Irrefutable Evidence: A Crime Thriller

by David George Clarke

  She interlaced her fingers and cracked her knuckles, stretching her arms above her head.

  “Let’s think about it. For whatever reason, she’s made a plan to kill prostitutes and frame men. Which is the more important to her, do you think? Killing the girls or creating abject misery for the men?”

  Jennifer took a sip of her coffee.

  “I think it’s the men. Killing the girls is no more than a means to an end. She might have chosen prostitutes because they are easy targets and the mud of apparently using them will stick harder to the men she’s framing.”

  “OK,” said Sally, chewing a sliver of lemon peel she’d tossed into the brew in her mug, “let’s not worry about the whys at the moment. She must be psychopathic so the whys are always harder to fathom. If she’s got these two credit cards that she has renewed every two or three years, she must have been planning this lifestyle for ages, probably long before she put the plan into action.”

  “It could be, of course,” mused Jennifer, “that there are many other murders where her MO was different, meaning I would have missed them. The thing that occurred to me was that her aim is to get her targets found guilty and sent down. The evidence would be strong, albeit circumstantial, and the trial short and sharp. The target will have been imprisoned on remand upon arrest and almost before he knows what’s hit him, he’ll be serving a long prison sentence. His head will be reeling. I certainly think that’s where Henry still is, even though his case hasn’t yet gone to trial. Despite trying to maintain an outward appearance of cool, his head must be in turmoil.”

  Sally was watching Claudia-Jane engrossed in a dinosaur turf war, but her mind was completely focussed on Jennifer’s conversation.

  “What a cold-hearted bitch. Do you think she knows her targets or picks them at random?”

  “I don’t think she knows them personally. I’m sure that she’s never had anything to do with Henry. The apparent culprits in the other four cases I’ve found out about were something of a mixed bunch. I suspect she’s read about them and chosen them as targets for some reason. But I’m also pretty certain that there’s nothing to link them together other than the fact that they are men.”

  Sally scratched her head. “Right, let’s think about her and the MO we know about. She’s got these two credit cards that she seems to alternate using, cards that she probably never uses for anything else.”

  She paused as a thought occurred. “No, perhaps she does. Makes a few purchases to muddy the waters. And presumably she uses them in the hotels because that’s what everyone does these days. People don’t use cash in hotels any more. If she did, it might stand out in a receptionist’s memory, which is something she doesn’t want. However, she has to consider the possibility of some bright cookie like you rumbling her. She would need to explain herself.”

  Jennifer was nodding, working it out. “Yes, I can see where you’re going. You’re thinking she might develop a pattern of use in hotels for a night or two, hotels that are nothing to do with any murders. That would make the five we know about seem far less significant; they’d just be five in a large number of hotel visits.”

  Sally smiled. “Exactly. Makes sense, don’t you think?”

  “Actually, Sally, I’m not sure it does. You see, even if she could come up with some reason to use those cards rather than her own for hotel visits, anonymity or something, we mustn’t forget she’s a senior police officer. If she happened to be staying somewhere there was a murder, even if the murder weren’t discovered until later, she’d be duty bound to report her stay, whatever name it was under. And for that to happen five times … No, if it were ever discovered, she’d be in all sorts of trouble.”

  “Good point,” agreed Sally. “The police officer thing didn’t occur to me. Nevertheless it would be good to link her more definitely with those cards. At the moment her using them is deniable. It’s a pity you can’t get access to the credit card statements.”

  Jennifer’s eyes lit up as she remembered her visit to Grace Taverner.

  “I wonder if I already have, for one at least,” she said, reaching for her bag and retrieving the envelope she’d found earlier amongst Catherine Doughthey’s photographs. “Have you got a knife? I’d like to open this with the minimum of damage.”

  Sally fetched a kitchen knife and Jennifer explained about the letter’s origin.

  “Bingo!” cried Jennifer as she read the contents. “This is a credit card statement for the card in Catherine Doughthey’s name covering six months of last year. We were right; there’s a pattern of spending here that now we’re suspicious looks totally calculated.”

  She looked up excitedly as she slapped a hand on the statement.

  “And it includes the stay at the Bristol View. Wow! This is great.”

  “Or not,” said Sally. “I don’t want to pour cold water, but firstly, there’s the chain of evidence. You’re sitting there holding the letter and there’s only your word to say where you found it, and secondly, if she’s hit with the suggestion that she stayed in the hotels on the nights of the murders using those names, she’ll deny it.”

  “Shit!” mouthed Jennifer without saying the word. She was aware that Claudia-Jane was reaching the age where she would be repeating at random many words she heard, and emphatic expletives were a prime source of material. “We’re really going to need something else.”

  Sally sighed. “Yes, you’ve got to remember that she’s one of theirs, a senior officer, and they’re going to find it hard to get their heads around the idea of her being a psychopathic killer.”

  Jennifer finished her coffee and put the mug on the tray. “There has to be something else or no one will listen. Is there nothing else on the forensic side that could be done?”

  Sally took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, her lips put-puttering. They both laughed as Claudia-Jane tried and failed to copy her.

