“Yes, your brunch with Sandra. My sister, we have no time. I now know what happened that night. I must speak with you.”
She paused for a second, eyes narrow, but then stepped back to allow them in. Dakar walked towards the kitchen, Stewart alongside him. As they emerged into the open area, Stewart saw that Russell, Sandra and Jane were seated around the living room table.
They had seemed quite relaxed when Stewart and Dakar first came around the corner, but the atmosphere almost immediately became a wary one.
“I am glad you are all here,” Dakar said as Sarah-Anne came back into the room. “And I am glad that you seem to have forgiven Jane, my sister.”
“I took your words on forgiveness to heart, Mr Dakar. I ended up inviting them all to brunch.”
Dakar turned to the other three. “The police have arrested Craig’s father Graham for killing Daniel.”
Wary expressions became confused. “How did he do it?” Russell.
“I don’t believe they know how it was done.”
“Then why did they arrest Graham?” Sandra now.
“Because in spite of the fact that it was a seemingly impossible crime, it was done, and therefore someone did it.”
There was a pause as everyone digested this, broken by Sarah-Anne. “All well and good, Mr Dakar. But what can we do about it?” She pottered over to the kitchen. It looked like she was in the middle of making some snacks.
“I’ve come to get a confession.”
Chapter 48
Everyone in the room froze, looking at Dakar, including Stewart. After a second or two, in the deadly silence of the room, Sarah-Anne slowly rotated until she had Dakar in her sights.
“Excuse me?”
Pause. “I said that I’ve come to get a confession.”
“And you think someone here is going to give you one?”
Pause. “Indeed.”
“Mum, what’s going on? What the hell is he talking about?” Sandra stood up.
“I don’t know, darling.” She crossed her arms, facing off against Dakar like a couple of chess champions across a board, awaiting his opening move.
Pause. “A man has been arrested, my sister, and will most probably face trial for the murder.”
Sarah-Anne stiffened. “It couldn’t possibly have been Graham. There was no way for him to murder Daniel – at any time – and get away unseen. And even if he could, how did he get the door bolted after he left?”
Pause. “They will say he had an accomplice.”
Her forehead wrinkled, then smoothed again. “Craig, you mean?”
Pause, nod. “And they found Graham’s fingerprints in Daniel’s study.”
Sarah-Anne’s mouth fell open.
Pause. “The police can put him in the house. That night. And so you see, the case against him grows stronger. Strong enough, perhaps, to convict.” Dakar pressed his advantage.
Sarah-Anne hesitated for a moment, then leaned forward on her toes, growing in height. “And the slit wrist, and the blood in the en suite? And Daniel being killed in the bedroom and the body ending up in the cellar?”
Pause, Dakar beaten back in his attack. “I do not know, my sister.”
Sarah-Anne came back down onto her heels again, the redness in her face receding. “Well, there you are then.”
Pause, a shrug. “Yet the police have to charge someone. Even if it fails in court, they can always pass that off as the vagary of a jury, justice undone by some of the more bloody-minded lay persons drafted in. But someone will face trial. And there is always the possibility, then, of a conviction.”
Stewart looked around at the other three in the moment of silence that followed. Sandra’s eyes were wide open, her lips pulled back somewhere between horror and fear. Russell had one arm around Sandra, his eyes shooting between Dakar and Stewart, pulling Sandra close at the same time. Jane’s face was dark, her shoulders hunched. She was looking at the mug in front of her as if it might be some kind of weapon.
“And,” Dakar continued, “if they decide it was not Graham Donaldson after all, they will look around for another suspect. Starting with Dennis, I would imagine.”
Sarah-Anne relaxed, the lines in her face disappearing. “Dennis couldn’t kill a mouse, much less Daniel.” She waved her hand as if batting the accusation away.
Pause. “I tend to agree, my sister. Theft seems more his level of criminality. Theft of prescription sheets, for example.”
There was a collective intake of breath from the three at the table.
“I knew it was that dickhead!” Russell declared. “I said it at the time.”
