I went into a sandwich shop, but when I saw them all lying there like shrink-wrapped museum exhibits waiting to be catalogued I decided I wasn’t hungry. I bought a bottle of flavoured water, that’s all, and sipped at it sitting on a bench in the town centre, because I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. It must have been a cold day because people were hurrying about with their collars upturned and I had the seats all to myself. I don’t feel the cold.
O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of murder because his legal team declared that the DNA evidence was flawed. The jury accepted their claim because the police were a bunch of racists, and it was a glitch in the procedures for processing the DNA evidence that gave them the excuse to do so.
Blood samples from accused and victims were taken to the same laboratory, and O.J.’s thousand-dollars-an-hour attorney convinced the court that DNA could have floated about in the atmosphere and transferred itself from one sample dish to another. It’s not as crazy as it seems. They’d used something called PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, to amplify a tiny stretch of DNA, too small to be useful, into a big sample. It’s a procedure that a California scientist called Kary Mullis thought of while driving his car through the desert at night. It’s a magical experience for anyone, but Mullis wove some real magic that night, enough to win himself a share in the Nobel prize.
He knew that if you took one single shred of a DNA molecule and gently heated it in a test tube, with an exotic brew of the right proteins and enzymes, the two strands would untwine, and as you cooled it down again each would create a copy of the partner it had just lost. In other words, you would now have two pieces of the DNA. How you knew that there was only one molecule in the tube to start with, and how you kept track of it, wasn’t explained in the book I read. The heating and cooling process only took a few minutes, so do it again and you’d now have four pieces of DNA. It’s a fiendishly complicated process — this was strictly the Ladybird version, intended for under-sevens and police officers.
Mullis stopped the car and did some sums. He calculated that in twenty heating and cooling cycles, which would only take until coffee break, you’d have over a million copies of your original sample. Still not enough to be visible on the head of a pin, but you were getting there. Keep going, and by the end of the week you’d be bringing in the enzymes by specially laid road and rail connections, and moving the DNA out by the barge-load. In a month you could fill the Grand Canyon and make a start on the Marianas Trench.
You don’t need that much in a criminal case. O.J.’s lawyers said that with all the DNA being made, who could say that a spare flake hadn’t floated into the wrong test tube or Petri dish or whatever they use, and nobody had enough clout to argue with a thousand-dollars-an-hour attorney. This DNA swirling about in the atmosphere could just as easily have belonged to Thomas Jefferson or Christopher Columbus, but nobody mentioned it. As the newspapers put it: money talked, O.J. walked.
Black spots were breaking out on the pavement in front of my feet, like some deadly infection, and a raindrop scored a direct hit on my neck. Jason Lee Gelder’s solicitor was on the basic rate for the job, we had enough semen to do all the tests we needed and different samples are always processed in different labs. There was no comfort for him there. I took a sip of water and looked at the pigeons that had joined me, expecting to catch a few crumbs. They were all exactly alike, each a replicant of some distant ancestor, their lives preprogrammed in the genetic code. I wish I’d been a scientist. I screwed the top back on the bottle and went to find the car.
A solitary detective, David Rose, was at work in the office when I arrived back. He was in his shirtsleeves, surrounded by paperwork as he peered at the VDU screen on his desk, pencil behind his ear. He turned as I closed the door and said: “Hi, Charlie.”
“No.” I replied.
“No what?”
“No, whatever it was.”
I went straight into my little office and gathered up all the papers put there to attract my attention. They could wait. I picked up the phone, dialled the HQ number and put the phone down again. Scenes of crime would have gone over Jason’s car with the proverbial, in the faint hope of finding evidence that Marie-Claire had been in it and was therefore known to him. They’d failed, I knew that, but they must have found some evidence, like fingerprints, of other people who’d ridden with him. Like the girl he took to the brickyard. The detective’s daughter.
I drummed my fingers on the phone, indecisive. I needed to know who he’d been with, not sure if I could face the truth. There are sixteen detectives at Heckley, and I knew all their families, had visited all their houses. I brought out a staff list and took the top off my pen, with the intention of writing their kids’ names in the margin. The pen hovered next to the first name but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t sully them by giving substance to Gelder’s accusations. There was only one name that fitted, and I felt ashamed at even considering what was going through my mind. I tore the list into shreds and dropped them in the bin. But, I argued, someone was with him, somebody’s daughter, and these were promiscuous times. Or at least, we were constantly being told they were. Myself, I wasn’t too sure. Times had changed, of course they had, but people, including kids, made their own moralities and sometimes they were surprisingly high. I stood up and strode over to the window. It only took two.
