Page 50 of Her Lips Are Sealed

‘Of course, I’ll pass it out to the van now to go. Do you want them to go speak to her?’

‘It wouldn’t hurt, that would be great. It might put her mind at rest. Thank you.’

‘Always here to help. What are you going to do about Marc blatantly ignoring it?’

‘I’ll speak to him, apparently he’s annoyed about Lucy being here.’

‘He’s always mad about something, at least Lucy pitches in. I worked with her in Brooklyn Bay for a few years, she’s good.’

‘Yeah, I like her. She seems it.’

Morgan walked out then turned around. ‘Sorry I didn’t get you a coffee, but there’s one spare if Marc has gone walkabout, he won’t need his.’

He smiled at her. ‘I was joking, don’t worry. I’ve sent some of my reprobates out to get breakfast.’

She nodded and went back upstairs to an office buzzing with the building anticipation that they might be about to close this case when Paul Graham arrived.

THIRTY-TWO

Ben called it as Morgan knew he would. Once everyone had chosen their coffees and nibbled the traybakes, he confirmed who was doing what.

‘We have a busy day ahead of ourselves. Morgan, have you heard back from the CCTV enquiries?’

She shook her head. ‘Not yet.’

Ben looked around the room. ‘Right, so if this is okay with all of you, can Amy and Josh chase up the bus station CCTV and check with the train station at Windermere, to see if there were any trains running, and speak with the taxi firms to see if they had any pickups after the estimated time of death for Rachel and Ash? If we can place Paul Graham in the area within a time frame of both murders, that will only strengthen our case against him. Cain and Morgan, as you suggested it, do you want to go and speak to Rena again? Understandably she was a little up and down when we broke the news to her about her sister, and now she’s had time to process it she might be a little calmer and be able to tell us something useful. After Rena, do you want to speak to Brian James again and get his statement ticked off? I think we’re all in agreement that the photos Morgan found in Paul Graham’s fridge are evidence that he is our guy. We just need to find the evidence to prove it to the jury, but we can’t rule anything out so let’s cover all of our bases and get Rena and Brian ticked off the suspect list. Once this has been done, we’ll start fresh on the enquiries with Ash. Her mum said she worked for Luxury Lettings in Windermere, so let’s speak to the staff there and try to get some background on her. How does this sound?’

Morgan was surprised he was going to let her and Cain go visit Rena again, but that was good because she’d thought he’d suggest sending any questions they had to the FLO to ask her. She wasn’t about to argue with him. She put up her hand.

‘We’ll go to Luxury Lettings after we’ve spoken to Rena, and let’s not forget that Dan Webb’s father owns Rachel’s flat and also some properties in Coniston which could give Dan access to both of them, and also that Dan used to work for the company so would likely know Ash. They would trust him enough to let him into their homes, don’t you think?’

‘Christ, so what are you saying, Morgan, that Dan Webb is just as much of a suspect?’

She shrugged. ‘I suppose so, Paul Graham looks like a more probable one because of the photos I found, but we should keep Dan in mind too.’

Ben sighed. ‘Do we need a search warrant for Dan’s flat?’

Lucy was perched on the corner of a desk in Ben’s usual position, but he didn’t seem to mind. She had her hands around the cup of coffee that she was sipping slowly, and Morgan got the impression she was savouring every mouthful. ‘I think the main thing for us is to find out how Paul Graham got those photos of Rachel. Did he take them? Did he steal them from her flat? Did we find out why he was sacked? No, let me rephrase that. He was accused of stealing from her – was it these photos? We need to be clear on the motive behind this, did he take them out of spite or did he truly like her and have some sick fantasy that involved killing her in her underwear and leaving her with red-stained lips?’

‘What does it matter? He has the photos and was clearly hiding them. Isn’t that motive enough to hold him on?’ Cain asked.

‘It matters because we need to be sure we’re not wasting all of our energy on a false lead especially with what Morgan has found out about Dan.’

‘But he ran when Morgan knocked at the door, makes him look guilty to me.’

Lucy didn’t look fazed at all by Cain’s questions. ‘He is a runner; that’s on his records from all his previous arrests. He is highly suspicious of the police, and his first instinct is to run. I agree he looks good for this, but have we got any connection to Ash that can be used as a valid link between the two victims?’

Ben interjected. ‘Which is the reason you need to go speak to the letting agency and see if they ever had any dealing with the same cleaning company that Graham worked for before he was sacked. If we can get a link to Ash as well then it’s going to make it easier for us to charge him. I mean some DNA would be great too especially if we could find the lipstick, but let’s try and build the case against him without the DNA evidence.’

Morgan stood up. ‘We’ll let you know what we find. Come on, Cain, let’s get going.’

She walked out, Cain following behind.

Neither of them spoke until they got out to the car.

‘I want it to be that creep, I really do,’ Cain muttered.

‘But?’