"Don't waste time—I already did that. Let's go."
Anna hesitated. "In the kitchen, there are wedding photographs. Maybe we could take a look at them before we leave."
Mai Ling was polishing the floor, using an electric buffer. There were no photographs on the dresser or the side table where Anna had last seen them. Anna asked where they were while Cunningham said goodbye to Mrs. Brandon.
"Put away. Emily and Kathy very sad and asking for him, so madam took them away. She upset too."
"Do you know where they are?"
"No, I not know."
"Thank you." Anna walked out.
Back in the car, Cunningham's foot twitched with irritation.
"She really pisses me off. She's not going to like me when we go back for the third time, because I want that place stripped. She's lying through her teeth." Her mobile rang.
Cunningham finished up the call. "They traced the Donny guy, the driver. We've got an address for him, so I want him brought in for questioning. His full name is Donny Petrozzo; sheet for handling stolen goods and six months for acting as a fence. He's been clean for five years. Be interesting to hear what he's got to say for himself."
Frank Brandon's lockup garage was part of a substantial property divided into six flats. There was a horseshoe drive that branched off to the rear, where the garage was located.
The door was unlocked. Cunningham took out a handkerchief to turn the handle and looked inside. "Well, well, well—look what we've got here."
The black Mitsubishi looked like a dark brooding monster with all its tinted windows. It was filthy: mud covered the wheels and sides of the doors.
Anna found the light switch; then Cunningham tried the driver's door. It was unlocked and the keys were in the ignition. "Get this baby towed in as quickly as possible and don't touch it."
Anna suggested they look into the glove compartment, just in case.
Again, Cunningham used her handkerchief to open it, but it was locked. "We might have prints on the keys. I'm loath to tamper with opening it up. We leave as is."
"Up to you."
"If it was you?" "I have some surgical gloves in my briefcase."
Cunningham glanced at her. "My, my. Old Langton taught you well, didn't he?"
Anna didn't wish to get into whether or not Cunningham knew her father, Jack Travis, but he had been the one to remind her always to keep a spare set with her. She shrugged and gestured to their patrol car. "Should I get them?"
Cunningham nodded as she called in to the station to arrange for the jeep to be towed. Anna snapped on the gloves, secretly pleased with herself. She removed the keys from the ignition, selected the smallest, and opened the glove compartment. It contained a torn envelope with the insurance documents for the jeep in Frank Brandon's name, a parking ticket, and a creased, folded map. Inside the map was a page torn from a small notebook. Written on it were five scrawled numbers and letters but no obvious words. Then Anna looked in the backseat.
It was empty, but there was a smell, one she had grown used to since joining the murder team. She got out of the car, handing the map to Cunningham, and walked to the rear of the jeep. Due to the blacked-out windows, she could see nothing in the storage section at the back. "I think we should take a look inside."
Cunningham was eager to leave.
"Can't you smell it?" Anna persisted.
"Okay, let's open it up." Cunningham grimaced as she stood beside Anna.
Covered in black bin liners wrapped around with thick masking tape-was, they both knew, a body. "Don't touch it. If we open it up, we might lose evidence." Cunningham moved well away; she obviously found the stench difficult to deal with. It surprised Anna; as much as she was revolted by it, she had been on enough murders not to be that repelled.
It wasn't long before police cars were drawing up with the tow truck. The jeep was to be driven to the station yard, the body removed and taken to the lab for forensics to start work.
When the Mitsubishi had been taken away and the garage secured, the two women began checking out the residents of the house. Out of the six flats, they were able to gain access to only two. First they interviewed a smart, elderly, rather deaf gentleman called Alfred Hall who lived in the basement and ground floor. The flat smelled of mothballs, urine, and stale food. He complained bitterly that the original owners had not included the garage facility but, to his knowledge, rented it out for an exorbitant price. Numerous vehicles had used it over the years he had been living there, but he had not met any of their owners. He did know about the Mitsubishi, because it was often driven in late at night, and he was woken up by the lights and noise. He couldn't really recall the last time he had been woken, but he thought it was within the last couple of days.
The second tenant was a woman who was reluctant to let them in. Arlene Thorpe was in her midforties, thin, and with a yapping Jack Russell dog, which she had to shut into a bedroom. She was able to describe Frank Brandon and the Mitsubishi, as she had met him once when she was heading out to Wimbledon Common with her dog for his morning walk. He had been washing the jeep down and seemed quite pleasant. As far as she could recall, he had only been using the garage for the past six months; before that, it had been used by the local estate agents who handled the rental.
Cunningham and Anna interviewed the estate agents, a local firm who were able to confirm that Mr. Brandon had seen the rental advert in the local paper and contacted them. He had paid six months in advance, at five hundred pounds per month. He had given his address as the house owned by Julia and said that he would probably require the garage for year-round rental but, until he had more details, it would be for six months only.
By the time they returned to the station, the body had been removed. After grabbing something to eat, Anna yet again accompanied Cunningham to the mortuary.
There were no identification papers or wallet: the dead man's pockets had been emptied. He was wearing a cheap gray suit and a white Marks & Spencer shirt with a black tie. He had black lace-up shoes with navy-blue socks. His age was put at around late forties, early fifties. Cunningham asked for his prints to be rushed through to see if he had any form. Anna, however, was certain she knew who he was. The gray suit and black tie was almost like the uniform of a chauffeur.
