Jigsaw Man (5 page)

He looked at her aghast. ‘With me? What about her parents? They don't live that far
away.'

‘It's not that simple. They're in Australia, visiting relatives, and her dad had
some sort of a heart attack when he heard the news about Claire. Understandably,
Sam doesn't want to stay in their house on her own.'

‘Jesus. Poor Colin. Is he going to be OK?'

She shrugged. ‘He's still alive, but he's in intensive care.'

He sighed heavily. He had seen it so many times before. The fallout of a murder was
far-reaching, affecting families and loved ones in unimaginable ways.

‘I asked her if there wasn't some other family member, or friend, she could stay
with,' Steele continued. ‘But she said no. I offered to have her, as did Sharon,
but she refused. She was quite definite about it. If she was going to be made to
move out of her home, in these “horrible circumstances” as she put it, she wanted
to stay with you. Obviously, I said I would have to speak to you first. So –
can
she stay with you, just for a few days? It would make everything so much easier.'

He gazed out of the window, not sure what to say. He felt deeply for Donovan and
had some inkling of what she must be going through, even though he had never experienced
such a thing himself. If it had been three months before, he wouldn't have hesitated
to offer her a room, or his whole flat if need be. But things had changed between
them. Something had happened and he had barely spoken to her since. It was odd that
she wanted to stay with him.

‘Do you have a spare room?' Steele asked.

‘I have a box room. It's full of stuff at the moment.'

‘Surely it won't be too difficult to make some space? After all, it's only for a
few days. Sam can move back into the house as soon as we're done, if that's what
she wants.'

‘What about Justin?' he asked, referring to Justin Chang, one of the DCs on his team.
‘They had something going on together at one point, I thought.'

‘Nothing meaningful, at least not on her side. Anyway, it's not Justin she wants
to stay with.'

He met her gaze. She was only a few years older than he was, but sometimes the gap
felt like a generation. ‘You really think this is a good idea?'

She frowned. ‘No, I don't actually. You know what I think, Mark. I've said to you
before I thought she was . . . well, that Sam was in love with you, or something
along those lines. Why she felt that way, well . . .' She shrugged. ‘Maybe that's
why she chucked in her job.'

‘You're blaming me?'

‘No. It's her own stupid fault. She should have known better, but I'm pretty sure
it's why she hasn't spoken to you in months. She probably finally saw sense and wanted
to get some distance from you.'

He shook his head. There might be an element of truth in
what Steele said, but it
wasn't the whole story. Something else had soured things between him and Donovan.
Back in the summer, they had been working on a case involving a series of killings
that proved to be linked to the unsolved murder of a young girl. Towards the end
of the case, desperate for a resolution and in order to prevent any further deaths,
he had taken a risk to flush out the killer. It had involved putting another man's
life in jeopardy, although if the cards played out as he expected, he hadn't viewed
the risk as being that great. He knew that he had crossed the line, both morally
and professionally, but in his view it had been a gamble worth taking.

He had never discussed what had happened with anyone other than Donovan, and he was
sure Steele knew nothing about it. But it had been a step too far for Donovan and
she had said so. He reminded himself that she had seemed generally dissatisfied
with life for a while even before those events, but maybe it had been the tipping
point, providing the excuse she had been looking for to throw in the towel, both
with him and her job. Since then, she had ignored all his attempts to patch things
up and for the last couple of months hadn't returned his calls. Still more hurt than
he cared to admit, he didn't understand why she was now so keen to stay with him;
not that he had any intention of explaining that to Steele.

‘Well, if it's distance she wants, staying with me isn't going to achieve it,' he
said, after a moment.

Steele nodded. ‘As I said, I think it's a crap idea. But she's over twenty-one and
I'm not her minder. We need to get her out of there now, preferably with her cooperation.
That's the priority.'

He sensed he was losing the argument. ‘It's going to be bloody awkward having her
around. She's going to want to know what's going on. How am I supposed to—'

Steele held up her hand. ‘I agree, it's a tricky situation. Impossible, really. That's
why I've decided to take you off the case.' She spoke matter-of-factly, as though
it was just a routine matter. She wasn't known for her emotional intelligence, but
he was dumbstruck at her lack of finesse.

