‘They’ll be hours yet,’ Sam said.
‘You go home if you like. I’m staying here.’
In the end, Sam persuaded Geraldine there was no point in hanging around at the station. There was nothing to do there but wait, which they could do just as easily at home. It was nearly four o’clock by the time Geraldine climbed into bed. As she lay down and pulled the duvet up to her chin, she realised how worn out she was. Although she didn’t think she would be able to sleep, she drifted off as soon as she had set her alarm.
71
GERALDINE’S PHONE RANG early next morning. Mistaking it for her alarm, she reached out to turn it off and realised just in time that it was a call. After a brief greeting, the forensic scientist informed her that they had established a match. Muzzy-headed with sleep, Geraldine responded to the speaker’s excited tone before she registered who was speaking.
‘Can you repeat that?’
‘We’ve got a match. Item SH3 – that’s the dry clean only jacket seized from Katy – had textile fibres from item SH7.’
‘And SH7 was –’
‘The duffel coat seized from Gina.’
‘So Katy and Gina definitely had contact?’
‘Yes. There was forceful contact between the right shoulder and sleeve of both items, and we can estimate approximately when the contact took place. In its own way, trace evidence from textile fibres is more useful than DNA in indicating a time frame.’
‘When was it?’
There was a slight pause. ‘Well, we can’t pinpoint the time exactly but it was probably about a fortnight ago. I won’t bore you with all the technical details but basically the potential redistribution of fibres due to the wearers’ activity and the weather suggests a period of time of around a couple of weeks. It could be longer.’
‘And all this is evidence that could be given in court?’
‘With the provisos I’ve mentioned. We’re interpreting the evidence but yes, I’d say our conclusions are pretty accurate. Certainly, there’s no doubt there was contact at some point within well – being conservative – within the three weeks. But I don’t think it was that long ago.’
‘Thank you. Please let us have your report as soon as you can.’
‘Of course. I didn’t work through the night to have my conclusions ignored.’
Geraldine smiled. ‘Oh, this won’t be ignored, believe me. Far from it. You may think you’ve just been sitting in a lab, but what you’ve actually done is nail a murderer.’
‘Well, it’s good to know that just sitting in a lab can be so useful.’
‘You deserve a bloody medal. I hope they pay you well for working overtime.’
‘Ha! Fat chance. Anyway, glad to be of help. It’s all in a good cause.’
With a final word of thanks, Geraldine rang off. Adrenaline had cleared her head and she leaped out of bed and hurried into work.
Gina glared across the table at Geraldine. Her expression altered as Geraldine explained the evidence that had been gathered.
‘All of which means that we have proof that you had physical contact with Katy exactly as she described it. Textual fibres can be transferred on the briefest of contact, and you barged right into her. We’ll be scouring the toilets and the corpse for traces of your DNA, and we’ll find it. You were there, Gina. You were seen by two people leaving the men’s toilet just after Luke was shot, and we have forensic evidence that bears out their eye witness statements. You might as well start talking, because we have enough evidence to make a watertight case against you. No more wriggling, no room for manoeuvre. We can prove you shot Luke Thomas. All you can do now is cooperate with us in the hope the judge will be lenient when you’re sentenced. But it’s going to be difficult, with two murders –’
‘I never done two!’ Gina burst out in alarm.
‘You admit you shot Luke Thomas in the toilet? Come on, Gina, there’s no point in denying it now.’
‘It’s a fix. I been framed!’ she shouted, turning to her lawyer in a panic.
‘I’d like a word with my client,’ the brief said.
After a break, Gina returned to the interview room white-faced.
‘Look, I’ll tell you all of it what happened, only you got to believe me I never shot that first bloke. That was Lenny and he’s a bastard what I never should’ve listened to. He said he shot the bloke in the alleyway and then he come home and told me. He said it wasn’t his fault, he was too drunk to know what he was about. And he told me he did it so as he could get the ring for me. He said he heard the bloke boasting about it in the pub so he thought he’d get it for me.’ Her blemished features creased as she began to sob.
