‘If one of the dental tools was used to kill Mrs. Hastings in the heat of the moment, then how come Simmonds used a pre-knotted cord to strangle Helen Matthews? Plus, the same knotted cord was used to kill Eileen Summers. We know she went to the hostel looking for Ben Smith, so her murder must have been planned.’
Lawrence shook his head. ‘Sometimes the answer is staring you in the face. If you look too deep you can miss it.’
He went back into the lounge and let his eyes wander around the room. Jane followed, not understanding what he was looking for. Suddenly Lawrence clapped his hands together.
‘Got it! Like I said, Jane, the answer was right in front of us.’ He went back into the surgery.
Jane followed him. ‘You’ve lost me, Paul. What’s right in front of us?’
‘Actually, it’s more a case of something that’s missing.’ He removed one of the white cord ties from the surgery curtain and tossed it to Jane.
Jane examined it, instantly realizing what he was thinking. ‘The color’s the same, but there’s no slip knot and this has a tassel at either end. The cord found round our victims’ necks didn’t.’
‘The ends of the cord used on the victims were frayed. Simmonds is smart; I suspect he cut the tassels off and tied the slip knots after the strangulation to make it less obvious what the cord was originally used for.’
‘But we can’t prove the ligature cords were from here,’ Jane said.
‘There is some evidence to suggest they were,’ Lawrence said, beckoning Jane to follow him.
Back in the living room, he told her to have a good look around.
‘Can you tell me what’s missing in here?’
Jane scanned the room carefully, looking for a link to the ligature cords.
‘No tie-backs on the curtains?’
‘Exactly. There’s discoloration on the curtain and hooks on the walls. There were clearly tie-backs on them at one time.’ Lawrence looked at the living room curtain with a magnifying glass. ‘There’s still some fibers on the curtains.’
Lawrence proceeded to lift the fibers using Scotch tape, which he then placed onto a piece of acetate. ‘If these fibers match the ones on the cords used to strangle the victims, that will be powerful evidence against Simmonds.’
Jane made notes of everything Lawrence said in her notebook. She knew it would form a crucial part of the interview with Simmonds. Lawrence went outside, called the SOCOs in and briefed them on what he had found so far. He told them he wanted every surface in the surgery, lounge and kitchen fingerprinted, and a thorough search for any further blood stains.
Jane and Lawrence went upstairs to the bedroom, where she showed him the broken photograph of Simmonds in a tweed suit. Lawrence agreed the bedroom was like an eerie shrine to Simmonds’ mother. He looked in the wardrobes for a tweed suit but didn’t find one.
Next, they looked in the bathroom, which was spotless. There was no visible sign of blood anywhere, but they could both make out a faint smell of bleach. Jane helped Lawrence remove the panel along the bathtub and the waste pipes, but again there was no sign of any blood.
‘Either Lang wasn’t cut up here or Simmonds has done a thorough job cleaning up,’ Lawrence remarked.
She followed Lawrence downstairs to the kitchen, where he checked under the sink for cleaning fluids and blood stained rags. There was a bottle of bleach, which was nearly empty, and a cleaning cloth that looked new. Jane opened a drawer and found a roll of black plastic bin bags.
‘These are the same color as the bin bags the body parts were found in, but is it worth taking them as evidence if they’re mass produced?’
‘There’s a lot of forensic evidence you can get from a simple bin bag, which I’ll bet Simmonds wouldn’t know.’
Jane looked doubtful. ‘Is there?’
‘When the bin bags are made, unique scratches and roller marks are left on them by the production machinery. The “striation marks,” as we call them, can be compared side by side to see if they are from the same batch.’
‘So, if the striation marks on these bags are the same as on the ones the body parts were in, then they came from this roll of bags?’
Lawrence nodded. ‘Also, where a bin bag is torn from a roll, each tear is unique, making a physical fit between torn edges powerful and often conclusive evidence.’
Impressed, Jane held up the bin bags. ‘If this torn end fits to one of the body parts bags, it will be enough to charge Simmonds, then?’
Lawrence smiled. ‘It could be the proverbial last nail in his coffin.’
A SOCO entered the room. ‘Excuse me, DS Lawrence, but I think there’s something you need to see out the back.’
Lawrence and Jane followed the SOCO through the kitchen, out the back door and down the concrete steps to the garden. The SOCO pointed to some small steps that led down to a rear basement area.
‘There’s an old coal bunker down there, which we’ve searched, and there’s nothing in it. Next to it is a locked door, which I think probably leads to a cellar, but we haven’t looked in there yet. Do you want me to force the door with the sledgehammer?’
Lawrence nodded. He and Jane watched as the SOCO smashed the door open, revealing a damp-smelling cellar. The SOCO shone his torch around the room, lighting up various wooden crates and odd broken bits of furniture stacked against the bare brick walls. The torchlight reflected off a glass cabinet, inside which was an array of white plaster casts and red rubber molds of peoples’ teeth. On a shelf beside it, stacks of airtight jars containing white plaster powder were neatly lined together.
‘We’ll take all those molds for the forensic odontologist to look at, just in case any of them match the dental plate in our skinned head,’ Lawrence said.
‘What’s that gurgling sound?’ Jane asked anxiously.
The SOCO found a light switch and two fluorescent tube lights lit up the cellar. At the back was a large chest freezer. They could all hear the gurgling sound coming from it now. Jane followed Lawrence over to the freezer and stood beside him. His hands still in the latex gloves, he gently eased the lid open. Opening it to its full extent, they could see two compartments, one for fast freezing, which was empty, and the other larger area for storage, which was half full. Lawrence borrowed the SOCO’s torch and shone it inside, revealing frozen salmon and trout heavily wrapped in cling film or in clear plastic freezer bags. There were also some plastic containers and bags with handwritten stickers describing the contents. There was shepherd’s pie, lasagna, and bread and butter pudding. Some of them were marked ‘Mum’s.’ Lawrence picked up a frosted-over container and showed it to Jane.
Jane shook her head in disbelief. ‘Some of this stuff must have been in here since his mother died. I thought her bedroom was creepy, but this is really weird.’
Lawrence looked through the contents of the freezer. ‘No body parts, unfortunately. Odd that the quick freeze section is empty, though.’ He leant forward and sniffed. ‘Slight smell of bleach as well.’
‘You think Simmonds might have cut the body up and stored the parts in here?’
‘Can’t be ruled out.’ He closed the lid and ran his gloved finger over the top of the freezer. ‘Hardly any dust on this, compared to the shelves. I reckon it’s been cleaned recently.’
Lawrence knelt on the floor and turned his head sideways, so he could see the underside of the freezer handle. He had a sly smile on his face as he looked at Jane.