Chapter 50

Rupert has been to the cottage, put out food for Raider and left a pizza for me. I give the pooch a mushy hug. Then I sit down at the table and find the front page of today’s Sunday Sentinel.

Forensic Scientist Accused of Faking Evidence to Secure Convictions

The Sentinel has received a leaked document from the private files of a well-known forensic scientist. The hand-drawn list appears to explore the evidence needed to convict a named candidate in one high-profile murder case involving a child. The source of the leak claims to have a number of similar documents spanning twenty years, each case resulting in a conviction and a lengthy sentence. If the document is genuine, dozens of criminal convictions may be re-examined.

The Sentinel believes the leaked document is now with the police who have declined to comment.

I look at the words describing the hand-written list: ‘the evidence needed’ not ‘the evidence found’. Like Helena’s answer to Baxter’s question about the saliva on the mug. They didn’t find it, they looked for it. Is that a code-word for planted it?

This is the story that inspired today’s ‘sabotage-with-menace’. Were these two saboteurs relatives or friends of the man convicted in the child murder hinted at in the article? Do they know he was innocent and that the evidence must have been planted?

My thoughts go to the death of Pippa Pemberton, the tiny bare footprint on the floor mat of a white van followed by the discovery of two sequins in the fluff. Not found by the first forensic team, ‘looked for’ by Helena and her team. The way they ‘looked for’ some fluff in Alex’s grave from the lining of Milton Faulks’s coat?

A message pings on my phone. From Calista.

Waiting in the departure lounge at Heathrow with TT. Going to his bolthole in South America. Don’t judge me. We met again because of you! He knows he’s lucky to have me. I’ll learn to dance. C x

Tremayne must have had alerts set up for when their little ‘conviction scheme’ hit the tabloid fan. Did my questions about Alex Loxton get him buying his airline ticket to an unnamed South American country with no extradition to the UK? It looks like his meeting with Calista was franker than she let on, with an offer to escape with him when it happened.

And a flight of this degree means their misdemeanours were seriously criminal. ‘Playing God’, today’s saboteur called it. Inspired by their success at disguising Alex Loxton’s death as a murder?

I should be crashing but I’m pacing.

Does Helena know that Tremayne has bolted? Leaving her to face the music on her own? It’s not my job to tell her but I’m torn.

My phone rings.

“Tiggy, I'm glad you’re not in bed,” she says “Though heaven knows we both should be. If we can even get to sleep after our ordeal. I’m ringing … to apologise for what happened.”

I’m about to say it wasn’t her fault but it was.

“Over the years,” she continues, “I’ve had other aggressive reactions to my forensic findings but never like this.” Pause. “I hope Baxter is OK. I think he’d make a great forensic scientist with his attention to detail and inquiring mind. And it’s not usually such a dangerous job.”

“I’ll let him know you said that.”

I wait, sensing there’s another reason for her call.

“I’ve been meaning to thank you for supporting Lou-Lou. I’ve done my best but she needed a friend.”

“I was surprised when she contacted me. I think she saw me when I visited you.” And left a flash drive of clues for Raider to find.

“She was staying in Number 24 but coming to my place for meals. She saw your books on my coffee table and I told her you were a local.”

“Now I know she’d just arrived from France,” I say, “I realise she was probably looking to meet people around her age.”

“She’s a mixed-up girl.”

“In what way?”

“Probably just the usual teenage identity crisis. But she’s become rather obsessed about her origins. She grew up in France and never met her step-siblings who both died tragically. As an only child, Lou-Lou is feeling their loss quite acutely. And looking for people to blame.”

“Did she ever meet Electra?”

“No. Electra died before she could go over there to visit.”

“How did she die?” I’d like to hear Helena’s answer. “She was about my age.”

“A … drowning accident. I’d stepped in after her mother died. She was … like a daughter.” Her voice catches. “When you arrived on my doorstep, I thought you were her. Sounds crazy but the shock triggered my memory of something important. I’m grateful for that.”

“And little Alex was … murdered.”

“I know Tremayne told you what really happened, Tiggy. We don’t need to pretend. I was only trying to protect Electra but she was never the same after that. She … blamed herself, even though she was just a child trying to save her … brother.”

