’
She stared at him. ‘Off the case? Why? Because of me?’
‘No, something else. Another case I was working on just before has blown up big-time and I have to focus on that. There won’t be time to follow both.’ He had no intention of mentioning his own connection with the Dillon Hotel, of telling her that he had been there at the time of Claire’s murder, and that he had seen nothing. However irrational, the thought made him feel worse than useless.
She looked at him for a moment, as though struggling to take in what he said, then closed her eyes and leaned back against him with a sigh, her head heavy on his shoulder. He was surprised she had let it go so quickly, but maybe her state of mind, as well as the medication she had been given, had dulled her usual persistence. He sat with her, unmoving, for a while, until he realised she must have fallen asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he gathered her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom, where he laid her down on the bed. He pulled off her boots, eased the duvet over her, and turned off the overhead lights, leaving a bedside lamp on in case she woke up and forgot where she was. He closed the wooden shutters and watched her for a moment, listening to her soft, rhythmical breathing, until he was sure she wasn’t going to wake. Seeing her there, in his bed, he felt a sudden pang of regret that he had ever lost touch with her and, for a moment, he reflected on what might have been.
Then he shut the door and went back into the sitting room. Alex Clare was singing ‘Too Close’, and as he sat down with his glass of wine to wait for his takeaway to be delivered he listened to the lyrics and his thoughts turned again to Sam Donovan. Their brief physical closeness had reawakened a complexity of feelings, not least of basic physical attraction, which he usually tried to ignore. It had no place in their friendship. Sex was easy, commitment a lot more difficult. As his sister’s words rang in his head again, he pictured Jannicke and the brief but pleasurable episode at the Dillon. He felt no guilt, but briefly wondered if his life would always be that way. Perhaps he wasn’t ready yet for anything much more, or maybe the cliché was true: maybe he just hadn’t met the right person. As for Donovan, something always held him back from making a rash move in the heat of the moment. With expectations so high on both sides, any relationship was doomed to failure, he was sure. What was the point of risking a good friendship? As with the song, they were too close. Not for the first time, he told himself to put it to the back of his mind, that it was one of those things best left.
His eyes drifted to the files and footage from the car park body case spread out on the coffee table in front of him and his thoughts turned again to the next day. Until the DNA results came back, the focus had to be on Richard English. For the moment, he was the only lead they had.