Jane didn’t understand what point he was trying to make. ‘Very profound, Mr. Simmonds. But it does beg the question: are you a good or evil man?’
He closed his eyes. ‘I am both... Please, dear God, I need to talk to you, Jane.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Did you commit the murders?’ she asked quietly.
It was a moment before Simmonds opened his eyes. He looked at the PC, then slowly turned to Jane. ‘I need to speak to you alone. I want to make a confession.’
Jane could feel her heart beating fast. She turned to the PC. ‘Please wait outside.’ She remained sitting for a few moments after he was gone, then leant forward. ‘Did you commit the murders?’
He nodded. ‘I want to tell you what happened, and why.’
Jane was stunned. She wondered if Simmonds was still playing mind games, but the tortured expression on his face seemed to tell her otherwise.
‘I’ll need DCI Moran to be present.’
He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t want Moran or any other officer in the room. Otherwise I’ll tell you nothing.’
Jane knew that police regulations advised another officer should be present when a murder suspect was interviewed, but it was not actually a legal requirement under the Judges’ Rules of evidence. She opened the interview book and clicked her ballpoint pen.
Simmonds leant over and put his hand on the book. ‘No notes.’
‘Legally I’m required to take notes, otherwise your confession may be ruled inadmissible in court,’ Jane told him.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll tell you everything, then make a handwritten confession myself.’
‘How do I know you’ll do that?’
‘Because when you hear what I have to say, you’ll know I’m telling you the truth.’
Jane felt she was in a catch-22 situation. Reluctantly, she closed the interview book and put her pen down.
‘The first thing I need you to know is that I’m not a child molester,’ he began. ‘I swear I never abused Simon Matthews.’
Jane nodded. ‘But did Helen Matthews, his mother, think you had?’
Simmonds took a deep breath. ‘Yes, that’s why she came to see me at my Peckham surgery.’
‘Do you recall what date that was?’
‘Friday the sixteenth of February.’
‘What time?’
‘Late afternoon or early evening. I’d finished with my last patient and was tidying up when the doorbell rang. Helen stormed in, shouting and accusing me of sexually abusing Simon. I told her it was lies, but she didn’t believe me.’
‘Did she say why she thought you’d abused Simon?’
‘She said he’d told her he didn’t like me touching him. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he would say that.’
Jane nodded. As much as she disliked the thought, she knew she’d have to be sympathetic to keep Simmonds talking.
‘I think that Simon was bullied at school about his braces. It’s possible Helen misconstrued what he told her, and she decided to confront you.’
‘She never mentioned anything to me about him being bullied.’
‘Did she mention anyone else expressing concerns about Simon being abused?’
‘Yes. Helen only suspected there was a problem because Simon’s teacher told her she thought he was being abused.’
Jane raised her biro. ‘Would that teacher be Eileen Summers?’
‘I’m sorry, I need to explain everything in the order it happened. As I was saying, I reminded Helen that she’d always been present when I treated Simon, so her accusations couldn’t be true.’
‘If that was the case then why didn’t she believe you?’ Jane asked.
‘I pleaded with her to realize it was absurd and she eventually calmed down. We then went into the waiting room to continue the discussion.’ Simmonds paused and took a deep breath before continuing.
‘Helen was sitting on the sofa. I asked her if she’d told anyone else about Simon, or had been to the police. She thought my questions implied that I was guilty, so she stood up and said that was exactly where she was going. She started to walk towards the door... I don’t know what came over me.’
He looked at the floor then put his head in his hands. ‘Oh my God, Oh my God... I didn’t know what I was doing at the time, but now I relive the moment over and over. I snatched a curtain tie and followed the poor woman into the hallway. She had her back to me and was about to open the front door. Something came over me... I wrapped the curtain tie round her neck and pulled hard...’
‘David, the cord round Helen’s neck was tied in a slip knot. Can you explain how you had time to tie it if you were acting on impulse and didn’t know what you were doing?’
‘I did that after she was dead, then cut the tassels off, so it wasn’t obvious it was a curtain tie.’
Jane kept her voice quiet and encouraging. ‘I see. So what happened next?’
‘She was struggling and kicking. I pulled her to the ground and somehow she ended up face down on the hallway carpet. I knelt on her back and tightened the cord... Eventually she stopped moving.’
Jane recalled Professor Martin saying that the killer had knelt on Helen’s back in order to stop her getting up or struggling. It seemed Simmonds was telling the truth.
‘I didn’t mean to kill her. I was frightened that a sexual abuse allegation would destroy my career. I had this terrible sense of panic and didn’t know what I was doing.’ He sighed. ‘I was standing over her. I couldn’t believe what I’d done... It was all like a bad dream. Then the doorbell rang. It kept ringing and ringing. Then I heard knocking on the window and her voice asking over and over if I was there.’
‘Did you know who the woman was?’ Jane realized she would be a valuable witness.
His reply came as a shock.
‘It was Sybil Hastings. She knew I drove a Mercedes, which was parked outside, and all the lights were on in the surgery and hallway. I was worried that if I didn’t answer the door she might think something had happened to me and call the police.’
Jane leant forward. ‘Wait a minute — wasn’t Helen Matthews’ body still in the hallway?’
Simmonds was getting impatient. ‘Yes, yes. I had to quickly drag her body into the surgery, out of sight.’
Jane encouraged him to continue. ‘OK, you’re in a terrible state of panic. So then you let Sybil Hastings in?’
‘Yes. She kissed me on the cheek, then asked if I was dealing with a patient. I said no—’
‘Sorry, did you say she kissed you?’ Jane interrupted. She thought it strange that Mrs. Hastings would greet him in that way if she suspected him of child abuse.
‘I wasn’t just her dentist. We were friends... She always greeted me with a kiss.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Sybil looked upset. She said that she’d received a distressing phone call whilst she had been on duty at the Samaritans on Thursday evening. I told her I was running late for a dinner engagement and asked if we could discuss it at another time. “No,” she said, “this can’t wait.”’
Jane was sure the distressing phone call was from Eileen Summers. She realized she needed to chase up the documents section at the lab to see if they had examined the indented writing Lawrence had recovered from the Samaritans call sheet. She thought about Simmonds having a conversation with Mrs. Hastings whilst the dead body of Helen Matthews was in his surgery, only a few feet away.
‘What was the distressing the phone call about?’ she asked.
‘Sybil said she’d had a call from a concerned teacher, who thought a young pupil of hers was being sexually abused. And she could hardly believe it, but she said the abuse was being carried out by a dentist in Peckham.’
‘I’m trying to keep up with you, David. Are you saying you killed Sybil Hastings because she suspected you’d abused Simon Matthews?’