by Rhys Bowen
“Everyone says the kid is a born liar. Changes his story every two seconds. I know what I saw. I came into this office, and he had my desk drawer open and was rummaging in it. I called security and had him searched, and he had two twenty-pound notes in his pocket. I keep my petty cash box in this drawer. Riffraff like him don’t walk around with forty pounds in their pocket. I had him dismissed on the spot.”
“Do you think revenge might have been a motive, then?” Huw asked.
A great shudder ran through Turnbull. “If it was, then he couldn’t have done anything worse than getting at me through my daughter. When I came across her, lying there in a huddle at the bottom of the steps—she looked so peaceful, I thought she was asleep, you know. I bent down to try to wake her up … .” His voice cracked and he shook his head violently as if trying to shake out too painful thoughts.
“You’d been out, had you, sir?” Evan asked gently.
“What?” Turnbull seemed unaware that he had been in the middle of a conversation. “Of course I’d been out. I’d had a council meeting all evening. I was just coming home. Some homecoming.”
“What time was this, sir?”
“We’ve been through all this before,” Turnbull said angrily, then mastered himself. “I shouldn’t be snapping your heads off. I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to do the best you can. I came back between nine-thirty and ten. I didn’t exactly stop to check my watch when I found her. She couldn’t have been dead long. She was still warm. Still warm, you understand.” He closed his eyes as if closing them would eradicate the picture he could see.
Evan nodded. “I can’t imagine anything more terrible for you, sir.”
“And apparently they picked up Mancini running away, a mere stone’s throw from us. That was a stroke of luck, wasn’t it? The only stroke of luck we’ve had so far.”
Evan glanced at Huw and nodded.
“I understand he’s been a bad lot since he was born,” Turnbull went on. “They say nowadays that the chemistry gets scrambled in the brain and that produces the criminal mind. The only solution is to keep that kind of person locked away from society. I want you blokes to promise me he won’t get off lightly this time.”
“He won’t, sir. I guarantee he’ll be put away for life,” Huw said.
“Tell me about Alison, sir,” Evan said. “What was she like?”
“Very pretty. Always was. When she was a toddler people used to stop the pram to make a fuss of her. She was such a delicate little thing; she used to flit around like a little butterfly, always dancing and showing off for us and pretending to be a princess or a fairy or something.”
“And when she grew up, what then? How did she get on with you and your wife?”
“Get on with us? She was a good girl, if that’s what you are insinuating. No trouble at all. Obedient. Of course she and the wife had the occasional spat over what she was allowed to wear and what films she was allowed to see—like any typical teenager. But she’d soon calm down and then be her sweet self again.” He leaned across his desk, closer to them. “And you know the irony of it all—we made sure we took good care of her, because she was our only one. Never let her out on the streets or to the public swimming pool like the other kids. My wife always drove her everywhere. Never let her out of her sight. We vetted her friends carefully and sent her to the best schools—and what good did it bloody well do?” He fought to master himself again.
“Did she have a boyfriend?” Evan asked.
“She was too young for that kind of thing,” Turnbull said quickly. “There were a couple of young chaps—sons of our friends—who used to escort her when there was a country club dance or a Masonic lady’s night, but she wasn’t too keen on either of them. If she had been, I don’t think we’d have minded her going to the pictures with one of them. Both nice lads. Well brought up. Away at public schools most of the year. But she didn’t take to them. I think she was waiting for Prince Charming to come along. She had grand ideas, like her dad.” A wistful smile crossed his face.
He took the photo in his hands again, examined it again, then opened a drawer and put it away. “So now all that’s left is my work,” he said.
As if on cue there was a tap on the door and the short-skirted secretary came in. “The receptionist says that Mr. Yashimoto and his party have arrived in the building, sir. Would you like me to bring them to your office, or do you think you should go and greet them personally?”
