Anna waited in the small interview room for over half an hour. She spent the time looking back over the reports of Idris Krasiniqe’s arrest and trial. Carly Ann North had been missing for four days before her body was discovered. She had a string of previous prostitution charges and arrests. No matter what a wretched life she had, to have been raped and butchered was sickening. Idris had admitted to the crimes, he also admitted to trying to dismember her. He pleaded guilty to all charges, but denied that he had ever given the names of the two other men at the scene; he swore that they were just passing and that he didn’t know them. However, the police had two samples of semen from the victim. One was matched to Idris; DNA from the other remained on file. When questioned about her rape, he said that Carly Ann was a tart and had probably been with a number of men before him. According to a friend of hers, however, she had been trying to clean up her act: she was off drugs and had started going to a rehab centre of her own free will. There had been a sighting of a white Range Rover close to where Idris was arrested, which had driven off when the uniformed officer approached. It had never been traced. Anna underlined this: she could not recall if this had ever been brought up.
Anna looked up as she heard footsteps, then keys turning in the door. She shut her briefcase and put it down beside her chair.
The uniformed officer looked in and smiled. ‘We’ve got him for you, but we’ve had to cuff him. Shall we bring him in?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Do you want someone in here with you?’
‘Just outside the door, please.’
‘Have to keep his cuffs on then.’
‘Of course.’
He held the door open and a second officer gestured for Idris to be brought into the room.
Anna was taken aback at how young he was. He was astonishingly handsome. His skin was a golden olive shade and he had piercing blue eyes. He was about five feet ten and very slender. He was wearing a prison jumpsuit zipped up to his chest.
‘Sit down, Idris,’ she said politely.
He remained standing rigidly. The officer took him by his shoulders and rammed him into the seat. It took a few moments before he bent his knees and sat. He held his hands in the cuffs in front of him.
‘Can we have some coffee?’ she asked, and then looked at Idris. ‘Or do you want tea?’
He shook his head and looked at the floor.
Anna said in that case, she wouldn’t either; the officers hovered until she gave them the nod to leave. Idris swivelled round to look at the door closing behind them. He then turned back to stare at Anna.
‘My name is Anna Travis,’ she said.
He bowed his head.
‘I wanted to see you, as I am taking care of a prisoner held in Parkhurst prison. His name is Eamon Krasiniqe.’
No reaction.
‘We are very concerned about him.’
No reaction.
‘He is very sick.’
No reaction.
‘He also committed a crime inside the prison. Do you know, or have you ever met, an Arthur Murphy?’
No reaction.
Harry Blunt hung up and went over to Langton’s office. He knocked and entered.
Langton was sleeping at his desk, his head resting on his folded arms. He jerked awake when Harry tapped on the desk.
‘It’s looking like Travis could be right,’ Harry said. ‘We just had the dental records sent over to the lab. This Donald Summers had three teeth missing from his top layer. He left Newcastle, presumably with Gail Dunn and, according to his mother, moved into some place out in the New Forest. She hasn’t seen him for the last eight to ten months. She said she’d had one phone call to say that he was working on a farm. He’s got sandy hair and is six feet one, aged forty-two.’
Langton yawned. ‘The lab come back with anything on how he died?’
‘Well, there’s a crack in his skull the size of a meat cleaver, but nothing’s firmed up yet. The manure on top of him did a good job at fermenting his remains.’
‘Okay, start asking around all the locals again, and get that bloody landlord back in; see if he ever met him.’
‘Will do.’
Langton sat back in his chair. ‘Still nothing on Camorra?’
‘Nope. Could be he moved out of Peckham. He could be Christ knows where.’
‘The leg wasn’t his,’ Langton said.
‘Yeah, they got an ID on a drug dealer it belongs to. Bloody terrifying, isn’t it? I mean, that case you were on, Carly Ann North — the bastards were hacking her body up.’ Harry gave a gesture of despair. ‘Bloody animals out there on the loose. I got two kids and I keep on thinking about those two little souls. I mean, I don’t know what else we can do. They’ve had their pictures in every paper for weeks now, and not so much as a whisper. Gov?’
Langton’s head was back down on his folded arms. Harry hovered for a few moments and then walked out. He went into the incident room to find Mike Lewis.
‘Is he okay?’ Harry asked, jerking a thumb at Langton’s office.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Well, he was sleeping when I went in, and just sort of went back to sleep whilst I was talking to him.’
‘Maybe he’s tired of your voice.’
‘Very funny. It’s not as if we’re dormant in here, is it? Bloody body count’s mounting every five minutes.’
They were interrupted by Grace, who had just received confirmation that the skeleton was that of Donald Summers.
‘Oh, that’s terrific!’ Harry grunted and threw up his hands. ‘Just got to find the bastard that put the meat cleaver through his skull!’
Anna had kept talking. She explained how she had arrested Murphy, she discussed the death of Gail and she mentioned Sickert — and she had not had one single response from Idris. He either stared at the floor or directly at her with his ice-blue eyes. She was beginning to think she had had a wasted journey.
‘Idris, I have been trying to explain to you the reason I am here. If you are not related to Eamon Krasiniqe, then you can’t help me, but it’s so sad: he’s such a young man.’
She had saved this until the end.
‘I have been given a lot of help from Doctor Black; I don’t know if you are aware of who he is, but he has a clinic in the East End.’
Anna was really playing off the cuff: she had read about this Dr Black, but had never met him.
‘But he needs to have some background detail, or he can’t help Eamon. So I was just hoping you might have information, otherwise he will die from whatever voodoo hex was put on him.’
At last there was a reaction: the blue eyes widened and the perfect full lips were sucked in.
‘I am aware of how terrifying voodoo threats can be, how much they can harm an individual, but Doctor Black—’
‘Voodoo,’ Idris whispered.
Anna shrugged her shoulders but her heartbeat quickened; she’d got to him and she knew it. ‘Maybe you don’t believe in it, but Eamon does. Unless we can understand more about why he should be so affected… Poor boy is like a zombie, have you ever heard that expression? I think it’s called the walking dead.’
Idris was now attentive. He sat bolt upright, his cuffed hands clasped together. She waited a moment but he said nothing. She was trying to think what to do next; then she remembered.
Lifting her right hand, Anna pointed her index finger just above Idris’s head and made the slow circular movement, just as Eamon had done. His blue eyes flickered from side to side; he turned to stare at the wall, then looked back to her.
‘Time.’ He whispered so softly, she could only just catch it.
Anna leaned forwards and lowered her voice. ‘Idris, he doesn’t have it — he’s dying. Please tell me anything you can that might help him.’
Idris lowered his head to look over to the door. Anna followed his gaze. Through the glass window, they could both see the outline of the waiting officers and, in the pause, could even hear their whispered conversation. As if suddenly aware that they could not hear Anna’s voice from the room, one of the officers peered in through the glass, shading his eyes to see clearer.