He raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Well, I can’t tell you much. I haven’t spoken to her or seen her since the night I got arrested, so I don’t know where she is. She never wrote once. Probably her bitch of a mother has been stopping her.’ He gave a strange snort of a laugh.
Jane had read the reports about the night of the murder. It appeared that Brian Forgham had gone into the pub looking for Simon and witnesses had claimed he had shouted at him across the bar. On seeing him, Simon had attempted to run. There had been some kind of confrontation inside the pub, but then it continued on the pavement outside.
Simon lit a cigarette, seeming tense and angry.
‘I don’t know what Samantha has been saying, but after all this time she should be ashamed of herself. She should have come forward because I never wanted to hurt her father. It was him coming after me. He threatened me. All I did was defend myself.’
‘At the time of your arrest, were you and Samantha living together?’ Jane asked.
‘Yeah, we had a room in a squat, but she often took off for days. I was trying to come off the junk... I was on methadone, but she was always trying to score. The other guys there were getting fed up with us not contributing cash for the food and stuff.’
Jane asked for the address of the squat, and he gave the same details that were on record from when he was arrested.
‘Did you see Samantha on the night her father approached you?’
‘Yeah, earlier in the evening. She was strung out, needing a fix. She told me she might catch up with me later. I never saw her again.’
The cigarette smoke was making Jane’s eyes water. ‘Can you tell me exactly what happened that night?’
‘I’ve told everybody a hundred times. I was defending myself. I didn’t set out to murder him. He came after me.’
‘Simon, can you remember exactly what Mr Forgham said to you?’
‘Yes, of course I can. I can remember every fucking word. He said, “I’ve got Samantha and she is never going to see you again. I’m getting her off drugs and if you try to see her, I’ll have the coppers on to you.”’
Jane quickly jotted it all down. ‘Simon, do you know if Mr Forgham had seen Samantha that night?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I presume he must have, ’cos he also said something about me turning his daughter into a whore, which wasn’t fucking true. She just wanted to make money. That’s all it was.’
‘When Mr Forgham said he had got Samantha, did you presume he had been with her before he came looking for you?’
‘I don’t know, but he threw this punch at me. It was a full right hand, right in my face, and he was a big man. So, I did what I did to protect myself, then I ran off.’
Jane tapped her notebook with her pen, turned back a page and then forward again. ‘Simon, do you think Mr Forgham could have taken Samantha somewhere?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. All I remember him saying was that she was somewhere safe, away from me.’
At three that afternoon Mr Kenneth Patterson, dental surgeon, confirmed that he had a patient called Samantha Forgham, but she had not been to his surgery for five years. He had taken a dental X-ray of Samantha when she was aged twenty and had a troublesome wisdom tooth extracted. He said they were fortunate because, in most cases, after that length of time they would have destroyed the X-rays, but because it had been such a complicated extraction, he had retained them for future reference.
Jane was in her office typing up a report of her meeting with Sharon Forgham and the interview with Simon Root. From what Simon had said, she thought there was a possibility that Brian Forgham had taken his daughter back to the Stockwell property.
Jane’s suspicion was that, determined to get her off the streets and off the drugs, he had locked her in the shelter, intending to return. But instead, Samantha’s boyfriend had killed him. She spent some time checking through all the files. After Root’s arrest, the officers had tried to contact Samantha but had been unable to trace her. There were references to conversations with Mrs Forgham, who also said she had no idea where her daughter was and that she had not lived at home for some considerable time.
Officers had visited the squat and it was determined that Samantha had gone off with a drug dealer she was known to score heroin from. The search for Samantha was not continued, as her mother had never reported her missing.
Despite being sure she was right, Jane decided to wait for the confirmed evidence of the X-rays before running her scenario by anyone. There was still a number of questions she wanted answers to. She needed to establish how many of the tenants were in residence on the night of 16 September 1980, the night Samantha’s father was murdered. She was aware, from the work the team had done, that some of the residents had not been traced but she felt that five years was a long time for the body to have remained in the shelter without anybody knowing.
Jane now wanted to find out who had replaced Brian Forgham as the maintenance manager of the property, and if she could find any witnesses to validate her theory.
Her desk phone rang. It was one of the clerical staff saying that there was a Mr Arnold Hadley on the line, from Hadley, McKenzie & March. He had been asked to call into the station as his client, Jason Thorpe, had owned the property in Stockwell before it was sold to the development company.
Jane took the call, introducing herself and thanking Mr Hadley for contacting them.
‘That’s quite all right,’ he said before explaining his client’s involvement with the property. Mr Hadley appeared to be a pleasant and accommodating man, who seemed appalled at what had been discovered. He was able to clarify that Jason Thorpe had arranged for the house to be divided into six flats, and at that time it had seemed to be a good investment. The actual owner was a Miss Helena Lanark, Jason Thorpe’s aunt, who had inherited the property from her father. She had allowed her nephew to lease the flats until it had become unprofitable as the house now required extensive repairs and there were several problematic tenants.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, Mr Hadley, but what did you mean by problematic?’
‘I believe some were subletting, and some were not paying the rent. Miss Lanark’s nephew lives in Australia, but he had hired a very good managing agent to oversee the tenants and the maintenance.’
‘Was that Brian Forgham?’ Jane asked.
‘Yes, that is correct. Mr Thorpe had hired him personally.’ Mr Hadley hesitated. ‘I don’t know if you are aware, but Mr Forgham met with a very tragic end.’
‘Yes, we know,’ Jane replied. ‘Was a new managing agent appointed after that?’
Mr Hadley paused before admitting that, due to Jason Thorpe being in Australia, it had become difficult to find the right person. He hesitated again, then continued.
‘By this time, it was obvious that the situation at the house was more than problematic. I think Mr Forgham had already succeeded in persuading a number of tenants to leave, but we eventually had to evict two families as the house was no longer heated and the electricity was cut off.’
‘When was this exactly?’ Jane asked.
‘Well, detective, I am going back quite a while... I would estimate that it was five and a half or six years ago.’
Jane jotted down the details. The time frame was exactly what had been concerning her.
‘Mr Hadley, could you tell me who was still living at the house after Mr Forgham died?’
‘No one. It was boarded up and fell into even greater disrepair. Then, eighteen months ago, Jason was given permission by his aunt to sell the property to a developer.’
‘Why is Jason Thorpe registered as the previous owner and not Helena Lanark?’ Jane asked.