I’d beaten the rain back, but it was catching up. Rooftops were glistening across the road, but this side was still clear. Even as that fact registered the first flurry dashed against the window and the street lights flickered on. We were in for a downpour. Black clouds were banked like pit heaps behind St Mary’s Church, at the other side of town, blotting out the hills. A straggle of people was going in when I’d driven past, for afternoon mass or, perhaps, an organ recital. They’d get wet when they came out, but I don’t suppose they’d mind. Not the faithful ones.
A report on the news had said that church attendance on Sundays was down by seven percent over the last ten years. A couple of spokesmen, Bishop Inevitable and Archbishop Complacent, said that it wasn’t all bad news because attendance through the week was on the increase. I wasn’t sure if going in to listen to a Bach fugue or buy mince pies from the WI stall counted, but it was good for the statistics and the offering.
Trouble is, nobody has any faith anymore. I’d never had any. Doubt, not blind belief in something I couldn’t comprehend, was always my driving force. I wish it were otherwise, but it isn’t. I returned to my desk and picked the top document off the pile I’d made. Would I like to contribute to Mr Pritchard’s leaving present? I fished a ten-pound note from my wallet, placed it in an envelope with the letter and sealed it.
It wasn’t true, I told myself. I did have faith. It might not be in a god, but it was there. I believed in the people around me, colleagues and friends, like I’d believed in my parents. Had faith in them. “So prove it,” I told myself, picking up the telephone and dialling the custody sergeant at HQ. “Sorry, Sophie,” I whispered as I waited for him to answer. “Forgive me for doubting you.”
“This is DI Priest at Heckley,” I told him. “I came in this morning and interviewed Jason Gelder, and I’d like to talk to him again, as soon as possible. Will it be alright if I come over?”
“You’ll be lucky, Mr Priest,” he replied. “We’ve just sent him to Bentley. You’ll find him in the remand wing.”
“Damn,” I said. “OK, thanks.” It would have to be tomorrow.
Gwen Rhodes wasn’t there, so I had to use the proper channels, just like everybody else. The visits office said they couldn’t possibly accommodate me on Tuesday, but after a pathetic display of subservience and respect for their difficulties they agreed to squeeze me in on Friday. They like us to know that they can’t be pushed around. I said: “Thank you, Friday will be fine.”
Tuesday, I went to court instead. After hanging about for two hours and another half-hour talking to a magistrate, I came away with a warrant to search Silkstone’s house and a special circumstance attached to his bail conditions. He had to stay out of the way while we did so.
I rang him on his mobile and told him to bring his brief with him when he came to sign the book on Thursday. I wanted to do a substantive interview, to clarify his exact movements on the day his wife died. I didn’t mention the search warrant.
“What if I refuse to stay?” he ventured.
“Then I’ll arrest you,” I told him. The time had come to put pressure on Mr Silkstone. He’d had a long break, had probably grown complacent about his predicament. He was due for a wake-up call.
Wednesday I drove to the lab at Wetherton and had a long talk with one of the professors. He listened to what I had to say, sounded sceptical but agreed to loan me a scientist. At a price, of course. He followed me back to Heckley, where I held a briefing with Dave Sparkington, Jeff Caton and four members of the scenes of crime team. Compared to them, the professor had sounded jubilant and enthusiastic.
“So you were serious,” Sparky declared.
“I’m always serious, Dave,” I replied.
“What exactly are we looking for?” one of the SOCOs asked.
“You have the difficult bit,” I told him. “Silkstone killed Peter John Latham with a kitchen knife, ostensibly belonging to Latham. It just happened to be available, on the worktop. If the murder was planned in advance Silkstone wouldn’t have left anything to chance. What I want to know is whether Silkstone was aware that the block containing the knives would be there, or if he took it with him. Ideally, I’d like to link the knives with Silkstone. Had the block stood on his worktop before it went to Latham’s house? We’re talking micro-analysis stuff here; trace evidence. Look for marks, a faded patch on the tiles, an impression on the underside of the block, that sort of thing. Take some pictures in UV or oblique light; you know more about it than me. My team will be looking for other possible links. Were the knives a present from the Silkstones, or were they bought specially for the job? Count the knives in both houses, does one of them have too many or too few? Look for a receipt, trace the supplier, who bought them?”
