CHAPTER 8
Anna's flat was strewn with packing cases and boxes, but at least her shower was hot, and the garage doors opened and closed without any problems. She was at the station by eight-thirty, ready for the briefing session with Cunningham. Before it began, she went to check out with the officers a few of her queries. She got one hit straightaway.One of the cars listed by Jeremy Webster as being parked in the forecourt of the estate was registered to a Miss Ella Douglas. As the car, according to Webster, had not been parked there on the night of the murder, they had not pressed to get the details. One quick phone call to Ella told Anna that Donny had insured the car for her to drive his wife to her various doctors; he had registered it at Ella's address. This was a step forward. It meant that Donny Petrozzo could have been to the drug squat in that car.Anna returned to her office and put in a call to Pete to see if there were any new details on the fingerprints taken from the squat, and whether Donny Petrozzo s were among them. She spoke to one of his assistants. As with the car license plates, it was a slow process of elimination and match. Anna reminded the assistant that they had identified Donny Petrozzo by his fingerprints and that, as they were on record, they could easily check with the data bank. She was told that they had thirty prints being tested. Anna was frustrated by the delays, but knew that forensics had their work cut out for them.Another step forward was that the swipe from the Mitsubishi had now been verified as the same blood type as the blood found on the bullet. Anna marked this detail up on the incident board. There was now a mass of data, with red arrows, linking the evidence gathered to date.Anna was joined by Gordon, who had not found evidence of a marriage certificate issued to Julia Kendal in the UK. He had found out birth dates of her two children from the registration. No father was listed on the birth certificates. Was the marriage to Frank Brandon a sham, as seemed likely now? Why the wedding photographs, then?There was still no postmortem report back from the lab for Donny Petrozzo, as they were waiting for the toxicology report. Nor was there any reference to the drug, Fentanyl, that Pete had mentioned as a possible cause of death. The surveillance report on Julia Brandon offered up no suspicious outings or visitors; however, they had by now gained access to her finances—despite the interference from her accountant, who had tried to block them at every level. Julia Brandon was a lot wealthier than they had first believed.The lists of different accounts and deposit facilities presented them with a maze of names and offshore companies. She had access to big money; however, she was unable to withdraw it without notifications. Some accounts were in her daughters' names, but most were off-the- shelf companies. The ballpark amount, and this was still being assessed, was in the region of fifteen million pounds. Added to these investments was her ownership of properties, including one on the Isle of Wight.Anna sat with the officers who had been assigned the job of digging. They were flabbergasted by the complicated paper trail. Where had this money come from originally? At the moment, they had no idea. What they did have details of, however, was how the money moved around.With the value of the dollar so low, a lot of monies were being moved into accounts in the USA. Then no sooner had the exchange taken place than the money was moved to another bank in another city."It's got to be drug money," Anna said, and the others agreed.They had little on Julia Brandon's previous financial situation, but they had traced a small account in the name of Julia Kendal in Oxford, where she had been born and brought up. Both her parents were deceased, but there was a sister living in a village just outside Stratford-upon-Avon. Honour Kendal was married to Damien Nolan, a professor of chemistry at Oxford. As far as they could ascertain, the Nolans were a respectable married couple. They had no children, nor did they have a property in their name, and money was tight. Academics were badly paid, and Honour did not have a full-time job.At the briefing, Cunningham seemed her usual lackluster self. Arms folded, propped on the end of a desk, she asked the team to give an update. Anna sat through all their findings silent, waiting for her turn."DI Travis, you got anything new for us?"Anna stood up and went to the incident board. "As you can see, I've added some of the information that I have been working on. There s nothing that really stands out, other than the possible links—but again, it could all be coincidental.""Like what?"Anna took a deep breath. "Okay, this is just surmising, as I have to do some cross-checking with Donny Petrozzo's diary and with some items I got from Frank Brandon's fiancee ..."This created a murmur, because no one had heard about any fiancee.Anna pointed to the board, where she had written up Connie's details. "She was very distressed, obviously. What is interesting is that Frank told her that he had some big job on. However, he didn't want her to know what it was; he said only that the job was one that would pay a substantial amount—enough for them to marry and buy a place.""Did you find out anything about this job?" Cunningham interjected."No. All I know is that it was connected to Donny Petrozzo, whom Frank worked for. Frank owned a VW Golf, which we need to trace; itwas not a car to chauffeur clients in. We have him working for Donny up until about six months ago. This takes us back to Julia Brandon. When did they first meet? When, or how, did he start to work for her? We have no UK marriage license. We know he lived at her home in Wimbledon, but it's possible he just slept in the spare bedroom. However, she claims to be his wife: her accountant even arranged a big life insurance policy." Anna referred to her notes. "We need to verify if the money does go to Julia, or whether Frank arranged for his girlfriend to be taken care of, if anything happened to him. If he did, then he was obviously aware of the job being risky." As they had nothing yet from surveillance, Anna suggested that Julia be brought in for further questioning.Anna held the floor as she talked about Julia Brandon's megabucks, and why it didn't quite add up. Cunningham was staring at her. Anna licked her lips, turning over a page in her notebook. "Okay, this is what I'm spinning. If Julia s ex-partner, as we have discussed—or I have, with the chief—could possibly be Alexander Fitzpatrick, then her money is from drug dealing going back twenty or thirty years."There was another murmur around the team: they were not privy to who Fitzpatrick was. Anna gave a brief rundown of his drug-trafficking career, and then continued. "Fitzpatrick has remained on the Most Wanted lists since then, but what if he has returned? Could