Irrefutable Evidence: A Crime Thriller (23 page)

“Good point,” conceded Sally. “Some would, yes. Not all, obviously. What you’re describing is what’s called a secondary transfer — when a fibre is transferred first to one surface and then another. Given that it’s all a numbers’ game, the amount transferred in a secondary transfer is always going to be less than in a primary transfer. And of course, you need to have something to compare the fibres with. We don’t have controls from whatever Olivia Freneton was wearing, either under or outer clothes.”

“OK,” said Jennifer. “Suppose Freneton was wearing a wig, which we think she was — remember, there were two long blond hairs found. She was probably wearing it in the bar when she picked up Henry and the chances are that she was wearing it when she changed into Henry’s clothes – she wouldn’t want the possibility of her own hair getting on them. Obviously she’d be careful pulling his pullover over her head, but even so, there could have been hairs transferred to the inside of the pullover as she put it on, don’t you think?”

Sally nodded as she thought it through.

“Yes, in that case, there would be wig hairs transferred to both the inside and outside. And the ones on the inside would remain there at least until the pullover was taken off, even, perhaps, until it was next washed. And since it was only a couple of days between the murder and Henry being arrested, and also since he’s a man, it’s extremely unlikely that the pullover would have been washed in that time. It would be a year for Ced if I didn’t intervene.”

Jennifer felt that they might have something. “Do you agree that it’s worth following up?”

“Yes,” said Sally, “I do, because it would add support to the suggestion that someone was dressing up in Henry’s clothing. But how are you going to get it done?”

“I think I’ll explain it all to Charles and he could demand a further examination by his own expert. He’ll go for it, I’m sure. I want to talk to him anyway. I want to ask if I can view the CCTV recordings again, the stuff that’s supposed to be footage of Henry. Previously it was assumed to be him since that’s the way it was set up — we were guided into believing it was him. But if I were to look at it once again taking the view that it might be someone impersonating him, maybe I’ll see it differently.”

Sally pursed her lips in doubt. “Could be. However, while I don’t want to dampen your enthusiasm, unless you see something startling, your opinion is still going to be very subjective.”

C
hapter 27

D
espite the lure of a relaxing evening with her new friends that would probably have included talking to Ced about Renaissance art — something she was itching to do – Jennifer reluctantly decided against staying the night. She needed to return home to change and she didn’t want to do that and drive to London all in the same day: it would take too much time. She called Charles Keithley while on the way back to Nottingham and more or less insisted he make time to see her the following morning.

With an early start the next day, she was in Keithley’s office in Hampstead by ten o’clock.

“Luckily for you, Jennifer,” said Charles as he handed her a coffee, “the case I’m working on was adjourned yesterday for a week. Otherwise, we’d be snatching opportunities to talk outside the courtroom. And, you know, you could have saved yourself a lot of driving by explaining what you’ve found over the phone.”

“There’s too much for that, Charles, and anyway, with your agreement, there’s something I’d like to do that I can only do by being here.”

Charles was immediately suspicious. “Really? And what might that something be?”

“The CCTV footage from both the hotel and the street cameras. I was rather hoping that I could look through it. Would that be possible?”

Charles shook his head. “Not in theory, no. As I’m sure you are aware, it’s sub judice. It’s evidence that will be produced in the trial and must, therefore, remain confidential. You may be Henry’s daughter, but that doesn’t give you any right of access to the evidence.”

Jennifer pulled a face. “But you can watch the tapes, or whatever they are.”

Charles nodded. “Of course I can, I’m Henry’s solicitor. I can review them with Henry or by myself — and by the way, they’re discs; the CCTV footage from the hotel is digital like the traffic recordings, but an older system. The Nottingham traffic recordings are far better, although because it was nighttime, the definition still leaves plenty to be desired.”

“Yes, I remember,” said Jennifer, her face still a frown. “I saw most of them when I was still a police officer; I just wish I’d taken more notice. So it’s ridiculous that I can’t see them now.”

She paused. She’d thought Keithley would be more forthcoming. Then she had an idea.

“Would you like to offer me a job?”

Charles was mildly amused. “What sort of job? You’re not trained as a lawyer, by any chance, are you? I could do with another junior.”

“No, I’m afraid there wasn’t much law in my English and Italian literature studies. But I was a detective, albeit only for three months, and since my career with the police has gone south, I’m now considering setting up as a private detective. I fancy the challenge of the work. And surely you have a need for someone like that to help with certain aspects of the case.”

