by Sibel Hodge
He leaned forward and studied it. ‘No! I told that other inspector bloke the same, but he didn’t believe me. I’ve never seen it before in my life.’ He looked up at me, genuine shock and righteous outrage in his eyes. I’d interviewed hundreds of people over the years, and even though some people could lie their arses off really convincingly, the tell was in their eyes. There was always something there that they couldn’t hide, no matter how good they thought they were. Russell’s eyes told me the truth – that he hadn’t killed Max. Alissa’s, on the other hand, spoke of something distant and unemotional, even when filled with tears.
‘Was your house broken into recently and you didn’t report it?’
He frowned. ‘No. And I’ve got good locks on the doors. I would’ve noticed if someone had tried to get in.’
‘Did you ever notice anything out of place in the house? Anything that struck you as a bit strange?’
He glanced down at the metal desk, thinking. ‘No.’
‘Has anyone else got a spare key?’
‘No.’
‘I was trying to work out how Alissa managed to get one of your hairs planted on Max’s body, and now I have a theory about it.’
‘Alissa didn’t do it. She wouldn’t do something like that. She couldn’t have.’
‘Look, I can’t help you unless you help me. Get your ideas about Alissa out of your head right now. Even the most unlikely person is capable of murder given the right circumstances. Do you use a hairbrush or comb?’
He pointed to his short hair. It had grown a bit since I’d last seen him, but it was still only about three inches long. ‘Do I look like I need one? No, I don’t own a brush or comb.’
‘And before you turned up at the wedding reception, when was the last time you’d seen Alissa?’
He shuffled in his chair but didn’t say anything.
‘When was it?’
‘A few months before. Before they went to Australia. I saw her in town and followed her.’ He avoided my gaze, looking down at his knees.
‘When you were stalking her.’
‘I wasn’t—’ His head snapped up level with mine. ‘Are you trying to set me up? Do the good cop, bad cop thing? Get information from me by pretending to help me?’
I placed my arms out wide in a gesture of sincerity. ‘No. I just want the truth.’
He studied my face for a moment before his own relaxed slightly. ‘I didn’t talk to her or anything. I was just watching.’
‘Tell me again what happened when you gatecrashed the reception at The Orchard.’
‘I don’t remember much about it. I was really pissed. I know I was sitting there by a tree, watching the house from the woods, drinking JD and smoking. And then I saw Alissa on her own and wanted to talk to her. Then, the next minute, I was talking to her. Then Max came over and . . .’ He shrugged. ‘He must’ve asked me to leave, I guess. I don’t know. I was pretty wasted. I woke up the next morning in a bush in the woods near my house. I’d had some kind of blackout, I think, on the way back, and I couldn’t even remember being at The Orchard at first.’
‘What were you wearing?’
He stared off to his left. ‘Um . . . a T-shirt and jeans. I had to chuck them away because when I woke up I’d been lying in a pile of bird shit. Why’s that important?’
‘Were you wearing a cap?’
He chewed on his lower lip, a blank look on his face, which was gradually replaced by something animated. ‘That day . . . yeah. Yeah, I was. I had a baseball cap on when I went there. It was beige with a black Nike tick on it, but I don’t remember having it on when I woke up. I haven’t seen it since, actually, so I must’ve lost it somewhere between The Orchard and waking up in the woods.’
I thought back to the search of Russell’s house. No baseball cap had been found there, either. ‘You’re certain about that?’
He nodded emphatically. ‘Yes. I’d totally forgotten about it until you said, but that could explain where my hair came from, couldn’t it?’
It certainly could. If Alissa had seen him lose it and came back later to retrieve it. I knew from my own experience of wearing them that they could easily snag a hair in them. A hair for someone to plant as irrefutable evidence that Russell was at the scene of the crime.
‘Didn’t your lawyer ask you where the hair could’ve come from?’ I asked, angry with myself because I should’ve asked the right questions before. Angry with Sasha for withholding information.
