Deadly Alibi

by Leigh Russell

  39

  A woman came to the door. She was small, with bags beneath her eyes, and hair scraped back in an untidy ponytail.

  ‘Is Jeremy Douglas in?’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, what now?’ the woman asked, taking a step forward.

  As the porch light fell across her face, Geraldine could see that she had been crying. Tracks of tears were faintly visible on her cheeks, and her eyes were slightly puffy. Geraldine introduced herself.

  ‘Yes, yes, I know who you are,’ the woman replied, although they had never set eyes on one another before. ‘It’s about that poor woman he found, isn’t it? Look, I don’t want to sound callous, or anything, but we do have problems of our own to deal with. Do you really have to talk to him right now? He’s said what he has to say.’

  As she was speaking, a man came down the stairs and halted in the hallway behind her. He was carrying a suitcase.

  ‘It’s the police again, Jeremy,’ the woman called out over her shoulder.

  ‘Oh shit.’ He put down his case. ‘This isn’t what it looks like.’ He gave a nervous laugh. ‘I’m not doing a runner.’

  ‘I threw him out,’ the woman interjected.

  Geraldine had been wondering whether Louise had lied to protect a man she loved. It struck her that this woman might be doing the same. Perhaps it was common for women to behave like that. In a way, Geraldine had lied in keeping her affair with her married colleague a secret, but her own reasons had not been totally selfless. Once the lie had been uttered, at her colleague’s insistence, Geraldine was determined not to be exposed as not only promiscuous, but also a liar. In her job it was vital that her team trusted her. But it was dodgy to start justifying dishonesty, whatever the reason.

  Geraldine stepped into the hall. ‘Why would you want to move out just now, when you must have realised we’d need to speak to you again?’

  With an anxious glance at his wife, Jeremy cleared his throat. ‘I wasn’t planning on doing a disappearing act. I was going to phone the police station as soon as I knew where I was staying.’

  ‘He’s already told a police officer all about it,’ the woman grumbled. ‘Do we really have to go over it again?’

  ‘A woman’s been murdered, and I need to speak to your husband about it now. Moving out can wait. My investigation can’t.’

  They sat down in a small front room. Geraldine listened attentively to Jeremy’s rambling explanation of how he had stumbled on the dead woman. Geraldine had read his earlier statement. Although differently worded, his latest account matched it in every detail. The only information he added was the reason for his walking in the park.

  ‘I didn’t want to go straight home, you see,’ he said, looking miserably at his wife. ‘I knew how she’d react.’

  ‘How do you expect me to react? That’s twice in six months,’ his wife muttered darkly.

  Geraldine stood up. The look of relief that crossed Jeremy’s face was not lost on her. It was a pity so many people automatically felt stressed when questioned by the police, even when they had done nothing wrong. There ought to be a name for the syndrome, she thought, as there was for white-coat blood pressure. The reaction of innocent members of the public could be similarly misleading.

  ‘There is just one more thing.’

  ‘Oh God, it’s bloody Columbo,’ Jeremy’s wife muttered.

  ‘What size shoes do you wear?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your shoes,’ his wife repeated. ‘Oh don’t be so dumb, Jeremy. They’ve found some footprints by the body and they want to know if they’re yours.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  Looking faintly worried, Jeremy told her that he wore size nine shoes.

  ‘Here, take a look.’

  He pulled off one of his shoes and held it out to her, upside down, so she could see the number on the underneath.

  ‘Thank you. That’s all I need to know. I’ll see myself out.’

  As she crossed the narrow hall, she heard the couple start arguing again.

  ‘Where the hell do you think I’m going to go now, at this time of night? It’s getting late.’

  ‘Who’s fault is that? If you’d left when I told you, instead of faffing around upstairs, you’d have found somewhere by now.’

  Listening to Jeremy and his wife arguing reminded Geraldine of her friend, Ian. He had taken to calling her quite often since his wife had left him. Appreciating that he was lonely, she liked to think she was helping him to cope with his unexpected solitude. That evening, she settled back on her sofa and called him.

  ‘How’s things with you?’ he asked her when he had finished his account of his latest woes.

  Geraldine began to talk about the latest developments in the case.

  ‘I thought it was all sorted,’ he interrupted her.

  As briefly as she could, Geraldine told him about the discovery of Louise’s body.

  ‘Well, I don’t have all the details, of course, so I’m not really in a position to comment,’ Ian said when she had finished, ‘but from what you’ve just told me, I’d say it sounds like he could have been framed all along for murdering his wife. The killer could have had the whole thing planned out, using Chris’s van and his bin and all that, only then your witness turns up with an alibi. The killer panics. He has to shut her up, whatever it takes.’

  ‘Why would he wait? Why not kill her straight away?’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t have the opportunity right away.’

  ‘But she disappeared,’ Geraldine pointed out.

  ‘In hiding from the killer she knew was pursuing her?’

  ‘And all the time we thought she was hiding from us because she didn’t want her husband to find out about her affair.’

  As soon as she spoke, Geraldine realised her blunder. Ian’s estrangement was still raw. She began to stammer an apology.

