There was just one policewoman in the office at Jerusalem Lane, minding the phones. She said that Winter had been charged, but she didn’t know what with. Copies of statements were on their way over from the Yard, as well as a report from the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory at Lambeth Road over the river, on the hammer found in the building site, but neither had yet arrived.
Impatient and edgy, Kathy pulled her outer layers back on and stepped out into the cold dawn of Jerusalem Lane once more. Flurries of snow were gusting through the high chain-link fence which topped the plywood panels of the construction site. Here and there it collected in small drifts. She walked rapidly back up to the north end, head down, and ran across Welbeck Street to the news vendor on the corner. The man had moved his plastic tarpaulin round to the east side of his stall, and Kathy huddled in its shelter. As she searched in her bag for money to pay for the early-morning editions, a red Mercedes sports car pulled over to the kerb on the other side of the street. The interior lit up for a moment as the passenger opened his door, and Kathy saw the driver, a woman, lean over and give him a kiss. He was a big man, who took a moment to haul himself out of the low car, as if his shoulder were giving him trouble. Just before he pulled the collar of his coat up and turned to hurry down Jerusalem Lane, Kathy recognized Brock’s bearded face.
The laboratory report arrived shortly after Kathy returned to the incident centre. It confirmed that the hammer was the one used to strike Eleanor’s forehead in the moments immediately after her death. It was a ballhammer, with a rounded head, as used by plumbers. Its shape and size were consistent with the indentations in Eleanor’s skull, and scratches on its surface matched impressions found on the plastic bag.
Kathy and another officer returned to Winter’s house in Chislehurst to speak to his wife, Caroline. She seemed to find their questions faintly amusing, as if they had no bearing on her own life. She was unable to recall ever having seen the hammer before. Her husband, she said, was not a great handyman.
‘Scissors and a comb are about the only tools he’s any good with,’ she informed the young detective constable with a look that made him blush. ‘The last time hammers were mentioned in this house was when one of the builders putting in the new kitchen complained he’d lost one. I can’t remember which, though. One of the older men. I didn’t pay much attention.’
It was mid-morning by the time Kathy returned to Jerusalem Lane. Bren Gurney was sitting over a mug of tea in the back room, looking exhausted. He told her that Winter’s attempts to account for his movements had been a farce. It had been impossible to confirm his whereabouts for any of the incidents that had occurred at the sisters’ house, and in the case of the business with the mask, a neighbour had actually seen him leave his Peckham flat an hour before it occurred, although he claimed he had remained at home all night. Peg couldn’t be certain that the mask was the one used to frighten Eleanor, since only her sister had seen it, but confirmed that it was just as she had described it.
Despite all this, Winter had refused to admit to anything. Gurney seethed with frustration, and not only with Winter. He was convinced the man was guilty. He had the clearest motive, weak or non-existent alibis, and he was telling lies, at first with a certain amount of assurance, like someone unused to having his lies disbelieved, and then increasingly, as the night wore on, out of sheer desperation. Yet Brock had seemed oddly reluctant to act, and it was only towards 4 in the morning that he had finally agreed that Winter should be charged with a number of offences relating to the incidents at 22 Jerusalem Lane between November and March. These included threatening behaviour and causing malicious damage, but not yet murder.
Gurney sighed and ran a hand across his chin. ‘I’d better get myself a shave.’
‘Haven’t you had any sleep?’ Kathy asked him.
He shook his head. ‘I hung around to process the charges, then to wait for Winter’s solicitor. Brock got an hour or two shut-eye, I guess.’
‘Did he go home?’
‘Doubt it. He lives down by Dulwich. Probably put his head down at the Yard.’
‘Does he have a sister?’
‘Yes. Out in Buckinghamshire somewhere, I think. Why?’ He looked curiously at Kathy.
‘Oh, when I was buying the papers this morning I saw him arrive. A woman brought him, in a red Merc sports.’
A little smile creased Gurney’s tired eyes. ‘Don’t suppose you got the number?’
Kathy reached across and wrote on the pad in front of him. Gurney tore off the sheet and left the office. Half an hour later he strolled back in again, washed, shaved and considerably more cheerful. Without a word he placed a note in front of Kathy. On it was written the name Mrs Suzanne Chambers, a telephone number and an address in Belgravia, barely two hundred yards from Scotland Yard.
At that moment Brock appeared in the doorway behind them. ‘You two want to bring me up to date?’ he said, and then, seeing the note in Kathy’s hand and the smile on her face, ‘Good news?’
She shook her head quickly. ‘Nothing, really.’ She stuffed the note into the pocket of her trousers and followed the two men up the stairs.
It was only when they were seated that Kathy saw that Brock was as tired as Gurney. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he suppressed a yawn as Gurney spoke.
‘Winter will appear this afternoon,’ he said. ‘We’re opposing bail, of course, but I don’t think the court will wear it. Especially not with the solicitor he’s got himself.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Two of them. A little old guy called Hepple.’
‘The sisters’ solicitor?’ Brock said, sitting up sharply. ‘That’s odd.’
‘Yeah. He was really enjoying himself. I must say I could have done without his jolly repartee this morning. But his mate’s the bad news. Apparently Hepple isn’t representing Winter, he just came along to introduce him to this brief that he’d found for him. Your old friend Martin Connell, Brock.’
Kathy froze. She didn’t hear the next part of their conversation, but as their voices began to register again she was suddenly filled with an enormous sense of gratitude to Brock-first because he studiously avoided looking at her, and then because it was clear that Gurney knew nothing about her connection with Connell. Her hand closed around the message in her pocket, and she screwed it into a tight little ball.
‘But how the hell did either Hepple or Connell come in on this?’ Brock thumped his fist on the arm of his chair.
‘And how can Winter afford him?’ Gurney added, shaking his head. ‘The only good thing is that we know for sure that anyone Connell represents has got to be seriously guilty. Otherwise it’s all bad. Christ’-he rubbed his forehead wearily-‘he even knew about me getting into Winter’s office at Peckham without a search warrant. He let it drop that he was going to pin me on unlawful entry.’
Brock swore, pulled himself to his feet and strode over to the window. He stood there for a minute, staring at the snowflakes swirling outside, then walked slowly back to his seat.
‘I spoke to the lab just now,’ he said. ‘It looks as if the plastic bag used on Eleanor was the same type as in one of those packets you brought back from Winter’s house yesterday, Kathy. But it’s a common type, in every supermarket, and Winter’s prints weren’t on the packet we picked up, which isn’t to say that he didn’t take another one. It’s not the same type as was used on Meredith, which came from a packet in her own kitchen. So we’ll have to pursue the hammer as another way of tying Winter in.’
Kathy reported her conversation that morning with Caroline Winter, and that they were in the process of tracing the kitchen contractor whose plumber might have lost a hammer at the Winters’ home.
Brock nodded. ‘Now, about the first murder. We’d better have another word with the woman who provided Winter’s alibi then. What was her name?’
‘Geraldine McArthur.’
‘Yes. In view of their falling out, she might be less keen to protect him now.’
He paused, rubbing his eyes. ‘Bren, go home and get some rest, will you? I cannot stand people falling asleep when I’m talking to them.’
Gurney shook himself and protested that he was only thinking with his eyes closed. Then, seeing Brock’s expression, he got to his feet.
‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind a couple of hours, chief.’
‘See you later.’
When he had gone, Brock said quietly, ‘Bren is convinced we can pin everything on Winter. I’m not so sure. So, what are the alternatives?’
