triumphantly holding up a small passport sized photograph.
"Where was it?"
"When I lifted the carpet, I thought I could make out a bit of white between two of the floorboards. I went back to the bathroom and took the tweezers out of the girl's toilet bag and came back, got down here, and hey, presto!"
He held the photo out towards Holland's outstretched hand and the inspector took a hold of it and studied it carefully. The black and white photo showed the murdered girl together with a young man, apparently clean and well shaven, with longish hair, probably some years younger than herself. It was a typical photo-booth shot, the two of them smiling and leaning their heads in towards each other happily.
"Well, well," said Holland thoughtfully. Maybe we just got our first clue, eh Sergeant?"
"How on earth did forensics miss it?" asked Wright.
"Remember, this wasn't the murder scene. They'd have gone over that with a fine tooth comb, but this was her home and not directly linked to the mechanics of the crime so they probably wouldn't have been instructed to go as far as lifting carpets and floorboards. They'd have been searching for straightforward evidence that might have linked the girl to her killer, but bearing in mind the desolate picture this place portrays, I doubt they'd have spent too long in going over the place. I'm damn glad you thought to lift the carpet though, sergeant, damn glad indeed."
"Now we need to see if we can identify this young man," Holland went on. "So far we've been working under the assumption that Laura had no friends or close acquaintances. This photo tends to prove the lie to that theory."
"What about everyone we've already questioned about her friends, you know, the neighbours and so on?"
"They'll be as good a place to start as anywhere," Holland agreed. "As we're here, let's go knock on a few doors, and then we can go back to the office, have this blown up and copied, and get the beat boys to check with the crowds in the red-light areas once darkness brings them out."
Unfortunately for Holland and Wright, their inquiries around the flats in Marchland Towers proved as useless as before. Either the residents denied knowing or ever seeing Laura Kane, much less the man in the photograph, or they simply refused to open their doors to the officers. The night shift met with almost identical results when they hit the streets later that night, with no-one showing willingness to identify either of the two people in the photograph. To all intents and purposes, it was as if Laura and her mystery friend had simply never existed.
Carl Wright sent the picture to forces around the country and checked the face against all known police photo-fits and mug shots, with no success. Their mystery man remained just that, a mystery.
In a frustrating conversation with his sergeant two days after the discovery of the photograph, Holland reasoned that it was going to take something quite extraordinary to loosen a few tongues amongst the underclass of predominantly less than wholly law-abiding types who lived in the rabbit-warren like flats and corridors of the Regent Estate. Even those decent law-abiding folks who were forced to endure life in the tower blocks of the estate were either too scared or too far removed from the nefarious goings on around them to be of help to the police.
Unfortunately, within days, as the Laura Kane case dragged on towards what would normally might have proved an unsatisfactory unsolved murder case, Mike Holland's 'quite extraordinary' event proved him tragically correct, and the occurrence that eventually opened one or two of those sealed tongues was every bit as gruesome as the murder of Laura Kane had been.
Chapter 7
A Chance Meeting
As events prepared to escalate and Holland and Wright were about to become embroiled in one of the most baffling and gruesome cases of their respective careers, across the town from their office at police headquarters a young man known only to his
"Where was it?"
"When I lifted the carpet, I thought I could make out a bit of white between two of the floorboards. I went back to the bathroom and took the tweezers out of the girl's toilet bag and came back, got down here, and hey, presto!"
He held the photo out towards Holland's outstretched hand and the inspector took a hold of it and studied it carefully. The black and white photo showed the murdered girl together with a young man, apparently clean and well shaven, with longish hair, probably some years younger than herself. It was a typical photo-booth shot, the two of them smiling and leaning their heads in towards each other happily.
"Well, well," said Holland thoughtfully. Maybe we just got our first clue, eh Sergeant?"
"How on earth did forensics miss it?" asked Wright.
"Remember, this wasn't the murder scene. They'd have gone over that with a fine tooth comb, but this was her home and not directly linked to the mechanics of the crime so they probably wouldn't have been instructed to go as far as lifting carpets and floorboards. They'd have been searching for straightforward evidence that might have linked the girl to her killer, but bearing in mind the desolate picture this place portrays, I doubt they'd have spent too long in going over the place. I'm damn glad you thought to lift the carpet though, sergeant, damn glad indeed."
"Now we need to see if we can identify this young man," Holland went on. "So far we've been working under the assumption that Laura had no friends or close acquaintances. This photo tends to prove the lie to that theory."
"What about everyone we've already questioned about her friends, you know, the neighbours and so on?"
"They'll be as good a place to start as anywhere," Holland agreed. "As we're here, let's go knock on a few doors, and then we can go back to the office, have this blown up and copied, and get the beat boys to check with the crowds in the red-light areas once darkness brings them out."
Unfortunately for Holland and Wright, their inquiries around the flats in Marchland Towers proved as useless as before. Either the residents denied knowing or ever seeing Laura Kane, much less the man in the photograph, or they simply refused to open their doors to the officers. The night shift met with almost identical results when they hit the streets later that night, with no-one showing willingness to identify either of the two people in the photograph. To all intents and purposes, it was as if Laura and her mystery friend had simply never existed.
Carl Wright sent the picture to forces around the country and checked the face against all known police photo-fits and mug shots, with no success. Their mystery man remained just that, a mystery.
In a frustrating conversation with his sergeant two days after the discovery of the photograph, Holland reasoned that it was going to take something quite extraordinary to loosen a few tongues amongst the underclass of predominantly less than wholly law-abiding types who lived in the rabbit-warren like flats and corridors of the Regent Estate. Even those decent law-abiding folks who were forced to endure life in the tower blocks of the estate were either too scared or too far removed from the nefarious goings on around them to be of help to the police.
Unfortunately, within days, as the Laura Kane case dragged on towards what would normally might have proved an unsatisfactory unsolved murder case, Mike Holland's 'quite extraordinary' event proved him tragically correct, and the occurrence that eventually opened one or two of those sealed tongues was every bit as gruesome as the murder of Laura Kane had been.
Chapter 7
A Chance Meeting
As events prepared to escalate and Holland and Wright were about to become embroiled in one of the most baffling and gruesome cases of their respective careers, across the town from their office at police headquarters a young man known only to his
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