Chapter 8
EIGHT
DAN
Present day
Hidden behind those large bifocal frames, her face looks pale and drawn and afraid.
I doubt she’s slept much. I’d managed only a couple of hours myself last night on a makeshift camp bed in my office.
We have just twenty-four hours to hold Tilly Ward without charge – no time to go home – so I washed and shaved in the bathroom at the station before hastily dressing in yesterday’s old clothes. Tom Ford, eat your heart out.
As I was brushing my teeth and rubbing my stiff neck, I noticed that some joker had stuck my photograph from the newspaper article up on the bathroom wall using crime scene tape.
In thick black marker pen, they’d adorned my face with a pair of glasses and a comedy beard with a speech bubble coming from my mouth that said: ‘The name’s Riley… Dan Riley…’
Yeah, very funny, I laugh. I’m really no 007 though, so the hapless photographer with the Standard Life had his work cut out for him. To be fair, I think he did his best to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Anyway, my wife, Fiona, had liked it at least.
‘Ooh, I think you look all sexy and rugged,’ she gushed, proudly, but then again, she does need to wear glasses, and what was that word Vic Leyton had used yesterday to describe me? Distinguished, that was it. I spat the toothpaste into the sink.
‘Sexy, rugged and distinguished, eh?’ I muttered as I pulled at the crepey skin underneath my tired eyes and stuck my tongue out in the mirror. ‘And they say the camera never lies.’
‘So, listen up, people.’ The incident room falls to a hush as I enter.
Like me, the team has been at it through the night and everyone looks a little frayed around the edges.
‘We’ve got the green light to interview Tilly Ward this morning following both the medic’s and psych’s assessments. Lucy, DC Parker, you fit for the job?’
‘Yes, gov,’ they nod in unison.
‘We’re not sure of all the facts yet, so let’s see what she has to say, but don’t go in too hard.
Tilly Ward is partially deaf and she wears a hearing aid, which makes her vulnerable, so speak slowly, clearly and concisely and try and maintain eye contact with her so that she can follow your dialogue.
Forensics will start coming back soon, so whatever we get from them we’ll drip-feed straight back into you.
We’ve only got ten hours or so left to hold her without charge, so we may need to apply for an extension, though I’m hoping to avoid this if we can,’ I add. ‘And I’m sure Tilly Ward is too.’
Parker is looking at me tentatively, like he wants to say something.
‘What’s your take on this, gov…? Do you think she’s trying to create a false witness?’ He adjusts his glasses a little awkwardly. ‘I don’t know, boss, but I think there’s something more to all of this than at first glance.’
Ah, Parker, my most promising protégé; he senses it too.
‘Well, if it is just a concocted story, Parker, then it won’t be too difficult to dismantle it. If this Samantha Valentine is a ruse, then the evidence will prove that and we’re looking at a murder charge,’ I say. ‘And so is Tilly Ward.’
‘But why would she do that?’ Parker presses me.
‘What reason could she have to make up some cock and bull story about a fictitious friend and witness, knowing that we’d quickly pick it apart?
And if she has made it all up, then what’s her motive for killing Milo Harrison in the first place – we can’t establish any physical link between her and the victim, or not yet – and we can’t find Samantha Valentine either? ’
Motive is secondary to the facts – the law states that you don’t need to prove motive in a murder trial, though it can be extremely compelling. But as my dear old departed pops used to say, ‘There’s a reason for everything, son, and everything for a reason.’
Currently though, I can’t attribute any of the usual customary themes – sex, money, jealousy or power – to explain why Tilly Ward might want to ‘unalive’ Milo Harrison – or to explain Samantha Valentine’s absence.
‘She could be time-wasting, Parker. Giving us the runaround, using our resources to locate a fictitious person while redirecting the spotlight away from her.’
It’s difficult to imagine someone like Tilly Ward coming up with such an elaborate story though, and not least because – why?
Creating a false witness isn’t unheard of, of course – some criminals will do and say anything to get you chasing your tail, and get themselves off the hook – only this type of diversion trick is almost instantly quashed with basic intel.
You see, the moment we’re born, we begin to leave a paper trail of who we are and where we’ve been – birth certificates, bank accounts, driver’s licences, NI numbers, electoral registers, mortgages, medical notes, qualifications, marriage certificates…
it’s an inexhaustible list. Add to this that almost everyone now has some kind of social media, an electronic footprint, and we are all, more or less, traceable.
So far however, we have found nothing concrete to corroborate Samantha Valentine’s existence, or to confirm that she is who Tilly Ward says she is.
I cast my mind back to last night, when I had met Tilly at the crime scene.
From my observations, both her actions and reactions were indicative of someone who is telling the truth, or at least the truth as they know it to be.
