Back in his office, Tartaglia stood for a moment looking out of the window at the houses opposite. Lights were on here and there, curtains still open, revealing people going about their evening routines. For a moment, he wished that he, too, could go home, open a bottle of wine, maybe listen to some music. But he was too wired to relax, there was too much to do. Yet he felt in limbo. A lot appeared to be happening with the case, with a myriad leads being followed and potential connections being turned up, but he felt they were barely inching forwards at best. They still hadn’t found the key to it all, the one detail that, however small, brings everything suddenly into focus and makes sense of the rest. Had there been another fire that they hadn’t yet found? They were already stretched to the limit with the existing workload and, by the sound of things, it might take Chang days to go through the all the records. Perhaps there was a shortcut.
He took out his phone and dialled Melinda Knight’s number. She picked up in a heartbeat, as though she had the phone in her hand.
‘Hi, Mark. I was wondering when you’d call,’ she said.
He heard the buzz of voices in the background. It sounded as though she was in a bar or pub. ‘Are you busy?’ he asked.
‘Nothing that can’t be put on hold. For you, at least.’
Half an hour later, Tartaglia joined Melinda in a wine bar just off Kensington High Street, near her office.
‘Before we start, this is off the record,’ he said, handing her the large glass of chablis she had requested and sitting down on the stool beside her at the bar.
‘That’s fine. But if anything comes of it, I want an exclusive. OK?’ She fixed him with hard blue eyes.
‘You mean you can’t rely on your deep throat to tell you what we’re up to?’
She smiled. ‘Don’t be cheap. Anyway, I’d rather it came from you. Do we have a deal?’
He nodded. If she helped to find the killer, she could have all the exclusives she liked. ‘Now, tell me what you know about old fires.’
Melinda shifted in her seat, took a large sip of wine, then put down the glass. She folded her arms on the counter, clearly enjoying the moment. ‘Where shall I begin?’
‘Just get on with it.’
She smiled. ‘I think this bloke, our beloved Jigsaw Killer, has done this sort of thing before. Why?’ She held her finger up in the air, like a teacher asking a question. ‘Because he’s damn good at it, he’s fluent. I can’t believe the fire in that supermarket car park was his first. It was all so well researched, even down to the car he stole. Don’t you think?’
‘Maybe.’ He couldn’t disagree, although nothing surprised him any longer where murder was concerned. Sometimes a killer got it right first time, either through careful, methodical planning or just sheer luck. There was no point reading too much into things at this stage.
She gave him a sideways look. ‘Have you found the tramp, by the way?’
He sighed. Was there nothing she didn’t know? ‘No. We’re still looking.’
‘Who do you think he is?’
He shook his head. ‘That’s not why I’m here. Now either get on with it, or I’m off.’
She grinned. ‘OK. We’ve pulled all of the coroners’ records for the last three years, which I think is enough for now. I’ve had two people working on it night and day and it’s taken sodding ages . . .’
His phone was ringing. ‘I need to take this,’ he said, seeing Dr Moran’s name flash on the screen. ‘I’ll be back in two ticks.’ He answered the call and went outside to the street as he listened to Dr Moran rattle through the results of the DNA comparison.
‘The samples sent over from Winchester match with victims A, B and C from the Sainsbury’s fire. There’s no other DNA present.’
‘You mean, no match with Richard English’s son?’
‘That’s right.’
He thanked Moran and hung up. He called Steele but she wasn’t answering. He left a message, telling her what Moran had said, and went back into the bar.
‘What’s up, Doc?’ Melinda asked, swinging around to face him, eyes alight with curiosity.
‘Nothing that concerns you,’ he said, sitting down again.
‘Everything to do with you concerns me,’ she said, prodding him gently with the pointed toe of her boot. ‘Anybody ever tell you that you look like Robert Downey Jr?’
‘Just you.’
‘Only taller, of course . . .’
‘Get to the point. You were telling me about your search.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘OK. We’ve been through every fire involving human fatalities in the UK, looking for something out of the ordinary or unexplained. I’m assuming there’s nothing flagged up on your system as suspicious, otherwise you’d know about it. Right?’ She looked at him for confirmation and he nodded. ‘So, if there’s another body fire, it’s slipped below the radar. The only way that would happen is if it looks like an accident, the victim is unknown or unidentifiable, and there are no suspicious circs so nobody bothers to delve a bit deeper. Am I making sense?’
