Stop Dead

by Leigh Russell

  ‘Wasted journey. Singer Ingrid never met Henshaw.’

  As the train jolted and rattled underground, Ingrid’s final throwaway remark lingered in her thoughts.

  ‘Isn’t it usually the wife?’

  CHAPTER 38

  It was time-consuming, co-ordinating the follow up investigation of all the staff who worked at Mireille. A team of constables had been occupied all day questioning every member of staff again, tracing travel cards, scrutinising CCTV film footage, and checking alibis. Only the chef, the manager and two waiters had been working on both evenings when the murders had been committed. All the other members of staff had alibis for one or other of the evenings. That reduced the police workload considerably. While it was feasible that the chef, the manager or one of the waiters who had been working both evenings could be guilty, it was difficult to see what possible motive any of them could have had. None of them stood to gain from the double murder. They appeared to have no contact with their former bosses outside work and, far from benefiting, would probably all lose their jobs as a consequence of the deaths of the restaurant owners.

  Sitting over a coffee that evening, Geraldine thought about Amy and Guy. It was fairly obvious what had brought them together in a relationship that was unlikely to last. Without the excitement of clandestine meetings they would soon tire of each other. Not clever enough to realise that Amy had levelled her accusation in retaliation, in the belief that he had deserted her, Guy would eventually work out what had happened. The two lovers might even discuss it, and clear the air together. But in the meantime Geraldine couldn’t help feeling a twinge of pity for the young man. He was scarcely more than a boy, and had seemed genuinely distraught. She wondered if there might have been any substance in either of their accusations; having retracted the alibi she had given Guy, Amy had made herself a suspect as well.

  Back at her desk she was flicking through her expenses when her phone rang. She felt the breath catch at the back of her throat when she heard Miles Fellows’ voice announce that he was calling from the forensic lab. This could be it, she thought, the detail that would identify who had committed the double murder. She struggled to keep her voice even as she replied, crossing her fingers beneath the desk.

  ‘Which do you want first, the good news or the bad news?’ the young pathologist asked, as breezily as if he was enquiring whether she preferred red or white wine.

  ‘Just tell me what you’ve found.’

  ‘Well, it’s not straightforward,’ he began and Geraldine sighed.

  Nothing ever was.

  ‘The good news – if it can be called that – is that we appear to have a match …’

  In the brief pause that followed, Geraldine hardly dared ask the question. Her voice sounded hoarse and strangely flat.

  ‘What do you mean, you appear to have a match?’

  DNA evidence should be conclusive, clinical. The pathologist’s hesitation troubled her.

  ‘Well, this is where it all gets a bit complicated because as I said we do have a match,’ he replied.

  There was another pause. This time Geraldine waited, unable to speak.

  ‘The problem is, the borough intelligence unit have come up with a match to a woman who’s in prison.’

  ‘In prison? Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure. She’s been locked up in Whithurst for the past twenty years.’

  Geraldine found her voice.

  ‘But you said the DNA was a match and DNA is evidence. It’s conclusive. There has to be an explanation. We could have solved this case. It must be a mistake. You must have entered the wrong details or – check again. Someone’s made a mistake.’

  Geraldine heard the desperation in her own voice, babbling on. To have come so close to an identification only to have it snatched away was almost unbearable. She struggled to control tears of frustration blurring her vision.

  ‘Well, yes, clearly something’s not right here,’ the pathologist agreed cheerfully, ‘but the DNA profile on file was entered twenty years ago when DNA testing was in its infancy. It wouldn’t happen any more. Our science and our systems are much more advanced today. We’re much more reliable with DNA records now than was the case in the past. Tests are becoming more sophisticated all the time. So when we’re looking at samples taken twenty years ago or more, there’s a large margin for error that today has been virtually eliminated.’

  He spoke pompously as though he was giving a lecture. Geraldine cut in before he warmed to his subject. All she wanted to know was the identity of Patrick’s killer.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ she interrupted impatiently.

