‘I can assure you that none of the evidence recovered has been tampered with and we have watertight continuity for everything here,’ she said.
He shook his head, rattled off a cough. ‘It’s a fucking fit-up.’ He turned to his solicitor, ‘I want that on the record.’
Janet didn’t give him time to compose himself. ‘We also found significant traces of kerosene, that’s like paraffin. Highly flammable, sometimes used as a fire accelerant.’
He caught on quickly. ‘No way, no fucking way. I had nothing to do with that, with them shootings. No way.’
‘You refer to the murders of Lydia Oluwaseyi and Victor Tosin.’
‘Any murders. You can’t put that on me. I didn’t even know them,’ he said.
‘Perhaps you can explain then how your gloves came to be drenched in lighter fuel and thick with gunshot residue?’
There was a moment when he faltered, almost imperceptible, but Janet saw it in the minute changes in the muscles around his mouth, and the flash in his eyes, the hiatus in his breathing. He’d realized something, worked something out or remembered something. The moment passed in an instant and he resumed his defence.
‘No comment,’ he said, his lips twitching, reminding Janet of a horse baring its teeth.
‘Can you tell me where you were on Friday between the hours of seven and nine pm?’
‘No comment.’ Face closing down, he looked beyond Janet and into the middle distance. A stare of measured indifference, the mask was back in place. She knew he wouldn’t tell her anything else but she was intrigued by his violent reaction to the evidence on his gloves.
Rachel reported to hospital reception and asked for Shirelle Young. She needed the ward number.
‘Are you a relative?’ the clerk said.
‘Police.’ Rachel showed her warrant card.
Finally the clerk found Shirelle listed and directed Rachel up to the second floor, to the ward at the end of the corridor.
When Rachel got there the ward was locked, a laminated notice stated that visiting hours were 2-4 and 6-8. No visitors at any other time. Someone had underlined No visitors and any other time with several strokes of a marker pen.
Rachel rang the buzzer and waited. No one answered. She peered through the glass in the door; the ward looked deserted but she saw someone at the far end cross from one bay to another.
Rachel pressed the buzzer again, kept it pressed as she counted to twenty. A disembodied voice answered, ‘Yes?’ Making it sound like a slap.
‘Police, here to see Shirelle Young.’
‘Visiting hours are two till four and-’
‘Police,’ Rachel repeated, ‘here to speak to a victim of serious crime.’