Her smile was full of encouragement, but Charles’ head was shaking. “I’m not sure how ethical that would be. It would be a pretty transparent attempt of trying to get around the law. I’ll need time to think about it.”

Jennifer gave him about three seconds to think about it before continuing with her argument.

“Supposing you decided to view the discs as part of your preparation, which you must need to do, and I happened to be in the room. Better still, suppose you were looking at them when I turned up and then you were suddenly called out of the room. If I were to take a peek, you’d never even know.”

“You certainly don’t take no for an answer, Jennifer, do you? No, that would be sloppy practice on my part, possibly actionable.”

He paused and sighed. “However, you’re not going to be a witness in the case, the prosecution will make sure of that, and of course you couldn’t be a jury member … so, as long as we keep the matter to ourselves, no one else would be the wiser. OK, but your viewing the CCTV recordings here, in my offices, must remain absolutely confidential.”

Jennifer beamed at him. “Fine by me.”

But Charles still wasn’t totally convinced. “Supposing you were to notice something significant, I don’t know, a mannerism that isn’t Henry’s, or a way of walking? What can we do about it, apart from tell Henry?”

“Easy,” replied Jennifer. “You could quite legitimately employ an expert to comment on the footage and hope they come up with the same observations. Perhaps it’s something you should do anyway.”

“OK,” said Charles, “let’s see what you can find. But whatever it is, I’m not sure how strong it might be as evidence.”

“We won’t know until we try,” said Jennifer with a dismissive shrug of her shoulders. “Anyway, Charles, there’s another reason why I wanted to speak to you in person rather than talk over the phone. You see, I know who’s trying to frame Henry.”

“You what! Why didn’t you say straight away? Who is it? I take it you were right and it’s a woman?”

Jennifer smiled at Charles’ astonishment. “It was important to talk through the CCTV stuff before you got totally distracted. I knew that once I told you, you wouldn’t have ears for anything else.”

“You’re probably right, but don’t keep me in suspense any longer, tell me everything.”

For the next ten minutes, Jennifer walked Charles through the events of the previous day and the discovery of photographs of Olivia Freneton with both Grace Taverner and Catherine Doughthey. Charles was motionless as he listened, his eyes fixed on hers, but she knew that his lawyer’s mind would be racing with various possibilities that now presented themselves.

Once she’d finished, Charles stood and walked over to his office window, deep in thought. When he turned, his face registered a look of hope that in all their previous meetings had been absent.

“That certainly throws a whole new complexion on the case, Jennifer. Well done. For the first time since this whole nightmare started, I think there might be a chance we can get Henry off. But we’ll have to tread carefully; there are still gaps in the evidence and before I present it to anyone, those gaps have got to be filled.”

“You’re right,” agreed Jennifer. “Do you think it would be an idea to call the solicitors who dealt with the Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle cases? According to the news reports, there was CCTV in the Newcastle and Manchester cases, the ones that occurred in 2012 and 2009, but there was no mention of it for the Leeds case in 2007. I suppose it’s possible that there were fewer cameras then, although it’s not that long ago. Maybe the reporter was sloppy in his account. And anyway, the trials are over and the evidence a matter of public record, so releasing the CCTV recordings shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”

Charles didn’t share her confidence. “Not in theory, no. But we solicitors are a cagey lot; it might take more than a casual phone call. However, it’s worth a try; the more video footage we get, the better. I’ll get onto it now, but of course I won’t disclose more than absolutely necessary.”

“Brilliant,” enthused Jennifer. “Would it be OK if we put aside your worries with the CCTV and I get straight on with viewing it?”

“How could I refuse?” said Charles, with a chortle of laughter. “But then again, you knew the answer to that question all along; you were just playing me. I’m still staggered that you didn’t burst through the door shouting the news.”

He walked over to his office door and opened it.

“There’s an empty office down the hall. I’ll get someone to set up a computer there. You know, perhaps I should offer you a job.”

An hour later, Jennifer was so engrossed in endless poorly lit images from the street cameras and low definition shots from the Old Nottingham hotel that she hardly heard Charles come into the small office he’d arranged for her. She certainly didn’t notice the tension in his voice as he said her name. If she’d looked up, she would have seen the ashen look on his face, but as it was, she continued to focus her attention on the computer monitor.

“This is far more difficult than I thought it would be, Charles. The quality isn’t good in most of the footage. But even so, the more I look at these recordings, the more I’m convinced that the person shown isn’t Henry Silk. There’s something about the walk as he goes through the hotel corridor, as well as the hand and arm movements. And then there’s the hand when the lift button is pressed and the way the person gets into the car. It’s really not masculine enough. Of course, I haven’t made a study of Henry getting into a car, which is something of a problem. Has Henry seen all these?”

