Imperfect Killing

by Luke Delaney

  ‘If we have, they have,’ Sean reassured him. ‘Just stay back in your seat and let them take him down. Best thing we can do is stay out of the way until he’s face down on the floor and cuffed.’

  ‘If you say so,’ Benton agreed a little jumpily.

  They watched the large man dressed in green and black combat clothes head towards the stairwell. Even from their position they could clearly recognize him from the intelligence photos they’d seen of Ruben Thurlby. He disappeared into the stairwell that dog-legged one way then another, becoming partially visible as he passed the opaque windows at each level until he walked out onto the forecourt looking agitated. His gaze swept from side to side as if he expected an attack, although he was oblivious to the eyes of the police that were on him.

  As he walked past the van disguised as a satellite-installation vehicle the rear doors exploded open, SO19 officers jumping out two at a time screaming ‘Armed police! Down on the floor, down on the floor!’ A split second later the doors of the second van flew open and another six armed officers joined in the shouting of orders and pointing of weapons, each identifiable by their black baseball caps ringed with black and white checks and their body armour emblazoned with ‘police’ across the front and back. Other than that they just wore casual clothes and training shoes. They’d left their full body armour and protective clothing back at headquarters for more difficult armed operations.

  Thurlby stood rigidly glued to the spot, a look of terror across his face, his entire body trembling. ‘Get down. Get down.’ an advancing armed cop demanded, pointing his Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun at his chest. Slowly Thurlby dropped to his knees, his hands raised in the air.

  ‘I haven’t done anything,’ he pleaded loudly. ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Face on the ground,’ the cop shouted. ‘Face on the ground – hands stretched out in front of you.’

  Thurlby did as he was told, tears beginning to pour from his eyes as he laid his cheek on the floor. ‘It wasn’t me. I swear it wasn’t me.’

  Two cops moved quickly to Thurlby’s side, kneeling on his back and using a set of plastic quick-cuffs to tie his wrists together before expertly searching the immobilized suspect. After only a few seconds he pulled a combat knife with a six-inch blade from Thurlby’s rear waistband and held it aloft shouting ‘Knife,’ before he tossed it to his colleagues. A minute or so later he held up an empty hand and called ‘Clear.’

  As soon as Sean saw the sign for all clear he jumped from his car and headed towards the scene where SO19 were now lifting Thurlby from the floor and holding him upright as he continued to sob. Sean and Benton approached the sergeant in charge of the SO19 team. ‘He’s all yours if you still want him,’ he declared.

  ‘Thanks,’ Sean told him. ‘Good work.’

  ‘Our pleasure,’ the sergeant smiled. ‘I reckon you’ve got your man here.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Sean turned to Thurlby. ‘Ruben Thurlby – I’m Detective Sergeant Corrigan and I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Sue Evans and for possessing an offensive weapon in a public place. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention something that you later rely on in court. Anything that you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand, Ruben?’

  ‘I didn’t kill her,’ Thurlby pleaded. ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘Best to save it for the interview, Ruben,’ Sean warned him. ‘You can tell me all about it then.’

  ***

  Sean, Benton, Thurlby, his solicitor and appropriate adult all sat squeezed into the small, scruffy-looking interview room adjacent to the custody room of Southwark Police Station. The room had seen literally tens of thousands of interviews down the years and now it would witness one more. Sean pressed the record button on the twin deck interview tape recorder and filled the room with a high-pitched buzzing sound. After a few seconds the room was silent and Sean began.

  ‘I am Detective Sergeant Sean Corrigan and the other officer present is …’

  ‘DC Zack Benton,’ he spoke for himself.

  ‘We are in the interview room at Southwark Police Station and I am interviewing – could you state your name clearly for the tape please.’

  Thurlby looked to his solicitor who nodded it was okay, then to his appropriate adult who did the same before answering nervously. ‘Ruben Thurlby.’

  ‘Also present is your solicitor …’

  ‘Peter Brooking, duty solicitor, from Thompson, Lee and Brooking Solicitors. I have had a consultation with my client and he has agreed to answer all your questions.’ Somehow Sean wasn’t surprised. Thurlby looked like a talker.

