takes a downward turn; so does our victim. She works part-time as a prostitute for McDowell and, according to him, becomes addicted to drugs. When he gets arrested for living off immoral earnings and buying stolen booze, the club is closed and McDowell goes to prison. Beryl meets up with Lilian Duffy and that mob through the house in Shallcotte Street. McDowell has confirmed that all our victims stayed there at some point or other.’
Now Langton used a red marker pen to link all their victims to Shallcotte Street, excluding Melissa Stephens.
‘McDowell admits he was the man beating Lilian Duffy when her son, Anthony, broke up the fight. She accused her son of rape though, as we know, she withdrew the charge later. This accusation first brought Duffy to the attention of the police. You see how our prime suspect, Anthony Duffy, aka Alan Daniels, is also linked to McDowell.
‘This connects us to Barry Southwood, who was on the Manchester Vice Squad when Duffy was brought in for questioning.
‘McDowell informed us that both Kathleen Keegan and Lilian Duffy abused our suspect as a child, actually selling the boy to customers. Both women used to sell any children living in the house for money. This ups the ante again on Daniels, but we have to remember that McDowell can’t really be trusted. For someone who maintains he was very rarely at Shallcotte Street, he seems to have a lot of information. He is also still in the frame for the three murders.’
Langton went on to discuss the possibility that McDowell had been set up. ‘The three victims’ handbags could have been planted to incriminate him, although McDowell makes rather a good job of doing that himself’ Everyone laughed. Langton looked around the room.
‘OK — that’s it. The press knows we have a suspect in custody and we’ll be bringing in McDowell from Wandsworth later today to continue interrogations. So let’s keep at it. You all have a lot to wade through, thankfully. At long last.’
Langton asked Anna to join him in his office.
‘You’ve seen the results from the fingerprints on the frame?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘Yes. Alan Daniels was inside my flat.’
‘I’m keeping up the surveillance on your place. We’re round the clock on Daniels, as well.’
‘So, McDowell is … what?’ She frowned.
‘A possible suspect. But also a decoy.’
‘What?’
‘Until we’ve got more evidence, I’m not bringing Daniels in. We could arrest him on the fingerprint off your photo frame, but he was also later inside your place with your approval.’
‘Hold on — that was much later. I brought in the frame days before,’ Anna said stubbornly.
‘I know. But he could say otherwise and then it gets down to his word against ours.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ Anna was steaming. ‘Anyway, forensic can prove him wrong.’
‘I know, but we have to cover all probable explanations from his brief. We need more evidence that’ll screw him. Did he go to Manchester in the last few weeks? He certainly dropped McDowell in our laps.’
‘So, what’s next?’
Langton pointed to her. ‘We watch out for you. I’m sure he’ll try and make contact with you, just to find out about McDowell.’
‘If he does, how much do I tell him?’
Langton drummed his fingers on his desk. ‘Oh, I think you can tell him quite a lot. We want him staying right where we can pick him up. So the more he thinks we believe our decoy is guilty of the murders, the safer he’s going to feel. You up for it?’
She nodded.
‘I thought you would be. Now, I want you in on the interview with McDowell, but you play by the rules, Travis. You do not, at any cost, put yourself in jeopardy. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
There was a pause. He was still looking at her; she was unsure whether she should leave. Then he smiled softly. ‘The seat discovery was good, Travis. Your dad would be proud of you.’
She swallowed the emotion that welled up. ‘Thank you.’
‘OK — that’s it for now.’
Wearing handcuffs and prison-issue dungarees, freshly washed and shaved, McDowell was escorted from Wandsworth Prison to Queen’s Park. He arrived for the interview just after three o’clock. He seemed almost a new man, thought Langton, who had first glimpsed him that morning in court.
He was remarkably coherent. The medication, the meals and a good night’s sleep seemed to have worked wonders. He understood the seriousness of the charges and although he would plead guilty to the drug-related offences, denied that he had committed the murders.
When Anna and Langton entered the interview room, McDowell’s handcuffs had been removed. He was sitting beside his new solicitor, a thin-faced, dome-headed man named Francis Bellows. Langton introduced him to Anna; the two men had met earlier that morning in court. Bellows had been court-appointed and briefed from Manchester and had already had a lengthy session with McDowell at the prison.
‘DS Anna Travis will be conducting the interview with me,’ Langton explained as he drew out her chair. Anna sat down facing McDowell. He was enormous and, contrary to her expectations, had a rather jaded handsomeness.
‘Right, let’s get started,’ Langton said, pressing the tape machine on before swivelling round to check the video camera was also ready.
The bubble wrap had been removed from both seats and was laid out in sections. The forensic team had examined every square inch with magnifying glasses. They removed samples of a wool and synthetic carpet, oil stains, grit and a fraction of sand. After these samples were listed and numbered, they focused on the seats. The disappointing news was that the two seats had been well and truly cleaned before being taken to the crusher yard. The leather was in immaculate condition but smelled of mildew and some kind of leather-cleaning fluid.
Leather is not a material that fibres cling to. The two scientists worked on a seat each, moving inch by inch, but they were unable to discover anything except a few grains of sand. They took the seats apart and removed the back to revealed the underside. Here, the leather stitching ran in parallel lines: there were accumulated dust balls and a one-pence piece. Then they got lucky. Caught in the stitching, hardly detectable by the human eye, was a strand of hair. It took a while for it to be gently teased free. It was a single long blonde hair with the root attached and it was from the passenger seat.
The next discovery was caught in the glint of torchlight. It was embedded in the crease of the stitches on the driver’s side. The tweezers gently released what looked like a small sliver of pink glass. The hair and pink glass were placed in separate containers, ready to go to the lab for testing.
It had been over two hours and McDowell was tearfully explaining his relationship with the victim, Beryl Villiers.
‘Beryl liked Ecstasy. She wouldn’t leave the stuff alone. She loved that euphoric feelin’, know what I mean? I couldn’t stop her. Then I had a bit of a problem, got busted and she started taking them like Smarties. I was only in for a six-month stretch, right? But when I come out, she’s up and left me. I search all over Manchester for her, then I find out she’s dossing down at Lilian Duffy’s place. I went fucking apeshit; they were a real bunch of slags there, I’m telling you. I wanted her back with me. I loved her.’
‘So, talk me through the time you went to find Beryl. You said she was staying at Lilian Duffy’s house?’ Langton asked.
McDowell hesitated a moment. ‘Right hovel it was, over in Shallcotte Street. By now Beryl was doing heroin and Lilian Duffy was using her out on the streets.’
Langton began to lay out the photographs of their victims and McDowell touched them one by one.
‘Yeah, yeah, they were there. Or they came and went. Almost every tart in Manchester stayed over at that place at some time or other.’
Langton glanced at Anna. ‘Did you see her son at the house?’
‘Yeah.’
The picture McDowell conjured up was even more wretched than Anna could believe. The child, brought up in a house filled with women, was either ignored or beaten. The only temporary escape came during foster care,
