Jack leant forwards and Mal clicked ‘kitchen’. Instantly they could see the view from a high-vantage camera taking in the whole of the kitchen including, beyond the open door, the hallway and the bottom two stairs of the staircase...
Avril walked down the stairs and past the open kitchen door carrying two small white bin bags. She headed for the front door. After a pause of perhaps twenty seconds, Avril came into the kitchen, now empty-handed, and headed for the bin. As she struggled to pull the tight-fitting bin bag out of the slender pedal bin, three men, wearing full face masks and black leather gloves rushed in. They were all average in build, but clearly muscular beneath their black clothes. One of the men took the lead — he grabbed Avril around the waist, pinning her arms to her sides, and covered her mouth with his free hand. A second man put his arms behind her knees and swept her legs from the floor, into the crook of his elbow. Her frail body was then carried with ease from the kitchen, out into the hallway where they disappeared from sight. Once they’d gone, the third man calmly cleared the contents of the split binbag from the kitchen floor...
Mal stopped the video. ‘We don’t know where they went.’ Jack stared at the frozen image of the third man with the bin bag in his hand. He was so calm. So cold. ‘We named the guy who grabbed her Alpha. The man who picked up her legs Beta. And the guy with the bin bag Gamma. Ready?’ Jack nodded.
...for three minutes and twelve seconds, Gamma emptied the fridge of all ready-to-eat food, such as bread, butter, cold meats, cheese, cooked chicken legs and boiled potatoes. Whilst he made sandwiches and peeled ready-boiled eggs, the footage blanked out.
Mal paused the video again. ‘We took a long time finding the hidden cameras in every room, master bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, drawing room and dining room. Very professional set-up, hidden in bookshelves, light fixtures, ceiling lights — a number even looked like part of painting frames. Next, we have footage from the exterior of the house, again no timeframe, but judging by the light it looks like afternoon. So this could have been filmed before the footage you just watched in the kitchen.’ He started the video again.
‘OK, so this guy arrived in a Jag with blacked-out windows. We have this from the external camera footage covering the front of the property and hidden up near the arch of the entrance. Edgar’s working on it at the moment, so this is a copy.’
The footage showed the empty pathway leading to the house, and the gravel section beyond to the gates.
‘Here we go, and before you ask, the licence plate has been covered in mud. Edgar’s trying to clear it digitally, but as you can see it’s obliterated. But the Jag is this year’s four-door model, so that’s another lead we can check out.’
Jack leant forward to watch the Jag driving up from the gravel section to the paved drive that led to the garages. The Jaguar pulled up not far from the greenhouse, and the outbuildings. The driver’s door opened, and then the front and rear passenger doors.
Mal zoomed in on the sharp-suited man and froze the picture. ‘He’s wearing a black baseball cap pulled low over his face, and his collar’s turned up, hiding all distinguishable facial features. There’s nothing to run through facial recognition. We estimate his height to be over five eleven, he’s well-built and that suit is expensive, he’s also wearing black leather gloves.’
Jack stared intently as the three passengers got out of the Jaguar, sighing with frustration as all three pulled on balaclavas before slamming the doors shut.
‘We are certain these are the three men in the earlier footage from Mrs Jenkins’ kitchen, but again their faces are hidden and they’re gloved up.’
He pressed continue as the man in the baseball cap opened the boot and handed out packages to each of the men. With the boot open, the three men leaning in all had their backs to the camera.
‘We think these contained the paper suits. We are enlarging this section to make sure, and to see if there are any labels we can trace.’
The footage continued with the man wearing the baseball cap seemingly giving orders to the other three, he then got into the Jag slamming the door. He revved up the engine and did a fast U-turn before driving out of the grounds. The three men headed into the house... and the footage blanked out.
‘OK, Jack, the next section is presumed to be a continuation of the footage we have from the kitchen. As I said we have not as yet had time to piece what we have in running order. OK here we go again.’
...through the open door of the kitchen, Alpha and Beta carried a struggling, clearly terrified Avril out towards the stairs. Gamma continued with his picnic preparations by searching cupboards and finding plates and cutlery. Four minutes later, Alpha and Beta came back downstairs, joined Gamma in the kitchen and they all tucked in...
Mal stopped the kitchen video. ‘Again, we have no footage of where Alpha and Beta went. I’m sorry, Jack. I mean, I’m guessing they went to the master bedroom as that’s where she was found. But they were not missing for long enough to have committed the murder and sliced her up.’
Jack didn’t speak. There was nothing to say. ‘You want me to carry on?’ Again, Jack nodded and Mal fast forwarded. ‘They each come and go from the cellar several times, bringing out all of the equipment they need for a mammoth cooking session. OK, here’s where they have everything they need, and they are still wearing their balaclavas, possibly as protective masks over their mouths.’
...Alpha took a flick knife from his pocket and cut a small hole in one of several plastic bags on the kitchen island. He slid the tip of the blade into the hole and lifted out a small amount of white powder. By the time he’d done this, Beta had laid out a piece of greaseproof paper onto which the white powder was tipped. Alpha then filled a glass half full of water and folded the greaseproof paper into a funnel so the white powder could slide neatly into the glass. He then shook the glass, mixing the powder and water together. They all watched expectantly as the powder dispersed...
Mal commented on the action on screen: ‘If there’s any colouration, they know the MDMA’s not pure. What they do next is attach a specially made heavy iron press to the kitchen table and bang out a couple of thousand MDMA tablets. It compresses the powder into that.’ Mal handed Jack a small triangular tablet, with each side measuring 5mm in length. ‘We used the same machine to press that out of soft rubber, so we know exactly what we’re looking for. Watch these guys work, Jack. Alpha punches the tabs, Beta counts them into piles of ten and Gamma slides them into two-inch plastic zip-lock bags and boxes them up. It’s almost beautiful. For five hours, they do this. Then they break for more ham and cheese sandwiches.’
Jack watched the men lifting their balaclavas and masks just enough to take bites of food and sips of drink. Their chins were fleetingly visible each time, showing that all three men were white. This seemed clumsy and stupid, so perhaps they weren’t the smartest people in the world? Or perhaps they hadn’t been told about the cameras?
‘Mal, do you think the guy driving the Jag knew about the CCTV on the exterior of the house? I mean, he made sure his face was obscured, and so did the three passengers.’
‘Maybe, I dunno.’ Mal paused the video. ‘The next four hours are spent mixing cocaine with boric acid powder and splitting it into half-kilo bags. You wanna watch? I’m going to send this footage to you anyway.’
‘Hang on, is this it? I mean, you said there were cameras in almost every room in the house — the master bedroom, the bathroom where she was murdered... do you have any footage of that?’