Die With Me by Elena Forbes Page A

lovey-dovey phone calls to the wife and the smell of the home-made tuna and onion sandwiches which Jones seemed to eat at all hours of the day.
    Barnes Green wasn’t supposed to be a permanent location for the two murder squads it currently housed. When Tartaglia had joined Team Five of Homicide West, Clarke had jokingly told him not to bother unpacking his things. The low-built early seventies block was past its sell-by date and they’d all be relocating soon. But nearly three years on, there was no sign of a move and they had learned to live with the cramped and shabby working conditions, sandwiched on the first floor between part of the Flying Squad above and a child protection unit on the ground floor below. It was a far cry from the offices up in Hendon, at the Peel Centre, where five of the other murder teams worked in relative luxury.
    Feeling hungry, he decided to make some coffee to fill the gap while he sorted out somewhere to put his things in Clarke’s office. There was no canteen in the building and he’d have to go out later for something to eat. He walked down the corridor to a tiny internal room, once used for storage, which served as the kitchen for the entire first floor. Functional was the only positive word to describe it; a health hazard was probably more accurate and he used it as little as possible, preferring to get his coffee and food from one of the many fancy delis that peppered the area. He opened the door of the fridge but couldn’t see any milk, just an ancient looking tub of margarine and an already opened tin of tomato soup. However, he didn’t have time to go out so he boiled the kettle and made a strong brew of instant black coffee. Disgusted at the predictable state of things, he carried the mug back into Clarke’s office where he struggled to find a safe place to put it down. He swept a variety of papers and files into a couple of rough piles and helped himself to an unopened Kit-Kat which he found marking a place inside a folder.
    He pulled up the saggy brown corduroy chair that Clarke had brought in from somewhere and sat down at the desk to go through the papers. As he stretched out his legs, he kicked against something hard at the back. Digging around underneath, he pulled out a large cardboard box containing two pairs of ancient, mud-encrusted trainers, a humane mousetrap and a blow heater. Wedged behind the box was a rolled-up sleeping bag, which he remembered Clarke using for all-night sessions. At least Tartaglia wouldn’t be needing that. His flat in Shepherd’s Bush was only a fifteen-minute motorbike ride away. After trying the blow heater, which seemed to be broken, he put everything back in the box, stuffing the sleeping bag on top and dumped it all in the corridor to take away later.
    He was about to sit down again at the desk when his mobile rang: it was Donovan.
    ‘I’m on my way back. I’ve just seen Gemma’s stepdad, Dennis Kramer.’
    ‘Stepfather?’
    ‘Don’t get excited. He doesn’t fit the witness description and if his alibi checks out, he’s in the clear. I’ve got Gemma’s computer with me. Is Dave around?’
    DC Dave Wightman had a degree in something to do with computers and was regarded as the in-house expert on most things technical.
    ‘He’s just come back from Ealing.’
    ‘Tell him I’ll drop it off in about ten minutes. It needs to go over to Newlands Park for analysis but he’s so good with computers. I was hoping he could have a quick look at it first. There was nothing else in her room of any interest. In the meantime, a couple of friends of Kramer’s want checking out.’ She gave him the names and addresses, which he noted down. ‘I’m going to see a girl called Rosie Chapple later on. She seems to be Gemma’s only friend.’
    ‘Did you see Gemma’s mother?’
    She gave a long, wheezy sigh. ‘No. She was out for the count in bed. Can I tell you the rest once I get a bite to eat? I missed lunch and I’ll pass out if I