‘What is it?’ Mariner asked.
‘It’s a plastic adhesive material, like duct tape, though we’ll know for sure when it’s been analysed.’ Croghan picked up another slide and slid it under the viewer. ‘And when we did the swabs, we retrieved this from Grace’s ear.’ Magnified many hundreds of times the image resembled a wiggly piece of string.
‘From the cloth she was wrapped in?’ Mariner speculated.
‘No, it’s too coarse for that,’ said Croghan. ‘It looks to me more like a fibre from sack-cloth. Hessian, or something of that nature.’
‘Something she was gagged with?’
‘Possibly,’ said Croghan. ‘But we salvaged an almost identical fibre from the top of Rosa’s head, caught in her hair, so alternatively something that was used to cover their heads at some point. Toxicology should tell us whether or not they have been drugged, but given the amount of time they’ve been missing, it’s possible that any sedative may have worked itself out of their systems before they were killed.’ Croghan had returned to Grace’s body. ‘Also, as you can see, the pubic hair has been removed, by shaving. It may, of course, have been personal preference, but it’s the same for both women — which would be another coincidence. Do we know if either of them was a fan of the Brazilian?’
‘Strangely enough, that’s not a question we’ve asked, but I would be surprised, given what we know about them so far,’ said Mariner. ‘We haven’t made this generally known yet, but along with the clothing for each woman we were sent a sample of pubic hair.’
‘How charming,’ said Croghan. ‘Then I’m sure you’re right. Whoever shaved them has been meticulous. The skin is smooth. You sent the hair to the lab?’
‘Yes, should get the results any day.’
‘Good, they should be able to tell you what kind of razor or shaver has been used. If it’s any help, overall I’m getting the impression of someone who has taken good care of these women, treating them respectfully, reverentially even.’
‘Any thoughts yet on how long they have been dead?’ asked Mariner.
Croghan sighed. ‘It’s never enough, is it? You always have to end with the hard stuff. Wrapping them in the sheets will have effectively offered some protection from the usual pests and will, of course, have skewed the effects of air temperature and moisture. At a rough guess — and this is going out on a limb — I would say for Grace it’s somewhere between seven and ten days, and Rosa three days to a week.’
‘Those are big windows,’ said Mariner.
‘I’m sorry, it’s the best I can do.’
Mariner had already seen the two soiled cloths, spread out on a bench on the far side of the room. ‘Anything you can tell us about the cloth?’ asked Mariner.
‘Ah, our Turin shrouds.’ Croghan walked them over to the bench for a closer look at the material. ‘They look like your common or garden bed sheets,’ he said. ‘More or less identical, they’re made of heavy-duty pure cotton, the kind that is commonly used in a setting where linen has to be frequently laundered.’
‘Like a hotel?’ asked Mariner.
‘That would be about right,’ said Croghan. ‘Most domestic stuff these days is much lighter — polycotton or percale. We’ll know more when it’s had a full analysis.’ Reaching over, he lifted the edge of one sheet where there was a clean rectangular step in the fabric. ‘You can see here that a chunk has also been cut out of it, which makes me wonder if it was stamped with a laundry mark,’ he indicated. ‘It’s the same for both of them and would be consistent with your idea of a hotel.’
Before they left, Croghan came out to the viewing suite with a small plastic bag containing one of the necklaces. ‘Again, identical on both women,’ he said. ‘You might want to keep this one back for tomorrow morning.’
‘What’s happening tomorrow morning?’ asked Jesson.
‘Councillor and Mrs Clifton are coming in to make a formal identification,’ said Mariner.
‘What about Rosa?’
‘If we can’t get hold of any of her family down in London we’ll have to ask the teacher, Sam McBride, to come in.’
Chapter Nineteen
Chelsey Skoyles herself came to the door of the house on Winchester Drive. She looked sleepy and her hair was tangled, as if she had just got out of bed, although Charlie could hear a TV playing nearby. Pudgy and with dyed blond hair and a number of piercings, Chelsey wore too-tight tracksuit bottoms and a short T-shirt. Squinting at Glover, she absently scratched at the inch or so of white belly visible between the two.
