by John Mead
It was not to be, his face remained inscrutable and his tone suspicious. ‘And, finally, your sunglasses. Forensics have found blood on the hinge and inside the rim where the glass sits. Only microscopic droplets, not readily visible to the naked eye but enough for DNA analysis. It will take some time but I have no doubt the blood will be shown to be Lynsey Hensley’s, can you explain how it got on your glasses?’
Alima just stared back at Swift. She had thrown all her clothes, gloves, headscarves and shoes that might incriminate her into the Thames and she’d wiped her sunglasses clean with a spray, they were expensive and such nice glasses, she thought it safe to keep them.
‘You see, to get blood splatter on your glasses means you must have been very close to Lynsey at the moment of her death,’ Swift explained, a satisfied smile breaking on his face, ‘not approaching or running up after the fact but actually there as the blow was struck.’
‘How are you today Jenny?’ Merry asked, the bruise on his face showing livid, despite the rather murky, gloom of the old Leman Street interview room. ‘Feeling rested I hope.’
‘That’s a hell of a shiner you have there,’ Jenny gloated, though her smile seemed friendly and calm enough, ‘I see you have reinforcements at the ready today,’ she nodded over her shoulder at the constable standing behind her in the corner.
‘I’m afraid I can’t protect you from Doctor Hassan though,’ Merry stated in best policeman tone, ‘she has told us you are responsible for killing Jody Grahame, Lynsey Hensley and Madeline Turner, that she tried to stop you killing Lynsey and, afterwards, you threatened to kill her and falsely implicate her in the murders. As a result she has been too terrified to come forward until now.’
‘Terrified, her! That’s rich,’ Jenny stated with resigned sarcasm, she knew Alima well enough not to be surprised, if she’d been able to remain focused long enough herself she would probably have spoken first and gotten her side on record before the lying bitch had opened her mouth.
‘Let us pick up from yesterday. Do you know a William or Billy Craig?’ Merry asked, wanting to clear up who knew and did what in bribing him for an alibi.
‘Not as such,’ Jenny began, she’d always thought that approaching Billy wasn’t a wise move, ‘Alima said she had heard about him from Jackie and he would give me an alibi for the time Jody was killed, if he was paid. She gave me the money and told me where I might find him. It didn’t prove that difficult.’
‘Doctor Hassan says you killed Jody Grahame over some argument about drugs, is that true?
‘I went to threaten her. Alima said I’d find her at St George’s, that she hung out around there. Alima had been paying her in return for a few drugs and a tumble but the girl was getting greedy.’ Lukula stiffened as Jenny spoke, something that both Jenny and the inspector noticed. This wasn’t going to be easy for Julie, Merry thought. ‘Jody didn’t take what I said well and got in my face, in the end I lost it. She saw it coming and had turned to run but I got her good. She stumbled a few steps, fell, got up and collapsed in the bushes. I’d hit her harder than I’d meant to, when I checked I saw she was a goner and simply walked away.’
‘You just happened to have a hammer on you?’ Lukula asked, her face hard and unforgiving, but exactly what it was that she didn’t forgive Cowan for, Cowan wasn’t certain.
‘Always had something for protection on me, a hammer in a shopping bag can be explained away as having been bought for DIY,’ Jenny gave Lukula a knowing wink to the wise, ‘having a knife on your person can lead to your being arrested. Ain’t that right constable?’ Jenny asked over her shoulder but received no response. ‘Alima was pissed, but when some bloke got arrested she was happy enough. Then things went wrong with Hensley.’
‘Wrong?’ Merry asked. ‘In what way?’
