Sam Donovan got out of the bath and dried herself quickly. A bath was normally something she found relaxing, particularly at the end of a long day. She would often take a cup of tea or a glass of wine in with her and spend a good half-hour or so soaking in the water, reading a book or a magazine, or just letting her mind go blank. But tonight she couldn’t switch off. She put on her dressing gown and went into her bedroom. It was dark outside and she had drawn the curtains. Before turning on the light, she pulled back the edge of the curtain a fraction and glanced out at the street below. A car had just turned into the road and she watched it pull up almost outside. With relief she recognised her neighbour’s car and a couple of minutes later saw her climb out, carrying a load of heavy-looking shopping bags. She tottered along the pavement to her front door, fumbled with her keys for a good minute, then disappeared inside. Donovan continued to gaze out for a few minutes. The street was quiet, most people happily at home, watching TV or on their way to bed. It struck her again how lonely she felt.
She put on a pair of tracksuit bottoms, trainers and a pullover and went downstairs to the kitchen. She didn’t feel like eating anything. She longed for a drink, a brandy maybe, or a whisky, but she needed her wits about her. She checked the room again, making sure that the back doors and windows were securely locked and that everything was ready. Then she went into the sitting room and turned on the television. She flipped through the channels until she found a film that had just started, a rom-com she’d never heard of, with Cameron Diaz. It wasn’t her cup of tea, but it didn’t matter. It would keep her mind off things for a couple of hours and make the time pass more quickly.
Hannah Bird sagged heavily against Adam’s shoulder, mumbling something unintelligible as he tried to manoeuvre her, half lifting, half pushing her through the narrow entrance of the wine bar into the street. He had to get her out of there quickly before somebody twigged.
‘Sure you don’t want me to ring for an ambulance?’ the manager called out after him.
‘It’s fine. She’s had a rough day, and she’s had too much to drink, that’s all. I’ll see her home and she can sleep it off.’
‘If you’re sure . . .’
‘I’m sure. Thanks. It’s not the first time.’ He raised his eyebrows meaningfully and the manager gave him a sympathetic nod, then turned back towards the busy bar.
He had been in two minds about what to do with her. Part of him couldn’t be arsed to deal with her as he knew he ought to. He felt strangely weary and there would be no real pleasure in it this time – his thoughts and dreams were elsewhere. He could have easily let her go home to her lonely bed and stew. There was no risk in it from his point of view. But she had been in a funny mood, far less amenable than before, and downing a couple of drinks in quick succession, had started to ask some pointed questions about his background, where he lived and what he had been doing abroad. She had caught him out in a couple of inconsistencies with the little he had told her before. They were nothing material and he soon recovered himself, but he saw an irritating, questioning look in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. Maybe she had been lied to in the past and was particularly sensitive. He didn’t really care about her history and how she felt, but she had clammed up and he had failed to get any new, useful information from her. He had eventually decided that she was a loose end that shouldn’t be left lying around.
Mixed with the cosmopolitans she’d been drinking, the GHB had taken effect far more quickly than he’d anticipated. One minute she was droning on about a stupid film she wanted to see, the next she could barely sit up straight, let alone string a sentence together. She looked baffled by what was happening to her. So much for her detective abilities. Kit’s car was parked only a short block away, down a quiet side street next to a row of lock-up garages, but each step was taking an age and he hoped they would make it to the car before she passed out. He looped his arm tighter around her waist, lifting her up and propelling her forwards along the pavement. He would carry her if he had to, but he didn’t relish the thought.
As they turned the corner, the cold air seemed to intensify the effect of the drug and alcohol mixture in her system. She was moaning now, eyes half closed, head lolling forwards like a broken doll. They almost reached the car, but as he felt in his pocket for the blipper, her legs gave way and she collapsed forwards onto the pavement. He had to get her into the car before anybody saw. He popped the locks and opened the rear passenger door as wide as it would go. Locking his arms around her under her armpits, he dragged her the last few feet, her heels bumping and scraping along the tarmac. He was sweating heavily, cursing her as he struggled to heave her inert body onto the back seat of the car. Her feet were sticking out and he noticed she had lost a shoe somewhere along the way, but there was no time to retrace their steps to look for it. He went around to the other side, opened the door and pulled her across the seat onto her back, until her head was level with the door. Then he slammed it shut and went back to the driver’s side. He checked his watch. The plan had been to drive her to a quiet spot and deal with her there, where he could enjoy her final moments in full, but she would soon lose consciousness and he was running out of time: he had other more important things to do that night. But he had to go back to Kit’s house first. He quickly scanned the road, but there was nobody in sight. It was as good a place as any. Bending her knees, he pushed her legs apart, climbed into the car on top of her and closed the door behind him. If anyone ventured down the street in the next few minutes, they would think they were just a couple having sex.
‘Where is Jane Waterman?’ Minderedes shouted at Chantal Blomet. ‘Is she dead?’
Her cheeks were wet with tears and she mumbled: ‘I don’t know. I never met her.’
