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The mother’s, then, James guessed. Kept as it was while they mourned her.
He went downstairs and asked one of the uniforms at the gate to knock on doors and ask the neighbors if they knew who lived here and if so, where they worked.
Then he took the study and gave Hartridge the kitchen to search.
The desk in the study had a few letters lying open on it, addressed to Harold Bicton. The father, maybe? James did a quick read of the letters, careful not to touch them, but all he found was a gas bill, an MOT notification for a Peugeot, and a telephone bill. He jotted down the Peugeot registration number and the telephone number and then went out to see if the car was parked nearby.
It was. He didn’t know how much significance to assign to that fact.
“There’s a telephone on a small table between the kitchen and the dining room,” Hartridge said, coming out into the hallway.
James nodded. “I’ve got the number. The bill is on the desk in the study. They also own a car, and it’s parked outside.”
“Where are they?” Hartridge wondered. “Both father and daughter.”
“They could have taken the bus.” James said. Except the victim had been dead for a day or more, so where had they been since yesterday afternoon? “Maybe they’re away on holiday and whoever was killed was house sitting for them,” he mused.
It was as good a guess as any, but just that, a guess.
They wrapped up their search, found out the neighbors said the family kept themselves to themselves, and they didn’t know anything, and then locked up and left a seal on the door with a request for the mysteriously missing homeowners to contact New Scotland Yard before entering their home.
By the time they’d taken the jewelry in for safekeeping, and sent the victim’s clothes and suitcase to forensics, it was time for the post mortem.
James sent Hartridge to the canteen for cups of tea for the both of them, and then settled in to wait outside the examination room.
DI Layman wandered down the passage and then stopped short at the sight of James. “DS Archer, you’re not here for my case, are you?”
“The jewelry heist from yesterday?” James asked. “No.”
Jandicott must have heard their voices, because he stepped out of his lair. “Good, you’re both here.” He gestured them in, and James exchanged a look with Layman as they followed him.
“Your murders are both shooting deaths, which is already very rare, and it looks like the bullet used in both cases is the same caliber.” Jandicott stood between two trolleys, both with shrouds covering the body on them. “I’ve sent the bullets for testing and comparison, but I thought I should let you know that both men were killed with a .38 caliber, most likely from an Enfield No. 2 revolver. I don’t know about you, but it’s quite the coincidence for two shootings to happen on the same day.”
“Who’s murder are you looking into?” Layman asked.
“We don’t know yet. There’s no identification,” James said. “And your chap is Harry Fingers, I hear?”
“Harold Bicton,” Jandicott said, indicating the trolley to his left. “Harry Fingers was his professional name.”
James stared at him. “Is that him?” he asked.
Jandicott nodded, and lifted back the sheet.
James looked down into the face of the man in the photographs. “That man over there,” he said, indicating the body on the other trolley, “was found dead in Harold Bicton’s house.”
Layman looked as shell-shocked by the news as James. “I haven’t found Harry’s house yet. I’ve only tracked down his office.”
“I spent the whole afternoon looking through it,” James told him. “And now I’m wondering, where’s his daughter?”
chapter
six
No one had seen Jerry or Scotty.
Liz had asked around for her, too, with no luck, and Gabriella spoke to as many of her colleagues as she could as they got out of their uniforms and donned their street clothes at the end of shift.
She’d also asked PC Evans, the bobby who walked a similar beat to her, if he could keep an eye out, and he promised to do so, but when she asked about the process of reporting him as a missing person, he told her that Jerry would not be a high priority. He was an adult, he had previously lived rough, and there were no signs he’d left unwillingly.
