Taste of Blood

Chapter Thirty-Five

Stanley drove into Clarendon Court at eight o’clock, heading round the drive and into the courtyard. The forensic tent was still in position, but much of the yellow crime-scene tape had been removed. A white forensics van was parked up, and to his astonishment next to it he saw Jane’s car.

There was no one inside the tent, just empty takeaway food cartons and dirty coffee mugs. Knowing that both the Boons and the Larssons were in the cells at the station, he headed towards the Larssons’ house, easing past their parked car, and entering the garden via the gate. Two officers wearing protective clothing, gloves and masks were examining a large bamboo and wicker garden table.

In a wheelbarrow was a section of the wooden trellis, with a pile of cut-down ivy.

‘Good morning, Stanley.’

Jane was leaning out of the bedroom window.

‘You coming down?’

She closed the window. He turned and watched the two forensics officers carefully dismantling the table. ‘That glass looks new,’ he said.

‘That’s what we thought,’ one of them said. They began to ease the glass out carefully, afraid it might shatter as it was a very tight fit. Eventually they were able to lift it clear and then carried it to where they had laid out some flattened cardboard. On their knees they began carefully examining the edges, using test sticks with bulbous cotton ends to take samples.

Jane appeared, carrying her jacket and briefcase. ‘I think the window frames have been repainted, not recently, but they don’t match the other bedroom. Mind you, the entire bedroom has been redecorated along with new carpet and wallpaper.’

‘We are pushing it a bit being here, especially inside the house,’ Stanley cautioned.

‘We still have the warrants, and I’ve not removed anything. We have these two guys as witnesses.’ The forensics officers straightened up, placing two sticks into a tube for analysis.

‘What about the trellis?’ she asked.

As the officers returned to the table, now minus its glass, they gestured to the stacked section of trellis.

‘Definitely a newer addition, nailed onto the old, and in a few places secured with cable wires,’ one of them said. ‘Take a look at the brickwork underneath. In four places you can see quite deep indentations.’

Stanley and Jane looked where he was pointing.

‘Would you say they could have been made by someone climbing up?’ Jane asked.

He nodded. ‘Yes, and from the shape of the indentations, it looks like they had pointed shoes of some sort.’

Jane turned to Stanley. ‘Sebastian Martinez wore cowboy boots with pointed toes.’

The officer turned his attention back to the table. ‘Inspector, I’m finding a lot of tiny shards of glass, caught between the bamboo, just fragments, but they could be from the previous glass top as the one we just examined doesn’t have so much as a scratch.’

He teased out small bits of hardened Blu-Tack with a thin wooden spatula. ‘These were probably used when they fitted the new glass top. Hang on, the bamboo legs have open tops.’ He probed the bamboo tube with an evidence stick. When he drew it out, the tip was discoloured. He put it in a plastic container full of a clear chemical and shook it up. He held the result up to the light.

‘Yep, it’s blood,’ he said.

Stanley and Jane waited as all the hollow legs of the table were similarly tested, each with the same result.

‘Blood must have dripped down and congealed,’ Stanley said.

‘We need to verify that it’s human blood, and then see if we can match it to the DNA samples taken from the head,’ Jane said.

‘Right,’ Stanley agreed. He nodded to the forensics officers. ‘And in the meantime, keep looking for more evidence. My guess is there was a massive blood pool when Sebastian Martinez was decapitated. Even after four years, that could show up in the soil.’

Jane and Stanley left them to get on with it, and drove back to the station. As soon as they arrived, Stanley went straight to the incident board to add the new information, before heading up to the canteen.

Jane was already there, carrying her tray of scrambled eggs and bacon, two rounds of toast and a large mug of coffee to a table. Stanley went and got his usual full English and joined her.

‘I can’t believe I’m so hungry after what we’ve just seen,’ she said.

He shrugged, dipping a piece of toast into his egg yolk.

They finished their breakfast in silence. At ten fifteen they were ready in interview room one. Jane was checking through her files, making sure every item was tagged for easy access during the interview.

‘So do you think the rest of Sebastian’s body is buried in the Larssons’ garden?’ Stanley asked. ‘We’ve already dug up most of it, and Martin Boon’s.’

‘No, I don’t think we’ll find it there,’ she said.

‘Then where?’ he asked. But before she could answer, there was a knock on the door and DC Burrows looked in.

‘We have Edward Larsson’s solicitor here but not his wife’s. Do you want them brought in?’

