I was sitting on the hard bed, staring out of the narrow window where life outside just seemed to carry on as normal. I couldn’t wrap my head around what was going on. Suddenly there was a grinding of the key in the lock and I looked up. The door swung open – there stood Dan in the doorway.
I’d never been this exhilarated to see someone in my life and I jumped up. Without any reservations I threw myself into his arms, resting my head against his chest. The clean detergent scent of his crisp linen shirt as well as the spicy fragrance of his aftershave reached my nostrils, causing a paradoxical feeling of comfort and shame over my own crumpled appearance. I let go of Dan, withdrew and muttered, “I’m so sorry.” Feeling mortified over the mess I was in, I averted my gaze as we talked. “You have no idea how relieved I am that you’re here.”
He leaned in, closing the distance between us and tenderly brushed a strand of hair back from my face, bringing tears to my eyes, spilling onto my shirt. I quickly wiped them with the back of my hand.
“Come on,” Dan said gently with a nod, his dark eyes full of compassion behind the elegant set of spectacles I hadn’t seen him wear since the day we met. “Let’s sit down.”
We lowered ourselves onto the creaking bed next to one another, our knees almost touching, elbows brushing against each other.
I held my head in my hands, struggling to find words. “I don’t know where to start. That detective’s been taunting and grilling me, I seem to be directly in their crosshairs. How did I end up in this nightmare?” I asked, although I didn’t expect a plausible answer from Dan.
Dan kept silent for a moment and stroked my back, as I gave a sob of despair, my hands still covering my face.
After a while, I pulled myself together, straightened my shoulders and ran a hand through my hair, before mustering up the courage to look into Dan’s caring eyes. “Did you get a hold of my parents?”
“They are more than happy to take care of Tim for as long as it takes.” His gaze moved to the tray, which had been delivered earlier, sitting untouched on the floor in the corner of the room. “Did you eat anything at all?”
I shook my head resolutely. “I can’t get anything down right now.”
Dan rose to his feet, advanced a few steps to the food and leaned over to pick up the plate. “Come on, just have a few bites,” he insisted, holding out the cheese sandwich. “You need to keep your strength up.”
I reluctantly took the sandwich from Dan, not feeling like arguing with him over it and with the utmost effort managed a few bites, just to please him.
Dan stood up and filled the plastic cup in the sink with water. “Here, drink up.”
I washed down a piece of bread with the water, while bringing him up to speed about the harsh interrogation and the collection of evidence they’d garnered against me. As we sat back down on the bed, I ended my account of events with the proposal of four years incarceration that the detective had offered.
Dan raised his thick, brown eyebrows as he listened, observing me in silence.
“Do you think I should take it?” I asked, feeling a sense of surrealism as I uttered the words. “Accept the offer of four years in prison?” A voice in my head was telling me to maintain my innocence, but the thought of being sentenced for an even longer period made me wonder if it might be wise to settle.
Dan shook his head. “Absolutely not. The detective is using the carrot-and-stick approach to coerce you. We mustn’t make any rash decisions.” His tone was unwavering. And yet there was a look in his eyes I couldn’t quite read.
“Dan, it sounded like they have pretty conclusive evidence to lock me up for years,” I said, shifting on the thin mattress, coils poking into my thighs. “The phone details, my DNA on Sandra’s bike, the tram driver’s statement – it’s almost a watertight case. To make matters worse, I’ve been unable to provide a good explanation for any of the allegations. With four years and good behaviour, I’ll be home in no time,” I tried to encourage myself.
“Don’t you see it?” Dan said, a resoluteness in his voice. “The evidence is not real, it’s fake. It has somehow been fabricated. Just like they did with all those previous cases at Mason & McGant.” He paused for a moment, presumably for his words to sink in, but I hadn’t the faintest clue what the connection between the two was. “This is how they work, Jennifer. It’s their modus operandi, their means of operation.”
I kept shaking my head, my mouth dropping open slightly.
Dan laid his hands on my shoulders and held them tightly. “Someone in high places at Mason & McGant wants to frame you for Sandra’s murder. Remember, how they tampered with DNA samples and phone records to keep those clients from going inside?”
I nodded.
