by Nick Louth
‘We’ve got confirmation on the human bone and flesh fragments in the waste pipe and the soakaway trap. The DNA belongs to Liz Knight.’
‘No room for error?’
‘No, there was a considerable presence of her DNA. We’re 100 per cent sure. The rest turned out to be chicken fat and fish, a normal result for a kitchen waste pipe. There were also a few red woollen fibres. We’ve matched them up against those found in the Knights’ home in Coulsdon, and the rug in the boot of his car. The blood, torn fingernail and hair on that rug are hers too. A few of the hairs match those from Professor Knight’s LSE office chair and his comb.’
Gillard thanked him and hung up. Mulholland nodded as he passed on the news. She looked like she had something to say. ‘Come on, spit it out,’ he said.
‘Okay. When Krugman said Liz was a frigid mouse, you looked like you were going to punch her.’
Gillard shrugged. ‘It was pretty rude, wasn’t it?’
‘Craig, it’s so obvious that you are still in love with Liz Knight. But however much you want to protect her, or her reputation, you can’t. No one can help her now. Because she’s dead.’
* * *
Monday’s next interview was with Vuk Panić, Martin Knight’s colleague at LSE’s Mannheim centre. Gillard wanted to get a lot more insight into Knight’s secret life, and this man, seemingly a good friend for a number of years, had known enough to drop the hint about Dr Natalie Krugman. Gillard and Mulholland had been late getting back from King’s to Caterham police station, and Panić was already there. The desk sergeant had shown him into the interview suite.
Gillard glanced at the CCTV monitor before going in. Panić was sprawled across the sofa reading a hardback, for all the world like he was at home. When Gillard came in, he sat up slowly, pausing to finish the paragraph before standing up. Gillard introduced Claire Mulholland to him, and then noticed the title of the book: Condemned from Birth: Essays in Class, Crime and Offending.
‘Another of Martin Knight’s tomes?’ Gillard asked.
‘Yes, a series of brilliant monographs. You should read the one about Surrey Police and the Deepcut Barracks suicides. It’s very incisive.’
‘Why do you assume I haven’t?’ Gillard asked.
‘Touché, detective chief inspector. Yes, we all have prejudices.’
‘I want to ask you in more detail about Knight’s past. The friends he had, the places he worked, whom he may have visited.’
‘I have prepared,’ smiled Panić, lifting a hefty briefcase onto his lap and bringing out a sheaf of documents, pamphlets and journals. For the next hour, Gillard and Mulholland heard a detailed story of the seemingly inexorable rise of Martin Knight. Panić was hazier over the earlier years, but seemingly had a good memory for the last ten, when Martin’s academic star was already in the ascendant. There was plenty of detail, and the detectives struggled to keep up with the names of journals, honours, awards and fellow academics.
‘Okay,’ said Gillard. ‘A couple of specific areas I want to home in on. We’ve heard about the affairs – with the Brazilian postgrad student and Natalie Krugman. Were there any others, to your knowledge, especially recently?’
Panić pursed his lips. ‘I never met the Brazilian woman, so can’t help you there. Martin was actually quite discreet, and I really only know about the affair with Natalie because she was so open about it. If he had any affairs more recently I don’t think I would have known.’
‘No students he fancied? No likely postgrad students on his one-on-one tutorials?’
Panić smiled indulgently, glancing across to Mulholland. ‘It is no secret that Martin has an eye for the ladies. But things in academia have changed in the last decade or two. I mean, once upon a time, affairs with students were seen by some lecturers as almost a perk, and were overlooked by the university. But now it is a much more high-risk experience, and the female student body is so much more, let us say, assertive about abuse of power. Which isn’t to say it doesn’t happen.’ He shrugged. ‘If he did, he never told me.’
‘All right,’ Gillard said. ‘In Martin’s academic experience and training, would he ever had covered forensics or had to examine and dissect bodies?’
Panić looked surprised by the question. ‘I’m sure he would have had the opportunity for some theoretical forensic work. It’s very fashionable now, of course. It probably wouldn’t have been when he was an undergraduate. But practical work on cadavers? Not so likely.’
‘Did he visit prisons and spend time with prisoners?’
‘He must have done. Look at the extent of his work on incarceration, youth justice and so on. Why are you asking this?’
