‘A pillow?’
‘Two pillowslips, Leon. Miki on one and Clarke on the other. And they weren’t sleeping.’
‘How do you mean?’ Leon was rubbing his face, trying to clear his head.
‘She had lipstick on.’
‘What about the sheets?’
‘They must have been washed in the previous load, don’t you think? And this must have happened not long before the murder; well, within twenty-four hours, surely? Someone loaded the machine and then was distracted and didn’t start it up.’
Leon shook his head. ‘This is new? How come this hasn’t come out before now?’
‘Exactly.’ The decisive way she said this made him sit up. She handed him the last page of the report.
‘Oh.’ He stared at the incriminating words, then finally said, ‘I’m sure I’ve never seen this. I think I was off the case by then. What date was it?’
‘June the fourth. That was the start of the week I spent at Bramshill.’
‘Oh yes…’ He covered his eyes with his fingers and rubbed. ‘I remember.’
‘Do you want your diary, to see what case you were working on then?’
He shook his head. Now the fingers of his other hand were beating a little rhythm on the pages of the report. ‘No need, I remember that week. I’d definitely moved to another team by then.’
‘Good. Do you know who took your place?’
Leon lifted his pale fingertips from the report to his face and wiped his mouth. ‘Er… a guy called Oakley, Paul Oakley. We met up a few times to hand over.’
PO, Kathy thought. Not post office. ‘Well, that’s fine. He’ll have to explain what happened.’
‘He’s left the Met now, gone abroad. That’s what I heard.’
‘Still, it’s not your problem.’ Kathy switched off the light and got back into bed, thoroughly relieved; yet, strangely, Leon didn’t seem to be. And there was something else. The Bramshill course had been about advanced interview techniques, and one of the days had been devoted to stress indicators, the little mannerisms that people betray when they hide the truth. Leon’s gestures might have been taken straight from the training videos.
He said, ‘You’re sure there’s no reference to this later on in the reports? I mean, it might have been cleared up somehow.’
‘Yes, I thought of that, and I looked.’ Kathy was feeling drowsy now. ‘But I couldn’t find anything.’
‘I’d better check too.’ He sounded wide awake. She felt his weight shift as he got up, and she pulled the duvet up to her ear and drifted away.
In the morning, she was surprised to find him still at work at the table in the living room. He hadn’t been able to find any further reference to the guilty pillowcase.
8
Leon was waiting for Brock as soon as he arrived at Queen Anne’s Gate. Kathy stayed out of the way as they disappeared into Brock’s office, Leon lugging the forensic files. After half an hour she and the rest of the available team were called together.
Leon looked grey and preoccupied, Kathy thought, while Brock appeared almost pleased in a grim sort of way, as he did when presented with some unexpected new evidence of human frailty.
He spoke to DS Moffat first, the woman who had come to them from Chivers’ team. ‘You remember your LO back in June, Linda? Paul Oakley?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, I remember Paul. He didn’t stay long. Left the force three or four weeks later. Got a better offer, I think.’
‘Right, well Leon has come upon a piece of forensic evidence that appears to have been overlooked, maybe due to the changes in LO around that time. We’ll have to do some more checking, but if it stands up it suggests that Miki Norinaga and Sandy Clarke were lovers. Has that idea ever come up before?’
People shook their heads, interested.
‘I don’t need to speculate on where that might take us. At the least it’d mean that Clarke has lied to us, at the most he might be involved in some way with the murder itself. Now I don’t propose to face him with this just yet. I want to find out as much as we can about him first.’
He began to spell out what they should do. The forensic evidence would be thoroughly reviewed again; the team investigating the financial affairs of the Verge Practice would focus their attention on transactions authorised by Clarke; the security video tapes harvested from the building and the surrounding streets would be pored over once more for possible sightings of Clarke on the weekend of the murder.
‘What else?’ Brock concluded.
Suggestions and counter-suggestions were offered and recorded on a whiteboard. The mood was becoming buoyant, Kathy sensed, as if everyone had been waiting for something like this, a fresh angle, a crack in the story that so far had led them nowhere. Miki’s infidelity, if it were true, might provide a motive for her murder, though Kathy doubted if it would help them track down Verge. But Brock seemed the most confident of all, beaming encouragement as they discussed options, in stark contrast to Leon at his side, silent and dejected. He’s taking it all too personally, she thought, and wanted to reassure and comfort him.
‘Kathy?’ Brock’s voice cut across her thoughts. ‘Any ideas?’
‘Jennifer Mathieson,’ she replied. ‘So far she’s given us the loyal PR story, but she’s been working there for nearly ten years. She must have a pretty good idea of what goes on inside that place. And she’s leaving them soon, so maybe we can get her to be a bit more frank.’
‘Good idea. See if you can talk to her today, will you?’
Kathy nodded, aware that she was supposed to be with her committee all day from ten o’clock that morning. She checked her watch and groaned. She was going to be late again.
The issue that day for the Crime Strategy Working Party was sexual orientation. Before lunch there were to be briefings and discussion papers presented by members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Advisory Group, followed in the afternoon by the formation of focus groups to consider the issues from the point of view of victims, perpetrators and police. By four o’clock each of these groups had presented long lists of objectives, strategies and targets, using felt-tip pens on large sheets of paper. Kathy felt she had become allergic to lists and their mind-numbing effect, although the other members of the committee seemed remarkably enthusiastic.
Finally, when the facilitators, experts and activists had gone, Desmond called the committee members together for a short meeting. Kathy, itching to get away to meet Jennifer Mathieson, was interested to see that Rex, the objector at the previous meeting, had rejoined the group and was now sitting at Desmond’s left hand, with the administrator, Robert, on his right.
‘Well, I think we’ve had a very productive day,’ Desmond began. ‘There are just a couple of pieces of committee business that I thought we should get out of the way before we break up. The first is that I’m pleased to report that we’ve sorted out the problem which Rex raised at our last meeting. The compromise we’ve worked out is that Rex will be appointed as deputy chair to the committee, to take the chair if I’m not available, and he will also have a casting vote in the event of a stalemate. Okay, then the next item…’
‘Hang on, Desmond,’ Jay interrupted. She scratched purple nails through her short hair and frowned doubtfully through her lozenge glasses. ‘Just go through that again, will you?’
Desmond patiently repeated himself, and added an explanation. ‘Rex’s point, which I believe you supported, Jay, was that it would send out the wrong signals to have a police chair. Well, this seems to be the best way to overcome that difficulty without compromising the original terms of appointment.’
‘Are you offering this as a proposal for discussion?’ Jay persisted.
‘Well, no. It’s already been approved, actually.’
‘I see, by the boys’ club, presumably.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Desmond, have you understood nothing of what was said this morning?’ Jay was speaking softly, but it was clear that she was angry. ‘The whole point of this exercise is to help the police reach out to the disadvantaged and underrepresented, right? Am I right?’