Deadly Alibi

by Leigh Russell

  A line from a poem slipped into Geraldine’s mind, something about it being better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But listening to Ian talking about his failed marriage, she wondered if she was better off being single.

  11

  The man facing Geraldine was tall and thin. Although the room was cool, his hand trembled slightly as he rubbed his sweaty forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. Geraldine noticed the cuff was grubby, in keeping with his generally dishevelled appearance. When she invited him to take a seat, he flopped down on the chair in one ungainly movement, a man uncomfortable in his own skin. As he lowered his arm, she noticed a small bruise beneath his right eye. Another was discernible through the stubble on his chin. He stared solemnly at her and she returned his gaze steadily. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he looked scared.

  Quietly she introduced herself, and he told her his name. Having read the statement he had given the duty sergeant, she knew why he had come to the police station that morning.

  ‘When did you last see your wife?’

  He hesitated. ‘She went out on Thursday, and I haven’t seen her since.’

  ‘Thursday?’ Geraldine repeated. ‘Today’s Sunday.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You waited three days to report her missing?’

  It was a statement of fact, not an accusation, but he looked uneasy. It could have been embarrassment.

  ‘I didn’t think anyone would be interested. I didn’t think anyone would listen.’

  ‘I’m listening, and I’m interested to hear what you have to say.’

  Geraldine didn’t tell him the reason for her interest. The woman in question had gone missing the same day the victim in her latest case had been killed.

  ‘Tell me about your wife.’

  He shrugged. ‘I already told all this out there, to the officer on the desk.’

  ‘Tell me again.’

  ‘What’s going on? I don’t have to tell you anything. I’m not on trial here.’

  It struck Geraldine as a strange response in the circumstances.

  ‘Mr Cordwell, Chris, I’m trying to help you find your wife.’ She suspected he knew very well what had happened to her. ‘Now, please, answer my questions.’

  He frowned at her without answering.

  Geraldine spoke gently. ‘I’d like you to tell me where you think your wife went on Thursday, and why she didn’t come home again. Tell me everything you can about her. But first, I don’t suppose you’ve got a picture of her on your phone?’

  Taking his phone from his pocket, he flicked through a few screens before holding it out her. The woman looked very different to the corpse at the mortuary, but Geraldine recognised the large blue eyes and youthful face. She had discovered the identity of the woman in the wheelie bin.

  ‘It’s not like she’s flighty or anything. I mean, she’s never gone off like this before. She’s forty. She’s not a kid.’

  Geraldine stared at him, wondering how much he knew about his wife’s death.

  ‘How did you get those bruises?’

  He looked startled.

  ‘Those bruises on your face. Where did you get them?’

  He made an involuntary movement with his right hand to touch the bruise beneath his eye with the tips of his fingers.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he muttered, dropping his gaze and staring down at the grey floor as though it suddenly interested him. ‘I slipped and fell over, that’s all.’

  ‘You weren’t involved in a fight?’

  ‘A fight? No!’ His head flicked up, eyes wide, and he sounded genuinely shocked.

  Geraldine suspected that he was lying. His pale face flushed, and he couldn’t meet her eye.

  ‘I’m not one for fighting.’ His fake laughter was pitiful. ‘You can ask anyone.’

  Geraldine didn’t tell him that she intended to do just that. She spoke sternly. ‘Mr Cordwell, if you lie or are in any way economical with the truth, it could have very serious consequences. So I’m going to ask you again. Were you involved in a fight recently?’

  Chris didn’t strike her as an aggressive man. On the contrary, there was something craven about him. His spindly arms and legs looked too long for his puny body, and he cringed when she raised her voice. But she was too experienced to be influenced by his feeble response to her questions. She had encountered far weaker men who had turned out to have violent tempers. It was hard not to reach any conclusions.

  ‘Look, this isn’t about my trivial injuries,’ he burst out. ‘My wife’s gone missing and something has to be done about it. I need your help.’

  Geraldine took a deep breath. ‘Mr Cordwell, Chris, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.’

  ‘Bad news? What do you mean? What’s she been saying?’

  ‘What’s who been saying?’

  ‘Jamie. My wife. Where is she? I want to see her. If you know where she is, please…’

  ‘Chris, it appears your wife met with an accident.’

  ‘An accident? What do you mean? Where is she?’ His concern was genuine, at least. No longer uneasy, he leaned forward in his chair, his questioning suddenly urgent. ‘She’s OK, isn’t she?’

  ‘I’m afraid your wife is dead.’

  ‘Dead? Jamie? No, she can’t be. That’s not possible. There was nothing wrong with her. Nothing at all. I would have known if she was ill. Healthy people don’t just die, for no reason. You’re making a mistake. She’s missing, that’s all. She’ll be back soon. I’m not listening to any more of this.’ He stood up.

  ‘Please, sit down. A woman’s body was found on Friday morning, in the High Street.’ Geraldine didn’t add that the body had been discovered in a rubbish bin, as though the reality of death could be any starker. ‘I’d like you to come to the mortuary and make a formal identification.’