“Perhaps there are photographs taken in their kitchens that might show the knives,” the youngest of the SOCOs suggested. She was an Asian girl, with huge dark eyes. A SOCO’s greatest asset is his or her eyes, and hers were belters.
“Good thinking,” I said. “Find their photo albums. And while we’re talking about photos, I’m going to ask Somerset to give the picture of Caroline Poole we found in Latham’s bedroom a going over: does it carry any prints, inside or out, and what was used to trim it down to size? You know the score, so have a look at his scissors.”
“All this should have been done before,” Sparky declared.
“You’re right, Dave,” I said, “but Silkstone confessed to murder and we believed him. We believed what we saw and what he told us. Any tests we did were to confirm his story, because we had no reason to do otherwise. What we are saying now is that perhaps he was involved also with the death of his wife and the whole thing was premeditated. This is a murder enquiry, and not Confessions of a Salesman. Without witnesses the odds are stacked against us, but let’s give it a try.”
They closed their notebooks and stood up, looking slightly more enthusiastic than before but not exactly overflowing with optimism. The young scientist from the lab hung back as they drifted away.
“So where are the, er, whatsits?” he asked.
“Here,” I said, passing him a manila envelope.
“There’s a hundred in here?”
“A hundred and two.”
“Do you realise how long it will take?”
“It could be up to three hours,” I replied, “but just do as many as you can. The more the merrier. What I mainly want from you is an unbiased report, nice and scientific, that nobody can argue with.”
He reached inside the envelope and extracted a dispenser of aloe vera liquid soap. “And what’s this for?” he asked.
“Um, use your imagination,” I replied.
“Present for you,” I said, opening the car boot.
“What is it?” Dave asked, coming over to me. It was seven thirty in the morning and a light drizzle was falling. We hadn’t met for a pint the night before, so I’d spent the evening shopping and doing chores.
“My old microwave,” I told him. “You can have it for Sophie, if you want. You said she needed one. The bulb’s gone, but otherwise it’s OK.”
He turned up his collar and looked at it for a few seconds before saying: “And what about you? I thought you lived out of the microwave.”
“I bought a new one last night. A Mitsubishi. It does everything, including the washing up, so this is now going spare. Any good to you?”
“Charlie…” he began, “I’d be annoyed if I thought you’d gone out and bought one just so Sophie could have this.”
“I didn’t,” I assured him. “Sainsbury’s have started doing these ready meals for the healthier appetite, like mine, and this isn’t large enough for them. They get stuck corner-ways on when they rotate, so I bought a bigger one. Now I’m getting flippin’ soaked, so do you want it or not.”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Thanks a lot. I believe you like I believe the Prime Minister, but thanks. It’ll save me a bob or two.”
“And these are expensive times,” I said.
“You can say that again.”
I helped him carry it to his car and we walked into the nick, brushing the raindrops from our jackets. Dave is paid for the overtime he works, but it is strictly limited. I have to ration it out and try to be fair to everyone. The younger DCs have expenses, too: mortgages and young children if they’re married; flash cars with big payments if they’re single. “What a miserable day,” I complained.
“Yeah,” he agreed with a grin. “What we need is a nice juicy interview, to brighten it up.”
“I’ll see what I can arrange, Mr Nasty,” I said.
“I’ll wait for your call, Mr Nice,” he replied.
Jeff attended the briefing while I read the night reports. He was wearing blue trousers with a logo tab sewn to a pocket, a short sleeved white shirt and a green tie with multicoloured triangles in a random pattern. Annette waved a coffee mug at me across the office and I nodded a Yes please at her. She was wearing a lime green T-shirt that managed to look expensive, black trousers with a slight flair and chunky-heeled granny boots. She looked sensational and I let my eyes linger on her, catching the curve of her breasts as she reached to plug in the kettle. Jeff, in contrast, looked quite ordinary.
