Irrefutable Evidence

by David George Clarke

  “Given there wasn’t any sexual activity or any other signs of intimacy, I’d say that while he was in the process of suffocating her, she reached out in a desperate bid to stop him.”

  “So after he clobbered her, she wasn’t unconscious like you thought,” said Hurst.

  Lawson pulled a face. “It would seem not.”

  “Poor bitch,” replied Hurst. “She was fighting for her young life.”

  “Bastard,” added McPherson.

  Hurst turned to him.

  “Rob, we’ve got more than enough. Arrest him.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The elation shared by the whole team in the briefing room on Tuesday morning was attenuated by the presence of their squad commander, Detective Superintendent Olivia Freneton. Stony-faced, she was sitting to the right of Mike Hurst, her eyes slowly moving from one member of the team to the next. For the few who looked closely, her unsmiling features appeared slightly more relaxed than normal, an encouraging sign. However, most of the team avoided looking her way, preferring to keep their attention firmly on Hurst, who for his part was determined not to let the presence of the woman known universally as the Ice Queen dampen his spirits.

  Hurst stood.

  “Morning, everyone,” he said, before turning to Olivia Freneton. “Thanks for joining us this morning ma’am. I’m sure you’ll have something to say to the team in a moment.”

  Freneton gave the slightest of nods as her eyes continued their review of the room.

  “But first,” continued Hurst, “let me say, well done, all of you. We’ve knocked this case on the head in record time thanks to all your efforts. As you know, the devil is in the detail and you’ve all dug out plenty of that in the last forty-eight hours, and every bit has been another nail in Silk’s coffin.

  “As you know, Silk hasn’t confessed yet, but I can’t help feeling that he soon will, since frankly, he hasn’t got a leg to stand on. We’ve still got many of the forensic results to come, DNA in particular and of course, neither the plastic bag he used to kill Miruna nor the weapon he hit her with first have yet been found. We have a team of SOCOs and a squad of uniforms courtesy of Mansfield nick going back to the scene in Harlow Wood this morning to conduct a wider search.

  “And as soon as this meeting’s over, DS Bottomley and DCs Cotton and Thyme are heading off to London to search Silk’s house in Hampstead. Also, this afternoon, the night shift receptionist from the Old Nottingham, who doubled as barman last Friday night, has agreed to come in and make a statement about Silk’s movements on Friday.

  “So, there’s still plenty to do. Until we get the forensic results back for correlation, I want the rest of you here to learn as much as possible about Silk’s background. We know that he’s a loner, and we know that many in the acting world don’t like him, so much in fact that many directors shun him. Has this caused frustration on Silk’s part that has driven him to violence, so much so that he wants to take it out on defenceless victims? Is there any indication that Silk has been involved with other unsolved deaths of prostitutes in the city in the past? — you’ll remember there were three last year and two the year before which are now regarded as cold cases. Maybe we have the answers in Silk. His DNA will, of course, be compared with profiles found in those cases and all other cases on the outstanding crime database, but I also want anything else there is to be had. I want a full life history of the man. He said he isn’t married. Has he been in the past? We’ll be interviewing him further on this, but his solicitor might object to questions that aren’t immediately relevant to the present case, so we’ll have to do our own digging.”

  He turned to Freneton. “Ma’am?”

  As the detective superintendent stood, Jennifer made the normal assessment of a fellow female. She was tall — about five nine or ten, Jennifer estimated — and there was clearly no waste on her. Her obsession with physical training was well known, as were her unarmed-combat skills — her tendency not to pull her punches in training had left more than one of her trainers with a reason to dislike her.

  Jennifer herself was no slouch when it came to personal defence. She had passed all the police training with the highest marks and she had dabbled in karate, but had never really had the time to take it to a serious level. She noted the fluidity of Freneton’s movements under her handmade, dark grey cashmere suit trousers and jacket, and reckoned that although the woman was around fifteen years her senior, her extra height and reach, combined with an uncompromising ruthlessness, would make her a difficult opponent. Not that Jennifer had any thoughts of taking her on. It wasn’t wise to engage in a fistfight with your senior officers.

