‘Chalk dust?’
‘That’s right, then he went on complaining about trying to get work, said the Poles were taking all the available jobs and accepting lower wages. I never said nothing to him; I mean, he was obviously capable of getting a job but I reckon he couldn’t be bothered if the giro cheques kept coming.’
‘Did he get post delivered to the house?’
‘No, he’d collect from our local post office, often saw him in there,’ Mr Murphy said.
Lastly Anna showed them the photographs of the victims. They went very quiet, but could not recall ever seeing them. Mrs Murphy was shocked when she looked at the photograph of Rebekka Jordan.
‘She’s just a young girl.’
Anna was now eager to leave, and knew that if she stayed any longer they would start asking more questions about the murder enquiry. Mr Murphy walked her to the gate, opening it for her and pointing out the cement-filled area around the posts.
‘You won’t have to dig all this up, will you?’
Anna smiled as she told him there was no need for him to worry about his gates or driveway.
She was still standing there when she noticed Barolli parked up opposite in an unmarked police car, and the Crime Scene Manager handing him something through the driver’s window. Anna crossed the road and opened the passenger door.
‘You heard?’ Barolli asked her, as he took from the CSM a large square plastic box in an evidence bag. ‘This was found stashed up the fireplace; I’m taking it straight over to forensics to check for fingerprints and DNA.’
‘What’s inside it?’
‘Load of jewellery trinkets, could belong to a victim or just junk stuff, but as the place had a load of squatters at one time or another we need to see if Oates’s dabs are on the box.’
Barolli nodded over to Mr Murphy, who was watching them intently.
‘Get anything else from them, did you?’
‘Not really. I’ll be interested to see what’s inside that box, though.’
‘Likewise, but I’m not touching it until it’s been dusted.’
Anna was about to do a web search for ‘chalk + building’ when Mike arrived back at the incident room.
‘You hear about the box found in Oates’s basement?’ he asked. ‘Hidden in the fireplace. Paul said it was full of jewellery. He’s having it individually photographed then the lab can get to work on it.’
‘Yeah, hoping to get prints off the box.’
Mike ruffled his hair. ‘You know what it could mean?’
She nodded as her desk phone rang, and coincidentally it was Pete Jenkins. They had been able to get some good prints from the plastic surface of the box, and as they had already taken prints from Oates when he had been arrested it wouldn’t take long to do a comparison.
‘You know what my gut feeling is about this stuff?’ Pete said. ‘I’ve examined tokens like this in other murder cases. You want to come in and see for yourself?’
‘Be right there. I had the same feeling. Give me half an hour or so.’
Anna set off at once, but as she drove to Lambeth, she couldn’t shift the dread that the prints would not match with Oates’s.
But they did. It was a perfect match: three left fingers, a right palm and left thumbprint all belonged to Oates, and no other prints had been found.
Pete was standing in the section of the laboratory that had been given over to the Oates murder enquiry. Many items had been discarded, but that still left a vast amount of clothing and bed linen. There was even a filthy rolled-up towel and swimming trunks. Everything was being carefully checked over, tagged and bagged.
Anna asked if any items of clothing had chalk dust over them and explained her conversation with the Murphys. Pete said that as far as he knew there was nothing and, given that Mrs Murphy had said that it had been in March 2007, a minimal trace would be worthless as evidence and not even worth looking for.
Laid out neatly on brown paper was the square empty plastic box and beside it, an array of jewellery: cheap brooches, bracelets, necklaces, pendants, single earrings, a couple of rings and a string of fake pearls. Many pieces were broken, stones were missing out of clasps; nothing appeared to be of any great value.
Anna examined the hoard using plastic lab tweezers to look more closely at each item.
‘I’ve had individual photographs taken back and front where necessary,’ Pete told her. ‘I’d say the thing of any value is the bracelet, which is hallmarked gold. This is the one item you can concentrate on first because…’
Pete, wearing gloves, picked up the gold bracelet. The clasp was broken and missing some stones, and a safety chain held the two bands together. He took a magnifying glass and Anna moved closer.
‘It’s engraved,’ he said. ‘Angela 1999 from Mum and Dad.’
Anna sighed; she knew what she was looking at – days, weeks of backtracking through unsolved case files, missing persons, burglary and robbery and lost property reports in an effort to identify all the items. She and Pete couldn’t help coming to the same conclusion: these items could be the sick tokens of a serial killer. That left Anna little choice but to return to the station to speak to Mike.
Mike closed his eyes at the news.
‘Jesus Christ, if there are more murdered women out there our cases could spiral out of control.’
‘Well, we can’t be sure until we identify the jewellery, and that won’t be until the photographs and details are sent over in the morning. So I don’t know about you, but I need to go home, get ready for the shit to start hitting the fan tomorrow.’
Anna had just started up her Mini when Mike tapped on the window to say that Dr Samuels had just rung the office to let them know that he had nearly finished going over the Oates file and would come to the station in a day or so to advise them on the best way forward with the interviews. Just at that moment Anna’s mobile rang: ‘Does he know about Samuels yet?’ demanded Mike. Anna shook her head as she answered the phone.
‘You avoiding me?’
‘No, it’s been quite an eventful day.’
‘I’ll be waiting to hear the details, so get over to me as soon as you can.’
‘I’m really tired.’
‘So am I, tired of not being kept up to speed, all right?’
‘Okay, I’ll come straight over.’
‘Good. Have you eaten?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll fix us something. Bye.’
At least he hadn’t asked her to schlep over groceries, and she was certain he’d order a pizza delivery. In some ways it was better for her to share that afternoon’s depressing discovery with Langton, rather than go home alone, and more than likely order a takeaway Chinese.
Chapter Twelve
Langton had set the table in the living room, even if the cutlery did look as if he had half-heartedly thrown it onto the cloth. Napkins, wine glasses and an open bottle of Merlot had been dumped alongside HP and tomato sauce.
The main front door had been buzzed open, and the flat door had stood ajar for her to walk in.
‘Get a glass of wine, won’t be a minute.’
She was surprised that his voice came from the kitchen. ‘Anything I can do?’
‘Nope, I’ll tell you when I need you.’
Anna poured two glasses and arranged the cutlery and napkins into place settings, turning as Langton appeared. He looked remarkably well, shaved and wearing a grey loose tracksuit; he smiled, and lifted his walking cane.
‘Plaster’s off, but the worst part, and I’ve never felt such agony, was bending the leg. Bloody hell, Travis, it was excruciating, but hardly a twinge now.’
‘That’s marvellous.’
‘Stuff ’s on a tray if you could just carry it in.’
He walked a trifle unsteadily, but considering how he had been when she last saw him it was obvious he was well on the road to recovery.
‘Stairs are still hazardous but I’m doing exercise gradually.’