‘You can imagine. So I probably need to stay with-’
‘Of course. Don’t even think about doing anything else. High profile,’ Gill said, ‘could get kicked up to MIT.’
‘I know,’ said Janet.
‘We couldn’t take it, I don’t think,’ Gill added, ‘not on top of everything else. If we did you wouldn’t be anywhere near it.’
‘I know that.’ A conflict of interest. With Elise a potential witness and Janet being close to the victim and family, any official involvement by Janet could prejudice the inquiry.
‘Legal high apparently. Fucking drugs, eh?’ Gill said. ‘The family have been informed?’
‘Her parents, yes, still people to contact,’ Janet said.
‘OK. I’ll let everyone know the situation.’
‘Thanks, Gill.’
Gill put the phone down, thinking of Elise, of the dead girl. All that promise, a whole life snuffed out. She thought of the lectures she herself had given Sammy. People equated legal with safe. But the drugs were anything but. Horse tranquillizers, plant food. A cocktail of chemicals untested and with unpredictable effects. The police, the law, were constantly playing catch-up, banning those substances linked to death or serious side effects, but it was always too little, too late. The manufacturers could take the same recipe, tweak it, alter one ingredient or the proportion of others and hey presto it was legal again. Potentially deadly.
Her phone rang. She sat up straighter and answered, ‘Gill Murray.’
‘Rita in forensics. Good news.’
‘Go on.’
‘As you know, there was no gunshot residue on the swabs from the two suspects, however-’
‘I love that word, however,’ Gill said.
‘However,’ Rita laughed, ‘we did find gunshot residue particles on the right-hand wrist cuff and sleeve seam of Neil Perry’s hooded jacket and on the right wrist cuff of Noel Perry’s jacket. The wrist is ribbed and particles were trapped there.’
Gill knew the physics. The act of firing a gun generated a powerful cloud of dust that settled on the hands, forearm and front of the person using it, but the residue was heavy and soon dropped off unless the structure or design trapped it. For that reason cuffs, pockets, seams, zips and buttons were all places worth examining. And if the suspects put their hands in their pockets they could transfer GSR there from the hands.
‘Of course, we can’t give you a time frame,’ the forensics woman said. ‘But it tells you they each fired a weapon at some point recently.’
‘Perfect,’ Gill said, ‘absolutely bloody perfect.’