“I fucking did.”
Barolli leaned over and wagged his finger. “Just stop the swearing and show some respect.”
“You show me some. I done everything I could — I told this one everything I knew about Maggie. I don’t know any more, all right? The poor cow is dead, and you should be trying to find out who killed her, never mind bringing me in.”
“I think you found more than clothes in Margaret Potts’s suitcase, Emerald, because I know she was earning quite a lot of money.”
“What’s quite a lot to you? I know what she earned, and it was fucking rubbish. How much do you think she could make, givin’ sex to down-and-out lorry drivers?”
“You maybe earn more from your massage parlor, but—”
“You mind your own business about what I earn.”
“What else did you find in Margaret Potts’s suitcase, Miss Turk?”
Emerald sighed, staring up at the ceiling. There was a long pause, her leg still swinging up and down.
Anna checked her notes. “You said there was a tracksuit, the one you were wearing when I first met you, a few other garments, and you brought up the notebook that Margaret kept with the car license numbers she recorded for her protection.”
“Yeah, and I never had it, I also told you that.”
“Her brother-in-law mentioned a family diamond ring, and her husband also mentioned some jewelry that he knew Margaret had. Added to these items of value was possibly her savings.”
“Savings?”
“Yes, money.”
“She never had any, and I never saw no jewelry. If you want to get another search warrant, you can rip my flat apart again.”
The interview was going nowhere, and without firmed-up evidence, it was wasting time.
“Did you ever use a company called Swell Blinds?”
“What?”
“It’s a company that makes wooden slatted window blinds to order.”
“Did I know them? You must be joking. I never had no made-to-order blinds.”
Anna closed her notebook and said, “Thank you, Miss Turk, and if you want, we can arrange for you to be taken home.”
“That’s very big of you, but I’ll get a taxi.”
Anna watched Emerald walking out of the station. Barbara joined her.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Nope. How about you?”
“Well, I’ve contacted my little lady Wendy Dunn. She lives on my way home and I’m going to drop in to see her again.”
Anna shook her head. “I think this interviewing everyone over again is not only time-consuming but unproductive. It’s not telling us anything that we didn’t already know.”
“Ah, but Mrs. Dunn says she’s retained a lot of old files from Swell Blinds — not payment receipts but old orders from good customers in case they ever wanted new ones.”
Anna gave Barbara a high five. “Let’s hope she can give us a new lead, then. We sure as hell need one.”
Pete Jenkins was his usual friendly self, asking if Anna wanted to look at the blue blanket brought to them from the earlier investigation. As she hadn’t seen it, she agreed and drove over to the labs in Lambeth, South London. The blanket was pinned out on a long brown-paper-covered trestle table. It was filthy, covered with stains that had markings attached to them, ready for further DNA testing.
“It had long dog hairs all over it,” Pete told Anna. “The original lab examination showed they could be from an Alsatian or similar breed; find the animal in question, and we can match them by DNA. There were also a few carpet fibers and what looks like vomit. The corner where you might have had a laundry mark has been hacked off.”
“It looks like a big child’s blanket to me. It’s not a full-size one, is it?”
“No. It could be from a large single bed, we’ve not a lot to go on,” Pete continued. “We’re running further chemical tests on the color and hoping to run it by manufacturers. It is also worn in some places, almost bald.”
They went over to his cleared desk, and Anna took out all the photographs of the tattoo. Some were in color and others black and white.
“Pity we don’t have the actual body,” he said. “We’d use infrared to illuminate the tattoo and then a filter to take out the blue, so we’d be able to see what colors are behind it. Different inks react to different wavelengths of infrared. So if the tattoo beneath the dark blue one had red or green or even a mixture, they would stand out. However, if there was blue in the original tattoo, it wouldn’t.”
“To be honest, Pete, it’s just a thought. I don’t know if it really does cover something else; it’s just the dark color that’s sort of odd, and also the lizard is upside down.”
Pete laid out the photographs, placing the color ones to one side. “There is a process I am going to try. With these original digital photographs, I’m going to use Adobe Photoshop. What I’ll be doing is taking the original image — we call it the RAW file — removing the blue channel and seeing if there are any colors beneath it or if an image shows up.”
“How long will it take?”
“I’ll work on it tonight for you and should get a result or not by morning.”
“Thank you.”
“Fancy a bite to eat? We’ve got a great Greek restaurant, just opened a two-minute walk away.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. It’s been a long day — I’ll take a rain check.”
“That’s what you always say.”
“You get a result, and I’ll take you for dinner.”
“Deal,” he said, and shook her hand.
Chapter Nine
Anna was disappointed. There was still no call from Ken, and she was hesitant about calling him herself. She began to think that maybe she had read it all wrong, that he wasn’t interested. She was making herself a salad when he rang. Since it took her a moment to wash her hands, it was already going on to voice mail when she reached it.
“Hi, it’s Ken. Sorry not to have rung before and—”
She interrupted. “It’s me, and I’m at home. Just didn’t get to the phone in time.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. I’ve had a bug, but I’m better now.”
“Poor you. I was beginning to think you didn’t want to meet up with me again,” Anna said.
“I most certainly do.”
Anna felt all girlish and giggled a lot as Ken chatted on about this and that. He said he could swing another weekend, as he’d agreed to switch to nights during the week, and she agreed to see him on Saturday. She hoped she would not be asked to work over the weekend but warned him that she might be called in.
“Are you playing rugby again?” she asked.
“Nope. I can get to you for lunchtime, is that convenient?”
“Yes, and it’s okay to call me on the mobile. Leave me a message if I’m working, and I’ll get back to you straightaway.”
She gave him her mobile number, and he said that maybe they could take in another show.
“I’d like that.”
“Good. Till Saturday, then.”
She rang off with a huge smile, and then, just as she sat down to eat her salad, her mobile rang. It was Pete, and he had a result, although he wasn’t sure it would be of much consequence.
“You were right, Anna, the lizard was inked over another tattoo.”
She closed her eyes, hoping it would be the lead they needed.
“It’s a date in red ink, a sort of scroll. I couldn’t make out exactly what; it looked like a red ribbon and a red heart in the middle. There’s something written on it: twenty-one Lipiec oh-two.” Pete spelled out the word, then blew her away, as he told her that Lipiec was Polish for July.
Anna was late arriving for work next day, as she had been over to Pete’s lab in Lambeth to collect the photographs and photo print of the tattoo’s date. She burst into the incident room, eager to give the new details, but there was a lot of interest around Barbara’s desk. The detective constable had two thick files with Swell Blinds orders going back four years before the company moved to Manchester. The amount of clerical work necessary to check with every customer would be a pain, but they would nevertheless have to get it done. Beside each of the orders was the name and address of the customer, with appointment dates and sales contact. They needed to know if Smiley was the contact and whether any customers had links to the victims.