Eileen frowned. ‘Are you suggesting we rely on his statement in court as our only evidence of Ann’s guilt? A befuddled rough sleeper who thinks he may have been given a coat by a woman? Surely it’s more likely that he stole it, or at least found it somewhere, and invented a story to persuade us he was entitled to keep it. He didn’t seem very sure of himself, did he? He certainly didn’t come across as a reliable witness. And Ann did tell us David had lost his coat. No, the CPS is never going to pursue such a flimsy case against her.’
Geraldine had to agree that Malcolm might not be a credible witness in court. All the same, she could not help wondering whether he had been telling the truth. There seemed to be no reason why he would have lied so specifically about the woman who had given him the coat. Thoughtfully, she went to speak to Ann, who had been locked in a police cell for nearly forty-eight hours.
Ann looked stunned when Geraldine told her she was being released.
‘So, I’m free?’ she repeated, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘I don’t understand. What’s happened?’
It was hardly the reaction of a suspect who had been confident her innocence would become apparent.
‘We’ve caught the real killer,’ Geraldine told her. As she spoke, she watched Ann carefully. ‘I can’t say who he is just yet, but I can tell you that David wasn’t his only victim. After killing two homeless men, this man killed Mark and then David. The whole killing spree was all about Mark, who was the only real target, as far as we can make out. The other three victims were only killed to disguise the personal nature of the attack on Mark.’
Ann frowned. ‘I’m not sure I understand what you mean.’
‘I’m afraid your husband was murdered to disguise the reason for Mark’s death. This all happened because the killer wanted to murder Mark.’
‘But why?’ Ann demanded. ‘Why would anyone want to kill Mark?’
‘Mark was murdered because he was having sex with the killer’s wife,’ Geraldine replied.
Geraldine was startled when Ann laughed. ‘Well, that’s not true,’ she said. ‘I’ve already told you, haven’t I? I’m the one who was having an affair with Mark. There was no one else.’
Seeing Geraldine’s expression, Ann stopped laughing and glared coldly. Once again Geraldine felt convinced that more lay behind what Ann had said than the words themselves suggested.
‘You’re wrong. There was someone else in Mark’s life,’ Geraldine said softly. ‘At least two more women, in fact. We know he was seeing at least two other women, both blond and very attractive, and both married. Mark seems to have had a hankering for married blonds. Both these women have confirmed they were having regular sexual relations with Mark. There’s really no doubt about it. Like you, they both believed they were his only girlfriend. Of course, he could have been seeing other women as well, women we don’t know about, probably a series of women.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Ann said. ‘It’s a pack of lies.’
‘We’ve found evidence –’
‘What evidence?’
‘Hair from at least two other women in his bathroom.’
Ann shook her head. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she whispered.
‘Anyway,’ Geraldine went on, ‘you can go home, for now.’
‘What do you mean, for now?’
‘If there’s more to all of this than meets the eye, we’ll find out.’
Ann laughed nervously. ‘That sounds like a threat.’
‘Only if you have something to hide.’
‘We all have something to hide,’ Ann replied.
Thinking about her own struggle to conceal her feelings for Ian, Geraldine did not answer, but she returned to her desk feeling thoughtful. There was still one last lead she had not pursued. It was unlikely she would learn anything new, but she was determined to try. Before going home, she ran her idea past Eileen.
The detective chief inspector nodded. ‘You don’t give up easily, do you?’
‘I’m not sure I ever want to give up at all.’
Eileen smiled. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Do what you can. Whatever it takes.’
‘It’ll probably be a waste of time.’
‘Look, you might not get anywhere, but it won’t be a waste of time because there’s a chance we’ll end up with another killer behind bars, and that’s what we’re here for. I’d heard about your reputation before you came here.’
‘My reputation?’ Geraldine repeated, puzzled.
‘For having an infallible instinct for the truth. I have to say I was sceptical about what I’d heard, and I’m still wary. I’ve seen officers with more potential than either of us –’ she broke off, frowning. ‘Well, more potential than me, at any rate – I’ve seen them ruined by getting carried away with their hunches without any evidence to back up their theories. But, well, you might as well pursue this. It might come to nothing, but then there’s no harm done, and it’s certainly an idea that’s worth investigating.’
The next morning Geraldine went to the breakfast club in the church to look for Malcolm. This time he seemed sober. Seeing her enter the room, he jumped up from the table and scuttled away, but he moved too slowly to escape from her.
‘Malcolm, you’re looking very smart. How are you liking your new coat?’
The old man clutched the coat, pulling it tightly around him, and scowled.
‘Malcolm, I need your help,’ she said.
‘Jesus, what now? Haven’t I done enough for you?’
Ignoring his protestations, Geraldine outlined her plan and Malcolm nodded to show he understood.
‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘Let’s get this over with. But first, I’m going to finish my breakfast.’
Within an hour, Geraldine had Malcolm seated at the police station, with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits. Even after his cooked breakfast, he tucked in with a will.
‘All right, all right,’ he spat out a few crumbs as he spoke, ‘I’m thinking, I’m thinking. It was dark, black or navy with thin diagonal white lines, like fish bones. It could have been a square, folded in two.’