  ‘And you also have an appropriate adult present …’ Sean looked at the middle-aged lady sitting next to Thurlby.

  ‘Jennifer Harvey,’ she answered a little self-consciously. ‘Here to make sure Ruben understands what’s happening and give him any help and guidance he needs.’

  ‘Ruben – you are still under caution,’ Sean reminded him. ‘That means you do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court. Do you understand the caution?’

  ‘I’ve explained the caution to my client,’ Brooking answered for him, ‘and he fully understands it.’

  ‘Fine,’ Sean didn’t argue, keen to press on. ‘You also have the right to free and independent legal advice and you have your solicitor here. If you need to speak to him in private at any time just let me know and we’ll stop the interview so you can do that. Okay?’ Thurlby just nodded. ‘You need to speak your answers,’ Sean explained. ‘The tape can’t hear nods and shrugs.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he apologized in a voice that was too soft and quiet for a man of his size and appearance.

  ‘The time is now 9am in the morning on Tuesday 4th November and I’ll begin the interview.’ But before he could speak, Thurlby asked a question of his own.

  ‘Why did you keep me here all night?’ he asked. ‘If you’d interviewed me last night I could have gone home by now. I want to go home. I don’t like it here. It makes me scared.’

  Could this frightened, intimidated man really walk up to someone in broad daylight and shoot them in the face? Sean tried to swallow his doubts until after he’d asked his questions. ‘I’m sorry about that, Ruben. But by the time we’d processed you, taken and bagged your clothes and other possible forensic evidence it was too late to interview you. You would have been too tired to concentrate properly and you do need to concentrate, Ruben. You understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered, looking down at the white paper suit he was dressed in – his own clothes having been seized. ‘Yes, but I want to go home.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do, Ruben,’ Sean told him patiently, fighting his growing feelings of sorrow for the man in front of him, ‘but first I have to ask you some questions – okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ Thurlby nodded slowly.

  ‘Did you kill Sue Evans?’ Sean asked bluntly, wanting to test Thurlby’s reaction – watching as his back straightened, his nostrils flared and his eyes opened wide and wild. For a second Sean considered reaching for the telescopic truncheon holstered on his trouser belt, but resisted.

  ‘How could you ask me that?’ Thurlby snarled. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that … you, you shouldn’t say things like that.’

  ‘Take it easy,’ Sean warned him. ‘They’re just questions, Ruben. I have to ask them.’

  ‘You said I killed her,’ Thurlby accused him.

  ‘No,’ Sean explained. ‘I just asked the question.’

  ‘Why? Why do you ask me these questions?’

  ‘Because I have to. Because it’s my job. I need to find out the truth.’

  ‘I wouldn’t hurt her,’ Thurlby pleaded, his eyes welling up. ‘I loved her.’

  ‘But she didn’t love you,’ Sean told him, knowing it would hurt. But Thurlby didn’t react as he’d expected.

  ‘Not like that
, I suppose,’ he admitted sadly, ‘but we were friends. She always said hello to me – talked to me sometimes, about her shows. I liked her shows.’

  ‘She liked you so much she reported you to the police for harassment and took out a restraining order out on you,’ Sean reminded him, causing Thurlby to stiffen and straighten once more, as if he’d been deeply offended. ‘A restraining order that you breached,’ he continued, ‘which got you arrested.’

  ‘It wasn’t her idea,’ Thurlby insisted, his eyes intense with belief in what he was saying. ‘Last time I saw her she said she was sorry about getting me into trouble – said he made her do it, made her tell the police things about me that weren’t true.’

  ‘Weren’t true?’ Sean questioned. ‘She alleged that you hung around outside the studio everyday waiting for her, that you practically threw yourself in front of her car to force her to stop and speak to you …’

  ‘No,’ Thurlby almost shouted. ‘Not true.’

  ‘And that if you weren’t outside the studio, you were hanging around outside her home calling to her.’

  ‘No, no.’ Thurlby was becoming increasingly agitated.

