Carter put on his protective suit and walked in past the drying cabinet and saw the seat covers hanging inside.
‘Was there much on those?’ he asked, stopping in front of the glass.
Sandford answered from inside the car; he talked through the gap where the windscreen had been.
‘There was. But most of it isn’t any good. Matching to the samples taken from her flat – there were at least two other people in this car after Olivia got out. Their prints are over hers. But they wore gloves. Of course there was a dog in there as well. Its paw-prints were pretty distinct.’
Sandford carried on working on the inside of the car. He was looking slightly irritated at Carter’s presence.
Carter knew it and it didn’t bother him. ‘Care to elaborate?’ The sooner Sandford stopped resisting, the sooner it would be over.
Sandford stood, and bent backwards to ease his aching back. He was a tall man to fit into a small car.
‘The dog had blood on its paws when it made contact with several sites on the upholstery and the door frames,’ he said as he pulled off his gloves and put them into a waste bin. He motioned to Carter to follow him as he walked across to his desk and the PC. He brought up the images of the car examination.
‘There are traces of it on the driver’s door.’ He showed Carter a diagram of the evidence recovered and where it was in and on the car. The 3D image rotated as Sandford tapped the keyboard.
‘There were things taken from the car – the first-aid kit was ripped open. The spare-wheel kit is also missing. Not that you get much in these new cars – a spare tyre and a few tools. But they’re gone. I’ve asked for a full list of what the car should have had in it, from Fiat. Here, highlighted, you have all the sites in the car that I’ve matched to the two different glove-prints and the dog’s paws.’
Carter sat down to study the screen better. He counted the sites.
‘I count twelve places. They got around in that car. Can you get a print from the glove?’
‘I’m working on it. I also found traces of blue cashmere. It’s got to be hers.’
‘The blue coat the caretaker said she was wearing.’
‘Were there any fibres that match that at the crime scene?’
‘Not so far. Round up some suspects and I’ll match them to the traces left in this car. Have you done that yet?’
Carter let the question pass him by.
‘Have you had a look at Toffee’s clothes?’ he asked. ‘We got them back from the hospital.’
‘Yes, I did. There are traces of Olivia’s blood on them. Were there any swabs taken from his genitalia?’ asked Sandford.
‘No. He’d been washed by the time we got to him. He went straight down for an operation before we could take any samples.’
‘Shame.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You still might get something.’
‘No. We tried, believe me, but we have bite marks on Olivia Grantham’s body; it’s a dog – but you never know, we might be able to tie in all this information and get the owner, especially with what you’ve found. We also have skin particles beneath her fingernails. There are several sites of bruising on her body – we might be able to pull off a fingerprint or two.’
‘Do we know why she went in there?’ asked Sandford.
‘She was on sex sites. She went in there to have sex. Toffee says something went wrong – something he was involved in. But he also said he tried to save her. He is guilty of something and he is our key witness to what happened to her. He had several small cuts and bruises on his face. It could have been from the train but it looked like someone had punched him in the face a few times.’
‘Can we get a knuckle imprint from the bruises on his face?’
‘Listen, to be honest, if he was dead we could get anything we wanted, but right now the hospital aren’t too keen on us taking samples from him. I’ll get what else I can.’
‘Are you facing an enquiry?’
‘For what?’
‘For his injuries?’
‘No, I hope not. Willis was there. There are witnesses.’
‘Good luck.’
Chapter 18
Ellerman awoke not knowing where he was for a few seconds. He was in no-man’s land between wake and sleep, where his eyes had opened but his dreams continued and the room was dark. The curtains had folds that seemed to him like a tidal wave of water in front of him. It was so near he raised his hand in the air to see if he could touch it. His hand passed through the ghost of the wave.
He closed his eyes and slept again.
When he awoke next time, morning had come to bang on his head like rapping knuckles. He reached for his phone and saw it was nearly nine o’clock. His own bed was the only place he ever slept so late. He would have been up and gone at anyone else’s house.
He turned to look at the empty space next to him. The pillow smelt of his wife. He listened hard and heard the sound of movement downstairs. He heard the scrape of the chair on the kitchen floor as she stood and he heard the click of a switch, the kettle boiling. He lay there thinking, his hands spread out along the sheets, and he ran through the events of the last few days. He thought of Megan again and he smiled to himself. She excited him. Maybe she was the one to change his life, to turn it round and give him back some luck. She had money. She wanted him. He could tap into that. Would it be enough for him to leave Dee? How many times had he thought that before, with every new woman? He didn’t like to consider it. He looked at his phone again and at his text messages. He had four already this morning. The women had all missed their morning text from him because he had overslept; he normally sent a round of texts as he left in the morning – always by eight anyway. He’d have to answer them soon, before they started calling him. He’d send one text to them all now to keep them happy. He sent a text to Paula in Reading and one to Lisa in Brighton, Emily in Taunton and finally to Megan on Dartmoor.
Morning, my beautiful wild woman – miss you. xx
He showered and went downstairs. Dee looked up at him and smiled mechanically. There was no happiness in her eyes. Her smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
Nothing has changed, thought Ellerman. She is the same. He could almost feel her flinch as he passed. He strode across to the kettle and made as much noise as he could. He stood with his back to her as he waited for the kettle to boil. He looked out at the garden.
‘The bank keep ringing,’ she said, in her quiet voice; it had an apologetic but at the same time accusing tone.
‘Yes, I know. I’m dealing with it.’ He could sense that she would love to say more, that if he turned round now and asked her what she really felt, she would open her mouth and the truth would explode in an eruption of volcanic hate that nothing would stem. She blamed him for everything.
‘Why did you come back early this week?’ she asked.
‘I’m not staying. I just came to pick up some papers I left behind. I’ll be off again this morning, just as soon as I’m packed. I’ll see you Friday as usual.’
‘Would you like lunch before you go?’
‘No, sorry – can’t hang about – people to see, money to make. Someone’s got to dig us out of this hole, after all.’ Ellerman made himself coffee then took it into his office and closed the door. He sat at his desk and rested his head in his hands, closed his eyes as he thought things through. A text came from the bank – he needed to put some money in by the end of the day. He scrolled through his emails for any sign of good news. He found none. Christ’s sake – could something go right for him for once!
He looked around at the office and the photos on the wall. They were from holidays. There was a photo of him and Craig fishing in Florida. There was one of the three of them in Disneyland, when Craig was eight. There was Ellerman’s favourite photo of his wife. Dee was standing looking happy – her face flushed with the sun. She was laughing at him. He remembered taking the photo. That was just before they bought this house. It was after they’d secured their first big sale. It was before it all went wrong.