‘Yes, DCS Langton mentioned she has friends in high places and that’s the main reason I want this reinvestigation to be watertight.’
‘Joan has been doing some background work on Lady Lynne and her daughters for me, which I’m sure will be of interest to us all,’ Anna chimed in, and Mike asked Joan to tell everyone what she had discovered so far.
Joan, always nervous when the ‘spotlight’ was turned on her, flushed and clasped her notebook as she said that there was very little about Lady Lynne’s personal life on the Internet and even less concerning her daughters Donna and Aisa. She added that it would seem Lady Lynne did not talk about her daughters in public, other than to say that they helped her in the running of the Lynne Foundation. Anna added that Gloria was clearly protective of her daughters and kept them out of the public eye due to her vast wealth and fear for their safety.
Joan nodded her head in agreement and continued that she had found an old Country Life magazine in which Gloria had been interviewed, five years ago, after winning a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show for her Caribbean tropical garden. The article, Joan explained, gave an insight into Gloria’s background and her love of horticulture, her main interest being cultivating and improving the quality of her plants, along with their resistance to insects and diseases. Barbara, impatient as ever, whispered to Joan to get to the nitty-gritty. Joan paused, causing Anna to give Barbara a disapproving frown.
‘The article said Gloria’s father David Rediker was a Cambridge graduate in Botany, who in 1975 with his wife Mavis and ten-year-old daughter Gloria, went to work for the Jamaican Natural History Museum in Kingston. Both Gloria’s parents died of cancer before she was twenty and she then married Xavier Alleyne, a banana-plantation owner. Hurricane Gilbert destroyed the plantation in 1988, and Xavier died of a heart attack brought on by the collapse of his business. They had two children, Donna and Aisa. In 1992, Gloria returned to the UK with her daughters and, in her own words, faced adversity head-on and forged a life for herself and her daughters, by setting up a florist shop in Weybridge. In 1997, she met Lord Henry Lynne when he went to her shop to buy flowers and a year later they were married. Together they set up the Lynne Foundation, a charitable organization that is one of the biggest in the country with a total financial endowment in excess of a billion pounds. Lord Lynne, who was suffering from bowel cancer, died aged eighty-six while on holiday in Egypt with Lady Lynne.’
‘When was that, Joan?’ Anna asked.
‘2006.’
‘So Gloria must have been about thirty-three and Henry seventy-eight when they married,’ Anna remarked.
‘How gross,’ Barbara commented.
‘Each to their own, Barbara, we’re both getting on in life and still single,’ Joan replied.
‘Yes, but not everyone who gets close to me pops their clogs, do they!’
Mike gave Barbara a cold look to shut her up. ‘There’s not much you can do once cancer has a strong hold. My wife and I were blessed that her chemotherapy treatment worked,’ he said, bringing to an end any further remarks about Gloria or Henry Lynne’s age. ‘Anything more you can tell us about Donna?’
Joan shook her head and Mike asked Anna to go over the scene reconstruction and forensics.
Anna took them through Dewar’s observations about the scene, then added that Pete Jenkins was working on the blood distribution and that the Enfield revolver might be a family heirloom. Mike pointed out that this was another reason to try to trace other remaining members of Josh’s family and that Marcus Williams should be asked about the gun.
There was another pause, before Mike decided that he wanted Barolli and Agent Dewar to do the house-to-house in the morning and Anna to re-interview Williams at the Trojan and put some pressure on him. Joan looked dejected at this, and Barbara spoke up to say that DCI Travis had asked her and Joan to do the house-to-house. Mike was quick to point out that their overall knowledge of the case, from uploading the computer with everyone’s notes and information and the timelines, was very important and he needed her and Joan in the office. He then asked DCS Langton if there was anything he’d like to add.
Langton pulled at his loose tie knot, then straightened and tightened it before standing up to address the team.
‘If Josh Reynolds was murdered, then the Met as a whole has failed him and his family and serious questions will rightly be asked by the press and public. The top brass will be looking for scapegoats. Mistakes may have been made, however your job is not to cover up but to rectify any mistakes through a competent investigation, compiling the evidence and presenting it to the Crown Prosecution Service.’
Langton then said that on that note he wished them all the best but now had to return to Scotland Yard for an urgent meeting on other matters. Anna could not rid herself of a growing suspicion that he was hiding something, and wondered if there was more behind his trip to the States than working at Quantico.
An hour later, Mike Lewis, Barolli, Jessie and Anna gathered in Anna’s office. Mike told them that although it was clear Donna Reynolds had to be re-interviewed, they would have to choose the time and the place wisely.
‘Inviting Donna to attend the station to make a further statement would be the most formal route,’ Anna suggested.
‘Why not just arrest Donna on her way to work or at the Lynne Foundation office?’ Dewar asked.
‘Lady Lynne would arrange a top-notch solicitor who would request disclosure of the evidence against Donna. On what we have so far, he would probably laugh and advise Donna that she’s not obliged to make a further statement or answer any questions,’ Mike pointed out.
‘At the moment, Pete Jenkins’ results on the blood distribution are crucial to the investigation. If he concurs with Dewar that the scene was staged to look like suicide then we have evidence that Josh Reynolds was murdered,’ Anna said.
‘And Donna is the prime suspect,’ Dewar added.
‘That may be so,’ Mike said, ‘but the case against her is still weak. Clearly, her being at the Savoy all night means that if she was involved, she either hired or colluded with someone to kill Josh.’
‘Sounds like we need to find some hard evidence against Donna then,’ Barolli said.
‘Press on with the house-to-house and other enquiries I raised at the meeting. Also, go through every piece of evidence again, look for anything that suggests she is lying and build up a case against her.’
‘Then we can arrest Donna and confront her in a formal interview?’ Dewar asked, chomping at the bit.
‘Yes,’ Mike said.
Dewar rubbed her hands together in anticipation. ‘What about Donna’s sister Aisa.’
‘You want to arrest her as well?’ Anna asked, baffled.
Dewar laughed. ‘No, Anna. I mean what about speaking with her now, as there was no statement taken from her in the original inquiry.’
‘We don’t know how close the two sisters are and it could cause more problems where Lady Lynne is concerned; however, DCI Travis will decide if and when she feels it is necessary and appropriate to speak with Aisa,’ Mike replied, and Dewar agreed. ‘Right, let’s get to it, write up your reports and review all the evidence so far, so you’re well prepared for tomorrow.’
‘Would you like to help me draw up a questionnaire for the house-to-house tomorrow, Special Agent Dewar?’ Barolli asked in a deliberately overpolite manner.
‘That would be spiffing, thank you, Detective Barolli,’ Dewar said, and everyone laughed as Dewar and Barolli left the room.
Mike opened his briefcase and took out a blue A4 folder that was filled with papers.
‘I forgot to give you this earlier,’ he said to Anna. ‘It’s the syllabus and pre-read papers for the FBI course.’