  ‘So how did you know where she lived?’ Sean pressed. ‘Did you follow her home?’

  ‘No … I mean yes,’ Thurlby admitted, ‘but you make it sound … wrong.’

  ‘Knowing someone’s followed you home can be pretty scary,’ Sean explained. ‘No wonder she reported you for harassment.’

  ‘No,’ Thurlby shook his head frantically. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Then why did you follow her home?’ Sean demanded. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Perhaps you could be a little less aggressive with your questioning,’ Harvey stepped in. ‘Ruben can have emotional difficulties, which is one of the reasons why I’m acting as his appropriate adult.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sean sighed. ‘Fair enough. Perhaps Ruben can understand that following a woman home when she’s alone could frighten her enough to make her tell the police about it?’

  ‘No,’ Thurlby repeated. ‘I had to follow her home.’

  ‘You had to follow her home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I ask why?’ Sean persisted.

  ‘To protect her.’

  ‘Protect her from what?’

  ‘People who might want to hurt her,’ Thurlby answered.

  ‘What people?’

  ‘She made enemies,’ he explained. ‘She told me she made enemies – people her TV shows caught out.’

  ‘She made consumer affairs and property shows,’ Sean pointed out. ‘She was hardly exposing organized crime.’

  ‘Some people didn’t like it,’ Thurlby insisted. ‘Some people didn’t like her.’

  ‘I’m sure they didn’t,’ Sean agreed, ‘but if she’d ever been threatened she would have told the police and she never reported anything – except you, Ruben.’ He didn’t answer. Sean took them back a few questions. ‘You said that last time you saw her, when you breached your restraining order, she told you she was sorry for reporting you for harassment?’

  ‘She told me that,’ he insisted.

  ‘And that she said it had been someone else’s idea – a man’s idea?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. He made her do it.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Thurlby shook his head. ‘She didn’t say.’

  ‘A boyfriend?’ Sean asked, registering the flash of jealousy in Thurlby’s eyes.

  ‘Maybe,’ he reluctantly agreed. ‘She didn’t say.’

  ‘And why would this … man want you out of the way?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Maybe he wanted to hurt her. Maybe he knew I would stop him.’

  Sean studied him for a while. Was he listening to the fantasy of a madman or did Thurlby’s words mean something? Could they somehow lead to Sue Evans’ killer if it wasn’t indeed Thurlby himself?

  ‘This all sounds a bit … fanciful,’ Sean told him.

  ‘It’s true,’ he insisted. ‘A man told her to do it.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re not making this up?’ Sean spoke to him as if speaking to a child. ‘You wanted to see yourself as her protector, so you made this all up.’

  ‘No,’ he answered unwaveringly. ‘It’s all true – I’m telling the truth. I didn’t hurt her.’

  Again Sean paused before reaching down and lifting a clear plastic tube containing the knife Thurlby had on him when he was arrested, which was now sealed in a plastic evidence bag. ‘This is exhibit NB/1,’ Sean told the room. ‘It’s a large combat knife with a brown leather handle and a six inch one-sided blade. I guess it could also be called a hunting knife. You had this knife concealed on you when you were arrested, Ruben. Do you understand it’s against the law to have a knife like this in your possession in a public place?’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded solemnly.

  ‘So what were you doing with it?’

  ‘I heard on the radio what happened,’ he explained nervously – frightened. ‘I heard she’d been murdered.’

  ‘So why did that make you carry the knife?’

  ‘For protection,’ he shook his head, as if he couldn’t understand how they didn’t see it was necessary.

  ‘Protection?’ Sean prompted him.

  ‘In case they came after me next,’ he almost whispered, looking around the room as if they could appear at any second. ‘In case he came after me next.’

  ‘He?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Thurlby hissed.

  ‘The same he who made Sue Evans report you to the police?’

  ‘Yes. She was afraid of him – I could tell she was.’

  ‘How?’ Sean demanded. ‘How could you tell?’

  ‘I told you – last time we spoke she told me he’d made her do it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sean agreed, trying to contain his frustration, ‘we’ve been over all this, but how did you know she was afraid?’