‘Yes, wheel them in. Do we know him?’

‘It’s a her,’ Burrows said. ‘Anita Conrad.’

Burrows closed the door quietly behind him as Jane glanced at Stanley.

‘You know her?’

‘Nope.’ There was a rap on the door. ‘I guess we’re about to find out what she’s made of.’

Burrows ushered in Edward Larsson, followed by Miss Conrad.

Jane nodded to her as she sat down. ‘Good morning, Miss Conrad. I am Detective Inspector Tennison, and this is Detective Inspector Stanley.’

‘Good morning.’ Anita Conrad looked to be in her late thirties and was smartly dressed in a navy-blue suit with a frill-necked white shirt. Her auburn hair was scraped back from her slightly puffy-cheeked face into a neat bun. She placed a notebook on the table and signalled that she was ready to begin.

Stanley switched on the tape recorder and went through the usual preliminaries, finishing up with a caution.

‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

Jane took a good look at Edward Larsson while Stanley was speaking. He looked drawn and pale, his eyes red-rimmed.

‘What business are you in, Mr Larsson?’ Jane began.

‘I have a company importing goods from Sweden,’ he said. ‘Home furnishings, domestic appliances, that sort of thing.’

‘So you are Swedish?’

‘Yes, but I moved to England many years ago. It was originally my father’s company.’

‘And it’s successful?’

Yes, I now employ four staff full-time.’

‘Do you have a warehouse?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, when these items are shipped to your warehouse, are they already boxed up, ready to be delivered?’

‘That depends on the item. The smaller items of kitchen equipment require separating to be re-boxed for deliveries. And the glassware.’

‘When you re-box items, what do you use to secure the lids?’

‘We use various kinds of tape.’

‘When you say we, does your wife also assist in repackaging the small items?’

‘Yes, to begin with, until I was able to employ workers for the deliveries and boxing.’

‘And what kind of tape do you use, Mr Larsson?’

He turned to Miss Conrad and gave her a quizzical look.

‘These questions are absurd. What possible relevance can that have?’ she said, frowning.

Jane leaned forwards, ignoring her. ‘I mean, is it narrow like Sellotape or more substantial?’

Larsson folded his arms. ‘We use strong, wide tape. But I have not been involved in that area for many years.’

‘But would you agree that you were proficient at one time, before being successful, so you had experience in taping parcels?’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he said in an exasperated tone.

‘What is the name of the tape you use?’

‘It’s silver duct tape.’

Jane pulled a photograph from her file and placed it on the table.

‘Look at the photograph, please, Mr Larsson.’

He glanced at it quickly then immediately started shaking. He seemed unable to speak.

‘For the benefit of the tape, I am showing Mr Larsson the photograph of the severed head wrapped in silver duct tape and discovered buried under the tarmac at Clarendon Court.’

‘I don’t know what that is,’ he managed to say, finally.

‘Let me clarify that for you, Mr Larsson. We have identified the victim as Sebastian Hoffman, and my point, Miss Conrad, is that it was expertly wrapped with duct tape. So I am suggesting...’

Miss Conrad interrupted. ‘I need to speak privately to my client.’

‘I am simply asking him a direct question, Miss Conrad.’ Jane turned to Larsson. ‘Did you wrap Sebastian Hoffman’s head in duct tape?’

Larsson was shaking his head. Underneath the table his legs were trembling.

‘It is not the way you think, I have to explain the reasons, it was a terrible, heartbreaking time... my beloved daughter was dying. There was no hope left... I was out of my mind.’

Jane put the photograph back in the file. ‘Tell me about your daughter.’

Larsson seemed relieved he no longer had to look at the photograph. And Jane’s gentle tone of voice seemed to calm him down. Clearly he wanted to talk about his daughter, not Sebastian. It was like floodgates opening.

‘She was so very beautiful, but she had always been very frail, asthma dogged her early years, and then she began to starve herself, and then self-harming... We were at our wits’ end. She was only fifteen years old and it seemed like her life was over. Then, like a miracle, she began to get better, put on weight. She wanted strawberries and ice cream all the time! She went back to school and suddenly I believed she had a future. Then my wife discovered that Georgina was spending hours with the Hoffman boy, and lying to us about it. One day we went to an outdoor concert that was rained off. We came back early and found him in her bedroom. They were both naked.’

He grabbed a tissue, wiping his face.

‘Was this when you warned the Hoffmans about their son?’ Jane asked.