Dan continued with a grim look in his eyes. “In a similar way, they’ve managed to falsify the evidence to get you wrongfully arrested.”
And then there was a click in my brain and the disturbing truth struck me – these people had, by hook or by crook, made it evident to the detective that the DNA found on Sandra’s bike belonged to me and had localised my phone at the crime scene at the time of the murder.
My eyes strayed past Dan’s shoulder, towards the blank wall opposite me – I felt gobsmacked by the ingenuity of it all. This methodical approach, involving infiltration of the highest levels of the criminal investigation department, was beyond imagination, but Dan had to be right. After all, I was certain I hadn’t been in the vicinity of the tram accident on that day, and it was impossible for my DNA to end up on Sandra’s bike. I felt foolish and feeble for buckling under the detective’s coercion and starting to question myself.
I slowly rose to my feet, clasping my hands at my head as I muttered in astonishment. “It is all slotting into place. How does that rotten law firm manage to bend the world to its will, time and time again? It’s as if it has monstrous tentacles wrapped around every aspect of the constitutional state, locking it into place.”
I looked at Dan, who was ruminatively rubbing his chin. “They’re clearly not lacking in guile. But I just can’t wrap my head around how they got a hold of your DNA at the DFI. They would only be able to find a match if they have a sample of your genetic material at their disposal.” He shook his head. “It’ll have to wait. I’m working out a legal strategy in my head. We need to be able to provide as much evidence as possible to the criminal investigation department in order for them to cross you off as a suspect, so that they can turn their full focus of attention to Mason & McGant. Where did you save that audio recording taken during your visit to the DFI?”
“It’s on my phone,” I answered. “They confiscated it.”
“I’ll have to reclaim it to extract the recording,” Dan replied, biting his thumb, seemingly reflecting on it all for a moment. “But not right now. Upon arrival I was told you were only allowed to consult me for half an hour and that the hearing would continue afterwards.”
I felt my stomach clench, and for a moment I was afraid that those few chunks of sandwich would come back up again, but I managed to get a hold of myself. “I’m not sure I can do this, Dan, I’m so scared,” I said, quelling the urge to desperately cling on to him like a little child.
Dan held me by the upper arms again, his hands soft and firm, his big brown eyes locking onto mine. “You must be strong, Jennifer . Think of your son, think of Oliver.”
He was right, I had to keep my composure.
“Everything will be okay in the end. You need to have faith that justice will prevail,” he added solemnly.
I nodded, stroking the sides of my face with my hands, pulling myself together – I had to rise to the challenge.
There was a sharp rap at the door.
“Are you ready?” Dan asked.
I lifted my chin, looked him deep in the eyes and straightened my back. With a firm jaw, I confirmed I was prepared for whatever was coming next. “Yes.”
We rose from the bed, as the lock of the steel door clicked open, revealing a tall male guard with startling blue eyes awaiting me with a pair of handcuffs. “The detective is expecting you.”
Not waiting for the guard to ask the question, I turned and put my hands behind my back to be cuffed again, avoiding Dan’s gaze during this humiliating scene.
The three of us headed downstairs in silence, where Dan and I were led to the same interrogation room I’d been in earlier. As the guard uncuffed me, he instructed us to sit down alongside one another, on two chairs at one end of the table. Moments later, Detective Armstrong entered the room, ending our muffled conversation, closed the door behind him and advanced towards us, sending a chill down my spine.
“Good afternoon,” he said, shaking hands with Dan. “I understand you will act as a legal counsellor on behalf of Mrs Smits today?”
“Yes, I will.”
“I gather you’ve recharged your batteries with a light refreshment,” the detective turned to me affably, as if he’d whisked me off to a two star Michelin restaurant.
I nodded, my lips pulled into a straight line.
He grimaced. “Wonderful. Let’s get going again.”
The detective switched on the recorder and after verbalising all the details, turned his attention to Dan. “Your client, Mrs van Smits, is accused of involvement in the death of Sandra delaHaye and will be charged with manslaughter.”
“So I’ve been led to believe,” Dan responded in a business-like tone that I hadn’t heard from him before. “Let’s not get ahead of things, shall we?” Dan pressed on. “The DNA proof that you claim to have against my client is circumstantial. Why don’t we first wait and see if there’s unequivocally a match when we compare the DNA profile you found on the victim’s bike with my client’s.”
