Clean Cut (37 page)

‘You have never been to him as a patient?’

‘No–well, maybe. Name rings a bell, but I don’t remember seeing him.’

‘Have you ever practised voodoo?’

‘Me? No way, man! Like I said before, I don’t go with all that shit.’

Langton glanced at Anna, then turned back over pages of his notes, tapping his pencil. ‘You have admitted that you had numerous people staying with you at the house in Peckham, amongst them children; we will need their names and forwarding addresses.’

‘I dunno where they are; you know, they was just transient. Few days, sometimes a few weeks, then they was found work and moved on.’

‘So you never kept any record of these people you say stayed?’

‘Look, all I am is an employee of Mr Orso. He would arrange their work permits. They went all over the country.’

‘Did you ever have Joseph Sickert’s two sons staying?’

‘I didn’t even know he had kids.’

‘But you knew his wife, Ella Sickert?’

‘No.’

‘She was working for Mr Orso.’

‘Then I might have met her; like I said, Mr Orso would arrange his own domestics.’

‘In the house at Peckham we found a printing press and—’

‘I know it was there,’ Camorra interrupted. ‘Mr Orso had people come in to work, you know; you’ll have to ask him about that.’

‘Do you know what it was used for?’

‘Well, we had to do a lot of copying–for references and so on.’

‘You were aware that the people sent to stay at the house in Peckham were illegal immigrants?’

Camorra held up his hands. ‘Okay, look–I admit I maybe suspected they was not in the UK legit, right, but I had nothing to do with bringing them in. Like I keep on saying, all I did was work for Mr Orso. I got paid well so, like, I didn’t ask questions.’ He gulped down the water and licked his lips. ‘I need to go to the toilet,’ he said.

Langton checked his watch and broke off the interview for a toilet break. Camorra was taken out by an officer; his solicitor remained in the room. Langton picked up his water and walked out into the corridor. There he lit a cigarette and used the beaker as an ashtray.

Anna leaned against the wall. ‘Well, we’ve got no comment from Orso; Camorra’s laying everything at his feet.’ She hesitated. ‘When do you start to put the pressure on him?’

Langton shrugged, walked over to a bin and tossed
the plastic cup inside. ‘When he gets back, we go from the top again. I’ve just let him run. A lot of the other cases are linked to him; he was obviously doing more than just following orders, but you know what the reality is: the most incriminating evidence we have against him is the murder of Carly Ann, plus harbouring illegal immigrants and running a brothel.

Anna went to the cloakroom and splashed cold water over her face, then combed her hair. By the time she returned to the interview room, Camorra had been brought back. He was sitting next to his solicitor, but crouching in his seat, complaining of feeling hot.

Langton was already checking through the massive file in front of him and talking Camorra through his rights again. The tape was switched back on. Langton gave the time and date. ‘Now, Eugene, you’ve been very helpful, but we will need to go back to questioning you about the murder of Carly Ann North.’

‘I’ve told you all I know about her. I had nothing to do with her murder. That was down to Idris Krasiniqe, and you got him banged up for it. He admitted it; his brother was screwing her.’

‘You have stated that at no time did you drive a white Range Rover.’

‘I can’t drive automatic, I told you this; I was never in that bloody car.’

‘On the night of Carly Ann’s murder, this vehicle was seen—’

Langton was interrupted. ‘I don’t give a shit who saw whatever–I wasn’t in it.’

‘You are lying, Mr Camorra.’

‘I am not fucking lying: that Range Rover was used by Rashid Burry. I have never even been inside it.’

‘We have a fingerprint that matches yours. You do recall that when you were first brought into the station, your fingerprints were taken?’

‘Look, I might have been driven in it once or twice, but I told you: on the night Carly Ann was murdered, I got witnesses that I was with all night.’

Suddenly, Camorra whipped round in his seat to stare at the wall behind him; he brushed his shoulders frantically and then turned back to Langton, who continued.

‘You have admitted that on the night of her murder you had sex with her: what time?’

‘I don’t fucking remember. She was my girlfriend, right? I had sex with her all the time.’

‘We have a statement from Idris Krasiniqe that you in fact raped Carly Ann.’