  She wanted a positive result that would help solve the case, not a lecture on the scientific progress that had been made in DNA testing over the last two decades.

  ‘So who is she?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The woman whose DNA matches that found on Henshaw’s body? Who is she?’

  ‘We can only say it appears to be a match,’ the pathologist corrected her. ‘It can’t actually have been her, of course. As I said, profiling twenty years ago wasn’t what it is today.’

  ‘Yes, alright, who is the woman whose DNA appears to match that found at the scene, if you must be pedantic,’ Geraldine said, her frustration making her testy.

  ‘As a scientist –’ he began but Geraldine cut in.

  She wasn’t interested in his views, only in the information he was able to give her.

  ‘Just tell me who she is.’

  The DNA found on Henshaw’s body matched the DNA profile of a woman named Linda Harrison, who had been convicted of killing her husband twenty years earlier. The significant factor was a slightly unusual genetic coding that featured in both DNA samples. Geraldine tried to quell an initial rush of hope that the forensic scientist’s information was inaccurate, and that Linda was no longer locked up. If the prisoner had recently been released, only to kill two more men in quick succession, it would be a terrible indictment of any rehabilitation programme she had attended, and of her psychological assessment prior to her release; but it would also lead to a conviction and an end to her killing. Whatever the truth, at least they had new information that might help them find the killer.

  It didn’t take long to establish that Linda was still locked up in prison. Geraldine contacted the governor herself to double-check. Only when there was no longer any possible doubt that Linda was securely behind bars did Geraldine’s spirits sink.

  ‘Surely twenty years is a long time?’ she had asked the governor.

  ‘Her psychological state is such that it is felt better for her to remain in custody. She’s going to be with us for the foreseeable future.’

  ‘What can you tell me about her psychological state?’

  ‘Linda has never shown any sign of remorse. She remains adamant that her crime was not only necessary but morally correct.’

  ‘Necessary?’

  The prison governor heaved an audible sigh.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, but we’re going over old ground here. I can assure you we’ve done our best for Linda, but some people resist any attempt at rehabilitation and I honestly doubt if she’d survive on the outside now. The best thing for her is to remain where she is. Now, I am rather busy. I hate to cut this short, but was there anything else?’

  Geraldine called the forensic lab to confirm that it was feasible the DNA that appeared to match Linda Harrison’s had in fact come from a close family member, before she set about researching Linda’s relatives. Her first set of enquiries led nowhere. Linda had never had children so there was no possibility a daughter might have followed her psychopathic example. A momentary excitement at discovering that Linda had a sister was dismissed by further investigation which revealed that the sister had died nearly thirty years ago. Reluctantly, Geraldine concluded that the DNA sample had been a false lead. Somewhere in the lab, there must have been cross contamination of samples leading to the impossible conclusion that a woman had killed Patrick and George wh
ile she was locked up in a Category A closed prison.

  Geraldine went home, feeling thoroughly dejected. In an attempt to cheer herself up she stopped on the way home for a takeaway, opened a bottle of wine and put on the DVD of one of her favourite films. An hour into the film, and halfway through the bottle, she felt as miserable as ever. It was typical of her sister to choose that moment to call, as though she could sense when Geraldine didn’t feel like talking. Geraldine felt slightly guilty. She had intended to phone her sister. In her preoccupation with the case, she had forgotten.

  ‘Celia, I was going to ring you.’

  ‘Really?’

  She couldn’t blame her sister for sounding sceptical.

  ‘Did you get an invitation from dad?’ Celia asked.

  ‘No. What invitation?’

  Geraldine remembered that she had never sent her new address to her father.

  Over twenty-five years had passed since their father had walked out, leaving their mother with two young children. Living in Ireland with his new wife, he had sent money regularly, always remembering Christmas and birthdays. Geraldine had been quite young when he left home. It was different for Celia. She was three years older than Geraldine, and the man who abandoned them had been her real father. By the time Geraldine discovered the truth about her own birth, the man she had always believed was her father seemed like a distant relative anyway.

  ‘What invitation?’ she repeated.