My eyes flew open. What was Dan doing? He was hanging me out to dry. We already knew that Mason & McGant had somehow retrieved my DNA and that there was a match via the Databank with a sample my father had once handed in. So what was the point of going down this route?
Dan gave me a reassuring look. I sat back, trying to soothe myself –surely he would know what he was doing? I had no other option but to trust him right now.
The detective cast us a cantankerous look, noticeably displeased with Dan taking charge of the interrogation and spoke between gritted teeth. “We are indeed compelled to take a direct sample of Mrs Smits’ DNA to complete the forensic evidence. But there’s no doubt in my mind that our suspicions regarding Mrs Smits’ involvement will be confirmed, given the family bond that has already been demonstrated.” He rose from his chair. “I’ll be right back.”
When the detective had left the room, I turned to Dan, the bit of self-confidence that I had left in me was crumbling away in chunks. “Why did you bring that up? It’s clear that they’ll find a match when they collect my DNA – it will provide them with the evidence they need to corroborate their accusations.” I felt like I’d been hurled out of the pot and into the fire.
“Granted,” Dan said in a muffled voice, as if he was expecting the detective to be eavesdropping on us from the other side of the door. “I’m merely taking this route to buy us some time. Although the evidence they have is prima facie, from a legal point of view, nothing has been proven yet. By first having them run a full DNA analysis, we’re creating an opportunity to garner all the evidence to the contrary.”
“Right,” I muttered, feeling flustered by the legal terms Dan was throwing at me, but there was a voice in the back of my mind whispering that we were heading down the wrong path.
There wasn’t any time to elaborate on Dan’s plan and give his approach more consideration, as the detective entered the room again, accompanied by a younger officer, carrying a test tube with a cotton swab, asking me to open my mouth. As I stood up and complied, I thought to myself, another umpteenth degrading gesture, while the man briskly scraped the inside of my cheeks with the brush. Detective Armstrong towered over us, as if to check the officer was doing his job properly.
“That should do it,” the junior officer declared as he finished, sliding the specimen into the tube and retreating into the dimly lit corridor.
We all sat down on the wooden chairs again, the inside of my mouth felt dry and cottony. The detective leaned back and folded his arms over his big belly protruding over his grey trousers, and the buttons of his dated, white shirt looked set to pop open. “I took the liberty to discuss the death of Mrs DelaHaye at length with Mrs Smits this morning. Although I presume there was nothing new to you, or was there?” the detective said with a condescending sneer. “What we haven’t done yet though is review the death of your husband, Oliver Smits.”
I shot a nervous glance at Dan, but his eyes remained riveted on the detective. What was this all about?
“Please enlighten me on what the afternoon of your husband’s death looked like?”
My thoughts went back to that fateful day, when my life changed forever. I took a deep breath and started recounting the events. “We had decided to go away for a long weekend, just the three of us. Oliver had booked a bungalow at one of those holiday parks in the south of the country.”
“You were leading a busy and hectic life,” the detective interrupted. “Where did you find the time to do so?”
I shrugged. “Things weren’t too perky between Oliver and me for a few months. We figured spending quality time together with our son, far from the turmoil of everyday life, would help us rekindle things.”
The detective’s eyebrows shot up. “Did it?”
I furrowed my brow. “Friday had been wonderful. We’d taken a refreshing dip in the swimming pool upon arrival at the park in the afternoon, and Tim had been enjoying himself in the paddling pool.” I fought back the tears that were stinging my eyes as my mind relived the last moments of the three of us enjoying happy times together. “In the evening, when Tim was asleep, we ordered sushi and relished it on the couch while watching our favourite film.” I smiled at the thought of how Oliver, craving for sushi, had managed to persuade a courier in the nearest town to deliver our order all the way to the holiday park for an obscenely large surcharge.
“Sounds wonderful,” the detective scoffed with mock enthusiasm. “What about on Saturday, the day your husband died?” he queried, a harsher tone to his voice now, clearly eager to press ahead.
