‘Your first husband?’ Wendy said. ‘What can you tell us about him?’
‘I haven’t seen him since the day I left. Mike wouldn’t want to be reminded of my past, only thankful that I didn’t end up in Mary’s place.’
‘Your first husband’s name?’ Isaac said.
‘Gareth Rees.’
Isaac almost jumped out of his chair; Wendy sat still, not sure how to respond. From one apparently innocent woman, leads to two key people.
‘The name of Analyn’s husband?’ Wendy asked after a pause.
‘She never said.’
On the drive back to London, Isaac passed on the details to Bridget – a wedding certificate for Gareth Rees and Gabbi, as well as a photo of the man – and updated Larry as Wendy drove. It was, yet again, going to be a long night.
***
Isaac’s long-held belief that if you keep prodding enough, keep asking enough questions, then sooner or later a rabbit would be pulled out of the hat. Now, in the space of twenty-four hours, two rabbits.
Sean Garvey had given the name of Gareth and Mary Wilton had told them of another woman, a fellow countrywoman of Analyn, the mysterious consort of Ian Naughton.
And in a neat and tidy white-painted house, with its wooden fence fronting on the street, a babe in arms, the tie-in had come.
The team in Homicide were elated. For once they had proof positive. Larry had a photo, and he was on his way to Canning Town, Bill Ross waiting for him, and then a visit out to Garvey.
Bridget had a phone number for Analyn and was attempting to track it, but having no success. The number was registered, but no signal was being picked up from the phone, although it was still active, a pay as you go, no address for the owner.
Whether Gabbi Gaffney had avoided the clutches of Mary Wilton, and if, as she had said, she had found work in a shop and Gareth Rees had seen her financially secure, didn’t seem important for the moment. Although, if he had, it didn’t seem to align with the man who had pointed a gun at Waylon Conroy and his gang.
Gareth Rees, the name on his passport and the dates of his trips to the Philippines confirmed, was an enigma. The man was a blank, with no criminal records against him, no history of employment, although a no longer used bank account and credit cards were found in his name. It was clear that Gareth Rees was the man’s respectable name, and that he used aliases for his criminal activities. He was also found to have been born in a small village in the north of the country.
The perplexing part was that Ian Naughton, another alias, had called the gun-holding man Gareth, which indicated a long-term friendship.
It was unfortunate that Sean Garvey, the hoodie with a bad attitude and little parental guidance, had not heard Gareth address the other man by a first name. But Isaac knew that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same spot.
‘Find Gareth Rees, bring him in, charge him with murder,’ Isaac said to the team.
‘No evidence,’ Larry said, playing the devil’s advocate. ‘It won’t stick.’
‘Stick or not, we’ve got him at the station for twenty-four hours, forty-eight if we’re lucky. We lost Naughton and Analyn once, I don’t intend to lose anyone else, not at this late stage of the investigation.’
‘It would help if we had his aliases,’ Bridget said. ‘I could run them through the system, see what I can find.’
‘Fingerprints, any chance?’ Wendy said.
‘In the Philippines, it’s a probability. Not on the wedding certificate, but Rees must have had to supply them at some stage. If we can get a copy, then we should be able to find if he has a criminal record in the UK,’ Bridget said.
‘Focus on that, as well as tracking Analyn’s movements,’ Isaac said.
‘When was the last time she used the phone?’
‘Thirteen days ago,’ Bridget said.
‘Holland Park, Godstone?’ Larry asked.
‘Both. She was the woman in the village on the date that the BMW was taken from the garage.’
Two days passed, two days of frustration as the team sorted through what they had, dealt with paperwork, waited for the opportunity to move forward. It was so quiet that Isaac took time to visit the bank, to sign the mortgage for the new house. He was pleased for Jenny who signed alongside him, frustrated that the crucial stage of the investigation was being hampered. So close, yet so far, he thought.
In the interim, Larry and Ross had visited Sean Garvey, this time at a pub not far from where he lived. The lift that the maintenance man had fixed was broken again, and neither of the police officers felt inclined to climb the stairs, and besides, the young man was preferred on his own, and not with his father.
Garvey had said that the man in the car and in the photo shown to him were probably the same, but couldn’t be sure. It was, Larry thought, an honest answer, and Garvey wasn’t so keen to talk too much, and as he admitted, the death of Waylon Conroy troubled him. He was frightened, although he had no idea who they were dealing with and where they would strike next.
Wendy visited Brad Robinson and his mother; the youth busy with his homework.
‘It’s Rose,’ the mother said. ‘She’s told him that she’ll never marry someone with no education.’
‘Love?’ Wendy said.
‘At their age, hardly.’
Wendy remembered the love she had felt at Brad’s age, the love that Rose felt for Brad, for a farmer’s son not far from where she lived on the Yorkshire Moors. She had
