had all been taken away by Social Services.
‘Kathleen was a terrible woman; sold her own kids to sickos. You know, for the paedophiles. I think she even messed around with Anthony.’
‘What was that?’ Langton leaned closer.
‘I heard she had used him, too, when he was a little kid. He was a very pretty little boy. Keegan would have used her own grandmother for money.’
When the picture of Mary Murphy was presented, McDowell easily identified her. He told them she had stayed at Shallcotte Street until it was demolished and then moved on. But when Langton showed him the photograph of Beryl Villiers there was a different reaction. He started to sob uncontrollably. He fell to a sitting position on the floor, his hands covering his head, moaning that Beryl was his little girl; the only one he had ever loved. Lewis and Langton had found another piece of the jigsaw. McDowell had been the man Beryl had run away from Leicester to be with. He had met her at the health spa where he had been the manager.
Although they tried to proceed with the questioning, McDowell lost control. Not only was he sobbing and shaking, but as he cried, spittle formed in globules at the sides of his mouth. A doctor was called in, who said he was going through the DTs and would be unable to talk coherently for some time. Now the duty sergeant brought up the fact that McDowell was due to be released. It was doubtful they would get an extension to hold him for any longer. If they took him before the magistrate court first thing in the morning asking to remand him in custody, the most they would get would be three days.
‘But he had a bag of tabs on him as well,’ Langton snapped.
‘Which is why we reckon the magistrates won’t grant him bail.’
‘Do what you can. We’ll be back in the morning to requestion him.’
By the time they left the station, exhausted, it was already half past seven in the evening. They still did not know if McDowell had been in London or travelled to the United States. They doubted it, but he was nevertheless in the frame and they had a search warrant for McDowell’s basement and a warrant for his Mercedes to be towed from the pound and examined for evidence.
Two uniformed officers from the Greater Manchester Police accompanied them to search McDowell’s flat. The steps leading down to it were littered with used food cartons, syringes and beer cans. The stink of urine was overpowering. They used wire clippers to open up the padlocks and gain entry to the dark, squalid flat. The carpet was wet under the feet, as a toilet was overflowing.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Lewis murmured. The old electricity box had been rewired, illegally; it was connected to the street-lights. The kitchen was full of empty vodka bottles. There was a loaf of stale bread on the counter and mice droppings everywhere.
Off the damp corridor, one room was empty, another boarded up. The last room was McDowell’s bedroom. They prised the padlocks away from the door. Inside, the room seemed more habitable than the rest of the flat. There was a TV set, a coffee maker and a wardrobe. One wall was lined with black and white curling photographs, mostly of women draped over those familiar sloping shoulders and minor celebrities at his nightclub. The younger McDowell had been quite a handsome ladies’ man. There were a few colour snapshots of him in a T-shirt, showing off his muscles. In a corner was a set of weights and barbells.
‘How the mighty have fallen,’ Langton murmured, softly.
They found more empty vodka bottles stashed in drawers and under the bed, as well as some full ones in the wardrobe. Their methodical search yielded old newspaper cuttings, books, a stack of pornographic videos and magazines, knuckledusters, a cosh, two flick knives and a pillowslip containing some women’s dirty underwear.
Langton lifted up the old frayed carpets, which revealed a hoard of cocaine, Ecstasy tabs and a bag of marijuana.
‘We can keep him for as long as we like,’ he said, feeling drained.
Lewis showed him a handful of US travel brochures.
‘You found a passport anywhere?’
Lewis and the two uniformed officers shook their heads. As the two uniforms moved out into the hall, Lewis asked his gov quietly, ‘What do you think? Is it him?’
‘Could be,’ Langton said uncertainly.
One of the officers appeared at the door. ‘Sir, you want to come and look at this.’
Near the front door beside the electricity meter was a cupboard which they had forced open. Hidden beneath a torn blanket were several women’s handbags, covered in what looked like brick dust.
Langton kneeled down. He looped his pen underneath a strap and drew it towards him. With a handkerchief in his hand, he opened the bag. Inside were a wallet, cheap perfume, a powder compact and a packet of condoms. He eased out the wallet and examined it.
‘Jesus.’ He turned to Lewis. ‘This belonged to Kathleen Keegan.’
Langton told the officers they had better not touch anything else. It was time to call in a forensic team.
By ten o’clock they were back at the police station. McDowell was shouting in the cells below that the walls were full of cockroaches. Though a doctor had administered a sedative, it had yet to kick in. They waited in the room allocated, as the evidence was brought in plastic zipped-up containers: three women’s handbags, contents listed and bagged. One they already knew belonged to Kathleen Keegan; the others were identified as those of Barbara Whittle and Sandra Donaldson.
In the station car park, arc lamps had been set up and the forensic team was making an inch-by-inch search of McDowell’s Mercedes. So far, all they had discovered were half bottles of vodka beneath the seats and two rocks of cocaine and a crack-pipe in the glove compartment.
Langton and Lewis adjourned to a nearby pub, where they nursed a double Scotch and a gin and tonic respectively. They touched glasses.
‘A good day’s work,’ Langton commented.
‘Does this mean Alan Daniels is off the hook?’ asked Lewis.
Langton stared into his Scotch for a moment, then drained it. ‘So it would seem, Mike. So it would seem.’
Chapter Seventeen
Anna stood by the corrugated-iron gates that led into Wreckers Limited just outside Watford. She was waiting for PC Gordon White.
The yard was at the end of a small, terraced row of houses. The wall was over eight feet high and big hoops of barbed wire were nailed to the top. She could peer into the breakers’ yard through a crack.
She spun around when she heard the car, a Corvette. White got out, nodding at it proudly. ‘A heap of rust before I got my hands on it.’
‘It’s amazing.’ When she rested her briefcase on its bonnet, he grimaced and she quickly lifted it off. She took out the photographs of the Mercedes 280SL.
‘How much do these cars cost?’
‘Depends on the condition. You could pick up one in need of a lot of renovation for five or six grand, maybe even less. It’s a 1970s model, so you’ve got to have a massive mileage.’
‘How about one in this condition?’
‘Well, if it was remodelled, hood in perfect condition, with no rust and the engine in good nick, you could pay anything up to fifty thousand.’
‘Fifty?’
‘They’re collectors’ items. The hubcaps alone are worth over a couple of hundred.’
She asked about the process of crushing vehicles.
‘If you’ve written your car off and the insurance company is in agreement, you can wheel it in here. The charge for crushing it isn’t that much.’
Anna chewed her lip. ‘So whoever owned this Mercedes, for example, if he wanted the insurance, would
