In the darkness, both Grier and Jarvis raised their hands.
“It’s got a headlight badly out of alignment,” Susan Sergeant said.
“That’s right, it has,” Evans said, pressing play again. It was impossible to tell what colour the male from the van was, but he did seem to have quite long hair. Rye swerved around the driver and continued walking towards the rear of the vehicle without a backward glance. After a moment, the driver followed her and they both suddenly disappeared behind the vehicle. About forty seconds later, the driver came back into view, alone. He got into the van and within seconds it pulled away. There was no trace of Rye.
“I’m convinced,” Evans said dramatically, “that what you just saw there was the killer abducting Geraldine Rye,” He rewound the tape as he spoke. “I’ll play that clip again for you.” This was the big find he had interrupted the bosses meeting for earlier.
CHAPTER 29
Henry Boyden was filling in the last few details on a lost property report when Simon Pritchard entered the station office at Whitechapel police station. He was a few minutes early for his nine o’clock appointment with Charles Porter so he waited patiently for Boyden to finish. As soon as Boyden buzzed him through, Pritchard looked around carefully and, seeing they were all alone, whispered conspiratorially in the station officer’s ear.
“You may have a bit of a problem,” he said. “One of the whores you’ve been shagging has made a complaint to my wife about your behaviour.”
Boyden felt his sphincter loosen. “Who was it?” he demanded, face ashen with worry. “What did she say?”
“Sarah wouldn’t tell me, but I think she plans to report you to the murder squad.
Boyden’s eyes widened. “Why would she report me to the murder squad?” he asked in a shaky voice.
Pritchard laughed mirthlessly. “Because, you blithering idiot, she thinks you might be the Ripper,”
“That’s ridiculous,” Boyden said, but he looked very worried.
“I’ve turned a blind eye to your inappropriate shagging because we’re in the same lodge, but I can’t protect you if you step over the line and start hurting the tarts.”
“I haven’t hurt anyone, I swear,” Boyden said, wide-eyed. “I might be a little rough at times, but I’ve never marked one of them.”
Pritchard nodded. “I believe you, but others may not. I’ll try and convince Sarah to drop it but you should stay away from the Mission until this has all blown over.”
“I will,” Boyden promised. But Pritchard was already heading for the elevator.
◆◆◆
The meeting had been going strong for the best part of two hours and Tyler could see that people were starting to flag. He considered giving them a ten-minute break to grab a cup of coffee and take a leak, but on reflection, he decided against it. They were nearly finished now and it would be better to press on and just get it over with.
“Okay,” Tyler said, “the killer left a cool bag containing human flesh outside Terri Miller’s plush Canary Wharf apartment. We still haven’t worked out how he got into the building unseen as there is a concierge on duty twenty-four hours a day. I’m guessing that the night duty bloke had slipped into the back office for a kip, but he swears he was wide awake and at his post all night. Unfortunately, there’s no internal CCTV, so we’ll probably never know for sure. The bag and the flesh have been sent to the lab for fingerprint and DNA testing. George, how is that progressing?”
“The flesh has been visually examined. Basically, he sent Miller one of the breasts he removed from Rye. It doesn’t appear to have any bite marks on it, but it’s been swabbed for DNA anyway, and I hope to have the results back by the end of play today. The bag has already been tested and is negative for prints and DNA.”
“What about the handwriting comparisons, and the forensic testing of the letter and three Polaroid photographs he sent Miller?” Jack asked.
“We’ve sent photographs of the two painted messages, the names written on the back of two of the Polaroids, and the letter up to Scotland,” George said. “There’s a woman in Edinburgh who’s probably the best handwriting expert in the business. I spoke to her on the phone last week and her initial findings are quite encouraging. We’re pretty confident we can prove the same hand wrote all three texts. The letter itself has been sent to the lab for ESDA testing and will then be chemically treated for fingerprints. Likewise, the three Polaroid photos that Miller received will also be tested for DNA and fingerprints.”
“When will we get the results back?” Tyler asked.
“Not sure, boss,” Copeland confessed. “I’ll chase it up after the meeting.” He made a quick note in his daybook to ensure he remembered.’
Grier raised a tentative hand. “Excuse me,” he said, and then blushed when every head in the room turned to look at him. “Sorry to be so dim, but what’s ESDA?”
“It’s an Electrostatic Detection Apparatus,” George explained. Grier stared at him blankly. George smiled indulgently and explained in layman’s terms. “Imagine a suspect wrote something down in a notebook, and because they didn’t want anyone else to know what they had written they tore out the page. How would we find out what they wrote?”
“I guess you would either have to find the page they tore out or ask them,” Grier said.
George nodded. “Or – if you had access to the notebook – you could have the page underneath the one that was torn out ESDA tested.
