Rain spattered the dirty glass of the window. It was nine in the morning and just getting light. Tartaglia lobbed the newspaper into the bin, the headline ‘Jigsaw Killer’ still dancing in front of his eyes. The phones were ringing ceaselessly in the main office next door, but there were not enough hands to answer them. He had taken his off the hook temporarily so that he could concentrate, but it was impossible.
‘How are you doing with John Smart’s photos?’ he asked Dave Wightman, who had just come into the room. Short, stocky and blond, Wightman’s earnest, boyish face belied a cynical mind and sharp brain. He was the youngest member of the team and the in-house technology expert.
‘I’ve downloaded all the stuff on the hard drive and sorted it into files week by week, going back six months from when he disappeared. I’ve set it up in the meeting room, if you want to take a look?’
‘Give me a minute.’ Tartaglia reached for the half-drunk cappuccino on his desk. It was lukewarm but he needed the caffeine. He drained it and threw the empty carton in the bin, then gathered up the papers he had been reading and put them back in the file. He had found the tracking analysis for John Smart’s phone for the day of his disappearance and the following day. It was an old model that used GSM technology, which gave them only a rough location to within three quarters of a square mile. According to the analysis, the phone had started off in the Battersea area first thing in the morning and by mid-morning had moved to Barnes, where it stayed until either it had been switched off or the battery had run out, the following day. The fact that Smart had lived in Barnes for the best part of forty years had given weight to the view held at the time that he had probably gone back there and stayed of his own free will, possibly being put up in secret, either by a friend or a lover. Based on what Tartaglia knew of Smart, it seemed unlikely. His family and friends mattered very much to him and he would not have gone off without telling anybody.
He had spent the remainder of the previous evening going through Smart’s diary and address book, trying to get a feel for the rhythm of his life, the day-to-day patterns. They were contained in an old-style Filofax binder, the entries made in a neat hand with a blue fountain pen. There were only eight months’ worth of diary entries to look at, but it didn’t matter. Eight months was more than enough, if what Isobel had said about her father was correct. If he had accidentally stumbled upon somebody’s secret, it would have been in the recent past before his disappearance.
The week before had followed a predictable pattern. He had met up with his friends Jim and Tony on the Saturday, and gone for lunch at his son’s house on the Sunday. On the Monday, the only entry was a dentist’s appointment. He had been working Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the BBC. On Friday, he had disappeared. There was a note in the Missing Person file to the effect that a number of people had been spoken to at the broadcasting studio but nobody remembered anything having been amiss with the actor.
The entry for the previous Friday read 4.00pm. The Bourne Legacy. R. The Missing Person report made no mention of this having been followed up. Looking at Smart’s address section, there were a large number of people whose name started with the letter ‘R’. He had called Isobel that morning and asked her who ‘R’ might be, but she said she hadn’t a clue and had no memory of her father having been to see the film. She said emphatically that when he went to the cinema, it was always with her. Something about her tone told him she was lying. He was sure now that Smart had got himself a girlfriend and Isobel was jealous. Whether or not it mattered was another question. He was due to see Jim and Tony later and would get to the bottom of it then. In the meantime, Hannah Bird had been tasked with going through the address book and speaking to everybody whose name – first name or surname – began with an ‘R’.
He was about to go when Sharon Fuller put her head around the door. ‘Do you have a minute, Sir?’
‘Any news on Finnigan?’
‘I’m going over to the Scrubs in half an hour to interview one of the warders and a couple of inmates who knew Finnigan when he was inside, but I wanted a quick word about Sam.’
‘Have you seen her today?’
‘Yes. I stopped by on my way in. The good news is her dad’s out of danger, although he won’t be well enough to travel for a while.’
‘Thank God. What about her?’
Fuller made a face and pushed her glasses up her long nose. ‘She keeps asking me all sorts of things about the case, wanting to know a whole load of stuff that I don’t think she should know. Or at least I don’t think I should be the one to tell her.’
‘Like what, exactly?’
‘She wants the nitty-gritty, of course. I gave her a few little bits and pieces to keep her quiet, but it wasn’t enough. She wants to know exactly what we know, every little detail. I think she’d even like a copy of the pathologist’s report, if she could get it. To be honest, I’d want the same in her shoes, but I don’t think she’s ready for it, I really don’t.’
He nodded, picking up something else in her tone. ‘It’s way too soon. What else are you thinking?’
‘I know she’s on all sorts of pills so maybe it’s just me being a bit silly, but—’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I’ve been in to see her every day since it happened, just keeping an eye on her, like you asked me. I get the impression she can’t wait to see the back of me, which is OK, I don’t want to force myself on her. I know everybody deals with this sort of thing differently and some people need more space than others. But she doesn’t seem right to me.’
