Echoes of Guilt

by Rob Sinclair

  Dani set her hard glare on Daley. ‘You assume? Why would you assume we came here to discuss Damian Curtis? Is that because you believe your client has something more to tell us regarding Curtis’s crimes?’

  Daley held his tongue.

  ‘It was a nice performance, though,’ Dani said to Ben. ‘Your little cameo in court.’

  ‘I’d asked to go in person, but—’

  ‘But you’re a dangerous murderer, so a day out wasn’t on the cards.’

  Ben shrugged. ‘I thought I saw you on the link,’ he said.

  ‘Detective Stephens, if this has to do with my client’s testimony—’

  ‘We didn’t come here to discuss Damian Curtis,’ Dani said. ‘Or the trial. Or the little show that Ben put on the other day with that sudden recollection of events related to Dr Collins that he’d never before mentioned to anyone.’

  Daley gave a ‘so what’ look. ‘The evidence was there to find, it’s not our—’

  ‘Yes. It’s my job, the police’s job, to find evidence. The CPS to present that. And believe me, I will get to the bottom of what happened between you and Curtis and make sure you get what you deserve.’

  Dani held Ben’s gaze for a few moments. Each second that passed, a sliver of his confidence seemed to disappear. He looked away first, to his lawyer. Daley said nothing.

  ‘Anyway,’ Dani said. ‘Enough of that. Like I said, we’re not here today to talk about Curtis. Something very different, in fact.’

  ‘Which is?’ Daley said. He looked a little uneasy now.

  Dani nodded to Easton and he slapped the picture onto the table then pushed it across the desk to Ben.

  ‘Can you tell us if you recognise the people in this picture?’ Easton said to him.

  Ben made a macho point of staring out Easton for a couple of seconds before he reached for the photograph with his cuffed hands and brought it closer to him.

  ‘Would you care to explain the purpose of this?’ Daley said.

  ‘If you’re patient, we will,’ Dani said, never taking her eyes of Ben. ‘So?’

  ‘Well, of course I recognise myself,’ he said with a smug smile, though it only lasted until his eyes briefly met Dani’s. He looked back down to the photo. ‘It’s a team photo from when I worked at Ellis Associates.’

  He sat back in his chair. Nonchalant.

  ‘You know the names of all the people it shows?’ Easton asked.

  ‘I’d have to have a good think, but I certainly did know them, at the time. When was this? Five, six years ago?’

  ‘Close,’ Dani said.

  ‘We’re particularly interested in what you remember of this man.’ Easton reached forwards and put his finger on Liam Dunne’s face.

  ‘James?’ Ben said, looking perplexed. ‘James Alden?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Dani said. ‘Except his real name was Liam Dunne.’

  ‘Have you heard of that name?’ Easton asked.

  ‘I have,’ Ben said.

  ‘How?’ Easton asked.

  Ben looked to his lawyer before he answered, though Daley didn’t even flinch. It was clear this was all news to him.

  ‘I don’t remember the exact details, but it was found out that James – or Dunne or whatever he was called – had lied about who he was. I don’t know why. But I do know it got him the sack.’

  ‘You don’t remember how you found out?’ Dani asked.

  ‘No,’ Ben said with a carefree shrug.

  ‘Do you remember how your employer found out?’

  According to Henry Welter it had been Ben who blew the whistle.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ben said.

  At least one of them was lying then, and Dani was far more inclined to believe it was Ben than Welter. But why?

  ‘What was your relationship with Dunne?’ Dani asked.

  ‘Relationship? We worked for the same company. On the same project team for a few months. Until he left. That was it. There was no relationship.’

  ‘What was his relationship with your wife?’ Dani said.

  Ben’s face screwed up in anger ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘We were alerted to an altercation between yourself and Liam Dunne,’ Easton said. ‘This altercation took place at a nightclub in Birmingham, called Gino’s back in 2014. A—’

  ‘Detective,’ Daley said, ‘I really think you should cut to the chase here. You’re asking—’

  ‘I was trying to get to the point until you interrupted,’ Easton said. That shut the lawyer up. ‘Can you explain what happened that night?’ Easton asked Ben.

