‘What are they for?’ Renfield asked.
‘Best way to avoid evidence contamination. Should get some nice Cinderellas off those rugs. I can tell if there are only his shoes in the wardrobe from checking the angle of the footfall, rubbed spots, weight distribution, stuff like that. I can do that without going to Forensics.’
‘And by looking at the sizes,’ said Renfield sarcastically. ‘Unless she had massive plates of meat.’
‘What if there are two males living here with the same shoe size? He works strange hours, could be subletting without the neighbour even noticing. Hang on.’ Banbury lowered himself beneath the bed and emerged with a tiny fragment of broken glass in his tweezers.
‘Blimey, how did you spot that?’
‘Practice. Normally I’d send this off to the GRIM room at Lambeth FSS.’
‘Grim room? What’s that?’
‘A Glass Refractive Index Measurement room. If we’d found a glass fragment from Waters’s clothing, Lambeth would stick the fragments in a special oil, heat it, then cool it down until the point when the bits refract light at the same point as the oil. So the glass vanishes in the oil, giving its refractive index. If this bit and the recovered sample refract light at the same point then they’re probably from the same source, and you could say he was killed here and dumped there. But in this case we know he was killed where he was found because of the CCTVs and witness reports. Anyway, I wouldn’t be able to use the Forensic Science Service now. The government’s closing it down.’
‘Why would they do that? I thought it was supposed to be the best in the world.’
‘It’s the best, but it’s also losing two million a month, so they’re going to outsource to private firms. A total disaster, in my opinion. The FSS built its rep on shared information, the very thing private companies don’t do.’ He rose and stretched his back. ‘No one else has been here. We’re lucky Waters had a hairy chest.’
‘Why?’
‘Hairy blokes can’t help shedding as they move about. You wouldn’t believe the amount of stuff that comes off the human body. There’s not been anyone else in his bed. Look at that.’ Banbury had folded back the cotton covers and was pointing to tiny curls of hair on the bottom sheet. ‘Heavy sleeper.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘He sleeps on the left but deliberately keeps the alarm clock on the right-hand table. It’s so he has to cross the bed to turn it off in the morning. If it was on the left he knows he would just hit snooze and go back to sleep. So there was no one to the right of him.’
‘I can see why you like this job now,’ said Renfield. ‘It gives you a chance to have a right old nose around.’
‘I like it’, said Banbury, waggling a dusting brush between his fingers, ‘because it allows me to build a picture of someone without me ever having met them. A ghost imprint, if you will.’
‘All right, then,’ said Renfield, folding his arms. ‘Tell me what you know about Waters that you didn’t when you came in.’
‘He’s tall, around six three. The apartment’s bespoke, and he’s had the cupboards, sink and counters raised above normal height. That fits with the size twelve trainers, comfortable shoes for standing around. He’s a night person; he drinks brandy alone, which no one does early unless he’s French, in my experience, and his TV viewing history will back that up. Never eats at home; likes to think he’s fit: the cupboards have protein shakes and there’s a note in the kitchen reminding him to renew his gym membership. He probably put his back out two years ago – there are old packets of diazepam and tramadol in the bathroom, strong doses.’
‘That’s easy stuff. Tell me something I don’t know.’
‘All right. He likes his women young. He’s got serious commitment issues because of his brain-damaged four-year-old daughter.’
‘You’re reading that from his apartment?’
Banbury shrugged. ‘He decorated it alone. This isn’t the kind of flat women would hang around in without altering something. There’s no bath, for a start. Have you ever met a woman who could live without a tub? Plus there are some internet sites on his laptop that tread a bit close to the legal age limit.’
‘You got the computer?’
‘In his bag.’
‘You’re thinking about him talking to the little girl? The porn doesn’t make him a pervert.’
‘I agree, I’m just pointing it out. His hours are unsociable and he likes to sleep in late, so he never brings anyone back because he’d have to talk to them in the morning. He hardly ever sees his daughter. From the number of Plaxo reminders about doctors’ appointments and a few of his emailed replies my guess is that she suffered some kind of brain-trauma, maybe meningitis, and the stress wrecked his relationship with his partner. There are a few pictures of her up to the age of three, but they’re in a drawer. She was healthy then, everything was fine. Then he put his past away, a coping mechanism. I’ve got an address for the partner; you can check it out. He’s obviously still involved and concerned because there are over a dozen books in the lounge on the subject of coping with serious child illnesses, so I’d say he was still handling the fallout. He’s got no enemies because he has no friends. All he ever does is work.’