“Just. It took forever to track down his parents, and even when we found them they seemed more interested in opening another bottle of cheap wine than coming down to the station. No wonder the kids run wild. Anyway, he’s a cocky young bastard, name of Daryl Gooch, but the crash took some of the wind out of his sails and DI Sefton took the rest.”
“What’s his story?”
“According to him, he and his mate Wesley Hughes saw the car in Tower Hamlets, off Mile End Road, when they were coming home from a party at about half past three on Sunday morning.”
“Tower Hamlets?”
“Yeah, the East End.”
“I know where it is. I’m just surprised and confused, that’s all. I thought the car had been stolen from Heathrow on Friday by two men in their early forties who drove it up to Yorkshire to commit a murder in the early hours of Saturday morning. Now I find it was stolen from Tower Hamlets in the early hours of Sunday morning by two teenage joyriders. None of this makes any sense.”
“Well,” Singh went on, “I wouldn’t know about that, but this is how Daryl Gooch says it happened. Young Daryl said the driver’s door was open, the key was in the ignition and there was no one around, so him and his mate thought they’d have a little ride in the country. Pity his friend wasn’t a better driver. Witnesses say he was doing close to a hundred when he lost control. As far as I can gather from Daryl, they were still pissed and stoned from the party.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t know,” said Singh, “but there’s not much advantage to him lying at this point, is there?”
“With some kids it’s habitual,” said Winsome.
“I suppose so. Anyway, both kids are from Tower Hamlets, so they’d have had no reason to be out at Heathrow. They’re not exactly your jet-setting types. Any idea exactly when the car was stolen from the car park there?”
“Not really,” said Winsome. “Sometime between Thursday and Friday evening, I suppose.”
“Sorry I can’t be any more help,” said Singh. “Ring me if you have any more questions.”
“Thanks,” said Winsome. “I will.”
She hung up and nibbled on the end of her pencil as she thought things out. Assuming it was the same Mondeo that had been spotted near Jennifer Clewes’s flat on Friday night and the one Roger Cropley had seen at Watford Gap, then after killing Jennifer and breaking into Banks’s cottage, the two men had probably driven back to London through the night, kept the car out of sight for a day, then dumped it in a decidedly dodgy neighborhood where it was likely to disappear very quickly indeed and hoofed it back home, wherever that might be. It didn’t tell her much about them, except that they weren’t scared of visiting dangerous neighborhoods at night.
It was a good move to steal a car from a long-stay because the odds were good it hadn’t yet been reported stolen. If it had, there was always a chance that it might be picked up by a camera on the Automatic Number Plate Recognition system that reads and checks them against the database of stolen vehicles. But that hadn’t happened; the car’s owner didn’t report it stolen until Sunday evening, by which time it was wrapped around a telegraph pole outside Basildon.
Well, Winsome thought, even if there wasn’t much chance of finding trace evidence in the Mondeo now, at least they could check the tires, and there was always a chance that someone in Tower Hamlets had seen the men who dumped the car there. Time to get on the phone again.
Dr. Lukas’s office boasted the same calming decor as the rest of the Berger-Lennox Centre. The seats were padded and comfortable, colorful still lifes hung on the aquamarine walls and there were no surgical instruments in sight, not even a hypodermic. Still, Annie realized, Dr. Lukas didn’t perform abortions, at least not here, so there was hardly any need for such things. There was, however, an examination room, and Annie imagined that behind the door would be the table, the instruments, the stirrups.
“It’s tragic about Jennifer,” said Dr. Lukas, before Annie could start with her questions. “She was so young and vital.” The doctor had a slight accent, which Annie couldn’t place. Eastern European, at any rate.
“Yes,” Annie agreed. “Were the two of you very close?”
“Not really. We worked together, that’s all. Our jobs are very different, of course, but we obviously had to meet regularly to ensure the smooth running of the center.”
“But you didn’t know her socially?”
Dr. Lukas managed a weak smile. “I don’t have much of a social life,” she said. “But, no, we didn’t meet socially, only at work.”
Annie looked around the room. “It’s a nice place,” she said. “Nice center altogether. It can’t be cheap to maintain. I suppose it must be doing rather well?”
“As far as I know,” said Dr. Lukas. “The finances were Jennifer’s domain. I stick to what I know best.”
“Everyone tells me that Jennifer wasn’t her usual self the week before her murder. They say she was anxious, edgy, worried. Did you notice this?”
“We had one of our regular meetings last Wednesday,” Dr. Lukas said, “and come to think of it, she did seem a little on edge.”
“But you’ve no idea why?”
“I assumed it was man trouble, but as I said, I know nothing about her private life.”
“Why did you assume man trouble, then?”
The doctor smiled. She was a slight, thin figure, around forty, with short dark hair sprinkled with gray, hollow cheeks beneath the prominent bones and a tired look about her eyes. Her body language seemed tense, too tightly strung. “I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, I know,” she said, “but she was a very attractive woman, and I have seen her leave here with a man on a number of occasions.”
That would be Roy Banks. “Yes, we know about him,” Annie said. “But we don’t think that’s what was bothering her.”
The doctor spread her hands on the table, palms up. “Then I can’t help you,” she said.
“What about her previous boyfriend, Victor Parsons? Have you ever met him?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Apparently he’s turned up at the center and created a fuss once or twice.”
“I’m very isolated up here,” Dr. Lukas said. “I probably wouldn’t have noticed.”
“When Jennifer met her present boyfriend here, he was accompanying a young woman everyone assumed to be his daughter. Her name is Corinne and I don’t believe she is his daughter. Did you examine her?”
“When would this be?”
“About two months ago. April.”
Dr. Lukas turned to the laptop on her desk and pressed a few keys. “Corinne Welland?”
“I assume that’s the one,” Annie said. “I don’t know her last name.”
“It’s the only Corinne I had.”
“Then it must be her.”
“Then yes, I did,” said Dr. Lukas. “But I had no idea whether she was this man’s daughter or not. I never met him and she never said anything about him. It was just a straightforward consultation.”
“What happened to her?”
“She had her termination, and I assume she got on with her life.”
“Have you ever heard of Carmen Petri?”
“No,” said Dr. Lukas, just a little too quickly for Annie’s liking.
“Do you know what ‘late girls’ are?”
“Girls who are late with their periods? Girls who are dead? I have no idea.”
Annie hadn’t thought of that one, and she knew that she should have done. Dead girls. Was Carmen dead? Is that why she was one of the late girls? If so, how many others were there?
“What about girls who are pregnant and too late to have an abortion?”
“Then there would be no abortion. For one thing, it’s illegal, and for another, it’s dangerous.”
“Except if the mother or the fetus is in danger?”
“Exactly. In that case surgery may be performed. But it is not, strictly speaking, an abortion; it is a surgical procedure performed in order to save a life, or lives. Emergency surgery.”