Pause, a nod. “And blackmail provides a powerful motive. Daniel had a prescription sheet filled out by Dennis. I presume he caught him red-handed. And Dennis was downstairs, on his own, at a crucial point. You yourself told us that, my sister. I believe Dennis went to ransack the study for the sheet, but only got as far as the door before he lost his nerve and ran back upstairs. But if Daniel had somehow slipped past everyone, perhaps in the commotion of people running from room to room, he and Dennis may have met.”
“And what? Dennis murders Daniel, throws him into the cellar and then waltzes back upstairs to chat to the rest of us? With blood all over him? No. Impossible.” Sarah-Anne was more relaxed now as she saw Dakar’s moves, a slight smile even finding its way onto her face.
Pause, nod, Dakar again beaten back in his efforts. “Then were I the police, I would start entertaining more exotic theories. For example, what if it were not Daniel at the window at all? What if someone were playing as him? Russell, for example.”
Stewart saw Russell’s face become a perfect ‘o’ of astonishment, his eyes widening as the impact of Dakar’s words hit. Sandra looked around at him, then shrugged his arm away violently. Russell turned to look into her tightening eyes.
“He had nothing to do with this!” Sarah-Anne leapt to Russell’s defence, the smile gone as Dakar made his move.
Pause. “He was in the house when Daniel appeared at the window. What could be easier than to dispose of Daniel earlier in the evening, perhaps when he first went inside, and then to take his place at the window and pretend to be Daniel? By the time everyone rushes upstairs, he is safely back in bed, snoring away.”
“I look nothing like Daniel!” Russell cut in now, his voice unnaturally high in the face of the accusation.
Pause. “The turquoise jacket can mislead people. That is how most people identified Daniel, as he was facing the other way when they saw him. With the help of an accomplice, you could then slip the jacket in a bag, along with a wig. The accomplice could then spirit it downstairs and redress Daniel’s body in the cellar.”
“And the blood on the clothes? It’s a messy business, stabbing someone.” Sarah-Anne cut back in.
Dakar paused for a few seconds here, eyeing Sarah-Anne, then shrugged lightly. “A jumper worn and then also put into a bag, also spirited away by the accomplice. Dumped at their leisure, once the fuss over Daniel’s disappearance had broken down.”
Sarah-Anne glared at him, the silence elongating. But suddenly the tension flowed out of her, and she smiled, the smile of triumph. Her eyes sparkled.
“But you forget, Mr Dakar. Russell was drugged so heavily that he couldn’t be woken. Everyone will testify that he wasn’t faking sleep. Martina did the nail bed test, and the supra-orbital test. And …” she held up her hand in excitement as Dakar moved to reply, “… there couldn’t have been time for the drugs to kick in before the rest of us arrived, a couple of minutes later.”
Her head tilted down as she challenged Dakar, her smile the one of a chess player in a commanding position. Stewart looked over at Dakar, feeling helpless. Every suspect thrown up so far thrown back, every method of committing the crime batted away.
But Dakar didn’t seem concerned. In fact, in his face there was some kind of final acceptance. And, it came to Stewart, Dakar’s look of regret might be because the game was over, rather than because he had lost.<
br />
“True, my sister. But tell me. How do you know Russell was drugged?”
Checkmate.
Chapter 49
“I … I …” Sarah-Anne began to flounder, her eyes shooting away from Dakar’s gaze. Sandra stood up, her eyes wild, looking between her mother and Russell.
“Someone tell me what is going on. Right now.” Her voice trembled as she spoke. Russell looked helplessly up at her, while Sarah-Anne gripped the table edge in front.
Dakar spoke, into the silence. “I will explain the how, my sister. We can then discuss the why.”
Sandra turned on him, her savage expression slamming squarely up against Dakar’s calm. In the face of her ragged breathing, Dakar began to speak.
“First, let me say Russell had nothing to do with it. It was your father Daniel who was banging on the window. But he was not being attacked. This was rather all part of a plan, to create his own disturbance at his surprise birthday party. First, he threw things on the ground. Slitting his wrist, he dropped some blood in the bedroom and let more spill out in the en suite. Then he bandaged his wrist up, ready to start his performance.”