‘What about the coat she was wearing?’
‘That was a light colour.’
‘Long? Short? Loose or tight?’
The old man shook his head. ‘I can’t remember. I’m not a machine.’
‘Was the pattern on the scarf anything like this?’
The e-fit officer held up a screen with several similar patterns displayed. Malcolm frowned and then pointed at one.
‘That’s nearly right, that one.’
‘Right.
Malcolm sipped his tea and they waited for the e-fit officer to finish his next screen.
‘Was it like any of these?’ Geraldine asked.
Malcolm studied the sketches on the screen. ‘Could have been,’ he said.
‘Which one?’
Painstakingly, the e-fit officer produced an image which Malcolm confirmed more or less matched the outfit worn by the woman who had given him his new coat.
‘And she was holding a bag,’ he added. ‘That’s what she was carrying the coat in.’
‘What sort of bag?’
‘It was like a rucksack.’
‘Like this?’
‘No, she was carrying it over one shoulder. Yes, that’s it. That looks something like the woman who gave me that coat.’
Now it was a question of setting up a team to scrutinise any CCTV footage they could source of the streets around the town, starting at Coney Street and spiralling outwards from there, looking for a woman in a dark scarf and light coloured coat with a rucksack over her shoulder. At the same time, the search team returned to Ann’s house to look for a rucksack, coat and scarf matching the ones captured on film. They found only a scarf, but no light coloured coat or rucksack. Eileen had been right when she had said it wou
ld be a long shot.
61
It was only two weeks since Malcolm had acquired his new coat, and several of the cameras around the streets still had film stored in them. Malcolm was vague about days and times, but the volunteer at the church remembered contacting the police the day after he had first seen Malcolm wearing the new coat, and Malcolm confirmed that he had started wearing it straight away.
‘I had to, didn’t I? That woman had taken my coat, hadn’t she?’
So they knew the day on which the coats had been swopped. Malcolm thought the woman had offered him the new coat ‘some time after breakfast’, giving the police an approximate time frame for the exchange. Working closely with the local intelligence team, Geraldine identified every route that Ann might possibly have followed between her home and Coney Street, had she indeed met Malcolm there. A team were sent to download footage from every CCTV camera she could have passed on her route, so that it could be scrutinised.
At the same time, another team were checking any images of David they could find online, looking for a picture of him wearing a camel-coloured coat like the one Malcolm had been given. Examination of David’s credit card records showed a purchase from an expensive menswear shop in York for a single item priced at over £900. It was hard to imagine many items of clothing other than a coat costing so much. Even for a coat, it was dear. A visit to the shop confirmed that they stocked a coat identical to the one Malcolm had been given. That did not prove beyond any doubt that Ann had given away David’s coat, but it certainly made it feasible.
It took a week for the video images identification and detections officers to find an image of a woman matching the e-fit sketch of the woman Malcolm had described. Geraldine was at her desk when the VIIDO team called her and she hurried along the corridor to see what they had found. The image on the screen showed a woman wearing a dark scarf and a light coloured coat, carrying a rucksack slung over one shoulder, exactly as Malcolm had described her; she matched the e-fit picture exactly. Geraldine watched the video clips which followed a route through the city centre, with long gaps where her route could be roughly tracked. Working backwards took the woman out towards Ann’s neighbourhood, but reaching residential side streets the film record petered out.
Another day passed and, having watched the film extracts through several times, a VIIDO officer isolated a frame where the woman’s face had been caught on camera and he had run a visual recognition search. Geraldine almost could not bear to go and view the enhanced image, for fear it would prove they had spent all that time following a false lead. But as soon as she saw the VIIDO officer’s face, she knew they had found what they needed. Two images were displayed on the screen: a mug shot of Ann when she had arrived at the police station, and a slightly fuzzy image, with her hair mostly concealed beneath a navy scarf. Grinning, Geraldine hurried to speak to Eileen.
The detective chief inspector had already seen the evidence.
‘We’ve got her,’ Eileen said, as Geraldine entered the room.
Ian was standing beside Eileen’s desk, smiling. ‘Geraldine got her,’ he said.
‘This was a team effort,’ Geraldine corrected him. ‘The VIIDO team did an outstanding job, finding that image.’
‘But it was your idea to look for it,’ Eileen said. ‘Well done, Geraldine. And now, in the light of this new evidence, perhaps you and Ian would like to have another chat with Ann?’
As Geraldine followed Ian out of the room, she glanced over her shoulder and saw Eileen grinning.
‘Good job,’ Ian said to Geraldine as they made their way to the interview room to wait for Ann and her lawyer to join them.
‘We’d like you to take a look at these images,’ Geraldine said, when they were all seated, and the tape was running.
Ann stared at the picture of herself in a navy scarf and beige coat. In the photo her eyes stared straight ahead, and her shoulders were hunched forward, the one with a rucksack over it slightly raised.
‘Do you deny that picture is you?’
‘It looks like me, but so what? It could be anyone.’