He stared at her. ‘You're kidding.' But he could see she wasn't. ‘That's ridiculous.'

‘Mark, you're too close to things. You knew Claire, you know Sam.'

‘You think I can't handle it?'

‘No. That's not what I mean, I—'

‘I will do everything I can to find Claire's killer, and not just because she's Sam's
sister.'

‘I know you would, but so can one of the other teams. Equally well.'

‘Is this because I was at the Dillon last night? I told you all about that. I've
done nothing wrong.'

‘But it makes things awkward. You must see that. You were there when this happened.
If we catch whoever did this and it comes to trial and you have to give evidence,
it might muddy the waters. Imagine how the press might spin it if they ever got hold
of it. There's also something else.'

He shook his head, not believing what he was hearing.

‘It's important.' She waited until she had his attention. ‘You know the Sainsbury's
car park body?' she continued, referring to a current case he had been investigating.

‘The dead tramp in the car? What about it?'

‘You had a message from Dr Moran at the mortuary. They've done the post-mortem and
things are not as straightforward as they looked. He says it's not one body, but
four.'

‘Four? How can that be? There was just one body in the car, or what was left of it
after the fire. I saw the photos.'

‘It seems that the body parts come from four different people, three men and a woman.
They were assembled to look like one.'

‘Jesus.' He threw his head back and sighed, exhausted by it all.

‘So you see, you're going to have your hands full enough with this one. You can't
handle both.'

He closed his eyes for a few moments, picturing the burnt-out wreck of a stolen Fiat
Panda, with the charred remains of what they had thought was a man lying curled up
asleep in the back. They had assumed he was sleeping rough and had climbed into the
car for warmth. When the local CID arrived on the scene, the first theory had been
that he'd set himself alight by accident. Then traces of accelerant were discovered
in and around the car and the murder squad had been called in. Even so, it had barely
merited more than a couple of lines in the local press. Dead vagrants made poor copy.
But four people, made to look like one . . . Without knowing any further details,
he could already imagine what the media reaction would be.

‘We must keep it under wraps for as long as possible,' Steele said. ‘As soon as you've
got Sam settled at your place, you'd better get over to Westminster and see Dr Moran.
He said he had an autopsy to do but that he'd be finished around nine.'

They walked across the street together in silence, Tartaglia's head spinning. He
didn't know what to focus on, the Dillon case he was being forced to leave behind,
Sam Donovan coming to stay for an indeterminate period, or the car park body or bodies.
He could do with a stiff drink and a cigarette, but there was no chance of either
with Steele around.

Steele unlocked the front door and he followed her into the narrow hall. He heard
noises and footsteps coming from the first floor.

‘Sam's in the kitchen,' Steele said, unbuttoning her coat. ‘Sharon's with her. I'll
just check on Dave and Hannah upstairs and I'll come and find you.'

Feeling suddenly nervous about seeing Sam Donovan again, he walked along the passage
to the rear of the house. The kitchen was down a couple of steps, in an extension
that took up a large part of the small garden. DS Sharon Fuller stood at the sink
in front of the window, washing some dishes, the radio was playing quietly in the
background. Short and plump, with a tidy bob of pale blonde hair, Fuller glanced
over her shoulder at him as he came into the room and arched her eyebrows meaningfully
in greeting. Sam Donovan was hunched over the kitchen table in the centre of the
room, a mug of something in front of her. She barely seemed to register that he was
there. His first impulse was to go to her, put his arms around her and gather her
to him. Three months ago he wouldn't have thought twice about it. Instead, he stood
awkwardly just inside the doorway, not sure what to do. From what he could tell,
she had lost weight since he had last seen her. She looked too thin, he thought.
She had also dyed her short, naturally light-brown hair platinum blonde. For a moment
she reminded him of a photo he had seen of Edie Sedgwick, or maybe it was Sienna
Miller playing Edie Sedgwick. He was also struck by how small she looked, how fragile.
He had never thought of her as fragile before, or vulnerable, and his heart went
out to her.