‘She was only fifteen years old, for God’s sake! Of course I warned them. I told them that they had to send him away, or I would call the police... I would have him arrested.’

‘Sebastian was also underage, wasn’t he?’

‘That was not the way he looked. Anyway, they agreed. They sent him abroad.’

‘Was it at this time they sold you the rights to the courtyard?’

‘What? The courtyard? Yes, it was around this time, I believe.’

‘I suppose you were able to get it for a good price, considering the circumstances?’

‘They needed money, they wanted to sell the house. I would have done anything to make sure he was not able to see my daughter.’

‘So, your purchase helped the Hoffmans send their son to Mexico, and shortly afterwards they sold their property?’

‘Yes, I can’t remember how long the sale took. After the fire the house was boarded up for some time, and then the Caplans did extensive rebuilding which went on for many months.’

Miss Conrad sighed theatrically. ‘I fail to see the relevance of this line of questioning.’

Jane smiled icily. ‘Hopefully it will become clear if you will allow me to continue. Mr Larsson, did you begin to tarmac the courtyard after the Hoffmans had moved out?’

‘Yes, shortly after, it was early March when work began, that would be on the main driveway to the properties.’

‘So, when exactly did you discover your daughter was pregnant?’

Larsson swallowed several times before he was able to answer.

‘Around about the same time, but we didn’t realise that she was pregnant at first, because she began to starve herself again. She would eat, but then make herself vomit. You have to understand what it was like, watching what she was doing to herself. We didn’t think it could be morning sickness, but when it continued and she was still not eating, my wife made her take a pregnancy test.’

‘How did she react to being told she was pregnant?’

‘She tried to run away, went over to a neighbour, they had a daughter older than Georgina, but they had been friends. We brought her back, she didn’t resist, just stayed in her bedroom and then probably due to her starving herself she miscarried, locked in the bathroom screaming at us, blaming us for losing the baby.’ He wiped his face again.

‘You were certain the baby was Sebastian’s?’

‘Yes, of course, there could have been no one else, she was screaming his name to help her. We eventually broke the lock on the bathroom door and took her back to bed.’

‘How far gone was she?’ Stanley asked.

‘I am not exactly sure, about four or five weeks.’

‘So, was it small enough to flush down the toilet, or did you do something else with the foetus?’

Larsson closed his eyes and started shaking his head, as if trying to get an unbearable image out of his mind.

Miss Conrad slapped the table with her palm. ‘My client’s daughter tragically died over four years ago. I find this reference to a very tragic incident totally abhorrent.’

Jane looked down, appearing to be interested in her notes and letting Stanley maintain the pressure on Larsson.

‘It’s all about the sequence of events,’ he said. ‘That’s what we need to establish.’ He looked directly at Larsson, who avoided making eye contact. ‘So what happened to the foetus?’

Larsson took a series of deep breaths. ‘Yes, my wife flushed it down the toilet.’

‘Did you call a doctor to examine your daughter and make sure she was all right?’

‘No, she became very calm and went to bed.’

‘According to medical reports, your daughter did not attend hospital until 14th March, is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, you discovered the pregnancy in early March, and then subsequently had the miscarriage about a week later, or would you say longer?’

‘About a week, I suppose, yes.’

‘And when did Georgina start to get sick?’

‘It... began with a temperature, I think it was the tenth or eleventh when the fever took hold, and no matter what my wife did, we couldn’t get it down.’

‘Did you call a doctor?’

He hung his head. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘She had been pregnant and she was only fifteen years old. We wanted to protect her.’

‘So, on 14th March what happened?’

‘During the night a vivid rash had appeared over her body, and the fever was awful. We called for an ambulance. She was taken to the A&E department. My wife went with her, and I followed in my car, but by the time I arrived she had been taken into intensive care. We were told she had gone into septic shock and was very seriously ill. We stayed at the hospital, hoping and praying until early morning.’

‘That would now be 15th March?’

‘Yes, my wife was exhausted. She had been caring for Georgina day and night. She was still in her dressing gown. I persuaded her to go home, take a shower and then come straight back.’

‘What time did your wife leave the hospital?’

‘It was about eleven.’

‘And what time did she return?’

Head bowed, tears in his eyes, Larsson seemed unable to continue. Miss Conrad offered him a beaker of water, but he shook his head. Stanley scribbled a note on his pad and passed it to Jane. There was one word underlined: ‘Manslaughter?’

Jane shook her head and whispered to him: ‘Not enough.’

