Irrefutable Evidence: A Crime Thriller

by David George Clarke

  The interview with Henry progressed to the increasing frustration of McPherson and the puzzlement of Jennifer. She could hardly call herself experienced in dealing with murderers, and the fact that this one was an actor was ever-present in her thoughts. But there was something about him, something that seemed fundamentally honest, that raised questions in her mind that she’d rather not hear.

  She found it odd that he’d never once suggested in interview that he’d been framed, even though it was the only alternative explanation for the mountain of evidence against him. Jennifer thought the suggestion was nonsense; no one, surely, could have carried out such a complicated sequence of events and not made a mistake, not left something of themselves behind. No, this man was not only guilty, but also, she supposed, totally insane.

  The interview got them no farther forward. Despite the new evidence, it was becoming clear that Henry was never going to confess. After they had finished, Charles Keithley took the unusual step of asking to see Mike Hurst.

  “Detective Chief Inspector,” he said, as he accepted Hurst’s invitation to sit in the quiet of his office. “I know this is unusual, so I want to emphasise that I’m not here to ask for anything more than a few minutes of your time.”

  He went over his conversations with Henry, explaining his own conviction of Henry’s innocence and all the reasons why. To his surprise, Hurst was sympathetic.

  “This is off the record, Mr Keithley, since I know that you don’t want it to be known that we’ve been discussing this any more than I do. However, I trust you as an honourable man not to try to use this conversation to your advantage in court.”

  “I’m not a barrister, Chief Inspector, so I won’t be standing up in court, and I can assure you that this conversation will remain between ourselves.”

  “Good. Mr Keithley, I’ve been a police officer for more than thirty years and I’m soon to retire. I’ve seen every type of scumbag criminal that exists out there and I’ve seen many sophisticated men and women who thought they were above the law. Regardless of who they were or their background, they all had one thing in common. It’s more of an attitude than anything else, a way of speaking, holding themselves, the way they look at you. All I can say is that Henry Silk doesn’t have that, which is a surprise to me, because as I said, I thought I’d seen it all.

  “My job, Mr Keithley, is to collect the evidence, process it and act on it. That’s what I do. Silk’s demeanour surprises me but I can’t get it out of my head that he is an actor, and a good one. The only explanation I can come up with is that somehow, for some reason, he’s playing the part of his life. I don’t know what the motive is and his plans may have gone astray. But he’s got you totally on his side, and I know that he’s caused a number of us to question everything in great detail.

  “However, the simple fact of the matter is that we have a huge amount of irrefutable evidence against him. You have suggested to me that it could have been planted; you’re not the only one. I’ve thought that one through too. You see, we’re not all blinkered, lock-‘em-up-at-the-first-opportunity types. But I’ve seen planted before, on more than one occasion, and if there’s one thing that people who plant evidence do, it’s that they leave too much. So much normally that it’s sitting there waving at you.

  “Now, this case isn’t like that. Yes, there’s a lot of evidence, and it’s strong, but it’s also quality evidence, not over the top. Take the girl’s hair in the car. The two hairs found by the forensic people might easily have been missed. And then there’s the weapon used to knock her unconscious. We still haven’t found it. You’d imagine someone planting evidence would make sure it was found.

  “So, Mr Keithley, I don’t think this evidence is planted, it’s too subtle for that. Therefore the only other conclusion I can come to is that your man is guilty.”

  C hapter 14

  Henry Silk may not have confessed, but that didn’t dampen the team’s mood for celebration. Friday evening saw Jennifer join Derek Thyme, Neil Bottomley and Rob McPherson in the Horse and Hounds pub a few steps from the SCF HQ. It was a regular watering hole for the men — Jennifer normally found an excuse not to join them — somewhere they felt they could relax.

  Even the normally dour McPherson was smiling. “It must be something of a record for a crime where the culprit has no known connection with the victim,” he crowed, echoing the DCI’s words. “A couple of days like that. Magic.”

  He downed his pint and headed for the bar for another round.

  Putting the drinks on the table, he noticed that Jennifer had hardly touched her first glass of red wine.