  Jennifer’s eyes moved to the superintendent’s face and hair. Her close-cropped but expensively cut dark brown hair showed no sign of help with its colour that she could see — everything looked real all the way to the roots. But it was her eyes that really caught Jennifer’s attention. Pale blue, they were cold and humourless as she continued to look slowly around the team before speaking. No wonder she’s known as the Ice Queen, thought Jennifer. The sarge reckons she lowers the temperature of any room by ten degrees, minimum.

  Olivia Freneton didn’t have to wait for silence as she stood; everyone was motionless, any thoughts of comments to neighbours after the DCI’s speech abandoned.

  “I want to add to what DCI Hurst has said by congratulating you all on your work so far in this case,” she began, her voice without accent; flat and emotionless. “To have an arrest this quickly is not only good for the reputation of the force, it will reassure the public that we will not tolerate vicious criminals on our streets.

  “As you know, I am new to this city, still learning the ropes, but the reputation for results you as a squad have achieved in the short time you have been together is clearly well deserved. I am impressed with your teamwork and I feel confident that you will only build on the already strong foundation of the case against this man Silk in the coming days. I understand that as a public figure in the entertainment world, despite his reputation within the industry, he still has a strong fan following. It’s important that there be no sympathy vote for him, that the press don’t suddenly want to fight his corner. We need to show the world what a cold, calculating killer Silk is, so the more you find, the better.

  “To that end, I should like to underline the need for the three of you heading for Silk’s house to be as thorough as possible in your search. As DCI Hurst said, the weapon initially used on Miruna Peptanariu has yet to be found. At present, all we know is that it had a rounded end. It’s unlikely to be as large as a baseball bat, but it could be similar. Or it could be one of the many types of truncheon available online. Look for anything similar in his house; he might have more than one, and check any computers for a history of searching for them, or online purchases. You never know, he might have slipped up; he’s certainly shown himself to be rather sloppy so far. Also look for any heavy-duty plastic bags. I spoke to the pathologist and he reckons that something fairly thick would be a better choice when suffocating someone that way; less chance of it being bitten through.

  “More generally, I should add that the senior command are delighted with progress so far and they have indicated to me that you have their full support. We’ll devote whatever time and resources are necessary to completing the case against this man so that we, and the public, can rest assured that he will pay for his crime.”

  She turned and nodded to Hurst before marching out of the room.

  Sergeant Bottomley broke into Jennifer’s thoughts. “Come on, Cotton, now we’ve had the benefit of advice from on high, you’re going to show me your driving skills, and if you’re lucky, I’ll stand lunch once we’re done at Silk’s place.”

  Jennifer grinned at him. “Lead on, Sarge.”

  She liked Bottomley; he was old school, a career sergeant, not a go-getter, but a solid workhorse who recognised talent when he saw it and who was willing to share his extensive experience with his juniors. Freneton could learn a
thing or two from him, she thought. You’d think that with all the courses she’d been on, one of them would have covered basic smiling.

  The next two days were taken up with legwork, searching, collating, endless phone calls and trawling through public and restricted databases. The Thursday morning briefing was delayed by two hours after Hurst was advised that a raft of forensic results would be ready that morning. He wanted the team to enjoy them all.

  Finally, at eleven thirty, everyone was gathered in the briefing room. The mood was even more positive than it had been two days before, unconstrained this time owing to the absence of Superintendent Freneton who was attending a meeting of a Home Office committee on which she sat.

  Hurst marched in armed with a burgeoning file that he banged down on the desk alongside him.

  “Right,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Rob, perhaps you’d like to start with what’s been found about Silk’s background.”