Half-brother? The distinction hardly seems important.

“Do you know where Tremayne is now?” I ask. “Because I’ve just had a message from Calista Faulks.”

“On a plane I expect. Taking Calista with him? He would have seen the piece in today’s Sentinel and panicked. He’s kept a suitcase packed and ready.”

Why? I wait for more but Helena goes on the defensive.

“Today’s attackers must have read the article and decided it was about the offender in their own family. Some never accept the guilty verdict. They keep thinking wonderful Uncle Peter would never hurt a little girl. They don’t realise how many paedophiles are pillars of the community. It’s how they find their victims.”

“And you think you’re the well-respected forensic scientist in the piece?”

“Only because I suspect Paul Pigford is the source of the list of so-called fake evidence. He’s been doing jobs at my house for a while now. I think he took a notepad I can’t find. I use it to brainstorm what evidence to go looking for in specific cases. I just jot down the loose ends to guide our deeper search for traces.”

“Like the saliva on the mug.”

“Yes. Although … every case is different.”

For a moment I thought she was about to admit something but why would she?

“Why has Tremayne taken off?” I ask. “It makes him look guilty.”

“He’s the one who negotiated with Milton Faulks. By taking Calista with him, he’s eliminated all the remaining witnesses.”

Does Calista realise that? She’s like the enemy you keep closer than your friends? Helena won’t implicate herself and if Ambrose ever found out the truth about Alex, he’s dead.

I want to end the conversation. It feels like Helena is skirting the edges of something that can’t be named and I don’t really know why she called me.

“I’m ready to crash, Helena.”

“Of course. Goodnight, Tiggy.”

In the middle of the night a thought wakes me and I write it down as if it’s an idea for Death by Deception.

Identical twins have almost identical DNA.

Fletch takes my call.

“You know how they framed Tim, don’t you?” I ask.

“I do now. After you bought me a coffee at the market. And then the report in Echo Chamber.”

“The mug.”

“The pair of coffee mugs. That’s when I remembered.”

“Do you feel like telling me?”

“It will be good to tell someone who believes me,” he says. “She brought coffees to my stall like you did but you brought them to celebrate buying my photo. She had two mugs, both the same. From Get Mugged, she said. While I drank my coffee, she looked through all my cards and framed prints. Then she bought one of my photos.”

“Coffee first. Sale later. And the Dunlin at Merton Mire is hanging in her office.”

“I think it’s called a trophy. When you win something.”

A word flashes past. Gagner: to win.

“I finished the coffee,” he continues, “and she took the mug back. She wrapped it carefully.”

“Like a forensic scientist preserving evidence.”

“Just like that. At the time I thought she was protecting the mug. And then she must have smashed it. Smashed both of them. And mixed them up with the rest from the house-trashing.”

They had to be fine bone china to fit with the family collection.

“She walked away across the market and met a big older man. He’s very tall and his nose is big. I’ve seen his photo. It was DCI Kisner.”

We both know he’s Paul Pigford’s grandfather.

“I now think she was doing him a favour. And she knew nothing about Tim. She thought she’d get saliva from a nice nobody with a market stall. No police record and no DNA in the system. Just an anonymous man she could trick. But my DNA came up as a match for Tim’s from the time he helped the police catch a rapist while he was at school. His DNA was supposed to be destroyed after that but it was still in the system.”

“Then Tim was arrested,” I say. “And Helena was in a very awkward place.”

“So awkward,” Fletch says, “that she let an innocent man get convicted and sent to jail instead of doing the right thing. I didn’t know how the saliva got into that house but I came forward to show we shared the same DNA and it wasn’t clear which one of us the saliva belonged to. But at the time of the burglary I was at a steampunk festival. Plenty of photos of me there.”

We sit with the weight of the choice Helena made. But she recently agreed to the mug line-up reported in Echo Chamber. Wasn’t she worried about being found out?

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

“I’ve written a statement. I’m waiting to see what happens to Tim before I decide what to do with it.”

“My solicitor can advise you. Maybe sign a Statutory Declaration. Hayden Sinclair.”

“I know him. He’s been helping Tim.”