By the time they reached the Hampshire station, it was after eight o’clock. Langton was looking very tired, and said that he would give a briefing the following morning.
As the team packed up for the night, ready to return for an early start, Langton remained in his office. Anna walked out to the car park with Mike Lewis. He had had a frustrating day, moving from hostel to hostel between probation departments in an attempt to trace Rashid Burry and check out the other occupants; he could not believe their incompetence. The hostels in their target areas were inundated with prisoners on release, parolees and ex-prisoners waiting for deportation, and the number of the men who had simply disappeared was a disturbing factor for the services as well as for their enquiry.
Anna did not get home until after ten o’clock. With the station being so far out of London, she had a long drive back and forth. She was fast asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Langton, on the other hand, remained at the station until very late; he had booked into a Bed and Breakfast close by. He sifted through all the new information, and, although some of it was hard to believe, he knew intuitively they were getting close to discovering the identity of the man who attacked him. He was certain that, in some way, it was linked to the murder of Arthur Murphy. Whatever Murphy knew had got him killed, and whoever owned the mobile phone that Krasiniqe called must have given that instruction. Langton made a note for his team to try and trace that person. He then sat staring at the incident-room board, one leg outstretched in front of him. He was in a great deal of pain and his knee was badly swollen. Grace had also been working at her desk, and went up to the canteen for some dinner. When she returned, Langton was still sitting on the chair in front of the board, slowly rubbing his right leg, so immersed in his own thoughts that he never even acknowledged her quiet goodnight.
Chapter Ten
Anna had stopped on her way into the station to buy a cappuccino, but was still one of the first to arrive. Mike Lewis followed her into the incident room, eating a bacon and egg roll with one hand, a takeaway coffee in the other. Harry Blunt came in and walked straight over to the trolley. He helped himself to the stack of doughnuts piled up on a paper plate, then stopped to stare at the board.
‘Bloody hell! Local primary school been let in, have they?’
Lewis gave a half-smile at Harry’s joke, but was actually taken aback by the mass of information written up. The board was covered with events and suspects, scrawled notes and diagrams.
‘Boss been busy, hasn’t he?’ Lewis looked to Anna.
‘I guess so. I left him here last night.’
‘He’s moved into a B and B just up the road,’ Harry said, his mouth full of doughnut.
They gathered round, looking with some confusion at Langton’s work in progress. There were lists of names, in some cases ringed or with big question marks above them, and thick red felt-tipped pen arrows linking one to the other. Standing out, in large green letters, was the word VOODOO in block capitals. Conversation was muted as they tried to fathom it all out.
Langton was the last to arrive. He was smartly dressed but looked very pale; he asked the room to give him five and then he’d join them. He went into his office.
Lewis turned to Anna. ‘Popping more of his painkillers.’
‘What?’
‘Come on, haven’t you noticed? He’s taking them all day.’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Anna said snappily.
‘Well, he is. And something to keep his energy up — and it’s not vitamins!’
Anna made no reply.
‘Listen, I’m not telling tales. I worry about him, you know? The rate he’s pushing himself, he’s gonna break, and now you’re not around to pick up the pieces…’
‘Mike, leave it out, will you?’
He shrugged, and crossed to his desk.
Harry was talking to Grace when Langton came in from his office.
‘Okay, everyone, quieten down. Let’s get on with it.’ He crossed to stand by the board, he picked up a ruler and pointed to a photograph of Carly Ann North. ‘This was the victim in my last murder enquiry. The suspect, Idris Krasiniqe, was arrested and charged with her murder. Let’s call this case number one.’
He then pointed to Krasiniqe’s mug shot. ‘He gave us the names and address of the two other men who were at the scene of the murder, but they did a runner.’
He indicated the two names, and then the address of the hostel in Brixton where he, Lewis and Barolli had followed up this lead. ‘One of the men was a black Jamaican; his pal was more like a Somali, but we have no ID for either, and both men got away.’ Langton failed to mention the almost fatal injuries he sustained that night. ‘Idris Krasiniqe subsequently said he made up the names, however, and refused at trial to admit to giving us false information.’
Langton moved along the board and jabbed with the ruler. ‘Case number two: the murder of Irene Phelps. The man wanted for her murder was Arthur Murphy. DI Travis went to another hostel in Brixton, to try to find out whether a Vernon Kramer was harbouring Murphy. This second hostel was not only minutes from Irene Phelps’s house, but also four streets away from the first hostel, where my attack took place. When DI Travis approached the house, using the old voting register enquiry scam, she was refused entry by a black Jamaican with two gold teeth to the right side of his mouth. We are now pretty sure that this man is Rashid Burry, and we now think he slammed the door in Travis’s face because he was paranoid that she was there to arrest him in connection with case number one.’
Langton went on to explain that Arthur Murphy was subsequently arrested and charged with Irene’s murder. Vernon Kramer was also arrested, and charged with perverting the course of justice and harbouring a wanted criminal; however, he was released on bail.
‘During the time Vernon was on bail, Rashid Burry put him under pressure to find out how close we were to picking him up for case number one, not knowing that DI Travis was actually on case number two. What he did find out, however, was that DI Travis and I knew each other.’
‘Case number three: the murder of Gail Sickert and her youngest child. Gail was Arthur Murphy’s sister. She was living with this man, Joseph Sickert.’ Langton pointed to the ident picture that Anna had worked on. ‘Sickert suffers from sickle cell anaemia and needs medication, which he usually obtains from Rashid Burry. Rashid — still, we think, paranoid that we are close to arresting him — gets Vernon Kramer to hand over the medication on his behalf. When Vernon hands it over, he mentions to Sickert that Travis was in on the arrest of Arthur Murphy, and that she knew the cop who got “cut up”. We know that Sickert later panicked when Travis called on Gail again. Travis was not there for any reason other than to discuss the photograph of Murphy and Kramer that Gail had given her, but Sickert puts two and two together to make a lot more.’
A murmur ran round the team as they followed Langton’s arrows.
Langton indicated the victims’ photographs and descriptions. ‘The piggery is still being searched for other remains. After extensive press coverage, we have no information as to the whereabouts of Sickert, Gail’s other two children, or Rashid Burry.’
Langton then pointed to a second picture of Murphy. ‘Call this case four. Arthur Murphy was killed in Parkhurst prison. His cellmate was young, possibly Somali, with no papers of any kind. They do not know where he’s actually from, or if the name he was charged under is his real name, but the name he is known by is Eamon Krasiniqe. This links directly back to case one, my last murder case: the killer has the same surname as Idris Krasiniqe. We do not know if they were related, or both used the same assumed name, but it is a bloody coincidence.’