‘We’re already getting answers to some of those questions,’ said Janice, checking her notes. ‘Baine’s girlfriend had dinner with him last night at The Square, which is a restaurant in Mayfair. He left very abruptly after getting a message from the maître d’ at around nine-fifteen. We’ve questioned the waiter who took the call. Baine told his girlfriend he had to meet someone for a quick drink—didn’t say who or why, but said he was heading over to Cannon Street. She reckons he was in a very odd mood when he left—preoccupied. His PA doesn’t know about any privately arranged appointments, suggested I talk to Robert Kramer or the show’s director.’
‘Has Kershaw already ruled out suicide, then?’ asked Renfield.
‘No, but he thinks it unlikely that someone like Baine would have known about the drop from the bridge scaffolding. The street doesn’t lead anywhere and gets hardly any traffic.’
‘Were there were other prints at the site?’
‘Yeah, loads,’ said Banbury. ‘Workmen had been treading mud over it all day and it had been raining, so there was nothing salvageable. Suicides tend to go out in familiar surroundings. And if he’d chosen the bridge, why not just jump off? The tides are pretty lethal.’
‘He might not have known that,’ Renfield persisted.
‘Giles found chemical residue on his face and reckons he may have been sprayed with pepper spray—like the ones you can buy for a handbag,’ said Longbright. ‘He’s had water from the bridge dripping on him, so that’s not conclusive.’
‘Don’t you have one in your bag?’ asked Land.
‘No, Raymond, I have a house brick. More effective. Baine had a fresh bruise on the side of his head, like he’d been slapped or punched, or he might just have walked into the scaffolding, blinded. He’d been led or walked along the planks and stepped off the end. Then he choked to death on the rope. He was a small bloke, but it would still have required a certain amount of strength to get him in place, so Giles is ruling out a woman unless it was someone with specialist training, like Meera here.’ Mangeshkar had studied tae kwon do. ‘Of course, a lot of actors keep very fit.’
‘Meera, you were supposed to be keeping an eye on Judith Kramer,’ said Land. ‘Why are you here?’
‘She wouldn’t let me,’ Mangeshkar replied. ‘Her call.’
‘Baine had been hammering the booze,’ Renfield added. ‘The girlfriend says he’d sunk a bottle and a half of Rioja.’
‘Baine’s neck was badly bruised when he dropped, but his shirt collar probably prevented it from snapping. Giles banged on for a while about the strength of the human spine but didn’t add anything significant to his initial findings. It’s unlikely that Baine walked any great distance—his girlfriend says he hated exercise. He didn’t have an Oyster card on him and wasn’t the public transport type, so we’re checking taxis now.’
‘Good. Anyone else?’
Meera tapped her notepad. ‘The Hangman puppet—it doesn’t belong to Robert Kramer. He says he still has his full set, minus the Punch, of course, which Giles has returned to our evidence room. I haven’t yet found anyone who sells them. There’s a Goth Internet site that does something similar but they say they haven’t received any special orders. Which probably means the puppet was either homemade or in someone else’s private collection.’
‘When I spoke to Robert Kramer, I asked him to talk to his doctor about reducing Judith Kramer’s meds,’ said Renfield. ‘He said he’d done that anyway, because she wants to attend the funeral tomorrow afternoon. With any luck we’ll be able to interview her afterwards.’
‘Jack, you can’t interview a mother about her dead son on the way back from his funeral,’ Longbright objected.
‘I don’t see why not. I mean, there’s never gonna be a good time, is there?’
‘Forget it, I’ll go later today, even if it means talking to her before her medication fully wears off. At least she can get it over and done with.’
‘What about the phone number on the doll?’ Land asked. He was quite enjoying being in charge for once, without Bryant being there to make fun of him.
‘It was one of our own PCU contact cards,’ Longbright answered. ‘Whoever did this knows we’re handling the case and is making fun of us, or trying to force us into action.’
‘We’re being goaded by killers now?’ asked Renfield. ‘Have you ever thought that we might be making matters worse? Maybe if this Unit didn’t exist there wouldn’t be so many crazies around trying to get at us.’