10 AUGUST
BELGRAVIA
CENTRAL LONDON
He’d had to wait several hours longer than he’d expected but at last digital forensics had produced greatly improved still photos from the CCTV films. He’d had a very late supper at home as a result, discovering it tightly covered inside the oven in his kitchen. The oven door bore a sign that made a bow to Lewis Carroll as did a bottle of very nice Amarone considerately left open to breathe on the worktop. The former read Eat me, the latter Drink me. Lynley wondered if Denton had been auditioning for a role as the March Hare or the White Rabbit. He reckoned the Mad Hatter might well be beyond his talents, although he would never have said this to Charlie himself.
He’d had his meal, crawled off to bed, and awakened early, if not refreshed. Showered, shaved, and all the rest, he took a moment to make a phone call before heading downstairs.
“You’re up early,” Daidre said to him without preamble. “Or is it worse than that? Are you only just at home?”
“The former,” he said. “I’m ringing to enquire: Has Wally taken my place?”
“I’m afraid he has. But only for now. He purrs when he’s asleep, you know. I’m finding that quite a lovely bit of white noise.”
“I can’t compete with that, I’m afraid. I sincerely doubt that snoring would be a lovely bit of anything.”
“I can attest to the fact that Wally would be most unhappy with snoring, Tommy.”
“Damn. My future looks bleak indeed.”
“How are things going? Are you making progress?”
“Possibly. We think it might be a female killer. But it’s not a typical female crime.”
“Is it not? Why?”
“In my experience, women prefer distance when they kill. A hands-on method of murder generally doesn’t appeal. Poison, yes. Gunshot, yes. Clubbing someone over the head? Not very likely. But in this case, based—admittedly—largely upon CCTV documentation, it could be that’s what we’re dealing with.”
“Clubbing someone doesn’t sound very efficient,” Daidre pointed out. She added off to one side, “Just a moment, Wally.” And then to Lynley, “Sorry. I must let him out.” He could hear the cat meowing and then a door opening as Daidre let him out into the garden. This was followed by the sound of the tap running. She’d be making herself a coffee. A moment and she was back with him. “Do you know what was used? This sounds like a spontaneous thing, not something that was planned. The result of an argument? Something like that?”
“A crime of passion,” he said. “It could well be. We have a set of sculptures from her flat being examined by forensics. One of them might have been used.”
“That must put paid to any lying-in-wait scenario.”
“Hmmm. Possibly. Unless, of course, the killer knew about the sculptures and intended to use one from the first.”
“Does that narrow the field or broaden it?”
“It’s fairly narrow already.”
“I see.” Then, “Oh, there’s Wally again, ready for breakfast. I swear, Tommy, he eats like someone recently rescued from the Donner Party.”
“I expect he knows a soft heart when he comes across one. As do I, by the way. Shall we see each other soon?” He heard the door again, followed by the sound of dry cat food pouring into an aluminium bowl. He could well imagine Wally crouched before it, tail tucked about him, only its tip twitching, triumphant until the moment till Daidre left for work and he was relegated to the garden once more.
She said, “That’s rather dependent upon you just now, isn’t it?”
He sighed. “I daresay it is. Last night I was there till two. It’s astonishing how much information can be gleaned from mobile phone towers, by the way.”
“Should I be worried or comforted?”
“If you’ve recently joined the criminal class, worried. Otherwise, you’re probably fine.”
They rang off. He went downstairs to see the newspapers laid out in the dining room. The Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times. The front page of each displayed the same photograph and variation on the same headline. An arrest had finally been made in the case of the missing girl Boluwatife Akin.
THE MOTHERS SQUARE
LOWER CLAPTON
NORTH LONDON
Mark Phinney enlarged the first of the tabloid’s two CCTV pictures from Streatham as much as he could on his mobile phone. It was going to be virtually useless as a means of identification, he thought. He couldn’t work out why the Met had authorised the release of either picture unless it was to keep the hounds from baying for a day or two. For the investigators couldn’t possibly hope that someone would come forward to identify the individuals depicted unless the messenger bag carried by the subject of one of the photos was different enough from all other messenger bags so as to make it recognisable, which wasn’t likely. He was able to make out what seemed to be some kind of stripe running along the bottom of it, ostensibly making it visible to nighttime traffic. Perhaps the hope was that the messenger making a delivery to Teo’s apartment block would now step forward.