Hidden Killers

by Lynda La Plante

  Gibbs had taken advice from DCI Shepherd to keep his questioning low key. Jane knew what he was after but it was not having the effect he was hoping for, as Katrina wasn’t rising to the bait as she had done before. But her lawyer was.

  “This is completely unacceptable, and purely supposition. My client would never have admitted to a relationship with a man you suggest she felt was of a lower level.”

  “Oh shut up!” Katrina said. “Can’t you see what he is trying to do? If you can’t think of anything better to interrupt with then keep your mouth shut . . . he’s just trying to goad me into admitting I was connected to that woman’s death.”

  Katrina crossed and uncrossed her legs, then folded her arms, glaring at Gibbs.

  “Go on, Detective Gibbs, try and find some other ulterior motive that you think I might possibly have. I have been totally honest with you at all times. I have admitted that I did have an affair but I have also clearly stated that it was over as soon as I knew he was married. He also lied about the fact that he had a child, so I ended the relationship and left St. Thomas’ Hospital.”

  Gibbs leaned forward and drew his file closer as he thumbed through page after page, all the while speaking quietly.

  “Yes, this is all nice and tidy and I am sure you think totally believable. But you are a known liar, Miss Harcourt. You were fired from St. Thomas’ Hospital, as you have been on numerous previous occasions from various care homes, due to your unprofessional conduct. You have even been quoted as disliking having to work with dementia patients. So let’s go back to just how important this so-called fling with Barry Dawson was, because I believe it was pretty desperate on your part.”

  “Desperate?” Katrina snapped. “Why don’t you take a good look at me . . . do you think I look like a desperate woman? You’ve got a bloody nerve. Take a look at yourself in the mirror. Has anybody ever told you that you stink of BO, and crunching peppermints doesn’t hide your beer breath?”

  Katrina then looked over at Jane.

  “And as for that dull, flat footed Detective Tennison . . . I would describe the pair of YOU as being pretty desperate.”

  Gibbs ignored her and continued.

  “In my estimation, a woman who gets herself into debt buying a designer wedding gown and having herself photographed as a bride before the actual ceremony, and then gets jilted before getting to the altar, must be more than just desperate. Barry Dawson made promises, marriage proposals, and you also knew he owned their flat in a very nice location. All this must have sounded very enticing for a woman whose qualifications restricted her to agency work instead of full-time nursing staff.”

  “Rubbish, you have no idea just how good the wages are for agency staff.”

  “I am very aware; you were sharing a bedsit with another nurse, and you don’t even own your car.”

  Katrina pursed her lips and Jane was sure Gibbs was turning the tables as he continued.

  “You have a record of unprofessional conduct and abusive behavior working with the elderly. And to still be dependent on your parents . . . All of this would have been a very cumulative build-up to—”

  “To what exactly?” Katrina interrupted.

  “Getting rid of the woman who stood in your way.”

  Jane was impressed as Gibbs kept going, but Katrina remained unperturbed. She crossed and uncrossed her legs again and sighed as he continued.

  “You couldn’t let his cheap little wife stand in your way . . . you wanted him to get a divorce. Mr. Dawson says he ended the affair with you as he knew he had made a gross mistake. So he confessed to his wife about the one-night stand he had with you.”

  “It was not a one-night stand!” Katrina spat. Jane could see that at last there was another small crack in her composure.

  Gibbs was now stepping up the game, his voice louder and sharper as he leaned forward at the table.

  “Shirley didn’t quite believe it was over. So she followed her husband and took photographs of the woman he says was just a cheap one-night stand. Some woman . . . you . . . who worked at the hospital and was proving to be desperate and hard to get rid of. You’d been rejected and burned before by someone you rated a lot higher than a porter, so you took it into your own hands and decided you would call on Shirley Dawson.”

  “I did not.”

  “We have a witness. You paced up and down outside the building, didn’t you? Was that to work your temper up, or in the hope that nobody saw you going inside the Dawsons’ flat?”

