Guilty Conscious

by Oliver Davies

  “Where was it?” she asked at last.

  “In the studio. Covered in blood.”

  “Blood?” she asked, her eyes widening.

  “Do you understand how all of this looks, Billie?” I asked, folding my hands on the table. “A murder weapon belonging to your sister, found in the studio that you found for him, a studio that you have a key to.”

  Billie closed her. “I did not kill him.”

  “Billie…”

  “How d'you even know about the studio?” she asked, her eyes flying open. “He never told anyone, not even Charlie. Didn’t want to get mocked for it.”

  I frowned at that, adjusting in my seat. “Nobody else knew?”

  “Not as far as I’m aware. How did you find it?”

  “Someone told us about it,” I said, not wanting to throw Freya under the bus. Billie’s eyes shuttered, and she looked around to the wall, breathing in long, fractured breaths as she held back sobs. I turned to look at Mills, whose slightly confused expression mirrored my own.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about your relationship with Edward Vinson when we first spoke to you, Billie?”

  She didn’t look away from the wall. “I don’t like remembering it. Him. And I thought—”

  “You thought it would make you seem a suspect?” Mills guessed, and she nodded.

  “Lying is a worse thing to do in a case like this, Billie,” I told her, watching as she winced and nodded.

  “My sister died two weeks ago,” she whispered. “Two weeks.” She turned to look at us. “I hadn’t said Edward Vinson’s name out loud for over a year. I threw away anything that reminded me of him, or I left it when we moved. I burned all of my photos.” She looked at the ones Edward had kept. “As far as I was concerned, he didn’t exist. It was me and Stella, brand new. Starting over. I’ve been getting used to a world that doesn’t have my baby sister in it.” She met my gaze and didn’t look away. “Why would I go after him when the reason she’s gone is me?”

  “We don’t—”

  “I have the right to a lawyer, don’t I?” She asked.

  “You do,” I confirmed. “Would you like us to call one for you?”

  She paused, looking down at her hands, toying with the now empty cup. “I’d like some more water, please,” she muttered.

  I nodded and tapped Mills’s shoulder as I stood. He followed me, taking Billie’s cup, and we walked into the next room where Sharp watched through the glass, her eyes fixed on Billie with a burning intensity, almost tearing up herself.

  “Ma’am?” I asked gently, standing beside her as Mills went to fetch water.

  “I see what you mean,” she told me, still looking at Billie, “but we have to look at the facts.”

  “I know, but we can’t keep her here without making an arrest, not without real, hard evidence.”

  “We have a suspicion of murder,” Sharp informed me. “It’s a start. Will she want a lawyer?” She finally turned to look at me.

  “She did ask,” I muttered, “but I don’t know. I think she doesn’t care what happens anymore.” I looked at Billie, staring at the photos, her finger trailing lightly over one of them, of Stella.

  “If she had seen those photos before,” Sharp said, “seen them in the studio, she’d have had her proof or close enough to it that Edward was definitely interested in Stella. Definitely following her, anyway. Would she have just sat on that?”

  “Depends on when she found them,” I answered. “If she found them before, then not at all, she’d have been down here, horns blazing. But after hiding the trophy?”

  “Killing a man with her sister’s trophy,” Sharp muttered. “That’s rather grim.”

  “Ironic, but also disrespectful to Stella’s memory. I’m not sure Billie would have gone for it, and there are plenty of other things in that studio that could be easier to kill with,” I pointed out. “Plus, she’d have had to go to the studio to get it in the first place, where she probably would have seen the photos, then gone to Edward’s room, then got all the way back to the studio to hide it.”

  “We don’t know when the weapon was hidden,” Sharp reminded me. “She could have taken it home, hidden it back in the studio at a later date.”

  We watched as the door opened, and Mills stepped back in, sliding the water and a packet of tissues her way with a faint smile. Billie took them and held the cup in her hands, staring at the water as Mills ducked out, joining us a second later. Sharp nodded to him, and he stood by the window with us, his hands tucked into his pockets. I relayed the conversation we had just had in his absence, and he nodded along, frowning at the glass.

