He had the good sense to hand the boxes of notes and reports to Fennimore without comment. Fennimore took them, stacking them against the wall just inside his front door. This done, he held on to the door-frame with one hand, the door with the other, and looked at Lazko.
‘I will do this my way, at my own pace, without interference. I will discuss details when I’m ready, on my terms.’
The reporter nodded.
‘I haven’t finished yet. If the evidence says that Graham Mitchell is guilty, I will say so – and publicly.’
‘Understood.’ Lazko nodded amiably. ‘Well, now we’ve got that cleared up’ – he peered around the door into the apartment. ‘Coffee smells good – aren’t you going to invite me in?’
Fennimore relaxed into a smile and he saw hope and journalistic avarice bloom on the other man’s face.
‘Not a chance,’ he said, and swung the door shut.
13
Evidence must wait for the appropriate question before revealing any answer.
JON J. NORDBY, DEAD RECKONING
Aberdeen, Saturday
Fennimore had worked through the Mitchell case documents for the rest of Friday, taking cat-naps on his sofa, topping up his caffeine reserves from a pot of coffee he kept simmering on the hotplate. The stack of notes next to his laptop had grown taller and messier. Having read the case files through once, he’d dragged a flipchart from the back of his wardrobe and within hours multi-coloured mindmaps and charts covered the walls and lay strewn across the sitting room floor.
Mitchell had admitted to murdering Kelli Rees, a prostitute whose services he had used on many occasions, but he quickly retracted his confession. His solicitor claimed that his client had been coerced; prosecution counsel contended that police interviews showed no evidence of duress. Fennimore added a note to request the taped recordings of Mitchell’s testimony. The circumstantial evidence was strong: Mitchell’s DNA had been identified in saliva on a love-bite on the victim’s neck and from epithelial cells found under her fingernails – rough, but consensual sex, he claimed.
The court transcript showed that prosecution counsel cited ‘semen stains’ on Kelli Rees’s skirt, linking it to Mitchell’s DNA found on her body. Fennimore made another note, dumped his pad and pen on the sofa and stretched.
For the hundredth time, his eyes strayed to the CCTV recordings replaying on his new tablet. As he’d toiled through Friday into Saturday, the tableaux of Parisian streets had changed from dark to light, to dark and back again. People came and went, triggering the cameras, which were set to three-shot bursts; cars passed by; it rained for a time; a mist crept up the cobbled slope from the Seine and then receded in a milky, time-lapse wave. It was now mid-afternoon, the time stamp told him, and although this stretch of the river was off the main tourist track, the cameras had been set off many times by office workers and dog walkers, lovers taking a quiet stroll, families looking for a sunny spot to eat a picnic lunch.
A two-tone notification signalled that a new email had landed in his inbox. He called up the message: it was from the firm who managed his accounts, and he realized he hadn’t replied to the earlier voicemail. They would like to ‘review’ his investments – a ploy, no doubt, to pitch him another ‘opportunity’. He filed it, snagged his coffee cup and headed to the kitchen for a refill but stopped, hearing a knock at his door. He returned to the table, placed the e-tablet face-down to hide the Paris surveillance shots, and checked the confusion of lists and mindmaps scattered around the room. Those would have to stay.
He peered through the spy hole. Lazko – who else? He swung the door open. ‘How’d you get in?’
The journalist shot him a pained look. ‘You don’t get stories by—’
‘Respecting people’s privacy?’ Fennimore said. ‘Newsflash, newshound – you won’t get this story unless you do.’
‘I am – I mean, I’m playing by your rules – trying to, anyway.’ Lazko took a breath. ‘Look, can I come in?’
Fennimore noticed with a rumble of foreboding that the reporter was pale and sweaty.
‘What’s happened? Why are you here?’
Lazko ran a hand over his thinning hair, and Fennimore saw a tremor in his fingers.
‘Let me in,’ the journo said. ‘I’ll explain.’
Fennimore didn’t move. ‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing. Anyway, it’s all straightened out.’
‘If it was nothing,’ Fennimore said with implacable logic, ‘why would it need straightening out?’