I coughed and shifted in my seat. “We decided to head to the indoor pool again. We were enjoying ourselves and had agreed that Oliver would watch Tim so that I could read my book for a while. But after just a few moments I looked up and realised that Tim was no longer there – Oliver had been distracted and Tim had wandered off.”
“You must have been fuming with rage,” the detective said, trying to rile me. “What kind of father doesn’t keep a close eye on his two-year-old, near a swimming pool?”
“I wasn’t best pleased,” I said euphemistically. The anguish over loosing Tim that had tormented me in those moments came flooding back, but I pulled myself together. “Fortunately our panic was short-lived and there was no harm done. We located Tim just a couple of minutes later in the sandpit,” I said, trying to dismiss the incident.
“Then what? The pair of you were all lovey-dovey again?” the detective asked.
I glanced at Dan, who gave me an almost invisible nod.
“No,” I answered truthfully. “We had an argument, and Oliver decided to go for a stroll around the holiday park.” I looked straight into the eyes of the detective. “It was the last time I saw him alive.”
The detective was still leaning back, elbows resting on his belly and fingers interlocked, as he twiddled his thumbs. “Right,” he muttered. “So, let’s summarise. The relationship between you and your husband has been in dire straits for months – you keep nagging your husband about not being at home enough and it regularly ends in heated arguments. Then …” The detective slammed his hand onto the table “… Wham! Out of the blue you find out your better half is romantically involved with another woman.”
I straightened my back and interrupted him. “I didn’t know that when he died,” I exclaimed, biting my lip, writhing in suppressed fury, but Dan waved his hand, urging me to calm down.
The detective ignored us and carried on summarising. “You decided to go away for a weekend to patch things up, full of hope that your husband would see the attractive woman in you that he once fell in love with, but it didn’t have the intended effect. Things turned sour and Saturday evening ended, once again, in a bit of a ding-dong.” The detective slowly leaned forward and planted his hands on the table. “You’re claiming you had a good time together on Friday evening, but I have the idea that maybe things weren’t quite so rosy,” he said with derision, narrowing his eyes. “Did your husband confess to you that he wanted to choose Sandra over you, and break free from the shackles of marriage?”
I was shaking my head fiercely to indicate that wasn’t what happened at all, but the detective rested back in his chair and continued undisturbed. “Who knows, maybe Oliver decided that weekend he was going to leave you for good and wanted to build a life with his mistress. Who’s to say you’re speaking the truth, Jennifer. Oliver can’t corroborate your account of events, can he?” The detective brought a finger to his lips and looked up, pretending to be in contemplation. “Oh, wait. Sandra can’t anymore either.”
My jaw dropped open and I shook my head, trying to swallow the lump that had formed in the back of my throat. “It wasn’t like that, honestly it wasn’t,” I whimpered, hearing my voice skip. I looked desperately at Dan, but his gaze remained straight ahead.
“So your brutally murdered husband was discovered a day later by an unsuspecting hiker, at the base of a steep hill – a giant gaping hole in his head. His lifeless body was drenched in blood, while the pounding rain and roaring winds thrashed him relentlessly for hours.”
I closed my eyes, picturing my beloved husband lying there all by himself the entire night, exposed on those hard rocks in unforgiving weather, and felt a desperate longing to change history and run over to save him.
“What did you hit him with?”
I opened my eyes and snapped to attention. “I didn’t hit him, honestly,” I muttered.
“I want to notify you that as we speak, a new and vigorous team of investigators is scouring the crime scene again. We will find the murder weapon.” The detective seemed to recall something and slowly leaned over to us. “Oh yes, the red knickers he was wearing when he was found, which had belonged to Sandra and that you dressed him in: was that a symbolic gesture towards your husband?” The detective started musing again. “Come to think of it, it may have been a warning from you directed at his mistress. You just wait, you trollop. You’re next.” A contented smile formed on the detective’s lips, he seemed to be enjoying painting this picture of me as a raging, jealous killer. “Did you stumble upon the knickers as you searched through the pockets of his jacket that weekend? You must have gone ballistic when you learnt your husband didn’t take your final attempt at reconciliation seriously.” He gave a snicker and shrugged. “In any event, there are several plausible explanations.”
