Anna had then gone to Vernon Kramer’s safe house to pick up Arthur Murphy; there she had, unwittingly, been confronted by Rashid Burry. Rashid presumed that the police were about to arrest him. Burry later found out that the officer who had been attacked was still alive, because Vernon Kramer had read about it in the newspaper in the patrol car. Kramer must have told either Camorra or Rashid that they were both being hunted down. This had to coincide with Joseph Sickert being sent to stay with Gail.
Trying to match the timeframe was making her head ache, but she kept coming back to Camorra. Camorra had forced Idris Krasiniqe to rape Carly Ann. Eamon Krasiniqe was held down and injected with poison. Both Idris and Eamon were then forced to watch Camorra rape and then strangle the girl. Idris pleaded guilty, but retracted the statement in which he said that the two other men had been party to her murder.
They now knew that Camorra and Rashid Burry had been in the Range Rover, from fingerprints. Semen samples taken from Carly Ann’s body matched both Idris and Camorra’s DNA. Rashid Burry’s body was then later found wrapped in black plastic bin-liners inside the vehicle; they traced mud on its tyres to Gail’s bungalow.
Anna closed one book and opened another. By mistake, she had jumped to her third book, which detailed the huge operation bringing the Krasiniqe brothers to the hospital for contagious diseases.
Reading her notes again, she was more certain than ever that Camorra had been fed poison: his symptoms were identical to those of Eamon Krasiniqe. Anna tried hard to think how someone could have got to him. If Camorra had been injected, then the autopsy would have noted the needle pinpricks; they had initially not noticed any on Eamon, but he had also ingested the poison via the rock cakes.
Anna lay on the sofa, eyes closed. She remembered the amount of water Camorra had drunk when they first interviewed him. Between them, they had consumed the entire contents of a large bottle.
Then she remembered that Langton had poured, from his own small bottle, a cup full for Camorra and a half-cup for himself. Camorra had gulped it down, and then shortly after, asked for a bathroom break. Anna now remembered standing in the corridor: Langton had put out his cigarette in his water cup and then he had tossed it into the waste bin! Langton, she was certain, had not drunk from the small bottle.
She was pacing the room: there was something else. At the time, she had thought nothing of it. Langton had mentioned that Camorra had ordered in steak tartare, when the officer asked if it was still permissible for him to order in food to eat in his cell. How did Langton know what he had ordered?
Anna called Esme Salaam to ask if she could talk to her, then hurried out to her car. The Salaams were back at their small practice in the East End and were just about to close by the time she arrived.
‘I need to know how easy it is to detect Jimson weed in a dead person,’ Anna said immediately.
Esme looked at her husband, who was taking off his white coat. ‘To my knowledge, it isn’t. It would require someone who was aware of the drug or who was privy to the symptoms. The drug would not be easily detected — though, of course, this would depend on the dosage.’
‘Enough to bring on a cardiac arrest,’ Anna said calmly.
Dr Salaam looked at his wife and shrugged. ‘Well, if it was a cardiac arrest in suspicious circumstances, if the patient had severe auditory hallucinations or intense visual anxiety…’
‘You mean like seeing things, or feeling as if something was crawling over them?’
‘That could be a side-effect; as I said, it would depend on the dosage.’
‘Say it was given to someone over a period of thirty-six hours?’
‘Well, it would have to be a considerable amount. To my knowledge, it is usually used in very small dosages to control and frighten the recipient, by making them believe that they are being taken over by another power.’
‘How easy is it to come by?’
‘It isn’t; far from it — it is exceedingly difficult. I suppose someone, with the intention of acquiring it, could grow it, but there is no antidote. It would be very unwise for anyone to fool around with it.’
Anna accepted a cup of tea from Esme and sat down as Dr Salaam excused himself, saying he had to make some calls. As he went into his surgery, Anna tried to think of the best way to explain why she was asking the questions.
Esme made it easy for her. ‘Is it connected to Camorra?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Did he, to your knowledge, ever use it?’
‘If he did, he would not have got it from here. We only have a very small sample of it, and that is always kept locked away. It is very rare for me ever to take it out.’
‘When did you last do this?’
‘When we were at the hospital. My husband felt it might be required, but as it turned out, I don’t think he ever showed it to anyone.’
‘Is it in a bottle?’
‘Yes: you can have it in liquid form or made into small white tablets.’
‘Do they have a taste?’
‘No, they don’t.’
‘So they could be slipped into someone’s food?’
‘Yes, of course. Wasn’t that the method they used to feed that poor boy in the prison, the coconut rock cakes?’
Anna took a deep breath. ‘Yes, of course — I had forgotten. So Camorra would have had access to this poison?’
‘Obviously, but he was instigating the importation of illegal immigrants; one of those poor souls might have been a carrier of it. They were also bringing in heroin and cocaine and marijuana, weren’t they?’
Anna nodded.
Esme sipped her tea and placed her cup down carefully in the bone china saucer. ‘Why are you asking me all this now?’
‘Just tying up some loose ends,’ she said quietly.
Esme nodded and proffered more tea, but Anna declined.
‘Could I see the container that you brought the poison in?’
Esme hesitated. ‘This won’t have any repercussions for us, will it?’
‘No, of course not,’ Anna said firmly.
Esme unlocked a cabinet and took down a bottle with a red cross marked on the label.
‘Did anyone at the hospital have access to this?’
Esme shook her head. ‘No, it was in my medical case all the time. I only took it out to show DCI Langton.’
‘Did you lock the bag?’
‘Yes, most certainly. I always take every precaution and the bag was never out of my sight.’
Anna nodded; she then asked if Esme could check the contents for her, just to make sure that nothing was missing.
Esme hesitated, then pressed the cap down and unscrewed it. ‘These are in tablet form: the seeds are crushed and then pressed into pills.’ She carefully tapped the bottle to hold in the palm of her hand one small white pill. She held it out to Anna. ‘So small and so deadly.’
Then Esme returned the pill to the container and screwed the cap back on. She asked very gravely, ‘What loose ends are you so interested in?’
Anna shrugged. ‘Oh, we were concerned that Camorra did show symptoms; we will need to verify that his death was by natural causes.’
‘I see. Well, to be frank with you, the relief both my husband and I felt when we knew he was dead was considerable. He was a very evil, twisted man; who knows how many lives he had destroyed for his own sexual gratifications, including poor young children? I hope he died in great pain. He deserves no sympathy; sadly, there will be little retribution on behalf of those he damaged.’