Just before ten, front desk rang to say that Mr Silkstone and Mr Prendergast had arrived and were now in interview room number one. We gave them five minutes to decide where they were sitting and went down to join them. Silkstone looked leaner than I remembered him, and had worked on his tan. He was wearing a stone-coloured lightweight suit that was inappropriate for the weather and made him look like Our Man in Havana. Prendergast was in solicitor blue, and two large umbrellas leaned in the corner, each standing in a small puddle. I wondered if they had licences for them.
“Nasty morning,” I said, brightly, as I sat opposite Silkstone. They both glanced at me without replying, Silkstone giving me the look he normally reserved for flat tyres and dodgy oysters. Dave placed two cassettes in the recorder and announced that we were off.
I thanked them for coming and did the introductions, adding that DS Sparkington would have to leave us in a few minutes to make a phone call. “The principal reason we are here,” I continued, “is to make what we call a definitive activity chart of Mr Silkstone’s exact movements through the house on the day that Mr Latham died. It’s not a new idea, but the prosecution service has started asking for it in all cases. Up to now we’ve only done one if we thought it relevant. I know you have told us most of it before, but I’d be very grateful if we could run through it again.” I extracted a plan of Latham’s house at West Woods from the papers on the table in front of me, and slid it towards Dave. He squared it up and laid a pencil across it. “So,” I went on, “if you can describe your movements from when you parked on his drive to when the police arrived, DC Sparkington will mark them on the diagram.”
Prendergast looked as if I were trying to sell him a timeshare in Bosnia, which is about how I felt, but he stayed silent. Silkstone didn’t know any better and leaned back in his chair, rehearsing his words as he drew on a cigarette. He had nothing to hide. He was the first person I’d met who could swagger sitting down.
“Er, Boss,” Dave said.
“Mmm?”
“Don’t you think we ought to start before then?” he asked.
“Like when?”
“Well, when Mr Silkstone went home and found Latham with his wife.”
“You mean a week earlier, at Mountain Meadows?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“Because CPS will ask for it. It might not be relevant, but it’s all part of the big picture. And then we want another one for a week later, when he found Mrs Silkstone’s body. After that we can go to Latham’s place.”
I clenched my fists and stared down at the desk, breathing deeply. After a few moments I said: “OK, OK, if you say so. Do we have drawings of Mr Silkstone’s house.”
“It’s The Garth,” Dave replied. “There should be some in there.” I found one and pushed it towards him. “Sorry about this,” I said to the other two, “but my DC likes to do things by the book.”
Dave turned towards the tape recorder and said: “I am now looking at a drawing of The Garth, Mountain Meadows.” He announced today’s date and the date that Silkstone first went home early, writing them both on the diagram. “Right,” he declared, looking expectantly at me and then at Silkstone. “Let’s go.”
“Where did you park the car?” I asked, and Silkstone leaned over the table and showed Dave exactly where he’d left his?40,000 Audi A8.
“And by which door did you enter the house?”
“The kitchen door.”
Dave traced a straggly line down the drive, around the corner to the side door.
“And then?”
“I walked through into the lounge,” Silkstone informed us, exhaling a cloud of smoke towards the ceiling, “to where Margaret and Peter were sitting.”
“Which was where, exactly?” I asked.
“Margaret was on the settee and Peter in the easy chair nearest the fireplace.”
“And did you join them?”
“No. I was bursting to go to the toilet. That was mainly why I’d gone home. I put my briefcase down and went for a piss.”
“Which bathroom did you use?” Dave asked, his pencil hovering over the plan.
Prendergast yawned and twisted in his seat, trying to see out through the little window. Relax while you can, I thought. We’ll brighten up your morning in a minute or two.
“Upstairs,” Silkstone replied. “The family bathroom.”
“Why not the one downstairs,” I asked, “if you were so desperate?”
“Never occurred to me,” he said. “We only use that one when we entertain, and I don’t suppose I was that desperate. Generally speaking, I use the family room all the time, and Margaret uses — used — the en suite one. I just went up there out of habit.”
“Inspector…” the lawyer began, his face twisted by a pain that expressed his disdain for what we were doing. “Is this really necessary?”
I turned to Dave, saying: “Isn’t it about time you made that call, Sunshine?”
