Fear the Silence by Cameron Iain

Author:Cameron, Iain [Cameron, Iain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
Published: 2015-06-27T23:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

In frustration, Henderson pushed back in the swivel chair but it collided with the low bookcase, knocking several books and magazines on the floor. Instead of staring at the ceiling for a few moments as an aid to inspiration, he found himself facing the floor as he stooped to pick up the fallen items.

Since the arrest of Brian Langton, DI Henderson had conducted two interviews with him and despite the weight of evidence, he still denied murdering his wife.

‘Yeah, but you’ve been around the block as long as me mate and you know his denials don’t mean a damn thing. The trial’s the only game in town. If the evidence works there, nothing else matters.’

DS Gerry Hobbs only came into his office to talk about one of his cases but somehow the conversation kept coming back to Brian Langton.

‘Do you remember the Billie-Jo Jenkins case?’ Henderson said, edging his seat towards the desk and away from the spiteful bookcase that threatened to fall on top of him one day.

‘Vaguely. Before my time, of course and yours as well.’

‘Aye it was but if you read any of the stories about Langton in the papers, it usually crops up in there somewhere.’

‘I remember some of it,’ Hobbs said. ‘Her step-father got done for her murder, but he was freed on a re-trial, something like that?’

‘Aye, that’s right. The prosecution case focussed on traces of the girl’s blood discovered on his clothes. He said they got there when he bent down to help her after he found her injured, while the CPS claimed it happened when he killed her. Plus a load of other circumstantial stuff that in the end, seemed to colour the jury’s picture of him.’

‘I don’t remember the exact details…oh I get it. You think because he got convicted on what they said at the time was circumstantial evidence, there’s parallels between it and the Langton case?’

‘Yes and no. In the Billie-Jo case they had a body and a suspect with traces of her blood on his clothing, and we don’t, but the process we’re going through is much the same. When we arrest someone we believe to be the culprit, we take our foot off the gas and stop looking for anybody else.’

‘I see what you’re getting at,’ Hobbs said scratching his cheek, the result of not shaving for three days or perhaps the start of a beard. ‘Yeah, sure we do, but there’s still all the evidence to be collated and the CPS–’

‘I don’t mean that. What I mean is we don’t chase down the last few leads we’ve got and maybe don’t bother tying up all the loose ends because there’s no point in looking for a suspect when we’ve got one locked up in the cells.’

‘And you think we should?’

‘I’m beginning to think so.’

‘But why?’

‘The evidence hangs together as a whole,’ Henderson said, ‘but individually it doesn’t, which means if we don’t find something else irrefutable, an iron-clad accusation, a good barrister will tear the evidence apart, item by item.

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