Another intake of breath. Lazko let it go slowly. ‘All right – but don’t freak out, okay?’ Another hesitation, then he spoke in a rush. ‘Mitchell’s sister posted on the “Justice for Graham Mitchell” page that you’re reviewing the case.’
Fennimore turned on his heel, leaving the door to swing shut under its own weight; Lazko must have caught it, because a moment later he heard the journalist crunching flipchart paper underfoot.
‘I spoke to her as soon as I knew about it. She’s taken it down,’ said Lazko, talking fast, staying out of reach.
‘So it’s fixed.’
‘You might get a request on Suzie’s Faceb—’
But Fennimore had his daughter’s Facebook page onscreen already. Someone named Geena had made a request to post on Suzie’s wall. The posting included a photograph of Mitchell, a thug with facial tattoos and a mono-brow.
‘Is this sister’s name Geena?’ Fennimore said.
‘Um …’ Lazko squinted past him to the screen. ‘Like I said – misunderstanding. Ignore it, it’ll go away.’
Fennimore jammed his hands in his pockets. ‘It won’t,’ he said. ‘It never does.’
‘Look, I’m sorry – I really am.’ Lazko sounded like he meant it. ‘But you can’t drop the case.’
‘Give me one good reason.’
Lazko took in the notes stacked on the dining table, the sheets of doodles and mindmaps on the walls, the sofa, under his own two feet. ‘Because …’ he said, ‘you think he’s innocent.’
‘I think he’s a thug,’ Fennimore corrected.
Lazko’s eyebrows twitched and Fennimore realized he had seen the evasive remark for what it was. ‘You really do think he’s innocent.’
‘I think he’s a Neanderthal who maybe didn’t do this particular bad thing,’ Fennimore said.
The scrunched flesh of Lazko’s forehead relaxed abruptly and he rubbed his hands briskly together. ‘So what will it take to convince you?’
Fennimore thought about it. ‘Evidence that Kelli Rees was alive and well when Mitchell left her flat.’ He waited for the disappointment to show on Lazko’s face before adding, ‘But it’s not me you’re trying to convince. And neither you nor I, nor his legal representatives, need to prove Mitchell’s innocence – only that his guilt is in doubt. What you need is evidence that his conviction was unsafe.’
Fennimore saw a gleam of excitement in the journalist’s eyes. ‘You found something.’
‘I found a void,’ Fennimore said, and Lazko’s forehead wrinkled again – this time in question. ‘The prosecution talked about semen stains—’
‘Mitchell never denied he was with Kelli,’ Lazko said, instantly on the defensive. ‘They had sex, it got rough – but he didn’t kill her.’
‘I’m not talking about the DNA evidence,’ Fennimore countered. ‘The prosecution referred specifically to semen stains on the victim’s skirt and underwear. But there’s nothing in the lab reports about those items of clothing. Which means they didn’t analyse the stains.’
‘They had a confession,’ Lazko said. ‘They had his DNA on the body – they didn’t need to—’
‘Yes,’ Fennimore said. ‘They did. The prosecution brought the skirt and underclothing into evidence. Make a claim like that, you need to prove it. You can’t just assume a greyish-white stain on a skirt is semen: it could be a milk spill or toothpaste, or a drip from a medicine bottle – or a dozen other things. The police had a match to Mi
tchell from the skin cells under the victim’s fingernails and the love-bite – so they assumed it was his semen on her clothes. But Mitchell was one of Kelli Rees’s regular customers – he would almost certainly have worn a condom, so he wouldn’t have left semen stains on her clothing. Mitchell’s defence should never have allowed that to go unchallenged.’
Lazko grinned. ‘See – that’s why I wanted you on the case – you’ve just given us a new suspect.’
Fennimore winced. ‘You’re jumping to the same conclusion the prosecution did. We don’t know what those stains are. First, we need to find out. Then, if they are semen, and if the DNA isn’t too degraded for testing, it could give you the DNA profile of another suspect, but if it’s a match to Mitchell, it will only strengthen the prosecution’s case.’
Lazko nodded, still frowning. ‘You’re saying it’s a risk.’