  “Sup up, lass, this is a special night. You won’t get many cases like this in your career, so you want to remember it, enjoy it.”

  Bottomley was less gung-ho.

  “What’s up, Jennifer, is something wrong? You of all of us should be celebrating. You’ve done very well, come up with some really good points that pushed the investigation along nicely. And you stopped Rob here dropping himself in the poo down in Luton.”

  McPherson grunted while Jennifer averted her eyes. She knew she had been pushing it by stopping her senior officer in full flood, but rules were rules.

  “She was right, Neil,” growled McPherson, to everyone’s surprise. “I would’ve got a right bollocking from the Ice Queen.”

  He shuddered theatrically and grinned. “Probably be on parking meters by now.”

  Bottomley wanted to pursue it. “Come on Jennifer, out with it, unless it’s personal — I don’t want to pry.”

  Jennifer laughed. “You mean you want me to come clean about my affair with the chief constable.”

  “No, we all know about that; we’ve seen the photos,” said Bottomley, deadpan.

  “I don’t get why you’re down either, Jen,” chimed in Derek. “After all, you got special mention from Hurst, and even the Ice Queen was seen to smile in the briefing.”

  “She was?” they all said together.

  Derek was amused by their response.

  “Well, what she thinks is a smile. It’s a microscopic twitch, just here,” he said, pointing to the corner of his mouth.

  “I didn’t see it,” said McPherson, half believing him.

  “You must have blinked, guv,” countered Derek.

  “We all must’ve,” said Jennifer, finally taking another sip from her wine.

  The men fell silent and waited. They weren’t going to let it drop. Jennifer knew what they were doing and finally sighed.

  “OK, I give in. It’s probably my inexperience showing but I reckon that although Henry Silk might be a lot of things, he’s certainly not stupid. In all the interviews, he’s come across as an articulate, sensible, informed and polite man. In fact, given the circumstances, I’d say he was remarkably relaxed, and really quite persuasive.”

  “Classic traits of a psycho,” shrugged McPherson, taking a large swig from his pint.

  “Maybe,” nodded Jennifer, “but one of the things that bothers me is that he’s clever and he knows about forensic evidence — we know that since he’s been in a few TV things other than Runway that involve forensic—”

  “He was a pathologist in one I saw,” said Derek.

  “Exactly. So why on earth didn’t he do more to cover his tracks. It’s almost as if he wanted to get caught.”

  “Totally arrogant.” McPherson was dismissive. “I’ve seen his sort before. They think they are so clever that they’ll taunt us, play games. Perhaps he didn’t originally intend to kill her, perhaps he was disturbed by someone who hasn’t come forward.”

  Jennifer shook her head. “No, I don’t agree. It was premeditated enough. There were no signs of a struggle in the car. Anything but, in fact. I think he had every intention of catching her totally by surprise.”

  Bottomley was shaking his head. “Me, I reckon he knew her, or had some connection with her. We’ll probably never find out what it was.”

  Jennifer frowned. “You mean you don’t think he killed he
r at random, sarge?”

  “Hard to say, but he has no history of aggression towards prostitutes, in fact to anyone. He’s been on the receiving end of a few punches, fights in pubs and so on, which weren’t his fault, by all accounts. There’s no indication that he goes around picking fights.”

  “Whether he knew her or not,” continued Jennifer, “don’t you think it’s odd that he made no attempt to clean out his car? I saw his face when we found the shoe – it was a complete surprise to him.”

  “Of course it was,” snorted McPherson. “If he’d known it was there, he’d hardly have left it, would he?”

  “No, but I don’t mean that. I mean that his face didn’t register an oh-shit-I-missed-it kind of look; it was total incredulity. What I’m saying is why didn’t he clean out the car? If he’d killed her there, he must have known there’d be fingerprints from her, hairs, fibres and so on.”

  “Perhaps he did and that’s what was left,” said Neil through his pint.

