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‘Yeah, there’s probably some in there, underneath the rest of the crap.’
The pictures showed a small and squalid room, clothes and rubbish lying everywhere. Pirbright’s body lay covered in a plastic sheet in the middle of the floor. Somebody – Strike assumed Pirbright – had scribbled words all over the walls.
‘Nice example of junkie décor,’ said Wardle, as the waiter returned to remove their plates.
‘Anything stolen? He was supposed to have been writing a book on the UHC.’
‘Looks like he was writing it on the walls,’ said Wardle. ‘That’s the room exactly as his landlord found it. They found a bag of hash and a roll of twenties in the bottom of the wardrobe.’
‘They think he was killed over a bag of hash?’
‘That might’ve been all they left behind. He’d probably nicked gear from someone he shouldn’t have, or pissed off the wrong punter.’
‘Where’s this place?’
‘Canning Town.’
‘Prints?’
‘Only Pirbright’s.’
‘How did the killer get in and out, any idea?’
‘We think they used a skeleton key to get in the front door.’
‘Organised of them,’ said Strike, taking out his notebook and starting to write.
‘Yeah, it was fairly slick. Guy on the same floor claimed he heard Pirbright talking to someone before he let them in. Probably thought he was about to make a sale. The neighbour heard a muffled bang and Pirbright’s music stopped playing. The killer must’ve used a silencer because otherwise half the street would’ve heard a shot, but it’s credible the neighbour heard it, because the dividing walls in the building weren’t much more than plywood. The music ending fits, too, because the bullet passed right through Pirbright and hit that old radio you can see in pieces.’
Strike scrutinised the picture of Pirbright’s room again. The shattered radio lay in fragments on a very small desk in the corner. Two leads were plugged into the socket beside it.
‘Something else was there.’
‘Yeah, looks like a laptop lead. Laptop was probably the only thing in the room worth nicking. Don’t know what he was bothering with a radio for, if he had a laptop.’
‘He was skint and he might not have been familiar with downloading music,’ said Strike. ‘From what I’ve learned about Chapman Farm, he might as well have grown up in the late eighteen hundreds, for all the experience he had with technology.’
Their curries now arrived. Strike pushed the police file aside, but kept his notebook open beside him.
‘So the neighbour hears the shot and the music stopping. What then?’
‘Neighbour goes and knocks on the door,’ said Wardle thickly, through a mouthful of lamb pasanda, ‘but gets no answer. We think the knocking spooked the killer into leaving via the window, which was found open with marks consistent with gloved hands on the outer sill.’
‘How high was the window?’
‘First floor, but there was an easy landing on a big communal bin directly below.’
‘Nobody saw them coming out of the window?’ asked Strike, who was still making notes.
‘The tenants whose windows faced out back were all out or busy inside.’
‘CCTV any help?’
‘They got a small bit of footage of a stocky bloke in black walking away from the area, who could possibly have been carrying a laptop in a reusable shopping bag, but no clear view of the face. And that’s literally all I know,’ said Wardle.
Strike replaced the photograph in the police file as Wardle asked,
‘Robin still seeing Ryan Murphy?’