  “I can’t think of anything,” said Sally, running over the lab tests in her mind. “Everything’s been covered, as far as I can see.”

  As Jennifer exhaled her frustration, she glanced down at her business suit, and then across at Sally’s leggings and long, loose top. She tapped her lips with a finger and thumb as an idea focussed in her mind.

  “Could you talk me through the procedure for fibre evidence again?” she asked. “When you have a piece of clothing like, say, Miruna Peptanariu’s jacket or Henry’s pullover, what exactly do you do?”

  “It’s pretty straightforward,” said Sally, dropping to her knees to wipe Claudia-Jane’s nose and mouth. “You have a garment on which you think there might be foreign fibres — fibres that aren’t from the garment itself or from anything else worn by the garment’s owner. These fibres would be there from contact with something that someone else is wearing, contact that is normally fairly firm, like when we think that Henry Silk, or rather someone wearing his clothing, carried Miruna’s body into the woods. There would have been strong physical contact and an abrasive action as she was carried, her clothes rubbing against his. So fibres would be, indeed were, transferred.

  “What we do is lay out the garment on a large examination table in a room dedicated to the purpose of searching for this kind of evidence. The room will have been previously cleaned — clearly there must be no chance of contamination from any other source or recovery of any foreign fibres would be meaningless.

  “In a modern lab, the examination would be in one of a suite of search rooms. These can be designated. For example, there will be one for the examination of victim’s clothing and one for suspect’s. Garments like Henry’s pullover would be laid out on a clean sheet of card or non-shedding paper and any fibres on the surface lifted using adhesive tape. We call it taping the garment. It’s a bit like removing fibres with one of those lint rollers, only the adhesive isn’t as sticky — we don’t want the tape to be full of fibres from the garment itself.

  “We literally tape the outside of the garment, then stick the tape to a pre-cut piece of PVA sheet. T
he tapings are therefore effectively sealed and protected from any further contamination. They can now be stacked and stored for examination under a microscope without worry.”

  “Sounds like a time-consuming process.”

  “It is,” agreed Sally. “In fact it’s bloody laborious, especially the part where you’re staring down a microscope for hours on end, but experienced people develop an eye for it and can search tapings pretty fast and efficiently.”

  Jennifer put her chin into her steepled hands. “Would you only tape the outside of the clothing?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Sally. “The contact will only have occurred on the outside. What’s the point of looking on the inside?”

  Jennifer wasn’t satisfied. “Supposing someone dressed up in the alleged culprit’s clothing. Wouldn’t any fibres from the real culprit’s clothes or underclothes that were on his or her body then be transferred to the inside of the garment rather than the outside?”

  “Good point,” conceded Sally. “Some would, yes. Not all, obviously. What you’re describing is what’s called a secondary transfer — when a fibre is transferred first to one surface and then another. Given that it’s all a numbers’ game, the amount transferred in a secondary transfer is always going to be less than in a primary transfer. And of course, you need to have something to compare the fibres with. We don’t have controls from whatever Olivia Freneton was wearing, either under or outer clothes.”

  “OK,” said Jennifer. “Suppose Freneton was wearing a wig, which we think she was — remember, there were two long blond hairs found. She was probably wearing it in the bar when she picked up Henry and the chances are that she was wearing it when she changed into Henry’s clothes – she wouldn’t want the possibility of her own hair getting on them. Obviously she’d be careful pulling his pullover over her head, but even so, there could have been hairs transferred to the inside of the pullover as she put it on, don’t you think?”

  Sally nodded as she thought it through.

  “Yes, in that case, there would be wig hairs transferred to both the inside and outside. And the ones on the inside would remain there at least until the pullover was taken off, even, perhaps, until it was next washed. And since it was only a couple of days between the murder and Henry being arrested, and also since he’s a man, it’s extremely unlikely that the pullover would have been washed in that time. It would be a year for Ced if I didn’t intervene.”

  Jennifer felt that they might have something. “Do you agree that it’s worth following up?”

  “Yes,” said Sally, “I do, because it would add support to the suggestion that someone was dressing up in Henry’s clothing. But how are you going to get it done?”

  “I think I’ll explain it all to Charles and he could demand a further examination by his own expert. He’ll go for it, I’m sure. I want to talk to him anyway. I want to ask if I can view the CCTV recordings again, the stuff that’s supposed to be footage of Henry. Previously it was assumed to be him since that’s the way it was set up — we were guided into believing it was him. But if I were to look at it once again taking the view that it might be someone impersonating him, maybe I’ll see it differently.”

  Sally pursed her lips in doubt. “Could be. However, while I don’t want to dampen your enthusiasm, unless you see something startling, your opinion is still going to be very subjective.”

  C hapter 27

  Despite the lure of a relaxing evening with her new friends that would probably have included talking to Ced about Renaissance art — something she was itching to do – Jennifer reluctantly decided against staying the night. She needed to return home to change and she didn’t want to do that and drive to London all in the same day: it would take too much time. She called Charles Keithley while on the way back to Nottingham and more or less insisted he make time to see her the following morning.

  With an early start the next day, she was in Keithley’s office in Hampstead by ten o’clock.