Gillard paused to consider how to phrase the answer: ‘You might be aware that we have found only parts of Mrs Knight’s body. We want to know who might have had the stomach to dismember her. If the professor hadn’t any experience, as you suggest, of dealing with cadavers, then perhaps he had a contact inside the prison system. Someone he might have met, and who owed the professor a favour.’
Panić’s eyes widened as he considered this apparently shocking idea.
Not getting a reply, Mulholland interjected: ‘Mr Panić, did Martin Knight meet any murderers? Someone who might for a fee have been willing to do his dirty work?’
He paused and then seemed to have a light bulb moment. ‘Well, I did once meet Jimmy Bartram at one of Martin’s parties, in perhaps 2007 or 2008. A fascinating individual.’
Mulholland looked quizzically at Craig. He returned her gaze, and asked: ‘You’ve really never heard of the Shoreditch crane murder?’
She shook her head.
‘Nasty,’ Craig said. ‘Bartram got 20 years, went down in 1981. Got a Ph.D. inside, wrote a bestselling crime novel under a pseudonym which was made into a film, and is now a fashionable poet-cum-advocate of prison reform, and distinctly trendy. He’s all over the Guardian. Opinion pieces, book reviews, you name it.’
The two detectives thanked Panić for his time, and ended the interview. After he had gone, Mulholland asked: ‘So do you think this Bartram bloke could have cut up Mrs Knight?’
‘Well, let’s put it this way. In 1975 Bartram used a blowtorch to kill a drug addict called Colin Ian Anderson who owed him money, and disposed of his body in 12 parts in plastic bags. These were cast inside a concrete counterweight, which was substituted by his building trade mates for one in a tower crane being used for the construction of a city high rise. Because of the recession, and the bankruptcy of the contractor, Anderson’s corpse was up there for six years before the crane came down. Sadly for Bartram, the concrete had cracked and the body parts were found.’
‘So he’s easily capable, then,’ Mulholland said.
‘Was, at least. He’s pushing 60 now, and claims to be a different man. And there isn’t a molecule of his DNA anywhere in any of the three crime scenes. But if it wasn’t him, then he would have the contacts for someone who would happily do it now, for a fee.’
‘Let’s get him in.’
‘Don’t expect it to be a pushover,’ Gillard warned. ‘He’s always been tough, but now he’s got money and clout too.’
His reflections were interrupted by a call over the radio. It was Rob Townsend. ‘Go ahead, Rob,’ he said.
‘You’ll like this. We now know who the mystery sixth person is whose DNA was in the Knights’ home.’ His breathy voice seemed excited.
‘Don’t keep me in suspense,’ Craig said.
‘Dr Natalie Krugman.’
‘Fantastic.’ He felt like punching a fist into the air with delight. Rob was right, he did enjoy it. But not just because it was progress in the case. It was a much more vindictive pleasure than that.
Chapter Nineteen
My arm is still sprained and sore where Martin forced it up my back yesterday evening. His fierce hand pressed my tearful face to the implacable cold quarry tiles. A woman squashed to the kitchen floor, her right and proper place, how appropriate. My fingers fought on, even with
his knee in my back, as I prostrated myself to some hopeless Mecca. But my Sabatier eventually dropped, brittle as a shattered dream, with not yet a drop of blood to whet its keening blade.
Liz’s diary, October 2014
Things turned out to be less simple than expected. By late Monday afternoon, Rob Townsend had verified all Krugman’s flights with American Airlines, and they squared with the account she gave. She had left the UK for New York at 13.50 on Thursday, 13 October. That would mean that while Krugman must have visited the house, she couldn’t have been there at the time of Liz Knight’s death. The cleaner’s last sighting of Liz was only a half-hour before that flight left. The blood fluorescence timings, though approximate, also ruled out Krugman’s involvement.
‘Okay, everyone,’ Gillard called into the incident room. ‘Ten-minute brainstorm.’
He set up the laptop and projector screen. On the whiteboards, he squeaked out some notes with a marker pen. ‘Okay, here’s where we are,’ he said, tapping his way down the points on the whiteboard. We’ve got a large amount of forensic evidence linking Professor Knight to the death of his wife. There is her blood in his car, lots of her blood in her bedroom, and her blood, some teeth, and other human remains in their holiday home. So far, there is no other suspicious DNA from anyone outside the family in any of those places, except that of Natalie Krugman. And she has a rock-solid alibi for the time of death. Any dissent?’
