Chapter 42

DI Terry Braithwaite was at his desk, leaning back in his chair, head slumped down on his chest, snoring gently.

The door opened and DS Kyra Willis entered. She coughed but that didn't wake her boss. She coughed louder, and he jolted up with a start.

‘Sorry,' he said, wiping the drool off his lips with the back of his hand. ‘I sat back to have a think and must have nodded off for five minutes.'

‘Is everything all right?' she asked, with a frown.

‘Fine. Why?'

‘You look… rough,' she said, unable to think of a better word.

‘Thank you, DS Willis. You didn't pass that charm school course, did you?'

‘Sorry, it's just… when did you last have a full night's sleep?' She pulled out a chair and sat down, crossing her legs.

‘Last night, actually,' he said, not looking her in the eye.

‘Really? What time did you get in this morning?'

‘I haven't been here long. About half an hour maybe.'

‘I parked next to your car in the car park. The bonnet was cold. I checked.'

‘Of course it was, it's cold. It's below freezing out there.'

‘It's one degree. There is also a layer of frost on your car. You've been here longer than half an hour.'

‘So, do I call you DS Holmes now, or DS Marple?' he said, with a smirk.

‘I'm not getting at you – I'm worried. In the past year, the weight has dropped off you. You hardly eat. You rarely sleep, and you're in this station day and night. It's not good for you.'

‘We have a lot on at the moment,' he said, acknowledging his heaving in-tray.

‘You're not a one-man police force.'

‘Did you come in here for a reason, Sherlock, or just to see how far you could push me before you ended up assigned to marshalling the next Magpies home match?'

‘Sorry,' she said, genuinely meaning it. ‘The forensics results are back from the long black hair found at Dominic Griffiths' house.'

‘That didn't take long. We usually have to wait ages.'

‘Since the story hit the press, orders have come from on high to get this solved as quickly as possible.'

Terry gave a wry smile. ‘It wouldn't look good for the Super to have a vigilante killer roaming the streets. What have we got then?'

She opened her notebook. ‘The black hair was twelve inches in length, and it was synthetic.'

‘You mean it wasn't real hair?'

‘That's right.'

‘So, a wig or hair extensions, then?'

‘It looks like it.'

‘And I'm guessing no wig was found in the house?'

‘No.'

‘Huh,' Terry said, sitting back in his chair, a pensive expression on his face.

‘What are you thinking?'

‘Dawn Shepherd had black hair last year.'

‘That would have been dyed, though, wouldn't it?' Kyra said. ‘Forensics will have been able to tell the difference between a dyed hair and a plastic one.'

‘What I'm getting at is, she changes her appearance. She had it whipped up into a kind of beehive. Also, she wore a lot more make-up than she does now. She was almost goth-like this time last year.'

‘And in the space of a year, she's gone from that to shoulder-length dark hair, understated make-up and, well, a conservative dress style.'

‘Exactly. It's a big change.'

‘So, you think she disguised herself, put on a wig, then went around to her dad's house and beat him to a pulp before stabbing him?'

Terry thought for a very brief moment. ‘No. I don't know. It's possible,' he waffled.

‘But why wear a disguise? Surely, she would have wanted to gain entry to the house as easily as possible, and with Dominic knowing her, he would have just let her in. There's no reason for her to change her appearance. Also, she had a key. She had let herself in when she found the body.'

‘Unless she didn't want anyone else in the street to recognise her. She's been visiting him on an almost daily basis for the best part of a year. The neighbours will have seen her come and go.'

‘So, you think she deliberately softened her image over the last year and then disguised herself to confuse the neighbours?'

‘It's a possibility,' he said, wondering whether it really was.

‘And what's her motive?'

‘Money. There's eight hundred thousand pounds sitting in his bank account. In the last year, she's changed her car, and there's a massive TV on her wall I'd love to have in my living room. She has a motive and no alibi. That reminds me, did you speak to the friend she went out with on New Year's Eve?'

‘I did. She confirmed what Dawn said. There were three of them in this Robyn's flat. They were having a few quiet drinks, until Robyn's boyfriend, Chris, got down on one knee and proposed. The drink started flowing a bit more after that. None of them left the building at all. Although Robyn and Chris have no memory of Dawn leaving. They woke up the next morning in painful positions on the sofa. She didn't see Dawn again, until after Dawn had found her father dead.'

‘So that means Dawn's name is definitely on our suspect list.'

‘I wasn't aware we had a list.' Kyra smiled.

‘It's a very short list.'

‘I'll jot it down on a Post-it.'

‘What about the hairs on the jacket?'

‘They should be able to extract DNA, but these things don't happen overnight. They'll let us know.'

‘So much for a rush job. Did we get a match on the fingerprints found at the scene?'

‘No. There was a very good set lifted from the back of a dining chair that's not on the system and doesn't belong to Dominic or Dawn. We just need to get a suspect to match them to.'

‘You make it sound so simple,' Terry said, flippantly.

‘Where do we go from here?'

‘I want to chat to the staff at the supermarket where Dominic worked. He was working there under his grandfather's name so as to avoid revealing his real identity. If anyone had found out who he really was, they could well challenge Dawn for the top spot on our most wanted list.'

‘Should we bring Dawn in for more questioning?'

‘Not yet,' Terry said, standing up and grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair. ‘If she is the killer, she will have gone to great lengths to cover her tracks. We need firm evidence to present her with.'

‘How are we going to get that?'

‘We'll consider that once we've explored all other avenues, which begins with chatting to Dominic's colleagues. Come on, Sherlock, you can tell me what they each had for breakfast by looking at stains on their shirt cuffs.'