Larsson’s face was very flushed, and he was beginning to sweat profusely.

‘Do you need to take a break, Mr Larsson?’ Jane asked gently.

He shook his head. Stanley waited a moment, then continued his questioning. ‘So what time did your wife return to the hospital to be with your daughter?’

‘I think we should take a break,’ Miss Conrad said firmly.

Larsson shook his head slowly. ‘No, it’s all right. I remember it was in the afternoon sometime.’

Beneath the table Jane gently touched Stanley’s knee, then withdrew a photograph from the file and passed it face down across the table. After a pause, she turned it up.

‘Do you recognise this person, Mr Larsson?’ Jane asked quietly.

He winced. ‘Yes, it’s Sebastian Hoffman.’

‘Can you tell me when you last saw him?’

Larsson opened his mouth to speak, but then seemed to stop himself.

‘We have evidence to show that Sebastian arrived in England that same day, on the morning of 15th March. Did you see him at any time during that day?’

‘No, I did not.’

‘What time did you and your wife return home from the hospital?’

Larsson licked his lips. His legs started shaking again.

‘I don’t remember, I can’t remember, I was in a dreadful state... it was all such a terrible time.’

‘Let me help you remember, Mr Larsson. Your neighbour Mr Boon recalled you waking him up very late that night and asking him to return to your house.’

Larsson started sobbing. After a while he wiped his eyes, then looked up at Jane. ‘I... found Sebastian’s body. He’d tried to climb the trellis up to our daughter’s bedroom. He must have fallen and landed on the table. The glass was shattered. It had... cut his throat. His head was... I asked Martin to help me get rid of it. That’s how it ended up under the courtyard.’

He hunched over, wrapping his thin, bony arms around himself and beginning to rock backwards and forwards in his chair.

‘Why didn’t you call the police?’ Stanley asked.

‘I... I thought we’d be accused of killing him. It was an accident but...’

‘What did you do with the rest of his body?’

‘I... I...’ Larsson started convulsing, his chair scraping against the floor.

Miss Conrad held onto his arm. ‘My client...’ she began, looking at Jane with a panicked expression.

Jane quickly got up and opened the door. Moments later DC Burrows and two uniformed officers came in and helped Larsson out of the room, followed by Miss Conrad.

The interview was over.

Ten minutes later, Stanley and Jane were sitting in DCI Hutton’s office, giving her a debrief.

‘Do you believe him, that it was an accident?’ Hutton asked.

Jane shook her head. ‘He never mentioned his wife. There’s something he’s not telling us. He’s definitely covering for her. And we can’t be sure that it was the fall that killed him. The pathologist didn’t find any glass fragments embedded in the skull and we know he wasn’t decapitated on impact because we know his head was subsequently severed with a Gigli saw.’

‘Whatever happened,’ Stanley said, ‘there would have been a massive amount of blood. We did discover a certain amount this morning in the hollow bamboo table legs.’

‘We’re certain it’s blood?’ Hutton asked.

Stanley nodded. ‘They put a drop of phenolphthalein reagent on the swab, waited a couple of seconds and added a drop of hydrogen peroxide. It turned pink instantly, so it’s confirmed as blood.’

Hutton nodded. ‘That could mean he actually did die from the fall. And after four years we may not find any more blood traces.’

Jane glanced at her watch. She wanted time to confer with Stanley before they brought up Mrs Larsson to be interviewed. She drained her coffee cup and stood up.

Hutton nodded. ‘Well done. And come and see me as soon as you’re finished with Mrs Larsson.’

As they walked out of the office and into the incident room, Stanley was shaking his head grumpily. ‘I’m starving. I need something to eat.’

Jane nodded. ‘We’ve got time to order a sandwich and have a half hour together before the interview.’ As they left the incident room, Jane saw the handsome man from the car park. He gave a nod to Stanley.

‘This is Detective Chief Superintendent Ralph James, DI Jane Tennison,’ Stanley said.

‘Nice to meet you properly, DI Tennison,’ he said with another warm smile, before entering the incident room.

Jane looked after him. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘Didn’t you know? He’s married to Hutton. He’s a good guy, actually. Runs the Met’s drug squad.’

Jane nodded. ‘That explains it. I’ve seen him around a few times. They make a handsome couple.’

They carried on down the corridor.

‘Talking of which, are you back with your builder chap?’ Stanley asked.

The double doors swung closed behind them. ‘No, it didn’t work out. I’m on my own again, Stanley.’