Gillard looked around at his team: Claire Mulholland, Rob Townsend, Carl Hoskins, Colin Hodges and Michelle Tsu; all nodded their agreement. The only one not there was financial specialist Shireen Corey-Williams, still working with Oliver Knight through the family’s assets and property.
‘That seems to be overwhelming circumstantial evidence,’ he said. ‘What we don’t have is the body or remaining body parts, and the murder weapon, or weapons. A number of different tools may have been used to dispose of the body. However, we are now in a better position to lay out what we think may have happened, starting from Wednesday evening. Want to have a go, Claire?’
Mulholland walked up to the whiteboard and wrote down some timings. ‘Okay. At 5.15 p.m. on Wednesday, 14 October, Liz Knight is seen to leave school by multiple witnesses, and gets into her car. At six she joins Helen Jennings at Bacchus wine bar in South Croydon, where she stays until approximately 7.15. That is corroborated by a text to her phone at 7.40 p.m. near her home. She may have been driving. Meanwhile, Martin Knight is having dinner, we believe, with Dr Natalie Krugman. According to Krugman’s statement, Martin Knight leaves the Kensington Place Hotel…’
‘Well shagged and smug with it,’ muttered Hodges.
‘Thank you, Colin… leaves the Kensington Place Hotel at, let’s say, 11 p.m. He gets the last train home. We know this because a text he sent to Krugman pinged a tower in Clapham Junction at roughly the right time. At some point he deletes that text, presumably to stop Liz finding it, but I’ve recovered and read it. Just an innocuous expression of thanks. We assume he arrives home at, let’s say, half past midnight. Now we’ve got a gap.’ She pointed to the whiteboard. ‘From now until about ten next day, Thursday morning, when we have a sighting of Professor Knight walking from home to Coulsdon South. There is a final sighting of Liz Knight, according to the cleaner, at around 1 p.m., which pretty much coincides with a 1-minute-40-second call to Martin Knight’s mobile from the home landline.’
‘Was a message left?’ asked Michelle Tsu.
‘No. Unfortunately, we have no idea what was said on that call,’ Mulholland said. ‘To continue, Liz Knight was never seen again. She didn’t answer any calls to the house landline, of which there were two. Martin takes the train home at his usual time, as we know from the cell site analysis. But whether he came straight home, and what happened there when he did, is unknown. We can place him in his home office at 10 p.m. for the Skype call, and in the small hours from his use of the laptop. Everything else is in the realm of conjecture,’ she said, putting down the pen.
‘Okay. Let’s suppose that Liz Knight had found out that her husband was once again sleeping with Natalie Krugman. Her first real chance to tackle him about it, without the cleaner there, is when he comes home that Thursday evening. She is in her bedroom. They have a row. Perhaps he just stabs her. Either way there is a huge amount of blood.’ The next picture was of a horribly blood-stained red rug, mostly now black with dried blood. ‘This we think is where she died. There isn’t any real evidence of a struggle.’ The next picture was of a wheat-coloured carpet bleached almost white over an area roughly the size of a washbasin. ‘The blood soaked through the Moroccan rug, which has no backing, and onto the bedroom carpet. CSI say that there is no evidence of arterial squirting, which would have produced spray on walls, and certainly over a wider floor area than this. The blood penetrated the carpet underlay, and pooled in the ceiling cavity.’ She showed another image, of the almost black blood pool, confined by floor joists. ‘The murderer was very diligent in cleaning the carpet, and covered up the bleach stain with a fresh rug.’
‘But what about the text Liz sent to her friend?’ Michelle Tsu asked. ‘That was in the evening, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. That was at 7.16 p.m. A friend, Margaret Appledyke, received a text from Liz’s phone, excusing herself from her birthday meal on the grounds of illness.’
‘So she’s still alive as late as that?’ Michelle asked.
‘Not necessarily,’ Claire said. ‘I interviewed Mrs Appledyke several days ago, and there is an oddity. It is the use of the term Maggie to address her in the text. While most of her friends know her by that name, Liz unfailingly called her Magsy.’