  Katrina looked at Blake. “Why don’t you interrupt?” She then turned back to Gibbs. “Nobody saw me . . . as I have said before, if you have a witness then put me in an ID parade.”

  Gibbs knew he was flying by his shirt tail, but she had just slipped up and he needed to up the ante.

  “The point is, Shirley Dawson was not the silly woman you wanted to believe her to be. In fact, she was quite the opposite. Let’s face it, she was not only a lot younger than you, and very pretty, but she had something Barry would never let go—his daughter.”

  “Heidi . . .” Katrina said, in a surly and dismissive manner.

  “Ah, so you know the little girl’s name? So you must have been aware that Shirley was not about to agree to a divorce or let Barry bring in the ‘one-night stand.’ So, Miss Harcourt, you were going to be left in the lurch one more time and you were not prepared to take it, so you went to talk to Shirley yourself—”

  Katrina interrupted. “I know the child’s name because Barry told me. I resent the way you keep on referring to me as a ‘one-night stand,’ and you . . .” Katrina turned angrily and pointed at her lawyer. “Why are you allowing this to continue? I am getting sick and tired of being shown such disrespect, when the reality is that as soon as I knew Mr. Dawson had lied to me and we had no future together I ended the relationship. Whatever he has subsequently been saying about me are yet more lies. I did not wish to discuss anything with Shirley Dawson, and I never met her.”

  Mr. Blake nodded and then pointedly looked to Gibbs.

  “I think my client does have a reasonable query as to why you persist in this line of inquiry. She has stated that her relationship with Mr. Dawson was over for some time before the unfortunate incident occurred, and at no time discussed anything with the victim or visited her at her home.”

  Jane wondered if Gibbs was losing it as Katrina was nodding overconfidently. Then he opened a file of photographs. He picked up an enlarged image of the shaven-headed Shirley Dawson, with the clear head wound in the shape of a V which they had matched to the iron she had been using. Next he took out the same-sized photograph of the wound to Shirley’s forehead.

  Blake looked shocked as both pictures were placed down side by side in front of Katrina.

  “Miss Harcourt, we know you were at the Dawsons’ flat on the morning of her murder. She let you in through the main building door thinking you were her mother-in-law, and you went up to the top floor. She was very surprised to see you. Whether or not you intended to, you picked up the red hot iron and slammed it into the side of her head.”

  “I was not there! This is all lies!”

  “You have been lying, Miss Harcourt, and Mr. Dawson has given us details of exactly how the murder of his wife occurred. I sincerely think that this is now the time to start telling the truth. You have to be aware that we have enough evidence to charge you—”

  “Whatever he has told you is not the truth! He is a liar! He is a two-faced LIAR!”

  Jane felt her stomach lurch as she observed Gibbs’s progress. Katrina’s fists were clenched tight and her face was twisted with rage. As her lawyer reached out to take her hand she snatched it away.

  “Don’t start trying to help this situation now! If Barry is implicating me in something I did not do then I am not going to be framed and made to be the guilty one. I am totally innocent . . . I never touched her, I swear on my life . . . I never did that to her.”

  Katrina pushed the photographs away from her, and one slid onto th
e floor. Jane bent down and picked it up, placing it back down on the table.

  “Take that out of my sight!” Katrina shouted.

  “But this was what was done to her, Miss Harcourt. Someone, either you or Mr. Dawson, slammed the red hot iron into the side of her head and then—”

  “I didn’t do it!” she screamed.

  Gibbs kept his voice low.

  “So what exactly did you do, Miss Harcourt? Because now is the time to tell us the truth. Barry Dawson is so confident that he is innocent that he didn’t even request any legal representation.”

  Katrina’s face creased into a snarl as she leaned forward.

  “I’ll tell you what that two-faced liar did.”

  Barry Dawson had his head bent low as tears streamed down his cheeks. In front of him on Shepherd’s desk were the two identical photographs of the injuries sustained by his wife.

  “So help me God, I didn’t do that! I swear to you. I would never have hurt Shirley! It was Katrina . . . she’s crazy, and because of her it was all getting messed up . . . she wouldn’t leave me alone. I can’t lie anymore.”