After a moment she sniffed, wiped her nose, and continued. ‘I believed him. He said he done it because he loved me. But he’s a lying bastard. He never got that rock for me, he got it for himself, only me, being a mug, believed him. He told me if he ever got nicked for shooting that bloke I was to take the gun and use it on someone near there, while he was in the nick, and then you’d think it couldn’t be him what done it. So that’s what I done. I put on gloves like he told me and I took that gun of his and I went to Oxford Street. I went in a bar round the corner from where Lenny shot that guy and followed a bloke into the toilets. Don’t ask me why I done that. It just seemed like the best thing to do, because I thought no one would see me in there. So he sees me get out the gun.’ She shuddered. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking, only I done it for Lenny. I thought that way I’d get to keep Lenny and get my ring and I thought we was going to get married. He promised me.’
‘I lifted up the gun and this bloke saw me and he jumped up on the toilet and opened the window like he was going to climb out. He never said a word. If he’d spoke to me, I would’ve bottled it, but he never said a word. He climbed up on the toilet and glared at me, like I was a rat. So I shot him. He fell backwards across the window sill and I run forward and give him a shove and he was gone. And then I legged it. Only I must’ve dropped the gun when I went to push him out the window, because when I got outside, I never had it. I wasn’t going to go back in for it so I just went home. And Lenny got out. Only then the bastard tried to pull a fast one. He got the real diamond took out of my ring and a bit of shit glass put in, like I wasn’t going to find out. Like I was some kind of idiot. After all I done for him, the lying bastard. He deserves all he gets. This is all his fault. I was only doing what he told me.’
She finished her account and began to cry again.
‘Well, well, what people do for love,’ Geraldine said.
‘Love? He’s a lying bastard and I hate him!’ Gina shouted through her sobbing. ‘I don’t love him and I never did. But I thought he was going to look after me. I ain’t never had nothing so nice as that ring. And he spoiled everything. I ought never to have listened to him.’
‘You’re right there.’ Geraldine said, as Gina was led away.
Adam listened intently to the tape of Gina’s confession.
‘So it was the two of them all along,’ he said, ‘and because of Lenny’s greed, two random innocent victims lost their lives. Don’t you sometimes wish we didn’t have to treat prisoners so well? I mean, when we know they’re guilty of such vile crimes?’
‘At least with the evidence we’ve got, and her confession, the case against them should be watertight.’
‘Yes, and I don’t suppose he’ll like being locked up with seriously violent cons. He won’t be mixing with petty villains banged up for larceny this time,’ Adam added, with a grim smile.
Leaving Adam’s office, Geraldine went to find Sam. ‘Come on, Lenny’s been brought in. Let’s go and listen to what he has to say.’
‘I can’t believe it’s over. It feels like this investigation’s been going on for years.’
‘I know. It’s been a tricky case, but we got there in the end. Gina and Lenny. Who would have thought it? What a pair they make! And we make a good pair too,’ she added, smiling.
Sam’s broad grin reminde
d Geraldine how keen her sergeant was to earn her approval, and she felt a tremor of guilt at having been so dismissive towards her.
Sam’s expression became thoughtful. ‘I can’t help feeling sorry for Gina, in a way. Rescued from a life on the streets by Lenny isn’t much of a break, is it? Was he really the best thing that happened to her? Some people don’t get much of a chance in life.’
For the first time, Geraldine felt she genuinely understood her mother’s choice to give her up for adoption. Growing up with her birth mother, perhaps she would have spent her life avoiding the law, instead of serving it. She might even have ended up like Gina. In the end, it was her own happiness Milly had sacrificed, not her daughter’s. Geraldine felt as though a dark cloud had lifted from the top of her head.
‘Sam,’ she said, stopping abruptly as they neared the interview room, ‘when we’ve finished with Lenny, let’s go out for that drink – no, for a meal. There’s – things – been going on in my life that I want to talk about.’
‘I’m always ready to listen.’
‘I know that. I’ve needed to work through it on my own for a while, but I’m ready to talk now.’
‘Any time. You know where I am.’
Geraldine smiled. ‘Thanks, Sam. You’re a real friend. Now let’s go and watch Lenny try and wriggle his way out of this!’
Copyright
This ebook edition first published in 2015
First published in 2015
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Murder Ring (A DI Geraldine Steel Mystery) Page 27