“It didn’t happen like that, it really didn’t,” I said in despair, trying to conceal my tears. “I did not kill my husband! It wasn’t until months after his death that I discovered his deceit and the affair with Sandra.”
Dan raised his hand. “Listen, Detective Armstrong,” he interjected, his lips pulled into a straight line. “We find your train of thoughts immensely entertaining. You should seriously consider becoming a screenwriter for a day-time soap opera.” He folded his arms and squared his shoulders, his face all business-like in a heartbeat. “But if you can’t come up with any solid evidence against my client, I’d like you to end this so-called interrogation right now.”
The detective raised his finger. “Oh, right, the evidence supporting all this – I was just about to get to that. We discovered a hair, right in the centre of Mr Smits’ head wound.” The man shot me a penetrating look, as if he wanted to make sure he’d caught my attention. “We’ve got you bang to rights, lady. The hair transpires to be from you.”
An ominous stillness fell amongst us as I tried to wrap my brain around what had just been said.
“I’d like to talk to my client in private for a moment,” I heard Dan say formally, his body all stiffened up. Dan’s self-assured attitude from before seemed to have vanished in an instant.
“As you wish,” the detective said, rising from his chair.
Dan waited for the detective to leave the room before turning towards me, his head still bowed. A long pause filled the air with silence. He rubbed his chin, then his eyes slowly raised to meet mine, shocking me with the look of anxiety on his face. “I’ll be honest with you, Jennifer. This isn’t looking good.”
It felt like an imaginary rope was being tightened around my neck. The detective had me hauled me into a corner, like a rat in a trap.
“Finding your DNA on all parts of Oliver’s body was in line with expectations, that goes without saying. Except for in the wound. You said you never saw him alive again after you’d been quarrelling?” Dan asked tentatively, worry lining his forehead.
I raised my hand like in court. “I swear,” I said imploringly. “You do believe me, right?”
“Yes,” he replied, but for the first time I saw a flash of doubt cross his face and it felt like my world was shattering to pieces.
“But I can’t seem to find a straightforward explanation for the presence of your DNA at the trauma site.” Dan leaped up, started pacing up and down the room, his lips pressed tightly together and his gaze averted, firing questions at me. “When did you first see Oliver after his death?”
I summarised the events of that fatal weekend to the best of my recollection. “The police showed up on the doorstep of the holiday bungalow that Sunday morning. They informed me of Oliver’s passing and then took me with them in their police car to the station, where he was laid out on a table in a cold room, covered by a white sheet.”
“Did they let you see him?”
“Yes, they did.”
“Was there anyone accompanying you in the room?”
“No.”
“Had the coroner already examined him before you went to see him?” Dan asked.
I shook my head, thinking back on how I’d managed to persuade the young female police officer to allow me to have a moment with Oliver by myself. “That must be it,” I exclaimed and jumped up, as this little glimpse of hope – a justification for this piece of evidence against me – presented itself. “I wanted to touch him, hug him one last time. I ran my fingers through Oliver’s hair and before knowing it there was blood all over my fingers. That’s when I knew he had a major head injury. That must have been the moment when my DNA ended up in the wound.”
“Thank goodness. Yes, that must be it,” Dan said, an unconcealed sense of relief flitting across his face. “Okay, we’ve got our work cut out with this – that woman completely disregarded the protocol and she may be unwilling to admit it. But if need be, we’ll question her under oath. She’ll need to come clean and ultimately will confirm you were with Oliver before any forensic analyses were carried out.”
I gave a big sigh of relief and lowered myself onto the chair next to Dan again.
“It’s a stick to beat them with, but we’re not out of the woods yet. That’s just step one,” said Dan. “The other missing part of the jigsaw is how Mason & McGant managed to put your DNA on the luggage rack of Sandra’s bike.
I shrugged. “I really don’t know, Dan. I’ve been racking my brain over it.”
Dan looked me in the eye as he held my hands, our knees lightly brushing. There was a gentleness and familiarity in his touch that made me feel safe, in spite of the predicament I was in. “I know we’ve been over this before but I just want to make sure …” Dan said tentatively. “You really weren’t with Sandra that day?”