‘Speak up, please,’ Wightman said. ‘For the recording.’
‘I never met her. I swear.’ She sat hunched in her chair, eyes huge, like a rabbit caught in headlights. She had changed out of her work clothes and was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with what looked like a man’s navy blue cardigan. He noticed a small gold crucifix on a chain around her neck, which must have been hidden underneath her uniform earlier.
They were in an interview room at Hammersmith police station, on the north side of the bridge from Castelnau. Tartaglia and Steele were in an adjacent room, watching the interview through a one-way glass wall. The process had been delayed by the late arrival of Chantal’s brief, Keith Whitely, a balding, middle-aged man in a crumpled work shirt and suit trousers, who looked as though he’d been woken up in the middle of the night, even though it was only just past ten o’clock.
Wightman shook his head. ‘But you were staying at her house.’
‘I never saw her, I tell you. Dave said she was in a nursing home, that she had dementia.’
Minderedes leaned forwards towards her, his palms flat on the table. ‘That’s a load of rubbish and you know it. If she was still alive, why would she give Dave Simpson free run of her house? He wasn’t family.’
Chantal pulled her cardigan tightly around herself and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘He was like family to her. She met him when she was staying at the hotel. She used to go there a lot. She was one of the backers for the restaurant Dave was going to open and he looked after the house for her when she went away. That’s what he told me.’
She practically shouted the last sentence and, as she did so, there was something about her expression and body language that rang true. Was it possible she was actually telling the truth, Tartaglia wondered?
Simpson was in hospital, alive but unconscious. As well as some minor cuts and bruises from flying glass and masonry, when the explosion had thrown him to the ground he had hit his head hard on some paving and was being treated for head trauma. It was potentially serious and he was being closely monitored. The consultant could give no estimate of when he was likely to come around or what state he would be in. In the meantime, Chantal Blomet was their only source of information as to what had happened to Jane Waterman, and to what lay behind the so-called Jigsaw killings. Over and over again, she insisted that she knew nothing about Richard English’s death, let alone about the other murders or what had happened to Jane Waterman. She said she had never heard of Jake Finnigan or John Smart, nor did she have any idea who the other two unidentified bodies were, belonging to an elderly woman and a young man. In the meantime, they were trying to trace Jane Waterman’s immediate family to see if they could get a familial DNA match with the female body. The supposed nephew had been identified by the next-door neighbour in Castelnau as being Dave Simpson. Whether it had been Jane Waterman in the wheelchair, or a dummy, was something only Simpson could answer.
‘What do you think?’ Steele asked, turning to Tartaglia as a uniformed PC brought a tray of coffee into the interview room on the other side of the glass. ‘Is she another Myra Hindley, or is she a Rose West?
‘Neither, probably,’ he said, his eyes still on Chantal. Depravity and wickedness came in all shapes and sizes, but he didn’t see Chantal belonging in either category. ‘Whether Simpson manipulated her, or she was a willing partner, she’d have known about Jane Waterman too. I have to say I believed her when she said she didn’t.’
‘I agree, she did seem convincing. So you think he kept it all from her?’
‘I don’t know. She’s definitely holding something back. Why else would she lie to me earlier about not knowing if Simpson was alive or dead? She said she hadn’t seen him since he was in Dartmoor. Unless she knew he’d done something seriously wrong, why not just tell me where he was?’
Steele nodded slowly in agreement.
‘As far as we know,’ he continued, ‘Richard English’s murder kicked this whole thing off. Mrs Tier identified Chantal as the woman she saw with “Spike” when he was living in the Peckham squat, so she’s been with him right from when he left his wife. She must know something. Just how much, is the question.’
‘Well, we can charge her with being an accessory, but if she keeps up her version of things, without Simpson to testify otherwise, we’ll have difficulty making it stick. Basically, we have nothing to link her to what happened, other than the fact that she stayed at the house with him on a fairly regular basis. If her useless brief gets his act together, she’ll be out of here in no time.’
He folded his arms, still staring at Chantal’s tearstained face through the glass. Colin Price and Ellie Simpson had described her as some sort of groupie or hanger-on, which he decided was a bit unfair. Although she had an innocent, self-contained quality, she certainly wasn’t a desperate, flaky teenager. She may have been star-struck when Simpson was an up-and-coming young chef with the world at his feet, but he doubted she would have stuck with him once she knew the horrors of what he had done.
‘We’ll just have to keep the pressure on, then,’ he said, with the feeling that it was going to be a long night. ‘My guess is that if she hears the full details of what he’s done, it’s likely she’ll give up what she knows. I think we should tell her about the victims, show her some photos. Make it graphic and real. Any normal person would be horrified to find they’ve been sleeping with somebody who could do that sort of thing.’
‘And what if you’re wrong and she was a willing part of it all?’
‘Then we’ll just have to play her off against Simpson.’
‘Simpson’s still out cold.’
‘She doesn’t know that.’