Letters To My Daughter's Killer

by Cath Staincliffe

  ‘Were there any signs of a struggle elsewhere in the property?’

  ‘No, only in the living room.’

  I think of the floorboards they removed.

  ‘Please tell the court what items were sent for testing,’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘From the scene?’ Mr Noon asks.

  ‘Yes, from the scene.’

  ‘Fingerprints and footwear impressions,’ he says, as if starting a long list.

  Mr Cromer holds up a hand. ‘The jury will, I think, be familiar with fingerprints and how they can be matched, but please tell us about footwear impressions.’

  ‘Certainly. We now have the technology to be able to recover the impressions left by footwear, shoes and the like, from many surfaces, even carpet. Certainly from the type of laminate flooring found at the Tennysons’. These can then be matched to footwear.’

  ‘Wouldn’t the same brand of shoes leave the same marks?’ Mr Cromer asks.

  ‘Initially, but as soon as a piece of footwear is worn, it acquires marks, nicks or cuts in the sole. By comparing these, we can match impressions to an individual item.’

  ‘You recovered footwear impressions from the scene?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘Yes. As with fingerprints, there were many sets found. Together these could tell us who had been at the house. And the footwear impressions would show traffic since the floor was last cleaned.’

  I picture Florence’s shoes, see her running round their living room.

  ‘Please go on,’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘We were able to match and discount those belonging to the deceased and to her daughter, and to match other impressions to both Mr Tennyson and Mrs Sutton.’ The step I’d taken into the room before all those hands dragged me away. ‘And of course we matched and eliminated footwear from officers and CSIs at the scene. We were however left with a substantial number of impressions from a pair of size ten men’s running shoes which could not be accounted for. One of those impressions was close to the victim and was made in blood.’

  ‘A bloody footprint,’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘Shoe print,’ the scientist corrects him. ‘Which could only have been made during or after the attack.’

  ‘Can you tell us any more about this shoe?’

  ‘Yes, it was an Adidas running shoe, from the 2009 summer season,’ says Mr Noon.

  ‘Size ten?’

  ‘That’s right,’ says Mr Noon.

  ‘I’m right that clothes and footwear worn by both Mr Tennyson and Mrs Sutton were taken by the police for examination?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘Yes, that’s common procedure.’

  ‘And what size were the trainers that Mr Tennyson surrendered to you for comparison?’ asks the barrister.

  ‘Size ten.’

  ‘But a different make?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘Yes, Nike, an older pair,’ says Mr Noon.

  ‘Were there any traces of blood on the Nike trainers?

  ‘No.’

  ‘And the clothes that Mr Tennyson had surrendered?’

  I am a ghoul, eager to hear of blood on your garments and your shoes, to imagine you sprayed with Lizzie’s blood, daubed in it, caught red-handed.

  But he says no, the witness.

  ‘Nothing?’ Mr Cromer sounds incredulous.

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Was there any blood at the scene?’

  ‘A great deal,’ Mr Noon says. ‘On the floor and the walls and the furniture.’

  ‘Were you able to identify all the fingerprints?’

  ‘Not all of them, but that is not unusual.’

  ‘Were any fingerprints of particular interest?’ Mr Cromer pushes his wire glasses up his nose.

  ‘There were two which included blood,’ says Mr Noon.

  ‘Where were these prints?’

  ‘There was one on the wall at the bottom of the stairs, and one on the bathroom door.’

  ‘Did you identify these?’

  ‘Yes, they belonged to Mr Tennyson.’ There’s an electric buzz of concentration in the court. It’s surely damning evidence. Blood on your hands, a bloody footprint. I want to kiss Mr Cromer.

  ‘We heard from the pathologist that a poker had been recovered from the scene and was thought to be the weapon used. Did you examine it?’

  ‘Yes. It had been wiped clean,’ says Mr Noon.

  ‘You could tell?’

  ‘Oh yes, otherwise we would have been able to see material from the victim on the weapon, blood, hair and so on. And fingerprints, perhaps.’

  ‘You recovered nothing?’ Mr Cromer asks.

  ‘We did find traces of the victim’s blood trapped in places where the metal was pocked or rusted and flaked, but no fingerprints. We also found an oily residue and fibres that we matched to a brand of baby wipe.’

  My stomach heaves at the thought of that: the moist perfumed tissue and the bloody poker; the juxtaposition seems obscene. Someone somewhere in the forensics lab must have painstakingly tested those traces.

  ‘Did you find such wipes at the house?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘Yes, there were some in the kitchen.’

  ‘Were they visible from the living area?’

  ‘No, they were on a shelf below the breakfast bar,’ says Mr Noon.

  ‘What else did you examine forensically?’

  ‘We examined the contents of the ash tray from the wood-burning stove. We found synthetic material, a polyurethane, traces of a man-made substance, EVA, and rubber in the ash.’

  ‘EVA is?’ Mr Cromer says.

  ‘Ethylene-vinyl acetate – known as foam rubber.’

  ‘And where would that combination of material be found?’

  ‘Most commonly in footwear and sports equipment.’

  You burned your shoes! I feel pressure in my chest; Bea shoots me a look.

