‘My client has no comment,’ Sharman said. ‘He has given you a statement stating his innocence. He is a wealthy man who is being accused by others in an attempt to discredit him.’
‘Mr Frost will be charged with conspiracy to murder. We have sufficient proof to secure a conviction for that charge. Mr Sharman, you have seen the evidence against your client, as well as the testimony of three other persons. It would be advisable to prepare his defence.’
‘I know what I need to do,’ Sharman said.
Outside of the interview room, Sharman shook the hand of Emily. ‘Not so good for my client, but you did a good job.’ With that he left the police station.
‘Who tipped us off about Frost being with Jill Dundas?’ Isaac asked.
‘We don’t know,’ Larry said. ‘A squeaky voice said something about Frost having cheated him out of a hundred pounds. Unlisted number, so no point in tracing it.’
Emily arrived at Inspector Camberwell’s home at eight in the evening. The man was still asleep after a twenty-four-hour bender at home and in the pub. A security camera had picked up Caxton placing the package under the bench near the Greenwich Observatory, Camberwell picking it up a few minutes later, even checking that the full amount had been paid. It had been another piece of information that Caxton had put forward in an attempt to deny his guilt and to portray himself as a weak man. It was not going to work, but it did allow Camberwell to be arrested: the most heinous of crimes, a police officer guilty of taking bribes. He would be detained in the cell next to Frost.
Nineteen hours after Frost had been remanded, almost twenty-four from when he had sat in Jill Dundas’s office, an email arrived in Isaac’s inbox. He opened it and forwarded it to the team. Bridget printed out a high-definition jpeg and pinned it to the evidence board in Homicide.
Jill Dundas was arrested later that day. She protested that the photo was a fake, an attempt at extortion, and that was why Frost had been in her office. She was charged with murder; the date matched the time of death, the blood stains visible on the hem of the dress as she had left Gilbert Lawrence’s mansion. At her house, the dress was retrieved. The woman may have been financially smart, but she did not understand forensics. There had been an attempt at cleaning the dress, but the marks remained inside the fold of the hem. Forensics were confident that they would be able to extract enough to match Gilbert Lawrence’s DNA.
‘I had to. All that work of my father’s, and Gilbert wanted to come out of seclusion, to make contact with his family. For them to forgive him, for him to forgive them. I couldn’t allow it. I had to kill him.’
Ralph Lawrence and Caroline Dickson were stunned at the revelation. The full extent of their father’s assets, or whatever could be recovered, would be theirs.
Yolanda phoned from Antigua on hearing the news. She intended to be on the next plane to London. Ralph told her not to bother.
The End
Murder Has No Guilt
Phillip Strang
Chapter 1
Giuseppe Briganti had come over from Italy fifteen years previously with a smattering of English and not much else. Life had been tough back home for Giuseppe, or Peppe as everyone called him, the third son of a farmer. Not that he had reason to complain, as his father was a good man, and he loved his mother dearly. It was just that Peppe was not cut out for farming. So much so that at the age of twenty he left for Milan.
He learnt his trade well, so well that within five years he was at the top of his profession, and constantly in demand in the hairdressing salon that was owned by a man who treated Peppe as if he was his own son.
Yet it was the salon’s owner who had by his actions been responsible for Peppe’s hasty departure for England; the reason Peppe was in his salon in London cutting the hair of Alphonso Abano, another immigrant to England, although Abano came from Sicily, mafioso country.
Back in Milan, Peppe had been in love, but she had preferred the salon owner, clearly apparent when Peppe had walked in on the two, in flagrante delicto, in the back room of the salon.
Peppe knew that he should have hit her first, and then the old man second, but he did neither. Without saying a word, he moved back out through the salon, only stopping long enough to pick up his scissors and a couple of combs. Peppe was never a man for material possessions, and it took him just one hour to pack his suitcase, pay the outstanding rent, and catch the first train heading north. One day later, a train pulled into London, and Peppe stepped off. He had sufficient money not to worry for a few days, and he checked into a hotel.
On the fourth day, he answered an advert for a hairdresser at the salon where he now worked, and in time purchased the business from the man who had first employed him.
Life now consisted of enjoying his nights alone, his days in the salon catering to celebrities, the upwardly-mobile bankers and financiers, and, thankfully, only one gangster.
In Italy, Peppe had catered to both sexes, but in Kensington, on Kensington High Street, not far from the palace, it was strictly men only, although women came in with their men.
In one chair sat Guy Hendry, talk show host, a man about town, and a man who graced the front page of the celebrity-obsessed magazines on account of his film star looks,