  “If she’d moved it back to the studio at a later date,” Mills said, “why wouldn’t she have cleaned it? If she had it for a few days, that makes no sense. It looked like it had been shoved there in a hurry.”

  “Would she have treated it like that?” I wondered in agreement. “It was Stella’s. All the guilt that Billie feels is because she blames herself for what happened to her sister, not Edward.”

  “That much is fairly plain to see,” Sharp agreed, “but we have to follow the book on this one, boys. Go back in there, see what else she’s neglected to tell you.”

  My face was grim as I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Twenty-Two

  Mills

  It was with some reluctance that we didn’t bother to hide from Sharp that we went back into the room. Billie was sitting quietly, her body still, face wet from tears that stained her skin, but no more fell. She looked numb, just staring at the photographs, eyes flitting from the trophy to Stella and back again. As we sat back down and resumed the recording, she tapped the one of Stella in the garden, tapped the hands belonging to the person just out of shot, and lifted her sad green eyes to us.

  “That’s me,” she told us.

  “It’s a nice picture,” Thatcher told us. “Circumstances aside.” He pulled up the folder that he’d kept to one side and opened it for Billie to look at. Some photocopied notes from Edward’s journal, his sketches, the quotes he had littered around.

  “Do you recognise any of these?” He asked her. “Do they mean anything to you?” He was keeping his voice light, gentler than he did with any other murder suspects. If Billie knew he was nice to her, she didn’t let on, only shuffled closer on her chair, looking down at the pages and shook her head slowly.

  “I was never as good with that kind of stuff,” she admitted. “He loved it, though, I remember. Art, classics, philosophy.”

  “He was writing an essay,” I told her, her gaze switching to my face. “About forgiveness. Whether or not forgiving someone is a moral thing to do. We think he wrote that with you and Stella in mind, that when he spoke to her in the park those weeks ago, he might have been asking her for forgiveness.”

  Billie tensed and looked away, teeth grinding. “If he wanted forgiveness, he should have owned up to it,” she muttered. “Not cornering her in a park and saying sorry. Sorry,” she scoffed, “what good does that do? Other than make him feel better about himself, doesn’t do anything.”

  “What about you?” I asked her. “Did you ever say sorry to Stella? You blame yourself for everything that happened. Did you ever think she did too?”

  Thatcher turned to look at me at the same time she did, but whilst his was a look of admiration, hers was one of hurt. Rather intense hurt.

  “I said sorry so many times,” she told me darkly. “Every day, for about six months, until she told me to stop. Never made her better, never made me feel better.”

  “That must have been a lot to deal with,” I went on, watching as she nodded reluctantly. “And to know that Edward Vinson was doing fine whilst the two of you suffered, it’s no wonder you grew to hate him so much.”

  Billie’s eyes narrowed. “I. Did. Not. Kill. Him. And if I did, do you really think I’d use that?” She flicked a photo of the trophy towards us, Thatcher catching it before it fluttered off the table. “Let me whack a boy’s face in with my
baby sister’s dance trophy?” She asked incredulously. “I’d never do that to her!”

  Thatcher sat up straight, chest puffing slightly, his face unreadable as he stared Billie down. She stared right back, flopping backwards in her chair, arms folded tightly around herself. She looked tough, but I didn’t miss the way her hands shook before she balled them into fists, the slight tremor to her breathing.

  Before anyone could do anything, there was a knock at the door and Thatcher, after a long pause, sighed through his nose, paused the recording, and rose from the table. I followed after him, leaving Billie to stew for a moment, and we walked out into the corridor to find Smith looking flustered.

  “What’s wrong, and can it wait?” Thatcher asked gruffly.

  “We’ve just had a man come in downstairs, sir. Mark Helman? He’d like to confess to the murder of Edward Vinson.”

