‘I’m pretty sure Dave Simpson’s dead,’ Chantal Blomet said, meeting Tartaglia’s gaze.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I don’t know. I just have a feeling.’
She sat quietly, stiff and upright, hands tightly clasped in her lap as though uncomfortable with being interviewed. It had taken a while to track her down and it was now almost noon. She had just started her lunchtime shift at the hotel where she worked and had looked visibly startled at the mention of Simpson’s name. Small and slight, her androgynous black sommelier’s uniform looked slightly too big for her, although she was nice enough looking in a girl-next-door sort of way. He put her age somewhere in her late twenties to early thirties.
‘A feeling? Any other reason?’ he asked, wondering if she was serious.
She gave a slight shrug. ‘Because he’s gone, disappeared into thin air. Nobody’s seen him, not even his wife, apparently. There’s stuff about him on the Missing Person website, and on Facebook and a couple of the chef websites. If Dave was still alive, somebody somewhere would know.’
It wasn’t that simple, he wanted to say. Sometimes people didn’t want to be found, but maybe it wasn’t an option she wanted to consider. Her English was fluent and without accent. He had commented on it and she explained that her mother was English and that she had spent most of her school holidays in the UK.
‘Do you think somebody killed him?’ he asked, just as his phone started to ring. He checked the screen and saw Melinda’s name. He had texted her to say that he had no news yet but she still kept calling. No doubt she knew what he’d said was a lie. He had no desire to renege on their deal, but he had no time to talk, let alone work out how much to tell her, and she would have to wait until he was ready. He switched the phone to silent and looked back at Chantal.
She looked perplexed. ‘No. I don’t mean anything like that. More likely he killed himself, or had some sort of an accident. He wasn’t a happy man. But you should probably speak to someone who knows him better than me. I haven’t seen him for ages.’
He sensed there was more that she wasn’t saying, but was it relevant? Simpson was only of interest because he had been treated badly by Richard English and was now missing, along with the fact that the so far unidentified male victim fitted Simpson’s age profile. ‘But I understood you were close to him?’
‘In a way.’
‘You had a relationship with him?’
A flicker of irritation crossed her face. ‘No. I don’t know who told you that, but we were just friends. Unfortunately, people like to gossip. I was fond of Dave, he was incredibly talented of course, but he was all over the place emotionally. Besides, he was married, he had a kid.’ She spoke almost primly, but he didn’t entirely believe her. He remembered Colin Price saying that she had been star-struck and the look in her eyes as she spoke about Simpson gave her away. Had Simpson rebuffed her, he wondered.
‘I understand he was sacked,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘It was his fault, but it should never have ended that way. After what he did to Richard . . . well, there was no going back.’
‘Did to Richard? You mean Richard English?’
The colour rose to her face and she looked confused. ‘I assumed you knew . . .’
‘No,’ he said studying her closely, wondering at her reaction. Perhaps she thought she was speaking out of turn. ‘You’d better tell me what happened.’
She looked away, her fingers pulling at the hem of her jacket. ‘This was four years ago. Why does it matter?’
‘Just tell me what happened, Miss Blomet.’
She shrugged and folded her arms. ‘Things weren’t going well between them. There was a history. I won’t bore you with the details but that particular night Dave had been drinking in the kitchen and Richard caught him. There was an almighty row. He called Dave a “loser” and said he wasn’t getting a single share in the business until he sorted himself out. Dave just lost it and he hit Richard. Everything in the kitchen went flying. Richard said some stuff, then Dave picked up a knife and went for Richard. If it hadn’t been for the other kitchen staff, I think he might have killed him.’
‘You were there?’ he asked.
She looked up at him. ‘Yes. I was working that night. Even though I wasn’t in the kitchen, I could hear what was going on, as could most of the guests. They called an ambulance and Richard was taken to hospital. He had to have a few stitches and he had a broken nose and a black eye. Of course he made a huge song and dance about it, saying it was all unprovoked and that he was just defending himself.’
‘Was that true?’
She shook her head. ‘Richard knew how to needle people. He had it down to a fine art. He probably didn’t think Dave would finally retaliate.’
‘So Dave Simpson was sacked,’ he said, remembering Nicoletta’s description of the drunken, emotional chef in the restaurant. ‘What did you think of Richard English?’
‘Me?’ She looked taken aback by the question. ‘He was a hateful man. Ask anyone. I tried to stay out of his way as much as I could.’
‘What happened to Dave Simpson?’
‘Richard brought charges. We all tried to persuade him not to, but he was a vindictive shit and he wouldn’t listen. Dave had publicly humiliated him and he wanted revenge. So poor Dave ended up in jail.’
Again it was his turn to be surprised. ‘Jail? Where?’
She hesitated. ‘Dartmoor.’
He made a mental note to check as soon as he was done. If Simpson had been inside, his DNA would be stored on the National Database. They would soon be able to tell if there was a match with the unidentified male body parts from the two fires. ‘Do you believe Dave Simpson meant to kill Richard English?’
She shook her head. ‘Of course not. He wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘But you think he’s capable of killing someone?’
She looked at him strangely. ‘You think Dave’s killed someone?’
‘Just answer the question.’
‘He’s capable, yes. Isn’t everyone, in the heat of the moment, if they’re pushed too far? He certainly saw red that night, but he was already teetering on the edge. Richard just helped him over. I blame Richard a hundred per cent for what happened and I wasn’t the only one.’ She spoke forcefully and what she said tallied with what Colin Price had told him.
‘Do you know where Simpson’s wife and child are?’
‘No idea, I’m afraid.’
‘Does he have any other immediate family?’