By four o'clock, she was proved correct. The prints from the dead man matched those of a Donald Petrozzo, his record for burglary and fencing on file. The forensic team reported back that someone had done a very thorough cleaning job of the interior of the jeep. They were coming up empty-handed so far, but had only just begun stripping down the seats.
Cunningham held a briefing to discuss the new developments. The case was opening up, its loose ends dangling like stalks. Whoever accompanied Frank Brandon on the night of his death drove his jeep away from the drug squat. The connection to Donny Petrozzo had to be drugs. Anna would have to requestion Wrexler and Taylor. She returned to her office and sat brooding, making a jigsaw of her notes. She constantly came back to the possibility that Anthony Collingwood, the man Julia Brandon admitted was her ex-partner, could be the kingpin dealer Alexander Fitzpatrick. Langton had always said there were no coincidences; Anna was beginning to think he was right. The key, to be certain, had to be Julia Brandon.
She checked that the surveillance was still in operation. If Julia was the vital link to Fitzpatrick, her life could be in danger. It was still not clear why he would not only be with Frank Brandon, but accompanying him to the drug squat. It didn't add up. She was certain they were overlooking something: the question was—what?
DS Phil Markham had been monitoring the surveillance on Julia Brandon. She had not left the house other than to collect her children from their little private school and then, with Mai Ling, to do some grocery shopping. There had been no visitors.
"What about phone calls?" Anna asked.
"We haven't had the go-ahead to tap into her landline."
"We should. What about her mobile phone?"
"I've no idea. Right now they are just keeping watch over the house. Her accountant has called us a couple of times asking for the release of Brandon's body so they can arrange the funeral. So far they are keeping him on ice, so to speak. "It felt as if everything was on hold as they waited for the autopsy results on Donny Petrozzo, and for forensics to report on any findings from the jeep. Anna went in to see Cunningham, asking if she could take off home. "Sure, we'll have more developments to crack on with tomorrow."
"Good night, then," Anna said, relieved that she could get back to do some unpacking.
She had intended going straight home, but instead decided to call in at the murder site. The crime-scene tapes were mostly still intact, but a couple of them were loose and flapping. The teams taking evidence from the squat had long gone, but there were still two uniformed officers on duty. It was dark; the corridors of the boarded-up areas of the estate had no lights left intact. Forensics had removed their arc lamps. Anna walked over broken glass and debris to show her ID to the bored uniformed officer. She asked if they had booked any of the kids trying to score and he shook his head, pointing to the crime-scene tapes across the front door of the squat. "They see those and they get their skates on fast!"
"You mind if 1 just take a look around? Do you have a torch I could borrow?"
He handed over a high-powered torch and she ducked under the tape. With only the beam of the torch, she made her way into the dank, dirty corridor, now cleared of food cartons and beer cans.
The heavy bolted door to the dealers' room had been removed and taken into ballistics to examine the bullet holes. On the floor, she could see the forensic chalk marks, the white tape showing where Frank had fallen. The blood spattering on the walls was marked with chalk numbers, from one to fifty.
She could see more numbers, where the officers had taken prints from the window and window ledge. Standing in the wretched, stinking room, she still couldn't put the pieces of the jigsaw together. Why, if she were correct, would a man like Alexander Fitzpatrick come to such a small-time den? She shined the torch around, and stood in the position where the door would have been. She knew there was a spyhole in the door, so whoever used the gun had looked through it, seen Frank, and opened fire. No cartridges had been found—the gunman must have picked them up. Would a street dealer have picked up the shells? Would he care?
Anna aimed the torch slowly around the room. Way above the outline of Frank Brandon's body was an old square air vent. Anna shined her torch up, holding the beam on the vent. She wondered if it had been checked out, but could see no chalk marks to indicate that it had been examined.
The only piece of so-called furniture left in the squat was a wooden crate. She carried it to the air vent, climbed up, and examined it more closely, standing on tiptoe. Each square of the vent was large enough for her to insert her index finger; she poked and prodded, then felt in her pockets for a pen. She wiggled it around, and was about to give up when she felt something blocking the vent.
When she shined the torch directly at the hole, she could see something glinting. The pen was no use; she got down to open her briefcase and took out a manicure set. She didn't like doing it, because they were very good tweezers, but she stretched them wide and then climbed back up again. It took some time, standing on tiptoe, and she had to balance the torch in her left hand—but, at last, she was able to tease out the sixth bullet.
Cupping it in her hand, she was afraid to clutch it too tightly, as she could see the dried blood on it. She almost lost her balance as she stepped down, and gently wrapped it in a tissue. She had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. If the blood was not Frank Brandon's, it had to be from the man standing behind him. Was that man Alexander Fitzpatrick?
CHAPTER 7
Pete Jenkins at forensics was, as usual, friendly and offered coffee, but Anna declined, saying she would have to move fast to get over to the station in Chalk Farm. When she showed him the bullet, their heads were close as she eased back the piece of tissue. "I think it's blood," she said.
"Soon be able to tell you. Where did you find it?"
"The air vent."
"Whoops. Someone's gonna get rapped over the knuckles; probably me." He took a small swab stick and prepared for a blood test.
"How long will it take to confirm whose blood it is?"
"Not long. Do you want to wait?"
"I should get moving."
"You free for dinner tonight?"
She hesitated, then smiled. "Can I talk to you later—see what I've got lined up?"
"Sure. I can cook—do you like Italian?"
"Yes. I do."
"Well, why don't we say my place at eight, unless something crops up?"
Again she hesitated, but he was so easygoing, she couldn't understand why she was being so unsure. She agreed that they would talk later.