‘I'm so sorry, Sam,' he said, still hovering by the door.

Her eyes met his and silently she mouthed ‘thank you'. She had a bleary, unfocussed
look, which he assumed was down to the medication she had been given.

‘Mark says he can have you to stay,' Steele said, coming into the room behind him.
‘If that's what you want,' she added.

‘Yes,' Tartaglia murmured. ‘Of course.'

Donovan nodded slowly and went back to staring into space.

‘Have you got her things together?' he asked Fuller.

‘That's all she packed,' Fuller replied, pointing a soapy finger towards a small
overnight bag sitting by the door. ‘She wouldn't let me do it and I doubt it will
be enough, but I can always bring over more if she needs it.'

‘We'll be done here relatively quickly,' Steele said, looking at Donovan, although
she didn't seem to hear. ‘Hopefully, it should only be for a day or so.'

Tartaglia said nothing, but he wasn't so sure that Donovan would want to move straight
back into her house. Even though Claire hadn't been murdered there, it would hold
so many memories. He would give it a couple of days, see how things panned out, and
then maybe another solution would have to be found. At least if he was working on
a totally different case, it would make things a little easier. Maybe Steele was
right after all.

‘How long will Nick be?' Steele asked Tartaglia.

‘Should be back any minute. Shall we wait here for him?'

Steele glanced at her watch. ‘No. We need to get on. I'll give you a lift. Call him
and tell him to meet you at your flat. He can take you over to the mortuary.'

‘Are you sure there's nothing else you need?' Tartaglia asked Donovan, picking up
the small suitcase and finding it surprisingly heavy.

‘Just my work,' Donovan said faintly, slowly getting to her feet. ‘My bag's in the
hall.'

Five

‘When will we get the DNA results back?' Tartaglia asked Dr James Moran.

‘Should be sometime tomorrow, if we're lucky.' The last word was distorted by an
explosive sneeze. Moran took a crumpled handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his
nose loudly a couple of times. ‘Sorry. There's something doing the rounds here. I
hope I'm not going down with it.'

They were standing in one of the recently refurbished suites of rooms in Westminster
mortuary. Moran's pudgy face was pale and sweaty and Tartaglia didn't hold out much
hope of his resisting whatever bug was threatening to lay him low. Maybe he had caught
Arabella Browne's flu. Moran was roughly his own age and had recently transferred
to the Westminster-based team of pathologists, from another location somewhere out
of London. He was short and a little overweight, with a receding hairline and old-fashioned
steel-rimmed spectacles, which gave him an earnest look. From what Tartaglia had
heard, he was struggling with the increased hours that working in the capital involved,
on top of the daily commute home. Wondering if Moran would last the pace, or whether
Moran's wife would put up with the strain on their family life, Tartaglia stared
down at the blackened skeletal frame laid out on the gurney in front of him.

The smell coming from the remains was powerful and made him want to retch. The flesh
on some of the body parts had clearly been decomposing before the parts had been
set on fire.
The logistics of assembling a body the way the killer had done, suggested
he must be storing the parts somewhere, most likely a freezer. He recalled the area
of waste ground where the green Fiat Panda had been found, next to the Sainsbury's
car park in Lambeth, and ran through in his mind the video footage from the crime
scene, taken just after the car had been found. Although the entrance to the waste
ground from the road had been boarded up, part of the fencing between it and the
car park had been vandalised and it was being used as an overspill when the Sainsbury's
car park was full. The Panda had been reported stolen from outside a house in Tooting
five days before the fire was discovered. They didn't yet know whether the killer
had transported the body parts in the boot of the car, or covered up on the back
seat, or even separately in bags or a suitcase. An appeal for witnesses who might
have noticed when the car had been left there had so far drawn a blank. CCTV footage,
which barely extended to the outer limits of the car park, let alone the area beyond,
was inconclusive. The best estimate was that the car could have been sitting there
for anything up to twenty-four hours before the fire was spotted and the fire brigade
was called out. It was also unclear if the car had been dumped by joy riders, and
the killer had used it opportunistically, or whether the killer had stolen the vehicle
as part of his plan.