  ‘I expect yours is in the post,’ Celia replied, ‘or he got your new address wrong. You did write to him when you moved, didn’t you?’

  Geraldine gave a non-committal grunt.

  ‘He’s decided to throw a party for his birthday and he’s invited us all to Ireland. Can you believe it? He’s asked Jeremy and Chloe as well, all of us. I can’t believe he’s going to be sixty-five!’

  ‘Are you going?’

  ‘You are joking.’

  Geraldine wasn’t surprised at her sister’s reaction. Celia had refused to have any contact with her father after he left. Geraldine felt sorry for him because she knew he was desperate to meet his only grand-daughter, but Celia remained adamant in her rejection of her father.

  ‘And I hope you’re not thinking of going,’ Celia added.

  ‘I can’t say. I haven’t had an invitation yet.’

  Although she didn’t admit as much to her sister, Geraldine was tempted to accept the invitation. She hadn’t yet confronted her father about her adoption, face to face. He might well have information that could help her find her birth mother for whom she had been looking, so far without success.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said to Celia, thinking aloud. ‘I just don’t know what I’m going to do.’

  CHAPTER 39

  Maurice watched a group of youngsters gathered at the bar and pondered how times had changed. He remembered dropping in on a Saturday night when the pub was run by Mary and Bob, a pair of friendly faces who had registered his presence. Those were the days when another human being actually noticed when he wasn’t around, even if it was just the landlord of his local.

  ‘You alright then, Maurice?’ Bob would call out to him as he stepped through the door. ‘Been off on your holidays?’ and they would both laugh because Bob knew he never went anywhere. Making his way to the bus stop was as much as he could manage. That was before the pub had been taken over and everything had become plastic and ersatz. Maurice never saw or heard of Bob and Mary again. He hoped they were happy in their retirement, but he couldn’t help feeling let down by their departure. For years they had given stability to his lonely existence.

  But all that was years ago. He had grown older and crabbier since Bob and Mary had left, his hands curled more tightly with arthritis, his eyes peering through ever thicker lenses. If it weren’t for the free glasses, he would be blind as a bat by now. That would be terrible, cutting him off completely from all human contact, because he was a people watcher. Maurice liked to spin fantasies about strangers he saw in the street, or reading newspapers in the library, in the pub on his weekly outing for a drink, or on the bus home. It was the only way people touched his life these days, unless he had an appointment at the doctor’s, and even then he saw a different doctor every time and recognised none of them. Nothing stayed the same any more. No one knew him, apart from Toby who just stared mournfully at him, thumping his stubby tail on the floor.

  Even the beer was different, he thought sourly. For a while he had stopped coming to the pub in a fatuous act of protest, not that anyone would miss a frail round-shouldered little man with a fuzz of grey on his head and a raincoat fraying at the sleeves.

  ‘Just the usual,’ he would say, and then he would have to explain what he wanted to another stranger behind the bar.

  Maurice never stayed out late. It wasn’t that home was far away or a difficult journey, just a couple of stops on the bus, but he felt uneasy travelling after dark, wary of the gangs of youths who strutted around the streets at night, off their heads on alcohol or drugs. He would watch them as they staggered along the pavement, two or three abreast, shouting and jeering as though they owned the streets. Observing them from the safety of the bus as it rattled past he felt he should pity them, blasting their brains with a toxic cocktail of chemicals, their lives empty of purpose; but he envied them. They were a bunch of mindless followers, capable of committing acts of unspeakable violence, but at least they had a herd to travel with. He had gone through life doing no harm to anyone, yet he was alone in a hostile world.

  A friend might have scolded him for self-pity, but it was hard to reproach himself when life was so unfair. As he stared through the bus window at a group of youths one of them happened to look up and catch sight of him watching. With a flicker of fear Maurice turned his head away and became aware of a woman sitting beside him. He wasn’t bothered about women. When he was much younger he had gone with prostitutes in an attempt to fend off his loneliness, but now he contented himself watching passers-by. Engrossed in gazing out of the window, he hadn’t noticed anyone sit down beside him, but sensing a body next to him, he half turned to see her looking sideways at him. She didn’t drop her eyes when he saw her but continued to watch him out of the corner of her eye. She looked nervous. Emboldened, he stared right back at her.

