Deadly Alibi

by Leigh Russell

  Musing over their love affair – if that was really what it had been – he cursed himself for having allowed sexual attraction to lead him into such a disastrous marriage. He had always known it wouldn’t play out well. But he had never expected it to end like this, with him being accused of murdering her. He still couldn’t understand how it had happened.

  Rage against his incarceration dissolved into grief. In spite of her faults, he had loved his wife so much, his longing for her made him cry. She was a beautiful woman, and she had cared for him enough to marry him. The hope that they might one day find happiness had kept him going through difficult times. The finality of her death had snatched that hope away. Knowing he would never see her again, he sobbed uncontrollably.

  34

  The case was as good as closed. Adam ticked off the points he was making on his fingers. Geraldine stared, mesmerised by the delicate movements. If she hadn’t seen who they belonged to, she might have mistaken them for the slender hands of a woman.

  ‘First of all, the suspect lied about the whereabouts of his van on the night it was used to transport his wife’s body. We know it was no longer in the garage. We have the paperwork to prove it. That alone ought to be enough to secure a conviction. Secondly, it appears his mistress has thought better of providing him with an alibi for the time of his wife’s death, and has done a runner. We’ve been looking for her for five days now, and she clearly doesn’t want to speak to us. And thirdly, we found the murder weapon in the suspect’s garden shed. Let’s see a clever lawyer argue his way out of that lot!’ He grinned. ‘Well done. Despite a few hiccups along the way, we got there in record time.’

  Geraldine cleared her throat. ‘Just to play devil’s advocate for a minute, you know we can’t prove he was driving the van at the time it was used to carry his wife’s body. So in answer to your first point, someone other than Chris could have been at the wheel. I’m just saying it’s possible. Then secondly, Louise might have disappeared because she doesn’t want her husband to know about her affair. She’s terrified he’ll find out. She didn’t want to say anything about being with Chris at all, until I’d reassured her we wouldn’t approach her husband. But when she did speak out, she was clear that she had been with Chris at the time his wife was murdered.’

  ‘We have no evidence that the woman you spoke to was Louise Marshall. Anyone could have been speaking to you on her phone. Or Chris could have forced her to lie and say she was with him, and then she thought better of it once she got away from him.’

  ‘We know she was in Birmingham when I spoke to her,’ Geraldine pointed out. ‘She was already away from him.’

  ‘But you can’t argue with the discovery of the murder weapon in his shed.’

  Geraldine shook her head. ‘A weapon that somehow escaped our notice when we visited the premises four nights after the murder took place.’

  Adam scowled. ‘That’s a blunder, there’s no getting away from it. Who the hell missed it first time round? Their bloody incompetence has wasted a hell of a lot of time. They deserve to be hung out to dry.’

  Geraldine assured him the matter was being looked into. In the meantime, they were in agreement. A decent defence lawyer might be able to raise doubts about Chris’s guilt. It would be best if they could convince him that it would be in his own interest to confess.

  ‘She was your wife,’ Geraldine said, in as reasonable a tone as she could muster. ‘There should be no question in a jury’s mind that this was a crime of passion. We all understand that you never intended to kill your wife.’ She glanced over at the lawyer as though she was speaking on his behalf as well. ‘Things just got out of hand, didn’t they? What happened, Chris? It’s time to get it off your chest. You can’t deny the truth indefinitely. So come on, tell me what happened. Were you having a row? She provoked you, didn’t she? There’s really no point in continuing to lie about it, because the truth is obvious to all of us.’

  Chris sat stony faced, his arms folded, his eyes fixed on the table.

  ‘We know you killed her. If you refuse to tell your side of the story, a jury is bound to think the worst. You’ll go down for life, for premeditated murder.’

  She paused, but again the suspect said nothing.

  ‘Let’s start with the chisel,’ Geraldine suggested. ‘How do you account for the fact that you never did any DIY around the house, and you had no other woodwork tools, yet you had recently gone out and bought a chisel?’

  Chris looked up in surprise. ‘I never bought a chisel in my life.’

  ‘Do you have evidence my client made this purchase?’ the lawyer asked, opening his eyes.

  ‘We found the murder weapon in your shed.’

  ‘Were my client’s fingerprints on the handle?’

  ‘I never bought a chisel,’ Chris repeated doggedly.

  ‘Yes, you did, and we’ll find out where and when.’

  ‘So you have no evidence my client purchased the murder weapon, or ever handled the murder weapon,’ the lawyer said.

  It was proving more difficult than she had expected to coax a confession out of Chris. Every time she pressed him, his lawyer spoke for him. Geraldine appreciated that he was only doing his job, but she wished he would shut up and let his client speak for himself.

  ‘We have all we need to get a conviction,’ she assured him.

  ‘Then surely you have no further need to continue with this interview,’ the lawyer replied.

  Geraldine tried a different line of questioning, accusing Chris of having killed his wife because she had found out about his mistress.

  ‘Did your wife threaten to tell Louise’s husband about the affair? Is that why you argued with her? You fought, and things got out of hand, didn’t they? Or did you and Louise plan the murder? Had your wife been threatening her?’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ he protested.

