by James Raven
‘I think one of your people mentioned it yesterday when he was looking around up there. So what are you saying? That someone could have climbed into the loft and then got into the neighbouring house?’
‘It’s entirely possible. It wouldn’t have occurred to me if not for the blood. It made me think about the various ways it could have got there.’
‘Did you find any blood in the loft?’
‘None at all.’
‘What about the neighbour’s loft?’
‘I went through myself,’ Samuels said. ‘That house is empty. The old guy who lives there is in hospital, apparently. Anyway, there are no blood stains, but I tested his loft hatch and I was able to lift it straight out of the ceiling.’
‘So the loft could have provided a means of escape if there was someone in the house with Renner when he took his life?’ Temple said. ‘Someone who didn’t want us to know he or she was here.’
‘That’s right. It’s just something for you to think about. There’s no evidence to support that idea except for the little mystery of the blood.’
The blood specks were an intriguing development and Temple did not know what to make of them. After all, Renner had been alone in the house when Megan Trent left to go shopping only a short time earlier. Was it conceivable that he had let someone in soon after? And could that person have been there when the raid began?
Temple felt a flare of unease. He didn’t like it. They would need to come up with an explanation for the blood. He did not want to be faced with any unanswered questions.
He was still mulling this over ten minutes later when Dr Matherson called him on his mobile. The pathologist said he was in the process of performing the post-mortem on Renner and something unusual had cropped up.
‘Can you drop by?’ Matherson asked, his tone ominous. ‘I’d rather not talk about it over the phone.’
As Temple drove to the mortuary, his heart started pounding like a great caged animal. He was concerned about the specks of blood. So concerned that he phoned DS Vaughan.
‘I want you to liaise with Samuels,’ he said. ‘See if you can figure it out between you. We need to find out how it got there.’
When he arrived at the mortuary he could feel his nerves start to rattle. He hated the place and had to stiffen his spine and take a deep breath before going inside.
After scrubbing up he donned a sterile suit and was shown into the autopsy room by one of Matherson’s assistants.
Renner’s naked body was face up on the dissecting table beneath an unforgiving white light. His chest had been opened and some of his organs had already been removed and put into trays.
Temple usually shied away from attending PMs. Years of working on murder cases had not desensitized him to the horrors of watching a body being filleted. He turned up only when he thought it was really necessary or when he was asked to.
‘You’ll not be surprised that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the throat,’ Matherson said as he peered into Renner’s chest cavity. ‘The shell did massive damage to his arteries and shattered the back of his skull. He would have died instantly.’
‘Is that why I’m here?’ Temple said, cocking his brow. ‘So you can tell me that?’
Matherson stepped back from the table, put down his scalpel and removed his long surgical gloves. Then he walked over to another table and picked up a sheet of paper.
‘I took some routine blood and urine samples when he came in yesterday,’ Matherson said. ‘The lab did a rush job on several of them and this is the first toxicology report. It’s shown up something that I didn’t expect.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Flunitrazepam.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘It’s more commonly known as Rohypnol.’
Temple felt his forehead contract.
‘You mean the so called date-rape drug?’ he said.
Matherson nodded. ‘The very same. I’m sure you’re familiar with it.’
‘Of course. We’ve had a few cases down here where young women had their drinks spiked with it and then got raped.’
‘Then you know it’s a prescription-only sedative that’s about ten times stronger than Valium. A dose will knock someone out in minutes and a person can remain unconscious for up to twelve hours. When taken with alcohol it leads to disorientation and loss of memory.’
‘Why would Renner have it in his system?’
‘Well, it’s usually prescribed to people with chronic insomnia, but it’s meant to be used in small doses on a strictly short-term basis and not to be taken with alcohol. Renner here has got high levels of the drug in his system. And it seems he washed it down with a significant quantity of booze. It’s obvious from the state of his liver that he’s a heavy drinker.’
Temple was puzzled. Rohypnol was a notorious drug that was first labelled the ‘date rape’ drug in the nineties when sex attackers started using it because of its high potency. All they had to do was drop a pill in a girl’s drink and wait for it to take effect before having their way with her. Afterwards the victim remembered nothing.
‘I’m confused as to why Renner would have self-administered this drug,’ Matherson said. ‘Normally it’s only given to hospital patients because it causes muscle relaxation, headaches, dizziness and slow psychomotor responses. These symptoms last for quite a while.’
‘I see what you mean,’ Temple said. ‘It would have made it difficult – if not impossible – for him to carry out the attacks.’
‘Precisely my point.’
‘But for all we know he might have decided to pop a pill or two yesterday – knowing he wasn’t about to launch another attack today. Maybe he just wanted to make sure he had a good night’s sleep.’
‘Or maybe someone else popped the pill into his food or drink,’ Matherson said. ‘It’s certainly worth looking into. I’m also surprised that this man is in such piss-poor condition for someone his age. He’s malnourished and severely underweight. It’s as though he suffered a sudden deterioration in his health over recent weeks.’
‘Could he have been ill?’
‘I won’t know that for sure until I’ve completed the postmortem and had all the toxicology reports back.’
‘So what else is unusual about him?’ Temple asked.
