trying to remember. 'I don't know. He said he'd borrowed someone's jeep, I think. Whose, I have no idea.''Did you ever see this jeep?''No.''Could it have been a Mitsubishi?''I don't know, and he could have been lying. All I remember is, he said he was going to pick it up.'
They drove in silence back to the station, Anna's mind churning over everything they had discussed with Sandra. Gordon, as usual, had not said more than a few words, but he was at least onto the fact that the antiques fair was not that far from Honour Nolan's village.
Anna gave him a sidelong glance. 'Yes, my thoughts exactly. It's another link, because Julius D'Anton also knew Alexander Fitzpatrick.'
'What if he was hiding out at the farmhouse and somehow D'Anton saw him?'
'But if he was hiding out, he's not likely to have been wandering around an antique fair, is he? It's another schlep to check it all out; it'll mean contacting all those dealers that had a stall, especially the guy that Sandra said owned a shop. It might be local, it might not, but that's what you have to start on as soon as we're back at the station.'
'Okay.'
Anna decided that she would go over to the forensic lab and see if they had any results from the tests being done on the Mitsubishi. This time, she wanted to find out if there was any crossover from the clothes worn by Julius D'Anton—anything that would place him in the jeep.
Pete listened as Anna outlined what she wanted tested. He shook his head. 'You must be joking. We've had it stripped down, and it was given a very thorough clean, apart from the small blood swipe.'
'What about the map?'
'There were prints, but nothing clean enough for us to run by the database.'
'The note?'
'Ditto. It does look as if the numbers were, as you thought, directions to the farmhouse. We're testing soil samples, but they will take a while. Then we've got to match them with samples taken from the farmhouse.'
Anna sighed with impatience.
'You can well sigh, Detective Travis, but have you any idea of the amount of forensic work going on? The body count keeps on growing every time I turn around. This guy brought in from the Thames—his clothes are all pegged out, so are Donny Petrozzo's clothes, then there's the guy shot on his toilet ...''Stanley Leymore.''Yes, him—we've got all his gear being tested. The cost is mounting. We've brought in three extra assistants and the path lab is screaming blue murder. They are as inundated as we are.''What about the toxicology report?''Jesus! Ask Fielding, I don't know. I'm aware he's getting in extra people too, but the costs—do you know how much it is just to get the soil samples tested?'Anna wondered if Cunningham was under pressure; her budget must be through the roof. Maybe that was why she was so bad-tempered all the time.'So, we still on for dinner sometime?'Anna suddenly relented and smiled. 'I'm sorry. Yes, of course we are.''When?''Why not tomorrow evening?''Great. You want me to bring anything?''No. Say about eight?''I'll be there.'Anna jotted down her address and asked if there was anything he couldn't eat.'Nope. See you tomorrow night.'By the time Anna got back to the station, it was almost four. She hadn't had lunch, but didn't have time to go up to the canteen, as Cunningham had asked for yet another briefing. These were starting to get on everyone's nerves: usually an inquiry spaced them out, to give the team time to do their jobs. There were a lot of disgruntled people banging down chairs. Anna could see that the incident board had more information, but much of it was eliminating the vehicle owners whose number plates had been listed by Jeremy Webster. It was the wait for evidence from the forensic and pathology reports that was holding them up. The body count was, as Pete Jenkins had said, mounting: Frank Brandon, Donny Petrozzo, Stanley Leymore, and now Julius D'Anton.Anna was quickly marking up the information on D'Anton that she'd got from his wife, the possible link to the farmhouse, and his association with Alexander Fitzpatrick, when Gordon hurried over to say that he had tracked down five stallholders' names and addresses. He was waiting for the organizers to give him more details, but he had the name of two who also had antiques shops in the area, one in Oxford and another in the village of Shipston on Stour. Anna told him to form a new section on the board and write up everything.He was busy doing so when Cunningham made her usual scowling entrance. 'Okay, everyone, listen up. I am getting a lot of pressure regarding the mounting costs. We have to really concentrate on ...' She turned to the board as Gordon finished writing. 'What the hell is this?'Anna stood up and explained that Julius D'Anton might have been in the area of Honour Nolan's farm, and that he might also have been driving the Mitsubishi.'Might?''Yes, it's possible, but my interest is that D'Anton knew Alexander Fitzpatrick—''Right now we do not have any evidence that this man is involved, Travis. We have not a shred of evidence that he is even in this country. What we do have are four dead men and very little else. The killer, or killers, are dropping these bodies like flies without anything that helps us with the murder of Frank Brandon.''I'm sorry, but I disagree with you. We know Frank worked for Donny Petrozzo, we know Donny bought hot cars from Stanley Leymore, and we know that at one time Julius D'Anton knew Fitzpatrick.''What exactly does that give us?''A link!''Bloody fantastic, a link. We still don't know who was the main dealer in that stinking squat, nor why Frank Brandon was there, and we don't have any clue as to who the man was possibly standing behind him. I don't buy that it might have been Fitzpatrick. You tell me why an internationally infamous drug operator would risk entering the UK to schlepover to Chalk Farm, and for what—to score some cocaine? It doesn't fit. He is on our Most Wanted lists. All this supposition about this couple and their farmhouse has not brought in any connections.''Bar the fact that Honour Nolan is Julia Brandon's sister.''So what does that give us? We don't have any connection between Julia Brandon and the dead men, apart from a dodgy marriage to Frank Brandon. We're going round in circles.''But the circles keep on joining up,' Anna said defensively.'Do they hell! Show me—1 am all ears. We need a break, and I can't see us finding it by constantly bringing in supposition instead of hard evidence.''I think both Honour Nolan and her husband, Damien, lied about how well they knew Alexander Fitzpatrick.''But, Travis, what does that give us?''Well, there is the painting of a boat.''Painting?''Yes, it's of a very large, oceangoing yacht called