  ‘You told us you were with your mistress while your wife was being murdered,’ Geraldine said.

  Chris nodded his head. Whether from shame or fear, he seemed unable to speak.

  ‘But you lied about that too, didn’t you? Just like you lied about your van being in for repairs on the night of the murder. In fact, everything you’ve told us was a lie, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I was with Louise that evening. I’m not lying. Ask her, she’ll tell you. She won’t lie about it forever. She must understand how important this is. Bring her here, and let me speak to her.’

  ‘Where is she, Chris?’

  Frowning, he rattled off her address. ‘Or she’ll probably be at work right now. In any case, it might be better to speak to her there. You know she’s terrified her husband will find out about us. But she’ll tell the truth, I know she will.’ He sounded desperate. ‘Go on, ask her. She’ll tell you where I was that night. Ask her.’

  The police station was bustling on Wednesday morning. Reports were being finalised, expenses claims checked, statements logged, desks cleared, while they discussed where they were all going for a celebratory drink after work. After all their worries, Chris Cordwell had been arrested within two weeks of murdering his wife. It was a speedy result.

  Geraldine tried to share the general sense of exultation, but she felt uneasy. They still hadn’t managed to trace Louise.

  ‘She’s taken herself off somewhere,’ Adam reassured her, a touch of impatience in his voice. ‘There’s no law against that, is there? Think about it. We’ve got no proof the woman you spoke to on the phone really was Louise, or if it was her, that she was telling you the truth. And even if she chooses to come forward at a later date, she’s hardly going to be regarded as a reliable witness in court. I don’t think we need to concern ourselves with her any more.’

  Geraldine tried to go along with what everyone else seemed happy to accept. All the same, she determined to continue chasing up any leads that might help her to find Lo
uise. Something about her disappearance didn’t make sense.

  ‘And when things don’t stack up, it usually means there’s something wrong,’ she told Sam.

  The two of them were sitting in Geraldine’s office, tying up a few loose ends.

  ‘Hallelujah!’ Sam said, when Geraldine agreed to join the rest of the team for a drink to celebrate the successful outcome of their investigation. ‘You’ve finally accepted that we’ve got the right result. About bloody time!’ She grinned.

  Adam called them all together for one last meeting in the major incident room. Everyone squeezed in, chattering happily. The atmosphere felt more like a party than a police station. It seemed that only Geraldine had been reluctant to leave her desk.

  ‘I’ve still got so much to do,’ she muttered.

  ‘What’s your rush?’ Sam asked her. ‘The paperwork can wait until tomorrow.’

  ‘I heard that,’ Adam laughed. ‘Come on, I want everyone to celebrate a job well done.’

  Now they had Chris safely behind bars with enough evidence to convict him, Adam was more relaxed than Geraldine had ever seen him look before. He looked around, smiling, and thanked the team for their hard work.

  ‘And now, no more worrying about paperwork tonight.’ He smiled at Geraldine. ‘Let’s go and celebrate. We can start the tidying up first thing tomorrow. Come on.’

  35

  Jeremy was fed up. The weather had been fine, but the forecast promised rain. The local news was depressing. Another teenager knifed to death, suspected terrorist activity, an investigation into an alleged paedophile ring, a gang turf war, a threatened train strike, and all the politicians seemed to do was burble on about ‘taking action’ to help other countries. What about charity beginning at home? There were any number of people needing help. Himself, for a start. His life was rapidly going down the pan and he could see no way out of the mess. He hadn’t shared the news with his wife yet. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been in his job for long enough to qualify for a redundancy package, so he couldn’t even claim that crumb of comfort when he arrived at the office to discover he was out of work again.

  His wife had been very understanding the first time it had happened, but kindness didn’t pay the bills. Her wages alone would barely keep a roof over their heads, and even if she could earn enough to keep the wolf from the door, he didn’t want to have to rely on her for money. The second time he had lost his job, her reaction had been less sympathetic.

  ‘It’s not my fault,’ he had told her. ‘It’s a case of last in, first out.’

  He went for just one drink before heading home. Paltry comfort, but that was all he could afford. It would have to be his last indulgence for a while. He left the pub feeling more miserable than ever. The sky had clouded over while he had been indoors. Putting off the moment when he would have to face his wife, he took a detour across a patch of scrubby grass. A sign called it a park, although it was too small to warrant that description.

  A grassy slope led down to a children’s playground. A woman sat slouched on a bench beside it. She appeared to be watching the swings and roundabout, although there were no children playing there. Curious, he observed her as he walked by. She was slumped in an awkward position, her head lolling forward on her chest, fast asleep in the shade of the overhanging trees. He walked on.

