‘Thank you, Mark.’
She laid her hand on his arm, gave it the briefest of squeezes and then walked into the station. For a moment, Mark felt like a teenager again, stupidly elated by the tiniest of things.
‘Let’s review what we’ve got.’
Helen had called the whole team together in the incident room to sift the evidence.
‘Witnesses?’
‘Nothing so far,’ DC Bridges responded. ‘We’re still on site, but it’s mostly junkies after a reward or attention-seekers. Someone saw a dark car, someone saw a motorbike, someone else saw a UFO… The hotline’s had plenty of action but it’s basically old ladies and kids having a laugh.’
What did Helen expect? Marie and Anna must have been there for nearly two weeks – why would anyone remember anything that far back?
‘Ok, what about the pathology report?’
Charlie dived in – there was no point dressing this up.
‘Both victims were emaciated and severely dehydrated. Anna Storey died of asphyxiation. A pillow with traces of her spittle and snot on it was found close to her body.’
Helen tried not to react. Marie had killed her daughter after all – albeit with tenderness. That somehow made it worse. Charlie continued:
‘Marie Storey died of cardiac arrest following multiple organ failure. Brought on by starvation and the effects of dehydration.’
Mark saw the effect these simple words were having on Helen – and everyone else in the team – so jumped in with his crumb of good news.
‘There’s no CCTV anywhere near the estate – vandalized ages ago. Forensics have dusted the flat from top to bottom without any joy, but they did find a partial footprint on the edge of one of the flowerbeds by the tower entrance. A high heel estimated to be a size six. Uniform are doing the rounds with an image of the woman in the lime-green puffa and Kappa cap – see if it jogs any memories.’
‘Good. What about the gun?’ Helen continued.
‘Still loaded when found. No sign of use,’ said DC McAndrew, picking up the baton. ‘It’s a Smith and Wesson, probably from the early 1990s. The Ben Holland gun was a Glock and the gun that killed Sam Taylor was a modified Taurus.’
‘Where’s she getting them from?’ Helen countered. ‘Is she ex-military? A cop? Let’s check if any of the guns harvested in last year’s amnesty have gone missing.’
McAndrew scuttled off to do Helen’s bidding. With no hard evidence to speak of – the sedatives used were over-the-counter stuff, the phones no-contract pay-as-you-go – and little in the way of witness statements to describe this killer chameleon, all they had to go on was pattern and motive.