Little Boy Blue - [24]

‘Great. So now you’re blaming her -’

‘Of course not.’

‘We’re equal rank, you can’t steal leads from me. Just because your undercover gig was a bust -’

‘You weren’t here, Charlie,’ Sanderson interrupted. ‘What was I supposed to do?’

‘You were supposed to call me. That’s what any normal person would have done. But you’re so busy trying to impress Mummy that you’d -’

‘You’re out of line.’

‘Deny it then. Look me in the face and deny that you deliberately stole my collar to make yourself look good in front of -’

‘Go to Hell.’

‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Be just like the old days -’

‘What’s going on?’

Charlie was almost nose-to-nose with Sanderson, but pulled away sharply on hearing Helen’s voice.

‘We have a suspect in custody,’ Helen continued, approaching fast. ‘We have dozens of leads to chase up. So why are my two senior officers going at it like a pair of fishwives?’

Neither Charlie nor Sanderson answered. They didn’t dare, given the look on Helen’s face.

‘You’ve both been around long enough to know that any problems need to be settled in private, not paraded for the rest of the station.’

Charlie stole a glance at the desk sergeant who’d clearly been enjoying the show.

‘DS Brooks, you will accompany me to the interview suite. DS Sanderson, you will return to the incident room and lead the team.’

Sanderson opened her mouth to protest.

‘And don’t even think about answering back,’ Helen said, silencing her before she’d begun.

Without another word, Helen turned, walking away fast towards the swing doors. Charlie sped after her. She didn’t bother looking back at Sanderson – she could tell what she’d be feeling now. Not that this was any consolation – they were both in trouble now and had a lot of ground to make up.

Whatever way you looked at it, Charlie’s bad day had just got a whole lot worse.

38

‘You are making a monumental mistake and when this is all over, I will be expecting a formal apology.’

Helen Grace had already been surprised twice by Paul Jackson in the ten minutes they’d known each other. His agreement to field questions before his lawyer arrived was unusual, as was his decision to adopt such an aggressive tone. He was either extremely confident of his innocence or an accomplished liar.

‘As I’ve said, you’re here because your DNA was found on the victim’s body,’ Helen responded calmly. ‘In saliva on his cheek and ear. It’s highly unlikely that our laboratory got that wrong. They double- and triple-check their findings -’

‘You hear about mistakes all the time in these places,’ Jackson interrupted. ‘Petri dishes that haven’t been cleaned properly, evidence that has been cross-contaminated, your lot are constantly arresting the wrong people because of cock-ups at laboratories.’

‘I agree that there have been mistakes, but the fact remains that it is your DNA. The only way cross-contamination could have occurred is if they had a sample of your DNA stored there from a separate incident. Is that the case? Have you ever had to provide a DNA sample for the police before?’

‘No.’

‘Then the only “mistake” that could have occurred was if your saliva was accidentally transferred to Mr Elder’s face. Can you explain how this might have happened?’

‘I’ve no idea. Perhaps our paths overlapped on the way to work, perhaps we use the same gym -’

‘Mr Elder works from home, keeps very different hours from you and to the best of our knowledge didn’t have a gym membership.’

‘I can’t explain it then.’

‘You’ve never met him?’

‘Never. I’ve said this three times to three different officers now. Perhaps if you tried listening to me, we could sort this mess out?’

Helen was about to respond when the door opened and Jackson’s lawyer hurried in. Helen knew Jonathan Spitz to be an astute and experienced lawyer and he wasted no time in reprimanding her for proceeding without him. Helen ignored his protests and carried on:

‘Mr Jackson has confirmed that he didn’t know Mr Elder and can’t account for the DNA samples we found on the victim’s face.’

Spitz looked relieved that no serious damage had been done.

‘I’d now like to ask your client about his phone history. I’m showing Mr Jackson a black iPhone. Can you confirm that this is yours?’

Jackson nodded.

‘For the tape, please, Mr Jackson.’

‘Yes.’

‘When we spoke yesterday,’ Charlie interjected, ‘you said that you’d never contacted Mr Elder via email, message, phone -’

‘Correct.’

‘Yet dozens of Snapchat messages were sent from this device to Mr Elder. I have the dates of some of them here’ – Charlie pulled a sheet of paper from her file – ‘August the tenth, August the fourteenth, September the first, September the sixth, September the fourteenth. The list goes on.’

‘I didn’t send them. The phone must have been cloned or something -’

‘It’s curious though that the gap in messages in the second half of August coincides with the dates that you and your wife were on holiday in Santorini. The data roaming charges on your account give us a pretty good picture of your movements and, of course, we’re double-checking this with Sally as we speak.’