‘Who did he have working on the outside?’
‘I dunno. When they busted him he got the extra time added to his sentence.’
‘And you recognised him from five floors up?’ said Peterson.
‘Course I recognised him. I went to his restaurant a few months back. He wasn’t pleased to see his old mate from inside. Had me chucked out when I tried to order a pint. What’s he done now, with all this?’ he said, indicating the upturned car with his lit cigarette and swirling smoke around in the process.
‘We can’t tell you,’ said Erika. ‘What’s your name, in case I want to ask you anything else?’
‘Call me Johnny. And that’ll be twenty quid,’ he said, holding his hand out. Erika rummaged around in her pocket and pulled out her wallet. She gave him a twenty. He pocketed it.
‘Lovely doing business with you, Bridge, and you, Luther. I love your show. When are you doing a new series?’
‘Come on, let’s go,’ said Peterson. They started back across the grass towards Erika’s car. ‘I can’t believe that you gave him money.’
‘He might be useful, you never know,’ said Erika, looking back. Johnny was squinting at them, and lighting another cigarette.
‘Jaspaaar. Jaspaaar Claaaark, no “e”，’ he shouted after them.
‘Check if Jasper has a record,’ said Erika. ‘And we need to find out if he has an alibi for last night.’
36
When Erika and Peterson arrived back at Tess’s house, the police had closed off the road, and there was now a forensics van and a police support van parked outside. They were about to ask to talk to Tess about Jasper’s alibi, when Moss met them at the kerb, carrying a large clear plastic evidence bag.
‘I need a word, I found something interesting in Vicky’s backpack,’ she said, holding it up.
‘Let’s get some privacy,’ said Erika, indicating the police support van. They climbed in and sat at the small table inside.
‘Vicky left London with just this bag,’ said Moss, holding it up. ‘It was inside Tess’s house, in the living room. When I first looked through it, I didn’t find anything, just some clothes, a bit of cash, toiletries and make-up. It was only when I was scrunching it up to put it into this smaller plastic evidence bag that I felt this tiny USB key wedged in the lining of one of the pockets.’ Moss took out a small evidence bag from her pocket and slid it across the table to Erika and Peterson. The USB key was less than a centimetre square. When Erika saw it, she felt a buzz of excitement.
‘Did it look like it had been hidden there? Concealed in the pocket?’
‘It’s a tiny pocket, and it was lodged in the lining, so it could have been hidden, or it could have been forgotten about,’ said Moss.
‘Have you looked what’s on it?’
‘No. We need a secure laptop.’ Peterson got up and looked in the cupboards on the tech side of the support van, where they had access to multiple phone lines, fax machines and the HOLMES police database. He dug out a laptop which was secure for looking at digital evidence and placed it on the table between them.
Erika booted it up, and then inserted the USB key. They waited for an agonising moment, and then a file popped up on the desktop, named ROUGH CUTS. When Erika clicked on it, there were five audio files inside, which were simply named 1 to 5.
‘God, I hope this is podcast stuff, and not Shawn’s music – he writes music apparently. What if this is a demo for some angsty home studio EP?’ said Moss.
Peterson rolled his eyes. ‘Just click on the first file,’ he said.
Erika clicked on the file marked “1”， and adjusted the volume.
There was a crackle and some interference, and then they heard Vicky’s voice. It sounded like she was in a busy bar or café. Indecipherable voices and the sounds of cutlery and plates hummed away in the background.
‘Okay. This is for episode eighteen,’ said Vicky. ‘Wild track background for the interview I’ve already done with…’ There was the sound of her flicking pages in a notebook. ‘Becky Wayland. I’m here at Henry’s in Covent Garden to do the recording. Any excuse to put this coffee and croissant on business expenses,’ she added with a laugh. ‘Okay. I’ll shut up now.’ There was more interference and then the digital recorder ran for a couple of minutes with the ambient sounds of humming and chatter. A loud laugh punctuated it at one point.
Erika paused the playback.