  The woman had shoulder length blonde hair framing a face that was heavily painted with bright red lips and artificially thick eyelashes. He wondered if she was a prostitute or just out on the pull. It was difficult to tell with so much make-up on her face, but he guessed she wasn’t much over thirty. He considered speaking to her but bottled it and turned away. It wasn’t worth the bother. A woman like that would never be interested in him. Looking down he observed her raincoat had fallen open to reveal a tight short black skirt. Turning to look at him, she crossed her legs. With a slight shock he saw right up her thigh, before she pulled her coat closed. He licked his lips, wondering if she had deliberately displayed herself to him.

  She leaned back against the seat as though resting. With a shiver of excitement he saw that her eyes remained fixed on his. Her expression didn’t alter, but he knew that she was conscious he was watching her. He looked away. As he did so he shifted sideways until his leg was touching hers. She moved away and he wriggled further across his seat so their legs remained in contact. It was a long time since he had enjoyed any physical contact with another person. As she stepped off the bus, she glanced back and saw that he was following her. She turned away, and he hobbled after her.

  CHAPTER 40

  Geraldine passed a restless night. She had gone to bed early, resolving to make a fresh start on Amy and her young lover’s files in the morning, but whenever she closed her eyes she saw George, a heavy figure seated in a dimly lit office, dark eyes staring at her from beneath unruly eyebrows. It irritated her that his image haunted her in this way. After all, she spent her life dealing with murder cases. There was no reason why this particular victim should trouble her so deeply. In his sixties, George was bordering
on clinically obese, a heavy drinker and smoker who no doubt suffered from stress with his wife, his mistress, his business dealings and his mounting gambling debts. But the spectre of his living figure dogged her thoughts as she tried to sleep.

  She tried to focus her thoughts on the case as a whole, but everything took her back to George. It seemed unlikely that Amy or her young lover would have inflicted such horrific injuries on him. It wasn’t the nature of the attack that Geraldine found disturbing. She had worked on cases with far more distressing victims: kids not yet out of their teens, frail elderly women, helpless infants. Nevertheless, every time she tried to sleep, George appeared in her mind, knocking back a tumbler of whisky while his other plump hand rested comfortably on his well-rounded stomach as he puffed on a cigarette, gesturing and smiling towards his young girlfriend, relishing the sensual pleasures in life. She hadn’t experienced this disturbance before, never having questioned other victims before they were killed. Such a clear image of him while he was alive seemed to turn his brutal death into something worse than murder. It was the end of a world.

  She couldn’t sleep so she pulled on her dressing gown and went to the kitchen to brew a pot of tea, deciding that she might as well do some work as she was unable to sleep. But once her laptop was switched on she couldn’t focus on either Guy or Amy, both obviously in the frame for the first murder. If they did turn out to be responsible for George’s death as well, it would presumably be for financial motives, in which case it was hard to believe either of them capable of inflicting such vicious injuries. It was possible this had been a calculated attempt to show that both murders had been carried out by the same person. But that made no sense.

  It was clear both murders had been committed by the same person, whether alone or with an accomplice. To begin with, the details of the attack on Henshaw hadn’t been shared with anyone outside the investigation. For that reason alone it was hard to see how Corless could have been the victim of a copycat killer. But that suggested the killer was one person who had known both the victims, and hated both of them enough to carry out such a gruesome assault. Geraldine went back to bed and tried to relax but felt restless and got up once again. Feeling peckish, she wandered back to the kitchen and opened a packet of biscuits she had bought for her niece’s next visit. Crunching miserably through the packet, she ate until she began to feel queasy. Finally she dragged herself back to bed where she lay, exhausted but irritatingly alert. There was something amiss with the whole investigation but she just couldn’t put her finger on what was wrong.