  Up until now he had claimed that the first he knew about his wife’s drowning was when he had arrived home and found her in the bath. Now he changed his story, and the tears flowed as he sobbed.

  “Take me through exactly what happened on the morning of your wife’s death, Barry . . . get it all off your chest, it will make it easier for you if you talk it all through. Come on, son, start telling us the truth.” Shepherd spoke calmly, coaxing Barry to confess.

  Barry nodded and took a deep breath.

  “I was on duty, at work, and I was in the porters’ rest room when they put a call in to me. That’s how we get instructions to go to where we are needed, via the phone in the porters’ room. It was Katrina—because she knew the extension number, she could call directly. She was hysterical . . . she said she was at my flat and there had been an accident.”

  “What time was that?” Shepherd asked quietly.

  “Be about eight o’clock . . . maybe a bit later. I had been on since six thirty and was due for a break. I took the short cut out of the hospital, going through the mortuary then across the courtyard. I left my porter’s jacket in the mortuary.”

  “Why didn’t you just ask to leave?”

  “Because of what she had said . . . that Shirley didn’t look good.”

  “You mean she described what she had done?”

  “In a way yes, I mean, I dunno . . . she just said they had been fighting and she had hit out at Shirley.”

  “You mean that she said she was unconscious, or bleeding, or what?”

  “Yeah, that she couldn’t get her to come round.”

  “But isn’t Miss Harcourt a qualified nurse?”

  “Yes, and that’s why I was so freaked out because I was desperate to find out if Shirley was all right. I mean, she would know because she is a nurse, and then I got into a panic about my daughter being there.”

  Katrina was sitting with her hands folded in her lap. She had explained that Barry had called her very early on the morning Shirley died. He told her that he was not going to be on duty and wanted her to come round to the flat to talk to Shirley about the divorce.

  “Well, I was not very willing to agree because I had finished with him and I’d left my job at the hospital to get away from him. He begged me to meet him there, so I agreed and drove to London. I think I got there about eight in the morning. I mean, I was really worried about going up to the flat and I walked up and down the road a few times outside before I rang the bell.”

  Jane watched intently. Katrina spoke very clearly and without any emotion, only occasionally lifting her hands in a theatrical manner to emphasize a point. It was as though she was performing to an audience, and Jane was certain she was lying.

  “When I got to the top floor Barry came out, in a terrible state. He said that he had fought with Shirley over him leaving her and that she had refused to ever leave the flat, and told him he would have to pay the mortgage and all child maintenance. He was in such a rage that he had struck her with the iron, and now he thought she was dead . . .”

  Barry had straightened out, as if spilling out the whole story was making him less tense. He explained that he had caught a taxi back to his flat and arrived at about eight thirty. He had run up the stairs and found Katrina in a state of panic, with Shirley lying on the floor still unconscious, or so Katrina had told him.

  “She was lying by the ironing board, face down and not moving at all, and Katrina was crying, saying over and over that it wasn’t her fault.”

  Barry had to gather himself before he could continue. He seemed overwhelmed with shame.

  “She had run a bath. Katrina said that she was dead and what we should do was put her in the bath and leave her. But I said we couldn’t do that as Heidi, my daughter, was there and I couldn’t leave her alone. Then I remembered my mother was coming to babysit at nine, so I agreed to do what she wanted me to do.”

  “I helped Barry carry her into the bathroom. She’d been running a bath before I got there and he said we should just leave her in it. He was expecting his mother to come, so the baby wasn’t going to be left for too long.”

  Barry lifted his arms to demonstrate how they carried Shirley to the bathroom and put her down in the water, which was overflowing. He then became very agitated.

  “But she wasn’t dead . . . she jerked up in my arms and the next minute I lost my grip of her . . . Katrina started screaming that she was alive, and then she fell forward and hit her head on the water tap, and the next minute there was blood pouring from her nose and I couldn’t hold on to her.”