  ‘What makes you think it’s Jamie? I don’t understand. Just because I reported her missing, doesn’t mean you have to start jumping to conclusions. This dead body has nothing to do with me or my wife. It’s not – it can’t be – you don’t even know Jamie.’

  ‘Chris, you just showed me photos of your wife.’

  He hung his head suddenly, allowing his shoulders to droop. When he looked up, his face was ashen. He nodded mutely when Geraldine repeated her request for him to identify the body. All at once he seemed to rally.

  ‘You don’t know it’s her,’ he mumbled. ‘You wouldn’t be asking me to confirm it’s her if you were sure. You don’t know it’s her.’

  They both knew he was clutching at straws. Geraldine decided to take Chris to view the body herself. She wanted to observe his reaction. His face, already pale, seemed to turn even whiter when he saw the dead woman’s face. A sob burst from his lips. He pressed his lips together and nodded before turning away.

  ‘That’s her,’ he muttered. ‘That’s Jamie.’

  Geraldine watched as his shoulders shook slightly while he wiped his eyes. His distress was genuine. But it was not necessarily an indication of innocence.

  That afternoon Geraldine had arranged to go and see her sister in Kent. There was no reason to cancel the visit. After typing up her decision log, she set off. It was a pleasant trip, despite the traffic which seemed to be almost as heavy on a Sunday as it was on a weekday. Geraldine’s niece was out, which gave her and her sister time to chat. Celia seemed fed up.

  ‘What’s wrong? Not long to go now,’ Geraldine said, looking at Celia’s bump.

  ‘Just over five months.’

  ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s up then? You don’t sound very happy about it. You can’t change your mind now,’ Geraldine said, attempting to sound lighthearted.

  ‘Oh, I want the baby, of course I do. Apart from anything else, I don’t want Chloe to be an only child.’


  Geraldine nodded. She remembered that was the reason their mother had given for adopting her when, after giving birth to Celia, she had been unable to have any more children.

  Celia paused. ‘But – oh, it’s all right for you,’ she burst out suddenly. ‘You’ve got an interesting career. I’m forty-one, nearly forty-two, and what have I done with my life? Yes, I know, I’m married and I’ve got Chloe, and I wouldn’t change that for the world, but I’ve never really done anything. I look at the other women in my antenatal classes, and all they ever talk about is maternity leave, and how soon they’re going back to work. They all grumble about not being able to afford to give up their jobs, but I know they can’t wait to get back to work. They say things like how they couldn’t imagine being stuck at home all the time, and then they look at me and I feel so old and useless and boring. You can’t imagine what it’s like for me. I was telling them about you last week, how you work on murder investigations. I think it was the first time some of them had listened to a word I’d said. Your life’s so exciting.’

  Geraldine laughed. ‘Not really. I think having a family must be far more exciting than anything I do. Life must be more interesting than death.’

  For all her efforts to be encouraging, Geraldine wasn’t sure that she had said much to comfort her sister.

  ‘Family’s important,’ she added, trying not to think about Helena.

  Celia’s biological mother had cared for her, and she had a family of her own. Nothing Geraldine did could compensate for the fact that she was, ultimately, alone.

  12

  On Monday, the forensic team conducted their examination of Chris’s living room and confirmed traces of blood on the carpet. Geraldine went along to speak to them.

  ‘There’s surprisingly little blood,’ a scene of crime officer told her. ‘Only a few traces.’

  ‘But enough to confirm she was killed here?’

  ‘Yes. It looks as though the rug absorbed most of the blood. She was probably wrapped in it as she was lifted into the bin which had been wheeled in here. There’s no sign of her being carried out of the house, but we have found faint traces of wheel tracks on the carpet which match the wheels on the bin. We’ll have all the details in the report, but that’s basically what happened.’

  It was possible someone had been seen pushing a wheelie bin in or out of the house on the night of the murder. Before returning to the police station, Geraldine questioned the residents on either side of the Cordwells. The first couple said they had only recently moved in, and had barely spoken to their next door neighbours. Geraldine wasn’t sure if they were unable or unwilling to speak to her.

  The middle-aged woman living on the other side of them was more helpful. The woman’s eyes brightened with anticipation when Geraldine introduced herself and went in.

  ‘I was shocked, but,’ she lowered her voice although there was no one else there, ‘I can’t say I was surprised.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Geraldine shook her head to refuse the offer of a cup of tea. She was cautiously pleased that the Cordwells’ neighbour was willing to talk. Such sources could be invaluable, but they were just as frequently time wasters, lonely people straying into fantasy in their excitement at finding an audience.

  ‘There was a lot of shouting,’ the neighbour confided, her enjoyment of the drama detracting from her account.

  ‘Shouting?’

  ‘Yes. I never heard her voice raised in anger, poor thing, but he was another matter.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I could only hear him when they were in the hall, so it wasn’t often, but I’ve no doubt he carried on like that when they were inside, where I couldn’t hear.’

  ‘What did you hear, exactly?’

  ‘Well, I can’t be sure,’ the woman answered, suddenly coy. ‘I mean, I can’t repeat what he said word for word. I didn’t write it down or anything. I wouldn’t want you to think I was nosy.’