Glover identified himself, presenting his warrant card. ‘I’d like to ask you some questions about what happened to you at the Belvedere Hotel last year,’ he said.
‘What?’ She gazed back blankly.
‘The assault,’ said Glover. ‘I want to talk to you about it. Can I come in?’
‘I suppose.’ Leaving the door open for Glover to follow, she slouched back along the hallway. He found her slumped back in front of the TV in an untidy living room, the air stale from unopened windows, watching what looked like a child’s cartoon show. Sitting down, Glover found himself momentarily distracted by the garish colours and sounds. ‘Can we turn the TV off for a bit?’ he asked.
Without looking at him she picked up the remote and hit the mute button. ‘What did you want, then?’
‘I just want you to tell me about the night you were attacked,’ Glover repeated, suspecting that Chelsey was what Helen would have called a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
‘I told that other bloke, ages ago,’ Chelsey said, puzzled.
‘I know, but it would help if you could tell me too,’ said Glover, as if he were addressing a five-year-old. ‘In case we missed something, or there’s anything new you’ve remembered in the meantime.’
Chelsey heaved a huge sigh. ‘We was out on Broad Street — me and Laura and Stacey — and I’d had a skinful. Stace went off with this bloke and I don’t know what happened to Laura but I ended up on my own. I was starving so I went and got a McDonald’s from the all-night one by the library, then I couldn’t get a taxi, so I went down to the station. There’s always loads there.’ She seemed to lose her thread.
‘Then what happened?’ Glover prompted.
‘I was taking a shortcut down this alleyway, and I got shoved in the back. This bloke just came out of nowhere. He got hold of my arms really tight and dragged me in by these big bins and pushed me against the fence. I banged my head.’ She touched her scalp. ‘He had his hands all over me and up my skirt, so I screamed. He told me to shut up, but he was trying to hold me down and get his trousers undone, so he couldn’t do much about it. I just kept yelling.’ Her lower lip quivered at the memory. ‘Then this door opened right by us and these two men came out. He just let me go and legged it. One of the fellas went after him, but he couldn’t catch him. I was just sat on the floor, crying. I tried to get away too, because I was scared but the other man said they’d called the police so I’d be all right.’
‘That was the American man, and the hotel porter?’
She nodded. ‘They took me in the hotel and got me a cup of tea and we waited ’til the police came. They were nice to me.’
‘You said this man who attacked you came out of nowhere and pushed you from behind. This is really important, Chelsey. Where do you think he could’ve come from?’
‘Dunno. All of a sudden he was just there.’
‘Could he have come from the hotel?’
She thought about that for a while, before shrugging. ‘I suppose so.’
While they were talking, a door slammed shut, shaking the whole house, and a middle-aged woman appeared, weighed down with supermarket carrier bags. Seeing Glover, her eyes narrowed. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded.
He got up to show her his warrant card ‘I’m DS Cha—’
‘Police? What the fuck are you doing in my house?’
‘It’s all right, Mrs Skoyles,’ Glover said, trying to placate her. ‘I just came to ask—’
<
br /> ‘Ask her what? What do you want with her?’
‘I was asking her about the attack last—’
‘It’s a bit late for that! You’ve got no fucking right barging in here like this.’
‘I didn’t—’
‘Chelsey, get up to your room,’ she ordered, before rounding on Glover. ‘She don’t want to talk about it — it upsets her. She’s only just getting over it. And your lot weren’t fucking interested. Not when it happened.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean get out of my house now. We don’t want you here. You should have done your job before. Go on, get out. Now!’
Glover had no option but to retreat. But the episode left him feeling slightly mystified. Hostility towards the police was common enough, and Charlie had experienced it more times than he could recall, but here it seemed misplaced to say the least. Chelsey hadn’t seemed remotely upset to be talking to him, and he would have expected the family to welcome any further investigation into the incident. Perhaps when Mrs Skoyles had calmed down . . . Meanwhile there were other lines of enquiry to be pursued. He started his car and headed back to Granville Lane.
