‘Cops soon found out there was no such person as William Wright. No records for him under the name and birth date given, and the references he’d given at interview were fake. The antiques shop he claimed to have worked for in Doncaster had never heard of him. Both referees’ numbers turned out to be burner phones. A member of the public came forward to say Wright had lived downstairs from him, in Newham. Wright had only been there a month, paid cash for the deposit, and the people who shared the house only knew him as William Wright, from Doncaster.’
Murphy took a sip from his water bottle, which led Strike, who was making notes, to a new realisation that water bottles carried around after exercise were an obnoxious affectation. Murphy turned a page in his notebook and continued,
‘The last verified sighting of Wright alive was on Friday the seventeenth of June. He’s on the shop’s interior security camera nearly all day Friday—’
‘“Nearly?”’ said Strike.
‘He was sent out for one errand in the late afternoon, but he came back and remained in the shop until six. At ten past six he was caught on camera entering Covent Garden Tube station.
‘There’s CCTV footage of four men entering Wild Court in the early hours of Saturday morning, which is the street Ramsay Silver’s on, close to the time they know the shop was opened up again. The presumption is that it was Wright and three associates.
‘The interior security camera footage shows somebody entering the shop around one a.m., in the dark. They crossed the floor and turned off the camera. Wright’s believed to have been killed shortly afterwards, by one or more of the men accompanying him. Forensics say he’d been dead around forty-eight hours when he was found.’
‘Wright was definitely killed in the vault, was he?’ asked Strike. ‘Not somewhere else, and shoved in the vault later?’
‘No, it definitely happened in the vault,’ said Murphy. ‘The splash patterns from the blood were un-fakeable, according to forensics. There was also a partial footprint that had clearly been made while the blood was still liquid.’
‘Have you got details on the footprint?’ asked Strike.
‘Thought you were trying to identify the body, not catch the killers?’
‘ID-ing the killers would help identify the body,’ said Strike, matching stony glare with stony glare.
‘As you’ll realise in a minute, you’d be very ill-advised to try tracking down these particular killers,’ said Murphy. He returned to his notes.
‘The security camera was switched back on around three a.m., the alarm was reset—’
‘Had they disabled it when they entered the shop?’ asked Strike.
‘I – don’t know,’ admitted Murphy, looking down at his notes. ‘I assume so. Anyway, the shop wasn’t opened again till Monday morning.’
He took another sip of water, then said,
‘External CCTV footage shows only individuals or pairs in the vicinity of Wild Court in the aftermath of the robbery, so the three thieves clearly split up.’
‘Were they carrying the stolen silver?’ said Robin.
‘My contact didn’t have a lot to say about that – maybe they shoved it in backpacks. They think one of them got into a getaway car that arrived on Wild Street around the right time, but the nearest camera was out of commission. According to my source, a car with fake plates and a lone driver had passed an earlier camera shortly after three a.m. When it passed the next couple of cameras, there were two people in it.’
‘What make was the car?’ asked Strike.
‘Contact didn’t say,’ said Murphy, not bothering to look up this time. ‘As I say, Saturday, the shop was closed, so the body lay undisturbed until Monday, when the owner opened up the vault.’
‘The body was mutilated, right?’ said Strike.
‘Yeah, but the people working there recognised it as Wright from hair, height, build et cetera. DNA from the body matched DNA found in the shop, including hair in the U-bend of the sink. The corpse had been dressed in something weird, but my contact wouldn’t tell me what. I got the impression it was done to send a message, maybe to humiliate him.’
Murphy took another swig of water, then said,
‘The next bit is what you
‘We won’t,’ Robin assured him.
‘It explains why there’s been no absolute confirmation Wright was really Jason Knowles, but if you talk—’
‘Ryan, we won’t.’
‘All right,’ said Murphy and he continued: ‘Jason Knowles was very well connected, underworld-wise. Most of his family are cons, and his uncle’s a serious player. Knowles himself wasn’t a big fish, though, just a thief.
‘The National Crime Agency’s had a plainclothes plant in Knowles’ uncle’s circle for the past six months, because the uncle’s dealing guns. The NCA guy heard the same story from two separate sources: Jason was lured into an ambush in the belief he and his killers were doing a job together, and his body had been left unidentifiable. The rumour was, his uncle personally gave the order to kill him, suspecting he was the one leaking info to the police.’
‘Jesus,’ said Robin quietly.
