Deadly Alibi

by Leigh Russell

  With a shrug, the lawyer sat up again. ‘Your whole case is built on supposition and fabrication. There are so many holes in it, what you’re trying to do is derisory. In the absence of any alternative suspect, instead of getting on with the job of finding the guilty party, you’re wasting everyone’s time here batting away on a losing wicket. I will ask you just one question. How do you imagine my client transported a dead body, in a wheelie bin, from his house to Highgate High Street, while his van was off the road?’

  Geraldine shook her head. ‘But your van wasn’t off the road, was it, Chris? You took it in for repairs earlier that week, didn’t you?’

  ‘What? No, no,’ Chris stuttered. ‘I mean, yes I did take it in earlier that week, but I didn’t pick it up until Friday. You can ask at the garage. Tell them,’ he turned to his lawyer who was listening silently, ‘tell them.’

  ‘We’ve checked. Did you really think we wouldn’t? You’re panicking, aren’t you?’ Feeling almost sorry for him, she reminded herself firmly that she was talking to a man who, pathetic though he might appear, had killed his wife. ‘I went to the garage to establish exactly when your van was off the road. We have copies of the documentation. I suppose,’ she glanced at the lawyer, ‘you thought it was a clever idea to take your van to the garage a few days before you killed your wife, hoping we’d believe it was still in for repairs on the night she was killed. If so, your scheme backfired. It suggests premeditation, you see. Although a clever barrister will no doubt find a way to raise doubts about that. Still, the fact remains you picked your van up just before you killed your wife.’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t.’

  ‘The garage says you did.’

  ‘They’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘We have the evidence.’

  ‘It’s a mistake, it must be. They got the dates wrong.’

  ‘I’d like to speak to my client,’ the lawyer said heavily.

  They took a break. When they reconvened, the lawyer appeared unduly relaxed. Chris seemed more anxious than before.

  ‘My client would like to tell you where he was on Thursday evening.’ His broad face creased into a smile, although his voice remained solemn. ‘He has an alibi, you see.’

  ‘Oh please,’ Adam interjected. ‘And you want us to believe he’s only just remembered this? Come on. What kind of idiots do you take us for? Really. First the nonsense with the van…’

  ‘It wasn’t a lie,’ Chris muttered.

  ‘And now this. Out of the blue, he has an alibi.’ Adam shook his head.

  ‘Look, I didn’t want to mention it because she’s married,’ Chris told them. With a show of reluctance he confessed that he had been having an affair. ‘Her husband’s a vicious bastard. She’s scared of him. I mean, really genuinely scared. She’s always worried what he might do to her if he ever finds out we’re seeing each other. The thing is, he saw us together one time. Stupidly we met in a café not far from her house, and he drove past and saw us. We might have got away with it only she was scared and lied about where she’d been, so of course he knew something was going on. Since then we’ve had to be careful. I promised her I’d never tell anyone.’ He dropped his head in his hands.

  ‘So it was convenient for you to get your wife out of the way?’ Adam remarked.

  Chris looked up in surprise. ‘If I’d wanted to get her out of the way, as you put it, I’d have asked her for a divorce. I wouldn’t have killed her! But Louise is married and…’ he sighed. ‘We talked about being together but it was all just too complicated. Her husband’s threatened to kill himself if she ever leaves him, and she doesn’t think he’s kidding. So we settle for what we’ve got: one evening a week at her place, while her husband’s out with his mates. It’s not ideal. We have to listen out in case he comes back early, but it’s the best we can manage, and it’s better than nothing. We stay downstairs and keep the back door unlocked, so I can run out if I have to. We figured it would be more risky to meet anywhere else, because she might be seen. Louise is a very special woman, Inspector, but I still love my wife. I know you won’t believe me…’

  ‘A man can have an affair without wanting to murder his wife,’ the lawyer drawled with a faint smile. ‘Think how depleted the population would be if every adulterer did away with his wife. There’d be hardly anyone left! I advised my client to tell you about his alibi right from the start, but he had some naive notion that the truth would speak for itself. Well, now it has come out. My client was with his mistress that night.’