‘Perfectly. Go on.’
‘Of course, that makes it all a heck of a lot more difficult to find, but I think we’ve got two possibles so far. Both look a little different from the norm. One’s in Peckham and one down on the south coast, not a million miles from Winchester. The weird thing is that neither autopsy picked up anything suspicious about the bodies.’ She sat back on her stool and folded her arms, chewing her bottom lip in a playful manner.
‘So they don’t conform to the pattern?’
‘You mean they weren’t a mixture of body parts? As I said, open verdicts were recorded on both, so of course there’s nothing exciting. Maybe the pathologist was just sloppy.’
He made no comment, wanting to dampen her enthusiasm. The pathologist didn’t need to be sloppy to miss a body assembled from multiple parts. In the normal course of events, without anything else to arouse suspicion, only a single DNA sample would have been taken, usually from a long bone or a tooth.
‘Whatever, I still think the circs of both are a bit odd,’ she said, still looking at him, trying to gauge his reaction. ‘And everything’s worth looking at, isn’t it? I mean, you don’t even have a suspect, do you?’
‘Are you going to tell me anything else?’ he asked, refusing to be needled. He wasn’t prepared to justify their lack of success to her, although if there was no further progress soon, Steele and the review team would be on his back.
‘Maybe. I’m not sure I trust you.’
‘You’d better trust me or I’ll make you hand over what you have.’
‘That’ll cost you quite a bit of time and you’re not the sort of bloke who likes to wait, are you?’ She smiled. ‘It’s also amazing how files can disappear.’
‘Melinda—’
‘There’s no need, if you play fair. You can have it all. Do I have your word?’
‘As a gentleman?’
She waved him away. ‘You’re no gentleman, which is what I like about you, Mark. But yes, let’s do it the old-fashioned way. Let’s shake on it. If I give you what we have and you turn something up from it, you promise to give me an exclusive. Will you pick up the phone and call me straight away? And I mean only me?’ There was a determined gleam in her eye as she held out her small hand.
He hesitated. It wasn’t the first time a clever journalist had turned up something interesting ahead of the police, whether from sheer fluke or hard work, and there was no point beating himself up about it. He didn’t entirely trust her, but he decided he wasn’t ashamed of taking any help offered. All that mattered was moving the investigation forwards. He forced a weary smile, reached over and took her hand.
Sam Donovan walked through the entrance of the Dillon Hotel into the white, panelled lobby. According to Sharon and others she had spoken to, CCTV footage had shown Claire arriving just before eight-thirty in the evening. The entry in her diary said: Rob – Dillon – 8.30pm. She had been a few minutes early, for one of the few times in her life. She had texted him to say that she was downstairs and he had texted back, saying he was on a call and asking her to come straight up to the room. The cameras had captured her walking through the hotel to the back lifts and going straight up to the second floor. She had clearly felt she could trust him, a man she barely knew. With the benefit of hindsight, it had been an incredibly stupid thing to do. But she didn’t blame Claire, spurred on by some sort of romantic notion that had blinded her to common sense. Not that long ago, she too had been just as foolish, unknowingly putting herself in the hands of a vicious, sociopathic serial killer, a man she barely knew, who had charmed her, whom she had blindly trusted. She had nearly died, and it had almost cost Tartaglia his life too. All for the sake of a bit of romance. The killer was long gone but his shadow still hung over her, the stuff of nightmares.
She walked along the corridor, following the sound of voices and music. The bar was full of after-work drinkers. The large seating area beyond was equally full. It looked out onto an inner courtyard, which was decorated with clipped trees in pots and illuminated by strings of fairy lights. She found the lift outside the restaurant and pressed the button to go up. While she waited, she wondered what Claire had been thinking that night, when she had done the same. Had she had any doubts? Had she thought about anything other than the man she was meeting on the second floor?
Donovan got out of the lift. Room 212 was just across the corridor, the door sealed. A bunch of white flowers sat propped up against it. As she picked up the flowers, tears filled her eyes. No message. She wondered if they were from one of her former colleagues, or a friend of Claire’s, or just a guest in the hotel, moved by what had happened. Maybe they were from the hotel management, although they had a personal, rather than corporate, feel.
The lift pinged behind her and she heard the doors open.
‘Sam?’ A man’s voice.
She turned and saw Justin Chang walking towards her.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, clasping the flowers tightly to her chest.
