‘If I maybe pushed that little bastard around, I admit to that — but she was my girl, right? I’m telling you, I could have had the pick of hundreds of them, but she—’ He gasped for breath and licked his lips.
‘Did you ever inject Eamon Krasiniqe with a poison called Jimson weed?’
‘No, no! I never done anything to him but knocked him about: he was screwing my girl, in my own house!’
‘So you now admit that the house in Peckham was your property?’
‘No! I never said that — I wish, man, I wish. That was some place; I done all the decorations, but I didn’t own it.’
‘So you prepared the cellar?’
‘What?’
‘The cellar, Mr Camorra: do you need me to remind you of what it looks like?’
He was shown a photograph. He glanced at it and then turned away. ‘I never went down there. I just told you, I didn’t own the place.’
‘Do you know the effect of Jimson weed?’ Langton asked quietly.
There was a flicker in Camorra’s eyes, then he laughed. ‘No, I never heard of it.’
‘So you did not prepare rock cakes containing the substance Jimson weed?’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘We have a statement saying that you passed rock cakes to a Mr David Johnson; he was instructed to take them to—’
‘That is a fucking lie! What do you think I am? A cook?’ Suddenly, Camorra stood up; this time, he made wafting movements with his hand, as if someone or something was behind him.
‘Please remain in your seat,’ Langton said.
Camorra slowly sat, but kept on turning back to look at the wall behind him; he constantly brushed at his sleeves, as if something was crawling over his body. By now, the sweat was glistening on his face; droplets fell from his hair and he breathed like a panting dog. ‘I feel sick,’ he said.
His solicitor asked if he needed a doctor. Camorra leaned forwards, clutching at his head. Langton waited; after a lengthy pause, he sat upright.
‘Are you well enough to continue this interview?’ he asked.
Camorra said nothing; spittle was forming in white, frothy globules at the corners of his mouth.
‘Mr Camorra?’ His solicitor leaned towards him.
Camorra cowered back. ‘I don’t want this man in the room with me,’ he said angrily.
Camorra then pushed back his chair and began to rant at Langton and Anna that he did not trust either of them. He wanted to leave the room; he didn’t feel well. It was quite obvious to them all that Camorra was becoming more and more anxious and his behaviour more erratic, then bizarre: he started to babble and curse, then lay on the floor. Officers were called in to take him back to his cell.
Langton ended the interview and suggested to Camorra’s solicitor that he talk with his client; if he required a doctor, they would call one.
Camorra was running a very high temperature but no longer sweating. His speech was incoherent; he had a rapid heartbeat and he was screaming, saying he could see monsters coming through the walls of his cell.
His mood swung from confusion as to where he was, to almost a euphoric state, calling out for Carly Ann. He sobbed and kept on saying that he loved her; then his condition worsened, as delirium set in. An ambulance was called and Camorra was taken to the local hospital. Terror had overtaken his sobbing, and he cowered like a caged animal as they tried to persuade him to get into the waiting ambulance. It took four officers to help the paramedics. Camorra had his first seizure at nine o’clock. He then had two further seizures inside the ambulance and, by the time he was taken into the casualty department of the local hospital, he was in a catatonic state. At ten thirty-five, he suffered a massive cardiac arrest. Try as they might, they could not revive him. He was pronounced dead at ten forty-five.
Eugene Camorra’s death certificate said that he had died from a cardiac arrest. As he had been held at the police station, a post mortem would be required by the IPCC, even though Camorra did not actually die in custody.
The investigation reported that there had been no suspicious circumstances. Camorra had shown very obvious signs of an oncoming heart-attack: sweating, disorientation and shortness of breath. His solicitor testified that, as soon as his client had shown signs of being ill, DCI Langton had terminated the interview and a doctor had been called. Camorra had had three seizures whilst attended by hospital paramedics. No one claimed his body; his lawyer attempted to trace anyone who wished to see him, but he had no relatives. When Emmerick Orso was asked if there was anyone who would wish to be informed of his death, he said, ‘Try the Devil.’
Orso was refused bail and sent to Brixton prison to await trial. He pleaded not guilty to all charges but still refused to say anything, bar, ‘No comment.’ David Johnson remained in custody and agreed to become a prosecution witness against Orso.
The trial would take many months of preparation: there was an immense amount of paperwork to do. Anna and the team sifted through all the evidence, covering Orso’s money-laundering frauds and his transportation of illegal immigrants. He had covered his tracks well, and they had no evidence linking him directly to the murders of Carly Ann North, Arthur Murphy, Gail Sickert, her daughter Tina, Rashid Burry, or the tragic child’s body found mutilated in Regent’s Canal.
As the trail was being prepared, Orso’s wife applied for a divorce. She gave them details of various bank accounts and offshore investments. The millions he had accrued from his illegal transactions were exposed and Orso’s accounts were frozen.
Another piece of uplifting news, especially for Anna, was that both of Gail Sickert’s children were to be fostered by the same woman who had taken in Carly Ann: Dora Rhodes. Sharon and Keith would be cared for, and given every possible counselling to overcome the trauma and anguish they had both been subjected to by Camorra.
When Anna called to say that she could not think of a better person than Dora, Alison told her that no one else would take them both.
‘I wouldn’t allow them to be separated; eventually, I want to adopt them myself.’
Beryl Dunn, Gail’s mother, was more than willing to allow someone else to take the responsibility: the adoption was in progress. It was the only good thing to come out of the nightmare case they had been working on for so long.
Idris Krasiniqe’s legal team were preparing for a retrial. Langton had agreed they could be given access to the reports covering the time that the team had spent with Idris and Dr Salaam. Anna was making copies for them when she felt the first seed of suspicion.
She sat going back over all the data, returning time and time again to the statement made by Dr Salaam about the poison that he was certain Eamon Krasiniqe had been fed. This had then led to the interview with Courtney Ransford, who had been given poisoned rock cakes to pass to Krasiniqe, and culminated in the questioning of David Johnson, who had admitted taking the rock cakes into the prison.
Anna kept on studying the symptoms that Dr Salaam had listed for someone fed Datura stramonium, or Jimson weed: a dry mouth, dilated pupils, a high temperature and blurred vision. The psychological effects included confusion, euphoria and delirium. A higher dosage resulted in incoherent speech, impaired coordination and seizures, possibly resulting in cardiac arrest.
Anna went in to see Langton in his office. He gestured for her to sit down and continued a phone conversation.
He was asking someone if they liked their birthday present, then he laughed. ‘So you’ve grown out of Barbie dolls? Well, listen, Kitty: you and me, we’ll go and get them exchanged. Have you taken them out of the box? No? Okay, we’ll get something else, all right?’
He listened and then laughed again. ‘Well, don’t let him unwrap them; besides, he’s a boy!’