* * *
After the post-mortems, Jesson and Mariner stopped off at one of those ubiquitous American-style coffee shops in the hospital entrance to try and purge the smells still lingering in their nostrils. Sipping her cappuccino, Jesson smacked her lips and grimaced. ‘I can still taste those chemicals.’
‘Operant conditioning,’ said Mariner. He was watching, out of the window, the people coming and going. ‘So if P is our killer, the necklaces may have only been put on the women shortly before, or after, their deaths. Both women had contact with him, so he must have picked them up somewhere. The most obvious place is in or around the Belvedere. Rosa worked there and Grace probably walked past it on a regular basis. For all we know she may have been inside too.’
‘We should check with her friends,’ said Jesson. ‘And her colleagues from Symphony Hall.’
‘So,’ said Mariner, ‘our man picks them up and takes them somewhere where they can be undressed and then washed clean. Each body is then wrapped in a sheet and transported out to Pepper Wood, where he carries them some distance before digging a shallow grave for each and burying them. The clothes are laundered and ironed, the shoes are polished — then they’re sent to us. This person has access to somewhere private where he can do whatever it is he does with them, strip and bathe them, launder their clothes, then wrap them and move them. Could you do all that in a hotel without being noticed?’
Jesson looked doubtful. ‘You might get away with it for a few hours, perhaps even overnight.’
‘But this is all pointing to the women being held for some time, possibly days.’
‘I suppose that might be possible if you were on the staff,’ she conceded. ‘You’d have access to everywhere — bathrooms, laundry and linen store. And keys to the rooms. A strategically placed “do not disturb” or “closed for maintenance” sign would help.’
‘But only for a limited time and even then, it would be a huge risk,’ Mariner pointed out. ‘And what about when you’re ready to move them?’
‘There must be a trade entrance to the hotel round the back. In the dead of night it might just have been possible to make his exit unnoticed and, as we know, the right kind of vehicle can easily blend in.’
‘Like a dark-coloured van, you mean?’ said Mariner.
They finished their drinks and started making their way back to the car park. ‘We should look at the staff and guest lists for the hotel,’ Mariner said, as they walked. ‘You’d better call Charlie and let him know where we’re going. Where is he, anyway?’
But wherever Glover was, he wasn’t answering his phone, so Vicky left a message instead.
* * *
Having been ejected from the Skoyles’ home, Charlie had returned to Granville Lane. According to the incident report on Chelsey Skoyles’ attack, the Belvedere’s night porter didn’t speak very good English and, as he had called the police first, he only arrived on the scene after the assailant had run off. Charlie was therefore putting through a long-distance call to Larry and Gaynor Hausknecht at their home in Philadelphia. The five-hour time difference meant that, in the US, it was just coming up to 9 a.m. Larry Hausknecht, when he came on the line, was unfazed. ‘To be honest, we’ve been expecting your call. I’d have thought someone would have gotten in touch with us long before now,’ he said. ‘I told the officer at the time that I’d be happy to help in any way I can — and to call me as soon as the guy was caught. Is that why you’re calling? You’ve got him?’
‘We’re not quite there yet,’ said Glover. ‘Mainly as there hasn’t been much of a description to go on . . . I mean, I understand that it was dark and you didn’t get a good look at him—’
‘Sure, it was dark,’ Hausknecht interrupted. ‘But I got a pretty good look at the bastard. I can picture him right now. And I gave a detailed description to the police officer who came to the hotel that night.’
Frowning, Charlie stared at the notes in front of him: sole witness unable to provide adequate description due to conditions. ‘Would you mind just running through it again,’ he said.
‘Sure,’ said Hausknecht. ‘The guy was about my height — maybe five-nine or five-ten — lean, with short, dark hair and a real short beard, like he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. He was wearing a suit and tie. The tie was shiny, with some sort of metallic effect. He was kind of dishevelled, I guess because of what he’d tried to do to that poor girl, but apart from that he looked like a respectable type of guy. I ran after him, but he was gone pretty fast, so he must have been athletic, you know?’
