Chapter 4: A Smoking Gun

Chapter 4: A Smoking Gun

Inspector Checchino was more patient than Inspector Evans. She told him that it would be a bad idea to rush to visit Omar Omari again. They should wait until there was some solid proof that he had returned to the scene, she said.

“Why do you and Fisher always talk about waiting?” he complained. “We should bring him in for questioning before he disappears!”

In the end, the pair spent most of Monday interviewing the other people who worked at Lust, but it proved to be pointless. Everyone had gone home before the manager left, and nobody could remember anything unusual.

Two other officers had spoken with the staff at Cooper’s bars and his other clubs. Most of them had very little to say. They all respected their boss a great deal, it seemed - or they were still afraid of him, even though he was dead.

The only noteworthy report came from one of the women seen her boss smoking outside a bar in Soho at around 3:30 a.m. Kim had forgotten to mention this fact when the inspectors had visited her in Chelsea. According to her own statement, she had stayed at work until shortly after 1 a.m. and then driven back home.

“We should go and speak to her again right away!” Inspector Evans said when he heard the report.

“You wanted to do the same with Omar Omari a few hours ago, Gary,” sighed Inspector Checchino. “We can’t go around accusing everyone of lying to us.”

“Well, one of them is hiding something,” he growled. “At least one of them.”

Their conversation was interrupted when the telephone on Inspector Evans’ desk rang. It was Vash Singh calling from the forensics department. He said that he had some important news for the investigators.

The two detectives always enjoyed talking to Vash, who could explain things in a lively and interesting way. When they walked into his office this time, Vash was holding a plastic skull in one hand and a pencil in the other.

“You should have been an actor,” said Inspector Evans. “You’d make a good Hamlet.”

“Just take a seat and listen to what I have to tell you,” he smiled. “First of all, we can definitely rule out suicide now. Look, the bullet must have gone in at this angle.”

He was pointing the pencil at the left temple, but it was nowhere near square against the skull.

“How can you be sure it was murder?” asked Inspector Checchino.

“Stanley Cooper was left-handed, and the revolver in his hand was six inches long. Just look at the trajectory.”

Inspector Evans put his hands in the position that Vash was describing.

“You’re right,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t try to commit suicide like this. It’s too difficult.”

He turned to Inspector Checchino, who was staring at the skull.

“I’d either put the gun inside my mouth or hold it here, just above my ear, wouldn’t you?”

Inspector Checchino sighed a little.

“I haven’t really thought about how I would shoot myself, Gary, but you’re both right, yes.”

“So,” Vash continued, “now you probably think that someone was standing in front of him, and not to his side?”

Inspectors Evans and Checchino both nodded.

“You’re wrong!” Vash exclaimed. “Neither Cooper nor the killer were standing up. We found no traces of blood near head height in the room, and none on the desk either. But there is something very revealing about the few small spots on the back wall of the office.”

He showed the inspectors a photograph of the bloodstains. “Take a look. The stains on this picture suggest that Cooper’s head was about two feet above the ground when he was shot.”

“So he was kneeling?” the inspector asked. “Someone made him beg for his life?”

“No, the blood is too low down for that as well,” Vash explained. “I think he was lying down, which would also explain the position of the body.”

Inspector Evans remembered seeing Cooper’s body on the office floor in Lust. It was true that he did not appear to have fallen to the ground: both of his arms were resting on either side of his chest.

“Do you mean the killer was lying on top of him?” he asked.

“That would explain the lipstick on his shirt as well, don’t you think?” Vash suggested. “Cherchez la femme!”

The inspectors exchanged looks.

“Did anyone ever find Cooper’s mobile phone?” asked Inspector Checchino. “We know that he made a call shortly before he was shot, but we have no idea whose number he dialled. We asked his telephone company, and they said that it belongs to a pay-as-you-go phone that hasn’t been registered.”

Vash shook his head. “We didn’t find anything else in the office that could help you,” he explained. “Apart from one thing, that is. You haven’t asked about the really important clue that we’re quite excited about.”

“What’s that?” the two inspectors asked simultaneously.

“Whoever shot Stanley Cooper wanted it to look like a suicide, so they left the gun and the shell casing on the scene. Of course there is no licence for the gun, but the bullet was quite rare. The ballistics expert says that fewer than five percent of revolvers use this type. Interestingly, they’re more popular in Eastern Europe. There’s a large factory near Warsaw.”

“He was killed by a Polish bullet?” asked Inspector Evans, surprised.

“Not necessarily, no. The same bullets are available in Britain as well, but they’re not used very much.”

“The cleaner is Polish,” the inspector continued, ignoring what Vash was saying. “I bet she knows some people in Cooper’s gangs, too. I thought it was strange that someone who visits a place like Lust so often knew so little about the people there.” Inspector Checchino smiled at Vash and turned to her colleague with an irritated look.

“Will you stop accusing everyone, Gary!” she complained. “First it was Bruno, then Omar, then Kim, and now you want to accuse Helena Kowalska!”

“I want to speak to them all again,” he replied stubbornly. “We should start with the women. After all, that lipstick on his collar must have come from somewhere.”

“But it could have been there for days,” Inspector Checchino said. “I don’t think Stanley Cooper was the most hygienic man to walk this planet…”

Kim Watt was alone when the detectives arrived at her house early that evening. She opened the door with the same surprised look on her face that they had seen on their previous visit. “Do you mind if we ask you a few more questions about Friday night, Miss Watt?” asked Inspector Evans.

“Of course not! Please come in,” she said.

She led them through the hall-way to the large kitchen at the back of the house and offered them a seat at the table.

“Would you like some tea, Officers?” she asked politely.

“Oh, that would be great, thank you!” said Inspector Evans happily.

Inspector Checchino was slightly irritated by the woman trying to be the perfect hostess and kicked her colleague’s leg under the table.

“Miss Watt,” she began, coming straight to the point, “we have received a report that you were in central London after 3 a.m. on the night that Stanley Cooper was shot. Is there a reason why you failed to tell us this on Saturday?”

Kim put down the kettle and turned to the two inspectors. She was biting her lip nervously and did not say a word.

“I’ve got nothing to hide,” she said after a long pause.

“Please just tell us the truth,” said Inspector Evans, who thought that the woman seemed much more natural than she did when they had first met.

“You have to understand that this is something I just couldn’t tell you the other day. Not with Bruno right beside me…”

She stopped speaking and took a cigarette out of the box that was lying next to the sink.

“I did go into town after work, it’s true. I was going to go to Lust, but Omar told me not to, because a lot of the people there know Bruno. And Bruno himself was there all night on Friday. So I went to a salsa bar that I like instead. It’s only a few minutes away from Charing Cross, and I waited there until Omar finished work.”

“Do you remember what time that was?” asked the inspector. “Oh, about 4 a.m.,” Kim Watt replied.

There was another awkward pause in the conversation. Inspector Evans cleared his throat.

“We know that Mr Omari left Trafalgar Square at 5:30 a.m. on the 134 bus to Finchley, Miss Watt,” he said. “Can you tell us where you and he were before that time?”

The woman began to blush. Her pale cheeks were soon almost as red as her flame-coloured hair.

“We… we visited a hotel where one of Omar’s friends works as a night manager. There are always some empty rooms, and he lets us use one from time to time, It’s just a bit of fun!”