My eyes flicked around the assorted notes, photos and newspaper clippings on the wall. After Juliet left to release the Dunlows, I’d barely moved. The coffee David made cooled on my desk.
‘I don’t use the word hate lightly,’ Juliet said as she strode into our office, ‘but I really do hate Timothy Dunlow.’
I didn’t stop my staring contest with the wall. ‘How was he?’
‘Smug as a pig in shit. Less so when I left the duty officer to finish off. I have far more important things to do than watch him gloat.’
An involuntary smile tugged at my lips. ‘I’m sure he’d appreciate the comparison.’
‘Come on then.’ Juliet stood next to me. ‘Talk it through one last time.’
Juliet wasn’t the most emotionally intelligent person or, if she was, she disregarded the information in favour of getting the job done, but she knew I needed this. If we were going to lay this case to one side, there couldn’t be any avenues left unchecked, any threads unfollowed.
I wasn’t ready to clear the wall. I’d leave the evidence up until ordered to take it down. Even then, the case file would sit on my desk rather than slotting neatly into the cabinets behind Juliet’s desk.
I flicked through the photos of Melanie, from her smiling selfie to the clinical shots of her marred face.
‘Melanie travelled by bus to the Dunlow Estate on the evening of the 9th October.’ I tapped her bus ticket. ‘She was met by Leo, with whom she had been carrying out a secret relationship. He snuck her onto the estate and into the den above the garage, where they had sex.’ I pointed at the DNA results from her body. ‘Afterwards, Melanie and Leo argued and she left.’
‘Enter Dunlow,’ Juliet said.
‘The things we know; he saw Leo and Melanie from the house, he came over to tell Leo off, then he headed back in the direction of the house.’
Juliet stuck her tongue out at Dunlow’s austere portrait. ‘He says he went to the house. He slept like a baby while Melanie was shot and mauled. The first thing he knew about the murder was when Karl called him in the morning.’
‘Alternative theory; Dunlow killed her.’ I looked at the annotated map of the estate. ‘He grabbed a gun and went to the barn for a dog to help him find Melanie. While he was there, he saw Karl’s leather gloves and the plastic ones, and he hatched a plan to pin the blame on Karl. He followed Melanie out into the forest and shot her three times. After, he shot the dog and hid all the incriminating evidence.’
‘Another theory is that Karl killed Melanie. The latex residue is there because he put the gloves on to diddle with some poor dog’s anal glands.’ Juliet grimaced. ‘This is why I could never have a pet. There’s far too much close contact with faeces.’
Karl’s section of the wall was sparse. A copy of his note and the article about his mother’s murder were pinned either side of his picture. ‘Do you honestly see him as a suspect?’
‘I have to. You do too,’ Juliet said. ‘He’s got a history of violence in the family and he ran off in the middle of the investigation. Most damning, his DNA is on the gloves most likely worn to kill Melanie. We can’t discount him because he seemed like a nice guy.’
‘But why would he have reported the bodies if he was guilty?’ I asked, rolling the corner of David’s latest forensic report between my finger and thumb.
‘That is one thing in his favour. He would have to be a colossal moron to report them if he was the killer, and he didn’t seem dim to me.’
That was wild praise coming from Juliet, but it didn’t mean she wouldn’t pursue Karl if any sighting of him was ever reported. Hopefully he could keep himself hidden until I found something Dunlow couldn’t talk his way out of.
‘Leo is another suspect with no real alibi.’ I flicked his tragic love poems. ‘He lied several times about the nature of his relationship with Melanie, denied knowing her, and then denied meeting her. We only got the truth once the DNA results came through.’
‘He’s in the running, but only just.’ Juliet wrinkled her nose. ‘My Lion is a terrible nickname.’
‘Agreed.’ I shook my head at his school photo. ‘Leo, as much as he tried to lie, is transparent. It was obvious he was keeping something from us, we just had to throw enough evidence at him to force the truth out.’
‘His DNA probably got on the scarf when he and Melanie were canoodling.’
I grinned as my eyes flicked over Leo’s differing statements. ‘Canoodling?’
‘Exactly.’ Juliet lifted her chin. ‘Plus, Leo is reportedly a terrible shot and would have gotten mauled himself if he’d tried to use Lucy to find Melanie.’
I glanced at the picture of the dog’s partially buried body. ‘It had to be someone who was familiar with the dogs, or particularly gifted at getting them to obey, who hunted Melanie down.’
‘Which puts Jordan in the running,’ Juliet said, her nose wrinkling as she looked at his section of the wall.
‘He was Melanie’s boyfriend and he was abusing her physically. He seemed genuinely shocked when we told him she’d died, but he doesn’t have a good alibi,’ I rattled off the facts. ‘We don’t know if he knew Melanie had sex with Leo, but he would have been incredibly angry if he did.’