  ‘Is it true to say that what you found in the ash was consistent with someone burning a pair of running shoes in the stove?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘How long would it take to reduce a pair of running shoes to ash in a stove like that?’

  ‘About fifteen minutes if the stove was already alight.’

  The warm light it cast on Lizzie’s arm.

  ‘Have you any other observations that you and the senior investigating officer felt were pertinent to the investigation?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘Yes, the shower in the bathroom had been used, as well as the hand basin. We detected traces of blood in the water drops on the shower screen.’

  ‘Was the blood visible to the naked eye?’

  ‘No, it looked like water droplets,’ says Mr Noon.

  You washed. You burned your shoes. Perhaps your clothes as well.

  ‘Can you tell us about the shoes retrieved from Mr Tennyson, the Nike trainers?’

  ‘We could match them to footwear impressions in the house. When they were examined, we found traces of soil and grit and sand and plant matter.’

  ‘But no blood?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘That is correct.’

  * * *

  Miss Dixon takes each item in turn, twisting it from a damning piece of evidence into something neutral and inconclusive.

  ‘From the analysis of blood spatter, can you tell us anything about the assailant?’ Miss Dixon says. ‘Height or weight, for example?’

  ‘Only that they would have been average height – neither very tall nor very short,’ says Mr Noon.

  ‘The residue in the ash tray, were you able to say specifically where that came from?’

  ‘No,’ he says.

  ‘Can you state categorically that it was even a pair of shoes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were you able to determine who had used the shower at the house?’ Miss Dixon says.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is it possible that it was Mrs Tennyson?’

  ‘Yes, although her hair was dry and the shower cap in the bathroom was also dry.’

  ‘You detected blood traces in
the shower, that’s correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you able to identify the blood?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘It was Mrs Tennyson’s,’ he says.

  ‘If Mrs Tennyson had a cut on her arm or a nosebleed, could that account for the presence of blood in the shower?’

  ‘It could,’ says Mr Noon.

  Lizzie did suffer from nosebleeds. Did you tell them that? Ammunition to shoot down the prosecution case?

  Miss Dixon goes on, calm, methodical, relentless. ‘The shoe print at the scene, the Adidas summer trainer. That’s a popular brand, it was a popular design?’

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘The top-selling style that season?’ says Miss Dixon.

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Noon says.

  ‘Thousands of pairs sold in the north-west alone?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘You can’t be certain who wore that shoe at the scene?’

  ‘No,’ says Mr Noon.

  ‘Or who it belonged to?’

  ‘No.’

  No. No. No. All the negatives piling up, sandbags against the tide.

  By the end of the session, she has eaten away at the foundations, like woodworm boring holes through the joists. So the jury see that someone wore those trainers, wielded that poker and cleaned it, but not necessarily you. The bloody footprint, the marks on the wall, the blood in the shower: they have lost their power. They no longer damn you.

  I steal a glance at you, intent on finding some gleam of arrogance, a smirk tugging at your lips or cold pride in your eyes, but you are still in character. Method acting. You’re good at that. But you have a great range. I saw your Richard III at the Everyman. Brutal. The transformation was spectacular.

  Ruth

  CHAPTER THREE

  17 Brinks Avenue

  Manchester

  M19 6FX

  Marian and Alan are here for the trial. Your staunch supporters. We have done no more than nod to each other coolly so far. Today, the third day, Marian approaches me as we wait to go through the security scanners.

  ‘Hello,’ she says. Thankfully she doesn’t ask how I am – or I might just tell her. ‘We’d like to see Florence,’ she says. Colour in her face.

  Tony arrives with Denise; he sends a question my way with his eyes. Everything OK?

  Not so as you’d notice. I give him a jaded stare.

  I want to refuse Marian and Alan, don’t want them anywhere near me, or Florence.

  ‘We are her grandparents too,’ Marian says when I fail to offer any response.

  ‘That’s right,’ Alan chips in.

  ‘We could take her out,’ she says.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ I say. We shuffle forward in the queue, closer to the scanner and the guards checking the bags of everyone entering or leaving the building.

  ‘You can’t just—’ Marian almost loses her temper.

  But I cut her off. ‘Florence is still very clingy. She doesn’t like new situations; you’d be better seeing her at the house.’

  She makes a little noise, ‘Pfft!’ as though she doesn’t believe me, as though I am being obstructive.

  ‘You can see for yourself,’ I say bluntly. The woman ahead of me puts her bag on the tray, and when the guard signals, she goes through the security gate.

  ‘Come round this evening,’ I suggest to Marian, ‘or tomorrow. She usually goes to bed at seven. Routine is important.’

  The guard nods to me and I put my bag down.

  ‘Okay,’ Marian says crisply. The dislike snaps between us like static. I’m itching to throw some of the prosecution case at her. Taunt her with your missing shoes, with pristine clothes and baby wipes. But she is not the enemy, not really; you are. She just happens to be your mother, poor cow.

  I pin my hopes on DI Ferguson. She must have more to tell us about the case against you.

  She looks fresh and full of zest as she swears on the Bible. She describes her role much as she did when she met us.