Geraldine placed an evidence bag on the table between them. Through the clear plastic, a folded square of navy fabric was visible.
‘And this is your scarf?’ It was not really a question.
Ann’s expression grew wary. ‘I do have a scarf similar to that.’
‘Is this your scarf?’ Ian asked. ‘Please answer the question.’
‘It could be mine,’ Ann said. ‘I can’t say for definite. It’s just a scarf.’
But Geraldine could see fear in her eyes, and knew that Ann was losing the will to fight.
Even the stout lawyer was silent, aware that the scarf would carry incontrovertible traces of DNA from skin cells, sweat, dandruff, and hair that would prove its ownership.
Geraldine leaned forward. ‘We know what happened, Ann,’ she said gently. ‘We know you killed David. We have enough evidence to convict you. But if you co-operate with us now, you could be given a reduced sentence.’
‘If you refuse,’ Ian added, ‘you could be going away for a very long time. No lawyer can get you off a murder charge when we have evidence of such careful planning.’
‘What we don’t know is why you did it,’ Geraldine said. ‘What had David ever done to you? From what we can see, he was generous to a fault. It looks as though you didn’t want for anything.’
‘It had nothing to do with money,’ Ann muttered.
‘You don’t have to say anything,’ her lawyer barked.
‘David had what was coming to him,’ Ann went on, her voice growing hard.
‘That’s enough,’ her lawyer said. ‘I insist we take a break.’
But Geraldine held Ann’s gaze. ‘What do you mean: he had it coming to him?’
‘I mean I did what anyone would have done. David deserved to die.’
‘Did you kill him?’
‘Yes, I killed him!’
The lawyer began to trot out his set phrases. ‘My client is answering under duress, she doesn’t know what she’s saying –’
‘Ann,’ Geraldine interrupted him. ‘You don’t have to say anything, but you do understand you just confessed to killing your husband?’
Ann nodded.
‘Did you just nod your head?’
‘Yes, yes, I did it. I killed him.’
The lawyer changed tack. ‘My client deeply regrets what she did in a moment of passion. She wasn’t responsible for her actions –’
‘I killed him and I’d do it again!’ Ann cried out.
‘Why? What had David done to you?’
‘I strongly advise you not to answer that,’ the lawyer answered quickly. ‘I demand a break. I need to speak to my –’
‘He killed Mark!’ Ann shouted.
‘You’re wrong. Mark was killed by a man we have in custody,’ Ian said. ‘He’s confessed.’
‘Exactly,’ the lawyer replied. ‘Now I need to –’
‘He’s confessed,’ Ian repeated, interrupting the lawyer. ‘We have proof. The man who killed the rough sleepers also killed Mark. That was the whole point of all the murders. Mark was the target all along. The rough sleepers were killed and Mark was disguised as a rough sleeper to hide the truth.’
Ann stared at Ian, aghast. ‘What? No!’
‘It’s true. David didn’t kill anyone,’ Geraldine confirmed.
‘That’s not true.’
All anger and triumph faded from Ann’s face, leaving only a scared and horrified woman.
‘Oh my God, what have I done? What have I done?’ she whispered, turning to her lawyer.
‘We’ll plead diminished responsibility,’ he replied stolidly. ‘That will get you a reduced sentence.’
‘Will I really go to prison?’
‘You killed your husband,’ Ian pointed out.
>
‘But what about Aimee?’ Ann asked.
‘You should have thought of that before you strangled David,’ Ian replied coldly. He turned to the lawyer. ‘You can consult with your client now. Take as much time as you want. She’s not going anywhere.’
62
The team were off to the pub for a celebratory drink.
‘You’re looking very solemn,’ Ariadne said to Geraldine. ‘Are you all right? You of all people should be feeling pleased with yourself.’
‘I’m fine,’ Geraldine lied.
The thought of Ann’s daughter was bothering her. She wondered what would happen to a fifteen-year-old girl who learned that her mother had murdered her father.
Ian walked to the pub with her. ‘I wanted to say well done,’ he told her as they set off. ‘Why so glum?’
When she explained to him how she was feeling, he smiled sadly.
‘That’s so typical of you. But it’s not our responsibility. If you think about it, every villain we put behind bars probably has relatives, and quite possibly dependents as well, who could be left high and dry. And Aimee’s neighbour is going to take her in while Ann’s away. It’s not as though she’s been left on her own to be taken into care. She’ll still be able to stay at the same school so her routine will be disrupted as little as possible.’
‘But this isn’t just about who’s going to look after her, is it? Her mother murdered her father. She didn’t have to know about that, did she? We already had Charlie in custody. Adding one more murder to his tally wouldn’t have made much difference to him. He’s going down for life anyway. But Ann’s conviction is going to destroy an innocent young girl’s life.’
‘That’s not our fault,’ Ian insisted.
‘No, it’s my fault. If I hadn’t been so determined to find the evidence to convict Ann, she might have got away with it.’
‘And you’re saying that would have been a good thing? You don’t really believe that. How could it be good to let a murderer go unpunished?’
‘I just can’t help thinking about that poor girl.’
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