‘No, love, I am officially on maternity leave and I want to go and lie down at home. They knew I was leaving today and I am not staying here another minute, especially after that bloody stupid thing in the toilets.’ She started removing her personal items from drawers, picked up a small pot plant with bedraggled leaves and put everything into a paper carrier bag.
‘You have to make sure you keep all the information up to date on the sheets of paper hanging on the walls.’
Sally jotted down her home number and handed it to Jane, saying that if she ran into any problems, or was confused as to what to do, she could ring her. Jane thanked Sally and wished her well.
Left alone, Jane sat trying to assimilate everything. She put the thick file from Bradfield to one side thinking she should start on the trays. She took out her notebook and flicked through to the last page where she had made a note when speaking to Donaldson about the red Jaguar. She decided that she would get that done straight away.
Jane phoned the Bow traffic office and was put through to the garage sergeant. She gave her name and number and said that she was working on the Julie Ann Collins murder investigation. She explained that the witness could only say that he’d seen the car from the rear and thought it was a fairly new red Jaguar.
‘Well, I doubt it would be the E-type Jag as they are sports cars, much lower to the ground and a very different shape all round, especially at the rear. You’ll probably be looking for an XJ6, and although your witness said fairly new I’d allow a bit of leeway and go back to September 1968 when the XJ6 was first manufactured, so anywhere between and including an F to L suffix index plate. Also there are different shades of red, like regency, signal… ’
Jane was making notes in her pocket book. ‘OK now, the engine will be a 2.8 or 4.2 litre with six cylinders, which is the more popular, and they all have twin exhausts as well as a petrol cap on both sides of the upper boot. Have you got that?’
‘Yes, almost – just a second, and er, don’t they all have a small cat on the bonnet?’
The sergeant laughed. ‘It’s a statue of a leaping jaguar. It was never on the XJ series, though some people did fit one themselves, but anything like that on a front bonnet became illegal in 1970 because of the injuries it can cause to pedestrians.’
‘What about the inside?’
‘Wood and leather upholstery is standard on both models.’
‘And what colour would the upholstery and carpets be on a red XJ6?’ Jane asked, remembering DS Lawrence pointing out the red fibres on Julie Ann’s socks at the postmortem.
‘As standard the leather interior would be magnolia or biscuit with matching light-coloured carpets.’
‘Could the boot carpet be red?’ Jane asked, feeling she was clutching at straws.
‘All the carpet could be red if you pre-ordered the car and specifically asked for it to be customized.’
Jane felt a buzz of excitement and wondered if the fibres came from the red Jaguar the victim was last seen getting into. She thanked the garage sergeant for being so helpful and informative and was about to put the phone down.
‘Hang on, I haven’t finished. There’s also the possibility it was an XJ12, with a 5.2 litre engine, but that only came out in July last year. Same shape as the XJ6 except it has two small front grilles either side of the large one.’
Jane licked the tip of her pencil as she realized just what he had said.
‘So we could be looking at thousands of Jaguars across the country?’ she asked with trepidation.
‘Let’s have a look in my production book here… roughly to date the 2.8 is around nineteen thousand vehicles, 4.2 fifty-nine thousand and the XJ12 just short of three thousand, so that’s-’
She gasped. ‘Eighty-one thousand Jags… bloody hell… sorry, Sergeant, I didn’t mean to swear.’
‘It’s a lot, but you can narrow down your search and start with red and variant-coloured cars registered from ’68 onwards.’
‘Could you list those for me?’
‘No way, I can’t help you with that. But the manufacturers should be able to, and can give you the registration details so you can track them to the current and any previous owners. Anyway, I need to go as there’s been a fatal accident down by the Blackwall Tunnel. Good luck with your search,’ he said, and ended the call.
Jane realized the enormity of the task facing Bradfield, even assuming the Jaguar was red. She looked in the Yellow Pages for the nearest Jaguar sales garage. She called them, giving her details to the receptionist and requesting brochures for the XJ6 series models and the XJ12. The receptionist said she’d stick them in the post on her way home.
Jane was about to type up her notes on the cars when she remembered what Sally had said about keeping the information sheets up to date. She used a black marker pen to put up some brief details about the post-mortem and Professor Martin’s conclusions.
‘Hello, darlin’.’ The male voice startled her and she dropped the pen.
