Anna lifted her voice slightly. ‘Obviously anything you say will not go any further.’ She then leaned closer, whispering, ‘They can’t hear us, Idris.’
He slowly lifted his cuffed hands to point to her notepad.
She picked it up. ‘You want this?’
He nodded. She passed it over, together with her pencil. He spent a few moments staring at the empty page then, like a child, wrote very slowly; then sat back and turned the notebook towards her.
He had written in childish looped writing. ‘He is my brother.’
‘Then you have to talk to me,’ she said urgently. Again, he took the notepad; this time, he wrote faster, but with the same intense look on his face.
Again, he passed the notebook back. Save him, I talk, I tell you things.
‘But Idris, I need to know more. I can’t use this — it means nothing. If you are his brother, then for God’s sake, tell me what you know.’
He shook his head, a stubborn expression on his face.
‘All right, listen to me. I am going to repeat the names of people I need information about. If you know anything, then nod your head; you don’t even have to say a word.’
He chewed his lips.
‘You don’t even have to write it down.’
He gave a short nod of his head. Anna started to list all the names of suspects they wanted to question: she started again with Sickert and, this time, Idris nodded. She said a few more and got nothing; then, at the mention of Rashid Burry, again he nodded his head. He stared blankly when she asked about Gail and her children. He gave no reaction to DCI Langton’s name. The only major reaction was to Camorra: when she said his name, his face twisted and he licked his lips, his blue eyes darting back and forth. She then asked if he had lied about the men who were with him on the night he had killed Carly Ann North and he gave a small shake of his head.
Anna could feel him closing off. She reached over to take the pencil back, knowing never to leave a prisoner anything he could take back to his cell.
‘You have to help me a bit more,’ she said.
He shook his head and gestured again at the officers. He then bent forwards, his hands clasped together in his lap, and spoke softly. ‘Help my brother. I talk then.’
As soon as she got home, Anna sat down and wrote up all the new information she had acquired. It did not look much. The relationship between Idris and Eamon Krasiniqe might turn out to be important as a connection to Camorra; however, none of it looked like it was leading towards to the killer of Gail Sickert and her little daughter, nor did it connect to the death of Gail’s husband, Donald Summers — unless Camorra was the link between all the murders. If this was true, then Langton was not, as she had suspected, re-routing the murder enquiry for his own ends. Just as she accepted this, her doorbell rang.
Langton leaned against the doorframe.
‘I was going to bring you some chicken soup, but then I found out you were fucking lying. You’d better have a very good explanation.’
She led him into the lounge, her cheeks flushed. ‘Sit down,’ she said.
‘Thank you.’ He sat on the sofa and looked at the coffee-table loaded with her notes and files.
She sat opposite him. ‘How did you know?’
He looked up: he had planned to visit Krasiniqe himself, so had called the prison — only to be told that a DI Travis was already interviewing him. Langton stared at her.
‘What the fuck do you think you are doing?’
Anna hesitated. ‘I just felt I wasn’t doing enough.’
He shook his head. ‘Really.’
‘Yes, and I’m sorry — it was unethical of me.’
‘You can say that again.’ Langton rubbed his knee, and then leaned back, closing his eyes. ‘I could throw the book at you, Anna.’
‘I know.’
‘Any reason why you think I shouldn’t?’
Anna paused. ‘I have been very concerned about you.’
He opened his eyes.
‘You are taking on too much. It was obvious the other day and so, I just thought if I could do some legwork—’
‘If I had wanted you to do that, I would have asked! This was a bloody stupid and, as you said, unethical way of you so-called helping me. You simply took off, making enquiries without supervision, without permission and whilst lying about being ill; constantly calling into the incident room to see if there were any developments, while you were busy working on your own. You want to take over the investigation, is that it? You think I’m incapable or something? What is it with you, Anna? This has happened before. You got off lightly then, but I don’t know if I am going to accept the excuse that you were acting because of—’
‘You are sick,’ she interrupted him.
‘Not sick enough to allow anyone to take over my case without permission!’
There was a pause. Anna sat, head bowed.
‘I will think about what I am going to do with you, but you could be taken off the case.’
‘I was hoping no one would find out.’
He sighed. ‘Sometimes, Anna, your crass naivety stuns me. You think that because of your connections with me, you can do what you bloody well feel like doing.’
‘That isn’t true.’
‘Then what is the truth?’
Anna stood up. ‘I was afraid you were allowing the case to run out of control because of personal reasons. I was concerned that you were widening the case to include your attack. Then, when you collapsed, I had serious concerns as to whether or not you should still be working.’
He shook his head, smiling, as if stunned by what she had said; then he wiped the smile off fast and gritted his teeth. ‘So, DI Travis, what were you going to do about it?’
She could hardly get her breath. She had to swallow over and over, then excused herself to go into the kitchen. She fetched a glass of water and returned to the lounge to find him sifting through her notes.
‘I said, what were you going to do about it?’
Anna sat down. ‘I would do anything for your well-being.’
He gave a short bark of a laugh.
‘It’s the truth.’
‘It’s bullshit; you were going to have to make a report, right? Get me removed from the case. Why can’t you tell the truth?’
‘Because I … that is not the truth.’
Langton sighed and rubbed his knee again. ‘Well, I don’t want to waste time bickering. Did you come up with anything worth breaking the rules for?’
She passed him her notebook. ‘They are brothers, Eamon and Idris; the only way I got Idris to open up and to write this was because I brought up the voodoo hex on Eamon. It was the only time he showed any sort of reaction. I gave him a story about visiting a voodoo doctor who thought he might be able to help Eamon. Idris bought it, and then wrote this.’
Langton read the scrawled writing and put the book down.
‘Idris is afraid of voodoo himself; he speaks to no one in prison and is terrified of anyone knowing he even talked to me. He’s had no visitors and remains in his cell during recreation. I asked him to give me a signal if any names I mentioned meant anything to him; the only ones were Sickert, Rashid and Camorra. I think if we can get some help for his brother, he will keep his bargain and he will talk.’
Langton nodded. ‘Just how do you think we can do that?’
‘There are numerous voodoo specialists; we contact them, see if they can get to Eamon. If he’s still alive, then we should try and do what we can — possibly even arrange some kind of meeting, so we get Idris out of the prison.’