Fennimore fixed him with a hard stare. ‘Get this through your thick skull – I’m not out to prove Mitchell’s innocence, I’m here to find the truth.’
After a moment’s hesitation, Lazko gave another quick nod of agreement. ‘All right. What next?’
‘We need to request analysis of those stains. We’ll need to arrange with Essex Police and their preferred crime lab to examine the evidence. At a minimum, they’ll want their crime scene manager and the forensic scientist who advised them on the case to be present. It could take six weeks; any complications, you can double that.’
Lazko smirked. ‘I think we can do better than that. Mitchell’s lawyers have been working on this for months – they requested access to all the physical evidence five weeks back – all you need to do is agree a date.’
Fennimore raised an eyebrow. ‘And you didn’t think to mention this?’
Lazko shrugged. ‘You said you wanted to do things your way.’
He was right – Fennimore wouldn’t have taken the case if Lazko were constantly at his elbow feeding him snippets of information.
‘Okay,’ Fennimore said, forcing the tension out of his shoulders. ‘I’ll talk to Mitchell’s legal team, make sure the police don’t inadvertently leave the clothing off the inventory.’
‘Great. I’ve got to head back home, but I’ll be in touch.’
‘Surely you’re not leaving?’ Fennimore said in mock sorrow.
The reporter grimaced. ‘I just got word my flat’s been broken into – they trashed the place.’
Fennimore didn’t know how to respond. He couldn’t bring himself to commiserate with the man, but after a second’s hesitation, he said, ‘I’ll see you out.’
He waited until Lazko was out of sight, and was about to go back up to his flat when a Post Office van drew up.
The driver poked his head out of the window. ‘Professor Fennimore?’
‘That’s me.’
‘Special delivery.’ The postman ducked back in the van and picked up an envelope and his hand-held scanner from the passenger seat.
Back in his flat, Fennimore slit the envelope open with a kitchen knife. There was no letter, only a newspaper clipping. He tipped the flimsy strip on to the counter. It curled as it fell, straightening as it slid across the marble surface.
The headline read: FEARS FOR MISSING MOTHER AND CHILD.
He felt a stab of horror, thinking, Rachel, Suzie.
With the tip of the knife, he turned over the slip of newsprint. On the reverse, a scrawled message:
‘Do I have your attention?’
14
The true art of questioning is to discover what the pupil does know or is capable of knowing.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Aberdeen, Saturday
Crank, Fennimore thought. Has to be. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had faked a newspaper article to look like news of Rachel and Suzie. Even so, his mouth went dry and his heart thudded against his ribcage. Those others had been photocopies rigged up to look like the real thing, but this had the feel of genuine newsprint. He leaned closer and sniffed, caught a faint whiff of printers’ ink; everything about this flimsy strip of paper seemed chillingly real. He carefully flipped the cutting again and read the text: a woman named Julia Myers and her daughter Lauren were missing. Police had put out an appeal for information.
Fennimore went to his laptop, leaving the envelope and its contents where they lay. The abductions filled three pages in the Manchester Evening News: they had vanished on their way home to Prestwich, just north of Manchester, after watching a film at Salford Quays multiplex cinema – a treat to celebrate Lauren’s sixth birthday. He checked the date: three days ago.
Fennimore returned to the marble kitchen counter and stared hard at the small slip of paper and the envelope, trying to glean every possible detail as he speed-dialled Kate Simms.
In the second before Kate spoke, he heard music playing, a peal of childish laughter: her son, Timmy.
‘Nick,’ she said, a smile in her voice. ‘Can this wait? I—’
‘The Myers case,’ he said, ‘are you investigating?’
‘Me personally?’ She laughed. ‘I’ve only been home a day and a half, Nick.’
‘Kate, I think I’ve had a message from the abductor.’
‘Internet?’ she asked, all trace of humour gone.
‘A press clipping.’
The sounds of family life became muted as she covered the mouthpiece and he found himself straining to hear the boy’s voice. He heard Kate say, ‘I need to take this, Mum.’ Then a door closed and the background noise was abruptly silenced.