  Now that he had confessed to his affair, Chris seemed eager to share the details of his alibi.

  ‘I didn’t get home till about half past twelve that night, maybe one o’clock. To be honest, I crept into the bedroom in the dark and just got into bed without even looking to see if Jamie was there.’

  ‘You were in the same bed?’

  Chris nodded. ‘I’m telling you the truth,’ he insisted. ‘I got undressed in the dark, with my back to the bed, and then I just slipped under the covers on my side and shut my eyes. The last thing I wanted to do was disturb her and be subjected to all sorts of questions about where I’d been and why I was home so late. When I woke up in the morning, she wasn’t there. I thought she’d gone out early. So I went to pick up the van – that was on the Friday afternoon. Louise gave me a lift home on Thursday. You can ask her. I’d got the bus to her place on Thursday night. She’ll tell you, it’s all true what I’m saying.’

  Geraldine took Louise’s details and stood up.

  ‘I take it my client can go home now?’ the lawyer asked.

  Adam shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. The case against him is compelling.’

  ‘Circumstantial. And he has an alibi.’

  ‘For which we only have his word, and we know he’s already lied to us about everything else. He’s staying put for now.’

  ‘I’m not lying!’ Chris protested. He turned to Geraldine. ‘Whatever you do, you have to promise me you won’t let anyone else know about me and Louise.’

  ‘Once your alibi’s confirmed, you’ll walk out of here and no one will ever need to know why,’ the lawyer reassured him. ‘Be patient, Chris. You’ll be out of here soon enough. And the police will be discreet.’ He turned and stared pointedly at Geraldine.

  ‘Chris, we’re not in the business of causing trouble. We’re just trying to get to the truth of what happened to Jamie.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t me,’ he muttered crossly. ‘I didn’t kill her.’

  If he was telling the truth, then it was possible he had just provided them with another suspect.

  18

  As soon as she was back at her desk, Geraldine searched for the woman Chris claimed would provide him with an alibi. He had given her Louise’s name and contact details. Geraldine tried the mobile number first, but there was no reply. Next she called the home number without success, before trying the hairdresser’s where Louise worked, to discover she was not working that day.

  ‘Of course she’s not there today,’ Geraldine grumbled to herself as she hung up. ‘Nothing’s ever that easy.’

  Confirming Chris’s alibi would have to wait until later. In the meantime, Geraldine faced another job, one she could put off no longer. It would have been perfectly appropriate to delegate the task of speaking to the victim’s parents to a local constable, but Geraldine always preferred to pass on such heartbreaking news herself, whenever possible. Her motivation was not solely compassionate. Although she felt she owed it to the victim to see this through, there was always a chance the family might pass on some significant information.

  This was the part of her job she hated the most. While many aspects of her work had become easier with experience, this had become more of a challenge. Since the death of the colleague she had fallen in love with, observing other people’s grief had become almost unbearably painful. Feeling wretched, she prepared herself t
o remain outwardly impassive while bearing witness to the human suffering that lay behind the murders she investigated. If each victim’s murder ended with the death of that one individual, it would be terrible enough. As it was, every murder wrecked the happiness of so many other people whose lives the victim had touched. One prison sentence wasn’t enough to punish most of the killers Geraldine saw put away.

  ‘How do you tell someone a member of their family’s dead, in a way that makes it easier for them to hear?’ a new constable had asked her recently.

  ‘You can’t,’ Geraldine had replied.

  The victim’s parents lived in a three-bedroomed terraced house in East London, off the Romford Road. It wasn’t far from Stratford underground station on the Central line, so Geraldine took the train. The sun was shining, and there was a fresh breeze. Under almost any other circumstances she would have enjoyed the walk, but the nearer she drew to her destination, the more dejected she felt. Involuntarily, she slowed down. She felt like some mythical harbinger of death; there should have been a cloud of vultures hovering above her head. Instead, the sun shone as she reached the brick house where Jamie’s parents lived. The property was well maintained, with clean white paintwork around the windows and arched porch, and a wooden picket fence bordering the small paved front yard. Two pots of geraniums stood on either side of the porch, their scarlet flowers startling against the wall.

