“First of all,” said Stefan, “we have fingerprints from DCI Banks’s door that don’t match the builders’, we have tire tracks from his drive and…” Here he paused dramatically and lifted up a plastic bag. “We also have a cigarette end found near the beck on DCI Banks’s property, fortunately before the rain came. From this we have been able to get the saliva necessary for DNA.”
“What about the tire tracks?” Annie asked.
“They’re Michelins, of a type consistent with tires often used on a Mondeo,” said Stefan. “I’ve sent the necessary information to Essex for comparison with what’s left of the Mondeo that crashed outside Basildon. I’m still awaiting results.”
“So,” Gristhorpe said, “you’ve got prints, tire tracks and DNA from DCI Banks’s cottage, and if and when we find a suspect, these will tie him to the murder of Jennifer Clewes and Roy Banks?”
“Well,” said Stefan, “they’ll tie him to DCI Banks’s cottage.”
“Exactly,” said Gristhorpe. “And no crime was committed there.”
“That’s not strictly true, sir,” said Annie. “Someone definitely broke in.”
Gristhorpe gave her a withering look and shook his head. “Not enough. Is there anything else?”
“We’ve got Jennifer Clewes’s mobile records from the network,” Winsome said. “Not that they tell us a great deal. As far as I can gather, the calls are all to and from friends and family.”
“What about the last call?” Annie asked. “The one Kate Nesbit remembered on Friday evening.”
“Yes, I was coming to that,” said Winsome. “Jennifer received a phone call at ten forty-three P.M. on Friday, the eleventh of June, duration three minutes. The problem is that it’s an ‘unknown’ number. I’ve got the mobile company working on it, but they’re not offering a lot of hope.”
“Thanks for trying,” said Annie.
Gristhorpe looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “I’ve got ACC McLaughlin and the press breathing down my neck. I appreciate your progress so far, but it’s not enough. We need results, and we need them fast. Annie, you’d better get back down to London tomorrow and keep pushing the Berger-Lennox connection. The rest of you keep at it up here. Winsome, get back to the mobile company and see if they can come up with a number for us. Get them to cross-check with Jennifer’s outgoing calls. That’s it for now.”
When Gristhorpe left the room, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
“He’s in a bit of a grumpy mood this morning, isn’t he?” said Stefan to Annie as they all filed out a few moments later.
“I think he’s had the chief constable as well as ACC McLaughlin on his case,” said Annie. “And it’s my guess that however enlightened he thinks he is, he still doesn’t like being given a bollocking by a woman.”
Stefan smiled. “Ouch,” he said.
“Ma’am, can I have a word?”
It was DC Templeton. “Of course, Kev,” said Annie, waving good-bye to Stefan. “Let’s grab a coffee in the canteen.”
Templeton pulled a face. “With all due respect, ma’am…”
“I know,” said Annie. “It tastes like cat’s piss. You’re right. We’ll go to the Golden Grill.”
They threaded their way through the crowd of tourists on Market Street and were lucky to find a free table. The sole waitress was rushed off her feet but she managed to bring them each a cup of coffee quickly enough. “What is it, Kev?” Annie asked.
“It’s this Roger Cropley business,” Templeton said. “I haven’t bothered you with it much so far because, well, you’ve been down south and you’ve had lots of other things on your plate. I mean, it might be a bit tangential, but I really think we’re on to something here.”
“What?”
“The Claire Potter murder.”
“I don’t know,” said Annie. “Seems like a bit of a coincidence, doesn’t it?”
“That’s what I thought at first,” said Templeton, warming to the subject, “but if you really think about it, if Cropley has been preying on young women alone on the motorway on Friday nights, then the only coincidence is that he was at the Watford Gap services at the same time as Jennifer Clewes, and that’s exactly the kind of coincidence he’d always be hoping for. He trolls those places: Watford Gap, Leicester Forest, Newport Pagnell, Trowell. Claire Potter and Jennifer Clewes were exactly what he was looking for.”
“I see your point,” said Annie. “But I mean it’s a coincidence that this time he picked on a girl who was already singled out by someone else to die.”
“Okay, but strange things happen sometimes. It still doesn’t mean Cropley’s harmless.”
“You don’t need to tell me that, Kev,” said Annie.
“There was another woman, too: Paula Chandler. Someone drove her off the road late on a Friday night in February and tried to open her car door, only it was locked and she managed to get away.”
“Did she get a good look at him?”
“Just his hand.”
Annie thought for a moment. “It still doesn’t mean Cropley’s the killer.”
“Maybe there’s a way we can find out.”
“Go on.”
Templeton leaned forward, the excitement clear. “I met with DS Browne from Derby,” he went on, “and she agrees it’s worth a shot. I’ve talked with Cropley and his wife again since then and I’m still convinced there’s something there. Anyway…” He went on to tell Annie about the dandruff.
“I must say,” Annie commented when he’d finished, “that’s very clever of you, Kev. I didn’t know they could get DNA from dandruff.”
“They can,” said Templeton. “I checked it out with Stefan, and DS Browne confirmed it when she phoned to tell me she put a rush on it. They can also process DNA pretty quickly these days when they’ve a mind to.”
“Leaving aside the problem of its being inadmissible,” Annie went on, “what do you expect to happen next?”
“It doesn’t need to be admissible,” Templeton explained, as he had done to DS Browne. “We just need some concrete evidence that we’ve got the right guy, then we can pull out all the stops and nail him the right way. We get legitimate DNA samples. We interview him again. We get him to account for every minute of every Friday night he’s ever spent on the motorway. We get his coworkers and his employers to tell us what they know about him and his movements. We interview people at all the motorway garages and cafés again. All the late-night lorry drivers. Someone has to have seen something.”
Templeton was looking at her with such keenness in his eyes that Annie felt it would be churlish to disappoint him, despite her misgivings. And if Derby CID was involved, too, at least he couldn’t go too far off the rails. Templeton was beginning to show all the signs of becoming a bit like Banks, Annie thought, and two of them she didn’t need. But he had at least talked to her, told her about his thoughts, which was more than Banks did most of the time.
“Okay,” she said finally. “But I want you to work directly with Derby CID on this. If you talk to Cropley, I want this DS Browne or someone else from Derby with you. I don’t want you going off on your own with this, Kev. Understood?”
Templeton nodded, still looking like the dog who’d got the bone. “Yes, ma’am. Don’t worry. It’ll be a solid case, by the book.”
Annie smiled. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she said. “But when it comes to it, I do expect a case that CPS will be willing to take to court.”
“That’s a tall order.”
Annie laughed. The Crown Prosecution Service was notoriously reluctant to take on anything they didn’t feel gave them a hundred percent chance of getting a conviction. “Do your best,” she said. “Let’s get back to the office.”