‘I don’t know if you have any of her family details. It’s very sad as there is no one but Lorna now. She had a sister called Norma who was tiny and very different from her. Norma married a rather tedious young man. I think his surname was Raynor. They lived in Hove and had a gorgeous little girl called Sandra. She tragically died very young, poor little soul; had what they thought was a bad cold, but it was tuberculosis. Norma never recovered and had a nervous breakdown. I think she died about ten years ago, and her husband died shortly afterwards of bronchial pneumonia. There was a little album somewhere, unless Lorna took it. You can tell how long I’ve known the family though.’
She started hunting through all the drawers and Jack explained that he should really be going, thanking her for her time.
‘Well, perhaps Lorna took it. I’m sure it was here, so you may want to come back. I hope I haven’t put a green sticker on it!’
‘Thank you. I really appreciate your time, Mrs Foster, and you’ve been very helpful. If you could just give me the address in Pimlico, I can check if Lorna is there and get back to you.’
Mrs Foster jotted down the address in a notebook and tore the page out as the doorbell rang.
‘Oh, that’ll be the Red Cross people coming to collect everything.’
As Jack left, two young women entered the cottage, carrying boxes, bubble wrap and large bags for the Red Cross charity donations.
Jack almost ran to his car, adrenaline coursing through him. He made a quick stop at the pub to use the restroom and have half a pint of beer, then bought a takeaway ham sandwich which he ate on the drive back to London. He would just have enough time to stop at the Pimlico flat before going on duty.
Chapter Twenty-Two
As Jack was heading towards the A3 he received a call on his mobile from Laura, which he switched to speaker phone. She was talking very fast and was obviously excited.
‘I came in a bit earlier for my shift because so much has been happening. You were right about Joyce’s husband having supplied Rodney with a mobile. It was in Harold Miller’s name. He paid the bills, but it was only used by Rodney. We also have another phone, brought in by Nadine O’Reilly’s mother; you won’t believe it, but Amanda Dunn used Snapchat, so they knew each other from that. One other thing that just cropped up. Amanda is actually now eighteen years old! I have a feeling that DCI Clarke is going to put her into protection with 24/7 monitoring before he brings her in to interview her. It’s all happening, Jack. Maybe you should come in a bit earlier so that we can catch up. Anik is very much the DCI’s sidekick and loving it.’
Jack said he would be heading in from home straightaway and ended the call. He drove onto the A3 and put his foot down as he still wanted to visit the Pimlico flat before going to the station. He pulled over into the slow lane as a police patrol car with lights flashing passed him, but they signalled for him to pull over onto the hard shoulder. Two uniformed officers got out and signalled to Jack to get out of the car. Jack lowered his driving side window.
‘What is it?’
‘Do you know the speed limit, sir?’
‘Yes, I do, but I am...’
Before he could finish, the officer opened the driver’s door and told him to step out. Jack got out, then put his right hand into his jacket breast pocket to take out his ID.
‘Both hands on the bonnet please, sir.’
Jack could hardly believe it. ‘I’m a police officer. DS Jack Warr,’ he snapped as he complied with the instruction.
‘Is this your car?’
‘Yes, it is my car.’
One of the officers returned to the patrol car to run the number plate while Jack stood with his hands on the bonnet.
The second officer returned to say that the car was registered to a Doctor Janakan Narajan.
Jack sighed with impatience.
‘My wife, Doctor Margaret Warr, bought it from him. If you look in the glove compartment, you’ll find the insurance certificates. This is bloody ridiculous! I told you I’m a detective. . .’
‘He stinks of booze,’ one of the officers said.
It was a further ten minutes whilst the officers checked the insurance and ascertained that the car had been sold, but somewhere along the line the vehicle registration papers had not been filed. To Jack’s fury he was then asked to take a breathalyser test. He swore as he snatched it, but then he tried to slow things down. He had consumed two sherries and half a pint of beer and had only eaten one bite out of the sandwich.
‘You do know you were doing over seventy in a fifty-mile zone?’
Jack reached into his pocket for his ID.
‘I am a detective sergeant with the Metropolitan Police on an urgent call out to get to my station. DCI Clarke will verify this.’
One officer checked his ID while his partner gestured for Jack to breathe into the bag. He did as he was requested making sure he held his breath in his chest for a moment before blowing into the tube. He was just over the limit.
The two officers conferred, then one of them returned to the patrol car and called in. He spoke for a few moments before he returned to the now very irate Jack.
‘I’m going to let you go, sir, but take my advice and keep your speed down. And please stop at the next service station to get a black coffee. We’ll have to report this as it’s protocol.’
Jack had to take a few deep breaths when he got back into his car. He had now lost valuable time, and there was no way he could get to the Pimlico flat before going to the station. He knew the patrol car was following him so, as requested, he stopped at the next service station and bought a black coffee, then continued on to the A3.
Laura was at her desk checking through statements. They had brought in Mrs Delaney’s husband, and he had identified Jamail as the girl he had seen at the basement flat on a couple of occasions. He also confirmed that he helped Rodney carry the bins up the stairs. He described them as often being very heavy, so it required two of them to manoeuvre them up the steps. He said the bins were used by all the tenants so he never queried why they weighed so much, and as he had a bad back, he could not cope lifting them on his own anyway. He described Rodney as being very strong and always very helpful, but if he was not there then one of the other tenants would assist him. When he was asked if the bins were as heavy on the occasions when Rodney had not been available to help him, he said that as far as he could remember they were much lighter.
There were also statements from various hardware stores describing the purchase of bleach, sacking, bubble wrap and a large amount of sturdy black bin liners by Rodney Middleton, who paid in cash, and CCTV footage from the stores clearly showed that it was him. The rat poison had been acquired from a pest-control company. They described Rodney Middleton and were able to provide the number plate of his vehicle, which was registered to Harold Miller, who they now decided to bring in for questioning.
It was like an enormous jigsaw puzzle slowly being pieced together, but DCI Clarke knew it was getting close to the time they would have to bring Rodney in for interview. He was obsessive about every detail, compiling notes for himself and double-checking everything to build the strongest possible case before they questioned him. He knew the biggest outstanding problem was they had no bodies, only DNA matched to three victims. The forensic department were still working on separating other DNA blood samples and the consensus was that other victims had been killed in the coal hole. Clarke had therefore ordered that the families of the missing persons of a similar age and background to the confirmed victims, Jamail, Trudie and Nadine, should be tracked down and tested.