  ‘I could just tell,’ he raised his voice. ‘She … she looked different, sounded different. Not like she usually was. I could see it in her face – the way she kept looking around all the time.’

  ‘Maybe she was just afraid of you?’

  ‘No. Not me,’ Thurlby shouted and banged both his fists on the table making it jump from the ground.

  ‘Calm down,’ Benton ordered him.

  ‘Maybe we should take a break,’ Harvey suggested.

  ‘Soon,’ Sean told her. ‘I don’t have many more questions.’

  ‘I think we’re okay to press on for a while longer,’ Brooking interrupted, keen to move matters along.

  Sean removed the knife from the table and replaced it with a cardboard box with a handgun displayed inside it, both of which were in another sealed evidence bag. ‘For the benefit of the tape I’m now showing Ruben exhibit SC/12 – a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum replica handgun with a six-inch barrel – a very similar looking revolver to the one used to kill Sue Evans. This was found under the pillow in your bedroom, Ruben.’

  ‘It’s not real,’ Thurlby sputtered.

  ‘I know it’s not real,’ Sean conceded, ‘but why would you want to own something like this?’

  ‘As both you and my client rightly stated,’ Brooking intervened, ‘the item in question is merely a replica and therefore my client has committed no offence and any similarity it has to the weapon used to kill Miss Evans is purely coincidental.’

  ‘True,’ Sean had to agree, ‘but we believe the weapon used to kill her was also a replica or a blank-firing replica.’

  ‘But not this replica,’ Brooking smirked.

  ‘No,’ Sean admitted, ‘but it all paints a picture – right, Ruben?’ Thurlby didn’t answer. ‘And then there’s this,’ he continued, replacing the box with handfuls of photographs of Thurlby smiling with the victim in various locations – outside the studio, at personal appearances, at awards ceremonies – along with dozens of pictures cut from newspapers and magazines, all now sealed in individual evidence bags. Sean s
pread them around the table in front of them so everyone could get the idea. ‘We found these and hundreds more like them in a suitcase under your bed,’ he explained. ‘They all have individual exhibit numbers, but for now I’ll just describe them as tens of photographs and cuttings of the victim – some with you posing alongside her. Quite some obsession you have.’ Thurlby just shrugged and looked blank.

  ‘There’s no offence in collecting magazine cuttings and photographs,’ Brooking interfered again. ‘Do you actually have any evidence?’

  ‘You’re right again,’ Sean smiled, ‘but all these pictures of the same person – a woman who’s now been murdered – possessing a replica firearm, the hunting knife, the combat clothes, your arrest for stalking her, another arrest for breaching a restraining order. Come on, Ruben. This isn’t looking good for you.’

  ‘I … I didn’t do anything,’ Thurlby stammered.

  ‘Why so obsessed with her?’ Sean picked up the pace of the questions. ‘Why her?’

  ‘She was beautiful,’ Thurlby answered, close to tears, ‘and kind.’

  ‘And the knife?’

  ‘For protection. To keep bad people away.’

  ‘And the gun, Ruben? Why the gun?’

  ‘Because … because it felt nice,’ he admitted. ‘It felt … powerful.’

  ‘And the combat clothes?’ Sean pushed. ‘Why walk around southeast London dressed like a sniper?’

  ‘I … I wanted to be a soldier,’ he answered, ‘but they wouldn’t have me.’

  ‘Jesus, Ruben,’ Sean raised his voice and made Thurlby visibly flinch. ‘What’s it really all about – the gun, the knife, the clothes, the photographs? Why, Ruben? Why?’

  ‘To protect her,’ Thurlby shouted back, tears rolling down his face and mixing with the spittle coming from his mouth as he tried to speak.

  ‘Yes, but who from?’ Sean showed no mercy.

  ‘I think that’s enough now,’ Harvey tried to stop them, but it was too late.

  ‘Everybody,’ Thurlby screamed. ‘I wanted to protect her from everybody, because I loved her.’

  ‘You mean you wanted to keep her for yourself,’ Sean accused him.

  ‘No,’ he banged his fist on the table.