‘No. He doesn’t seem like he knows what he’s doing. I’ve only got legal aid. I can’t afford anyone better. What do you think, though?’ He placed his hands on the desk, palms down, and leaned forward eagerly.
‘I think she set a trap and you walked right into it.’
This time when I knocked on DI Nash’s door, she opened it. She wore crumpled tracksuit bottoms and an old rugby shirt of Spencer’s that had probably been white at one time, but now looked as if it had been washed in with the darks and had a dirty blue tinge to it. The long auburn hair she usually wore straightened and glossy was tied up in a messy, knotted ponytail. She had dark smudges under eyes that were empty and lost.
I wanted to hug her, but she wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of woman.
‘Meals on wheels.’ I held up a plastic bag.
She tried to smile, but her lips just formed into a tight line. ‘Stop bringing me food. I can look after myself. You’re acting like a bloody mother hen.’
She didn’t mean it. She was trying to be brave. Takes one to know one.
I shrugged. ‘Are you going to let me in or what? Because I’m starving.’
She groaned and threw her hands up in the air with a sigh. Then she walked back into the house, towards the kitchen. ‘It’s not chow mein again, is it?’ She took a couple of plates from the cupboard and set them on the kitchen table, which was littered with piles of unopened post.
I glanced around the room, taking in the sink full of dirty dishes, the half-empty bottle of whisky on the worktop.
‘Cleaner’s day off, is it?’ I grinned, trying to lighten the mood.
‘Shut up.’ She rolled her eyes at me. At least it was a reaction.
I pulled out cartons of curry and rice. Put one set on her plate and one on mine. I wasn’t going to ask her how she was. That much was pretty obvious, and besides, I knew Ellie well. She’d only tell me things in her own good time.
She handed me some cutlery and sat down, staring at the food. I heaped half the rice and prawn dopiaza on to my plate and tucked in.
A couple of minutes later, she was still staring at it. ‘I don’t want to talk.’
‘Well, stop talking, then, and eat.’ I forked in another mouthful and said, ‘I actually want to talk to you. I need some help.’
‘You need my help?’ She snorted. ‘I’m not in the mood to help anyone right now.’
‘It’s about the Burbeck case. The one I told you about.’
She finally removed the lid from the rice and dolloped a couple of spoonfuls on to her plate. ‘I’m not interested. I don’t want to hear anything about work. It was the job that got Spencer killed.’ She looked up, her eyes flashing with tears and anger.
I reached out and put a hand on her arm.
She shook me off and looked away, swallowing hard. ‘Actually, I don’t think I’m going to come back. I don’t think I can do it any more.’
I paused, fork in mid-air. ‘You have to do what you think is right. But I don’t think you should make a decision right now. Give it some time. You’re still grieving.’
‘Shut up!’
‘Two shut ups in five minutes – you’re slacking, Ellie. Normally I get a lot more than that.’
‘This is what I love about you. You’re so sympathetic.’
I pulled an incredulous face. Ellie was hard as nails. Usually. She didn’t do tea and sympathy. She did straightforward and objective. Softly-softly wasn’t exactly my forte, either. I was happier interrogating criminals than dealing with emotions. B
ut sometimes emotions deal with you, rather than the other way around.
I put my fork down. ‘I’m sorry. He was my friend, too.’
‘I know.’ She blinked rapidly, holding back the tears, afraid to cry, to show weakness in front of me.
‘Just let it out. I was a bloody mess after Denise, and you saw all that. You were the only one who saw it. I may not be Dr Phil, but I do care about you. I hate seeing you like this. I want to help,’ I said, even though nothing I could ever do would help. I couldn’t bring her husband back. I couldn’t magically turn off her emotions. Couldn’t suck the grief out of her.
She inhaled deeply. ‘I know. Just ignore me.’
‘Look, maybe thinking about something else will help for a while.’
‘So you’ve got an ulterior motive for coming round all the time and hassling me, then?’
I looked her in the eye. ‘No. I come round because I’m worried about you.’