  ‘I’m presuming you already think you know the answers to that,’ Ben said.

  ‘Give us your version then,’ Dani said.

  ‘From what I remember it was a drunken argument. Nothing more.’

  ‘Over Gemma?’

  Ben paused for a moment. ‘I really don’t remember the spark. I was drunk. So was he. I took offence to something. When I brought him up on it, he got in my face.’

  ‘So what? You punched him?’

  ‘There was a scuffle. As I recall neither of us was hurt. Though our whole party was thrown out of the club. We all went home. End of story.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is that the end of the story?’

  ‘I just said so.’

  ‘So you and Gemma were fine after that?’

  ‘As far as I recall.’

  ‘And you never took your disagreement with Dunne any further?’

  ‘It was a drunken argument, that’s all.’

  ‘So you weren’t the person, who, two days after that disagreement, told your employer about Dunne’s duplicity?’

  ‘Is that…’ Ben stopped and seemed to mull over whatever he’d been about to say. ‘OK. Yes. That was me.’

  ‘Wow, Ben. I’m impressed. I didn’t even have to force that truth out of you. So how did you find out?’

  Ben looked to Daley again. The lawyer leaned over and whispered into Ben’s ear. Likely telling him not to answer the question, for whatever reason.

  Dani sighed, sensing Daley wasn’t going to like where this was going and deciding she was better just getting there. ‘Why don’t I speed up this process a bit, rather than us dithering on your patchy recollection of your own actions.’

  ‘I agree that would be most helpful,’ Daley said.

  ‘Liam Dunne has been missing since 2015.’

  Ben didn’t react at all to that.

  ‘We don’t know where he went, or if he is still alive,’ Dani said. ‘We do know he went missing just a few months after he lost his job at Ellis Associates. Because of you.’

  Daley couldn’t help himself. ‘If you’re suggesting—’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ Dani said. ‘Did you know Liam was missing?’

  Ben shook his head, though he looked a little more worried now than before.

  ‘Do you know this woman?’ Dani said, taking the copy of the photo of Liam and the mystery woman from Easton’s pile, and sliding it across the desk.

  Ben glanced at it for only a couple of seconds before he looked up and shook his head.

  ‘You’re sure?’ Dani asked. ‘You don’t remember Liam having a girlfriend, or ever bringing a date along to one of your nights out?’

  ‘Never.’

  Perhaps the woman was a dead end, but Dani wanted to hold onto the hope that she was of significance, if only she could figure out who she was.

  ‘Now, this is where the story gets really murky,’ Dani said. ‘Because last week, we found Clara Dunne, Liam’s sister, dead in her home. We’re treating her death as murder, and we have strong evidence that before her death she was performing a personal investigation into her brother’s disappearance.’

  She let that one hang but neither Daley nor Ben said a word.

  ‘In relation to Clara’s death, and Liam’s disappearance, we are currently investigating the activities of a gang believed to be involved in various criminal activities incl
uding prostitution, drugs and extortion. The gang are all Romanian nationals.’

  Dani indicated to Easton.

  ‘Do you know any of these men?’ he said, placing three more photos onto the table – one each of Victor Nistor, Alex Stelea and Nicolae Popescu.

  ‘You don’t have to answer that,’ Daley said, looking as anxious as he sounded now.

  ‘I don’t know them,’ Ben said.

  ‘You don’t? Because where I’m sitting the circumstantial evidence is looking very strong indeed.’

  ‘What evidence?’ Daley said. ‘And evidence of what?’

  ‘You were convicted of the murder of your first wife, Alice,’ Dani said. ‘Correct?’

  ‘Correct,’ Ben said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Though my client has never admitted guilt,’ Daley decided to point out, as though that had any bearing. ‘And you are probably aware we are currently in the process of considering grounds for appeal.’

  Dani ignored him. ‘And, through your association with a prominent local gangster, known as Callum O’Brady, who you also later killed, you were able to cover up Alice’s murder for a number of years.’

