Detectives investigating the death of Eva Rausing are trying to trace the dealer who supplied the Class A drugs that are thought to have killed her.
Officers are studying phone, text and email messages to establish who she contacted and when in an effort to piece together the events surrounding her death.
Her billionaire husband Hans Kristian Rausing, 49, one of the heirs to the Tetra Pak fortune, is being given time to recover in a secure hospital after he was arrested in Wandsworth after being stopped for driving erratically. Police discovered his wife’s body when they went to the couple’s home after the arrest.
When questioned about possession of drugs found in his car on Monday, and then later on the death of his 48-year-old wife, he struggled to speak.
Detectives are treating the death as unexplained and believe the most likely explanation is that Mrs Rausing died of a drugs overdose.
Her husband is believed to have lived with the body of his wife in an upstairs bedroom for a week or more.
When he is considered well enough to be interviewed he may be questioned about the offence of concealing his wife’s body.
One theory is that Mr Rausing, who stands to inherit £1 billion from the Tetra Pak fortune, could not cope with his wife’s death and went on a drugs binge for several days. Friends say that he was never violent and remained devoted to his wife.
Detectives are also looking at CCTV taken from the house and the surrounding area and examining bank records for signs of transactions.
A friend has told how in recent months the couple, who fought addiction to Class A drugs including crack cocaine for several years, had retreated to two rooms in their Belgravia townhouse — which was described as a “drugs den”.
Much of the sprawling Georgian house in Cadogan Square was unused and staff had been told not to come near the rooms where they lived.
The friend said : “It was total squalor. Really messy. You wouldn’t believe they were billionaires. It shows the effects of drugs. They couldn’t look after themselves or their house.”
The couple first met in a rehabilitation centre in the US and today college friends of Mrs Rausing — whose maiden name is Kemeny — told the Standard how they worried about her “reckless” lifestyle even as a student in California in the Eighties.
Maths teacher Lola Muldrew, who still lives in California and was part of the graduating class of 1986, said: “Even though it’s been 30 years, as soon as I read her name her face flashed in my mind. She was beautiful and always smiling, with the kind of smile that went all the way up into her eyes.
“She was kind of scattered, somewhat reckless, but she had this wonderfully warm heart and engaging spirit.”
Police are waiting for toxicology tests to help determine the cause of Mrs Rausing’s death.