She nodded briefly. ‘Yeah, I know. Sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise to me.’
She swirled the rice around her plate with her spoon. ‘What’s the investigation about? Robbery, wasn’t it?’
‘Murder.’ I gave her the details again, since she obviously hadn’t been listening to me the first time I’d told her about it. I ended with, ‘I think Alissa killed Max and framed Russell. Yes, I know Russell was stalking her, and we found one of his hairs on Max’s body and the knife in Russell’s shed, but I think the evidence was planted.’
‘Tell me about the scene.’
I ran through Alissa’s account of that night. ‘Her DNA was obviously all over the house, and one of her hairs was found on Max’s body, which can be explained away by her kissing him beforehand. I did a re-enactment of the scene, even climbing through the window and down to the garden.’
‘What did that tell you?’
I sighed. ‘That it’s entirely possible it happened as she said. But I don’t believe her. She’s got a motive to the tune of ten million quid. She could also easily have taken a detour that night, run through the woods to Stiles’ house at the edge of the village, which is in a straight line from hers, planted the evidence in his unlocked shed, and then gone on to her neighbour’s house. It would be well within the parameters of Max’s time of death.’
‘Any other forensic evidence found at Stiles’ place, apart from the knife?’
‘No. Which is strange. If he took the time to get rid of the gloves, shoe covers, clothing, and balaclava, why not get rid of the knife, too? Especially when he knew we were taking an interest in him.’
‘What about Stiles’ hair found on Max’s body? Where did it come from if it was planted?’
I grinned, telling her about what Stiles and Sasha had told me. ‘And there’s one set of recent fingerprints in the office and the rest of the house that are unaccounted for. They don’t match any of their closest friends who were at the wedding reception.’
‘An accomplice?’
‘I thought so at first. I’ve been watching her to see if she’d lead me to anyone else, but she hasn’t. Her phone and computer records were checked and she hadn’t contacted anyone we haven’t accounted for. She could’ve used a throwaway pay-as-you-go phone, I suppose, or an Internet café, but I don’t think so.’
She chewed on the skin around her thumb, thinking. ‘So how do you think she did it?’
‘I think she stabbed him in the back of the neck while he was working, maybe crept up on him if he was listening to music, or maybe she put the music on afterwards to mask that he was comfortable enough in her presence to turn his back on her. Her prints were found on his laptop, but she told me she’d used it before. Then I think she planted the hair she’d got from Russell’s cap on Max’s body. When she removed the knife, because it went straight into the spinal cord and his blood pressure dropped rapidly, there was very little blood loss from the wound. It’s possible she didn’t get any fluids from him on to her. And even if she did, I think that’s when she had her bath to wash away any evidence.’
‘Did SOCO examine the plugholes?’
‘Yes, they didn’t find anything.’
‘OK, so she had a bath after she’d killed him, then climbed out of the window and ran to Stiles’ house to plant the knife before running to her neighbour’s and making up the masked intruder.’
‘That’s my theory.’
‘Naked? Because she apparently lost the towel as she was climbing through the window.’
‘One of the reasons Wilmott thinks she’s got to be innocent is because she ran away naked.’
She frowned. ‘How does he work that one out?’
‘He thinks if she’d planned it, she would’ve been wearing a bath robe instead.’
‘If I’d killed him in those circumstances, it’s exactly the kind of thing I’d have done to make it seem like I was innocent.’
‘But apart from that, Wilmott sees her as a victim and completely disregarded her as a suspect from the beginning. I’m pretty sure he wants to bloody shag her.’
‘He wants to shag anything with a pulse.’ She scoffed. ‘What was DS Greene thinking, appointing him ADI? Wilmott doesn’t know his arse from . . . well, from his mouth, actually. They both spout a load of shit! You should’ve had that job.’
‘Thanks.’ I picked up my fork and drew a circle in the rice left on my plate.
‘So who do the other prints belong to?’
‘Well, this is going to sound really strange, but I don’t think Alissa is who we think she is.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t think she’s actually Alissa Burbeck.’