Matherson shrugged. ‘Nothing really. He’s perfectly normal in most other respects. An average Joe. Height five foot nine. Shoe size eight. Own hair and teeth. Plus he’s—’
‘Just a sec,’ Temple interrupted him. ‘What did you say about his shoe size?’
‘That it’s an eight. On the small side I suppose for someone of his stature.’
‘So you’ve measured his feet?’
‘Didn’t have to. I undressed the corpse when it got here. Saw his shoes. In fact they’re still here with the rest of his clothes. Someone from the lab was meant to pick them up last night. I had to remind them this morning.’
Temple’s heart started to gallop. He whipped out his phone and called the incident room. He asked for DS Vaughan and when Vaughan came on, he said, ‘I need you to check something out on the evidence log.’
‘I’m listening,’ Vaughan said.
‘SOCOs collected a couple of shoeprints from the scene of the first attack on the M27. They produced a plaster cast of one of them. Look it up on your computer and check the details.’
While Temple waited he asked Matherson to fetch the bag containing Renner’s clothes and shoes so that he could drop them off at the lab.
When Vaughan came back on the line, he said, ‘You’re right, guv. I’ve got the photo of the cast up on the screen. It includes all the measurements.’
‘So what size shoe left the imprint?’ Temple asked.
‘A size ten,’ Vaughan said.
CHAPTER 53
TEMPLE KNEW HE had no choice but to think the unthinkable. What he had learned in the last hour cast doubt on all the assumptions that had been made.
First there were the specks of blood o
n the stairs and landing in Megan Trent’s house. Samuels had been right to bring it to his attention and raise the question as to how it had got there. Was it really possible that someone else had been in the house when Renner was shot?
Then there was the Rohypnol found in Renner’s system. It simply didn’t make sense that Renner would dose himself up with a drug that would turn him into a zombie and give him bouts of amnesia. To have carried out four attacks over four evenings would have required him to be sharp and alert. He’d have had to get to the locations, set himself up on the embankments, then fire the rifle with pin-point accuracy. Surely that wouldn’t have been possible with booze and Rohypnol sloshing around inside him.
Finally there was the evidence of the shoe prints. He remembered when they were pointed out to him on the embankment above the M27. Right next to where the spent shell casings were found. Three clear impressions – two in the grass and one in a patch of damp earth. Left there by a man’s size ten shoes. But Cole Renner wore size eight shoes. So unless he’d put on a pair that were two sizes too big it could not have been him on the embankment. And if that were the case, then who the hell was it?
He posed the question to the team back at the incident room after briefing them on what he had learned. They all stared at him in stunned disbelief, including Beresford who immediately expressed concern about how it would look when it was made public.
‘Maybe he had an accomplice all along,’ DS Vaughan said. ‘They could have been working as a pair – while one of them shot at cars, the other could have kept a lookout.’
Temple shook his head. ‘That doesn’t tally with what we saw on the CCTV footage from the industrial estate. One man drove to the M27 in a stolen car and walked towards the motorway with a rucksack on his back. There was no one with him.’
‘Then perhaps Cole Renner didn’t carry out the attacks,’ DC Marsh said. ‘What if his accomplice did? A man who wears size ten shoes.’
‘That doesn’t really explain Renner’s fingerprints on the drinks can in the stolen car or the fact that his motorbike turned up next to the M4.’
‘The idea of an accomplice does lend weight to the theory that someone was with him when he killed himself,’ Vaughan said. ‘And that person could have escaped from the house through the loft into the neighbouring property. He would have been able to walk out later in all the commotion without being noticed.’
‘Well, if we think there was someone else in the house then we can’t rule out the possibility that Renner did not take his own life,’ Temple said. ‘Perhaps he was murdered by someone who wanted it to look like suicide. It’d explain the blood on the stairs and landing.’
‘But not the Rohypnol in his body,’ Vaughan said. ‘That’s the bit I can’t get my head around. It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘None of it makes sense to me,’ Temple said. ‘And that’s why we need to do a full review of all the evidence and talk again to everyone we’ve interviewed. We’ll start with Renner senior. Bring him in for questioning and see if he knows anything about Rohypnol. And check his shoe size while you’re at it.’
‘What about Megan Trent?’ DC Marsh asked. ‘She might be able to shed some light on things. If Renner was heavily into drugs and booze she’d probably know about it.’
Temple turned to DC Royce, the detective who had taken her formal statement. He asked him if she’d mentioned drink and drugs.
‘She mentioned nothing about that,’ he said. ‘She said Renner spent most of his time locked in his room and had no visitors while he was there. And she’s adamant that when she left the house yesterday he was the only person inside.’
‘So what do we know about her?’ Temple said. ‘Have you run a background check?’
‘I did,’ Royce said. ‘She’s three months pregnant with her first child. She’s aged thirty-two and she’s a bit brassy if you know what I mean. She has form for shoplifting and benefit fraud. She’s also known to social services. She was the victim of serious domestic abuse three years ago: a violent husband who badly beat her up. He’s in prison and she’s divorced from him.’
‘So who’s the father of her baby?’ Temple said.