‘Jody and Maddie were game enough, for a few quid, the four of us had some fun nights at my place but Alima really fancied Lynsey. A bright university girl, just like Alima and not at all like the rest of us. I didn’t care, we all have our passing fancies,’ Cowan looked Lukula directly in the eyes and smiled, even Cowan’s solicitor noticed the exchange of looks and the sergeant’s confusion but Jenny went on, ‘but Alima got really worked up and tried it on with the girl and got a slap. She was pissed, really wound up and decided to have it out with Lynsey. She knew all about her runs, the parks she went to and the times, Alima spent the morning planning it all out, then had me go with her.’ Jenny paused thoughtfully, then resumed, ‘I don’t know what she thought would happen, or even what she wanted. But I can tell you the doctor can’t climb for shit, it was a struggle getting her over the fence, away from the CCTV, and I’m surprised we weren’t seen. She swore blind she wasn’t going back that way.’
‘So what happened?’ Merry asked as the pause grew, as Jenny reflected on the events, it meaning no more to her than trying to remember an evening spent in the pub. ‘I thought perhaps she meant to surprise Lynsey, apologise, explain how she felt and expected that Lynsey would fall into her arms. But Hensley wasn’t having it, tried pushing past, told Alima she was a disgusting perv and she’d report her if she didn’t leave her alone. Then Alima hit her.’
‘With what?’ Lukula, asked, her voice no louder than a breath, not wanting to believe what she was hearing but unable to deny the conviction of truth in Jenny’s matter-of-fact telling of how the killing occurred.
‘My hammer, she’d pulled it from my bag just as the girl was pushing past her with a disgusted look on her face like Alima was a piece of shit on the path. Jesus did she fucking hit her. The girl went down with the fucking thing still sticking in the back of her head. I pulled it out and dragged the body under the trees, the plastic bag the hammer was in was still stuck to her but came off. Alima had already gone so I didn’t hang round, some old biddy with a trolley was coming down the path, in a world of her own, but I wasn’t risking being seen.’
Merry took two plastic glasses and poured water from a plastic bottle he’d brought into the interview room, handing one glass to Jenny, who stopped to drink it as he downed the other. There was something about the inspector that Jenny rather liked, a calmness, the fact he’d sat down opposite her this morning after she’d attacked him the evening before and made no fuss about it. It wasn’t a sexual attraction, she had no interest in men, though she was happy to let them use her body if it brought her something in return. No, it was rather more like a longing that he could be her older brother, he’d make a good brother, not like that fucked up piece of shit she had the misfortune to be related to.
‘Madeline Turner, why did you kill her?’ Merry thought he already knew the answer but he had to ask for the tape, to hear Jenny say the words.
‘She wasn’t anyone’s fool, happy to do anything for a few quid and a lot of fun in bed,’ Jenny stated, almost with affection. ‘Course she put two and two together, started dropping hints about wanting a business partner in her new shop, or maybe a paper would pay her for what she suspected. Alima might have gone for it but she was stony broke and, in the end, didn’t like to be pushed around. She knew what Maddy got up to most Friday nights, if you knew what to look for in her blog it pretty well told you. We followed her and Alima kept lookout while I went after Maddy. She started to run when she realised it was me coming up the path but I was too quick and easily caught her. I wasn’t certain one whack had done the job, but I thought I saw someone, a shadow, further up the path so I legged it. Alima had caught up by then and checked her; she knew poor Maddy was a goner, like the other two.’
‘What about your attempted suicide? Was that Leanne, or Jackie? I don’t see you being the remorseful type,’ Lukula asked, trying not to show disdain, Jenny had cooperated so far and she didn’t want to set her off in any way.
‘You’re right, my lovely,’ Jenny smiled and winked at the hard faced Lukula, ‘but I don’t really know. I wasn’t there and I can’t imagine it being Jackie, not her style fr
om what I know and have heard of her. You’ll have to ask Alima, she was there earlier talking to me until I went away, then sometime later I woke up in the ambulance. Wouldn’t surprise me if that cold-hearted bitch talked Leanne into it, some devious plan she’d cooked up no doubt.
23
‘Two women?’ Maureen Turner, the mother of the deceased Madeline Turner, sat listening to the inspector’s news about the investigation into her daughter’s death with an increasingly perplexed expression on her face.
