Lost - Michael Robotham [38]
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“Do you have any secrets?”
“No.”
“Did you and Mickey have a secret?”
He shook his head. “Am I under arrest?”
“No. You’re helping us with our inquiries. You’re a very helpful man. I noticed that right from the beginning when you were taking photographs and printing flyers.”
“I was showing people what Mickey looked like.”
“There you go. Helpful. That’s what you are.”
The search took three hours. Surfaces were dusted, carpets vacuumed, clothes brushed and sinks dismantled. Overseeing the operation was George Noonan, a veteran scene of crime investigator who is almost albino with his completely white hair and pale skin. Noonan seems to resent searches where he doesn’t have a body to work with. For him death is always a bonus.
“You might want to see this,” he said.
I followed him down the hallway to the sitting room. He had sealed off all sources of light by blacking out windows and using masking tape around the edges of the doors. He positioned me in front of the fireplace, closed the door and turned off the light.
Darkness. I couldn’t even see my feet. Then I noticed a small pattern of droplets, glowing blue-green on the carpet.
“They could be low-velocity bloodstains,” explained Noonan. “The hemoglobin in blood reacts to the luminol, a chemical that I sprayed on the floor. Substances like household bleach can trigger the same reaction but I think this is blood.”
“You said low velocity?”
“A slow bleeder—probably not a stab wound.”
The droplets were no bigger than bread crumbs and stopped abruptly in a straight line.
“There used to be something here—possibly a carpet or a rug,” he explains.
“With more blood on it?”
“He may have tried to get rid of the evidence.”
“Or wrapped up a body. Is there enough to get DNA?”
“I believe so.”
My knee joints creaked as I stood. Noonan turned on the light.
“We found something else.” He held up a pair of child’s bikini briefs sealed in a plastic evidence bag. “There don’t appear to be traces of blood or semen. I won’t be sure until I get it back to the lab.”
Howard had waited on the stairs. I didn’t ask him about the bloodstains or the underwear. Nor did I query the 86,000 images of children on his computer hard drive or the six boxes of clothing catalogs—all featuring children—beneath his bed. The time for that would come later.
Howard’s world had been turned upside down and emptied like the contents of a drawer yet he didn’t even raise his head as the last officer left.
Emerging onto the front steps, I blinked into the sunshine and turned to the cameras. “We have served a search warrant at this address. A man is helping us with our inquiries. He is not under arrest. I want you to respect his privacy and leave the residents of this building alone. Do not jeopardize this investigation.”
A barrage of questions came from beyond the cameras.
“Is Mickey Carlyle still alive?”
“Are you close to making an arrest?”
“Is it true you found photographs?”
Pushing through the crowd I walked to my car, refusing to answer any questions. At the last moment, I turned back and glanced up at Dolphin Mansions. Howard peered from the window. He didn’t look at me. Instead he stared at the TV cameras and realized, with a growing sense of horror, that they weren’t going to leave. They were waiting for him.
10
Emerging from the prison, I get a sudden, stultifying sense of déjà vu. A black BMW pulls up suddenly, the door opens and Aleksei Kuznet steps onto the pavement. His hair is dark and wet, clinging to his scalp as though glued there.
How did he know I was here?
A bodyguard appears behind him, the sort of paid thug who bulks