“Yeah,” he replied, pushing his chair back and standing up. “’Scuse me.”
“DC Sparkington leaves the room at ten thirteen,” I said, as if anyone cared, but it sounded professional. I reached for the incomplete diagram and turned to the brief. “My DC is right,” I told him. “It might all look unnecessary, but we have a list of forms to fill in and if any are missing the CPS start chasing us. It’s nice if we can get it right first time: saves us having to bother you again. So, Mr Silkstone, you presumably came downstairs again and joined the others?”
I convinced them, I’m sure of it. We join the police because we are honest, but it’s a licence to lie through our teeth. You have to be careful, though. Evidence obtained by trickery is inadmissible, like almost anything else that works against the defendant. I don’t care. Silkstone might get away with having been there when his wife died, and God-knows what else, but the newspapers would have a field day when they saw the pile of shit I’d bulldoze into court.
I galloped through the rest of his movements and was just at the point where he stabbed Latham when Dave returned. He handed me a manila envelope and I told the machine that he was back. When we’d finished we asked Silkstone to sign the diagrams and told him that he would be given photocopies, along with the tape.
“And finally,” I said, “there’s just a little matter of this.” I pulled the warrant from its envelope and slid it across the table.
“What is it?” Predergast asked, as they both leaned forward.
“A warrant to search The Garth, Mountain Meadows, and make certain tests. A team of officers is there at this moment, waiting to start. You may go along to witness things, Mr Prendergast, but there is also a codicil to Mr Silkstone’s bail conditions, saying that he must stay out of The Garth while these tests are being made. It expires at four p.m. today.”
Silkstone looked as if the MD had just had him in to say that from now on the company’s cars would be Reliant Robins, and Prendergast did a passable impression of an oxygen-starved koi carp.
“This is preposterous!” the brief eventually opined.
“It’s legal,” I stated, rising to my feet.
Dave said: “I’ll tell them to get on with it.”
“Yes, please,” I affirmed, and he left the room again.
“What you are doing, Inspector,” Prendergast spluttered, “is…is…highly irregular and…and…of doubtful validity. First of all, there is the question of security.” He was getting himself back together. “It is normal procedure for a responsible representative of the defendant be present when a search is made. My client may have large sums of money, or other valuables, in the house. And then there’s the question of the admissibility of any so-called evidence your men may purport to have discovered. The situation is outlandish and should not have been sprung upon us in such a precipitate manner. I feel obliged to take this up with your superiors, and am considering a formal complaint. The whole thing is completely out of order.”
I turned to Silkstone. “Are there any large sums of money in the house?” I asked, and he shook his head before Prendergast had time to advise him otherwise. “My men, as you call them,” I continued, “are accompanied by several civilian scenes of crime specialists and one of Her Majesty’s scientists. I am confident that they will conduct themselves with their normal integrity and impartiality. As I have said before, their findings may corroborate your story and you will have full access to them. If you are concerned about your property you may go along and watch, but you will not be allowed in the house.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” Silkstone demanded. “Stand in the garden in the rain?”
“I suggest you go about whatever you intended to do. Now, if you’ll follow me to the front desk I’ll sign a copy of the tape and photocopies of these diagrams over to you. Don’t forget your umbrellas.”
Prendergast complained all the way there and was still berating the custody sergeant as I danced up the stairs, three at a time, towards my little kingdom and a well-earned pot of Earl Grey. All we needed now was some evidence.
Jason Lee Gelder said that the food at the remand centre was really good. It was next door to Bentley prison, catering expressly for under-twenty-ones, and still came under Gwen Rhodes’ authority. They had sausages and beans for breakfast and something different every day for dinner. He shared a room with another youth and they got on well together. The duty solicitor joined us, complaining about his beaker of tea, and I said: “Right, Jason. Let’s talk about this girlfriend of yours. Have you remembered her name?”
“No,” he replied.
“Have you tried to?”
“A bit, but I can’t.”
“I’ve checked the families of every police officer at Heckley,” I told him, “and nobody has a daughter of that age who goes in the Aspidistra Lounge. Your girlfriend definitely wasn’t a cop’s daughter, so you have nothing to fear there. You are wrong about that, Jason, so who is she? Either you are lying to me or she was lying to you. Which is it?”