  A neat little woman opened the door. Her hair was tied back in a bun on the nape of her neck, and she was wearing an apron. It was probably the effect of the crisp white apron which made her look domesticated, but there was something homely and reassuring about her, as though she ought to be cradling a grandchild in her arms, while a cat wound itself lazily around her ankles. A faintly worried expression crossed her face when Geraldine introduced herself.

  ‘Yes, I’m Phyllis Stockwell. You’d better come in.’ She stood back to let Geraldine enter.

  ‘Fred, it’s the police,’ she called out.

  She led her visitor into a small living room. Geraldine was not surprised to find it was clean and tidy. Jamie’s father rose to his feet with old fashioned courtesy and waited for her and his wife to take their seats before resuming his. Geraldine wished she had sent someone else to pass on the terrible news. It felt obscene to disturb this pleasant couple with the news that their daughter had been murdered.

  Taking a deep breath, she began. ‘I’m sorry to be bringing you some very bad news. It’s about your daughter, Jamie.’

  Mrs Stockwell’s eyes widened and her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh my God, what’s she done?’

  ‘She hasn’t done anything. I’m afraid she’s dead.’

  ‘Dead? What do you mean? How did it happen?’ Jamie’s father asked.

  ‘I’m so sorry to tell you she was murdered. A suspect is currently helping us with our enquiries.’

  The couple looked at each other in consternation.

  ‘So, he finally cracked,’ Mrs Stockwell said at last.

  Geraldine hid her surprise. ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Now, Phyllis, there’s no call to go speaking out of turn,’ Mr Stockwell warned his wife.

  Geraldine repeated her question.

  ‘She just meant that our daughter wasn’t an easy woman,’ Mr Stockwell answered for his wife.

  It was an odd response to the news that their daughter had been murdered, as though they blamed her for what had happened.

  ‘What did you mean, Mrs Stockwell?’ Geraldine insisted.

  ‘Chris had a lot to cope with,’ Jamie’s mother said dully.

  ‘Phyllis, that’s enough,’ her husband interrupted her.

  Geraldine spoke cautiously. ‘You don’t seem very surprised, if you don’t mind my saying.’

  ‘It’s the shock,’ Mr Stockwell explained. ‘It’s going to take a while to sink in. And we’re not demonstrative people, Inspector. Not everyone likes to make a show of their feelings in front of strangers. But she was our daughter. We’ll be grieving for the rest of our lives.’

  There was something desperately poignant about his restraint. Geraldine turned to the bereaved mother, hating herself for intruding further on their sorrow.

  ‘Mrs Stockwell, is there anything else you’d like to say? Anything you’d like to tell me?’

  ‘No. She’s gone now and there’s an end to it, but…’

  ‘But nothing,’ her husband interrupted firmly.

  His wife hid her face in her hands. ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe she’s dead,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Now, now, Phyllis, try to stay calm.’ He looked at Geraldine. ‘Thank you for letting us know,’ he said, curiously formal. ‘Is that what people say? I don’t know…’

  Geraldine felt uncomfortable having to press them, but she had to ask whether they were suggesting they believed Chris had murdered their daughter. They both shook their heads.

  ‘No,’ Mr Stockwell replied. ‘No, we don’t think he would have done it, do we Phyllis?’

  Mrs Stockwell shook her head.

  Geraldine asked them to contact her if they thought of anything that might help the police establish the circumstances leading up to their daughter’s murder. Assuring them they would be notified of any developments, she left. The Stockwells’ reaction on hearing about their daughter’s death had been curious. They had shown little grief, and even less surprise. It was almost as though they had been expecting it to happen. And then there was Mrs Stockwell’s enigmatic comment about Chris having ‘cracked’, which made it sound as though Chris had been violent towards his wife. Yet they had been quick to defend him, when Geraldine had asked them outright if they thought he could be guilty of murdering Jamie. She wasn’t sure what to make of it all.