  We both froze, staring at Smith’s face, and then I swore, loudly and colourfully enough that I was very glad my mother wasn’t around to hear it.

  “I beg your pardon?” Thatcher asked in a stilted voice, his grey eyes near enough burning holes into Smith’s head.

  “Mark Helman,” she repeated kindly, “is here. He’d like to confess to the murder of Edward Vinson.”

  “Where is he now?” I asked. Smith nodded down the hall to a secondary interview room, a nasty cold one that we never really used anymore.

  “Waiting for you, sir,” she said. Thatcher muttered a curse and scratched the back of his head as Sharp appeared in the corridor, looking as perplexed as we felt, striding down to her office.

  “Right then.” He then opened the door and walked in. “Your father’s here,” he told Billie, and from over his shoulder, I watched her face flash in surprise.

  “What? Why?”

  “To confess to the murder of Edward Vinson,” Thatcher informed her bluntly. Billie blinked, her mouth opening and closing several times.

  “What?” she repeated emphatically.

  “You can go,” he told her, opening the door wider, then stepping in to scoop up all the photographs, stuffing them haphazardly into the folder.

  “I— What?” Billie stood up uncertainly from the table, her green eyes wide and confused, but she made no move to leave. “My dad?”

  “Yes. He’s here. We’ll bring him into this room, I’m not freezing my arse off down there,” Thatcher said over his shoulder to Smith, who nodded once and set off to retrieve Mark Helman.

  “I don’t understand,” Billie uttered.

  “Your father is confessing to a crime, Billie. You can leave, though we do ask they don’t leave the city and be aware that we’ll likely get in touch again.”

  “That doesn’t—” She took a few steps around the table and out into the hall. The door along the way opened, and Smith walked out, Mark Helman before her, his hands cuffed in his front. He looked up from beneath a mop of tangled hair, his eyes blearily looking us all over until they landed on Billie. She stared back at him, and he gave her a nod before Smith led him into the other room.

  “Smith will help you find your things,” Thatcher told her. She stared at the room, where her father now vanished from sight. “Unless there’s anything else?”

  Billie looked up at Thatcher and shook her head stiltedly. “Is he— Will he be okay?”

  “That really depends on what he tells us, Miss Helman,” Thatcher said shortly, letting Smith out. Our constable took Billie’s arm and led her gently down the hallway, leaving Thatcher and I standing alone in the corridor. Thatcher ran a hand down his face with a muffled grumble and looked at me.

  “We can’t ever just have a nice clean, cut case, can we?”

  “You really think he did it?” I asked, glancing into the room.

  “Either he did, or he’s chosen a spectacular point of time to care about his daughter,” he answered, pushing the door open and walking in.

  We sat back down in our chairs, looking at Mark Helman. He looked a little better than when we last saw him, or at least, he smelt better. He wore a long ratty coat over his clothes, his feet stuffed into a pair of unlaced boots. His hair fell in scruffy knots around his face, but it looked clean, and aside from the slight redness around his eyes, he didn’t appear as fully ensconced in booze as he had before.

  Thatcher hit the button on the recording device, starting a new tape.

  “This Detective Inspector Thatcher and Detective Sergeant Mills with Mr Mark Helman on Thursday the 28th of September. Mark Helman, we understand that you wish to confess to the murder of Edward Vinson?”

  “Yes,” he answered in a rough voice, leaning close to the microphone.

  “Can you run us through what happened, Mr Helman?” Thatcher asked, his cool voice aloof and detached, and he sat back, arms folded, watching the man.

  Mark Helman cleared his throat. “I killed him.”

  “We need to know a few more details than that, Mr Helman,” I told him, folding one leg over the other. “Such as when, where and why, would be a good place to start.”

  The man rubbed at his arms like he was cold, his gaze fixated on the metal table between us. “He hurt my daughter,” he said.

  “Stella,” Thatcher said. “Can you elaborate?”

  “He hurt her,” he repeated. “And she died because of it. Killed herself. Because of him.”

