The Whole Truth by Hunter, Cara (best books to read for women .TXT) 📕

recently had an altercation with her, and could well have taken it further.

RG: Again, for the record, Hugh Cleland’s fingerprints have not been found anywhere in Ms Smith’s flat.

PM: What about his DNA?

RG: Samples have been taken from him. We await the results.

PM: Does he have an alibi for the night in question?

RG: Enquiries are ongoing, that’s all I can say at this stage.

DK: [to Fawley]

So, if Smith thought Cleland might be stalking her, why didn’t she tell her boss? Her colleagues?

AF: She told me she’d never seen the man’s face. She may have been wary of accusing Cleland until she had proof it was definitely him.

DK: What about her family and friends? She could have talked to them.

AF: My impression was that she was a very private person –

DK: Private or not, I find it odd. Very odd. Especially since, according to her parents, Ms Smith had already had a similar experience some years before.

AF: She said nothing about that to me.

DK: Someone who’d had an experience like that, surely they’d be very unlikely to keep it to themselves if they thought it was happening again.

AF: As I’ve already explained, I’m not in a position to speculate about Ms Smith’s behaviour. She was my wife’s friend. I barely knew her.

DK: You knew her well enough to have a drink with her.

AF: She offered me a glass of wine. It seemed churlish to refuse.

DK: How much did she drink?

AF: In my presence, just over a glass.

DK: The PM suggested she’d had rather more than that.

PM: There’s no way of ascertaining precisely when Ms Smith consumed the alcohol identified at the autopsy. DI Fawley can only comment on what happened in his presence.

DK: So she’d had a bit to drink, she’s upset, so, what? You put an arm round her?

AF: No.

DK: Give her some comfort?

AF: No.

DK: After all, she’s been through a break-up, she’s vulnerable –

AF: No.

DK: She’s an attractive woman, your wife is pregnant, it’s easy to see how one thing could have led to another –

AF: It didn’t happen. And I deeply resent your reference to my wife –

DK: Perhaps Smith went along with it to start with – perhaps that’s why you thought she was OK with it. Perhaps she was the one who initiated it – maybe she’d fancied you for years, who knows. Only then suddenly she’s changing her mind – trying to push you off –

AF: [shaking his head]

DK: And now she’s struggling, starting to scream the place down –

AF: No. No no no –

DK: You get your hand over her mouth – anything to shut her up –

AF: I did not touch her at any point and she was alive and well when I left.

DK: You didn’t kill her –

AF: No.

DK: You didn’t rape her –

AF: No.

DK: You didn’t even have consensual sex with her –

AF: No. Absolutely not.

RG: [slides across a sheet of paper]

This is a copy of the forensics report which we received earlier this morning. The lab has isolated a quantity of male DNA in relation to the Smith case. And it’s not Hugh Cleland’s.

PM: But I thought you said you were still waiting for his DNA results?

RG: We’re awaiting his results, yes. But this isn’t his. We know that for a fact because it’s a perfect match for someone else. Specifically, to a sample stored for elimination purposes in the police national database.

AF: I was at the flat. Of course my DNA is there.

RG: I’m not talking about what they found at the flat. I’m talking about what they found on the body.

AF: What?

RG: It’s very simple. Your DNA was found on Emma Smith’s body. Perhaps you could explain that for us.

AF: It must be a mistake.

[pause]

The only thing I can think of is that there was some sort of accidental contact – perhaps our hands touched when she gave me the wine.

RG: You’re saying that’s what happened?

AF: No, I’m saying that could have happened. Frankly, I don’t remember either way.

RG: Your DNA wasn’t just identified in one location, DI Fawley, or only on her hands. It was all over her body.

AF: No. Absolutely not. No way –

DK: Including, and most significantly, in her genital area.

RG: In addition, post-mortem examination of that area located a single pubic hair. A hair that did not originate from the victim. It’s a male hair. And it came from you.

* * *

Alex Fawley sits in the garden, pretending to read, hearing the search team moving through her home. The low voices, the footsteps back and forth down the front path. She won’t let herself imagine the ogling neighbours, the old dears ‘just popping out for a pint of milk’ to get a better gawp.

The only CSI person she’s met is Alan Challow, at one of the St Aldate’s Christmas drinks, but there’s no sign of him today. He’s probably too embarrassed. She knows she would be. The person who seems to be in charge is an Asian woman. She’s calm and professional and thorough, but there’s something in the dark eyes behind the mask that Alex doesn’t want to see. Right now, sympathy is more than she can stand.

The back door opens and the scrawny DC comes down the garden towards her. He could do with a haircut. Every time he flicks it out of his eyes she has to bite her tongue.

‘Mrs Fawley?’

She glances up and then back at her book.

‘I’m sorry to bother you but could I just ask you a few questions?’

She looks up at him again, shading her eyes against the sun. ‘What about?’

‘Just some basic factual stuff. What time your husband got back on Monday night – things like that.’

She wants to send him packing, tell him to mind his own bloody business, but she’s not stupid. She knows that will only make it worse. And the one thing she really can’t face is being taken down to St Aldate’s. Sweating in the back of a squad car, stared at, feeling the size of a whale.

‘I think,’ she says