Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

bottom lip. Geraldine turned back to Lynn’s mother.
    ‘May we come in?’
    Mrs Jones nodded dumbly and led them off the narrow hall into a small untidy living room at the front of the house, sloppily furnished with a couple of armchairs that didn’t match, and a pair of grey plastic chairs. There was a stale smell, as though the windows were never opened. Mrs Jones perched on one armchair, the fat man sank into the other, and the two visitors sat down on plastic chairs. The place appeared neglected, as did Mrs Jones. Her hair was greasy, her clothes creased and threadbare, her lips cracked.

     
    ‘We want to know about Lynn,’ Geraldine said when they were all sitting down, ‘anything you can tell us.’
    The woman sat brooding silently.
    ‘She won’t tell you anything,’ the fat man said. ‘She never talks about Lynn.’
    ‘Can you tell us about her then?’
    ‘Me? No. She’d left home long before I came to live here.’
    Geraldine turned back to Mrs Jones.
    ‘We need to find Lynn urgently. It will help her if we can talk to her,’ she lied.
    ‘You can’t help Lynn,’ her mother said in a flat voice.
    ‘I think you’ll find we can –’
    ‘No one can help Lynn. She’s dead. She died eighteen months ago.’
    ‘Are you sure?’ Geraldine asked.
    She regretted the question straight away. As though a mother would make a mistake about such a matter.

     
    ‘That’s that then,’ Geraldine said tetchily as she climbed into the driving seat. ‘Lynn Jones isn’t our murderer because she’s dead.’
    ‘Funny we didn’t find any record of her death.’
    ‘That’s because we were looking under the wrong name.’
    Geraldine thought about her own fruitless efforts to trace Emily Tennant, and wondered if she too was looking under the wrong name. She sighed. They were scratching around for leads, and every time they thought they were onto something, they ended up going nowhere.
    ‘Where are we off to now?’ Sam asked, glancing at her watch.

     
    Geraldine thought aloud.
    ‘Why was hair from two different women found on the bodies? They can’t both be killers, because one type of hair belonged to Lynn, and she’s dead. Did Lynn sell her hair to be made into a wig that was worn by the killer? If we can trace whoever bought Lynn’s hair –’
    Geraldine didn’t finish the sentence. She knew it was an impossible task. To begin with, they had no idea when Lynn had sold her hair. Even if Rowena could help them to pin down a time, she was unlikely to know where the hair had gone. And if they found the wig-maker who had purchased it, the hair would most likely have been bought for cash, or sold on, or lost, and picked up by the murderer without any trace. Realistically, there was no chance they would find a record of the transaction, or that anyone would remember that one wig and its owner after so long; just another junkie desperate for money.

     
    ‘I know, leave no stone unturned,’ Sam muttered.
    ‘Sooner or later something has to go in our favour,’ Geraldine responded, but she no longer believed what she was saying.
    Not for the first time, she wondered what it would be like to work in a job that lacked any kind of moral responsibility, a job where failure was acceptable. First the DNA found at the scene of Henshaw’s murder had been a match with a woman in prison, and now the DNA found on Bradshaw’s body turned out to be that of a dead woman. Nothing about this case seemed to make any sense. She was beginning to think they would never find the person who had killed four men – so far.

     
    ‘Failure is not an option,’ she muttered fiercely as they drew up outside the hostel and left the car on a double yellow line again.
    Rowena greeted them indifferently, as though their visit was nothing unusual. Geraldine asked her straight away when Lynn had cut her long hair. Rowena frowned with the effort of remembering.
    ‘She had long hair,’ she offered at last.
    ‘Yes, but then she had it cut off. We need to know when that was.’
    Rowena stared blankly at a black smear on the floor and didn’t answer.
    ‘Rowena, when did Lynn get her hair cut?’
    ‘We called her Lolita.’
    ‘All right, but you know who I mean. When did Lolita get her hair cut off?’
    Rowena looked troubled.
    ‘Lolita had long hair,’ she repeated.
    ‘Did she ever have it cut in all the time you knew her?’
    She shook her head.

     
    If Rowena’s testimony was reliable, Lynn must have sold her hair