days, and then he said he had to go back to the Isle of Man.''With you on board?''No. He gave me a few hundred quid, and said he would be in touch if and when he needed me. That time, he was more angry. He said that if I wanted to make a lot of money, and if I wanted to stay working for him, it was vital I keep my mouth shut.''Did he threaten you?'Adrian nodded. 'He said that he would always be able to find me, and if I fouled up again, he'd kill me. I went back to college and didn't hear from Fitzpatrick for a few months. Then his boat came back to the Brighton Marina.''So during the time you were cleaning up the rented house in Brighton, he was using the jeep?''Yes.'Langton opened the file and placed Julia Brandon's photograph down in front of Adrian. 'Do you know this woman?''No.' Nor did he recognize the property in Wimbledon or the picture of Frank Brandon. Lastly, they showed him the photograph of Donny Petrozzo. Again, he had never seen him. Langton stacked the photographs and replaced them.Adrian explained that the next time he had been contacted by Fitzpatrick was to join him on the boat moored in Chelsea harbor. He was hired to clean and get groceries; during that period, he did not drive the Mitsubishi. When he learned that Fitzpatrick's two daughters were coming on board with their au pair, Adrian prepared bunks for them.The interview was concluded but, when told he would not be released, Adrian burst into tears. Langton ended their tape recording and walked to the door; there, he glanced back at the sniveling boy and said, 'It's not over, Mr. Summers.'Anna didn't feel like breaking for the night, even though it was after eleven. It was hard to come down from the excitement of the day. Pete was still at the lab, so she went over to see him.Like Langton, Pete was organizing his team, listing in order of priority the items he wanted checked out. He gave Anna a perfunctory kiss on the cheek, then led her to a table with some of the forensic evidence examined that morning. 'Right, the lady found strangled in the storage warehouse: we've got some hairs and the root is attached, so we can get strong DNA.'Anna leaned close to him as he placed a slide under the microscope.'I think she snatched at her killer's hair, because we've quite a few samples. It's very, very dark—and some kind of hair oil had been used. Not African—maybe Portuguese or South American.' He moved aside for Anna to look. 'We've also got fibers—wool, a distinctive color and not from the victim's clothes.'Anna noticed that the pockets of his white coat were covered in blue pen stains; he looked tired. 'We maybe can get a clear print off her neck: right thumb. It was pressed so hard on her larynx it left a dark bruise. We'll be lifting off using the Super Glue technique.''Are you hungry—I can order a pizza?' she asked, and he shook his head.'Nope. I am going to carry on here for about another half hour, then I will need to crash out.'Anna looked at her watch and said that she should probably do the same. She was more miffed at his rejection of a late-night pizza than she realized; even more so when he smiled at her and said, 'Shoe on the other foot for a change!'She laughed it off and said she would talk to him in the morning. He muttered a reply, but she didn't hear it. She turned to look back at him as she reached the door, and he was already peering at something else under the microscope, his body arched. She was impressed. He seemed totally consumed by his work. She hadn't really realized before how much his work meant to him.It was after one in the morning when she finally turned in. She didn't fix anything to eat, but had a large glass of wine from a bottle left open in the fridge. Sleep didn't come easily, and she lay in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling.Now certain that Fitzpatrick had met up with Donny Petrozzo, she wondered if he had also met up with D'Anton. What she did know from the time frame was that the deaths of both men came almost together. Turning on her bedside lamp, Anna got up and fetched her briefcase. She climbed back into bed and took another look at the copies of the postmortem report on Julius D'Anton. The quantity of Fentanyl in D'Anton's body was very high. He was a heroin user; she wondered if he had tried out the Fentanyl, unaware of its potency— eighty times stronger than morphine.Donny Petrozzo had died from an overdose but, from the way his body had been found wrapped up, it was obvious that he had been murdered. The Mitsubishi was parked, with his body inside it, at the garage used by Frank Brandon. Anna was certain that Petrozzo s death occurred after Frank had been shot. She was so restless, trying to figure out what might have occurred. She thumped at her pillow, trying to get more comfortable, but she still couldn't sleep—this time returning to the date she and Gordon had visited the farmhouse, and had seen Adrian Summers there by the gates.Adrian had to have lied about only going to the farmhouse to deposit and then move the crates of drugs, as the time frame didn't add up. Did he also drive the injured Fitzpatrick back to the cottage? The blood trace on the bullet she had found, they had always believed came from the man standing behind Frank Brandon—and it matched the swipe taken from the jeep.She was certain Adrian knew a lot more than he had admitted to, and she was glad that Langton had not released him. Tomorrow, they would have the interrogation of Damien and Honour, but first, she wanted to have another session with Adrian Summers.
CHAPTER 24
Before any interviews took place, the team were given an update by Cunningham. The boat anchored at Chelsea harbor had been dusted for prints; they were confident that, this time, they would find concrete evidence of Fitzpatrick. They had also recovered two hundred thousand pounds in cash, plus—and this was very important—a charter map of the boat's journeys and prearranged moorings. This would help their time frame. They had also found documentation of ownership: Fitzpatrick had used an alias to make a substantial deposit on the boat, and payments were still outstanding.Even more importantly, they had found two passports in different names, but with Fitzpatrick's photograph and two more passports in the names of the children. Added to this was a jewel case containing diamonds and emeralds worth a substantial amount belonging to Julia Brandon. It was a massive haul of fresh evidence. They had virtually stripped Fitzpatrick of every means to survive on the run. The question was: where could he be?The distressed au pair had been questioned through an interpreter the previous evening and allowed to remain with the children. Eventually, she had admitted that the man she knew as Anthony Collingwood was the man in the photograph of Alexander Fitzpatrick. She also gave another insight into the way Fitzpatrick had organized his time in London.Fitzpatrick had instigated her approach to Julia, as au pair. She was instructed to care for the children and report back using her mobile phone, details of what was happening in the house in Wimbledon. He had paid her for this on top of her wages; he had also arranged for her to take the children to the boat in Chelsea harbor. She was adamant that she knew nothing about who he really was, or his drug trafficking.He was a good man, she insisted; a man who cared for his children, contrary to what Julia had implied. She also maintained that she did not know the final destination of the boat; her job was simply to care for the children. She said that Julia was a difficult woman to deal with, and could be very unpleasant; she was certain she had used Frank Brandon to cheat on Fitzpatrick.Mai Ling could not elaborate on what she meant by