  “Luckily for you, Jennifer,” said Charles as he handed her a coffee, “the case I’m working on was adjourned yesterday for a week. Otherwise, we’d be snatching opportunities to talk outside the courtroom. And, you know, you could have saved yourself a lot of driving by explaining what you’ve found over the phone.”

  “There’s too much for that, Charles, and anyway, with your agreement, there’s something I’d like to do that I can only do by being here.”

  Charles was immediately suspicious. “Really? And what might that something be?”

  “The CCTV footage from both the hotel and the street cameras. I was rather hoping that I could look through it. Would that be possible?”

  Charles shook his head. “Not in theory, no. As I’m sure you are aware, it’s sub judice. It’s evidence that will be produced in the trial and must, therefore, remain confidential. You may be Henry’s daughter, but that doesn’t give you any right of access to the evidence.”

  Jennifer pulled a face. “But you can watch the tapes, or whatever they are.”

  Charles nodded. “Of course I can, I’m Henry’s solicitor. I can review them with Henry or by myself — and by the way, they’re discs; the CCTV footage from the hotel is digital like the traffic recordings, but an older system. The Nottingham traffic recordings are far better, although because it was nighttime, the definition still leaves plenty to be desired.”

  “Yes, I remember,” said Jennifer, her face still a frown. “I saw most of them when I was still a police officer; I just wish I’d taken more notice. So it’s ridiculous that I can’t see them now.”

  She paused. She’d thought Keithley would be more forthcoming. Then she had an idea.

  “Would you like to offer me a job?”

  Charles was mildly amused. “What sort of job? You’re not trained as a lawyer, by any chance, are you? I could do with another junior.”

  “No, I’m afraid there wasn’t much law in my English and Italian literature studies. But I was a detective, albeit only for three months, and since my career with the police has gone south, I’m now considering setting up as a private detective. I fancy the challenge of the work. And surely you have a need for someone like that to help with certain aspects of the case.”

  Her smile was full of encouragement, but Charles’ head was shaking. “I’m not sure how ethical that would be. It would be a pretty transparent attempt of trying to get around the law. I’ll need time to think about it.”

  Jennifer gave him about three seconds to think about it before continuing with her argument.

  “Supposing you decided to view the discs as part of your preparation, which you must need to do, and I happened to be in the room. Better still, suppose you were looking at them when I turned up and then you were suddenly called out of the room. If I were to take a peek, you’d never even know.”

  “You certainly don’t take no for an answer, Jennifer, do you? No, that would be sloppy practice on my part, possibly actionable.”

  He paused and sighed. “However, you’re not going to be a witness in the case, the prosecution will make sure of that, and of course you couldn’t be a jury member … so, as long as we keep the matter to ourselves, no one else would be the wiser. OK, but your viewing the CCTV recordings here, in my offices, must remain absolutely confidential.”

  Jennifer beamed at him. “Fine by me.”

  But Charles still wasn’t totally convinced. “Supposing you were to notice something significant, I don’t know, a mannerism that isn’t Henry’s, or a way of walking? What can we do about it, apart from tell Henry?”

  “Easy,” replied Jennifer. “You could quite legitimately employ an expert to comment on the footage and hope they come up with the same observations. Perhaps it’s something you should do anyway.”

  “OK,” said Charles, “let’s see what you can find. But whatever it is, I’m not sure how strong it might be as evidence.”

  “We won’t know until we try,” said Jennifer with a dismissive shrug of her shoulders. “Anywa
y, Charles, there’s another reason why I wanted to speak to you in person rather than talk over the phone. You see, I know who’s trying to frame Henry.”

  “You what! Why didn’t you say straight away? Who is it? I take it you were right and it’s a woman?”

  Jennifer smiled at Charles’ astonishment. “It was important to talk through the CCTV stuff before you got totally distracted. I knew that once I told you, you wouldn’t have ears for anything else.”

  “You’re probably right, but don’t keep me in suspense any longer, tell me everything.”

  For the next ten minutes, Jennifer walked Charles through the events of the previous day and the discovery of photographs of Olivia Freneton with both Grace Taverner and Catherine Doughthey. Charles was motionless as he listened, his eyes fixed on hers, but she knew that his lawyer’s mind would be racing with various possibilities that now presented themselves.

  Once she’d finished, Charles stood and walked over to his office window, deep in thought. When he turned, his face registered a look of hope that in all their previous meetings had been absent.

  “That certainly throws a whole new complexion on the case, Jennifer. Well done. For the first time since this whole nightmare started, I think there might be a chance we can get Henry off. But we’ll have to tread carefully; there are still gaps in the evidence and before I present it to anyone, those gaps have got to be filled.”

  “You’re right,” agreed Jennifer. “Do you think it would be an idea to call the solicitors who dealt with the Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle cases? According to the news reports, there was CCTV in the Newcastle and Manchester cases, the ones that occurred in 2012 and 2009, but there was no mention of it for the Leeds case in 2007. I suppose it’s possible that there were fewer cameras then, although it’s not that long ago. Maybe the reporter was sloppy in his account. And anyway, the trials are over and the evidence a matter of public record, so releasing the CCTV recordings shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”