  McPherson stood. “There’s nothing particularly profound in Silk’s recent history, and I should say here that any thoughts of linking him with other prostitute murders in the city can be forgotten — he wasn’t here when they happened and he has solid alibis for all of them. In fact, when two of them occurred, he wasn’t even in the country.

  “However, there’s something in his history that might be significant. We’ve discovered that he was married for three years back in the eighties to an Antonia Frances Caldmore. They were divorced in 1988, a month after the car crash in which Silk was driving that killed the actor Dirk Sanderley. It was this accident that buggered Silk’s career. Up until then, he had been a rising star.

  “Because he was driving and under the influence of drugs and alcohol, he was blamed. Sanderley was also stoked with booze and drugs, but that seems to have added fuel to the anti-Silk lobby — they blamed him for Sanderley’s habit. Lucky for him, he’s a good actor and through persistence over the years, he has made a living in the profession, but there are plenty of people who would rather not see his face on the TV or in films, especially directors.

  “Getting back to his marriage, what’s interesting is that we’ve tried to find Ms Caldmore, but she seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. There’s no one with that name matching her age and description living in the UK, her passport expired in the early nineties and wasn’t renewed, and there are no credit cards or bank accounts that we can find. Nothing. There was a driving licence issued back in the late seventies to someone of that name, but it was the old booklet type that’s never been renewed and the address never updated.

  “We’ve tried seeing if she changed her name, but Deed Poll records can be difficult, and back then, when they were far less computerised, records remained in local offices. It would be a huge job to follow it up.”

  Hurst interrupted. “What does Silk say, Rob?”

  “He says that he has no idea where she is. According to him she went abroad after the divorce, although she hardly spoke to Silk at all after the car crash. It seems she hated her ex and wanted nothing more to do with him.”

  Hurst frowned. “Seems odd that his ex-wife could disappear so completely from his life. Were there any kids?”

  McPherson shook his head. “None that we know of.”

  “Wonder if he did for her as well,” piped up Bottomley. “Maybe he was responsible for the death of the other actor like the acting community thinks. If Sanderley was doing better than he was, perhaps he was jealous. Perhaps Sanderley was banging his ex-wife.”

  McPherson sighed. “Ifs and buts and maybes, Neil, and it all happened over twenty-five years ago. His ex-wife’s disappearance wasn’t regarded as suspicious at the time; certainly there was no investigation.”

  Hurst nodded his agreement. “Exactly, Rob. It’s not relevant to the present case and we don’t want to get distracted trying to dig up stuff from the dark ages. We’ll keep a note in the file and move on.”

  Jennifer Cotton raised her hand from the notepad on which she’d been scribbling.

  “May I add to that, boss, that we found nothing at Silk’s house regarding his ex-wife — no papers, letters, no old photos stuffed away in a box, nothing.”

  “Looks like he blotted her out of his memory too,” grunted Hurst. “OK, Neil, let’s hear the good news about Silk’s house.”

  The sergeant opened his notebook, although he knew it by heart.

  “Basically, we found clothing that matched that shown in the various CCTV footage. By found, I mean there was no attempt to hide it and it hadn’t been washed.

  “There was a pair of jeans, a pullover and T-shirt all lying on a chair in Silk’s bedroom, and a cream linen jacket hung over the back of the chair along with a woollen scarf. There was a dark blue baseball cap on a chest of drawers in the same room. They’ve all been bagged and seized, along with other items that are similar from Silk’s wardrobe and chest of drawers. But I reckon the stuff lying over the chairs is what we were after, and I’ve flagged it for priority processing by the lab.”

  “Excellent,” said Hurst. “Anything else?”

  “Nothing of interest on his computer, and no stash of baseball bats, if that’s what you mean.”

  A mild titter of amusement floated around the room.

  Hurst silenced them by raising a palm.

  “Well, as you know, I like to leave the best bit to last. The new lab on the ring road is proving very efficient. What they’ve found so far is absolutely clinching the case.