“I think I’d better go, thanks, Miss Jones. They’re hot on protocol over in the East, aren’t they? All that bowing and stuff.” He got up and extended a hand to Evan then Huw. “Thanks so much for stopping by. I appreciate your help. Maybe I’ll see you at the trial, if the wife and I can find the courage to face it.”
Evan shook the hand, noticing the big man’s strong grip. A powerful man, used to getting what he wanted all his life. He followed Mr. Turnbull from the office.
“Better have the kettle on to make them some tea, Miss Jones,” Turnbull said.
“Very well, sir.” She smiled at him for a fraction of a second then turned to the two policemen. “Can you find your own way out?”
“We’ll manage, thanks.” Huw Hopkins said.
“Thank you for your time, sir,” Evan called after Turnbull.
“You certainly gave him a good old grilling, didn’t you?” Huw Hopkins asked as they walked down the hall together. “I didn’t realize the North Wales Police were so forceful.”
Evan flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take over like that. I was just trying to get all the facts for myself.”
“No problem. Kept me away from the paperwork for a while. So what was your impression of him then?”
“Exactly what you’d told me. Big, blustering, likes to get his own way. Really cut up about his daughter, but who wouldn’t be?”
“The secretary is easy on the eye.” Huw gave Evan a nudge. “Good pair of legs.”
Evan turned to glance back at Turnbull’s office. Through the open door he saw Miss Jones pick up the phone and smile as she started chatting again. Evan had sensed some kind of undercurrent in the simple exchange between secretary and boss. And why had she come into the office herself, when there was a perfectly good intercom on her desk?
“I thought that was interesting about the boyfriends, or lack of them,” Evan said.
“What do you mean?”
“It seems there were two young men whom Alison didn’t really fancy. Has anyone checked up on them yet?”
“No. Why should they? We’ve already got Mancini. Case closed.”
Evan said no more, but climbed into the squad car beside Huw Hopkins. As they drove down from the factory, they passed the Penlan estate, sprawling on his left, row after row of identical brown pebble-dash council houses. A visit to Tony’s mum might not be such a bad idea, either. Then he stopped this train of thought abruptly. Without meaning to, he was throwing himself into a real investigation. What exactly did he hope to gain from all this? The truth, he answered himself. If he believed that Tony Mancini hadn’t done it, then he’d have to find out who else might have had a motive and opportunity for murder.
… If he believed Toni Mancini hadn’t done it. That was the crucial point, of course. Mr. Turnbull had labeled him as a liar since birth, and frankly Evan hadn’t come away with any warm feelings toward the young man. It would be the ultimate twist of irony if he jeopardized his own police career for someone who had not only killed his father but turned out to be a consummate liar as well.
As they came into the police station and walked toward the incident room, they could hear animated conversation through the half-open door. Huw went in ahead of Evan. DCI Vaughan was seated at the table with a couple of detectives Evan hadn’t yet met.
“Oh, there you are, Hopkins,” the DCI boomed in his big voice. “And Evans too. Did you get to see Mancini, lad?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Obnoxious little bugger, isn’t he?” Vaughan said, smiling affably
. “I hope you didn’t knock the stuffing out of him—officially, that is.”
“No, sir. But I was tempted.” Evan returned the smile.
“Well, you’ll be pleased to hear we’ve got enough proof to crucify the bastard. He won’t wriggle out of this one.” Vaughan actually chuckled and slapped his hand down on a pile of papers lying on the desk. “Look what just came in, Hopkins. The forensic results have arrived. Just what we hoped. The DNA test came back positive.”
“What does that mean, exactly, sir?” Evan asked.
“The DNA we found on her body is his. Hundred percent match.”
Chapter 13
Evan ran back to his car, two steps ahead of a meter attendant who was looking satisfied as he tucked a ticket under a windscreen wiper on the next car. He jumped in and drove down to the waterfront. It was only when he was standing at the prison gate that he realized he should probably have gone through the solicitor, but he wasn’t prepared to wait any longer or risk being turned down.