“No, I really wasn’t,” I said, in a drained voice. My mind was going round in circles trying to come up with an explanation that made sense. “You know I broke into Mason & McGant twice with Sandra at night,” I said, for the first time admitting it had indeed been trespassing rather than just a visit. “Do you reckon they somehow collected my DNA during one of those nights?”
Dan sunk his teeth into his bottom lip, his gaze wandering off, and shook his head. “I highly doubt it. The place must be swamped with hairs and other bodily material. Suppose someone would go looking for traces of you a few hours after you went in, it would be impossible to establish which hair belonged to you. No, it can’t be that.” Dan released my hands and started drumming his fingers on the table. “You said you met Sandra on a few occasions. Where was that?”
“A cafe, restaurant. Those kind of places.”
Dan kept shaking his head in vexation, his finger held up to his lips. “No, it’s too farfetched.”
Out of the blue he slammed his hands onto the table, scaring me out of my wits, and leaped up. “Damn it!”
Then he turned to me and grabbed my shoulders, towering over me. His forehead creased with worry. “Think hard, Jennifer. It is of pivotal importance that we find out.”
I felt the immense pressure – my future was hanging in the balance. “I really don’t know, Dan,” I whimpered.
Slowly, Dan retreated and proceeded to pace up and down the room, hands clasped behind his back. His eyebrows drew together in an anguished expression.
“You must have had another moment of contact with Sandra, there is no other way. I have a strong inkling that if we ascertain where it was, it will ultimately be the key to your acquittal.”
“Did she lend you any of her clothes? Perhaps you got cold on one of those nights at Mason & McGant and she offered you her coat?”
I tried to recollect if any such thing had occurred but soon concluded it had not.
Dan continued throwing suggestions at me. “Did you perhaps borrow her bike? Or maybe you just sat on it when you went for a coffee with Sandra?”
Desperation was taking hold of me. “Absolutely not, I never sat on her bike, I never even so much as touched her. I haven’t even been to her home …” My voice trailed off.
There was a click in my mind – all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place, suddenly exposing the big picture. The devious stratagems, the lies and deceit, the calculated coverup defied all imagination. I slapped a hand over my mouth and my eyes popped wide open. “How could I have been so stupid?” I whispered.
Dan’s voice sounded far away. “Jennifer?”
I slowly pushed myself out of my chair and started pacing the room, my arms dangling lifelessly on either side. “So it was him all along. It’s all starting to make sense. That man – just like me – had a legitimate reason to be outraged with Oliver and Sandra. They hadn’t just deceived me with their affair, but him too. Besides, as a partner of Mason & McGant, he had to prevent Oliver from blowing the lid on their ‘arrangements’ with the DFI. That bastard must have made a boatload of cash with that scam.”
I looked at Dan, who had a bewildered look on his face.
I continued rambling. “I wasn’t able to see the light all this time – he played his role of grieving husband far too convincingly when I visited him in their home that day.”
Dan gawked at me and was shaking his head. “Jennifer, you have to take me with you. I’m not following.”
I narrowed my eyes and started bobbing my head as the logic of the events increasingly started to seep into my brain. “It must have been my coat …Yes, of course it was,” I exclaimed. That innocent-looking woman plucked my hair from my coat in a supposedly trivial act,” I reasoned out loud. “She told me he had requested it – she probably didn’t even have the faintest idea why she needed to brush my coat.” I gave a wry smile, my fists clenching. “It was the perfect moment for him to seal the deal against me – it was the final nail in my coffin. And I just handed it to him on a plate when I decided to pay him a visit – he hardly had to make any effort. That rat must have been laughing himself silly.”
“Jennifer,” Dan said, gently tugging at my sleeve and snapping me out of my train of thought. I came to a halt and looked at Dan – it dawned on me he didn’t have a clue what I was referring to.
I straightened my back as I delivered the message. “Roderick,” I said. “It is Roderick delaHaye, Sandra’s husband, who killed Oliver and Sandra.”
As Dan’s mouth dropped open, I filled him in on my rendezvous with Roderick, who was a partner at Mason & McGant as well as Sandra’s life partner, in that exclusive, cold-hearted penthouse, where I had fallen for his trap – hook, line and sinker.