  ‘You supervised a series of interviews with Mr Tennyson after the murder?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Can you please tell the court what Mr Tennyson’s version of events was on the night in question?’

  ‘Mr Tennyson said he and his wife had been at home, Mrs Tennyson was watching television and Mr Tennyson went to the gym. On his return, he discovered his wife on the floor in the living room. He tried to rouse her, and when that failed, he called the police, then his mother-in-law, Mrs Sutton.’

  ‘What time did you receive the 999 call?’

  ‘Ten fifty p.m.,’ says DI Ferguson.

  ‘Had you reason to question his account?’

  ‘Yes. The forensic evidence did not consistently support Mr Tennyson’s story.’

  I like the word ‘story’; it implies a fiction, something you made up to hoodwink us all.

  ‘Please elaborate,’ Mr Cromer says.

  ‘Mr Tennyson stated that he tried to rouse his wife. Specifically that he approached her from the doorway, bending over to see if she was breathing. And that he shook her shoulder, her right shoulder, calling her name.’ Her ruined face, draped in blood-thick hair. ‘Had that been the case, we would expect to find traces of blood on Mr Tennyson’s clothing, and certainly on his footwear, as the blood on the floor formed a pool around the deceased’s head and upper body.’

  ‘No such traces were found?’

  ‘None.’

  You cleaned up too well, that’s what she’s saying. In an effort to obliterate all signs of your crime, you compromised yourself. You have put your foot in it by not putting your foot in it. Priceless!

  ‘We began to wonder if Mr Tennyson had been present at the time of the murder and had subsequently changed his clothes and footwear and concealed them. A number of items of evidence supported this scenario. The skin under Mrs Tennyson’s fingernails was matched to Mr Tennyson,’ says DI Ferguson.

  A murmur ripples round the room, and I feel light-headed for a moment.

  ‘Mr Tennyson had grazes on his forearm,’ she goes on. ‘His fingerprints in blood on the wall by the stairs and on the bathroom door showed us that Mr Tennyson had blood on his hands but not on anything he claimed to be wearing at the scene.’

  ‘To be clear, did he have any blood on his hands when the police examined him later that night?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘No, he said he had washed his hands in the basin in the bathroom. We considered the presence of the victim’s blood in the water droplets on the shower screen, and in addition the material from the ashes of the wood-burner, which gave us a potential explanation for the absence of the Adidas running shoes that had left an impression at the left-hand side of Mrs Tennyson’s body.’

  ‘Those shoes were never found, that’s the case?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘That’s right. However, we did find proof of purchase of a pair of those running shoes on Mr Tennyson’s credit card statement from July 2009. Bought on the twenty-ninth of the month.’

  My breath catches. I hear someone else gasp. Bea grabs my hand and squeezes. She has you! She has you buying the trainers. How will you wriggle out of that?

  ‘Five weeks before the murder?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Did you ask Mr Tennyson about this?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘The question was put to him and he said that the trainers had been an impulse buy, they had been uncomfortable, so after a couple of weeks he had taken them for recycling to the bin outside the shoe shop on Stockport Road.’

  The case of the disappearing evidence. Where are we now, in some Christie novel?

  DI Ferguson continues. ‘We weren’t able to verify this. The contents of the bag are collected every week.’

  ‘Did anyone see Mr Tennyson on the evening of the twelfth of September?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘Yes, the receptionist at the gym, the clerk in the convenience store where he bought milk, and a neighbour w
ho lives at the other end of the cul-de-sac,’ DI Ferguson says.

  ‘Did Mr Tennyson provide you with an account of the route he had taken to the gym?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Members of the jury,’ Mr Cromer says, ‘you will find that mapped out for you.’ It is also displayed for us on the screen.

  ‘How long did he say it took him?’

  ‘Mr Tennyson says it takes about half an hour to walk there?’

  ‘What time did he claim to have left the house?’

  ‘At half past eight,’ says DI Ferguson.

  ‘Would he pass any CCTV cameras?’

  ‘Only here, by the bank.’ She pointed to the place. ‘But if he was on the far side of the street he wouldn’t have been picked up by the cameras.’

  Why was she saying that, giving you an excuse? I’ve a moment’s anger, then I think perhaps she’s doing it to reinforce her honesty, to show she’s not trying to manipulate information, that all her cards are on the table. Leaving your side fewer points to score. DI Ferguson has nothing to hide, nothing to fear.

  ‘Two text messages were sent from Mrs Tennyson’s phone that evening, that is correct?’

  ‘It is,’ says DI Ferguson. ‘One at eight thirty-eight p.m. to Jack Tennyson and one at eight thirty-nine p.m. to Ruth Sutton.’

  ‘At which time Mr Tennyson claims he was on his way to the gym?’ says Mr Cromer.

  ‘That’s right, but we believe he sent the messages before leaving the house, in an attempt to construct an alibi.’

  I feel sick. Lizzie’s last text, the one I’ve saved, treasured, is a sham, a trick.

  ‘Did you examine Mrs Tennyson’s phone?’

  ‘We did. But we found no fingerprints on it,’ says DI Ferguson.

  ‘Is that unusual?’ says Mr Cromer.