Stewart nodded as Dakar spoke. That Daniel was the only person who could have slit his wrist was logically inevitable when you knew everyone else was either outside or comatose.
Sandra had sunk back down into her chair as Dakar spoke, his measured tone the only sound in the hush of the room. Russell cautiously put his arm around her again.
“His preparations complete, he began his banging at the window. As everyone rushed upstairs, he climbed out of the window himself, closing it as far as he could, and then went to the cellar. He stood, I believe, at the top of the stairs, waiting for something.”
Dakar took a deep breath. “It took me a long time to work out what happened here. That evening, far from being chaotic, as it appeared from the outside, was exquisitely planned. The timing was crucial, but it was carried out beautifully.”
In the silence that followed, Dakar looked around at everyone present, until his eyes rested on Sarah-Anne.
“There was one thing you told us, my sister, that my mind kept returning to last night. I could not shake it. You told us that you saw Dennis go up the stairs. Go. Not come. It is a small thing, and yet … If I am in my home, and someone is visiting, they come to my house. They do not go to my house, if I am there. And so, I began to think: what if you were not up the stairs, as you claimed, but down the stairs?”
“Really, Mr Dakar, I hardly think …” But Sarah-Anne trailed off herself, her bluster forcing her to start but leaving her nowhere to go.
“Contrary to what you told us, my sister, you did not follow the others up. In truth, you hid downstairs and watched Daniel go into the cellar. You opened the door, and when Daniel turned around, you stabbed him through the chest four times.”
Sarah-Anne took a deep breath. “I was upstairs with everyone else.”
Pause. “Yes, my sister, you did go upstairs eventually. But, as I said, the timing here is critical. If I may, I will divide what took place into three events; everyone going into the master bedroom the first time, most people running through to the guest bedroom to see if Charles and Russell were still alive, and finally, everyone coming back to the master bedroom. You did appear, but only after everyone had convened in the master bedroom on a second occasion. Ample time for you to take a kitchen knife, hide, open the cellar door, stab Daniel and push him down the stairs.”
Sarah-Anne was glaring at him, her hands now spread across the table point, the skin white to breaking point. She put two hands up in a questioning manner, her lips pursing. “And Daniel’s blood? I stabbed him and then just ran around with blood all over me and hoped no-one would notice?” She spoke curtly.
“No, my sister. You walked. When you stabbed Daniel, you wore your apron, which took the brunt of the blood spatters. You were also wearing a dark red dress with long gloves. After murdering Daniel in the cellar, you took off your apron and gloves, folded the gloves inside the apron and, quite possibly with spots of Daniel’s blood on your dress, walked upstairs to see everyone.”
Stewart’s jaw hit the floor, stunning him out even of his scribbling for a second.
Sarah-Anne’s eyes narrowed, and she crossed her arms. “The police have the apron I wore, Mr Dakar, and they examined the dress and gloves. It was practically the first thing they did when they got there. If they had found something like you say, don’t you think I would be in jail just now?”
Pause. “The police examined the apron you presented to them, not the one that you had been wearing. This is clear. The apron I saw in the police photos was spotless. Not just a lack a blood, a lack of anything. A lack of use. It was new.” Sarah-Anne said nothing, but her mouth tightened, her lips disappearing. “And the police examined the dress you were wearing at the end of the night, not the beginning.”
“This is all nonsense, Mr Dakar.” There was a stillness about Sarah-Anne that Stewart hadn’t seen before, as if she were waiting to decide between fight and flight. “You have no proof of any of this.”
Pause. Dakar sighed, softly. “I am sorry to cause you such fear, my sister. But we have no time. An innocent man stands to be publicly accused. There was truly no blood on the clothes you wore at the end of the night or the apron you gave the police. But the apron, and clothes you changed out of,” Dakar reached into his backpack, and pulled out two police evidence bags, one with a crumpled red material inside of it and the other with something white spattered with red, “have, I am as sure as I can be, blood on them.”