‘Yes,’ Merry repeated patiently, knowing from experience that informing the bereaved family that someone had been charged was only the first of many steps they would need to take to achieve closure. ‘One of the women, the one who has confessed to actually striking the blow that killed your daughter, has mental health problems. Although it was her so-called therapist who we believe assisted her and actually drove her to do what she did.’
‘For God’s sake why?’ Once again there was anger in Maureen’s voice, fuelled by an understandable outrage at the lack of any logic as to why her daughter had died. ‘Why would two women kill my daughter? I thought it would be a man? You are certain Alan had nothing to do with it?’ Even though Maureen had alibied her husband she still couldn’t believe he was completely innocent of her daughter’s death.
‘From what they have told us, it is likely that Madeline had said something that made them think she knew they had killed the other girls,’ Merry thought it best to simplify Hassan’s multifaceted motives: the doctor was a manipulative psychopath driven by greed, anger and desire for control over those around her.
‘Why would they think that?’ Maureen shook her head as if trying to clear the fog that seemed to cloud her thinking. ‘If Madeline had suspected anything she’d have told me, told the police.’
‘Madeline, knowing Lynsey from school, would naturally have talked about her death. It seems she did one of the women’s nails,’ again he wasn’t about to go into Madeline’s more lurid and enterprising sidelines, he suspected it wouldn’t benefit either the prosecution or defence to mention that, so he hoped to save the mother a degree of pain, ‘and they would have been on tenterhooks, almost paranoid, about killing Lynsey so it is likely they read too much into what was said.’
‘You’re telling me my daughter was killed for being too chatty?’ Maureen’s voice rose in anger and disbelief.
‘No, Mrs Turner,’ Merry explained, desperately striving for a sympathetic tone, ‘your daughter died because she crossed the path of two disturbed and deeply unpleasant individuals. Nothing your daughter said or did, nor anything else anyone could have done, would have made a difference.’
Joanne Hensley, Lynsey’s mum, sat in silence listening to Inspector Merry’s news, she was so quiet and still that he wondered how much of what he said she actually took in and he was tending to say things twice as a result. He kept to what he had considered to be the facts and did not touch on the two differing explanations as to who had actually killed Lynsey or why, simply saying the pair responsible had taken a dislike to her daughter after she had stood up to them in a dispute. Nor did he make mention that the police and CPS both thought Alima Hassan to be the attacker, fuelled by anger and humiliation by Lynsey’s refusal of and all too evident disgust at the doctor’s advances. Eventually he fell silent and waited patiently for the mother to speak.
‘I am getting Lynsey back, the coroner has released her. I want her to be cremated and her ashes scattered where she died, I’ve spoken to the council about having a memorial bench built nearby,’ Joanne, for the first time since Merry had sat down, looked him directly in the eye. She had aged considerably in the short time since the inspector had first seen her to break the news of her daughter’s death, but her eyes gleamed with an intensity he found discomfiting. ‘She loved the green spaces around here, she had loved that park since she was little. I’ll not have them take that away, not be robbed of those memories. I’ve even spoken to her school, to have some sort of memorial there and a small donation to their library in her name. What do you think?’
What could the inspector say, other than to agree it would be fitting and then go on to explain the next steps in the legal process. Whilst Joanne only listened to her own internal dialogue: outlining the funeral service, where the bench should be placed and how much she could afford and yet still be enough for a fitting donation.
‘I wasn’t expecting you back yet,’ Swift stated, spotting Julie entering the office. ‘You can have more time you know.’
‘I couldn’t put up with just moping around,’ Lukula explained, glancing around to see Merry and Hayden starting towards her. The Leman Street incident room had been packed up and was now dormant, perhaps never to be used again if the building was to be sold off, and the team had returned to their main base in Barking. ‘My step-brother is sorting out the house and the will, so I came back to get a few more things and then decided I’d be better off here. There isn’t much I can do back in Manchester.’
