‘That’s him,’ Paula said, the heat of the chase suddenly in her head.
‘For all the good it does us. We can probably tell his height and that he has collar-length dark hair, which might be a wig. But that’s all.’
‘Have you looked for him on the rest of the footage?’
Stacey sighed. ‘I know you all think I can do magic, but there are limits to my powers. This is needle-in-a-haystack time. I’ve had a try, but there are just too many possibilities.’
‘Still, at least we can put out an appeal. We can be very specific about where and when. We might get something to go on.’ Paula put an arm round Stacey and hugged her. ‘You are truly brilliant.’ She looked over at Elinor, who was browsing some papers on Kevin’s desk. ‘This woman is a genius.’
‘Someone has to be. It’s always good when they’re on your team. Well done, Stacey.’ Elinor seemed distracted and looked up, a thin frown line between her eyebrows. ‘Is there a reason why you haven’t released the fact that the victims are related?’
For a moment, Paula couldn’t make sense of what Elinor had said. ‘Well, we know the cases are related because of the MO. We’ve said we believe it’s the work of the same killer.’
Elinor shook her head impatiently. ‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean literally related. As in, relatives.’
‘What are you talking about? They’re not related. Why do you say that?’
Elinor held up two pieces of paper. ‘These are their DNA profiles?’
‘If it says so on the lab reports. It’s routine. We DNA-profile all murder victims.’ Paula was halfway across the room, followed by Stacey.
Elinor kept looking from one piece of paper to the other. ‘Well, unless there’s been a cock-up at the lab, these two people are close blood relatives. I’m not an expert, you understand? But I’d say they’re either cousins or half-siblings.’
CHAPTER 35
Nigel Barnes sat at the table, hands folded in front of him, looking less than thrilled. According to the custody sergeant, he’d been deeply pissed off that the criminal partner in the law firm he patronised wasn’t prepared to turn out at half past ten at night and had sent his recently qualified junior instead. The lawyer had the air of a man whose feet keep scrabbling for bottom and not quite finding it.
Sam and Carol had barely sat down when the lawyer was twittering at them. ‘I fail to see why my client is here at all, never mind under arrest. As I understand it, you have discovered the whereabouts of his wife and child, who disappeared fourteen years ago. Instead of allowing my client to grieve, you have dragged him down here on a trumped-up charge . . .’
‘We haven’t charged your client with anything,’ Sam said, setting up the recording equipment. When it beeped, he recited the names of those present. ‘Earlier this week—’
‘For the record, I wish to protest at the treatment meted out to my client, who should have been given time to absorb this terrible news, not treated like a criminal.’
‘Duly noted,’ Carol said in a bored voice.
Sam started again. ‘Earlier this week, three sets of human remains were removed from Wastwater in the Lake District. The remains proved to be those of a man, a woman and an infant. The bodies were discovered as a result of information obtained from a computer that had been hidden behind a false wall in a house that used to belong to you, Mr Barnes. A house where you lived with your wife Danuta and your baby daughter Lynette.’
Barnes shook his head. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’
‘Dental records prove the woman’s body was that of your wife. DNA establishes that the infant was her daughter Lynette. And other physical evidence indicates that the third body was that of a man called Harry Sim. A man who used to work for you and your wife at Corton’s bank.’
Barnes’s face showed no emotion.
‘You don’t seem very upset, Mr Barnes,’ Carol said gently. ‘This is your wife and child we’re talking about. So far, the only emotion I’ve seen from you is a burning desire not to come to the police station.’
‘It was a long time ago, Inspector,’ Barnes said courteously. ‘I’ve come to terms with my loss.’
‘You don’t seem very curious about how your wife and daughter ended up at the bottom of Wastwater with another man,’ Sam said.
Barnes looked down at his hands. ‘Like I told your colleagues at the time, Danuta had left me. She wrote me a note saying it was over, that she was in love with someone else. I had no idea who her lover was or where she’d gone. It’s clear now that Harry Sim was the man in question.’ He briefly met Sam’s eyes. ‘I was very hurt at the time. Very hurt indeed. But I had to get over it and move on.’
‘You had no idea they were dead?’
Barnes’s face twisted in what Sam thought was meant to be a spasm of pain. It wasn’t convincing. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Angela Forsythe did.’ Sam let the words hang in the air.
Barnes couldn’t hide the tightening of his hands’ grip on each other. He gave a deep sigh. ‘Angela is not the most balanced of women. She never liked me. I always wondered if she was in love with Danuta herself.’
‘Turns out she was right, though. And maybe she was right about the other half of her theory.’
The lawyer leaned forward, as if suddenly remembering he was supposed to be doing a job. ‘Is that a question, Sergeant?’
Sam smiled. ‘I’m working up to it, sir. Angela believes Danuta didn’t leave you. She believes you killed her. And Lynette.’
Barnes made a noise that almost resembled a laugh. ‘That’s insane. Harry Sim being in the lake proves she left me.’
‘No,’ Carol said, her voice lazy. ‘It just proves that Harry Sim’s body was disposed of at the same time as Danuta and Lynette.’
‘And that’s kind of a problem,’ Sam said. ‘And before you try to tell us it must have been some bizarre suicide pact, or mad stalker Harry kidnapped Danuta and Lynette and killed them before topping himself, let me explain to you that the evidence is perfectly clear on one point. However the three of them got into the lake, it wasn’t under their own steam. Somebody wrapped their bodies, tied a bundle of rocks to the package and dropped them into the lake. That was you, wasn’t it, Nigel?’
‘This is preposterous,’ the lawyer protested. ‘Are you going to produce any evidence at any point? Or have you brought us here for some sadistic purpose?’
Sam opened the folder in front of him. ‘I mentioned a computer earlier. In spite of efforts to purge the hard disk, our experts were able to extract quite a lot of data. There’s a whole section here—’ he pointed to the page ‘—about the possibilities of carbon monoxide poisoning. And in another file, directions to Wastwater and information about its isolation and depth. Like I said, this computer was found hidden in your old house.’
‘Anyone could have put that there.’ Barnes was clinging on to his composure.
‘Why would they do that?’ Carol asked the question kindly, as if she really wanted to know.
Barnes unfastened his hands and ran his fingers through his thick hair. ‘To frame me, of course.’
‘What I don’t understand is why, if someone wanted to frame you, they would go to all the trouble of planting the evidence and then not telling anyone about it,’ Carol said. ‘That seems a little pointless.’
‘We’ll find your DNA on it,’ Sam said. ‘We’re checking back in the computer company records. It’s going to show up as your computer, Nigel. You can’t wriggle off that particular hook.’
There was a long silence. Then Barnes said, ‘It could have been Danuta herself. She wasn’t herself after the baby.’ He shrugged one shoulder. ‘Women and their hormones. They do bizarre things.’