Sarah-Anne’s expression ossified instantly, as if the fossilisation process that normally took millions of years had happened in the blink of an eye. Stewart saw her eyes dart over towards the table where the other three were sitting, before they refocused on Dakar.
Dakar held up the bag. “If these had fallen out of a bin between here and the pub the younger people went to that night, it would be an oversight in an otherwise truly well-executed plan.”
Sarah-Anne remained rooted to the spot, but another voice broke the silence.
“I saw Sarah-Anne upstairs.” Jane spoke. She was staring at the mug, as if trying to shatter it with the force of her mind. Her hands were clenching it so tightly that the skin was white almost everywhere, the blood being forced out.
Pause. Dakar turned to meet this new challenge. “No, my sister, you did not.”
Jane whipped her face round towards him. “I’m telling you I did.”
Pause. “Yes, you are telling me you did. But we both know you are lying.”
“I did it!” Stewart whirled back to Sarah-Anne, who was yelling the words. “I did it, Mr Dakar. Just like you said. I confess.” She began to get her wild breathing under control as everyone in the room stared at her.
“Mum …” Sandra said the word with a horrified expression.
“I’m sorry, my darling. I’m so sorry. I’ll explain. I’ll explain everything.” She turned back to Dakar, her shoulders forward, hands out in supplication. She was practically falling forward over the breakfast bar as she spoke. “I did it. You’re right. I’ll tell the police. Graham will go free. Call them. Call them now. I’ll say. Everything.”
Pause. Dakar smiled, but it was filled with sorrow. “We must have the entire truth, my sister.”
“You have it! You know it! I did it.” Sarah-Anne repeated the words, her tone flooded with desperation. Stewart looked between the two, the maniacal intensity of Sarah-Anne against Dakar’s implacable calm.
Pause. “You were helped, my sister.”
“No! No, I wasn’t. I didn’t need any help.” Dakar opened his mouth to speak, but Sarah-Anne cut him off, taking a step around the breakfast bar towards Dakar. “He was my husband! My responsibility!”
Pause, a shake of the head. “I am sorry. But hiding the truth now only serves more pain later.”
Sarah-Anne stared at him, and she seemed to wilt away, like a flower being burned in a fire.
“Once I realised it was Daniel at the window, and he himself had gone downstairs, out of the window, there were two difficult questions. Who closed the window? It is impossible to close from the outside. One can close it most of the way, but not all. And secondly, what was in the cellar that Daniel wanted?”
“I did it on my own.” Sarah-Anne mumbled the words, looking down at the ground, like she hadn’t heard what Dakar had just said.
Pause. “You were helped by your daughter.”
“No!”
Stewart’s eyes almost fell out of his head as he turned to look at Sandra. But her appalled expression couldn’t have been faked.
“Your adopted daughter.”
Chapter 50
“No. She did nothing.” Sarah-Anne bared her teeth as she spoke, her lips rolled back in a gesture deep in the DNA of every human as she looked back up at Dakar.
Dakar turned to look at Jane, who still gazed at her mug, still trying to shatter it under the combined pressure of her fingers and her mind. Then he turned back to Sarah-Anne. He spoke gently, almost sorrowfully.
“Another thing that has niggled at my mind throughout this whole investigation was that you didn’t have to put out an extra chair for Charles. That meant you knew he was coming already, and so someone must have told you. Not Daniel, this I was sure of. It took me a long time to realise who. Jane seemed close to Daniel. And yet, up until recently, she was very close to you. And when I considered that maybe your fight wasn’t as genuine as it appeared, then the entire night began to make sense.”
Nothing stirred in the room. Dakar turned to look at the younger woman.
“Jane was the one who told Daniel of the surprise party. She proposed the idea that Daniel appear at the window to scare everyone, and suggested Daniel climb out of the window and wait for her in the cellar.”
Jane’s eyes didn’t move from the mug in front of her.
“She set off the bangers which let Daniel know everyone was outside and that he could start his little charade at the window. She was also the one who got to the window in the bedroom first, and closed it firmly.”
The Price to Pay Page 26