“Actually,” he could have said, “it’s you who are lying to me,” but he wasn’t to know that. Instead he coloured up and shrank into himself, like a child scolded by a grown-up.
I eventually broke the silence by saying: “Come on, Jason, start telling me about her. It can only help your case.”
“Tell the inspector what you know,” the solicitor urged.
“Let’s start with a description,” I suggested, rising to my feet. “How tall was she. You danced with her, so where did she come up to?” I took hold of his arm and helped him stand up. “Up to here?” I said. “Or here?”
“’Bout ’ere,” he told me, holding his hand, palm down, level with his Adam’s apple.
“About five feet four,” I said. “Well done, that’s a start. And what about her build? Was she slim, overweight, or in between?”
“She was a little bit fat.”
“Good. What colour was her hair?”
Simple questions that he could answer, that would have saved me a sleepless night if I’d asked them earlier. Sometimes even the toppest cops get the basics wrong. After they’d had sex he took her home, which was somewhere in the Sylvan Fields estate. Not right to the door, because she was afraid that her dad would see her coming home in a car and cause some grief. And he was glad to oblige because dad was a cop, wasn’t he?
We went through the whole sordid scene, and little flashes came back to him. She had a tattoo on her shoulder. He couldn’t see it properly in the dark, but she said it was a spider. Her favourite group was Boyzone and her previous boyfriend drove a Mazda, but it was stolen and he lost it. She didn’t go in pubs but went to the football, sometimes. Her mam and dad were always fighting and kept breaking up. She didn’t think he’d stay much longer. They did it twice, and she helped him the second time. He only had one condom with him, but it was OK because she had one. Everything but a name. I could have asked him what I wanted to know, what I really wanted to know, but it would sound better coming from someone else.
“So you sat and talked for a few minutes before she got out?” I repeated for the third time.
“Yeah, a bit.”
“What about?”
“Dunno. This and that. What I just told you, I s’pose.”
“Did you arrange to meet again?”
“I told you, yeah.”
“Tell me again.”
“At the club, I think.”
“You just left it loose. You had brilliant sex with this girl and then you said: ‘OK, perhaps I’ll see you again sometime.’ I don’t believe you Jason. I don’t believe that you are getting it so often that you can afford to be choosy. I think you desperately wanted to see her again, as soon as possible, and you arranged to do so. Maybe you promised to phone her. Was that it? Did she give you her phone number?”
Jason slowly straightened in the chair, his brow furrowed and his lips pursed. He had the looks of a film star, but he’d have needed a stuntman to do his dialogue. “Yeah,” he said, the light of remembrance lighting his countenance with all the illumination of a male glow-worm. (It’s the females that glow, wouldn’t you just know it.) “Yeah, that’s what she did, she gave me her phone number.”
“Great,” I said. “That’s great.” Now all I had to do was prise it from him. Given the choice, I’d have preferred trying to take a banana from a rabid baboon. “So did she write it down for you, or did you try to remember it?”
“We didn’t ’ave a pen,” he told me.
“Well you wouldn’t have, would you?” I replied with uncharacteristic understanding. With a combined IQ that was lower than the number of left legs at an amputees ball, it was unlikely that either of them would want to scribble down a sonnet, or even a haiku or two, after a moonlit shag in a Ford Fiesta. I waited for someone else to speak and wondered what to have for lunch.
“It wasn’t then…” Jason began.
“Wasn’t when?” I interrupted.
“Then. When I dropped her off. It was before that, at the brickyard, just after, you know…”
“Just after you’d had it?” My mind kept returning to the two of them bonking like a pair of ferrets in the front seat of his car. It was worrying.
“Yeah, then,” he confirmed. “She told me ’er number and I asked ’er to write it down, on a parking ticket. Not a parking ticket, one from a machine, you know.”
“A pay and display ticket,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s right. Pay an’ display. But she didn’t ’ave a pen.”
“And you didn’t, either.”
“No. So she wrote it on the win’screen, with ’er finger. Up at the top. It was steamed up, y’know. Then she pulled the sun flap down, ‘To protect it,’ she said. I’d forgotten all about it.”
“Alle-flippin’-luia,” I sighed, burying my head in my hand.