  “No,” insisted Jennifer. “If he’d cleaned it, he might have left a few traces since as we know, it’s difficult to remove everything, but not that much. And although it’s yet to be confirmed, the lab said there’s a load of foreign fibres on the tapings from the girl. Brown wool, which I’d bet a pay cheque are from him. The scientist I spoke to said there are tons; they’re just waiting for the controls from the pullover we seized to compare them.”

  “He could hardly have removed all those,” said Derek, not understanding where her argument was going.

  “What I mean is, why are there so many? There was no sexual assault or even consensual sex.”

  “Easy,” said McPherson. “He carried her from the car to where she was dumped. Bound to end up with a load of his fibres on her.”

  “So why didn’t he dump the pullover and the rest of his clothes?” argued Jennifer. “He hasn’t even washed them.”

  McPherson raised his eyebrows at her. “Sounds like the smooth-talking Mr Silk has cast a spell on you, Cotton.”

  “Rubbish,” harrumphed Jennifer. “Not at all. But surely you’d agree that his apparent total lack of awareness is almost perverse.”

  Bottomley rubbed the stubble on his chin. “So, do you think he’s innocent? How do you explain all the evidence?”

  “Planted?” Jennifer’s question was hesitant, knowing the reaction she’d get.

  They all laughed.

  “Who by and how?” chortled McPherson. “Come on, Jennifer, get real. Think of the planning. Perhaps it was the invisible man.”

  “Perhaps he was drugged.” Jennifer knew she was getting nowhere, but she felt she had to continue.

  McPherson was enjoying himself, showing off his experience to a novice.

  “You mean like a date-rape victim. That would take some doing, especially since there’s no indication that he was with anyone.

  “Look, sometimes you have to accept that there’s no rhyme nor reason to why someone’s done something like this, especially when it seems to be out of character. You can’t put yourself inside the head of a culprit like that because his head is a mess. There’ll be no rational or sensible explanation. People who do this sort of thing are either dense low life or calculating psychopaths. Cold-hearted killers when you’re dealing with murder.”

  Jennifer stared at her wine, not feeling like drinking any more.

  “I know all that, guv. I’m just not convinced he’s either.”

  C hapter 15

  Despite the promise in her pep talk of providing whatever resources were necessary, detective superintendent Freneton was keeping a keen eye on expenditure. In her role of resources manager, the buck stopped with her for the entire SCF. If they went over-budget, it was her head on the block with the high command.

  One of the cost-cutting initiatives she had introduced almost before her coat had settled on its hook on the day she assumed office as squad commander was to cut overtime payments. The measure was not well received: detectives supplemented their salaries with overtime, especially when there was a big case on. Freneton knew that, but costs were escalating and needed to be reduced. She instructed that once a certain number of hours of overtime had been worked, the officer would take time off in lieu for any more clocked up, or work for nothing. Mike Hurst knew it wouldn’t work; it had been tried before, but Freneton insisted.

  For this reason, the following Monday morning, Jennifer was at home in her apartment in Nottingham’s Park district, a private estate of large Victorian houses a stone’s throw from the city centre, taking time off in lieu. Her stepfather, the Milan-based and internationally renowned fashion designer Pietro Fabrelli, had bought her the apartment as a present when he heard she was moving to the Nottingham area as a police officer. He thought her career choice was crazy — he would have far preferred to use her intelligence in his business and for her to help him deal with the wreck that her mother had become — but he knew better than to resist, so he decided to help her in any way he could.

  “It’s going to be a hard life, carissima, long hours and much pressure,” he had told her in a phone call from his baroque-inspired office in the Via Monte Napoleone, his liquid tones attempting to perform their persuasive magic. Jennifer always imagined him sitting there in a brocade silk jacket and powdered wig.

  “You’ve got to have somewhere private where you can relax, somewhere quiet and comfortable, away from all the madness. I’ve seen the cop shows; I worry about you.”