‘A boyfriend who dumped her a few months ago. She’s now single.’
‘How long has she been renting out the flat?’
‘Four years,’ Royce said. ‘Her husband was a builder and he converted it into a self-contained flat because they were struggling to pay the mortgage. She says she’s still struggling because she’s out of work.’
‘I think I’d better have another word with her,’ Temple said. ‘Did you put her up in a local hotel?’
‘The Grand Harbour, guv,’ Royce said. ‘You told me to pick one of the better ones.’
Temple spent the next half hour asking for ideas and assigning tasks. Royce was told to go back to Purbeck Road.
‘Get SOCOs to check out the house next door,’ he said. ‘See if they can find any evidence to back up the theory that someone dropped in there via the loft.’
He told DS Vaughan to go back over all the evidence and send a team to bring Renner’s father in for further questioning.
‘And round up all the photographs and video footage taken in Purbeck Road immediately after we went in,’ Temple said. ‘We might get lucky and spot someone who shouldn’t have been there.’
CHAPTER 54
TEMPLE ARRANGED FOR Megan Trent to be brought back to the station. He explained that they were hoping she could help them clarify some issues that had cropped up.
She was still wearing her black leggings and yellow T-shirt and she looked pale and anxious.
He decided to have an informal chat with her in his office rather than subject her to a formal interview in one of the rooms downstairs.
‘How’s the hotel?’ he asked, when she was seated across the desk from him.
A hesitant smile. ‘It’s nice. Not something I’m used to.’
‘Well, try to make the most of your time there. It’s on us.’
‘I’d rather be in my own home,’ she said.
Temple nodded. ‘I can understand that. Hopefully you’ll be able to return in a few days. We’ll finish our work there and clean the place up for you.’
‘Thanks.’
Temple shuffled some papers on his desk and said, ‘There are some questions I need to ask as a result of our investigation.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘What sort of questions?’
‘Well, we now believe there was someone in your house with Renner when he shot himself. Have you any idea who it could have been?’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I was told he was by himself.’
‘He was when we entered the house,’ Temple said. ‘But we’ve come across evidence that indicates there was someone with him just minutes before. We believe whoever it was climbed into the loft space and gained access to the neighbouring property.’
Megan’s body seemed to stiffen and she shifted her weight on the chair.
After a couple of beats, she said, ‘How is that possible?’
‘There’s no partition wall between your loft and the one next door on the left,’ Temple said. ‘Did you not know that?’
She gave a small shake of the head. ‘I’ve never been up there.’
He had no reason to doubt her. In all the years he’d been married to Erin she never once ventured into the loft, partly because she was terrified of the spiders that lived up there.
‘You said Renner was in his flat when you came into town,’ Temple said.
‘That’s right. I heard him snoring.’
‘And can you be absolutely sure that there was nobody in the flat with him? Maybe a woman.’
She thought about it for a second and shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s possible, but I think I would have known. To my knowledge he never brought anyone back.’
Temple pursed his lips as if he was about to whistle.
‘What about Renner himself?’ he said. ‘We found drugs in his
body and in his flat. They would have turned him into a virtual zombie for a lot of the time.’
Megan bit on her bottom lip and swallowed. ‘He often looked drowsy when I saw him and I put it down to booze because I knew he was a heavy drinker. But to be honest I didn’t see much of him.’
‘So on the few occasions you spoke to him he never mentioned that he was taking a drug known as Rohypnol?’
A frown tightened her forehead. ‘Are you talking about the date-rape drug?’
‘I am.’
‘Then no he didn’t. But why the hell would he take that?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out, Megan. And we will. It’s just a matter of time.’
Her eyes left his face and looked down at her hands which were curled one into the other in her lap. She appeared uncomfortable suddenly, beads of perspiration glistening above her top lip.
Temple leaned forward across his desk, keeping his face blandly genial. ‘Are you sure you’re telling me everything, Megan? It’s just that I find it strange that Cole Renner was living under your roof as your tenant and yet you know so very little about him.’
She lifted her head, met his gaze. ‘I don’t see what’s strange about it. Like I told you before, he kept to himself. Sometimes I wouldn’t see him for days and when I did he was never keen to stop and chat. It was like he was shy or had too much on his mind.’
She held his gaze for a moment and he saw tears welling up in her eyes.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked her.
‘Of course I’m not all right,’ she said sharply, wiping at her eyes with a finger. ‘I feel awful. A man was shot dead in my house and I’ve had to move out. Now you’re accusing me of withholding information even though I was the one who tipped you off about him.’
‘I’m not accusing you of anything, Megan.’
‘Well, it sounds like it to me. I’ve told you all I know. I can’t help it if it’s not what you want to hear.’
‘Look at it from our viewpoint, Megan,’ he said. ‘Cole Renner was a tenant in your house while he was carrying out a series of attacks on motorways. After each attack he went back to his flat. So it’s hard for us to believe that he didn’t make some kind of impression or have contact with anyone else. And then on the day he died we were led to believe he was alone in the house, but now it turns out that he probably wasn’t. So it’s a mystery we need to solve. And for obvious reasons you’re best placed to help us.’