‘The abuse doesn’t look good for him.’
I tapped his text transcripts. ‘Even though he didn’t start the fire, he displayed a high level of comfort roving around the grounds. Whoever killed Melanie knew their way across the estate.’
‘Which brings us to Terence,’ Juliet said.
‘He has an uncorroborated alibi.’ Benedict Hogan was still AWOL. ‘Karl running off doesn’t look good for him. At the moment, we only have his word that he didn’t come back to the estate to silence Melanie himself or get someone else to do it for him to keep his secret safe.’
Juliet tipped her head to one side. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not convinced Dunlow is the killer, but no matter how you look at this, the whole case revolves around him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘At the very least, Melanie was killed on his property,’ Juliet said. ‘But he instils such fear into his sons that they follow his commands blindly and hide their relationships from him. He employed Karl, he owned the dog, he most likely owned the gun used to kill Melanie.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘No matter what the outcome is, I’d be shocked if he’s not involved in some way.’
‘Involved is one way to put it.’
‘I’ve got a couple of things to sort before we head over to the prison.’ Juliet left me standing in front of the wall, her fingers clattering against her keyboard before her weight had settled in her chair.
I nodded absently. I tried to look at all the evidence we’d collected, but my gaze snagged on Dunlow’s photo.
Juliet was right; he was smug. He’d killed a young woman and he was going to walk out of here freely. Yet another man who’d gotten away with something terrible. There were too many of them in the world, too many in my life.
I grabbed my coat and swung it over my shoulders. ‘See you in a minute.’
Juliet shot me a penetrating look as I hurried out of our office, but she didn’t try to stop me. Odds were, she knew what I was going to do.
I half walked, half jogged across our floor and past the lift. This was a bad idea, but that didn’t mean it was wrong. Something was bubbling up inside of me, something only contained by my mad dash downstairs. I needed to let Dunlow know he might have gotten away for now, but that he hadn’t fooled me.
I met him and Alice as they crossed the wide expanse of reception, the huge front facing windows flooding the space with crisp rays of light. Taking a deep breath, I plastered an empty smile on my face.
‘I’ll take him from here.’
Alice’s neat eyebrows quirked upwards. ‘Right you are, ma’am.’
She turned on her heel. I gestured towards the front doors, encouraging Dunlow to keep moving, rather than glaring down at me like a stray dog that had dared get too close.
The door swung shut behind us. Bright sunlight bounced off car windscreens but there was a chill to the air. I refused to shiver.
‘I know you did it.’
A flicker of something crossed Dunlow’s face before a mask of distain settled into place.
‘You know nothing.’ He turned away, tracking sleek cars up and down the road. ‘That’s why you’re releasing me. It’s why you shouldn’t have arrested me, and why you’re not going to bother me or my boys again.’
‘I won’t stop searching for the gun, or anything that will prove me right.’
To an onlooker, Dunlow’s smile might have seemed like that of a kind uncle. Only up close could you see the sharp edges.
‘You know, you should be careful. I haven’t decided whether to bring a complaint against your department, but being harassed as I left the station; that would be a great place to start.’
I balled my hands into fists, pressing my blunt nails into the skin of my palms. Dunlow was a bully, through and through. ‘No one would believe a woman like me could intimidate a man like you.’
I didn’t often play this card. I strove to help those I worked with forget my small stature and slight frame. But that was all a man like Dunlow would ever see.
He straightened. I fought the urge to step back, but it was like he could sense the instinct.
‘They’d be right,’ Dunlow sneered. ‘You couldn’t.’
The station door swung open. ‘Dad?’
Dunlow stepped away, his gaze softening as he turned to Leo. ‘Let’s go.’
Leo nodded, his mussed hair falling over his glasses. ‘Bye, Detective Martin.’
His voice was husky, like some of the time in his cell had been used to shed tears that had no place in the Dunlow men’s home. His reddened eyes danced over my face before he was steered away by his father.
I watched them walk down the road, finally buttoning my coat. I couldn’t tell if I’d made my point, but I was surer than ever that Dunlow had killed Melanie Pirt in the grounds of his ancestral home.
I wouldn’t rest until I proved it.
The station door swung open again, just as the Dunlows disappeared. Juliet’s heels clacked on the mottled concrete.
‘Terence Dunlow has been attacked.’
‘What?’ My face pulled into lines of disbelief. ‘Who by?’
Juliet shook her head as we rushed towards the station car park. ‘All I’ve got is a copy of the intake form that Maddy got from Southampton General.’
I struggled to wind my head around this new information. ‘Too many people involved in this case are getting hurt.’
I wasn’t pleased that Terence had been beaten, but chatting with him was another pitstop before I had to let this case go. If there were enough delays, something might eventually come to light that we could use against Dunlow.