Chameleon's Shadow

‘Does she know when he left again?’

Khan gave another nod. ‘She watched him get into a cab at three-thirty. He put his kitbag in first, then she said he gave her two fingers behind his back before climbing in after it. She knows it was three-thirty because the Ricki Lake Show was just starting on ITV2.’

‘Could he have gone out between either of those times without her seeing him?’

Khan looked amused. ‘I doubt it. I had chapter and verse of everything he’s done in the last month. This is one very bored woman, sir. She seems to keep one eye on Acland and the other on her television set.’

‘Does she fancy him?’

‘Not any more. She said he was rude to her when she tried to be neighbourly, but she’s carrying one heck of a grudge over it. I suspect she made a pass at him and was comprehensively rejected. She referred to him several times as a closet gay.’ He paused. ‘I’m not sure we should place too much reliance on this, but she also told me she thought he was the gay killer. She said he’s a complete weirdo. He goes running most days and shouts in his sleep at night.’

Jones glanced at the monitor, which showed Acland back in his chair and staring fixedly at the wall in front of him. ‘Perhaps we’re barking up the wrong tree,’ he said slowly. ‘Perhaps the attack on Walter isn’t part of the series.’

Eleven

DESPITE KITTEN’S BAD-TEMPERED support for his story, the police were in no hurry to release Acland. It would be several more hours before his clothes, boots and kitbag were returned to him. During that time, most of which he spent in silent contemplation of his hands, he gave minimal details of his army service, refused the offer of a solicitor and granted permission for a search of his property.

His clothes were meticulously examined for bloodstains, his flat was turned upside down, and the bonfire ashes retrieved from the garden to sift for anything other than paper and cardboard. Sharon ‘Kitten’ Carter was reinterviewed in person and repeated her vitriol about Acland’s ‘weirdness’, while the elderly next-door neighbour corroborated her timings before offering some vitriol of his own against her.

There was a brief flurry of excitement when a call came through from the Forensic Science Service to report that washed-out blood splatters had been detected on the right sleeve of Acland’s jacket, the right cuff of his shirt and the knee areas of his trousers, but it was quickly dashed by Nick Beale, who’d had a five-minute interview with Jackson.

He placed a rough sketch of a man on the table, with written descriptions of his clothes – brown leather jacket, grey cotton trousers, white cotton shirt, Caterpillar bruiser roll boots – and arrows pointing to the jacket sleeve, the shirt cuff and the trouser knees with Rashid Mansoor’s blood beside them.

‘The descriptions match what the lieutenant was wearing when we brought him in,’ Beale told Jones, ‘and Dr Jackson advised us not to waste time on the marked areas. She said both she and Acland were splashed during the fight in the pub because this Mansoor had a nosebleed. She washed the lieutenant’s shirt and trousers, and sponged down the jacket, but these are the places where the stains were visible.’

‘Damn!’

‘Do you want FSS to run a DNA match with Tutting?’

‘There’s no point if it isn’t his blood,’ said the superintendent morosely. ‘This inquiry’s already cost a fortune. I’d be hard pressed to justify an expensive DNA procedure for no good reason, particularly if we have to trawl around looking for this Rashid Mansoor character in order to eliminate him.’

‘Except, if Acland did strike Walter, it’s possible the blood splatters might have replicated the fight last night.’

‘And pigs might fly, Nick,’ said Jones with sudden weariness. ‘FSS describe the stains as “washed-out”, but there’s no washing machine or dryer in Acland’s flat and he wouldn’t have had time to do them by hand. The place is as basic as they come.’ He blew a despairing whoosh of air from his mouth. ‘The guy’s a monk. He seems to live a completely spartan existence.’

‘So why are we hanging on to him?’

‘He fits the profile . . . and if Tutting isn’t part of the series, Acland might still have been responsible for the first three.’

Beale shook his head. ‘The timeline doesn’t work. According to Dr Campbell, he’s been out of circulation for months. First in Iraq . . . then in a hospital in Birmingham.’

Jones shook his head. ‘I had another word with her. She said he had a fiance?e who lived somewhere in this area and he used to visit her regularly . . . possibly around the time Peel and Britton were killed. Dr Campbell also said Acland was staying with her at the time Kevin Atkins was found. She remembers discussing the murders with him.’

*

In a parallel operation, Walter Tutting’s small terraced house had become a major crime scene. Unlike the previous murders, the attack had taken place in the hallway. On a first reading of the evidence, a scenes of crime officer phoned to advise Detective Superintendent Jones that it looked as if Walter had put up a fight as soon as the assailant entered.

‘I know it’s early days, Brian, but there’s nothing to suggest this bastard got much beyond the front door. Something must have spooked Walter because we think he took a walking stick from a stand in the hall and tried to defend himself. We found one lying on the carpet near a pool of blood.’

‘Walter’s blood?’

‘Yes . . . probably from a cut on his head.’