Neither Mitch nor Rachel replied.
Connor sniffed, ducked his head and hawked on the pavement. Nice.
‘How come people think the Perrys are involved?’ Rachel said.
He jerked his shoulders up and down in a quick shrug. ‘My dad goes up the King’s on Wednesdays.’
When he’s not inside?
‘Right,’ Rachel said. Was he trying to give his dad an alibi? Did he think he needed one? Did he imagine they wanted Tandy for the murder itself? ‘We just want to talk to him, you tell him when he gets back.’
As they watched Connor speed off over the cobbles, Rachel said to Mitch, ‘Greg Tandy, he’s only been out nine days and already he’s back in the life.’
‘Doesn’t know anything else,’ Mitch said.
‘That lad’ll go the same way most likely, in his father’s footsteps.’
‘That’s it, look on the bright side,’ Mitch joked.
She looked over to the ruined warehouse, across the strip of canal with junk floating on the surface.
What bright side? she thought. Buggered if I can spot it.
Close to dawn, Janet had gone back with Elise to Vivien and Ken’s. Ken, in the kitchen on the phone, had begun to alert the wider family to the tragedy. His deep voice rumbled in the background.
Vivien was agitated, exhausted too. Circles under her eyes, hands shaking. Her mother was on her way, their son, away at uni, was getting the first train.
We all want our mothers, Janet thought, when something like this happens. That comfort, that unconditional love.
‘She just collapsed?’ Vivien said, uncomprehending.
Elise looked at Janet. Janet nodded – tell her.
‘Like she had a fit,’ said Elise. ‘Her eyes… went back in her head and she was jerking about.’
‘You were out?’ Vivien asked Janet. Her face crumpled with incomprehension.
Out? ‘Still at work,’ Janet said, ‘Elise rang me at ten thirty.’
‘What about Adrian?’ Vivien said.
‘He was with Taisie at home,’ Janet said.
‘And the girls? Olivia was sleeping over.’
Janet’s heart sank. Elise closed her eyes, tensed her mouth, fighting tears.
‘We thought Elise was staying at yours after the party,’ Janet said. ‘We didn’t know you were away.’
‘What party?’ Vivien said.
Oh Christ. It just gets worse and worse. She should’ve checked, she should have rung and spoken to Vivien, she should not have taken Elise’s word for it. I trusted her. I trusted her and now this.
‘I’m sorry,’ Elise said, ‘I’m so sorry.’
It was mid-morning when Janet finally got Elise home and rang Gill.
‘All right,’ Gill answered breezily, ‘it’d better be good.’
A beat of silence, Janet thinking, Oh God. ‘Elise’s friend, Olivia, there was a party last night. Olivia died.’
‘Middleton Road,’ Gill said, quick as a flash, ‘drug-related.’
‘You heard?’
‘Division’s got it. Oh, Janet, I am so sorry. How’s Elise?’
‘You can imagine. So I probably need to stay with-’
‘Of course. Don’t even think about doing anything else. High profile,’ Gill said, ‘could get kicked up to MIT.’
‘I know,’ said Janet.
‘We couldn’t take it, I don’t think,’ Gill added, ‘not on top of everything else. If we did you wouldn’t be anywhere near it.’
‘I know that.’ A conflict of interest. With Elise a potential witness and Janet being close to the victim and family, any official involvement by Janet could prejudice the inquiry.
‘Legal high apparently. Fucking drugs, eh?’ Gill said. ‘The family have been informed?’
‘Her parents, yes, still people to contact,’ Janet said.
‘OK. I’ll let everyone know the situation.’
‘Thanks, Gill.’
Gill put the phone down, thinking of Elise, of the dead girl. All that promise, a whole life snuffed out. She thought of the lectures she herself had given Sammy. People equated legal with safe. But the drugs were anything but. Horse tranquillizers, plant food. A cocktail of chemicals untested and with unpredictable effects. The police, the law, were constantly playing catch-up, banning those substances linked to death or serious side effects, but it was always too little, too late. The manufacturers could take the same recipe, tweak it, alter one ingredient or the proportion of others and hey presto it was legal again. Potentially deadly.
Her phone rang. She sat up straighter and answered, ‘Gill Murray.’
‘Rita in forensics. Good news.’
‘Go on.’
‘As you know, there was no gunshot residue on the swabs from the two suspects, however-’
‘I love that word, however,’ Gill said.
‘However,’ Rita laughed, ‘we did find gunshot residue particles on the right-hand wrist cuff and sleeve seam of Neil Perry’s hooded jacket and on the right wrist cuff of Noel Perry’s jacket. The wrist is ribbed and particles were trapped there.’
Gill knew the physics. The act of firing a gun generated a powerful cloud of dust that settled on the hands, forearm and front of the person using it, but the residue was heavy and soon dropped off unless the structure or design trapped it. For that reason cuffs, pockets, seams, zips and buttons were all places worth examining. And if the suspects put their hands in their pockets they could transfer GSR there from the hands.
‘Of course, we can’t give you a time frame,’ the forensics woman said. ‘But it tells you they each fired a weapon at some point recently.’
‘Perfect,’ Gill said, ‘absolutely bloody perfect.’
15
Rachel began with the weapon. ‘Do you own a gun?’
‘No.’ The sore by Neil Perry’s mouth was bigger, more inflamed. She imagined him picking away at it all night in his cell.
‘Have you ever fired a gun?’ she said.
‘No.’
‘Think carefully,’ she said.
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘You sure about that?’ Rachel said.
‘Yes.’
‘I am now showing the suspect document 15. This is a report from the forensic science lab. Tests were carried out on your clothing. The report notes gunshot residue on your hoodie. Can you explain that to me?’
There was a light in his eyes. He was enjoying it, the fucking toe-rag. Most of the scrotes she interviewed, there was resentment or rage, derision, but behind that there were flashes of fear and anxiety or horror at what they’d done. But with Neil Perry there’d been no whiff of that. It went beyond cocky. Something missing, Rachel reckoned, something wrong with his wiring.
‘No idea.’ He gave a slow shrug.
‘Not something you’re likely to forget, firing a weapon. Noisy, deafening actually. You still don’t remember?’
‘Nothing,’ he said.
She wanted to wipe the smile from his face. It seemed like the tighter the corner he was boxed into, the more he relished it.
‘This report also analyses the distribution of the gunshot residue particles. The greatest concentration are on the cuff of your right wrist, inside and out, and in the stitching of the lining up to the elbow. The only way you get that pattern of dispersal is when you fire a weapon. How do you account for that?’
‘Dunno,’ he said, ‘weird, innit?’
Rachel moved the report to one side, took a slow breath in and out then another. She placed a second report on the table.
‘I am now showing Mr Perry document 19. This is another report from our forensics lab, detailing trace materials found on your clothes. Tests found traces of accelerant, namely petrol, on your trainers and your jeans. How did that get there?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘There were splashes of the petrol on the front of your jeans. According to the forensic investigators, this pattern is consistent with what would be found when someone was throwing petrol from a container in order to start a fire. Is that how it got on your jeans?’ Rachel said.