‘Get them in this afternoon if possible,’ Janine told him. ‘Book the ID suite.’
Butchers nodded and set off, looking a little happier now he had a mission.
‘Boss,’ one of the DCs approached and handed her a document with a note attached. These told her that dental records in Poland matched their victim. The dead woman was one Rosa Milicz, believed to be living with family members on the outskirts of Krakow. Least we know we’re talking about the right person now, she thought. She told the officer to arrange for the Polish authorities to make sure any family were formally notified.
Shap came out of interview room two, where he’d been talking to Gleason. He looked fed up.
‘Well?’ Janine asked him.
‘Off-pat but he’s shaking. Yours?’
‘Cocky. Can I?’
Inside the room Shap updated the tape and sat back with his arms folded, happy to let Janine have a crack.
‘I’ve just been having a very interesting talk with Lee Stone,’ she told Gleason, who was rubbing at his long face repeatedly and whose body odour tainted the air. ‘He’s been very helpful.’
Gleason kept quiet.
‘Bit of a chequered past, Lee Stone. Now you, you’ve never been in prison: suspended sentence, community service order. We see that a lot, you know, associates who get dragged into things, get out of their depth. What can you tell us about yesterday morning?’
‘Nothing,’ he said urgently.
‘The car, the little girl?’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’ He bit at his thumb nail.
Janine waited a moment, studying him. ‘That little girl died last night. We won’t stop till we’ve got a conviction. Case like this – feelings run high.’
Gleason swallowed, his Adam’s apple large on his scrawny neck.
‘Half eight, nine a.m. where were you?’ Shap asked.
‘Home.’
‘We’ve already got one witness,’ Janine pointed out, ‘saw you and Lee Stone running from the car. And there’ll be others. Evidence too, on the car, in the car.’
‘People make that mistake: fire, think it all goes up in smoke but the technology we’ve got now – fantastic.’ Shap sounded positively delirious.
Gleason’s eyes swerved between the pair of them, he brought his arms across his chest. Defensive, Janine thought, hiding, protecting. He scratched at his forearm.
‘Who was driving?’ Janine said sharply.
The scratching stopped. ‘No comment,’ Gleason said, a waver in his voice.
Sod it. Janine rolled her eyes at Shap. The ‘no comment’ told her two things: Gleason had something to hide and they would not get anything else out of him now.
