Jane took a furtive look at her watch and picked up her bag.
‘Mrs Forgham, I can’t thank you enough for your time. There are one or two other things I need from you. One is a photograph of your daughter.’
‘What do you want that for?’ Sharon asked, screwing up her eyes.
‘I’m unable to give you any details right now, Mrs Forgham, but it would be for elimination purposes. Added to that, could you possibly give me the name of her dentist?’
Sharon blew her nose. ‘Have you found her? I’m not stupid, love, I’ve seen enough detective programmes. You don’t ask for dental records unless you’ve found someone dead. And let me tell you something, love, for what she done to this family, if she is dead, I’m glad. She’s been dead to me since I buried her father anyway.’
Sharon stubbed out her cigarette and left Jane in the kitchen for a few moments. Jane could hear her opening and closing drawers in another room before she came back.
‘Here’s one, when Samantha was at a Christmas party. She’d be about twenty, but I don’t have no others. I burned them. I’ve written her dentist’s name on the back, but I don’t know if he’s still in practice.’
Jane took the photograph and put it in her bag. ‘Thank you so much, Mrs Forgham. I promise I’ll be in touch if we have any more information about your daughter.’
Sharon crossed her arms, shaking her head. ‘Don’t bother. We gave her everything we had, and she threw it all back in our faces. I’ll never forgive her, and I don’t want you back here whatever it is you find out.’
Jane left, deeply saddened that Sharon was living in such pain and bitterness and hoping that she wouldn’t have to go back and talk to her about her daughter again. But she knew that the date Samantha was last seen by her father matched the pathologist’s estimate of when the young woman in the bunker had died, and she was afraid that could only mean one thing.
Chapter Four
Even after the detour to interview Mrs Forgham, Jane was still at the station by nine. And again the incident room was eerily empty as the detective sergeant had detailed many of the officers to interview the previous residents of the house in Stockwell. But DCI Carter was in his office and looked up tetchily as Jane knocked to enter.
‘I think we might have a breakthrough, sir. I met with Brian Forgham’s widow.’
Carter frowned, obviously trying to work out who she was talking about.
‘He was the man who looked after the property when the flats were occupied, but he was murdered five years ago.’
Carter gave her a quizzical look. ‘Well, I don’t know what you call a breakthrough, but that doesn’t seem to be a very positive lead.’
Jane tried to ignore his sarcasm. ‘It is, sir. They had a daughter, aged twenty-two, and according to the widow, she has not been seen for the same period of time the pathologist estimates our victim to have been dead... five years.’ Jane opened her briefcase. ‘I have a photograph of her and, although it was taken when she was about twenty, she has long blonde hair. Her mother described her as being well dressed, spending money on fashionable clothes.’
Carter squinted at the photo. ‘Well, we can’t tell what the hell the dead girl used to look like, so you need to find her dental records and see if they match the teeth on our girl.’
Jane nodded. ‘If you turn the photo over you’ll find the name of her dentist. The girl’s name’s Samantha. I’d also like to go and talk to her boyfriend. He’s currently in Wandsworth prison for the murder of Brian Forgham. After the murder, the officers tried to trace Samantha but I think they assumed she’d done a runner when he was arrested.’
Carter rocked back in his chair. ‘My, my, my, you really are a one-woman force — although I’m not sure what you hope to get from Forgham’s killer. Your main priority is to see if the teeth match. Also, I’m not putting much focus on the dead baby at the moment. If we can clear up the main case, that’s probably the best we can do.’
It sounded to Jane as if Carter resented her even discovering the baby. ‘Thank you very much, sir,’ she said, trying to keep her tone neutral as she closed the door behind her.
Carter drummed his fingers on his desk. He had been tipped off that Jane Tennison was not exactly a ‘team player’, but he had to admit that if she was proved right, and they had identified their victim, it was an impressively fast turnaround.
Jane allocated DC Tim Taylor to check out the dentist and find out if he’d had a patient called Samantha Forgham, and if so to get the X-rays checked to see if there was a match with their victim.
Jane went to have a quick breakfast in the canteen before asking the duty sergeant to contact Wandsworth prison to arrange a formal meeting with Simon Root. The message quickly came back that Root was in a rehabilitation group in the morning, but she could have a meeting with him at noon. Jane decided that, rather than returning to the incident room and the official monitoring by Carter, she would go and see if they had any update for her at the forensic lab. In particular, she wanted to see if Emra Saddell could give her access to the clothes worn by their victim.
Emra was her usual pleasant self, complaining only briefly about the length of time the pathologist was taking. They had already sent samples of the victim’s hair for a toxicology report, but Detective Sergeant Lloyd Johnson was a stickler for going by the rule book and he wouldn’t even estimate how long he would need to examine the mummified baby. Emra led Jane over to trestle tables covered in white paper where the victim’s clothes and footwear were laid out. The boots were size five, well worn, and from the shoe shop Saxone. The tights the victim had worn were frayed and Emra pointed out the period stains on the crotch. The victim’s skirt was very short and made of PVC, and the sweater, which had once been white, was stained with sweat discolouration under the armpits.
‘Not a very hygienic young lady, but nevertheless a tragic one,’ Emra said. ‘To have been chained up and starved to death is horrific.’
Lastly, Jane looked at the jacket and the items that had been removed from the pockets: bus tickets, cinema tickets and some lip gloss. Emra then showed Jane a transparent plastic container full of bangles worn by the victim.
‘They’re actually rather good quality,’ Emra said. ‘One’s eighteen carat gold and three are solid silver. You can see inscribed on the gold bangle Happy 21st birthday. Daddy.’
Jane wrote this down in her notebook. ‘Thanks, Emra. I think we may have identified her, and if we’re right she was working as a prostitute and was possibly a heroin addict.’
‘Well, we will know if she was using drugs when they do the toxicology report on her hair,’ Emra said. ‘Anything on the baby?’ she added.
Jane raised an eyebrow. ‘If you ask me, I reckon DCI Carter wishes I’d never found it. I think he’ll try to do as little as possible with it.’
Emra gave Jane a half smile. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t let this get sidelined. Whoever hid that baby will be hiding a terrible secret.’
Simon Root appeared younger than Jane had expected from his mug shot, which had been taken five years ago. He was around five feet ten inches, with very dark, straight, collar-length hair and dark brown eyes, and was actually quite good-looking. Like most of the other prisoners, he was clutching a packet of cigarettes as he sat nervously in front of Jane.
‘Is this about my appeal?’ he asked.
‘No, I’m not here in relation to your appeal. I need to ask you some questions about your relationship with Samantha Forgham.’