The Invisible Code (15 page)

‘Hm. I imagine he was so busy watching out for the girl that he didn’t notice someone was following him. Amy O’Connor died in St Bride’s Church. This has to be connected.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘O’Connor spoke to two small children before she entered the church. What if the little girl Waters met was one of the kids who were there that day? I want the O’Connor case.’ He picked up the phone and called Oskar Kasavian.

‘Are you absolutely sure this is relevant to my wife’s situation?’ Kasavian asked after Bryant had put forward his argument.

‘I think we’re going to find there’s a clear chain of events linking her to the earlier death,’ Bryant replied.

‘You mean you don’t have evidence yet.’

‘Not quite. Does your wife like children?’

‘Not especially. Why?’

‘I can’t see how she would get to know a little girl. One doesn’t tend to come across them in central London.’

‘I’m sorry, you’re losing me. What little girl?’

‘Amy O’Connor spoke to two children shortly before she died.’

‘What has that got to do with her death? Were they related to her? Did she tell them she wasn’t feeling well or something?’

‘No, I don’t think she knew them. But nobody else came near her, and something made her die. Healthy young women don’t just drop dead. That’s why I need the case. I want to look into O’Connor’s background, her medical records, her employment history, and I need Home Office sanction to do it.’

‘All right,’ said Kasavian finally. ‘I’ll do what I can. The City of London Police are bound to kick up a fuss, but I’ll see if we can get things moving from this end. If you honestly reckon it will help Sabira I’ll do whatever it takes, but you may have to leave it with me for a few days. Things don’t move as quickly here as they do in your world.’

Bryant ended the call. ‘It looks like he’s going to get us O’Connor,’ he said. ‘Dan, how soon can you tackle Waters’s apartment?’

‘I’ll go right after this.’

‘Good. I need to find out what else connects Waters to Sabira Kasavian. Check his computer and his cameras, look for the pictures he was taking on the night they met. I’d like to know if she sent him to St Bride’s Church.’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to ask her?’ said Dan.

‘I’d get clearer answers from the cat.’ Bryant tapped his false teeth with a chewed biro, thinking. ‘Speaking of which, ask Meera to see if Crippen has given birth yet. I don’t want to be treading on kittens. You know, it would be better if we can find a link, because it doesn’t sound as if Kasavian’s department is going to come up with anything overnight. The more we’re delayed, the more we risk.’

‘You say there’s risk,’ said Dan. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I think Sabira Kasavian is right to believe that her life is in danger,’ said Bryant. ‘If we lose her, we’ll never get to the truth. And we have to act before she finds out that the only person she trusted is dead.’

15

GHOST IMPRINT

‘
JOHN WANTED ME
to see how you work,’ Jack Renfield explained as he watched Dan Banbury attempting to open the front door. ‘He thought it would help me understand your thinking. For God’s sake give me the bloody key.’

Jeff Waters lived in one of the bland new high-rises that surrounded Swiss Cottage. Clearly his photographic business paid well. The top floors had glass walls that faced south, overlooking the city.

‘We’re in the wrong bloody jobs,’ Renfield grunted. ‘Look at this place, a million plus, easy.’

‘I’m going to tell you this once,’ said Banbury. Now that they had entered the flat, they were on his turf. ‘I have my own way of working and I need you to follow my instructions. You remain behind me, don’t deviate to the left or right unless I clear an area first. I work to a grid, but I’ll create two cleared access paths through the site. After that—’

‘This is boring,’ said Renfield. ‘Just go in and stop pissing about.’

‘I need to explain this because Mr Bryant fails to
understand the concept of site contamination. He’s been known to leave sweet wrappers by a body. He can’t resist
touching
things.’ Banbury grimaced. ‘And bits seem to fall off him. He sheds foreign material like a dog. I once picked up trace liquids at a murder site and followed them through three rooms before I realized that he’d made himself a cup of cocoa and dripped it through the flat.’

‘What are you expecting to find here?’

‘Waters said he never spoke to Sabira, never saw her anywhere except from behind the paparazzi barrier, but Mr Bryant thinks otherwise.’

‘Why would Waters have lied?’

‘Presumably because she confided something of importance to him, and instructed him not to mention their conversation to anyone.’

‘Pillow talk.’

Banbury held up his tweezers. ‘The woman Sabira had the fight with in Fortnum’s accused her of having an affair with Waters. A long blond hair would be a good start. The last thing her husband will want is to be confronted with proof of her infidelity. But Mr Bryant reckons it might shock her into giving some honest answers.’

‘Has it occurred to anyone that she might just be having a nervous breakdown?’ Renfield asked. ‘Birds do, you know. It’s not easy living in the public eye, as my sister can tell you after she got done for shoplifting at Ikea.’

‘What did she take?’

‘She put an occasional table up her kaftan. Now that she’s gained weight she could probably get away with a lawn chair.’

‘I hardly think Sabira’s change of lifestyle can be compared to your sister’s light-fingered habits.’ Banbury eased himself down on to his knees, opened his forensics box and began taping the floor. ‘Besides, her husband is clear about the date of her personality dysfunction. He
says it started six weeks ago. If I can find something that approximates that date, we’ll be able to give him a reason for her behavioural change.’

‘It may not be something he wants to hear.’

‘I’m going to do the bathroom first.’ Banbury cleared a path to a bare, white-tiled corner shower room and began checking the toiletries cabinet. ‘There’s no woman residing here,’ he said. ‘Not recently, anyway.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Renfield.

