The woman, whom Winkler was pretty sure was Thai, shuffled so half her body was concealed behind the door. Frightened. Maybe Hammond threatened her. Beat her. Don’t worry, Winkler wanted to say. I’m here to take the bad man away.
‘Two year,’ the housekeeper replied.
‘Is he a good man to work for?’
She nodded vigorously. Too vigorously.
‘I bet he has lots of parties, eh? Lots of clearing up for you to do.’
She nodded again, smiling tentatively. ‘Yes, many party.’
‘Famous people, yes? Celebrities?’
The housekeeper’s eyes darted about like the koi had done. She leaned forwards, her eyes like saucers, voice dropping to an awestruck whisper. ‘Yes. I meet Harry Potter.’
‘Really? Nice kid. Any other . . . kids come here?’
The woman cocked her head.
‘You know, like, young girls. Teenage girls.’
She grinned again and nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes, yes, many young girl. Pretty girls.’
Ibet, Winkler thought. He caught movement behind the housekeeper – a woman dragging a vacuum cleaner across the hallway – and took a second look at the bin bags.
‘Was there a party here last night?’
‘Yes. Big party! We clean up now. Many people sick from drink.’
He tried to get a better look, but she moved her body to block his view.
‘Who was here? Anyone exciting?’
She opened her mouth to answer, then appeared to change her mind, probably realising she’d already said too much. Possibly because he hadn’t been able to control his face when she said ‘pretty girls’. He decided not to push it.
He nodded at the woman and said, ‘Thanks. You’ve been very helpful.’
She wore a bemused expression as he strode off across the damp grass towards the ‘shed’. It was raining even more heavily now and by the time he got there water was dripping into his eyes. He was thankful he’d had the good sense to slip the signed photo, which was tucked inside his coat, into a laminate sleeve. He banged on the door.
‘Come in.’
Winkler wasn’t sure what he expected to find inside the converted barn, but he’d have been less surprised if he’d found a dozen bodies hanging from the rafters.
The entire space was filled with model trains. Not just trains: an entire landscape, with rolling hills and valleys, bridges and tunnels; miniature houses and churches; tiny plastic sheep grazing in a field; people the size of thumbnails waving from a station. And, gliding on tracks around this landscape, replica steam trains, gleaming black and green engines hauling cargo and passengers, round and round, pausing at signals before emitting a whistle and chugging away again.
Mervyn Hammond stood at a control deck on the far side of this display, his mop of black hair falling into his face as he fiddled with levers and rotated dials. He glanced up as Winkler approached but didn’t stop playing with his giant train set.
Winkler noted that Hammond didn’t seem surprised to see him.
‘Mr Hammond,’ he said. ‘I want to ask you about—’
‘Magnificent, isn’t it?’ Hammond said. ‘You know, when I was a kid my granddad used to take me to the station at Crewe to watch the trains. I used to dream of being a train driver. That was all I wanted to do.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘My granddad would turn in his grave if he knew what I do these days. But he could barely afford to buy me a single wooden engine to play with. If he saw this . . .’ He stretched out his arms to indicate his miniature kingdom and Winkler was rendered speechless.
But he thought to himself: train sets. Toys. What does he do, use this to lure kids to his house? Is he into boys too? His paedo radar wasn’t just tingling now, it was going berserk.
Hammond stepped away from the control panel, the fervour in his eyes dimming a little. ‘How can I help you? Detective . . . ?’
‘DI Adrian Winkler.’
‘A colleague of DI Lennon’s? Don’t tell me he’s sent you to ask more questions about Shawn Barrett?’
Winkler shook his head. Beside him, an engine whizzed by dragging half a dozen passenger carriages behind it. The constant circular motion of the toys was making him feel queasy. And there was a cold, squelching sensation in his left shoe. I’m going to get sodding flu, he thought. And it was all this creep’s fault.
‘This isn’t about Shawn Barrett,’ he said, taking a step towards Hammond and pulling himself up to his full height. ‘It’s about you.’
Hammond adopted a puzzled expression. ‘Me?’
‘Yes, Mervyn. Hope you don’t mind if I call you Mervyn.’
‘What are you—?’
Winkler interrupted him, producing the signed photo from inside his damp coat and holding it in front of Hammond’s face. ‘Do you recognise this?’
‘Well, yes. It’s a photograph of me.’
‘A signed photograph of you. Send many of these out, do you, Mervyn?’
Hammond was looking at him as if he were talking in riddles. ‘No. Hardly any. But I appear in the media quite a lot, so I get the occasional request for a signed photo. Why are you—?’
‘Recognise the name Nancy Marr, Mervyn?’
In the moment before Hammond answered, his eyes shifted up and to the right. This was a sure sign that the PR man was about to tell a lie. Winkler held his breath.
‘No. I’ve never heard of her.’
He was lying. Definitely lying.
‘So you don’t remember sending, or giving, her this signed photo?’
‘No. Detective, I don’t send the photos out myself. Do you really think I’d have time to do that? I signed a small stock of pictures and if a request comes in to the office, my PA sends them out.’
‘Really?’
Winkler had spent much of the past twenty-four hours trying to work out why Hammond had killed the old woman and he was sure he’d figured it out. Somehow, Mrs Marr had discovered the truth about Hammond. Maybe Mervyn had assaulted or threatened a girl Mrs Marr knew. She had threatened to expose him. Blackmailed him, perhaps. So he’d murdered her to keep her quiet.
And perhaps he’d left the signed photo as a kind of calling card . . . ? Unlikely – but not impossible. Winkler would work out the details later.
Right now, he didn’t have enough to arrest Hammond. He could get him to come to the station again, but he strongly suspected this time Hammond would lawyer-up – an extremely expensive lawyer – and wriggle off the hook, then go crying to the papers about police harassment and how the cops were wasting their time on him when there was a murderer of teenage girls on the loose. Winkler knew there was no way the guv would allow them to touch Hammond without something rock solid. Winkler needed more . . . something to justify getting a search warrant for this place and Mervyn’s office, to seize his computer. He needed a girl to make a complaint about this pervert. An accusation.
He looked around, checking there were no CCTV cameras pointing at him, that it was just him and Mervyn. It was time to crank things up a little, get Mervyn to start worrying.
He walked over to the model train set and caught hold of one of the engines as it trundled past, snatching it up. The carriages it was pulling fell away and landed on the ground with a clatter.
Mervyn rushed over. ‘What the hell?’
Winkler stepped into his path, holding up the green and black locomotive. The letters LNER were stamped on its side.
‘Put that down,’ Hammond demanded.
‘Worth a fortune, is it?’ Winkler held it higher, his arm fully outstretched. ‘Would be a real shame if I dropped it.’