“Tough. Just who does he think he is? Please, Barbara, tell him I am not available, and if he has anything to say, let him talk to Barolli. I refuse to speak to him.”
Anna waited, watching as Barolli took the call. He said little, making notes and recording their conversation. When he replaced the phone, he turned to Anna. “Listen to this.”
“I’m all ears,” she said tetchily.
Cameron Welsh didn’t like the fact that Anna had not taken his call, since, as he had said to Barolli, he was attempting to fast-track her career. Barolli had laughed and joked that perhaps Cameron could fast-track his, and it appeared to amuse the man, because he went on to discuss his theories at length. He suggested that the murder team should focus their inquiries on companies that delivered into, not out of, London. This was due to the fact that the victims were discovered near motorway service stations that had a drive-over or bridge from one side of the M1 to the other. So their killer, he estimated, would pick up his target from the services before the one nearest to where the victim was discovered, not the one closest, which he believed the police were currently focusing on.
Anna was tapping her foot with impatience.
“He said he’d have more details when he’d finished working on his profile of the killer,” Barolli went on, “and would require us to visit again.”
“This is preposterous! As if we haven’t considered that possibility, even more so as we know that Margaret Potts picked up her clients and then returned via—”
Barolli interrupted her. “Yeah, yeah, I know, but we’ve not considered that he picked them up on his way into London.”
“Because we’ve concentrated on where the bodies were found, not on the other side of the motorway heading into London.”
“But what if he was delivering into London and picked up the girls then? He could hold them in his vehicle, then dump them when he was leaving. Bodies could have been held by him for days.”
Anna sighed, still not in any way impressed. “Fine, go along with it, and rope in more officers to make further inquiries, but I sincerely believe he is bullshitting us.”
Barolli didn’t, and he went in to talk to Mike Lewis about the phone call. Mike listened and was almost as doubtful as Anna, but Barolli was insistent that, given time, Welsh could bring them something. He informed Lewis that Welsh had requested another opportunity to look over their files.
“Tell you what, Paul, bring up the old files on Cameron Welsh and look at Travis’s connection to him, and then we’ll talk to Langton and see what he thinks we should do.”
Mike Lewis and Barolli went over the arrest and interrogation of Cameron Welsh.
“Jesus, he was a sadistic bastard. No wonder Travis doesn’t like having to confront him. Maybe she’s right. This could all be a ploy done to give him some perverse satisfaction.” Mike sighed.
“I don’t agree. I think he has given us some informative material, and you have to understand that he’s not kept the files — so what if he does know a lot more and is stringing us along?”
Mike was still uncertain but eventually agreed to instigate further inquiries focusing on trucking companies delivering into London on a regular basis.
Due to the massive stack of information that resulted, the team was inundated. Mike had a meeting with Langton, who was as dismissive of Cameron’s input as Anna, until the thought occurred to him that Cameron’s psychobabble about getting into the mind of the killer might also be a cover-up.
“Could Welsh have had an interaction with another prisoner, one who was released and fitted the time frame?” Langton wondered.
“Well, we got a list of prisoners, but according to the governor, Welsh is a real loner and never shared his cell,” Mike pointed out.
“Maybe, but what about when he was held before his trial? It would mean a lot of digging back, but as we’ve still got no identification on two victims, we’re gonna have to get out the spades.”
Anna had not spoken to Langton, but she knew he had been discussing the latest visit to Barfield with Mike Lewis, and when they had the next briefing, she was certain he was going along with the idea that Welsh had information. She sat at her desk listening as Mike told them he wanted a check on all the inmates and prisoners held with Welsh before his trial who could possibly have had a conversation with him.
“We’re grasping at straws here, but we have to look at the possibility that someone may have admitted to Welsh that he was the killer and that he got away with it. This prisoner would have had to be released for the time frame of the murders, so it does at least cut down a lengthy elimination process.”
With the paperwork piling up from the new lines of inquiry, the team was kept busy, and they had yet to identify the two victims. Knowing that Anna was not happy about the focus on Cameron Welsh, Mike asked her to come into his office.
“Listen, I know how you feel about this, Anna, but stay with it. We have to work together.”
“Fine, but do you mind if I focus on Margaret Potts?” Anna didn’t want to be uncooperative, but she could barely contain her exasperation. “I don’t think we have covered the only identified victim’s background. I want to go back to Emerald Turk, and I still think we should continue trying to trace the guys she used to help her out when she was knocked around.”
“Okay by me, and we’ll keep our heads down trying to come up with a possible connection from inside the prison,” said Mike, knowing that he had to keep working on all the possibilities.
Anna sifted through the previous records of Margaret Potts. On file they had three arrests for prostitution, and backtracking through the court appearances, Anna saw that one of the fines had been paid by a Stanley Potts. They knew she had been married, and that she had two children taken into foster care, but they had never interviewed anyone save Emerald Turk. Anna went over the list of prostitutes who had been arrested alongside Potts and could know more about her, and she checked to see if any of them had ever worked service stations. It was painstaking work, and she knew it could well prove to be not worth the effort.
To track down Stanley Potts took almost the entire afternoon. He had been in Parkhurst Prison when Margaret’s body was discovered and had refused to be interviewed. He had subsequently stayed in numerous hostels and halfway houses, moving around almost as much as Emerald Turk. But at last Anna got a recent address from a probation officer who, although no longer in contact with Stanley, recalled him moving into shared accommodation with two other ex-prisoners.
It was late in the afternoon by the time Anna left the station.
The shared accommodation was a run-down semi-detached in Camden Town. The three-story house had been divided into four flats, and Stanley Potts was listed on the bell at the front door in flat 2. There were other names scribbled beneath his, and it looked as if numerous people had lived or were living in flat 2. When Anna rang the bell, it took a fair while before she heard footsteps. Finally, the door opened a few inches.
“Good afternoon. I am Detective Travis, and I am looking for a Stanley Potts — I believe he lives here?”
“Yes.”
“Is he here now?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
Anna showed him her ID. “I would really appreciate you talking to me, as I am on the team investigating Margaret Potts’s murder.”
“Can’t help you, love. I was in prison and hadn’t seen her for years before that.”
“Yes, I know. This would be just for me to get an insight into her background. You were married?”
“I just told you, I got nothin’ to say. I’d not set eyes on her for years.”
“Could we just talk? I won’t take up much of your time. It’s just that there are a few things you might be able to help me with,” Anna persisted.