  Jennifer’s apartment was one of four in the expensively restored Lincoln View House that in the eighteen hundreds had been one of the grander of the Park’s exclusive residences. Occupying half of the first floor, the apartment had a fine view over the adjacent Lincoln Circus, a large, tree-fringed circular garden popular with dog walkers. Originally, Jennifer had found the ground floor apartment, which came with its own private garden, a tempting proposition, but even though the plot was walled and protected with a high, electronic gate, Pietro was still worried about security, preferring the extra barrier against intruders that living one floor up would bring.

  The spacious living room had once been a master bedroom with its own balcony. In summer, nearby trees filtered the light flooding through the south-facing French doors, filling the space with a brilliant softness that was hardly ever too hot; in winter the unfiltered rays were guaranteed to boost the temperature on the coldest days. Jennifer had fallen in love with it as soon as she walked in, and now that the apartment was filled with her own furniture, fittings and books, it was the perfect haven and she loved to spend time there.

  By eleven o’clock, she had finished her chores and was relaxing in a huge, soft armchair by the balcony doors with a mug of freshly brewed Arabica, a feel-good glow about her. Her first big case was all but finished and it had gone fantastically well. She was re-reading Dante’s Inferno in Italian for possibly the fiftieth time when her mobile rang.

  “Jenni—”

  “Cotton! Where are you?” Rob McPherson’s sharp voice barked in her ear. There were no niceties.

  “At home, gu—”

  “Well, whatever you’re doing, drop it. You need to come straight here, to the SCF. The big boss wants to talk to you. Immediately.”

  His tone was cold, full of suppressed anger.

  “What’s it abou—”

  The phone went dead, leaving Jennifer staring at the display. She thought of calling Derek Thyme to see if he knew what was going on. But then it dawned: the big boss? She assumed by that McPherson meant either the Ice Queen or her boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Hawkins. She’d only spoken to him once at length, on her first day. Rather overweight, and reluctantly balding, he seemed nice enough if rather distant. He had a reputation for rigid adherence to the rules, rather like the Ice Queen, but his methods were less ruthless. No point in calling Derek; it was unlikely he’d know anything.

  She looked at her clothes. Jeans and a sweatshirt. That wouldn’t do, but she’d need to be quick.

  Twent
y-five minutes later she walked into the main squad room and immediately registered the silence: there was none of the usual buzz of conversation. Heads turned towards her, eyes cautious, concerned looks on all the faces. She raised her eyebrows a fraction as she caught Derek Thyme’s eyes, but the response was a tiny shake of the head. Clearly neither he nor anyone else knew what was going on.

  “Cotton! This way!” commanded McPherson from the corner of the room.

  He was standing by a door that opened onto a corridor leading to the inner sanctum of bosses’ offices. Jennifer followed him to the corner of the building: the DCS’s office. McPherson knocked on the door, opened it and stood aside to let Jennifer pass. Then he followed her in, closed the door and stood in front of it, as if to guard it and prevent her escape.

  Jennifer was shocked to see not one but three of her senior officers in the room. They were all seated at the far end behind a long table, a set-up used for promotion board interviews. And for disciplinary hearings. In the centre, leafing through a file was the DCS. To his right was Mike Hurst who was quietly drumming his fingers on the table as he stared at a point in space beyond Jennifer’s left shoulder, while on the DCS’s left sat Olivia Freneton, her face thunderous as her eyes pierced into Jennifer’s. The memory of a comment from Neil Bottomley about Darth Vader crossed Jennifer’s mind.

  “DC Cotton, come over here,” ordered the DCS as he closed the file and looked up at Jennifer.

  There were two chairs on Jennifer’s side of the table, but there was no invitation to sit. She took a few steps forward, glancing back at McPherson as she did. His rough-hewn features registered little, except he looked ten years older.

  Jennifer stopped three feet in front of the table and stood to attention, her eyes fixed on the wall behind the DCS’s head. She knew she must have done something terribly wrong and was frantically racking her brains to consider all the possibilities. A report she’d forgotten to write? One she’d left important details out of? Perhaps one into which she’d put too much detail, making the CPS angry because the defence would have access. In the few milliseconds of deafening silence from her bosses as they all turned their attention to her, she trawled through many possibilities, but she was stumped. She couldn’t think of anything.