And there’s the caveat right there: as they know it to be, because in my experience, no two truths are ever the same.
It all depends on the lens you’re looking through.
I pick up the psychiatrist’s report on Tilly Ward and silently skim-read it once more.
‘… Anxious and distressed though not hysterical… coping skills present… lucid and aware of situation… appears articulate, coherent, intelligent and helpful… refused offer of an appropriate adult present during interview… no previous mental health issues, history of depression or signs of paranoia or personality disorder… deemed fit for police interview.’ As far as initial mental health assessments go, it’s practically glowing.
I turn to the rest of the team.
‘Well, we had, at first, thought that this might be a straightforward case of a domestic manslaughter, self-defence – our suspect has admitted to fatally stabbing Milo Harrison, and has offered an explanation as to why – but the fact that we have a vital missing witness is beginning to throw some shade onto Tilly Ward’s account. ’
Adding weight to my long-standing theory that she’s a mind-reader, Davis hands me a flat white and a paper bag containing something greasy. I look at her like she’s just fallen from heaven as I mouth the words, ‘Thank you.’
‘Tilly Ward’s account seems plausible on the surface.
’ I take a sip of coffee, lick hot froth from my top lip.
‘But we need evidence to support it. We need CCTV and witnesses who can corroborate what she’s telling us – one witness in particular – Samantha Valentine, who apparently left the scene at some point after Tilly had inflicted the fatal stab wound, and hasn’t yet been located, or identified. ’
I stop. I’ve just had a thought. The boots that I had seen by the front door in Milo Harrison’s apartment, the ones that looked like they belonged to a female and had been placed there, neatly.
In such a critical, potentially life or death situation as Tilly had described it, would you think of removing your shoes as you entered the apartment?
‘So, have we found anything from CCTV at Stockwell Gardens?’
I take their silence as an answer.
‘Baylis and I were on it through the night, boss…’ DC Harding pulls his laptop towards him, spins it round to face me in a deft move.
‘We focussed on three particular cameras. The main camera at the entrance to Stockwell Gardens, the one in the communal lobby area and a third situated on the third floor, near the victim’s apartment, which appears not to have been working.’
Baylis looks up at me, apologetically. ‘I know, boss,’ she sighs.
‘Anyway, we’ve identified Milo Harrison numerous times coming and going inside Stockwell Gardens over a number of days, and he’s always alone.’
‘Always?’
‘Every time, gov, there’s no female with him, there’s no one at all. We checked for anyone matching the description Tilly Ward gave us of Samantha Valentine, around five feet four inches tall, long blonde hair, bright green eyes…’
Coincidentally, Tilly Ward also has green eyes, striking enough for me to have noticed them when I met her yesterday.
‘And?’
Baylis shakes her head.
‘There’s nothing, gov, no blonde woman either with him or without him, or anyone of that description seen going into the apartment. However…’ her tone of voice lifts with promise, ‘going further back some weeks,’ she spins the laptop back round to face me, ‘and we see this person here…’
She runs the footage, and I watch as what appears to be a female enters left of screen.
I say female, though I can’t be sure because the face is completely obscured by the hood of the ubiquitous black puffer-type coat they’re wearing, but I sense it’s a woman by the build and the way she carries herself.
I watch the back of their hooded head as they press the buzzer.
A moment later, Milo Harrison opens the door of his apartment before instantly shutting it again – less than a split second.
The look on his face tells me that whoever this visitor is, they’re not especially welcome.
‘So who might this be?’ I almost slosh my coffee down yesterday’s shirt as I move closer to the screen to get a better look.
‘Maybe the stalker that the neighbour mentioned, gov?’ Davis suggests as she starts flipping through her notes.
‘… here we go… Mr Abdul Ahmed, lives next door, apartment 35. He claims that during a recent conversation, Milo Harrison mentioned something to him in passing about a woman he’d had a brief encounter with – a one-night stand, basically – who’d been, I quote, “bothering him”.
He’s also the same witness who heard the raised male and female voices coming from the apartment around the time of the incident.
Milo never gave Mr Ahmed a name or description of the potential stalker woman he’d mentioned to him, sadly. ’
I’m holding my breath as the hooded individual presses the buzzer again. There’s no audio, but I get the impression they’re speaking to him through the door. Pressing the buzzer a couple more times, they wait for another fifteen seconds or so, before finally walking away and—
‘Hang on!’ Something has caught my eye. ‘Go back.’
Baylis rewinds the footage.
‘Pause it! There! As they turn!’
At this angle – every angle in fact – the face is still completely obscured, but I see it, a nanosecond flash of white light juxtaposed against the black hood.
Blonde hair.