Aisa nodded.
‘And you spoke with your mother?’ Again the young woman nodded. ‘Who never even asked you why you were in a different dress?’ Aisa made no reply, clenching her hands into fists, her body rigid as she stared at the floor. Plainly, any mention of her mother and the dress in the same sentence was having a nerve-racking effect on her. Anna knew she was lying and it could only be because the dress was bloodstained and Gloria saw it that night.
Anna caught a movement out of the corner of her eye by the bedroom door; she turned and saw Lady Lynne standing on the landing. She was completely still, her face ashen, but her blazing eyes and red-slashed lips made her appear like the wicked Queen from Snow White. Anna gave her a friendly smile. ‘Ah, Lady Lynne, I wonder if you could help me with a small dilemma? It’s about Aisa’s evening dress, the one she wore the night of the ball. It seems to have gone missing-’
Gloria interrupted, giving Anna a long icy stare: ‘Listen to me, Detective Travis, I am under no obligation to answer any of your questions and neither is my daughter. Do you understand, Aisa? You do not say a word until you have legal advice and representation from Ian Holme.’
‘Sorry, I just thought it was a simple question that would have a simple explanation,’ Anna said, keeping her smile in place.
Gloria made a dismissive gesture with her hand. ‘You may continue the search of these premises without me. If you take anything, please give Katrina a full list. Aisa, do you understand, darling? Ian Holme told me to advise you to say nothing. I’m going to see him now and he will visit you at the station later.’
Aisa nodded like a naughty child, her fists still clenched, her arms stiff at her sides. Gloria walked out, and they could hear her aloof sarcastic tone as she addressed someone on the stairs. ‘Please walk back down. It is very unlucky to cross someone on the stairs. Thank you.’
Anna watched from the window as Gloria stormed out of the house, got into her Bentley and sped off down the driveway, churning up the gravel as she accelerated away.
‘Not very caring about you, is she? Your mother seems to be more concerned about how all this affects her rather than you,’ Anna said, wanting Aisa to turn against her mother and tell the truth.
Aisa’s bottom lip trembled and her fear was obvious. Gloria’s total lack of any genuine signs of attachment or care for her daughter was chilling. As if in confirmation of what Anna was thinking, Aisa gave her a strange glance, hands uncurling from the tight fists, and then she smiled, showing her neat even white teeth.
‘I’ve remembered it was a Stella McCartney evening dress. I like her designs but it was nothing special.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
It was after three p.m. by the time Anna and Barolli arrived at the Belgravia station with Aisa. Dewar had also accompanied them, having complained that she felt frustrated at having nothing worthwhile to do at Lynne House. Anna had left Barbara in charge of the remainder of the search of Gloria’s property but had never really expected to find anything of evidential value. She suspected that Gloria would never be so naïve as to keep anything that would incriminate her, and even if she did, it would be very well hidden and could take an eternity to find on such vast premises.
Barolli, assisted by Dewar, booked Aisa in at the custody desk then took a saliva sample from her for DNA and a set of fingerprints on the live scan machine. Anna told the custody officer that other than a phone conversation with Mr Holme, Aisa was not to be allowed to talk to anyone else. She then asked Barolli and Dewar to take the set of keys that were recovered from Samuel Peters’ property at the mortuary and see if they fitted Josh’s old Bayswater flat and the locks taken from Esme’s flat.
Anna went upstairs and handed Joan Aisa’s mobile phone.
‘It’s nice to see you again so quickly, ma’am, but such a shame that you’ve had to miss out on the FBI course, or are you just back with us for a few days…?’
‘It’s nice to see you too, Joan, but I haven’t got time to discuss the FBI course right now.’
Joan looked flustered. ‘Oh, right, sorry. What can I do for you?’
‘I need you to get someone from Tech Support to look at Aisa’s mobile for an application called Cate and also to do the same on the copy they kept of Josh Reynolds’ SIM and micro-card.’
‘Who’s Cate?
‘Not a she, it’s a phone application. Acronym for Call and Text Eraser and commonly used by unfaithful partners,’ Anna explained.
‘Whatever will they think of next?’ Joan remarked, shaking her head, as her desk phone rang. It was Pete Jenkins wanting to speak to Anna.
‘Hi, Pete. I arrested Aisa Lynne and her prints are now on the database and her DNA is on its way to you.’
‘Do you ever stop for breath?’ he asked. ‘Okay, I’m bringing up Aisa’s prints on the computer right now.’
‘Only to speak with you, Pete. Any more good news for me?’
‘Yeah, we still had a blood sample in the lab for Samuel Peters from when he was an unidentified body. I’ve run an initial test and there’s a trace of atropine, but I’ve more tests to do yet.’
Anna was pleased that it was more evidence in support of her theory that Gloria Lynne had more than likely extracted poison from her own plants to poison Reynolds and Samuel.
‘What sort of dosages of atropine are we looking at?’ she asked.
‘It’s impossible to determine accurately. Josh Reynolds, being much younger and fitter, would react more slowly, but the initial symptoms would be the same as Barolli and Marisha suffered. A sudden lethal dose is not the best way to poison someone as people ask questions if you sip a drink and keel over instantly. It’s better to go slowly but surely, leading to a heart attack and no questions asked.’
‘So Gloria knew exactly what she was doing,’ Anna remarked.
‘Looks that way.’
‘Thanks, Pete, and keep me updated.’
‘If you want to hang on a minute or two I’m checking Aisa’s prints against unidentified marks as we speak.’
‘Yeah, sure.’
There was a short pause before Pete continued, ‘Right, here we go. Majority of the fingerprints on the Ferrari match Aisa and Josh Reynolds and none for Donna.’
‘And the money recovered from Esme’s?’ Anna asked.
‘Sorry but no. I’m still working on the certificates recovered from Samuel Peters’ jacket, and so far I’ve only found Josh Reynolds’ and Samuel Peters’ fingerprints. However, the other good news is that the blood spatter on the certificates did fit with them being on the sofa at the time the bullet exited Josh Reynolds’ left temple.’
Anna hung up, slightly disappointed that Aisa’s fingerprints hadn’t been found on the certificates, particularly the one referring to her as Aisa Alleyne. This would have meant that she had physically held and most probably looked at it, and to then deny any knowledge of the document would be a blatant lie. It puzzled Anna why Aisa claimed she was adopted when the certificate made it clear she was Gloria’s natural daughter; it was something she would need to raise at the interview in the morning.
Heading into her office, Anna got out the folder that Jane, the secretary at the Lynne Foundation, had given her containing the records of Aisa’s mobile phone. She immediately noticed that there were a number of calls to Josh Reynolds’ mobile, which started at the end of August and increased in intensity until his death. Anna suspected these calls added up to a secret affair and was not surprised to see there were a number of calls from Aisa to Josh on the fifth of November.
Aisa had called him for two minutes just before the Charity Ball started and then again at 9 p.m. and 10.15 p.m., which was just after she must have left the Savoy Hotel in Donna’s Mini. From that time on she never phoned Josh’s mobile again and, for Anna, there could be only one explanation. Aisa knew Josh was dead and might even have been present when he died.