‘That is bullshit. She was my girlfriend! I never had to rape her.’ Again, he turned in his seat and brushed at his shoulders; then he became very agitated.

‘Mr Krasiniqe claims that you then forced him to have sex with her whilst his brother was injected with poison and made to watch.’

‘I am not gonna listen to this, because it’s all lies. Those two brothers cheated on me; that little bastard Eamon was screwing my girl. Maybe, if I—’

There was a pause. Camorra licked his lips. He had started sweating: it was dripping down from his hair and patches appeared under his armpits.

‘If you maybe what?’ asked Langton.

‘If I maybe pushed that little bastard around, I admit to that–but she was my girl, right? I’m telling you, I could have had the pick of hundreds of them, but she—’ He gasped for breath and licked his lips.

‘Did you ever inject Eamon Krasiniqe with a poison called Jimson weed?’

‘No, no! I never done anything to him but knocked him about: he was screwing my girl, in my own house!’

‘So you now admit that the house in Peckham was your property?’

‘No! I never said that–I wish, man, I wish. That was some place; I done all the decorations, but I didn’t own it.’

‘So you prepared the cellar?’

‘What?’

‘The cellar, Mr Camorra: do you need me to remind you of what it looks like?’

He was shown a photograph. He glanced at it and then turned away. ‘I never went down there. I just told you, I didn’t own the place.’

‘Do you know the effect of Jimson weed?’ Langton asked quietly.

There was a flicker in Camorra’s eyes, then he laughed. ‘No, I never heard of it.’

‘So you did not prepare rock cakes containing the substance Jimson weed?’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘We have a statement saying that you passed rock cakes to a Mr David Johnson; he was instructed to take them to—’

‘That is a fucking lie! What do you think I am? A cook?’ Suddenly, Camorra stood up; this time, he made wafting movements with his hand, as if someone or something was behind him.

‘Please remain in your seat,’ Langton said.

Camorra slowly sat, but kept on turning back to look at the wall behind him; he constantly brushed at his
sleeves, as if something was crawling over his body. By now, the sweat was glistening on his face; droplets fell from his hair and he breathed like a panting dog. ‘I feel sick,’ he said.

His solicitor asked if he needed a doctor. Camorra leaned forwards, clutching at his head. Langton waited; after a lengthy pause, he sat upright.

‘Are you well enough to continue this interview?’ he asked.

Camorra said nothing; spittle was forming in white, frothy globules at the corners of his mouth.

‘Mr Camorra?’ His solicitor leaned towards him.

Camorra cowered back. ‘I don’t want this man in the room with me,’ he said angrily.

Camorra then pushed back his chair and began to rant at Langton and Anna that he did not trust either of them. He wanted to leave the room; he didn’t feel well. It was quite obvious to them all that Camorra was becoming more and more anxious and his behaviour more erratic, then bizarre: he started to babble and curse, then lay on the floor. Officers were called in to take him back to his cell.

Langton ended the interview and suggested to Camorra’s solicitor that he talk with his client; if he required a doctor, they would call one.

Camorra was running a very high temperature but no longer sweating. His speech was incoherent; he had a rapid heartbeat and he was screaming, saying he could see monsters coming through the walls of his cell.

His mood swung from confusion as to where he was, to almost a euphoric state, calling out for Carly Ann. He sobbed and kept on saying that he loved her; then his condition worsened, as delirium set in. An ambulance
was called and Camorra was taken to the local hospital. Terror had overtaken his sobbing, and he cowered like a caged animal as they tried to persuade him to get into the waiting ambulance. It took four officers to help the paramedics. Camorra had his first seizure at nine o’clock. He then had two further seizures inside the ambulance and, by the time he was taken into the casualty department of the local hospital, he was in a catatonic state. At ten thirty-five, he suffered a massive cardiac arrest. Try as they might, they could not revive him. He was pronounced dead at ten forty-five.

Eugene Camorra’s death certificate said that he had died from a cardiac arrest. As he had been held at the police station, a post mortem would be required by the IPCC, even though Camorra did not actually die in custody.