In the silence that followed, Jennifer suddenly realised that Charles hadn’t said a word. She turned to him and finally saw the haunted look in his eyes.

“Whatever is it?” she said. “What’s happened?”

Charles sat down in a chair near to Jennifer’s.

“Listen, Jennifer, there’s a problem.”

“What? With the CCTV? I won’t say anything, honestly, you can trust me.”

Charles shook his head. “I know I can trust you; it’s not the CCTV. It’s the three other cases you unearthed, the ones where we now know that Olivia Freneton was staying in the same hotel as the alleged culprits on the same nights as the murders. I contacted all three solicitors and they were surprisingly forthcoming, far more than I would have been to a telephone call from a complete stranger. But then I discovered the reason for their candour.”

Jennifer felt a cold shiver pass through her. “What reason?”

“They’re dead. The culprits in all three cases. They’re all dead. Two committed suicide while the third was killed in a fight, a fracas really, in prison.”

“A fight?”

“Yes. They’re not unusual in prisons; the tension amongst the convicts often reaches bursting point. Of course, some like fighting for the sake of it or as a demonstration of control, a warning to the other prisoners. But the fights are seldom so severe that someone dies. Apparently the convict involved in the fight was a proper thug, a man with a shocking record of viciously violent behaviour.”

“And the dead man in the fight, the one whose name I turned up?”

“Timothy Backhouse. The man convicted of the 2012 murder in Manchester. Apparently he was a quiet, rather timid man; the last person you’d expect to be involved in a fight, especially with a known hard man.”

Jennifer could feel the cold shiver still gnawing at her spine.

“Which … which prison was it, the fight?”

“Maudslake, outside Leeds.”

“Not Skipshed?”

“No, definitely not.”

“Well, at least that’s something.” Jennifer’s voice was barely more than a whisper; the sense of alarm she felt still palpable.

“What about the suicides?” she added.

“Do you mean where were they?”

“No. I mean were they a surprise? To the prison authorities or the families?”

“I don’t have the details yet. The solicitors are sending the files by courier; they’ll arrive first thing in the morning. It was the quickest way since not all the documents are scanned. They each reckoned it would be easier to photocopy the lot and put them in an envelope.”

“Excellent,” said Jennifer. “I’ll stay down here overnight. I have the key to Henry’s house; he told me to use it whenever I want.”

She shifted her gaze to the now-frozen image on the monitor, but she saw nothing as she bit on her lip in thought.

“Do you think it’s possible that Freneton could have some influence on which prisons the convicts are kept in?”

“I have no idea, Jennifer. I shouldn’t have thought so, but who knows? She’s clearly a devious woman whose planning skills are excellent. She seems to cover so much of the minutiae that I shouldn’t rule it out. Who knows, she might have befriended someone in the prison service in order to gain access to the system, or to influence it in some way? Perhaps it was part of her long-term planning, the same way that she set things up with Amelia Taverner and Catherine Doughthey to let her have credit cards in their names.”

Jennifer’s hand suddenly shot to her mouth. “Oh, God, Charles, you realise what this means. With the Bristol suspect dead as well, Henry is the only one of the alleged culprits in the five cases we know about who is still alive. Don’t you find that strange? Do you think that is Freneton’s plan, her end game for her victims? She shows them what she considers to be mercy in that she has them killed, or somehow persuades them to take their own lives. It would be the ultimate control over someone. You set them up, destroy their reputation, make them suffer the ignominy that goes with that, you ensure that they are found guilty of a horrible crime and then kill them. She’s playing God.”

Charles wasn’t so sure. “You could be right Jennifer,” he said, his tone reflecting his lack of conviction. “But surely it would take a lot to persuade someone to commit suicide.”

“Suppose they weren’t suicides,” argued Jennifer. “Suppose they were murdered and the deaths made to look like suicides.”

“I don’t know, I’ll need to see the files. But running with your conspiracy theory for a moment, if Freneton is somehow involved, a more cynical interpretation might be that she is hedging her bets after the convictions. Think about it. When an innocent man is locked up for many years, if he has anything about him, he will endeavour to demonstrate his innocence. If he writes to enough people and his case is convincing, someone might pick up his cause and run with it. They’re less likely to do that if the man is dead, especially if the manner of his death is suicide or some violent behaviour. There’d be nothing left in his credibility bank.”