“Police,” he said to the man at the gate, bringing out a warrant card and hoping that the gate guard didn’t check it too thoroughly. “Evans. I spoke with Tony Mancini yesterday. I need to speak with him again.”
He was shown straight to an interview room, and a few minutes later Tony was ushered in. He looked at Evan hopefully. “You’ve found something already?” he asked as the door closed behind him.
“You bloody well bet I have!” Evan struggled to keep himself from yelling. “You lied to me, boy. I let myself be taken in by you and your acting skills, and all the time you lied to me!”
A guarded look returned to Tony’s face. “What are you talking about. I never lied to you.”
“Don’t give me that crap. You know damned well you lied.”
Tony made tut-tutting noises. “I thought you didn’t approve of bad language,” he said.
“You better watch yourself or I’ll knock your block off,” Evan snapped.
“I don’t have to talk to you without my lawyer present.” Tony backed away as Evan loomed over him.
Evan grabbed him by the shirt front and almost lifted him from the ground. “Listen to me, you little prick. Your lawyer won’t have a hope in hell of getting you off this time. They’ve found your DNA on the girl’s body!”
He realized almost as the words came out that he could find himself in deep trouble for being the first to divulge such evidence, but by the time he’d come to his senses it was too late.
“What have you got to say to that?” Evan demanded.
Tony was staring at him defiantly. “Okay, so we had sex. I never said we didn’t.”
“You had sex with her? When?”
“That evening. Then. I went up to her house to see her and we started talking and—well—we’d sort of fancied each other from the start. So one thing leads to another, right? We’re making out then she gives me this kind of look and she says wouldn’t it be a lark to do it right there on the lawn, right outside the window where her mum is having her bridge party? So we went behind this big bush, right close to the house, and we did it. It wasn’t half bad either. She’s a good little mover.”
Evan looked away, feeling repulsed. “And then?”
“We’d just finished and we were lying there, giggling, because we heard someone in the house say, ‘One no trump,’ when suddenly she says, ‘Someone’s coming. You’d better beat it quick. You’ll be in trouble if the dog gets out and finds you.’ So I zipped up my pants and got out through the hedge like I told you.”
“And you didn’t see who arrived?”
“No, but I heard her talking to someone. I heard her raise her voice, but I didn’t hear what she said and I didn’t wait around.”
“You say this was around nine-thirty?”
“Something like that. I don’t know how long we’d been talking and making out in the garden, but it was dark so it must have been at least nine-thirty.”
“And you didn’t hear anything at all of the other voice, the man she was talking to?”
“I couldn’t even tell you if it was a man,” Tony said. “I wasn’t too keen on her dog taking a bite out of my backside.”
“You said she raised her voice. Was she crying out, in alarm, would you say?”
“Well, if she’d yelled ‘help, help,’ I’d have gone straight back, wouldn’t I? I don’t think she sounded scared. Just shouting at someone, that’s what it sounded like. Having an argument.”
“How did she know someone was coming? Did you hear a car pull up? Someone coming down the path?”
“I can’t say I heard anything, but I had—like—my mind on other things at the time, didn’t I? I didn’t hear a car door or nothing.”
“We’re not likely to come up with any other witnesses,” Evan said.
“This is going to look pretty bad for me then, is it?” Tony asked as if this fact had only just sunk in.
“Very bad,” Evan said.
“What are you going to do?”
“Me? I don’t know that I can do anything. I don’t work for the police down here. I’m already risking my job by coming to see you like this. I’ll be in a heap of trouble when they find out I told you about the DNA.”
“So if you don’t want to help me, why did you bother to come?” He stood there, arms folded across his skinny chest, chin jutting out defiantly.
“Exactly why should I want to help you? You tell me that,” Evan demanded. “You’re not exactly someone I think of as a long lost brother.”
“Look, I said I was sorry about your dad.”
