‘We tracked down Dora’s shopping trolley,’ Delilah says. ‘We got a call first thing from a student who worked at the punt hire place on Silver Street last summer. He remembers finding one exactly like it in a punt early one morning. It was put in lost property and disposed of at the end of the season.’
‘He checked the lost property log for us,’ the other detective adds. ‘It was found on the morning of Saturday the twenty-seventh of July, meaning it was left there sometime the previous night.’
‘Probably thrown from Silver Street Bridge, intending to go into the water,’ Delilah adds. ‘Bad luck for the killer that it landed on a punt.’
‘When you add it to the last sighting of Dora on Friday the twenty-sixth, it does suggest that was the night she was killed,’ the other detective says.
Joe can’t argue with any of that. And he is tired of pussyfooting around.
‘Come on then.’ He leans back in his chair, affecting a nonchalance he certainly doesn’t feel. ‘Let’s get it over with.’
Delilah and her colleague share a puzzled look. ‘Get what over with?’ she says.
‘Arrest me. Charge me. Whatever it is you want to do.’
‘Why would we charge you?’ his mother asks.
A split second later, the other detective asks, ‘Do you want to confess to something?’
‘No,’ Joe insists. ‘I thought you were going to charge me with Dora’s murder.’
‘God no.’ His mother looks shocked. ‘You were being interviewed as a witness, not a suspect, and obviously I couldn’t be involved in that. Jesus save us, do you think I’d let you be interviewed under caution without a solicitor?’
The relief has hardly begun to wash over Joe when he realises there is more to come. He is not a suspect. That should be good news. Yet somehow—
‘You haven’t realised the significance of the date, have you?’ his mother says, in an unusually gentle voice.
What date? Today’s date?
‘Friday twenty-sixth of July – the night Dora Hardwick was almost certainly murdered – is also the night Felicity Lloyd was seen running through the streets of Cambridge covered in blood,’ the detective says.
‘Bella Barnes was found dead close to midnight on Friday the seventh of June,’ the other detective adds. ‘That same evening, Dr Lloyd was admitted to hospital with numerous minor injuries and unable to account for her movements.’
‘You’re not a suspect, love,’ his mother says. ‘But she is.’
There is a knock on the door. ‘Got the results back, Delilah.’ A young uniformed copper pokes his head into the room. Delilah opens the file and takes several minutes to read what she finds inside.
‘We ran Felicity’s prints through the system,’ she says, when she looks up. ‘We had them from the time of the break-in at her house. When she claimed she’d been attacked and then withdrew her statement.’
‘She was attacked,’ Joe says. ‘She refused to proceed because she was scared.’
‘There was no reason to run them before now,’ Delilah goes on. ‘We couldn’t investigate a break-in that might not have happened, but we kept them on file.’
‘So you ran them. What did you find?’
‘They match the ones found in your flat the night someone broke in.’
‘That makes no sense,’ Joe says after a moment. ‘You told me someone called Shane broke into my flat.’
Delilah looks at her colleague. ‘Show him,’ she says.
The detective gets up, switches on the TV screen and presses several keys on his laptop. Joe watches as the screen springs to life, showing footage of the vehicular entrance to a car park. A male figure, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt walks at a side angle to the camera. He moves quickly, with the grace of the young. As he half turns, Joe can see the distinctive logo on the front of his hoody: a white circle around an offset triangle, surrounded by white lettering. There is a Nike tick logo on his right shoulder.
‘The writing on the chest says “Golden State Warriors”,’ the detective says. ‘It’s an item of clothing only available in the United States or over the internet. Not commonly found in the UK.’
‘This is the only video footage we have of Shane,’ Delilah says. ‘But he was spotted by a police car on the night of the ninth of July. He was pursued but got away, leaving a knife behind. The prints on that knife matched those found in your flat, remember?’
Joe remembers. He also thinks he has never seen his mother looking this unhappy.
‘They’re Felicity’s prints, Joe,’ she says. ‘Felicity is Shane.’
* * *
Felicity’s front door is broken open and Tyvek-clad crime scene officers enter first. Joe and Delilah sit in her car, watching.
‘We don’t know for sure Dora died that night,’ Joe says.
Delilah doesn’t respond.
‘There was still Saturday, Sunday and Monday before she was due to see me on Tuesday,’ he continues. ‘Just because we’ve no trace of Dora on those days, doesn’t mean she dead.’
Still no reply.
‘Shane is a bloke.’ He tries a different tack. ‘Felicity is not. Trust me on that one.’
‘We assumed Shane was a male.’ Delilah speaks softly. ‘He’s tall enough to be one. He wears men’s clothes. No camera ever got a good picture of him and the people who saw him were out of their heads half the time. They assumed and we believed them.’
‘Felicity has been in my flat,’ he says. ‘Of course her fingerprints would be there.’
‘Has she been in your bedroom?’ his mum asks. ‘Has she ever climbed up your fire escape and slipped into your kitchen through a window?’
This time, it is Joe who has nothing to say.
‘There have been no sightings of Shane since Felicity left Cambridge,’ Delilah says.
‘There were precious few before.’
‘She left in a hurry. Even you said as much. She must have thought we were on to her. She ran, Joe.’
The head of the crime scene team is walking towards them. ‘You can come in now,’ he tells Delilah.
Joe and Delilah squeeze themselves into protective suits and enter Felicity’s house.
‘She didn’t leave much behind,’ the crime scene manager tells them. ‘The whole place has been thoroughly cleaned.’
‘Any sign of the white dress?’ Delilah asks.
The crime scene manager shakes his head. ‘We did find one thing,’ he goes on. ‘Downstairs.’
Delilah and Joe follow him into the basement. Beneath the stairs is a cupboard, the twin of the one immediately above in which Felicity spent her more difficult nights. The padlock has been forced apart.
‘We had to break it open,’ the crime scene manager tells them. ‘Interesting collection of stuff inside.’
Delilah peers into the cupboard and then steps back to let Joe see.
Mainly, he sees clothes, but doesn’t recognise any of them. Some of them are men’s clothes, jeans and huge, baggy jackets. The dresses, though, are tight, short, made from shiny fabrics. He has never seen Felicity wearing any of them. There are sequined tops and tight Lycra leggings. High-heeled shoes. In one corner is a stack of DVDs. Horror and slasher films, judging by the titles on their spines. In the opposite corner is a similar stack of romantic comedies and Disney movies. He sees packs of cigarettes, bottles of whisky and the spectacles case he remembers from her living room, the one that she claimed not to own.