‘How are you?’ Hayden stepped forward to give her a hug and, in motherly tone, commiserated, ‘It’s such a wrench, I know.’
‘At least the end was quick,’ Julie explained, it was she thought a blessing even if a strange one. ‘They still don’t know the exact cause, her heart just gave out on the operating table. The surgeon told me they did all they could but sometimes it just happens like that. He said the body is more than just electrical impulses and chemistry, that it has a will of its own to determine such outcomes. I think he meant it to be consoling but I didn’t find it so.’ The sight of Merry standing behind Swift and Hayden, looking uncertain what to do or say, tinged by embarrassment at a social situation he didn’t quite comprehend almost reduced her to tears. She gathered her strength and took the initiative for him, moving forward for a hug.
‘If there’s anything… well you know, just ask,’ he said, finally extricating himself from her grasp, noticing the look Swift and Hayden exchanged at his social ineptitude.
‘Of course,’ she said, ‘I’ll be expecting light duties and a sensitive approach at least for a couple of months, you know what a fading flower I am.’
‘Certainly, for a day or so,’ Merry confirmed, glad they had previously made their peace as they had wrapped up the case days before Julie phoned in to say she would be delayed coming back to London, as her mother had died in the middle of a routine operation.
‘Ray is out, he’s liaising with CPS to ensure they have everything they need,’ Merry explained as they grabbed cups of coffee from the machine on the way to join Swift in his office at the far end of the otherwise open plan office area, shared by more staff than there were desks in the spirit of agile working. ‘How are you?’ he continued, feeling he should show more sympathy, ‘What with the shock…’
‘Fine,’ Lukula cut in, not able to cope with his trying so hard to be sympathetic. ‘How’s your wife by the way? Has she heard about her redundancy?’
‘Oh,’ Merry was surprised she had remembered what was just a passing comment he’d made to her some while ago, ‘she had her interview two days ago. Went off in the morning in the belief she didn’t have a hope and had prepared a little speech to tell them what she thought of the structure, how they needed to put pupil needs first and be more enterprising about the budget. She had even prepared a list of ideas on how to save and generate more money. Apparently the chair of governors and LA representative loved it, even the head said she was thrilled at such an innovative approach.’
‘You mean she got the job?’ Lukula felt genuinely pleased for the woman she barely knew.
‘Aced it apparently,’ Merry smiled. ‘You know, there are times when I think she is too good to be a mere copper’s wife.’
‘Certainly too good to be your wife,’ Lukula muttered, though Merry diplomatically failed to hear her, no matter how much he agreed with her sentiment.
‘We have the DNA report,’ Swift e
xplained, as Lukula and Merry seated themselves. ‘It confirms the blood found on the doctor’s sunglasses was Lynsey Hensley’s but forensics have pointed out that the amount found is only from microscopic droplets. The problem is they believe that the splatter producing such droplets could occur from either version of events. It could have occurred from Hassan wielding the hammer or being a few feet away as Jenny struck the blow. The blow itself was struck with considerable force, but that also fits both stories. Nor is the height difference between the two women significant enough to rule one or the other out from delivering the blow. There are simply too many variables in the physical evidence we have.’
‘I find it hard to believe that Jenny would lie, she has confessed to killing the other two girls, why lie about Lynsey?’ Lukula stated.
‘You won’t get any disagreement from me,’ Swift told her, ‘nor CPS. In practice they don’t think it matters and they are keeping the murder charges for both in place. The pair conspired and are equally guilty of the last two murders, Jenny will also be held responsible for Jody Grahame’s killing. Hassan’s story that she tried to stop Jenny and was too scared to go to the police doesn’t hold water. She had ample opportunity when Cowan was in the psych ward or when subsequently detained by us. Hassan also spoke with me in private a number of times and was in a relationship with one of the officers working on the case. Although, personally I think she will perform well in court,’ Swift added with a scowl. ‘She’s erudite, plausible and appealing, so I suspect the jury might be swayed to believe her and accept a not guilty plea.’