  He hadn’t gone more than a few steps further along the path when it began to rain, so he turned back. The woman was sitting on the bench, in the same position as before. She was sitting very still and he noticed she wasn’t wearing a coat. Wondering if she was all right, he called out to her.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  She didn’t answer. Jeremy hesitated. It was raining more heavily now, and he wanted to go home. He was getting wet, but so was the woman on the bench who still hadn’t stirred. He began to feel uneasy. Close up, he could see that she looked quite young. If he disturbed her, she might turn on him in a drug-crazed state. She could be violent. For the first time, he began to feel vulnerable, aware that he was alone in this apology for a park with an unknown woman. She might be waiting for someone like him. The papers were full of allegations of attacks and rape. He had wondered more than once whether there were young women who deliberately set out to accuse innocent men of assault, just for the compensation. Not that anyone would benefit from trying to sue a penniless man.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked again. ‘You know it’s raining? You’re getting wet.’

  Approaching the bench, tentatively he reached out and shook her by the arm. Immediately the woman pitched forward. There was a dull thud as her head hit the tarmac on the path. She made no sound. She didn’t even twitch at the impact.

  ‘Oh shit,’ he yelled, startled and terrified at what had just happened.

  He should have realised straight away that the woman was dead. He glanced around. There was no one else about. Screened by the trees and shrubs, they were probably out of sight of anyone in the block of flats that bordered the grassy plot. In front of him, on the far side of the children’s playground, drivers sped along the road too fast to notice what was taking place a few yards away from them. All the same, it was possible someone had seen him. He might even have been caught on a CCTV camera, shaking the woman’s arm. Panicking, he fumbled with his phone and stammered that he needed the police. He was no doctor, but he could see there was no point in calling an ambulance.

  He felt as though he had been waiting for hours when, finally, a police patrol car drew up outside the park. Two uniformed policemen jumped out. Jeremy carried on shouting and waving his arms, even after they had spotted him and had begun striding across the grass towards him. Catching sight of the woman lying on the ground, they stopped abruptly. One of them stepped delicately forward while the other shouted at Jeremy to move away from the woman. Backing off, he watched the policeman kneel beside the woman and put his fingers on her neck, craning forwards to check whether she was breathing. Jeremy should have done that himself, instead of just assuming she was dead.

  ‘Is she – is she going to be all right? I didn’t call an ambulance. Should I have called an ambulance? I thought she was dead. Her face looked… She fell…’

  He turned away, shaking.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s too late for an ambulance,’ the policeman said, straightening up. ‘Who was she?’

  Jeremy shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. I just came across her, sitting here. Then it started to rain so I asked her if she was all right. I touched her…’

  ‘Touched her?’

  ‘Yes, shook her arm, just gently, to wake her up. I thought she’d fallen asleep and hadn’t noticed it had started raining.’

  He tried to explain how the woman had fallen forwards, off the bench, when he had jogged her arm. The words sounded strange. He had done nothing wrong, but he couldn’t help feeling overwhelmed by a terrible sense of guilt.

  ‘I don’t know who she is,’ he repeated. ‘I’ve never seen her before. I was only trying to help.’

  His pity for the dead woman was swept away by fear. The police might think she had been alive when he had come along and assaulted her. In fighting him off, she could have slipped and fallen, hitting her head on the ground. And there was nothing Jeremy could do to prove his innocence.

  He was led away to sit in a police car, out of the rain. He called his wife to explain why he was going to be home late. Time, which had seemed to crawl so slowly while he had been waiting for the police to arrive, suddenly sped by. As if by magic, a large white tent suddenly appeared. A team of white-suited people materialised and were soon busily examining the ground, taking photographs, and filling plastic bags. Eventually Jeremy was driven to a police station to make a statement. Sipping tea, he calmed down and found he was able to put his memories of the incident into a coherent order. As it turned out, it was lucky that he had only been able to afford one drink.

  36

 
The next morning, Geraldine was clearing up her desk, mentally preparing for her next interview with Chris, when her phone rang.

  ‘Geraldine Steel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The call was from Holloway Road police station.

  ‘We’ve got something for you.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  If there had been another murder, there was no reason why Geraldine should be summoned to work on the case when she had barely completed the investigation into Jamie’s death.

  ‘It’s the missing girl you’ve been looking for, Louise Marshall.’

  ‘At last. She’s wasted a lot of our time. I’ve been trying to get hold of her for days.’

  ‘Yes, it seems she wanted us to contact you.’

  ‘All right then,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and see her now. Is she at home?’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s too late for that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Louise Marshall was murdered early yesterday morning.’

  Geraldine took a deep breath, considering the implications of this news. ‘Murdered?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But – I thought you said she wanted to contact me?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. Listen, Geraldine, this is a bit complicated, and well, it’s a bit odd. But in view of the connection, we’re handing the case over to you. I think you’d better come along and see what we’ve got.’

  He gave her the address where the body had been found, and she went to take a look at a small rectangular area of muddy grass surrounding a children’s playground. Bordered along one short edge by the Holloway Road, and along the opposite edge by a side road, the area was overlooked by a five-storey block of flats. As she walked past, Geraldine glanced at a battered slide and roundabout, both painted yellow, and a pair of swings. Beyond the playground, a white forensic tent had been erected. Geraldine passed through the cordon and put on her protective clothing before she entered the tent.