‘What have you got?’ she demanded.
‘A fifteen-by-ten-centimetre white envelope. Postmark: Manchester; special delivery.’ He read the tracking number from the label and waited for her to repeat it back to him. ‘Handwriting on the envelope and the back of the cutting; it looks like biro.’ He turned the envelope with the tip of the knife blade and scrutinized the seal. ‘Gummed flap.’ Evidence, he was thinking, DNA, knowing he didn’t have to say it, because Simms’s thoughts would mirror his own.
‘The guy’s an amateur,’ Simms said, and in the long, interconnected corridors of Fennimore’s memory, an echo reverberated. ‘But what makes you so sure it’s the abductor?’ she asked.
‘The message on the back of the cutting,’ Fennimore said. ‘It reads: “Do I have your attention?”’
He heard a slow release of breath at the other end of the line.
‘I’ll talk to the senior investigating officer, get back to you,’ Simms said. ‘Meanwhile, you know what to do.’
He should: Fennimore had helped write the protocols for evidence collection in the days when UK policing still had a government-funded Forensic Science Service. He needed equipment and that meant a trip to his office – ten minutes each way – another twenty to gather what he needed. But he was reluctant to leave the evidence unguarded; he felt an almost superstitious dread that he would return to find the envelope and slip of newsprint gone. The statistician in him disparaged this as a gut response to the way Lazko had dodged the building’s security system, but the break-in at the journalist’s flat was objective proof that nowhere could be entirely secure.
He dialled Josh’s mobile number. The student sounded wary at first, perhaps waiting for Fennimore to name his new supervisor. Fennimore outlined the situation.
‘Tell me what you need,’ Josh said.
Josh arrived in under thirty minutes with a scene kit, camera and the extras Fennimore had requested, sealed inside a clear plastic bag. There was no need for scene suits: Fennimore’s DNA was already on the evidence, but he opened a fresh pack of nitriles and gloved up. Josh closed the door and followed his example, but remained by the doorway while Fennimore returned to the kitchen counter and placed sample boxes, labels and sterile equipment to hand. This done, he took the scene kit camera out of the case Josh had brought. He had a photocopier but using it would destroy the evidence: the static charge on a photocopier glass could suck up fibres more effectively than any vacuum cleaner. So he photographed the envelope an
d the cutting, turning them with disposable forceps to get both sides.
Although Josh remained silent during the entire process, Fennimore was conscious of his intense scrutiny. As he reached for the first evidence box, Josh asked, ‘Why boxes and not evidence bags?’
‘You tell me,’ Fennimore said.
‘Uh – there could be indented writing on the evidence?’
‘And you wouldn’t want to mess that up,’ Fennimore said, regretting that he’d spoken. He always found it hard to resist a teaching opportunity – but he didn’t want to give Josh hope of a permanent reprieve: he’d needed assistance, and he knew the student was on campus when few others were, that was all.
He signed the CJA evidence label, thinking ruefully that Simms would chalk this up as another example of his using people, building their hopes, only to drop them when they had outlived their usefulness. He lifted the envelope carefully into the first box, sealing the lid along every edge with one continuous strip of Sellotape, signing it in two places along each edge, taking care to write half on the tape and half on the box. Even if someone peeled the tape off without tearing it, they would never match it perfectly to the signatures if they tried to reseal it. Finally, he added the exhibit label, taping just one edge, so that the chain of custody details could be completed on the reverse by the police. He signature-sealed that, too.
His mobile phone rang as he lifted the slip of newsprint into the second box.
‘Probably DCI Simms,’ Fennimore said. ‘Put her on speaker, will you?’
Josh moved to the dining table and picked up Fennimore’s phone.
‘Kate, you’re on speakerphone,’ Fennimore said. ‘Josh Brown is with me.’
Her momentary silence said everything he needed to know about her distrust of the young doctoral student; that distrust was reflected in Josh’s eyes and magnified by an unease that Fennimore still hadn’t fathomed.
‘Two detectives are on their way to take custody of the evidence,’ Simms said. ‘Should be with you in about six hours.’ She gave him their names and hung up.
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