It took the rest of the afternoon to build just a brief profile of Adam Edwards, the son of the woman who had died in the flat where both victims had been held. Did the unidentified blood sample taken from The Black Lion pub belong to him, Alex wondered. The list of employees obtained from Cardiff Council gave no match with the name Adam Edwards, so the team was left to search for other links he may have had to both victims and the areas where their bodies had been found. Adam was twenty-nine years old and had a criminal record: a caution received for a shoplifting offence thirteen years earlier. A check with the Inland Revenue revealed a long history of employment, with Adam having frequently changed jobs. However, the records showed no known employment for the previous eight months, his last job having been with a building firm based in Bridgend.
The image on the criminal records database showed a teenager with unruly dark hair and pale grey eyes. He had an angular face and soft features. Alex wondered how much Adam had changed during the past thirteen years, and whether anyone who knew him now would recognise this boy as the same person.
His police record had thrown up another interesting detail of his past: since the age of eleven – and at the time of his arrest when he was aged sixteen – Adam had been living in care. That explained his absence from the reports on his mother’s death.
Had this shoplifting teenager become a criminal slick enough to kill two women without leaving behind a trace of himself? There had been no unidentified fingerprints lifted at the pub, but perhaps one of the young women had helped police by causing her killer an injury and leaving a blood sample at the scene. Perhaps he hadn’t been as clever as he’d thought.
Alex brought Adam’s details up on the Police National Computer. After his arrest, fingerprints and a swab sample from his cheek would have been taken. Both would have been recorded on the database. All she needed was a DNA match.
She clicked back and re-entered the database page. Something was wrong.
Adam Edwards’s fingerprints had been taken and stored, but the results of his swab test were nowhere to be found on his file.
‘For God’s sake.’ She shoved back her chair and left the office.
She eventually found Harry in the staff canteen, staring through the window whilst a plate of what might have been lasagne, but was really anybody’s guess, lay congealing on the plate in front of him. So much for keeping everyone on task, she thought.
‘Boss.’
He looked up and stood hurriedly, leaving his food as though ashamed to be associated with it.
‘We’ve got a potential suspect. He’s got previous, but his swab test results haven’t been recorded on the system. If we had them, I could try a match with the unidentified sample from the pub. Why the hell isn’t it there?’
Harry sighed. ‘Human error,’ he said, the scathing tone unmissable. ‘Isn’t that the popular get-out clause? Someone fucked up. Who is he?’
‘His name’s Adam Edwards. His mother lived in the flat above The Black Lion.’
‘The woman who drowned in the bath?’
Alex nodded. ‘Victims in water. Can’t be a coincidence, can it?’
Harry looked sceptical. ‘Is that all you’ve got?’
‘If we can get him in and his swab’s a match, I think that’s enough, don’t you?’
He raised a hand as though in surrender. He was rarely in the mood for a confrontation with Alex and today was no exception. ‘Do we know where he is?’
‘Not yet. A few of the DCs are on to it.’
‘Let’s get him in as soon as possible. You can get a swab test sent off then.’ He paused. ‘How’s DC Lane?’
Alex gave a shrug. ‘As you’d expect. She’s a good officer. I don’t want to lose her.’
The superintendent gave a look that acknowledged the challenge in her tone. ‘There’s a procedure that has to be followed. It’s out of my hands.’
‘There’s a lot you don’t know. That girl’s been through so much. She got here with so much stacked against her.’
‘I’m sure that’s true. But rules are rules.’ Harry gave an apologetic shrug and made his way back to his office.
Alex felt a sting of injustice on Chloe’s behalf. When this case was closed she was going to do everything she could to get Chloe back to work, whatever it took, even if it meant risking her own position.
She made her way back up to the central office, a streak of determination pushing a spring into her step.
Through employment records, Adam Edwards was traced to an address in Ystrad Mynach. Alex headed there with DC Mason, but en route she took a detour. She explained to Dan that she wanted to pop in on Rachel Jones, to make sure the young woman remained vigilant. Though this was true, there was also another reason for her visit. Something had been nagging at her: a suspicion she hoped Rachel Jones might be able to confirm or deny.
She parked the car outside the terraced house and asked Dan to wait.
The young woman was small and timid, something birdlike about her sharp features. She answered the door cautiously, having checked past the living room curtains before going to the door.
‘Everything OK?’
Rachel nodded, but everything about her expression and demeanour spoke the opposite. She was scared, Alex thought. Given the same circumstances, what person wouldn’t be?
‘I’ve been thinking: is there anyone you could go and stay with for a few days?’
Rachel’s features stiffened. The young woman seemed a bag of nerves.
‘For peace of mind,’ Alex attempted to reassure her. She held back from saying she didn’t think Rachel was in any danger: how could she possibly know that? They didn’t know the reasons he had selected Lola and Sarah as his victims. She would be trying to second-guess a mystery, and Alex wasn’t prepared to take those chances.
‘My brother lives in Bristol.’
‘Go there for a few days, if you can. I promise you we’re doing everything to find this man. For now, there’s something I need to ask you.’
The young woman shifted her weight from one foot to the other, looking down at the hallway carpet.
Alex reached into her pocket. ‘Do you recognise him?’
She held the picture out to Rachel. It was Adam Edwards’s police photograph, taken years earlier. The support group was the only link between the two women. It made sick sense. Where better to target vulnerable young women? Until now, their main suspects had been first Connor Price and then the elusive Joseph Black. Yet Joseph Black seemed untraceable. Perhaps because he didn’t exist.
Rachel took the image from Alex’s hand, holding the face closer to her own. ‘When was that taken? That’s Joseph.’
‘Joseph?’
The girl looked back to her. The look of anxiety she wore as a second skin had been replaced by something else. Fear.
‘You don’t think—’