Opposite the twenty or so suits were about three dozen dazzlingly white shirts, sheathed in dry cleaner’s plastic. Next to them, a tie hanger with an array of silk ties that would have left Alvin scratching his head over the choice every morning. Who had the time for stuff like this? Well, obviously a man who didn’t have kids and had control over his own working life.
The end wall was divided into open cubicles above three shelves of shoes. Dress shoes arranged from tan through to black. A dozen pairs of trainers. Deck shoes. Chelsea boots. An old, creased pair of Docs that were the only nod to the kind of world Alvin inhabited. The cubicles were just as neatly organised. Jeans and joggers. Tshirts and sweatshirts folded, grouped by colour. Shorts, likewise.
And right in the middle, if Sister Mary Patrick was to be believed, the body disposal outfit of choice for Mark Conway. Four cubes filled with an array of Bradfield Victoria replica shirts, home and away.
Alvin pulled out the top cube. Eight neatly folded tops, the current season’s home kit on top. He flipped through the pile, realising they were arranged in chronological order. There was no way of knowing which shirt the nun had spotted, except that it would have had to have been more than five seasons ago, given when the convent had closed its doors. To be on the safe side, he bagged and tagged all of the canary yellow home shirts. There was nothing more for him to do; it was time to leave the bedroom to the forensics team for what he expected to be a fruitless search for traces of young men who might or might not have been here over a long span of years.
He headed downstairs, hoping Steve or Karim might have had more luck. But before he had the chance to seek them out, another figure emerged from the utility room, barely recognisable in her white suit and hood.
‘Boss!’ Alvin exclaimed. ‘I wasn’t expecting you for another—’ he glanced at his watch. ‘Hour and a half at least. How did you manage to get back so soon?’
‘On my broomstick,’ Paula said. ‘There was an earlier flight to Liverpool, I don’t know how I made it. Then I got the local traffic boys to whizz me over here. So where’s Conway?’
‘All I know is, he’s not here.’
‘Bugger. What have you got there?’
‘A pile of Conway’s Bradfield Vics’ replica shirts. Not that I imagine there’ll be anything there for forensics to find. And I don’t suppose there’s any chance of your nun picking out the particular shirt in question.’
‘More chance of the Pope joining a boy band.’ But she frowned, as if something was tugging at her memory. ‘Lyle Tate,’ she said slowly.
‘One of the victims, right?’
‘Yes.’ She drew the word out over a few syllables. ‘Somebody went down for his murder. He couldn’t have done the most recent bodies because he was banged up. So unless he was working with Conway on the earlier murders, it’s got to be a miscarriage of justice.’
‘That takes us where, exactly? You think the perp on the Lyle Tate murder can maybe give us Conway?’
‘That’s not what I was thinking, but I suppose it’s an outside possibility. No, what I’m getting at is that I took a look at the Lyle Tate case. And according to the accused, the reason for the blood in his flat was that Tate had a nosebleed earlier in the evening. If that’s true – and it’s looking likely now that we got the wrong guy, since he couldn’t have done the later victims – if he’d got into a struggle later, his nose might have bled again. What do you think? Maybe one of Mark Conway’s football shirts has traces of blood?’
Without them noticing, Karim had approached. ‘These Conway’s shirts?’
Alvin nodded. ‘Chronological order, looks like.’
‘Surely he’d have washed them if he’d got any blood on them?’ Karim said.
‘Fuck,’ Alvin breathed. He pushed past Paula and hustled into the utility room. She followed and found him gazing at a shelf of laundry detergents.
‘What is it?’
‘They’re all non-bio. Non-allergenic.’
‘Still takes stains out,’ Paula said.
A wide grin spread across Alvin’s face. ‘I’ve got one word for you, boss. Chromophores.’
60
Some killers know they’re smart. They believe they can outsmart the system, and they often succeed to a depressing extent. But sometimes their very cleverness can start to work against them as they come up with more and more elaborate ways to outwit the forces pitted against them.
From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL
Incredulous, Chrissie O’Farrelly stared at Paula and Alvin. ‘You’re not serious? Look, I mentioned something in passing to Sergeant Ambrose. It’s right out there on the edge of what’s possible. It’s science that’s not been tested in the courtroom. Hell, it’s barely made it into the peer-reviewed literature.’
‘It’s all we’ve got at this point,’ Paula said.
‘You don’t even know you’ve got it, if I understand you correctly.’
‘But there’s a good chance,’ Alvin chipped in. ‘I thought you scientists liked a challenge?’
Chrissie shook her head. ‘Oh no, you don’t catch me out like that. I’ve been flattered by experts. I don’t even know how we’d go about something like this. We’d certainly end up destroying the garment because we’d have to test so many pieces. And your DCI would be screaming about his budget.’
‘Murder always trumps budget in my book,’ Paula said.
‘If there’s a point to it, yes.’
It felt like stalemate. Paula had been convinced by Alvin’s sketchy explanation: ‘There are these chemicals called chromophores that make blood look red. Washing them gets rid of the visible stain. But the bit of the blood with the DNA in? It stays in the material if you’ve washed it in non-biological detergent,’ he’d said. It sounded unlikely to Paula but Alvin was positive he’d got it right. And now Chrissie O’Farrelly was