  O’Brady. An Irish gangster who Ben had become indebted to. Who Ben, after killing Alice in a crime of passion, turned to for help in covering up her murder. That had worked. Until years later when Ben’s life, and his mental health, began to spiral out of control. In the end he’d killed O’Brady along with several members of his gang to try to break free from their grip, and had tried to kill both Gemma and Dani when they’d discovered the truth about Alice.

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘My client is hardly going to admit to these ludicrous statements,’ Daley said. ‘He has already been tried in relation to the deaths of both Alice—’

  ‘I’m well aware of his trial, thank you,’ Dani said. ‘Given I was one of the people Ben tried to kill. My point is, the circumstances are startlingly similar, don’t you think?’

  The room was silent for a few moments.

  ‘You killed Alice,’ Dani said. ‘For revenge, I might add, because she wanted to leave you. You then used Callum O’Brady to cover up her death to make it look like a home invasion gone wrong. Fast-forward a few years. You knew Liam Dunne. You had a falling out with him. Over his hands-on nature with your wife.’

  Ben was getting seriously riled. Every mention of Gemma made him angrier. Which was exactly where Dani wanted him.

  ‘So you had reason to want revenge on Dunne too. Then… pouf. He disappears. Now, years later, we realise not only is there a link between him and you, but we’re able to link the death of his sister – who was desperately searching for her brother – to another local gang. This one run by Victor Nistor.’

  Dani tapped the head of Victor on the picture on the table as she spoke.

  ‘So, let me ask you very clearly. How do you know Victor Nistor?’

  ‘I don’t know him.’

  ‘Did you kill Liam Dunne?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Do not say another word,’ Daley said, slamming his hand onto the table. ‘Detectives, as you are very well aware, my client is speaking to you today of his own volition, and not under caution. Unless you are intending to charge him, then this meeting is over.’

  Nobody said a word as Dani considered that proposition.

  ‘So?’ Daley said.

  Dani kept her eyes on her brother, though the return of his smug expression said it all. ‘Ben?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘We’re done here,’ Daley said, getting to his feet.

  Chapter 40

  ‘You don’t really believe Ben had anything to do with Liam Dunne’s disappearance, do you?’ Easton asked as Dani started the engine and pulled out of the parking space.

  ‘Why not?’ she said.

  ‘Because it’s…’

  ‘It’s what? A coincidence? It’s ridiculous?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘I would have said the same thing years ago. How could I ever have imagined that my own twin brother would kill Alice, kill O’Brady and the others. Could have tried to kill Gemma and me. But he did. The simple fact is that Ben isn’t like you and me.’

  Though Dani shivered at that thought because not for the first time it brought her back to the same old question: why was Ben, her twin, a killer? Did the same defects of mind that he suffered from affect her too?

  ‘I’m just saying,’ Easton said, ‘I think you’re taking a leap. Don’t bite my head off when I say this, but it’s almost as if you’re forcing things to fit. Curtis. Now Dunne. Anything that goes wrong anywhere near your brother and you try to make—’

  ‘But why do things keep going so wrong around Ben? To me it all being down to coincidence is far more unlikely.’

  She glanced over to Easton and could tell he was wholly unconvinced.

  ‘Ben’s got form for this. Seeking revenge. Getting dirty people to do his dirty work. It doesn’t change the fact that we still believe Victor and his gang are neck-deep in this too. But I can’t not properly explore Ben’s role.’

  Despite her words, though, Easton had done a good job of throwing some doubt into her mind. Was she blinkered when it came to Ben? Desperate to find blame in him, however tenuous, and regardless of what evidence and logic were telling her?

  She was still pondering that when a call came through to her phone. She recognised the number. The morgue. She clicked on the dashboard to accept the call.

  ‘Detective Stephens, it’s Jack Ledford,’ came the grainy voice through the car’s speakers.

  ‘Morning, Jack.’

  ‘I have Saad Tariq with me here too.’

  ‘OK?’

  ‘We were going over the results of the PM for your Jane Doe, and, well, you’ll probably want to get yourselves over here.’