  “We’ve got what appears to be Silk’s hair on Miruna’s clothing — it’s the right colour and length, although without roots they can’t of course do the DNA; there are traces of theatrical make-up on the faux fur collar of Miruna’s jacket that match make-up found on Silk’s pullover; there are synthetic fibres from that collar in the car; there was one of Miruna’s dyed orange hairs in the car too and there are fibres on the knees of Miruna’s jeans that match the carpet in the X-Trail’s footwell. In addition, there is DNA matching Miruna’s on the shoe found in the X-Trail and last but not least, Miruna’s fingerprints in the car.

  “So, we are now in absolutely no doubt that Miruna was in Silk’s car, that is, we’re not dealing with a stolen X-Trail that someone had stuck Silk’s number plates on. It’s definitely Silk’s car. What that means is that the images of the driver shown on the CCTV footage that look like Silk must be him.”

  He paused, letting his team absorb the information. Then he continued, his voice triumphant.

  “You might say that all that only points to the car and since the CCTV footage of the driver doesn’t show Silk’s face, there’s an outside chance it could be someone else. Well, there’s also the debris under Miruna’s fingernails. And what that contains, as well as fibres that we’ll be comparing with Silk’s pullover and scarf, is skin debris that is bloodstained. The lab has profiled the DNA and it’s Silk’s. No question; a perfect match.”

  There was a collective ‘Yes!’ around the room as the team members all grinned at each other in delight. Hurst held up his hands again to quieten them.

  “And thanks to DC Cotton’s eagle eyes,” he continued over the hubbub, “we have the source of the skin and blood — the scratches on Silk’s neck that he conveniently cannot explain.”

  Jennifer was blushing at the mention of her name, but there was something else she wanted to know. She put her hand up.

  “Yes, Cotton.”

  “Did the barman from the Old Nottingham have anything useful to add, boss?”

  Hurst pulled a face. “Unfortunately, not much. He normally shares a drink with Silk when he gets back from the theatre — Silk’s treat, apparently — which he did on Friday night as usual. According to him, Silk seemed perfectly normal, not pissed or anything. After he’d had his drink, he was busy checking in a busload of Korean businessmen for about an hour so he didn’t notice when Silk left the bar.

  “The only thing he did say was that there was a woman in the bar when Silk arrived, a businesswoman in a smart bus
iness suit, is how he described her. Said she was middle-aged, but he couldn’t remember anything about her, like her height or hairstyle and colour. He doesn’t know if she spoke to Silk or when she left.

  “However, we’ve checked the hotel CCTV and there’s footage of Silk going up in the lift alone at eleven forty-one. No sign of a business type then or at any time later.”

  “Did we get a name?” asked Jennifer.

  “No, the barman had never seen her before. She didn’t go up in the lift, so she probably took the stairs. But since the CCTV doesn’t cover the corridors, we don’t know which floor or which room she went to. However, given the chain of events, I don’t think she’s of any significance.”

  “But we have a list of guests from the hotel on Friday night?” persisted Jennifer.

  “Yes, Cotton … that is, I think we do.”

  Hurst looked to McPherson for the answer.

  “I’ve got it here, boss,” called out Derek Thyme.

  “Is there a reason you think it’s important, Cotton?” asked Hurst.

  “It’s only that Silk is adamant that he can’t remember anything from the time he left the theatre until late the following morning. But we now have the barman saying that he saw Silk returning, and there’s no indication from him that Silk is either drunk or the worse for wear in any way, which kind of contradicts what Silk says. I was thinking that if it became necessary, we could probably identify the woman from the guest list and ask her if she noticed Silk in the bar, spoke to him perhaps, and whether he was out of it or perfectly rational.”

  “Good thought, Cotton,” said Hurst, once again impressed with Jennifer’s attention to detail. “However, given the barman says he was fine, I think for the time being we don’t need to go to the time, effort and cost of locating her. I’ll put a note in the file and we’ll follow it up later if necessary.”