Irrefutable Evidence: A Crime Thriller (10 page)

“So, we are now in absolutely no doubt that Miruna was in Silk’s car, that is, we’re not dealing with a stolen X-Trail that someone had stuck Silk’s number plates on. It’s definitely Silk’s car. What that means is that the images of the driver shown on the CCTV footage that look like Silk must be him.”

He paused, letting his team absorb the information. Then he continued, his voice triumphant.

“You might say that all that only points to the car and since the CCTV footage of the driver doesn’t show Silk’s face, there’s an outside chance it could be someone else. Well, there’s also the debris under Miruna’s fingernails. And what that contains, as well as fibres that we’ll be comparing with Silk’s pullover and scarf, is skin debris that is bloodstained. The lab has profiled the DNA and it’s Silk’s. No question; a perfect match.”

There was a collective ‘Yes!’ around the room as the team members all grinned at each other in delight. Hurst held up his hands again to quieten them.

“And thanks to DC Cotton’s eagle eyes,” he continued over the hubbub, “we have the source of the skin and blood — the scratches on Silk’s neck that he conveniently cannot explain.”

Jennifer was blushing at the mention of her name, but there was something else she wanted to know. She put her hand up.

“Yes, Cotton.”

“Did the barman from the Old Nottingham have anything useful to add, boss?”

Hurst pulled a face. “Unfortunately, not much. He normally shares a drink with Silk when he gets back from the theatre — Silk’s treat, apparently — which he did on Friday night as usual. According to him, Silk seemed perfectly normal, not pissed or anything. After he’d had his drink, he was busy checking in a busload of Korean businessmen for about an hour so he didn’t notice when Silk left the bar.

“The only thing he did say was that there was a woman in the bar when Silk arrived, a businesswoman in a smart business suit, is how he described her. Said she was middle-aged, but he couldn’t remember anything about her, like her height or hairstyle and colour. He doesn’t know if she spoke to Silk or when she left.

“However, we’ve checked the hotel CCTV and there’s footage of Silk going up in the lift alone at eleven forty-one. No sign of a business type then or at any time later.”

“Did we get a name?” asked Jennifer.

“No, the barman had never seen her before. She didn’t go up in the lift, so she probably took the stairs. But since the CCTV doesn’t cover the corridors, we don’t know which floor or which room she went to. However, given the chain of events, I don’t think she’s of any significance.”

“But we have a list of guests from the hotel on Friday night?” persisted Jennifer.

“Yes, Cotton … that is, I think we do.”

Hurst looked to McPherson for the answer.

“I’ve got it here, boss,” called out Derek Thyme.

“Is there a reason you think it’s important, Cotton?” asked Hurst.

“It’s only that Silk is adamant that he can’t remember anything from the time he left the theatre until late the following morning. But we now have the barman saying that he saw Silk returning, and there’s no indication from him that Silk is either drunk or the worse for wear in any way, which kind of contradicts what Silk says. I was thinking that if it became necessary, we could probably identify the woman from the guest list and ask her if she noticed Silk in the bar, spoke to him perhaps, and whether he was out of it or perfectly rational.”

“Good thought, Cotton,” said Hurst, once again impressed with Jennifer’s attention to detail. “However, given the barman says he was fine, I think for the time being we don’t need to go to the time, effort and cost of locating her. I’ll put a note in the file and we’ll follow it up later if necessary.”

C
hapter 13

T
he following Friday, Jennifer was again asked to sit in with Rob McPherson for another interview with Henry Silk, now under arrest on suspicion of murdering Miruna Peptanariu. The entire team was hoping that with the huge amount of evidence they now had against Silk, he would capitulate and confess.

McPherson carefully went through all the formalities before reading out a detailed summary of the results they had gained so far. After each result on the list, he stopped to ask Henry if he could explain the findings. To McPherson’s irritation, the answer in each case was that he couldn’t.

By now, Henry had got over the initial shock of the weight of evidence against him and was starting to think more clearly. He knew full well that he wasn’t guilty of killing the girl. Apart from anything else, he didn’t use prostitutes, he never had, and he had no strong feelings about them or their trade. Everyone has to earn a crust.

The main thing that worried him was his lack of recall for many hours from late on Friday through to the middle of Saturday. Apart from the odd flashes in his mind of unconnected images that made no sense, he didn’t remember talking to anyone in the bar apart from Michael, and that was only briefly. However, he decided that he must in some way have been drugged and then a series of events set in place that involved killing the prostitute and framing him for the crime.

What he couldn’t understand was who and why. Yes, he had plenty of enemies in the industry, people who would rather he wasn’t around. But would they go to this extent, with all the inherent risks involved? If they hated him that much, why didn’t they simply have him killed? It would ultimately be less risky, although of course he would just be dead, whereas now he was likely to be spending many years in prison, his name and reputation ruined. That thought was both frightening and depressing. Perhaps that was what whoever had done this was trying to achieve. But why?

He had talked it through with Charles Keithley, who was not only his solicitor but also a good friend of many years. Together they had drawn up a list of everyone they could think of in Henry’s world — fellow actors, directors, producers, agents, distributors, film crew in general – who would have the means, opportunity, motive and intelligence to carry this out. Most failed the intelligence test while those remaining failed the rest.

“Quite frankly, Henry, there’s no one,” said Charles Keithley sitting back in the uncomfortable upright chair in the legal interview room at the prison where Henry was now being held. “There’s not a single soul on this list who has the wit to go through with it, let alone the opportunity and so on.”

He leaned forward and put his hand on Henry’s arm. “I know it wasn’t you, Henry. That’s not from some ill-considered faith in you. I know. I know you as a person and a friend. I know what you’re capable of and what you would and wouldn’t do. I knew you in your younger, wilder days, and I’ve seen how you have coped with adversity in the form of rejection by narrow-minded morons in your industry. I’ll help you as your solicitor in any way I can, but at the moment, like you, I’m totally at a loss. The police seem to have a cast-iron case with evidence that I agree must have been planted, but in such a clever way that it’s beyond my comprehension.”

“Thank you, Charles,” said Henry. “I appreciate that more than I can say. I know you will do all you can, that you will scrutinise everything the police have. And if you do clear my name, I want it to be because you’ve found out the truth, not because the police have made some procedural cock-up, which frankly must be incredibly hard not to do with all the hoops they have to jump through. That wouldn’t be enough; it would in many ways be worse since I’d be free but guilty in the eyes of the world. Certainly still ruined, never able to hold my head up wherever I went. No, we have to find the truth.”

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

H
enry 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 her 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.”