Then he pulled it all the way down to reveal her naked, now wax-like body. He looked carefully at it and saw further bruising on her arms. It could have happened during the fall down the steps — the post mortem should be able to establish that — but Henry wasn’t happy.
He covered her up.
He gazed into space and pursed his lips. ‘Did you get Scenes of Crime to photograph the body at the scene?’
‘ Yep.’
‘ Right, when that officer in there has finished videoing the PM, get him to take some shots of her, will you? Point out those bruises on her neck and arms.’ The PC nodded. ‘Did you search her flat?’
The PC shrugged. ‘Not really. Had a glance round, nothing more.’
‘ Is it locked?’
‘ No, couldn’t find a key.’
‘ Henry, what’s going on?’ Karen interrupted.
‘ This gives me the willies,’ he said. ‘I actually saw this woman last night and gave her a lift as far as my place. She walked to her own from there.’
‘ Henry!’ Karen said, shocked.
‘ No, I didn’t, I’m not that desperate… it’s just that when I last saw her, she wasn’t all that drunk. She’d actually just been kicked out of the cells at Central… Look, something’s not quite right here. She told me some half-baked story about ripping off a Yank who’d beaten her up.’ He spread his hands. ‘Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree, but Hinksman likes beating up and killing prostitutes. And if my memory serves me right, he specialises in breaking their necks. Probably practising a technique learned from his Delta Force days. Perhaps here,’ he pointed at the covered body, ‘he’s finishing off something he started a few months ago. I hope I’m wrong, because if I’m not, he’s committed two murders since escaping.’ He raised his eyebrows at Karen. ‘Fancy a drive round to her flat? Might answer one or two questions.’
‘ Sure, why not? They’ll be hours in there.’
The aroma of bedsits hit them as soon as they entered the ground-floor hallway through the open front door. It was a mixture of cigarette smoke, sweaty socks and underwear, and the unmistakable smell of lubricant used on male contraceptives intermingled with cannabis smoke. Here, in addition, was the musty tang of dampness.
They turned into the narrow staircase and began the ascent. It was almost 9.30 p.m. and it was getting dark. The stairs were lit by low wattage bulbs operated by switches that sprang off after about twenty seconds in order to save electricity. They trod carefully, as some of the treads were carpeted; some not.
On the last flight up to Jane’s flat Henry inspected each step carefully. This was actually the only part of the staircase on which the carpet was well-laid and fitted. There was nothing on which a person could have tripped. Even so, the stairs were still steep and narrow, and possibly treacherous to someone who’d had a drink.
As expected, the door to Jane’s flat was unlocked. They went in.
‘ Very salubrious,’ remarked Karen.
Henry stood still and allowed himself to look the room over, his eyes taking in everything: the mattress, the bottles of booze, the sink, the settee, cooker and cupboards. Eventually his attention returned to the bottles which stood side by side on the draining board. He stepped over to them, and picked one up carefully by inserting his forefinger into the neck. He held it up to the light and rotated it carefully, inspecting it at different angles. He did the same with each bottle.
Karen was standing behind him. ‘Got something?’ she asked.
‘ Well… if she was drunk when she fell down the steps, it’s safe to assume she’d been drinking after she left me — presumably from these bottles. I don’t see any glasses about, so she must have swigged straight from the bottles… ‘
He moved aside for Karen, who bent down and looked at the bottles in situ.
‘ They’ve been wiped,’ she stated, puzzled.
‘ Exactly. Even if she didn’t take a drink from these last night, there would have been some marks on the bottles.’
Henry surveyed the room again. Years before he’d searched it for drugs and found some, but he couldn’t quite remember where the stash had been. His eyes lit on a ventilation cover on the wall above the cooker. He smiled. Now he remembered.
The cover was metal with a sliding opener. He looked at it carefully and saw that there were recent marks in the screws which held it to the wall.
‘ Don’t suppose you’ve got a screwdriver?’
Her reply was a wilting look.
Tut-tutting, he opened the kitchen drawer and rummaged through the meagre collection of utensils for something suitable to remove screws. All he could find was a flimsy table knife which twisted and buckled when he put it to use.
After much patience he managed to remove three screws from the ventilation cover, which then swung free on the remaining screw, revealing a square hole in the wall about eight by six inches.
Karen dragged a wooden kitchen stool across for him. He stood precariously on it and put his arm all the way into the ventilation cavity. He immediately found something. He gave a cry of victory and carefully, so that he would not drop it, extracted what he’d found.
‘ How did you know where to look?’ asked Karen, impressed.
‘ Cheated,’ he confessed. ‘Did the place a few years ago for dope and found this hidey-hole then. There’s a sort of lip a couple of feet down where she stored her stuff. Very tricky and pretty secure. I couldn’t quite remember how far down the lip was.’
What he’d pulled out was a brown A4-sized envelope. He opened it and shook out the contents on the cupboard top.
‘ Jane’s nest-egg,’ he said sadly. ‘Her passport to the better life.’
There were three bundles of Bank of England notes totalling about?2,000. What was more interesting was the wad of dollar traveller’s cheques, a driving licence and six credit cards.
Henry handled them carefully. ‘Voila,’ he said. ‘Recognise the name on the driving licence?’
‘ Yeah,’ said Karen sheepishly. ‘It’s that poor guy I locked up after raiding his house with the support unit.’
‘ The innocent man, you mean?’ said Henry wickedly.
‘ Don’t rub it in. It’s the driving licence Hinksman used to hire cars with. Don’t recognise the names on the credit cards.’
‘ No, I don’t either. Hinksman probably has plenty of identities, but he’s used his own name on the traveller’s cheques.’
‘ So she stole all this from Hinksman?’
Henry nodded and sat down on the settee. ‘What we’ve got here is this: a dangerous man on the loose who will not tolerate anyone getting the better of him. Jane got the better of him by stealing from him — so he murdered her; I got the better of him by arresting him, and shooting him, and he’s tried to murder me. The question I ask is this: has he finished yet? Has he made his point?’
Karen slumped down heavily next to him. ‘I’d like to say yes.’
‘ But we know what the real answer is, don’t we?’ Henry said grimly. The terror was creeping up on him again.
‘ I’ll say this for you, Joe, you’re one hell of a cool son of a bitch.’
It was Ritter talking. He was sat next to Kovaks in the back seat of the Bucar. Ram Chander was in the front passenger seat; one of Corelli’s men was driving. Behind them was another car in which Damian was being transported. They were heading south towards Miami.
‘ This must be a pretty big shock for you, after all.’
Kovaks gave Ritter a contemptuous sidelong glance, then gazed back out of the window. He’d decided that to lose his temper would lose his life. Inside though, he seethed with anger and sadness. After a pause he said, ‘How long you been working for him?’