‘He never talked about his family, at least not with me.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘I went to visit him in jail a couple of times before I left Stoneleigh Park. But it was really awkward. I think he felt embarrassed and he made it clear he didn’t really want to see me. I didn’t bother going back after that.’
‘So, you haven’t seen him since?’
She shook her head.
‘Do you have any idea where he was staying when he came out?’
‘No. Sorry.’
‘When did you find out he was missing?’
‘A while ago, I guess. Someone told me, although I can’t remember who. Is he dead? Is that why you’re here?’
‘It’s possible,’ he said, getting to his feet. She looked at him curiously, but he couldn’t fathom what was behind it. London had more than its fair share of disappearances and suspicious deaths in any one year and there was no reason for her to make any connection with the Jigsaw killings. It was too early to say if Simpson was linked to the killings, although like Richard English, John Smart and Jake Finnigan, he too had gone missing. Was he the unidentified male victim, or would parts of his body turn up on another fire at a later date? Or could he be the bearded man they were looking for? He needed to get hold of a visual of Simpson right away.
Transferring her shopping bags into her left hand, Donovan unlocked the front door of her house. It was warm inside, almost uncomfortably so after the fifteen minute walk from the Tube. The narrow hall smelt musty and unused. It had been barely a week since Claire had died and yet it already felt like somebody else’s house. It had taken the best part of the night to tidy up and, as far as she could, she put everything back the way it had been before the police had searched the place and stripped it of various items belonging to Claire. It had always been Claire’s house. She had bought it ten years before and even though Donovan had subsequently bought a half share in it and contributed equally to the mortgage, without Claire it no longer felt like home. Everything reminded her of Claire: the blue flowery curtains in the sitting room, the beige patterned carpet upstairs, the endless china ornaments dotted around the house, the clothes that overfilled her wardrobe and chest of drawers so that they barely closed, the smell of her perfume that still lingered in the air. There was little that Donovan could claim as her own, apart from what was in her bedroom. She hadn’t minded before, but all Claire’s things suddenly seemed lost and purposeless without their owner. When her mother and father eventually came home from Australia – her father was now conscious and his condition improving by the day – they would know what to do with it all. She carried the bags into the kitchen and started to unpack. The house would be sold, but she felt no regrets. Nothing really mattered any longer, now she knew who had killed Claire and why.
She laid the various boxes and packets out on the counter, making sure that she hadn’t forgotten anything, then switched on the kettle. She hadn’t eaten since the day before, but she felt so pumped up and high that a cup of tea was all she could stomach. Just as the kettle pinged, the phone rang. It had been happening every few hours since she had moved back into the house. After five rings, the answer machine kicked in and she heard Claire’s voice, followed by the sound of the dial tone as whoever it was hung up. She didn’t bother to dial 1471. The number would be withheld. He was checking to see if she was there. She would answer later, when she was ready, and let him know that she had finally come home.
‘What have you got?’ Tartaglia asked, looking up at Sharon Fuller, as she came striding into his office, grinning from ear to ear.
‘I think I’ve found the connection, Sir, or at least one of them. Finnigan and Simpson were both in Pentonville at the same time and in the same wing. And there’s more. Simpson was transferred there from Dartmoor so he could see his wife and child.’
‘I thought Finnigan was in the Scrubs?’
‘He was. But he was only sent there following an incident.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, Finnigan and a few of his mates assaulted a couple of the other prisoners in the showers. One of the men was so badly beaten he had to be hospitalised. He was also raped by Finnigan. That man was David Simpson.’
He felt the adrenalin rush, his heart pumping. Fingers steepled against his lips, he leaned back in his chair and exhaled. At last things were starting to fall into place. ‘Well done,’ he said, jumping out of his chair and starting to pace around the small room as he thought it all through. The report on David Paul Simpson lay open on his desk. The tissue samples found in the hospital fridge, which had been taken from the Peckham fire victim, had been confirmed as belonging to Richard English, and the body in the pauper’s grave was due to be exhumed that night. Steele was busy breaking the news to Lisa English and Ian Armstrong, although for the time being no details would be released to the press connecting English’s death with the Jigsaw killings. Melinda would have to wait a little while longer for her scoop.
Was Simpson the Jigsaw Killer? He had been eliminated as being one of the other victims. They had checked his DNA profile stored on the system against the DNA profiles of the body parts from the two fires, but there was no match. He had a motive for killing Richard English, who had put him in jail, and also one for killing Finnigan, for what had happened to him once he was there. However, it wasn’t completely clear cut. There was no connection so far with John Smart and, although Simpson was nearly six feet tall, the photographs on file showed a Billy Idol lookalike, with a plump, boyish face, a thick neck and short, gelled, bottle-blond hair. He was certainly overweight at the time of his arrest and he could have easily have changed his physique in a gym, but he wasn’t an instant fit for the man known as Spike. More importantly, even though the MO for the English and Finnigan murders was different, both killings had required a significant degree of organisation and forward planning. He struggled to see how somebody with Simpson’s volatile personality and problems could have executed the murders, in particular Finnigan’s.
He turned to Fuller. ‘Who were the other prisoners involved?’
‘Finnigan’s two mates are both still safely under lock and key, as is the other victim. None of them have been out since the attack.’
‘Get back on the phone to the prison. I want to know who Simpson was close to when he was inside, if he had any other enemies, and who visited him. Every single person. Don’t forget we still have two unidentified bodies to account for, one of which is a youngish male. While you’re at it, speak to Simpson’s probation officer. See if they have a record of where he was living when he came out of prison and get contact details for whoever he gave as his next of kin. I have a feeling he’s the key to unlocking all of this.’