Love Story, With Murders by Harry Bingham Read Free Book Online

more information, ever less direction. It turns out that Karen Johnston and her husband were both in Wales over the relevant period in 2005. Which
would be an interesting fact except that neither has a police record and,so far, we have a whiteboard listing fourteen properties where body parts have been found. There are thirty-eight people
living in those properties. Including the extended families of those thirty-eight, there are at least seventy-one people potentially implicated. Adding in close friends or colleagues takes the
circle of ‘suspects’ to more than a hundred. And corpse pieces are still beingfound, so that total is growing all the time. No one we’ve looked at so far has had any meaningful
brush with the police or any serious indicator of potential for sexual violence.
    We’ve also checked on anyone living locally who has any kind of record for sexual assault, violence, or child sex offences. There are a few such people, of course, and we’ve started
to do the basics, but becausethe reservoir is a well-used beauty spot and dog-walking area, we need to consider that all of Cyncoed, Llanishen, Lisvane, Llanederyn, and Pontprennau are potentially
relevant to the investigation – and, indeed, given that people come from all over Cardiff to the area, there’s really no part of the city we can rule out. We have two corpses and a
million suspects.
    Buzz and I are both working,though on different teams, all day Sunday, but we spend the night together at his apartment. Bacon and eggs for dinner. We start off watching a Coen brothers film on
the telly, only we end up talking through it and go to the bedroom to make love while George Clooney is still being a funny man in the living room. Afterward, I realise how tired I am, drag myself
to the shower, then fallback into bed, while Buzz washes up and tells George Clooney to stand down. If I dream at all, it’s of Arthur Price’s garden and the geese flying overhead.
    On Monday morning, the weekend’s scattered fragments are welded together for us by Rhiannon Watkins. She’s introduced by Detective Superintendent Kirby, but this is Watkins’s
show. The incident room is as full as I’ve ever seen it. Exhaustedfaces and strong coffee. A thick stew of conversation. Watkins has given the operation a properly formal code name –
Operation Abacus, for some reason – but the office name is simpler and more memorable. Stirfry. Not a name anyone will use with the boss, but even DCI Jackson has been heard using it.
    There were still people coming in late when Kirby was speaking, but Watkins calls us to orderwith nothing more than a look. She stands up at the front, no podium, no notes. Low-heeled black
shoes, grey suit, zero humour.
    Quickly, no wasted words, she summarises what we have.
    Ali el-Khalifi first. It’s been a week since he was last seen at work, at a seminar for grad students in materials science. Owing to the vagaries of the university timetable,
Khalifi’s workload this lastweek was very light, so although his absence was noted, no one was particularly worried. He travelled fairly extensively anyway and it was assumed he’d
simply turn up again when required. When an Arab-looking corpse was reported, the university called us with their concerns. We collected DNA from his office. A match was made.
    ‘From what we know,’ says Watkins, ‘Khalifi has no wife, no partner.We’ve spoken with his departmental head and one or two others, but we need much more. What connection
did he have to Mary Langton? Who might have wanted him dead and why?’
    Next we turn to Langton. Needless to say, you can’t find large chunks of human remains in someone’s shed or garage without pulling those people in for questioning. So on Saturday
night, Arthur Price had been driven downto Cathays. The interview plan had been to hang tough for an hour or so, not quite accusing the old man, but almost, and seeing if any cracks emerged. In
fact, the old man was