‘Single men hardly ever remember to clean the insides of their bathroom cabinets. It’s special territory, like your shed. How long has he been living here?’

Renfield checked his notes. ‘Three years.’

‘Cleaning lady?’

‘Janice spoke to the neighbour. She says no.’

‘Overnight guests?’

‘I can nip next door and ask her.’

‘Don’t bother, I’ll soon tell you. I’m only going to grid the seating area in the lounge. I can see where he’s been. Singles form more regimented patterns than couples. Let’s do the bedroom.’

The apartment had been recently painted in soothing shades of grey, offset with lime-washed light oak floors, thick cream rugs, white walls and hidden downlighters. The bedroom was elegant and minimalist.

Renfield noticed that the forensic pathologist had a habit of peering about himself like a cat venturing into a stranger’s flat. ‘No clutter to deal with, no knick-knacks, all very masculine.’ Banbury opened another of his cases and set aside a packet of brown paper bags.

‘What are they for?’ Renfield asked.

‘Best way to avoid evidence contamination. Should get some nice Cinderellas off those rugs. I can tell if there are only his shoes in the wardrobe from checking the angle of the footfall, rubbed spots, weight distribution, stuff like that. I can do that without going to Forensics.’

‘And by looking at the sizes,’ said Renfield sarcastically. ‘Unless she had massive plates of meat.’

‘What if there are two males living here with the same shoe size? He works strange hours, could be subletting without the neighbour even noticing. Hang on.’ Banbury lowered himself beneath the bed and emerged with a tiny fragment of broken glass in his tweezers.

‘Blimey, how did you spot that?’

‘Practice. Normally I’d send this off to the GRIM room at Lambeth FSS.’

‘Grim room? What’s that?’

‘A Glass Refractive Index Measurement room. If we’d found a glass fragment from Waters’s clothing, Lambeth would stick the fragments in a special oil, heat it, then cool it down until the point when the bits refract light at the same point as the oil. So the glass vanishes in the oil, giving its refractive index. If this bit and the recovered sample refract light at the same point then they’re probably from the same source, and you could say he was killed here and dumped there. But in this case we know he was killed where he was found because of the CCTVs and witness reports. Anyway, I wouldn’t be able to use the Forensic Science Service now. The government’s closing it down.’

‘Why would they do that? I thought it was supposed to be the best in the world.’

‘It’s the best, but it’s also losing two million a month, so they’re going to outsource to private firms. A total disaster, in my opinion. The FSS built its rep on shared information, the very thing private companies don’t do.’ He rose and stretched his back. ‘No one else has been here. We’re lucky Waters had a hairy chest.’

‘Why?’

‘Hairy blokes can’t help shedding as they move about. You wouldn’t believe the amount of stuff that comes off the human body. There’s not been anyone else in his bed.
Look at that.’ Banbury had folded back the cotton covers and was pointing to tiny curls of hair on the bottom sheet. ‘Heavy sleeper.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘He sleeps on the left but deliberately keeps the alarm clock on the right-hand table. It’s so he has to cross the bed to turn it off in the morning. If it was on the left he knows he would just hit snooze and go back to sleep. So there was no one to the right of him.’

‘I can see why you like this job now,’ said Renfield. ‘It gives you a chance to have a right old nose around.’

‘I like it’, said Banbury, waggling a dusting brush between his fingers, ‘because it allows me to build a picture of someone without me ever having met them. A ghost imprint, if you will.’

‘All right, then,’ said Renfield, folding his arms. ‘Tell me what you know about Waters that you didn’t when you came in.’

‘He’s tall, around six three. The apartment’s bespoke, and he’s had the cupboards, sink and counters raised above normal height. That fits with the size twelve trainers, comfortable shoes for standing around. He’s a night person; he drinks brandy alone, which no one does early unless he’s French, in my experience, and his TV viewing history will back that up. Never eats at home; likes to think he’s fit: the cupboards have protein shakes and there’s a note in the kitchen reminding him to renew his gym membership. He probably put his back out two years ago – there are old packets of diazepam and tramadol in the bathroom, strong doses.’

‘That’s easy stuff. Tell me something I don’t know.’

‘All right. He likes his women young. He’s got serious commitment issues because of his brain-damaged four-year-old daughter.’

‘You’re reading that from his apartment?’

Banbury shrugged. ‘He decorated it alone. This isn’t
the kind of flat women would hang around in without altering something. There’s no bath, for a start. Have you ever met a woman who could live without a tub? Plus there are some internet sites on his laptop that tread a bit close to the legal age limit.’

‘You got the computer?’

‘In his bag.’

‘You’re thinking about him talking to the little girl? The porn doesn’t make him a pervert.’

‘I agree, I’m just pointing it out. His hours are unsociable and he likes to sleep in late, so he never brings anyone back because he’d have to talk to them in the morning. He hardly ever sees his daughter. From the number of Plaxo reminders about doctors’ appointments and a few of his emailed replies my guess is that she suffered some kind of brain-trauma, maybe meningitis, and the stress wrecked his relationship with his partner. There are a few pictures of her up to the age of three, but they’re in a drawer. She was healthy then, everything was fine. Then he put his past away, a coping mechanism. I’ve got an address for the partner; you can check it out. He’s obviously still involved and concerned because there are over a dozen books in the lounge on the subject of coping with serious child illnesses, so I’d say he was still handling the fallout. He’s got no enemies because he has no friends. All he ever does is work.’