‘So Professor Knight sent that text from his wife’s phone?’ Colin Hodges asked.
‘We can’t be sure,’ said Gillard. ‘But pretending to be Liz ill in bed and not taking calls would certainly buy him some time.’
‘Or, just possibly, an upset Liz did go to bed, not feeling up to a birthday party,’ Claire said. ‘Either way the timings to the nearest hour are not crucial anyway. There are no more sightings of Mrs Knight, while from all the mobile signals we have of Professor Knight he carried on his usual commuting routine.’
The door opened and Detective Superintendent Paddy Kincaid came in, tie askew, his face ruddy. Everyone looked at him expectantly. ‘Don’t mind me,’ he said. ‘Carry on.’
Mulholland continued: ‘That evening Martin Knight did a great deal of googling about the disposal of bodies from home on a laptop that remains in his possession,’ Mulholland said. ‘It’s pretty conclusive evidence, if not of murder, then at least of intent to dispose of a body, and it corroborates everything we’ve seen so far. So, at some point, Martin Knight did several things. He stored the body somewhere wrapped in the Moroccan rug, while he cleaned and bleached the carpet, and found a new rug to hide the stain.’
‘He’s really not very clever, is he?’ asked Kincaid. ‘It might have started as the perfect murder on paper, but that’s the problem with academics. Once it got messy and gory, it started to go tits up. Apologies ladies, I meant breasts skywards.’ He permitted himself a small smile. ‘Then he started to panic. In theory he would be forensically aware, and that text subterfuge was clever too, but he’s made a lot of mistakes.’
‘We shouldn’t underestimate him,’ Gillard said. ‘He’s managed to go to ground pretty effectively. The e-fits, with and without beard and glasses, have generated plenty of sightings, but none that stand up. We’ve got his car, so he may well have another vehicle. His known mobile hasn’t been used, so he’s probably got a disposable. The laptop’s not been connected to the Internet since the night of the murder so, once again, perhaps he’s bought another. His passport’s not been used. Perhaps he’s got a false one. His bank cards haven’t been used, and we’re hoping to find out from Shireen very soon if he has alternatives we don’t know about. If the actual murder smacks of panic, the preparations for murder and for getting away unnoticed certainly don’t. They were organized and car
eful.’
‘Someone’s been helping him. I’d put money on that American feminist,’ Kincaid said, rubbing his hands together with a glee that indicated that it wasn’t just money he’d put on her.
Mulholland interrupted: ‘Dr Krugman’s really not in any position to help him go into hiding, at least in this country. She has no home in the UK, and no family here. Her flight details check out, and there’s proof she was in New York giving a lecture the next day. She’s only spent a total of nine days in the UK in the last year and a half. Though some of the email correspondence we have between her and Knight hints that they were planning to live together if he left his wife, there is no hint that she had any kind of bolthole locally that he could use. It was only the Spanish place that was talked about.’
‘Can you review for me the measures you put in place to find Knight?’ Kincaid asked.
Gillard moved across to a whiteboard which was covered with marker pen notes, and turned it so that Kincaid could see it more clearly. ‘Here’s the timeline since I spoke to him,’ he said, indicating a vertical line down the board. ‘Anyone trying to disappear in our modern world will leave a trace, as you know, yet there has not been a single one on bank cards, passport, phone or laptop. We’ve got a European arrest warrant in place, his picture is out to Europol in 28 countries, and his card and phone details have been disseminated. He must have used a vehicle to get away from the Kent coast, and there is no decent public transport anywhere near the place his own car was abandoned. Colin and Carl have called in the CCTV on railway stations and in trains, and British Transport Police are helping out. It will take another week or two to be sure, but it does seem unlikely that he travelled by train, not least because his face is all over the papers.’
‘So what is your own favourite theory?’ Kincaid asked.
‘Going abroad, with the help of an accomplice. The proximity to the Continent is an obvious temptation, with half a dozen ferry routes within two hours’ drive, as well as Eurostar and Le Shuttle. On the way out, an accomplice could have smuggled him in the back of a van or an estate car. Someone could have given him a lift from Dungeness to Dover or Folkestone, or possibly right through to Calais or Boulogne, tucked in a boot or the back of a van. It’s often been done.’
