I didn’t say anything. Neither did Tina. There wasn’t a lot to say. He was right. Not only did it suggest that O’Brien — our informant — was the source of the leak, but also that we’d been powerless to prevent him being eliminated from under our very noses.
Which was the crux of Knox’s concern. Our station had had its fair share of negative attention over the years, most famously (or infamously) when one of Knox’s men in CID, a DS Dennis Milne, was unmasked as a contract killer with at least five, and probably many more, corpses to his credit. That nasty little affair was two and a half years old now and finally sinking into the past. The last thing Knox needed was something like this to throw it back into the limelight.
An attractive blonde woman in her late twenties stood in the doorway of her apartment as we stepped inside the building. She was dressed in a smart business suit and looked worried. ‘Can you tell me what’s going on? I’ve got an important meeting in the City at half-nine, and I’ve been told by someone that I’ve got to stay here.’
Knox smiled at her, unable to stop himself from sliding his eyes down to her shapely, nylon-clad legs, and not even being very subtle about it. ‘I understand you live here, is that right, miss?’
‘Williams,’ she answered. ‘Dana Williams.’
‘I’m afraid there’s been a serious incident in one of the other apartments.’
‘Whose?’
‘I can’t tell you at the moment.’
‘It’s Robbie O’Brien, isn’t it?’
‘As I say, Miss Williams, we can’t tell you at the moment. If you go back into your flat, someone will be down to take a statement as soon as possible. But it might be wise to make your meeting for this afternoon. This may take some time.’
‘I’m afraid time is what I haven’t got a lot of. This meeting’s extremely important.’
‘This is also very important. So, if you’d go back inside.’ Knox’s tone was firm and only just the right side of annoyed, and she relented, giving him a dirty look and mumbling something less than complimentary.
The wide, thickly carpeted hallway on the next floor was busy, with a number of SOCO coming in and out of one of the doors, some carrying plastic sample bags that they placed carefully in cases lined up against the wall. We stepped gingerly through this activity and into the apartment’s living room where we were immediately confronted by the ample corpse of Slim Robbie (and it was him, there was no mistake) lying on its side in an approximate fetal position, with one arm outstretched, his jowly face in profile, the thick ginger hair just touching the wall. The tell-tale thin white scar that ran for two inches along his jawline, just below his left ear, was easily visible, confirming what I already knew. It was the result, he’d told me once, of a teenage knife fight years before. ‘You should have seen the other bloke,’ he’d said, with his trademark leer. ‘He was in hospital for a month.’ And I could believe it too.
There was a lot of blood on the carpet round the head where he’d fallen, now thick and partially dried, and a few drops had splashed onto the many family photographs lining the wall, presumably resulting from the moment he’d been shot. A murder victim never really fits in with the decor of someone’s front room, particularly when he’s bled a lot, but Robbie’s corpse looked more out of place than most in the midst of this spacious, neatly furnished and very chintzy lounge, which, with its porcelain animals and commemorative plates, could only have belonged to an old lady. On a large, comfortable-looking armchair in the corner of the room near the entrance to the kitchen was a cream-coloured lacy cushion with an unsightly black burn on it. It too looked as out of place as Robbie. Barely visible spots of red dotted the chair.
‘It’s him,’ I said. ‘No question.’
‘I think it’s fair to say he had it coming,’ said Tina, with only the barest hint of regret.
The two of them had never really got on, thanks to the dirty-old-man-style leers Robbie had insisted on giving her every time they were in the same room together, something he knew she didn’t like. As if anyone would when they were coming from an obese thug with a sweat and attitude problem. It’s never nice to speak ill of the dead, but it has to be said: Slim Robbie O’Brien was the sort of bloke only a doting granny with her blinkers fully on could have loved. And look what it had cost her.
We stopped where we were for a few seconds, each pair of eyes hunting for clues. I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but I’ve been in this game long enough, and seen enough corpses who’ve met a sticky end, to know what I’m looking for and to be confident enough to express my opinions when I’ve found it.
‘What do you reckon, John?’ asked Knox.
‘I think what Tina told me earlier’s right,’ I said eventually. ‘This was a pro job. There’s no sign of struggle, no damaged ornaments, no other obvious signs of injury to the body. Robbie died quickly, and I bet he didn’t even know what had hit him. Or who.’ I looked around again. The corpse was about six feet from the front door, lying parallel to and directly facing it. ‘I don’t think he died after opening the door either, not with his body in that position, which means the killer was in here already.’
‘Someone they knew,’ said Tina.
‘Possibly. Shall we take a look at the other victim?’
Knox nodded, and we followed him through to the bedroom in silence. It was spacious and, like the living room, traditionally furnished and immaculately tidy, the dominating feature being a kingsize bed with purple satin sheets that didn’t quite fit the colour scheme. A perfectly ordinary scene, except for the powerful smell of decay. There were three more SOCO in there, inspecting every nook and cranny with patient, focused eyes, studiously ignoring the corpse of Slim Robbie’s grandmother which lay face-down on the carpet like a prop in a cheap whodunnit, fully clothed in a violet sweater and check skirt, between the bed and the walk-in wardrobe near the door. The police pathologist, a youngish guy with thick-rimmed glasses whose name was Jackson, was crouched down beside her, writing something in a notebook. As we stepped inside, I checked the carpet and noticed that it was scuffed where it seemed the killer had dragged her corpse. As Davies had pointed out, she’d almost certainly died elsewhere.
We stopped in front of her body, and Jackson finished writing and looked up. ‘I know what you’re going to ask,’ he said.
‘Are you going to answer it, then?’ replied Knox, with the beginnings of a smile.
‘They’ve both been here a while, I can tell you that,’ he said, sounding like he was thinking very carefully about what he was saying. ‘Rigor mortis is well advanced, and the body temperatures are low enough that it’s at least twelve hours, possibly as long as twenty-four. I’ll be able to get a more exact time when I’ve conducted more tests and made the necessary calculations, but that’s my first estimate.’
‘Is there any significant difference between the two body temperatures?’ I asked. ‘That might suggest they were killed at different times?’
‘This victim’s is slightly lower, but I wouldn’t read too much into that. Not on its own. There are a number of factors that could have contributed to it. Their size difference for a start.’
‘Do you think they were killed separately then, John?’ asked Knox.
‘I’m not sure, but if they were killed together, I would have thought there would have been more of an obvious struggle. Robbie doted on his grandma. He would have tried to protect her, and with his size there would have been one hell of a mess.’
‘The killer could have tidied up after himself,’ pointed out Tina.
I nodded. ‘True, but then why did he move her body, which he must have done?’ I pointed out the scuffing on the carpet. ‘What would have been the point? If he killed them together, why not simply leave them where they fell? And why move one without the other? On the other hand, if he killed her first, then moved the body so it was out of sight, before taking out O’Brien when he arrived, that would suit the scene we’ve got here.’