notebook.
He blinked and leaned back.
‘I have a copy of the receipt, Mr Fuller.’
He flushed. ‘We do buy a few things; we deal in vintage cars mostly.’
‘This was a Mercedes-Benz.’
Fuller reached for the receipt, but didn’t really look at it. He explained that he never bought anything illegal. None of his vehicles had come from there.
‘I know, just spare parts,’ she smiled.
‘Right. Now, what is this receipt for?’
‘A pair of seats, the front ones.’
‘Oh yes, I remember.’
‘You do?’ Her heart started pounding.
‘Yes, for a Mercedes 280SL. We bought them a “while back; I sent my truck over to collect them.’
‘Do you still have them?’
He nodded.
‘You do?’ She could hardly believe it.
‘To be honest, if I’d have known they were a custom-made colour, I wouldn’t have paid what I paid for them. They’re sort of mid-grey-blue and I can’t put them in another SL if the interior doesn’t match. Basically, I’ve been waiting for one to come in that has the right interior colour and needs replacements.’
‘So you still have them?’ she repeated anxiously.
‘Yes, they’re in storage.’
‘Here?’
‘Yes.’
She swallowed. ‘Have they been cleaned or altered in any way?’
‘No. We wrapped them in bubble wrap when we removed them, brought them straight here.’
‘Could I see them?’
‘We use the first garage for storing spare parts.’ He took out a set of keys from a drawer.
Anna followed him back down the mews. He unlocked the door of the garage and slid it back. It was pitch black inside. He switched on the lights: the interior was stacked, floor to ceiling, with seats, bumpers, hubcabs, steering wheels and so on.
‘It’ll be at the back. They’ve been here for quite a while.’
Jean, phone to her ear, yelled across to Barolli. ‘It’s Travis, line two.’
Barolli snatched up his phone. ‘Where the hell are you, Travis? No, no, you listen to me. You don’t just take off. We’re already bursting our budget to get someone looking out for you at your place at night and you — no, just hear me out — what?’
Barolli sat back, discomfited. ‘Look, I can’t just organize a truck to pick them up and take them to the lab. It’s six o’clock. It’ll have to be first thing in the morning …’ He listened. ‘Because I am telling you, that’s the best I can do. If they’ve been there for this long, they’re not likely to walk out now!’
It was eight o’clock and Langton was just opening a beer when his mobile phone rang. He listened wordlessly, which in itself gained Lewis’s attention. Then, after a few moments more: ‘They haven’t been touched? This is fucking mind-blowing. For Chrissakes, yes! Get them there as soon as you can.’ He shut off his phone and stared into space.
‘Well, what?’ Lewis asked. ‘Jimmy, who was it?’ ‘Barolli. They have, believe it or not, got hold of the two front seats from Alan Daniels’s Mercedes.’
‘What?’
‘The crusher yard sold them to a garage. They’ve been wrapped in bubble wrap, undisturbed from the day they were removed.’ He chuckled. ‘Travis had this blazing row with Barolli. He wasn’t going to get them shifted to the lab until tomorrow morning. So she only bloody hired a removal van and shipped them out herself.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Christ, she’s like her father! Jack Travis would have carried them to the lab, if he’d had to.’
Lewis opened his own can of beer and said thoughtfully, ‘You still got Alan Daniels in the frame?’
Langton nodded. ‘He was never out of it, Mike.’
Lewis sipped his beer. ‘Well, you could have bloody fooled me. Christ, what’s the point of this guy McDowell being driven down to Wandsworth nick?’
‘If someone else stashed those handbags — and they could have ? wouldn’t it be because they were trying to implicate McDowell?’
‘I suppose … but forensic reckoned they’d been there a good few months, way before we started the surveillance of Daniels.’
‘But who gave us his name?’
‘Daniels.’
‘Right, so you tell me why he suddenly recalls someone he has supposedly not seen for twenty years! I would say it’s down to how his sick devious mind works.’
Langton leaned back, smiling. ‘So, if Daniels is our man, what do you think he’s going to feel like when it hits the press that we’ve got a suspect in custody?’ It was the first time Langton had felt good in two days.
Lewis was pissed off. ‘Shit, you keep stuff close to your chest.’
‘Here’s something I won’t be keeping close. Which stupid bastard checked out the bloody crusher?’
‘You don’t have to look far,’ Lewis said quietly.
Langton shook his head in disbelief. ‘It was you?’
‘Yeah, it was me. The documents were all legit and according to them, the Merc went through the crusher.’
‘Not all of it. You cocked up.’
Lewis felt like shit. ‘Travis, eh! The little red demon.’
Langton was staring out of the window, then he looked back. ‘More news. The prints came back in. We have confirmation that Alan Daniels’s prints match the ones lifted from Travis’s photo frame.’
They remained silent for a moment, aware of the sound of the train on the tracks. Then Langton started to laugh softly.
‘Getting closer, Mike. We’re getting closer.’
Chapter Eighteen
The next morning, John George McDowell was taken to court and charged, not only with various drug offences and the possession of narcotics but, more seriously, with the murder of the three victims. These latter charges he denied. Bail was withheld.
The press were out in force. When he was taken from the court, McDowell withdrew the blanket from over his head and yelled that he was innocent. There was a flashing of camera bulbs. Langton refused to give any statement, except the usual platitudes.
The two leather seats, shrouded in bubble wrap, underside rails intact, were placed on a raised platform table. High-powered arc lamps focused on each seat. Two forensic scientists in protective suits were using tweezers to inch away the gaffer tape securing the bubble wrap. This was a slow process since it was stuck firmly to the plastic, overlapping it like a protective bandage. They eased the tape away fragment by fragment, looking for any evidence of minuscule fibres, hair or blood spots stuck beneath it.
Meanwhile, in the briefing room, Langton led the team in congratulating Travis on her tenacity in pursuing the evidence and her diligent police work. He updated them on the evidence from McDowell’s basement flat. Using a thick black felt-tip pen, Langton drew a line from the mug shot of McDowell to each of the victims, except Melissa. He began listing their connections to McDowell on the board behind him.
‘McDowell: Beryl Villiers worked for him at the health club. She left home to live with him. His nightclub