The investigation reported that there had been no suspicious circumstances. Camorra had shown very obvious signs of an oncoming heart-attack: sweating, disorientation and shortness of breath. His solicitor testified that, as soon as his client had shown signs of being ill, DCI Langton had terminated the interview and a doctor had been called. Camorra had had three seizures whilst attended by hospital paramedics. No one claimed his body; his lawyer attempted to trace anyone who wished to see him, but he had no relatives. When Emmerick Orso was asked if there was anyone who would wish to be informed of his death, he said, ‘Try the Devil.’

Orso was refused bail and sent to Brixton prison to await trial. He pleaded not guilty to all charges but still refused
to say anything, bar, ‘No comment.’ David Johnson remained in custody and agreed to become a prosecution witness against Orso.

The trial would take many months of preparation: there was an immense amount of paperwork to do. Anna and the team sifted through all the evidence, covering Orso’s money-laundering frauds and his transportation of illegal immigrants. He had covered his tracks well, and they had no evidence linking him directly to the murders of Carly Ann North, Arthur Murphy, Gail Sickert, her daughter Tina, Rashid Burry, or the tragic child’s body found mutilated in Regent’s Canal.

As the trail was being prepared, Orso’s wife applied for a divorce. She gave them details of various bank accounts and offshore investments. The millions he had accrued from his illegal transactions were exposed and Orso’s accounts were frozen.

Another piece of uplifting news, especially for Anna, was that both of Gail Sickert’s children were to be fostered by the same woman who had taken in Carly Ann: Dora Rhodes. Sharon and Keith would be cared for, and given every possible counselling to overcome the trauma and anguish they had both been subjected to by Camorra.

When Anna called to say that she could not think of a better person than Dora, Alison told her that no one else would take them both.

‘I wouldn’t allow them to be separated; eventually, I want to adopt them myself.’

Beryl Dunn, Gail’s mother, was more than willing to allow someone else to take the responsibility: the adoption was in progress. It was the only good thing to come
out of the nightmare case they had been working on for so long.

Idris Krasiniqe’s legal team were preparing for a retrial. Langton had agreed they could be given access to the reports covering the time that the team had spent with Idris and Dr Salaam. Anna was making copies for them when she felt the first seed of suspicion.

She sat going back over all the data, returning time and time again to the statement made by Dr Salaam about the poison that he was certain Eamon Krasiniqe had been fed. This had then led to the interview with Courtney Ransford, who had been given poisoned rock cakes to pass to Krasiniqe, and culminated in the questioning of David Johnson, who had admitted taking the rock cakes into the prison.

Anna kept on studying the symptoms that Dr Salaam had listed for someone fed
Datura stramonium
, or Jimson weed: a dry mouth, dilated pupils, a high temperature and blurred vision. The psychological effects included confusion, euphoria and delirium. A higher dosage resulted in incoherent speech, impaired coordination and seizures, possibly resulting in cardiac arrest.

Anna went in to see Langton in his office. He gestured for her to sit down and continued a phone conversation.

He was asking someone if they liked their birthday present, then he laughed. ‘So you’ve grown out of Barbie dolls? Well, listen, Kitty: you and me, we’ll go and get them exchanged. Have you taken them out of the box? No? Okay, we’ll get something else, all right?’

He listened and then laughed again. ‘Well, don’t let him unwrap them; besides, he’s a boy!’

He looked very handsome: the haunted, dark circles
beneath his eyes had gone. He promised to see Kitty at the weekend and then finished the call. Not only did he look well, but he was also relaxed: seemingly, his knee joint was also less of a problem, as he jumped up from his seat.

‘Barbie dolls are longer on the agenda; she wants a tape recorder that she can sing karaoke into!’

Anna smiled, loath to bring up something that might destroy his good mood.

‘What is it?’ he said, opening a bottle of water.

Anna explained that she was compiling the reports for Idris Krasiniqe’s new trial. After rereading Salaam’s evidence regarding the symptoms of Jimson weed, she was certain that Camorra had shown the selfsame ones.

‘What?’

‘Don’t you remember?’ she asked.

‘Remember what, exactly?’

‘Well, when we interviewed him, he was constantly asking for more water.’

Langton sat back. ‘I’m not sure where you are going with this.’

‘Well, Camorra had a cardiac arrest.’

‘I know that.’