‘I was having a drink downstairs. I saw you come in.’
She hadn’t seen him in the bar, but there were so many people he could easily have been tucked away among them. ‘So you followed me?’
‘I thought you’d come up here. I wanted to see you.’
‘Now you’ve seen me, you can go.’ She saw the concern in his eyes as he studied her for a moment. It was the same irritating look Tartaglia gave her whenever they spoke. If only people would leave her alone.
‘It’s not good for you to be here on your own, Sam,’ Chang said. ‘Come downstairs. Come and have a drink.’
‘I don’t want to see anyone.’
‘My friend’s gone. It would be good to talk and I can see you home, if you like.’
‘Home? Where’s that?’ Was the house she had shared with Claire still her home? She didn’t think she could ever go back there again. There were too many memories.
‘I meant Mark’s flat. Come on. Staying here won’t do any good.’
A door along the corridor opened and a couple came out. They started walking towards the lift.
‘Come on, Sam, let’s go downstairs. You can’t do anything here.’
Short of breaking into the room to see exactly where Claire had died, Sam knew there was nothing else to be done. She probably had seen enough and she felt like a drink. But if she went down to the bar with Chang, would he take her to task for not having returned his calls? She didn’t think he was that insensitive and maybe she could persuade him to give her some more information. She carefully placed the flowers back against the door and followed him to the lift.
They found a table in a smaller bar off the main corridor. It was much quieter than the other rooms and the air was full of the heady smell of lilies coming from a tall vase on the counter. While Chang was ordering their drinks, Donovan gazed out of the French doors into the courtyard. A few lights were on in the various rooms that overlooked it. She wondered which of the windows belonged to room 212. She imagined Claire looking out, or drawing the curtains or the blinds, tried to picture the room, and the faceless man known as Rob.
‘Here you go,’ Chang said passing her a margarita and sitting down with his. He raised his glass, then hesitated as though not sure what to say. ‘I wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I . . .’
‘Thanks,’ she said quickly, holding up her hand before he could say anything else. Avoiding his gaze, tears in her eyes, she took a sip of her drink, enjoying the sharp, salty taste. ‘Why were you having a drink in this hotel?’ she asked, after a moment.
‘I was curious, I guess. Didn’t get much chance to look around the day we were here . . .’ He stopped and looked embarrassed, as though he’d said something wrong.
‘It’s OK. You don’t have to walk on eggshells. I just want everybody to treat me as normal. It would make it a lot easier for me too. You said you were here with a friend?’
He nodded. ‘She works around the corner.’
‘Well, I hope I didn’t interrupt things.’
‘We were about to go, when I saw you.’
It sounded genuine. ‘Is there any news?’ she asked, after a moment.
‘Isn’t Mark telling you what’s going on?’
‘I barely see him. I think he’s avoiding me.’
He looked surprised. ‘Why?’
Maybe, like everyone else in the office, Chang imagined that if she and Tartaglia were cooped up alone together for a few days in Tartaglia’s flat, it would mean only one thing. It was so far from the truth, it made her want to laugh. Although perhaps it explained why Tartaglia was giving her a wide berth. Maybe he, too, had heard the rumours and felt awkward. There had been a time when there might have been good grounds for such speculation, when she would have given a lot for something to happen between them. But it was amazing what the distance of a little time could do.
She put down her glass and looked at Chang. ‘Why? Because like everybody else, you included, he’s tip-toeing around me like I’m the bloody elephant in the room. Yes, I feel terrible inside. Yes, I can’t stop thinking about Claire and what happened to her and it makes me sick and I don’t want to eat. I can’t sleep either, unless I take pills, which make me groggy so I’m in a bit of a fog. But underneath it all, I’m still me. I think the same, feel the same, function the same, yet everybody’s treating me like I’m some sort of lunatic who needs to be wrapped in cotton wool so I don’t damage myself or others. It’s driving me mad.’
He looked shocked, maybe from the violence of her tone. ‘People just care about you, that’s all.’
‘I’m alright. Really I am. I just wish they’d stop fussing over me and leave me alone.’
He looked relieved and smiled. ‘I understand. If there’s anything I can do . . .’
She could see the emotion in his eyes and realised that she had missed him. If only life were that simple. ‘Justin, there is something you can do for me. If you value me as a friend—’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Then trust me. I’m really OK. I need you to tell me everything you know. I’m ready.’