  “Can you explain to me exactly how Shirley fell forward?”

  Gibbs was making copious notes.

  “Barry put her in the bath, head to the right, feet facing the taps, and he lowered her into the water. But it started overflowing and I don’t know if it was because it was too hot or what, but the next minute Shirley jerked upward and forward. She was alive, but he lost grip of her and she fell forward and slammed her forehead into the tap. She started to pour blood from her nose and I was screaming as she flopped back. Then the kid was screeching, and the dog was running in and out barking, and Barry had to grab it by its collar and drag it out.”

  Shepherd tapped his notebook.

  “Just let me get this clear, Barry, because it is very important I understand exactly what you are saying. Shirley was placed unconscious into the bath, her feet toward the taps, and the bath was overflowing. Then she suddenly came round?”

  “Yes, she sat up but flopped forward and hit her head on the main tap. It cut her head and then she sort of made this snorting sound as blood poured from her nose and then she slid back and went under the water.”

  Katrina crossed her legs.

  “It was just terrible . . . I mean, Barry was totally losing it and crying, and with his wretched child screaming as well, and he had hit the dog with the leather lead so it was howling. I was trying to make him calm down because it was obvious that she was still alive, do you understand? I told him to look after her and said that I would go and see to the baby and give her a bottle.”

  Barry was weeping again as he explained that Heidi had started screaming and crying for her mummy, so he had gone out of the bathroom to settle her down and give her the bottle of milk that Shirley had left on the high chair. His dog had been running back and forth all the time, as Shirley usually took him out for his morning walk.

  “I put him in his cage, but he was barking and I had to really restrain him. It was only a few minutes but Katrina came out of the bathroom and said that Shirley was dead, and we should both get our stories straight.”

  He was wringing his hands.

  “You see, I knew my mum was coming over because Shirley had a hair appointment, so I knew the baby wouldn’t be left on her own for too long. Katrina dropped me off at the mortuary. I had to get back to the hospital and look like I had
never left. I called home but there was no answer, and I knew by this time that my mother should have been there to babysit. So I called her and she said that she was waiting for an engineer to fix her washing machine. She had tried to call Shirley, got no reply, but told me not to worry as she had probably taken Heidi to the hair salon with her. But I knew she hadn’t . . . I borrowed some change off a mate and kept on acting like I was calling, and then I went home.”

  Katrina leaned back in her seat.

  “It was obvious she was dead . . . there were no more bubbles from her mouth, and her eyes were wide open.”

  Barry kept his eyes to the floor and his voice sounded hoarse.

  “I knew she was dead. Katrina said she wasn’t breathing and there were no bubbles coming out from her mouth or nose, and her eyes were wide open.”

  The two suspects had now been charged with the murder of Shirley Dawson and had been taken back to the cells. The following day they would be taken before a Magistrates’ Court for the charges to be formally heard and a trial date set.

  It was five o’clock when DS Lawrence had a match of Katrina’s thumb and forefinger print on one of the coins from the payphone taken from the hallway. However, by the time he had relayed the information it was all over. The evidence would be used to prove that Katrina lied about not calling Barry Dawson from the flat.

  It had been a long day and everyone was tired, but satisfied at the eventual outcome. Jane had heard Gibbs relaying Katrina’s behavior to DCI Shepherd, and how she had tried to put the blame on Barry. Shepherd had laughed, saying that Barry had done exactly the same with his story.

  “Which one held her under?” Gibbs asked. Without hesitation Shepherd said he would put his money on Katrina. But in reality it didn’t matter because they had both committed murder and would go down for it.

  Jane was walking along a corridor on the ground floor as Richard Blake approached. He had his raincoat folded over his arm. Jane had watched his interaction during the interview with Katrina, and had witnessed how ill-equipped he had been to handle the situation or control his client. Jane acknowledged Mr. Blake and he hesitated. His face looked gray with fatigue, and he seemed to be fighting to say something about the awful afternoon he had just been forced to sit through. When he did speak he surprised Jane because it was something so inadequate.