  * * *

  The brief call had left Dani as perplexed as she was intrigued. The morgue was hardly the usual place to find Tariq, an FSI, who was more usually locked away in a lab. But then this case was hardly usual.

  As ever the concoction of bleach and death stuck in Dani’s nose as soon as she’d entered the building, and the nauseating mix intensified with each step that she and Easton took towards the theatre.

  ‘I wish I had somewhere else to be,’ Easton said.

  Dani didn’t say anything, though she kind of agreed. There were two parts of her job she really didn’t like, and both involved standing over dead bodies: murder scenes, and post-mortems.

  Dani knocked on the door to the theatre then stepped inside to see Ledford and Tariq across the room, standing by a gurney which had a white sheet over the top.

  They both turned around.

  ‘That was quick,’ Ledford said as he pushed his glasses further up his nose.

  ‘You said it was important.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m not sure I exactly did, but I’m sure it is.’

  Dani frowned at that comment, but didn’t say anything. Why was he always so obtuse?

  ‘I actually completed the PM yesterday evening,’ Ledford said, ‘but I wanted to run a couple of things past Tariq before I came back to you.’

  Ledford reached out for the sheet and was about to pull it down to reveal Jane Doe’s mutilated corpse when Dani held her hand up to stop him.

  ‘Actually, rather than the PM, I’m more interested in what Tariq has found.’

  Ledford looked a little put out by that. ‘Very well.’

  ‘Though we will still need to see the body, I’m afraid,’ Tariq said.

  On cue Ledford pulled the sheet back and Dani instinctively glanced to the washed-out body before looking back to Tariq. Even the short glimpse filled her with a sense of torment at seeing the remains of the young woman, so vulnerable.

  ‘We went over the van she was found inside in painstaking detail,’ Tariq said, ‘but you also asked us to consider the body too. As you know, we can get residue transfer onto skin, so we were looking in particular for any foreign fibres, substan
ces or prints. Surprisingly, we actually found quite a few fingerprint fragments around her body. Mostly around her genitals, her breasts and her hips.’

  Dani squirmed at the connotations of what that meant. ‘But we also found fingerprint fragments around here…’ He reached out with a gloved hand and pulled up Jane Doe’s right arm to reveal her armpit.

  ‘The same fingerprints all over?’ Dani asked.

  ‘Unfortunately we’re only talking about fragments, but I don’t think so. The ones around her body were more developed, and given their locations…’

  He handed Dani a sheet of paper with a diagram of Jane Doe’s body with red circles to highlight the areas of interest.

  ‘It would seem to me they were probably transferred during a sexual encounter,’ Ledford said, filling in the obvious blank. ‘Which is also consistent with the fact that semen traces were found on her hand and her breasts,’ Ledford said.

  Dani’s insides twisted.

  ‘But the ones under the arm, well—’

  ‘It was from the body being moved,’ Dani said. ‘But you didn’t see anything like that on her ankles?’ Dani could picture the scene. The two burly men from the van, one holding her ankles, one holding her under the arms as they tossed her onto the plastic sheet to roll her up.

  ‘We didn’t, but—’

  ‘Latex?’

  ‘There is residue on her ankles, not from latex gloves, but perhaps from a well-worn leather glove. Nothing unique enough that we can trace with any accuracy, but it at least gives us a glimpse of what happened to her.’

  ‘What about the semen and prints?’ Dani said. ‘Any matches?’

  ‘No to the semen. No to the prints from her apparent sexual encounter,’ Tariq said, ‘and a kind of a no on the other.’

  ‘Kind of?’

  ‘They are only partials, but…’ He paused as he flicked through his papers. He pulled out two sheets and put his clipboard down.

  ‘If you remember from Clara Dunne’s home, we had partials there too,’ Tariq said.

  ‘Yes,’ Dani said. ‘Transferred from a glove, we thought.’

  ‘These partials don’t directly match those. Which could be for more than one reason. Obviously it could be different people, or it could be different fingers. Or even just different parts of the same finger. And if you look at them like this…’