Private London

Chapter 73

Tom Challoner had worked for the Underground for thirty years.

He was a stationmaster and would be retiring in the autumn. At ten minutes past three he was sitting at his desk taking what he considered a well-earned tea break, timing himself as he finished The Times crossword.

The shock waves from the explosion shattered the window of his office and knocked him from his chair to lie unconscious on the floor.

Near Edgware Road Tube station, Kirsty Webb was sitting at her desk in one of the CID offices at Paddington Green. Cursing the ever-increasing bureaucratic demands that meant she and her colleagues spent more time doing paperwork than they ever did out on the street solving crimes. Or trying to.

She had given up on the paperwork an hour ago and had been working on a presentation that she would be giving in a few days’ time in Manchester. She had been shortlisted as one of three final applicants for the new post in the newly created division. Each of them had to give a fifteen-minute talk. A case study of a successful murder case on which they had worked.

Kirsty had wanted to give her presentation on the ‘Ring-Finger Murders’ as one of the red-top papers had named them – a title that had been taken up by most of the broadcast media. But she had been sidelined on the case because it had been taken over by the serial-crimes unit and she found herself relegated back to donkey work. Taking statements, filing reports, dead-end policing.

She put her pen down, picked up a sheet of paper with random thoughts and doodles on it, screwed it into a ball and was about to throw it across the room into a waste-paper bin when a call came.

She looked at the caller ID, then across the room to where a couple of male colleagues were discussing yesterday’s football game. She walked out of the office, along to the steps at the end of the corridor and answered it.

‘DI Webb,’ she said.

‘Kirsty, it’s Doctor Lee. I’ve got some news.’ Kirsty felt a small flutter of expectation. She could tell by the woman’s voice that something significant had happened.

‘What have you got for me, Wendy?’

‘Dan had me run the DNA analysis for you.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Kirsty impatiently.

‘We’ve got a hit.’

‘Hang on.’ Kirsty lodged the phone in the crook of her shoulder and pulled out her notepad and pen.

‘Shoot.’

‘She’s a Romanian national. A nurse – and she’s got a criminal record back at home so we got lucky. You wouldn’t have got a hit on your police systems and would have had to go to Interpol, which would have taken even longer.’

‘Thanks, Wendy.’

‘Thank Dan. He put me on it on my day off.’

‘Sorry about that.’

‘I’m only kidding. I was just waiting for a call at my end. We’re all eyes out on the Shapiro case, anyway. Nobody’s having any time off.’

‘I guess not.’

‘So you can buy Dan a beer when you see him.’

‘If I can get hold of him I will. He’s not answering his phone.’

‘I know – I tried him first. Probably out of network coverage or his phone’s run down.’

Kirsty nodded.

‘So, my Jane Doe. What’s her name?’

‘Adriana Kisslinger. She was twenty-seven.’

‘What was her offence?’

‘Prostitution. She was offering executive bed baths in the hospital she was working at, apparently. The ward sister didn’t approve.’

‘And it’s illegal in Romania?’

‘Prostitution is, yes. Ironic, isn’t it? Romania is listed as one of the biggest sources of human trafficking in the world.’

‘I know. Thanks again for this, Wendy.’

‘Like I said-’

‘Yeah, yeah. I know,’ Kirsty interrupted. ‘I will when I speak with him.’