Larry phoned Bridget, gave her the address and told her to get down to the house; time was of the essence, and she could work at the house as easily as in Challis Street.
The crime scene investigators spent time checking out the house, frustratingly long to Isaac and Larry as they had a deadline. They would need more than they had so far to extend Gareth Rees’s temporary incarceration from twenty-four hours to forty-eight; they needed proof of the man’s wrongdoing.
After what seemed an eternity, but was only just over ninety minutes, Grant Meston, Gordon Windsor’s second-in-charge, delivered the result.
‘Amanda Upton was in the house, and it’s Gareth Rees’s residence.’
‘How long ago for Amanda Upton?’ Isaac asked.
‘Recent, probably within a week or two of her death. I doubt if we can be more precise.’
‘The laptop?’
‘Gareth Rees’s fingerprints.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Amanda Upton’s. Not as pronounced, but she’s used it. It could have been to surf the internet, but that’s up to you to find out.’
‘Any signs of the two sharing a bed?’
‘There are hairs on the bed. Two people, some long strands, some short. We’ll pass them over to Forensics, but I’d say a man and a woman. The assumption is that they belong to Rees and the woman; they’ll confirm.’
A statement from Meston was good enough for Isaac. The two had shared a bed, and one had murdered the other. Which clarified why there was no struggle at the first murder scene in the cemetery. It did not, however, explain why they were there.
Reasons for the deaths, for the cemetery, for the cryptic message, for Naughton and Analyn being at the house in Holland Park, were unimportant for the present; the evidence to prove that Rees had shot Garvey was the pressing issue.
Solve one murder, and then the pieces would start to fall into place. The jigsaw that had led the department around London was soon to be completed.
Bridget opened the laptop; she knew there would be a password. Not that it concerned her as she had broken many over the years.
‘I’m in,’ she shouted down the stairs.
Isaac and Larry went up the stairs; the dog, excited by the people in the street, attempted to follow, one of the uniforms grabbing it by its collar and handing it back to its owner.
***
In Canning Town, Wendy was sitting down in an Indian restaurant. They’d spent gruelling and fruitless hours interviewing people, walking up and down the street. Gwen Pritchard was still trying to make headway, and Wendy recognised in the young woman what she had been at that age: indestructible, inexhaustible, with infinite enthusiasm. Mortality concerned Wendy, the realisation that life was finite; she didn’t like it, and it wasn’t usual for her to feel sorry for herself.
‘This place distresses me,’ Wendy said, looking over at Bill Ross. ‘The futility of their lives.’
‘Mapped out from birth for most of them. They don’t realise what could be achieved if you got off your backside and applied yourself,’ Ross’s reply. His transfer was in another week, but he understood where the sergeant was coming from, and besides, he knew that Dagenham, his next posting, wasn’t much better, just a change of scenery.
‘Narrowed view of the world. They come from other parts of the world, but what do they see? Here, no better than where they had been. Isolated, alone, no longer the extended family,’ Ross continued.
‘Not all of them.’
‘Not all. Certainly not Sean Garvey or the other two gang members. They were born here, and I doubt if any of them had experienced any beauty in their lives. The mind withers with time.’
‘DCI Cook said you were a good police officer; he didn’t say you understood the people.’
‘It was part of the training to work in a deprived area. An understanding of cultural differences, various religions, the inability of them to realise the opportunities afforded them.’
‘Some break free?’
‘Some do; a lot don’t.’
Wendy ordered, hot and spicy for her. Bill Ross went for mild after the Indian that he had taken Larry to before, as he had suffered the queasy stomach as well.
Gwen came in with a lady covered from head to toe in black; she was carrying a small child in her arms.
Wendy asked her to take a seat.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t,’ the woman said.
‘It’s me,’ Ross said. ‘We’re not related, the lady would not feel comfortable sitting at the same table with me.’
‘Is that it?’ Wendy said, looking up at the woman.
‘I hope you’ll understand.’
The woman’s English was perfect, a London accent. She had been brought up in England, but as Ross had said, criminal intent, unemployment, were generational. And so was a belief in a free society. The idea of equality had not embraced the woman, or maybe it had.
It was wrong, Wendy thought, but she could not solve it, only be polite to the woman.
Ross got up from his seat and walked out of the restaurant.
Gwen beckoned the woman to take a seat.
‘It seems we’ve got an Indian meal going free if you want it,’ Wendy said to the black-covered woman.
‘That’s for Westerners,’ she said. ‘A true Indian wouldn’t eat it.’
‘Tea? You’ll drink tea?’
‘Yes, I would.’
‘Gwen, what is it?’ Wendy said to the young constable.
‘Hania saw the shooting.’
‘Proof?’
‘She was on Skype to her cousin in Pakistan.’
‘A record?’
‘I recorded it for my sister,’ Hania said. ‘Can we move to the rear of the restaurant.’
The three women found a new table. Hania ensured that her face could not be