She snorted. ‘What are you talking about? She’s an imposter? Don’t you think someone would’ve mentioned that by now? Her friends? Even if one of her friends was in on it, which is a ridiculous idea, people from her mum’s nursing home know who she is.’ She shook her head. ‘And you think I’m losing it?’
I leaned my elbows on the table. ‘When you put it like that, it sounds crazy, but hear me out. When I did a videoed interview with her, she hesitated about which hand to use to sign the statement. I wasn’t sure that’s what it was at first – thought it was her being nervous or traumatised – but now I am. She made a move as if to sign it with her right hand, but then seemed to check herself and signed it with her left. Then later, I was doing some observations on her house, and she signed for some flowers with her right hand.’
‘So what? Maybe she sprained her wrist climbing out of the window, or maybe she’s ambidextrous.’
‘No, she was thoroughly checked out at the hospital. She had a couple of scratches on her stomach from climbing out of the window, a bruised heel from jumping to the ground, along with abrasions and cuts on her feet from running through the woods, but that was it. And her best friend Vicky says Alissa is definitely left-handed, not right, and has never had an arm or hand injury.’
She stared at me, a big So? written across her face.
‘You’re right-handed. Have you ever written with your left hand in your life? Ever signed your name with your left hand?’
‘No.’
‘And how many things have you signed over the years?’
‘I don’t know, thousands.’
‘And it’s instinctual, isn’t it? You don’t hesitate, like she did in the interview, before correcting yourself. When she signed for that flower delivery, she didn’t think she was being watched, she wasn’t under pressure, it was instinctual to do it with her right hand.’
‘That doesn’t prove anything.’
‘No, but you have to admit, it’s a strange inconsistency.’
‘Why don’t you just get her signature analysed? Compare the one you witnessed when you took her police statement with another document?’
‘I thought of that, but we don’t have any other documents with her signature on to compare it to. I can’t go to her bank and get a copy without proper authorisation, which Wilmott isn’t going to sign off on, is he? The c
ase is supposed to be closed. But there are more inconsistencies with her.’ I told Ellie about the rose bush named after Alissa that she’d also forgotten.
‘OK, that is strange, but maybe the gardener is confused about it. Or maybe Alissa was distracted, thinking about something else at the time, or just forgot.’
‘No, I don’t think so. According to Vicky, who seems to know everything about her friend, Alissa didn’t have any kind of health problems that would make her forget things. Alissa has also been allergic to kiwi fruit since she was five, but suddenly she isn’t any more.’ I told her what Sasha had told me.
Ellie sat back, raising her eyebrows. ‘That’s really interesting.’ The sarcasm oozed from her voice, but at least it was better than sadness. ‘Some people say they’re allergic to something when they’re not, they’re actually intolerant to things. And people can grow out of intolerances or allergies anyway.’
‘It was definitely an allergy, not an intolerance. And from what I’ve read, it’s unlikely the allergy disappeared.’
‘Is that all you’ve got to support your bizarre theory?’ She stood up, grabbed the whisky bottle and a couple of tumblers, and poured us both a shot. She sat down, tucking her feet up on the chair, cradling her arms around her knees. ‘It’s a big stretch.’
‘There’s something else, too. I went to visit her mum at the nursing home, just to confirm whether Mrs Stanhope was in any fit state to give me any information about her daughter, but it turns out she can’t speak properly. She’s had a couple of strokes. But when I got there, Alissa was there, too, and I asked her some questions about her novel. The document was on her laptop when it was seized.’ I sat back with a smile on my face. ‘So I started asking her questions about it, trying to catch her out. And she couldn’t remember the name of one of the secondary characters in it.’
‘When was the document last looked at?’
‘It was last saved the day before they went to Australia. It could’ve been looked at since then. But it’s not like she wrote it a couple of years ago and forgot some of the details. This woman, who’s supposed to be Alissa Burbeck, doesn’t even know her character’s name and he has a big part in her novel!’