“You’ve said a lot of other things that haven’t turned out to be true.”
“Okay, so I’ve done some stupid stuff in my life, but I didn’t kill Alison. I swear I didn’t. You will help me, won’t you? That toffy-nosed git of a solicitor—he’s no use at all. He thinks I did it. He’s not even going to try.”
“Is there anything else I should know?” Evan asked coldly. “Anything else you might have lied about, or conveniently forgotten to tell me?”
“Nothing. I swear.”
“There better not be.”
Evan didn’t look back as he left the room.
Evan sat for a long time in his car, watching seagulls wheeling overhead and listening to their screeching cries. His fingers gripped the steering wheel. He was not by nature a violent person, yet every encounter with Tony brought out angry, violent thoughts, leaving him taut as a coiled watch spring. Why was he putting himself through this? Every instinct in his body was telling him to forget about the whole thing. If DCI Vaughan found that he was interfering in the case, taking the side of a man the police all wanted to see convicted, he’d call Evan’s superiors in North Wales and Evans would find himself out of a job. What would policemen like Bill Howells, colleagues of his dad, think if they found out he was working secretly to free Tony Mancini? And what would his mum think? Evan drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. The problem was that deep down he felt that his dad wouldn’t have backed out. His dad would have wanted him to go on with it.
But I’m bloody well going to make sure of my facts this time, he decided. I’m not sticking my nose out for Tony Mancini only to find he’s been lying again. He started the engine, swung the car around the roundabout, and headed out of Swansea, in the direction of Bridgend where the South Wales Police was headquartered.
He found the home-office pathologist working cheerfully in his lab at the county morgue. It had been Evan’s experience that pathologists rarely looked like people who spent most of their waking hours delving into body parts. The one in North Wales looked like a prim schoolmaster. The one he faced today looked more like a farmer or pub owner. He was big, red faced, and jolly.
“Hello, young man? What can I do for you?” he asked as Evan came in. “I know you, don’t I?”
“Evan Evans.” He went to extend his hand, noticed what the pathologist had been doing, and thought better of it. “You knew my dad, and I think we met a couple of times.”
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br /> “Robert Evans’s son? Of course. And now you’re here on this new business.”
“They said you did the autopsy on Alison Turnbull?”
The doctor nodded.
“I wondered if you could tell me—was it clear that she was raped and then murdered?”
“You mean was she suffocated at the same time the rape was going on?”
Evan cleared his throat, trying to phrase the question. “No, I meant could it be possible that she had sex before she was killed, but that the two weren’t connected?”
The pathologist paused, digesting this new theory, nodding several times. “Well, that’s an interesting thought. She’d certainly had intercourse very shortly before she died, so it was always assumed that it was murder following a rape.”
“Can you tell that it was rape? I mean, were there signs of violence?”
“Apart from the bruises on her face, no. There weren’t. There were no signs of considerable force, if that’s what you mean.”
Evan found himself flushing and was glad that the light in the room was so focused on the autopsy table, leaving the rest in gloom. He would never be comfortable discussing the subject. “So it could have been consensual sex?”
“With someone who didn’t kill her?”
Evan nodded.
“Then he’d probably been watching, because the two events were only minutes apart. You’re coming up with an unlikely scenario here. Any reason why?”
“Just a theory of my own I was testing. And how exactly was she killed?”
“Suffocated with a hand over her mouth. That’s why we thought he probably did it as he was raping her. Maybe she cried out and he put his hand over her mouth to shut her up. That’s happened before. And that way she wouldn’t have been in a good position to struggle. It’s not that easy to stop a person from breathing for long enough to kill them.”
“Are you sure it had to be a man who killed her?”
Again the pathologist seemed intrigued by the thought. “It would have taken a darned strong woman. There were fingermarks on her cheeks where he clamped on to her with considerable force. And if she wasn’t being raped at the time, if she was standing up and free, she’d have had a good chance of breaking the hold and getting away.”