‘In what way?’
She sighed. ‘I can’t put my finger on it, Sir. She’s barely eating, which doesn’t help, But she’s a bit . . . well . . . weird, if you ask me. If only her mum was here. I think she should be watched.’
‘Watched? What do you think she’ll try and do?’
‘I don’t think she’s suicidal, if that’s what you’re thinking. She’s just a bit odd. Not acting and reacting normally, if you know what I mean.’
He nodded. ‘Thanks for telling me, Sharon.’ Based on the little he’d seen of Donovan, particularly the previous night, he had to agree with Fuller. She had seemed so distant and preoccupied, not at all her normal self, but he’d just accepted it as par for the course and thought no more about it. Maybe he’d been too wrapped up with everything else to take proper note, but it wasn’t good enough. ‘The drugs don’t help,’ he said, feeling a little guilty.
‘Maybe that’s it. She does seem a bit fuzzy. I’d be more worried that she’d step out in front of a car or a bus by accident. It’s like she’s not all there, like her mind, her thoughts are somewhere else.’
‘In the circumstances, that’s perfectly normal.’
‘Yes, I know, but she is going out places. Yesterday when I went over to see her she was just coming back from somewhere.’
‘You mean during the day?’
‘Yes. She said she’d been for a walk, but she looked a bit frazzled. I don’t think she should be out on her own, that’s all.’
‘If we didn’t already have our hands full, I’d suggest you do a bit of unofficial surveillance, but I can’t spare you – or anyone else – at the moment.’
‘I’m happy to do it in my own time, Sir. If necessary, we can organise some sort of a rota. I know Justin, for one, will want to help. But that still leaves the daytime. She was up and about when I dropped by this morning, with the whole day ahead of her.’ She looked at him as though she expected him to know these things.
He had left the flat very early that morning and hadn’t seen or heard anything from Donovan since the previous night. Given everything that was going on, he couldn’t possibly keep an eye on her, but Fuller had a good feel for people and knew Donovan well. She was married, with three children, so for her to offer to give up her precious family time meant it must be serious.
‘OK. I’ll talk to Steele and see what she thinks.’
‘Thank you. It would be terrible if something happened to her.’
Tartaglia picked up a black coffee from the machine in the corridor and took it into the meeting room where Wightman was waiting. A monitor sat on the table, linked to Wightman’s laptop. Tartaglia sat down beside him.
‘Where do you want to start?’ Wightman asked.
‘The day of his disappearance, or as close as.’
‘There’s nothing that day. The nearest was the weekend before.’
‘He had a busy week,’ Tartaglia said, thinking back to the entries in Smart’s diary. ‘Maybe he didn’t get the time. So what have you found?’
‘Endless shots of some sort of family gathering with lots of kids,’ Wightman said, clicking on a folder. A slideshow of a family lunch party flicked past the screen.
‘OK, next.’
‘This is the day before. Saturday seventeenth. Lots of photos of Barnes. I recognise most of the places. He’s particularly keen on the river, and boats.’
‘So his daughter said.’
‘There were loads of the boat race earlier in the year. You’d have thought a handful would be enough.’
‘You’re not a photographer,’ Tartaglia said, with a smile. ‘Show me what he took in the two weeks before he disappeared.’
He sipped his coffee as he watched. Like Wightman, he recognised many of the places Smart had photographed in and around Barnes. There was a short series of pictures of a large Victorian house and garden, including a well-kept vegetable patch, presumably the one where Smart had worked; shots of the embankment, and the river with the sun setting; views of the common and its duck pond, and general shots of people walking along the high street. Nothing stood out as sinister, or even odd.
‘Are there any other pictures of people?’
‘I haven’t gone back very far yet, but there are some of a woman taken a few weeks before he died.’
‘You’d better show me.’
Wightman consulted a list of entries and opened a file for the twenty-eighth September. The photos showed a young woman with shoulder-length dark hair, sitting in the sunshine outside a pub or a café. She was laughing, and holding up a glass as though toasting the man behind the camera.
‘That looks like the Sun Inn,’ Tartaglia said, peering at the screen.
‘She’s pretty.’
‘Yes, and a good thirty years younger than Smart. Maybe this is the girlfriend Isobel Smart didn’t want me to know about. I’m seeing one of Smart’s friends shortly. Do me a printout and I’ll see if he recognises her.’
As he spoke, Minderedes put his head around the door. ‘Ready to go when you are, Sir.’