‘Do you recognize this man?’ Langton asked.
The doctor gave a slow nod of his head, and his wife seemed to agree.
‘I think it is the same man,’ he said. ‘He came to see us about ten months ago. He was very sick, suffering from a blood disease. It was advanced: his eyes were yellow with kidney infection. Esme said she was certain he had sickle cell anaemia, but we would require blood tests. We arranged for another appointment and gave him some herbal remedies to help his condition.’
Esme spoke up. ‘We do not have the facilities to carry out blood tests; that would have had to be done at the local hospital, as with any medical practice. With advanced sickle disease, if not given the correct medication, the organs begin to fail. This man was very sick.’
‘So what happened?’
Esme looked to her husband. ‘He never kept his appointment. He was also unable to pay for the treatment. We never saw him again.’
Dr Salaam placed the e-fit picture of Joseph Sickert to one side, almost on the edge of the table away from all the other photographs. He then drew forwards Rashid Burry’s picture. ‘This man brought him to my surgery — the man found in the car; he was very unpleasant and threatened my wife. He said that he would pay for the treatment. Correct?’ He turned to Esme and she nodded.
‘Was he a regular patient? I mean, did he bring other people to your surgery?’ Langton asked, hardly able to contain himself. Rashid Burry’s photograph had been plastered all over the newspapers and on television crime shows, along with Joseph Sickert’s, and yet here were this couple, calmly identifying them.
‘No, he did not. As I said, he was very unpleasant and threatened my wife. I told him he was not welcome to come to my place of work again and that if he did, I would call the police.’
‘So you were never paid?’ Anna asked Esme.
The woman glanced at her husband, her eyes half-closed; she had the faintest of smiles on her full lips. ‘Yes — yes, he did pay. Some patients we do not even ask for money; others, especially men like that one, do eventually pay — sometimes a lot more than we have asked.’
Dr Salaam reached out to gently cover his wife’s hand, as if warning her to keep silent. He then picked up Gail Sickert’s photograph.
‘I do not know this sad woman.’
He left that photograph in front of him; next, he took the picture of the headless corpse of the little boy and placed it on top of Rashid Burry. The child’s skull he moved aside, as if not interested. He collected Idris and Eamon’s mug shots and stacked them on top of the Rashid Burry picture. Lastly, he passed the picture of Carly Ann North to Esme, who looked at it very carefully and nodded as he added it to the pile.
Langton and Anna watched in fascination, no idea what he was doing or why, as Dr Salaam then placed his hands gently on top of the stack and bent his head. His deep voice was even lower.
‘They are connected,’ he said.
Langton waited and glanced at Anna, who sat staring at the massive man’s beautiful hands spread over the pictures. Grace, who had not said one word throughout, but sat silently listening to everything, was as nonplussed. The three of them were unsure what to say next.
‘We will need protection,’ Elmore Salaam murmured. He then sat bolt upright, picked up the mug shot of Clinton Camorra and placed it to one side.
‘The link between these souls is this man. His real name, I believe, is Emmerick Camorra. He uses many aliases, but the name by which he is known to me is Emmerick Camorra. If I help you with this tortured boy Krasiniqe, if it is known that my wife and I are involved, we will be targeted by Camorra. He has an army of crazed, dependent soldiers. They will do anything he asks, and if it is to cut my throat, rape and murder my beloved wife, they will do it. If we agree to see this Krasiniqe boy, it must be kept secret; if it isn’t, then we cannot help you. Remove him from the prison, remove his brother to somewhere safe, and we will attempt to help you; if this cannot be done, then we cannot place ourselves at risk.’
Langton was speechless. He half-rose out of his seat and then sat down again. ‘Doctor Salaam, I assure you that I will arrange round-the-clock protection for you and your wife. We have been unable to track down Camorra, but if you could help us and assist—’
Elmore Salaam leaned over the table. His voice boomed. ‘I do not think you have any understanding of how dangerous this man is. I do, because he learned from me; but then he became obsessed, and not with the good. Camorra has embraced the devil and worships Satan; he uses terror and threats to naive innocent souls who believe that he is a high priest.’
Salaam eased himself away from the table and walked to the far wall. He pointed, just as they had seen Krasiniqe do. ‘This is someone controlling time; when they stop, you die. This boy is trying to keep the hours to live. If he can no longer lift his hand, the finger of death has stopped his heart.’
Esme quietly rose from her chair and went to her husband’s side. For the first time, they could see that he was close to weeping. She held his hand, and it seemed to soothe him.
‘We have to go now,’ she said.
Langton remained sitting, staring over the table covered in photographs, while Grace took the doctor and his wife out. They refused to leave in an unmarked patrol car, but had chosen a circuitous route of trains, buses and taxis, afraid lest anyone should find out about the police interview.
Anna began to gather up the photographs. She felt really shaken. ‘What do you think?’ she asked Langton.
He yawned and stretched his arms above his head. ‘What I think is, why the fuck didn’t they come forward before? We’re months into an enquiry. Don’t they read the fucking newspapers?’ He mimicked the doctor. ‘Oh, this is Joseph Sickert, he came as a patient.’ He banged the table. ‘We’ve been hunting that bastard for fucking weeks: he’s been on the front page of all the papers, on the TV news, on TV crime shows. Oh, and yes, we’ve got the wrong name for the bastard. They call him Emmerick not Clinton.’ Langton held up the mug shot of the man they knew as Clinton Camorra. ‘And they fucking know him! Taught him his sicko voodoo shit! Yet God forbid they know where he is now. It makes me wanna strangle the pair of them. This bastard Camorra’s gonna do my fucking head in. That’s what I think.’
‘Well, maybe they were scared.’
Langton picked up the dead boy’s photograph. ‘Tell that to this little child, his head and hands cut off; don’t give me that shit about them being scared. That bastard has been shipping in Christ knows how many kids, and they’ve been doing their crap stuff out of their make-believe surgery with all those bullshit credentials.’
‘What about giving them protection?’ Anna asked.
‘Oh, they’ll get it; it’ll look like we’ve got Bin Laden under fucking wraps! My budget’s already through the bloody roof.’
The door opened midway through his tirade. It was Grace.
‘Harry just called in. We have found Gail Sickert’s children.’
Langton’s reaction surprised Anna: he put his hand over his face and almost wept. ‘Oh, thank Christ!’
Chapter Sixteen
Harry Blunt was sitting at his desk; he had the telephone cupped to his ear.
‘Kiss them goodnight for me and tell them I love them. I’ll be late, sweetheart, so don’t wait up.’
Anna put down a cup of coffee as he replaced the receiver. She gave him a kindly pat on his shoulder. ‘Maybe we won’t be that late tonight.’
‘Thank you, sorry to be… At least they’d been fed and they were quite clean — well, the little girl was, but the boy had soiled his pants.’