  ‘No, that’s all right,’ he said heavily. ‘I’m going to have to deal with it. I need to move on.’

  ‘There’s no chance of a reconciliation?’

  ‘She’s carrying another man’s baby, Geraldine.’ There was a pause. ‘I’ll get over it. Life goes on and all that. I’ll take it like a man. It’s not as if anyone’s died.’

  Remembering how cheerful and positive he had always been when they had worked together, Geraldine felt an almost overwhelming sadness. Even the most deserving of people were not protected from pain and misfortune. More than anything, in that moment, she wished Ian was with her so that she could comfort him.

  They rang off, and Geraldine mulled over Ian’s responses. Without any involvement in the initial investigation into Jamie’s death, given an overview of the facts he had immediately concluded the two murders were related. Whether or not Chris had been deliberately framed for his wife’s murder, Geraldine was sure they were hunting for one killer. And all they knew about him was that he had no face.

  40

  Geraldine and Sam set off early to see Louise’s widower. On the way, Geraldine discussed her concerns.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, and there are a few things I just don’t understand.’

  ‘You’re lucky. There are lots of things I don’t understand. Just about everything, in fact.’

  ‘I’m serious, Sam.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, let’s say the man who picked Louise up at Euston station was her killer…’

  ‘And before killing Louise to eliminate Chris’s alibi, he had probably killed Jamie and framed Chris for it.’

  ‘Yes, but if that’s the case, why did he wait? Louise disappeared from Euston station on Wednesday evening but she wasn’t killed until the following Monday. Why did he wait five days to kill her?’

  Sam shrugged. ‘You’re always trying to understand why killers do what they do. You can’t, Geraldine. They’re nuts, all of them. Anyway, maybe
he spent a few days trying to persuade her to keep her mouth shut. Or perhaps he didn’t intend to kill her at all. He beat her up, didn’t he? But she was still alive when he put her in the car. She wasn’t strangled or hit on the head.’

  Geraldine nodded, considering. Everything Sam had said was possible.

  ‘What I’m struggling to work out is how the killer knew she was going to be at Euston station at seven fifteen that Wednesday evening. It must have been someone she knew. But we’ve been through her phone records, and the records of the hotel where she was staying, and checked all her emails, and the only person she told about her travel arrangements was her husband.’

  ‘And you,’ Sam pointed out.

  ‘Very droll.’

  ‘Her husband must have told someone.’

  ‘You’re right. That’s the only explanation. Let’s see if he mentioned the time she was due back in London to anyone.’

  It was going to be a difficult visit. Although he would doubtless be distraught on hearing that his wife was dead, at least the uncertainty was over. His wife had been missing for a week. Not knowing what had happened to her must have been excruciating for him. His worst fears were about to be realised, but once he recovered from the initial shock, he would be able to try and move on. As long as Louise was missing, he had been stuck in a kind of nightmarish limbo.

  Tom came to the door looking as though he had not slept or washed for a week. His hair was a mess, he was wearing a crumpled T-shirt, and his feet were bare. His glazed eyes opened wider when he caught sight of the two detectives and he took an involuntary step towards them. A whiff of body odour reached Geraldine, and when he spoke she noticed his breath smelled stale.

  ‘Have you found her? Is she all right? Where is she?’

  ‘Let’s go inside and sit down,’ she replied quietly.

  More often than not, that was all she needed to say, but Tom was evidently not a man to jump to conclusions. Either that, or else he was clinging to hope. There was a third possibility. He might be concealing his guilt behind a mask of distress.

  ‘Is she all right?’ he demanded more urgently.

  ‘Please, let’s go inside and sit down.’

  With a sigh that was almost a sob, he turned and led them past a kitchenette. Geraldine glimpsed a sink full of dirty plates, and used pans on the hob. At the back of the house they sat down in a small cluttered living room.

  ‘Well?’ he asked her. ‘Have you found her yet?’

  ‘Tom, I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news for you,’ Geraldine said.

  He opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again. Lowering his eyelids until his eyes were only open a slit, he sat perfectly still, while Geraldine told him his wife was dead.

  ‘And they found her in a park, you say?’ he repeated dully after a moment. ‘I don’t understand. What was she doing there?’

  As gently as she could, Geraldine explained that Louise had not died from natural causes.

  ‘You mean she was killed? Someone left here there?’

  ‘Yes.

  ‘Who was it? I hope you’ve got him behind bars, because if I get my hands on him…’ he broke off. ‘I’m not a violent man, Inspector, but I loved my wife.’

  ‘We’ll find him, Tom, we will. It’s only a matter of time.’ Geraldine watched the bereaved man closely while she was speaking. He didn’t seem afraid. On the contrary, he looked almost pleased.

  ‘You’ll think me unnatural, but I’m almost relieved, you know?’ he said, as though reading her thoughts. His voice shook. ‘I thought if you told me she was dead I’d be devastated, but… you know what was the worst of all this? I’ll tell you. It was waiting, hoping no one was hurting her. She used to get so scared, with all the terrible things in the news… At least now I know she’s not suffering…’

  He broke off abruptly and dropped his head in his hands, his shoulders heaving, his body shaken by silent sobs.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked at last, as his fit of crying died down.

