‘What a waste of a young life,’ she said sadly, patting Eileen’s hair and face dry with a towel.
She took her own hairbrush from her handbag and gently brushed Eileen’s hair, then used a rubber band she found in a drawer and tied it in a ponytail. She had never touched a dead body so intimately before and began to feel quite emotional. She applied a bit of make-up to Eileen’s face and placed the white shroud over her neck to cover the strangulation marks, then stood back, satisfied that the young woman now looked at peace.
Mrs. Rowlands wept as she stood beside Jane and formally identified Eileen Summers’ body. It was the first time Jane had seen the dignified headmistress really break down. Mrs. Rowlands leant forward and kissed Eileen’s forehead.
‘If I’d had a daughter, I’d have wanted her to be like Eileen. She was a wonderful woman and teacher, so kind and thoughtful. She loved all the children and they loved her. I don’t know what the school will do without her. She’s irreplaceable.’
Jane could feel herself welling up. The identification of a body in a murder investigation had become a routine task since she’d been in the CID and she had become desensitized to it. But somehow this was different. She reached out and took hold of Mrs. Rowlands’ hand, squeezing it.
‘I promise you we will do our very best to find whoever killed her.’
Mrs. Rowlands wiped the tears from her cheeks and looked at Jane. ‘I spoke with the school secretary, who told me something about Eileen that might be relevant to your investigation.’
Jane lead Mrs. Rowlands to the coroner’s office so they could speak in private, then took out her notebook and nodded that she was ready.
‘On Monday morning, just after ten a.m., the secretary answered a call from a well-spoken man who said he was a friend of Miss Summers and needed to speak to her about a personal matter.’
‘Did he give his name?’ Jane asked.
‘He said he was Mr. Smith, but he didn’t give a first name.’
Jane’s breathing quickened. Was that their suspect, Ben Smith? ‘What happened?’
‘Miss Summers was in the school yard, supervising the children during their morning break. The secretary kept an eye on the children while Eileen took the call.’
‘Did anyone overhear the conversation?’
‘No, Eileen was alone in the secretary’s office when she spoke with the man. The secretary said it wasn’t long before Miss Summers came back out to the yard and she seemed fine. Do you think the call might be connected to her murder?’
Jane kept her voice neutral. ‘Obviously I can’t say too much about the investigation, but the information you’ve just given me may be useful and will certainly be followed up. I’ll also need to take a full statement at some point, with more details about Eileen Summers’ employment at the school.’
Mrs. Rowlands nodded. ‘That’s fine, and I’m quite happy to do it now, if it would help.’
It was 7:30 p.m. before Jane completed the detailed statement and left the mortuary, much to the annoyance of the morgue attendant, who had to wait around until she’d finished. Driving home, she wondered if Eileen Summers had been lured to the Peckham hostel by Ben Smith because he intended to kill her. It seemed strange that he had not tried to dispose of Eileen’s body, as he had done with the other two. But Jane’s excitement that the investigation was now moving forward was tempered by frustration: although the murders had been linked by forensics, there was nothing to help them find Smith quickly before he killed again.
It was just after 8 p.m. when Jane got back to her flat. She didn’t have the energy to cook and opted for a takeaway sausage and chips instead. She’d got to know the owner of the local chippy after an incident one night when a drunk was being obnoxious and Jane had stepped in and told him to get out before he got arrested. As a result, the owner always gave her a larger than normal portion of chips, which she always felt was a bit of a waste as she never ate them all, but she appreciated the gesture.
After she had eaten, Jane had a long soak in a hot bath. It had been a tiring and emotional day, not only investigating the murders but comforting the grieving friends and colleagues of Eileen Summers. Jane had been impressed by Mrs. Rowlands’ dignified manner at the school, but had seen the pain and hurt come pouring out at the mortuary when she identified Eileen’s body. She wondered how Mrs. Rowlands would cope with informing all the parents, and especially the children who had lost a teacher they loved so dearly.
Jane was bone-tired when she went to bed, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t sleep. She sat up and read through the notes in her notebook, going over the details of the case.
As she thought about her conversation with Alice at the Samaritans about the call that ‘seemed to bother’ Mrs. Hastings, she remembered Alice telling her that Mrs. Hastings had written on one of the call sheets and then on a separate bit of paper, both of which she folded up and put in her handbag. Jane jumped out of bed, went to the living room and opened her briefcase containing the Samaritans call logs. She hurriedly removed the call sheet log Alice had made under Mrs. Hastings’ supervision, after the suspicious call. Jane ran into the kitchen and placed the call logs on the table, before getting a torch from the kitchen drawer.
‘Please, please let there be something there,’ Jane said to herself. She had learnt about indented writing from an old Hackney case. Lawrence had shown her that when a document is written whilst resting on top of other papers, impressions of the writing were transferred to the underlying sheet and could sometimes be seen if illuminated with side-lighting.
Jane could have kicked herself for not thinking about it earlier, realizing that even if she didn’t have the original sheet Mrs. Hastings had written on, she had the one that was underneath it. She turned off the kitchen light and shone the torch at an angle across the sheet. There were definitely some faint impressions of writing, but her torch wasn’t anywhere near as good as the forensic ones at the lab, so it was impossible to read what Sybil Hastings had written. Jane carefully placed the two call logs between two pieces of cardboard to preserve them, feeling at least she could get some sleep now, knowing she had found what might be a vital clue in the investigation.
Chapter Twelve
Jane woke up early. Despite the fact that she hadn’t had much sleep, she felt buoyant. She phoned the lab to speak to DS Lawrence and was told he’d had a very late night and wasn’t expected in until 9 a.m. Jane then phoned the station and told the duty sergeant she would be in a bit later as she had to see DS Lawrence at the Met lab. As she drove to Lambeth, she looked forward to showing him what she’d found.
After parking her car in the underground car park, she went to Lawrence’s office on the first floor, where he was writing up a report.
‘Morning, Jane. Always a pleasure to see you. Have you heard? There’s been a big development overnight on the investigation.’
‘No, what’s happened?’ she asked eagerly.
Lawrence smiled and got up from his desk. ‘Take a seat while I put the kettle on and I’ll fill you in.’
He shook the kettle to check the water level then switched it on.
‘What brings you to the lab? Something for us to look at?’ he asked, sitting back down.
‘Yes, but I want to hear about the big development first.’
‘The fingerprint lab worked all night developing and examining the prints we lifted at the hostel murder scene and Eileen Summers’ flat. Bad news is they didn’t find any trace of the unknown victim, or Mrs. Hastings’ fingerprints. The guys were red-eyed after doing countless side-by-side comparisons against criminal records. Good news is they found a match to prints on Eileen Summers’ jewelry box and bedroom drawers, which also matched a print on the wardrobe door of Ben Smith’s hostel room.’ Paul put a spoonful of coffee in two cups. ‘I’ve got no milk — is Coffee-Mate OK?’