Millington reached into her bag. After a few moments rummaging around, she pulled out a white A5 envelope and placed it on the table. ‘This is some stuff of Duncan’s that I found in my flat.’
Trying to feign interest, Carlyle eyed the envelope. It was unlikely to contain anything of note. After spending the best part of a day searching Brown’s own flat, he and Joe had come up with precisely nothing. The guy had clearly been very careful about covering his tracks. And, even if they did find something, the inspector was less than sure what he’d be able to do with it. After his conversation with Meyer and Valette, it was clear that his murder investigation had become merely a pawn in a wider game.
Tugging at the ring-pull on the can, Millington poured some of her Coke into a glass. ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’
‘Back at the station.’ He held up his right hand and wiggled his fingers. ‘When I’ve got some latex gloves on.’ Where was his sandwich?
‘Ah, yes.’ She sipped her Coke demurely, placing the glass carefully back on the table, next to the envelope.
Carlyle smiled. That’s the good thing about CSI, he thought; everyone who’s watched it on TV thinks that they know how things get done.
A frown crossed her face. ‘Have you got any?’
‘Gloves? Sure. I always keep a pair on me, just in case.’
‘Just in case what?’
‘Just in case.’ He pointed at the envelope. ‘First off, why don’t you give me a quick rundown of what’s inside. Was there anything that you were surprised to find?’
She thought about it for a moment. ‘No, not really. Just notes for some of his stories, a few business cards and a USB stick. I don’t know if any of it is going to prove useful, but I thought that you still might want to have a look.’
‘Thanks.’ The panino arrived, looking rather anaemic. The waitress put the plate down right on top of the envelope, ignoring Carlyle’s irritated glare as she walked away. ‘What’s on the USB stick?’ He took a bite of the sandwich and shook his head in disgust. It was too cold and there wasn’t enough tomato. If he hadn’t been so bloody hungry, he might have left it unfinished. By now, he was convinced that this place would struggle to last three months.
‘I don’t really know.’ Millington finished the Coke in her glass and carefully poured some more from the can. ‘Transcripts of interviews, some notes. . Duncan always kept various drafts of things that he had on the go at any one time.’ She sighed. ‘For a guy writing for a newspaper which requires a reading age of eight, he spent forever fiddling with his copy.’ She reached back into her bag to pull out her BlackBerry and check the time. ‘Shit! I really do have to go.’ Pushing back the chair, she got to her feet. ‘Anyway, I hope it’s useful. And thanks for the Coke.’
‘No problem,’ Carlyle told her. ‘Thank you for taking the time and effort.’
She hoisted the bag over her shoulder. ‘Are you any closer at all to finding out who did it?’
Carlyle gave an apologetic shrug. ‘I can’t really talk about that.’
‘No, no, of course.’
‘But murder is really quite rare in London — and the clear-up rate is very high. So you can assume that we will catch whoever did this to Duncan.’
‘Yes.’ Nervously juggling her BlackBerry, Millington didn’t look as though she quite believed him.
‘And, of course, as far as possible I’ll keep you posted.’
‘Thanks.’
Finishing off his panino, he watched Gemma Millington walk out of the door and disappear down the street. Once she had turned the corner, he grabbed the envelope from under his plate and opened it with a knife. Clearing a space on the table, he carefully emptied out the contents.
On first glance, it was basically as Millington had described. Pulling a pair of latex gloves from his jacket pocket, he slipped them on, ignoring the funny look he received from the waitress as she cleared away his plate. The USB stick was unbranded: a small blue plastic rectangle missing its removable cap from the end. There was nothing he could do with it right now, so he put it back in the envelope. Next, he glanced through Duncan Brown’s notes. A dozen or so sheets of lined A4 paper, torn from a notebook, were covered from top to bottom in a tiny, undecipherable script. ‘Someone else will have to check that out,’ Carlyle mumbled to himself, shoving the papers back inside the envelope. That left five business cards. While looking quickly through them, one caught his eye.
‘Bingo!’
Dropping the card in his pocket, he signalled to the waitress for the bill.
On the third floor of the police station, the inspector tossed Joe Szyszkowski the envelope that he’d just been given by Gemma Millington. ‘There’s a USB stick in there. Don’t get your prints on it. Check it out first then hand all that stuff over to Forensics.’
‘What is it?’ Joe tipped the contents on to his desk.
‘Stuff Duncan Brown’s girlfriend found in her flat.’ Carlyle flopped into his chair. ‘We should have gone round there and had a look, really.’
‘Mm.’ Both of them knew that was an oversight. But, badly overstretched, there was no way that they could hope to cover all bases on the various investigations that were ongoing. Using a paper napkin, Joe lifted the memory stick from his desk and stuck it into one of the USB slots in his computer. ‘What about the other stuff the girlfriend handed over?’
‘Not worth worrying about, as far as I could see.’
‘Okay.’ A window opened on the screen and Joe clicked on the Open folder to view files icon. ‘So what have we got here?’ He scrolled down through a series of Word documents, clicking on a couple at random. Carlyle’s gaze wandered to the TV screen suspended from the ceiling nearby. Sky News was running a report about an HM Inspectorate of Constabulary report into undercover policing. The report had been delayed — again — after allegations of officers taking part in trials using aliases. Personally, the inspector couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. It was just the kind of shit you had to do to get the job done.
‘Looks like copies of his stories,’ said Joe. He started laughing. ‘“I had a sex swap on my sixteenth birthday”! “Zoo-keeper lets killer animals loose”!’
A thought popped into Carlyle’s head. ‘Anything about Margaretha Zelle?’
‘Not as far as I can see. We’ve got some pictures on here as well though.’ With a couple of clicks of the mouse, he pulled up the first image. ‘Whoa!’
Carlyle stepped over to the desk. ‘What have you got?’
‘Look at that,’ said Joe, reducing the size of the picture so that it wasn’t quite so obvious to anyone passing by what they were looking at.
‘Bloody hell!’ Hands on hips, legs apart, a rather drunk-looking Gemma Millington smiled back at him wearing nothing but a pink wig and a black bra.
‘The Forensics boys will love this,’ Joe grinned.
‘That’s the girlfriend,’ Carlyle told him. ‘At least we know she didn’t delete anything before she handed the stick over. She can’t have bothered to check it.’
‘Silly girl.’
They were so busy gawping at the screen that they didn’t notice Maude Hall approaching. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, placing a hand on Joe’s shoulder.
‘Er. . nothing important,’ Joe stammered, quickly closing down the window. Carlyle stared intently at his shoes.
‘You guys aren’t breaking the standard HR guidelines on inappropriate computer use, are you?’ Hall grinned.
‘Probably,’ Carlyle mumbled, feeling himself blush.
‘It was just a picture on a memory stick belonging to Duncan Brown,’ Joe explained, ‘the guy who was found in a rubbish truck in Cockpit Yard. The girl is his girlfriend.’
Maude frowned. ‘And you think she did it?’
‘No.’ Carlyle shook his head. ‘Not at all.’