Hausknecht was right. That was a detailed description. Glover didn’t like to contemplate why it hadn’t been recorded in the file.
‘Mr Hausknecht, if I can arrange a video conference, would you be prepared to help us put together an e-fit of this man?’
‘Sure. And how is the girl, Chelsey? My wife and I were worried about her. She was pretty clearly intoxicated, and if I’m honest the officer who came out seemed more concerned with that than what had happened to her.’
‘She’s fine,’ said Charlie. ‘I spoke to her today and she’s . . .’ Charlie hesitated. ‘She’s being well supported by her family,’ he said.
‘Well, I’m glad to hear that.’
* * *
Leaving the car parked on double-yellow lines outside the Belvedere, Mariner dispatched Jesson to obtain guest lists for the nights that Grace and Rosa went missing as well as the night of the other alleged attack. This time they would take a more assertive approach.
Meanwhile he walked back down Hill Street and round to the back of the block to investigate the rear entrance of the hotel. A narrow passageway ran along the rear of the buildings and below the hotel’s spidery fire escapes was an open trade entrance, with waste skips lined up against one fence. Along the opposite side of the yard, a crude canopy had been erected over a shallow ramp that went up to the double door access. As Mariner stood there, the nearest of the two doors opened and a young man in chef’s whites came out to deposit a bulging rubbish bag into one of the bins. When he’d gone back inside, Mariner went up three concrete steps and tried the second door. It opened easily, taking him into a carpeted corridor, which he followed past toilets marked pretentiously ‘Dames’ and ‘Hommes’ to find himself at the back of the hotel lobby. As he walked past the lifts, one of them pinged, as if sensing his presence, and the doors slid open. It was empty, so Mariner stepped inside for a second and scanned the control panel to get an idea of the size of the hotel. Six floors to choose from, but here was something else he hadn’t thought of . . . he pressed a button, the doors closed and the pressure dropped beneath his feet as the lift began to descend. Seconds later it delivered Mariner into the sodium-lit cavern of the underground car park, with spaces clearly designated for the businesses occupying the surrounding buildings. In the section mar
ked out for the Belvedere Hotel, there was a single vehicle: a green Ford Escort van with a discreet logo on the driver’s door.
Back up in the hotel, Mariner found Vicky Jesson in a corner of the bar, sitting in a leather tub chair, and studying a sheet of A4.
‘How’s it going?’ asked Mariner.
‘I met no resistance, if that’s what you mean,’ said Jesson, looking up momentarily. ‘Given how things have turned out, I think they’ve been expecting us to come back. This is the staff list and she’s gone to print off the rosters and the guest lists for the dates that we’re interested in.’
‘Anything?’
‘I’ve found one thing.’ As Mariner pulled up a chair beside her she held out the list, the tip of her forefinger pointing to one particular name. ‘Our friend, Ricardo,’ she said. ‘His full name is Ricardo Ponti, with a P.’
‘Well, well,’ said Mariner. ‘Anyone else?’
‘A Narinder Patel, but that’s about it,’ said Jesson.
At that moment the manager appeared. She greeted Mariner with a nod. ‘These are the staff and guest lists for the dates that you have requested,’ she said, handing him the sheaf of papers.
Mariner thanked her. ‘We’d like to speak to Ricardo too,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry,’ the manager said. ‘It is Ricardo’s day off today.’ She leaned over Jesson. ‘But here is his address,’ she said pointing to the list.
‘Thank you,’ said Mariner, getting to his feet. ‘I’d also like to take one of your sheets with us.’
She arched an eyebrow. ‘A sheet?’ Although the discovery of the bodies had been made public, details of exactly how they’d been buried had not.
‘Yes, a bed sheet. One will do fine.’
She must have been curious, but she kept any questions to herself and several minutes later she returned with a sheet zipped into a protective polythene pouch.
‘I’ll return it as soon as I can,’ said Mariner. Through the transparent plastic covering he’d already noted the red print of a laundry mark along one border. ‘Do you have your own laundry here?’
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