The atmosphere in the room instantly lifted. Moran got the warrants out of a folder.
‘I’d ask Edwards to lead the search at the Peckham clinic, but I’m worried he might have a flashback to his nightmare experience,’ Moran joked.
Everyone, including Edwards, laughed.
Jane was surprised when Moran handed her the warrant for the Peckham address.
‘You and Lawrence execute the warrant for Brayards Road. Rip the place to bits, if necessary. Same with the Harley Street practice, Gibbs.’
‘I’ll get another lab sergeant and SOCOs to assist us,’ Gibbs replied as Moran handed him the warrant.
Moran read out the names on each team. Jane wondered if Simmonds was expecting to be arrested. If so, she was certain he would have a well-rehearsed cover story and alibi. He would also, no doubt, be able to afford the best barristers in London.
Moran shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘Right, now everyone, be aware that Simmonds is highly intelligent but also arrogant. I guarantee, if he’s our killer, he will have made mistakes and it’s our job as a team of detectives to find them.’
Jane and Lawrence went to the Peckham surgery with two SOCOs and a uniform PC, who was to stop any unauthorized people entering the premises, as well as record the police officers who came and went. They had been informed that Simmonds was at his Harley Street practice and were eager to get in and do a thorough search. Lawrence rang the doorbell, just in case they were mistaken, but on the third ring he stepped back and one of the SOCO officers used a sledgehammer to break open the front door, which yielded easily, having only one small Yale lock.
Lawrence stepped into the hall and told the SOCOs to wait whilst he assessed what needed to be done. Jane and Lawrence put on some latex gloves and went into the living room. She showed him the discolored area on the red and brown Axminster carpet.
Lawrence placed his forensic case to one side, knelt and sniffed the carpet.
‘I can smell the faint remnants of bleach. You were right. Looks like it’s been used to clean a stain of some sort. When someone tries to clean up blood, the scrubbing motion pushes it down through the carpet,’ he explained.
Jane was on her hands and knees when he took an envelope from his pocket. ‘I meant to give you this earlier, but with all that was going on around Simmonds’ arrest, I forgot. My contact in the SIB found out Simmonds agreed to leave the army quietly to avoid a court martial and being sent to a military prison.’
Jane frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘He was caught in bed with an eighteen-year-old army cook. Simmonds wasn’t dishonorably discharged, but let’s say it had a very nasty smell to it and the army quickly swept the incident under the carpet. My contact couldn’t even find a case file, so it’s all hearsay evidence, I’m afraid.’
‘If it’s true, then I would say David Simmonds was probably aware Aiden Lang was a rent boy,’ Jane remarked.
Lawrence opened his case, removed his camera and took some photographs of the living room, as Jane put the envelope in her bag. He placed a ruler between the stained areas and then photographed them. He took out a Stanley knife and cut the bleached area out. As he turned it over they could both see the faint remnants of what might have been blood.
‘Is it blood?’ Jane asked.
‘I need to do a Kastle-Meyer test first,’ Lawrence said.
He got a small box from his bag marked KM kit. He opened the box, revealing three small bottles of liquid. Lawrence rubbed a small, round piece of white blotting paper against the stain on the underside of the carpet. He added a drop of ethanol to the paper from one of the bottles, followed by a drop of phenolphthalein reagent and finally a drop of hydrogen peroxide. Jane watched, fascinated, as the middle of the bit of white paper turned pink.
‘Does that mean it’s blood?’ she asked excitedly.
Lawrence nodded. ‘It’s only what we call a presumptive test, though. Animal blood would cause the same reaction. I’ll have to do the Ouchterlony test at the lab to determine the species of origin, but the bleach could affect the grouping results. If we can group it we can check it against the victims’ blood groups.’ Lawrence placed the pieces of cut carpet in individual exhibit bags.
Jane shrugged. ‘If Lang was cut up in here there would have been lots of blood.’
‘Depends. I had a dismemberment case where the body was cut up in a bedroom on layers of thick plastic sheeting and we didn’t find any blood at all. The thing is, once you’re dead the heart isn’t pumping so you don’t get blood spurting out everywhere when the body is cut up. The best place to dismember someone, of course, is in the bath.’
Jane started to leave the room, but Lawrence grabbed her arm to stop her.
‘Not so fast, Jane, there are two small stains on the carpet in the hallway I want to examine first.’
Jane was surprised. ‘Are there? I didn’t see them.’
Lawrence smiled. ‘It’s not easy on a red and brown carpet. But when you’ve seen as much blood as I have over the years, it’s easier to spot small stains.’
They went into the hallway. Lawrence stopped between the living room and surgery, put the rulers on the floor and took some photographs. Jane still couldn’t see anything obvious on the worn carpet. Lawrence tested the two spots with his KM kit and both reacted for blood. He cut them out and put them in separate bags.
Jane was anxious to know Lawrence’s thoughts. ‘What do you think? Could Mrs. Hastings and Helen Matthews have been murdered here?’
Lawrence opened the door to the surgery. ‘This is all hypothetical, but we know Mrs. Hastings had stabbing injuries, whereas Helen Matthews was strangled. Also, the pathologist’s time of death indicates they were both murdered on the Friday evening.’
Jane nodded in agreement. ‘It still leaves the question of who was killed first and why.’
Lawrence continued. ‘If the blood in the hallway and the living room is from Mrs. Hastings, it suggests something happened in the surgery, or the hallway, first.’ Lawrence moved from the surgery to the hallway and living room as he spoke. ‘Then she ran into the living room, where she was stabbed, bleeding onto the carpet.’
Jane thought about it. ‘If Mrs. Hastings and Helen Matthews came here of their own free will, it mean Simmonds, and/or Lang, hadn’t premeditated the murders, doesn’t it?’
Lawrence nodded. ‘It could be that something got rapidly out of hand.’
‘Like an argument. Helen believed her son Simon had been abused by Simmonds. If she came here and challenged him, he would have denied it. The thing is, I can’t get my head around why Mrs. Hastings might have come here. Do you think they came here together and he killed them both at the same time?’
‘It would be hard for Simmonds to have killed them both at the same time. Also, one was strangled and the other stabbed.’
Jane was fired up. ‘But if Lang was involved, he could have stabbed Mrs. Hastings to death while Simmonds strangled Helen Matthews. Then Simmonds killed Lang, realizing he couldn’t be trusted to keep his mouth shut.’
Lawrence shrugged. ‘Only Simmonds knows the truth. Without a motive, this is all supposition.’
He went back into the surgery room and looked around. ‘If the first two murders were not planned then the murder weapons had to be close to hand.’ Lawrence looked closely at Simmonds’ dental tools neatly laid out on a table next to the dental chair. He picked up a dental chisel. ‘The tip of this and some of the other tools are like a flat-head screwdriver. I’ll take them all and test them on plasticine for comparison against Mrs. Hastings’ stab wounds.’