  19

  Geraldine travelled back to the police station in the rush hour. After the emotional strain of speaking to Jamie’s parents, she stood for half an hour on a crowded train. By the time she finally picked up her car and drove home, she felt drained. Grabbing a dinner out of the freezer, and pouring herself a generous glass of red wine, she collapsed on her sofa and looked on iPlayer to see what was available. She was about to go and put her dinner in the oven when her phone rang.

  ‘Geraldine! I haven’t spoken to you for ages!’ Celia gushed.

  ‘Listen, I’d love to chat but I’ve really got to go. I’ve only just got home and I’m starving. Can we speak tomorrow?’

  Celia was accommodating, although Geraldine sensed that she was slightly put out. With a promise that she would call back the next day, Geraldine hung up. She had just put her dinner in the oven when her phone rang again. Muttering irritably under her breath, Geraldine answered.

  ‘Hello. I had a message to call this number.’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  A trifle irritated, Geraldine answered, stressing her job title.

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. I wasn’t sure if I had the right number. My name’s Louise Marshall. You left a message on my phone earlier. What’s this about? Only well, I don’t know who you are and…’

  ‘Thank you for calling me back,’ Geraldine interrupted her. ‘You’re quite right to be cautious, and you’re welcome to go to your nearest police station and ask them to put you through to me, if you’re at all concerned. Ask them to contact DI Geraldine Steel of the Metropolitan Police, working on the Cordwell case. That’s all you need to say.’

  ‘Cordwell?’ Louise sounded frightened. ‘I think you’ve made a mistake. I don’t know anyone called Cordwell.’

  ‘A friend of yours, Chris Cordwell, gave us your name. I need to confirm the details of his alibi with you. This has nothing to do with anyone else. Shall I continue?’

  ‘Alibi? I don’t understand.’

  As briefly as she could, Geraldine explained that Chris was accused of involvement in a
criminal act on Thursday evening, between eleven and midnight.

  ‘He told us he was with you at the time the incident took place. Are you able to confirm that?’

  The hesitation on the line was almost palpable.

  ‘He was extremely reluctant to give us your name,’ Geraldine added. ‘His lawyer had quite a struggle to convince him it was necessary, but he’s facing a very serious charge. I don’t believe he would have given us your name if it hadn’t been necessary.’

  ‘What do you mean, necessary? How could it be necessary?’

  ‘If you aren’t able to confirm his alibi, he could be in trouble.’

  ‘Alibi? I don’t know what you mean. What alibi?’

  ‘If you can’t confirm that Chris was with you on Thursday evening, he could be in serious trouble,’ Geraldine repeated patiently.

  ‘How serious?’

  ‘If a jury were to find him guilty, it would mean a mandatory custodial sentence…’

  ‘You mean prison?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, poor Chris. What’s happened?.’

  ‘I can’t say any more right now, other than to reassure you that we’ll be as discreet as possible about your relations with Chris. But for his sake you do need to tell us the truth. Are you prepared to confirm that Chris visited you on Thursday? If he didn’t, you only have to say so.’

  ‘Did his wife put you up to this?’

  ‘Louise, I give you my word Chris’s wife knows nothing about this telephone call.’

  What was more, she never would. That was a cast-iron guarantee.

  ‘If you want to double check who I am, you can go to any police station and ask them to put you through to me. Geraldine Steel of the Metropolitan Police. Or we can meet, if you prefer. But I do need an answer from you.’

  ‘The thing is, I’m not in London right now. I’m in Birmingham. But I’m coming back to London tomorrow evening. My train gets in to Euston at seven fifteen. I could come to see you when I’m back. Only I’d prefer to meet you at a police station, if that’s all right with you.’