  There was something incongruous about this rugged man breaking down in tears. Geraldine wondered if he was pretending to feel upset. But his height didn’t match that of the man Louise had met at Euston station. If Tom really was involved in his wife’s death, he had gone to a lot of trouble to cover his tracks. Somehow Geraldine didn’t believe an angry husband would come up with such a complicated plot to kill his cheating wife. A powerful man, Tom would be more likely to hit out at her in a temper.

  Geraldine hesitated. ‘She was beaten.’

  ‘Oh my God. Did she die straight away, or…’

  The recently bereaved often asked that question. There were times when it was hard to reply.

  ‘Yes,’ Geraldine lied. She glanced at Sam. ‘That is, she would have passed out quite quickly.’

  ‘So she wouldn’t have known what was happening?’

  It was difficult to give an honest answer to a man pleading for his future peace of mind. Geraldine hesitated. Obviously Louise would have understood what was going on when she had been forced to climb, badly injured, into a car boot. She would doubtless have been terrified, but she couldn’t have known for certain that she was going to die.

  ‘No, she wouldn’t have known what was happening. Not exactly.’

  His chin protruded further as he pressed his lips together, and his voice became hard. ‘What happened to her? I want to know every detail. Was she raped?’

  This time Geraldine assured him straight away that his fears were unfounded. Louise had not been sexually assaulted. Only killed, she thought to herself. When she asked whether Tom would identify the body, he shook his head.

  ‘I haven’t got much of an imagination, you see, not like some people. If I don’t look at her, I won’t know anything. You know she was away, in Birmingham. And then she never came back. And she still hasn’t come back. I don’t want to see her.’ He shook his head again. ‘I don’t understand. Why would anyone do that to her?’

  Ignoring his question, Geraldine explained that his wife had returned to London. When Geraldine told him what was known about Louise’s arrival at Euston station, he frowned until his eyes all but disappeared beneath his overhanging brow.

  ‘Tom, someone knew that Louise would be arriving at Euston station on that seven fifteen train from Birmingham last week. I knew about it, and you knew about it, but someone else knew about it and met her there. Now she’s dead.’ She leaned forward. ‘We need to find out who else knew about her travel plans. Did you mention to anyone that she would be coming into London on that train?’

  Tom stared at her. He looked shocked. Then he shook his head. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t tell anyone. Why would I?’

  Geraldine spoke briskly. ‘Your wife booked her ticket for the Birmingham conference, and her train ticket, two months ago. Think carefully, Tom. Could you, or she, have told anyone the time she expected to arrive back in London? Think.’

  He shook his head. ‘I didn’t know what time she’d be back. She never told me. She said she’d call me when she got back to Euston, because she said you can’t always rely on the trains keeping to their timetable and she didn’t want to keep me hanging around at Holloway Road station waiting for her. We’d arranged that I’d walk down and meet her there, and walk her home. I knew she’d be home that evening, but I never mentioned it to anyone. Why would I? I never even told anyone she was going to Birmingham.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. I’m not one to chat.’ He frowned, remembering. ‘I was waiting for her to phone me from Euston so I could meet her at the station round the corner. But she never called.’

  ‘Could she have told anyone else the time of her train?’

  Ignoring her question, Tom burst out. ‘I don’t understand. Why would anyone do that? Why don’t you know who did that to her?’

 
Geraldine sighed. If she knew the answer to that question, Louise’s killer would no longer be walking around the streets of London, free to kill again.

  41

  Back at her desk, Geraldine reviewed what Tom had said. He hadn’t been much help, and had flatly refused to view the body. Fortunately, Louise’s parents were prepared to identify their daughter. They were travelling to London from Milton Keynes that afternoon, and expected to reach the mortuary early in the evening. A local detective had been to see them to break the news, around the time that Geraldine had been speaking to Tom. She was pleased to have an opportunity to speak to them herself.

  Having arranged to meet them at the mortuary, she wanted to arrive there first so she could have a word with them before they viewed the body. After seeing their daughter’s body, she was afraid they might be too upset to talk to her. There could be nothing worse than viewing the dead body of your own child. Even if the couple were able to conduct a coherent conversation, Geraldine would not feel comfortable questioning them after such a harrowing experience.

  Before she left the police station, Geraldine asked Sam to set up a team to scrutinise Louise’s phone records and email history, focusing on the past two months. They needed to check every message Louise had sent since she had booked her trip to Birmingham. Before that, she wouldn’t have known the time of her train, so couldn’t have passed on information about it to anyone else. It was imperative they discovered who had known the time of her train back to London. One brief comment could nail the killer.

  ‘Make sure they stay on it,’ she told Sam. ‘I know it’s a long job, but it’s crucial. If they have to work through the night, inject them with caffeine, do whatever it takes. Just impress on them how important this is. If there’s a lead there, and we miss it, our killer could walk.’