  “That’s why you killed him?” I asked. He nodded.

  Thatcher drew in a long breath through his nose and leant forward, propping his elbows on the table.

  “How, Mr Helman? How did you kill Edward Vinson?”

  He paused for a moment. “Hit him. In the head.”

  “With what?”

  “Does it matter?” he asked in a suddenly loud voice. “Does it? I killed him, alright? He hurt my girls, so I killed the greasy little git. I admit it, I confess, do your job!”

  “We need to understand how, Mr Helman. How did you get into his university room?”

  Mark sniffed, rubbing at his nose with his sleeve. “Key. Bills left her key.”

  “She had a key?”

  “They were an item,” he muttered unhappily. “Course she ‘ad a key.”

  “Where is that key now, Mr Helman?” I asked him in as polite a tone as I could muster.

  “Tossed it away,” he answered surely, looking up to meet our faces, lifting his chin.

  “And the weapon?” Thatcher inquired. “Where is it now?”

  Mark chewed the inside of his bottom lip, something I’d seen Billie do before now. “You have it,” he said quietly.

  Thatcher drew in a tight breath. A lucky guess? Or did he really know?

  “You gave your fingerprints on the way in?” Thatcher asked Helman, who nodded. “Then we can tick that box soon enough, can’t we? How did you get out of the room without being seen?” We’d had the analysis back about the blood in the basement. It was Edward’s. Our killer left through there, likely went in through there too.

  “Does it matter?” Helman asked again, looking impatient.

  “Yes,” Thatcher answered bluntly. “It does matter. To us, and to Edward’s parents.”

  Mark Helman blinked and looked away, shifting in his seat. “Through the door.”

  “The door? We didn’t see you on the security cameras coming through the door,” Thatcher told him.

  “Back door,” Helman said quickly, waving a dismissive hand. “I went in through the back, hit him in the head, and went through the back.”

  “And the key you have, you say it’s for the back door?”

  Mark nodded once, face grim as he crossed his arms around himself. Thatcher turned to look at me, and I offered him a one-shouldered shrug, no more certain of what to make of this than he was.

  “Can you tell me what the weapon you used is, Mr Helman?” I asked him carefully.

  He picked at some fluff on his sleeve, sniffed loudly, and shook his head.

  “No?” Thatcher asked him loudly. “Why not?”

  Mark lifted his head. “No c
omment,” he said smugly. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “You came in here to confess to a murder, Mr Helman,” Thatcher reminded him stoically, “which means you have to offer up enough details that we know you’re telling the truth.”

  “So long as someone owns up to it, does it matter who?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I answered. “It does. And if you can’t answer our questions, Mr Helman, we’ll let you go and bring Billie back to see what light she can shed.”

  “Billie didn’t hurt ‘im,” he snapped quickly. “Didn’t hurt a soul, not our Billie. All bark and no bite always has been.”

  “When it came to her little sister,” Thatcher said evenly, “that might not have always been the case. They moved out, didn’t they? Billie got a job and took Stella to live somewhere else. She acted more like a parent than a sister.”

  He flinched slightly, shifting his weight about on his seat again. “Always been a clever girl,” he grumbled.

  Thatcher looked pityingly at the man, then paused the recording, rose from his chair and jerked his chin at me. I got up, and we left Mark Helman alone for a bit, heading into the room next door where Sharp had already returned, looking at the man with a grimace on her face.

  “So, that’s him? No wonder Billie left,” she muttered, turning to face us. “His knowledge of the details is shabby.”

  “At best. Sheer dumb luck,” Thatcher answered, sitting on the table in the corner, rubbing at his face. “He barely knows a thing, won’t give any details, which means we don’t have anything to go on, really. Not unless forensics turns up something from the weapon.”

  “No knowledge of the studio?” She asked. “Or the trophy?”

  “A bit hard to ask him about it, ma’am,” I said, “without giving him the answers in the questions.”

  She hummed, tapping her chin with her pen. “Confessing to save his daughter’s skin then?”