  ‘Can you give me the gist of it? You said you overheard Mr Cordwell shouting? How can you be sure it was him?’

  ‘Well, he kept shouting at her.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t see them, and I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I just heard him through the wall, shouting.’

  ‘How do you know he was shouting at her?’

  ‘Because I heard him,’ she replied. ‘He sounded angry, and there’s no telling what a man might do if he’s angry enough. And well, it must have been her, mustn’t it? I never saw anyone else go in that house.’

  Geraldine wasn’t sure how trustworthy the neighbour’s account was, but she thanked the woman for her help.

  Back at the station, she arranged for a team to question the other neighbours in the street. While that was being set up, she decided to go and see Miles in case he had any more information for her. She preferred to speak to him in person. Understandably, he spoke less freely on the phone. Listening to what he had to tell her, she frowned. A likely scenario was beginning to emerge.

  ‘We’ve sent samples of skin from under her nails and on her knuckles off for analysis. Here’s hoping we find a match on the database. And we might have the same DNA on the bin as well.’

  Geraldine nodded. ‘Although of course if it’s the husband’s, that would be on the bin anyway. I mean, it was his bin.’

  Geraldine stared down at the white-faced corpse. With luck the net was beginning to close around her killer. She looked up and nodded briskly at Miles.

  ‘Well, this is going to be very useful. Anyway, we’ve found out her identity, so I’ll get back to the husband again straight away, and we’ll get a sample of his DNA. I’ll find out about the bin as well.’

  It was not difficult to come up with a theory that fitted all the evidence. If Chris’s DNA matched the fragments of skin found under his wife’s nails, the case was as good as sewn up. The investigation was making rapid progress.

  ‘Thanks, Miles, you’ve been invaluable as always.’

  He inclined his head with a smile. ‘So full of praise and yet so distant,’ he replied, with a mock sigh. ‘I keep waiting and waiting for you to invite me over for dinner. Are you going to leave me hanging on forever?’

  Geraldine laughed. ‘Doesn’t your wife feed you?’

  Back at the station, Geraldine wrote up the latest information before summoning her sergeant. Over a coffee they discussed the latest findings. Tucking into a slab of chocolate cake, Sam nodded cheerfully.

  ‘So it’s the husband,’ she concluded when Geraldine had finished speaking.

  ‘Honestly, Sam, I don’t know where you put it all.’

  The sergeant was well built, but by no means overweight. She looked fit, and Geraldine knew her colleague was a martial arts expert.

  Sam shrugged. ‘I didn’t have much breakfast and anyway, we could be called away anywhere, at any time, and it’s not a good idea to work on an empty stomach. You never know when you might have to miss a meal in this job.’

  Geraldine laughed. ‘That doesn’t mean you should take every opportunity to eat as much as you possibly can, whenever you can. You only have to see food and you’re eating it. I don’t understand why you never put on weight.’

  ‘That’s because I eat all the time,’ Sam explained earnestly. ‘My body’s used to it. Eating is my normal state. If I stopped, even for a day, I’d put on weight as soon as I started eating again. I have to keep up the momentum.’

  ‘That’s bollocks, even for you.’

  Sam laughed. ‘There’s nothing wrong with a healthy appetite. So, are we going to arrest this wife killer?’

  Not for the first time, Geraldine was aware she needed to put a brake on her young sergeant’s eagerness for action. She was reminded of her own enthusiasm when she had been Sam’s age. ‘We need to check his DN
A first,’ she reminded her. ‘He might not be the one his wife was fighting with.’

  ‘But he probably was.’

  Geraldine wanted to discuss the implications of the wheelie bin having been brought into the house.

  ‘Miles thought she was moved into the bin pretty quickly, and the scene of crime officers seemed to agree with that. If the bin was brought into the house before she was killed, in readiness…’

  ‘Proof of premeditation,’ Sam responded promptly. ‘So this was someone who knew where the bin was, and knew it was empty, or had emptied it in preparation, and was able to wheel it inside without his victim challenging him.’ She finished her coffee. ‘The husband is always the most likely suspect, so let’s not overcomplicate things. Just this once, can’t we find the culprit straight away, arrest him and be done with it, without going all round the houses?’

  ‘I know it can be tedious, but we have to go through the process. There’s no point in rushing and getting the wrong end of the stick. You know very well it’s not enough to make an arrest. We’ve got to have all the evidence to make a watertight case. I’ve got to say, you’re being very impatient, even for you.’

  ‘Yes, well, it’s Emma’s birthday this weekend and we’re supposed to be going away.’

  ‘I daresay the investigation will survive without you for a couple of days.’

  ‘I’m not going away in the middle of a case!’

  ‘You mean you don’t want to miss out on any action.’

  Sam looked uncharacteristically dejected. ‘It’s all right for you, Geraldine. You’re single and you can drop everything and concentrate on work whenever you want. It’s not easy when you’re in a relationship.’

  ‘I thought Emma was fine with what you do, and the demands of the job?’