sir,’ she said, her voice quiet in the room. ‘There’s talk of both of them sleeping around, but I’ll be calling my contact soon. He’s promised to ask around.’
She became aware of the rest of the squad turning away. She had arrived late and added little. She had expected some surprise about Dumas’s private life, even though little had been said. Tom looked like he already knew.
Then she saw Tom take a deep breath. He looked nervous, pensive, gazing around the room. He seemed to be weighing up his audience before making his announcement. After a few seconds of him flexing his jaw, his lips twitching, he said, ‘There’s one thing no one knows yet, and I only received confirmation of it shortly before I came in.’
He had an edge to his voice, and Laura sensed the squad take notice.
‘The two estate agents were bound with silver duct tape,’ he continued. ‘We all know that. The male had dark hair. The female had mousy hair.’ He looked around again. ‘Stuck in the duct tape which bound the girl’s wrists were three blonde hairs.’
Laura sensed the meeting tense up. And she knew why. If the hairs had been snagged in the adhesive, they would have been yanked out. And if they had been yanked out, some skin would have been attached to the hair root. And if there was skin, there was something else. DNA. As far as evidence that can be used in court, it’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Tom raised his eyebrows, waiting for the muttering in the room to subside. ‘As you might have guessed, we think they are from the shooter.’ He began to pace. ‘We didn’t find any other hairs, and we didn’t find any other fingerprints or anything else linking another person to the murder of those two estate agents.’ He stopped pacing. ‘As far as we can tell, there were only ever three people in that room. And two of them are dead.’
The muttering in the group rose to a chatter, cops in clusters whispering asides.
Tom held up his hand.
‘That isn’t the news, though,’ he said. ‘At least not all of it.’
The room fell silent again. Everyone was waiting for the next instalment. Laura sensed it was important, from a look she had never seen in Tom’s eyes before. It was excitement, surprise, uncertainty, a mix of all that, along with some emotions Laura couldn’t decipher.
‘The lab coats have been looking at the hairs,’ he continued, his voice deliberate. ‘It’s too early for a DNA analysis, although they have promised to prioritise it. However, they have had the chance to examine the hairs, and they have made some findings.’
The rest of the squad looked expectant.
Tom looked around, almost as if going for the drama, before he continued.
‘The analysis carried out suggests one thing.’ He paused, sighed, and then raised his eyebrows.
He said it simply, but it made it no less surprising. He looked around the room, into the eyes of everyone, and then said, ‘The shooter is a woman.’
When David Watts stepped away from the lurid sofas of breakfast television, away from the glare of the lights and into the grubby darkness behind the line of cameras, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He winced when he saw the caller ID.
He thought about not answering, but then just like he always did, he clicked the answer button.
‘Morning, Karen.’
‘David, you were wonderful. Just the right amount of remorse. Not too gushy. You don’t want to be embarrassed by this in a year’s time.’
‘Thanks for the compliment,’ he answered, although he didn’t sound grateful.
‘Exposure, exposure. You can never get enough.’
He took the phone away from his ear, not wanting to hear her obsession with his earning power. She had told him too often that she wanted to earn enough so that she could retire at thirty. She was only a year away from that, but David couldn’t see her retiring. She loved the power games too much. And from what he had heard, she loved the footballer parties too much as well.
When he was far enough from the studio microphones, he put the phone back to his ear and said, ‘Someone died, Karen. You’re coming across like a vulture. And if you do, I might come across the same.’
‘Bullshit. You’re the face of football for the next few days. I’ve spoken to the major news networks, and I’ve promised them you’ll be interviewed whenever they request, just to give the players’ perspective.’
‘Why me, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Because you’re one of the few footballers who can string a proper sentence together. And because you’re the most senior English footballer living in the capital. They can have a camera round at your apartment in no time, and you can make it into the studio.’
He sighed. He felt like he was being dragged under by the current.
‘You’ve got some sponsorships coming up for renewal at the end of this season. You’ll be twenty-nine by then, maybe only a couple of seasons left in an England shirt, and companies will shy away from a long investment. It’ll do you no harm if you’re an English saint by the end of the season.’
‘I thought you were going away for a few days,’ he said, sounding irritated.
She laughed. He pulled the phone away from his ear, grimacing. Then he heard her say, ‘I am, but I’ll stay in touch. And by the time I return, you’ll be a fucking hero.’
And you’ll be getting richer, he thought, but he said nothing. Instead, he turned off his phone and wondered whether this was what he had dreamed about when he was a child, when he was sticking his Panini stickers in the albums or shouting at the hand of God as it sent England out of the World Cup. It was supposed to be about football, that’s all.
Laura was as surprised as anyone. A woman? Women don’t kill like that. If women kill violently, they do it out of passion, like a woman who catches her partner in bed with someone else. Laura remembered that sickening rage herself. If women kill cold-bloodedly, they do it quietly, non-violently. Women kill out of passion or greed. Like nurses who overdose their patients, or the scheming old widows who poison every new rich man they meet. Passion or greed, but not a cold-blooded assassination.
‘Are they sure?’ Laura heard herself ask, and felt the eyes of the room on her.
Tom looked at her. Thankfully, he smiled.
‘The answer is no, they cannot be sure, not yet. The lab should know by tomorrow, but the early indicators are that it is a woman. It is long, blonde, but treated. It’s been straightened recently. It has all the characteristics of a female hair, but they have still got some more tests to run on it.’
Laura thought she knew what they would be. The DNA would confirm it, but they would also do a sex chromatin test, as the results would be cheaper to obtain, and quicker.
‘Woman scorned?’ someone shouted from the side of the room. Some people laughed, but Laura noticed that Tom didn’t.
‘We might have to consider that.’
‘But what about the gay angle?’
