“Hilary’s groom was there, I suppose she could prove it happened, but she’s left now and I don’t know where. Please, in the meantime Dan, could you call the Yorkshire force, see if you could speak with the leading officer.”
“Mandy, it’s really not my place to get involved…”
“Please? For Kate, for me?”
“Okay. I’ll do what I can. No promises.”
* * *
“DCI Jarvis?”
“SP Anderson. How can I help you?”
I picked up on the cold tone. There was no friendly greeting, I pretty much guessed why.
“Tell me. Is this something to do with Bishop’s wife illegally accessing CCTV images? I’m sure you appreciate the position I’m in with this. It’s perverting the course of justice. I really hope you didn’t have a hand in her providing her with the password to the system?”
“Kelly, I understand, but just for a moment, ignore how they got the footage. You’ve seen it, when Bishop steps out of the tool shed, he doesn’t duck down, but he’s too tall, the first day he was there he knocked himself out walking of there having hit his head. I presume you understand what it means.”
“It means very little. You know we have compelling evidence against him, the fact-”
“I understand… But!”
“No, the fact that it looks as if the doorway is too low is neither here nor there. It’s a grainy picture, taken in the dark from a distance. Look, I understand you’re close to this. Maybe too close. I’m sorry, but the CPS is happy there is enough evidence for the case to stick. I know you’re trying to do your best for your fiancé, but you’re just giving them false hope. Now, unless you have something else, I’m very busy. You know I cannot accept the evidence his wife ‘found’. Fair warning Dan. I won’t press charges against the wife this once, but only because the password issue is common knowledge, but please tell them anymore interfering with this case and I will come down on them hard. And if I find you were involved in helping them, I’ll spare no time in reporting it to the anti-corruption team. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal… Thank you, Kelly.”
“I know you want to help, but as one copper to another, please let me do my job. Goodbye, Dan…”
* * *
“You have to understand why that policewoman was so angry. You illegally accessed CCTV footage which is a key piece of evidence in an ongoing murder trial. You have to understand why she reacted that way. Not least you are trying to tell them that they have made a really stupid mistake in their investigation.”
“Amanda, they’ve made a mistake! It proves it wasn’t Adam that night!”
“Look, Kate, maybe you should have gone to your barrister rather than directly to the police?”
“I know that now… But I don’t want him to be in prison until his trial if it’s clear he didn’t do it. I’m going to try and find Sally.”
“What her groom? How the hell are you going to do that? I thought you said you didn’t know where she had gone?”
“Amanda, I’m clutching at straws! I don’t know where she is, but if I could find her. Look, just like Dan told you, if Sally can say he hit his head on the first day. It proves without a doubt that the person who we see on the CCTV walking out of the tool shed isn’t him, it might do something. Amanda, I can’t just sit here doing nothing…”
“Okay, but how the hell are you going to find her?”
How indeed? I had no idea where she had gone. I knew her name and who she had worked for, I could only hope that the equestrian world was small enough that someone might know her or where she may be.
I had to start somewhere so I grabbed my laptop and opened Facebook.
* * *
“But what if she is right?”
“John for fuck’s sake, don’t you start too! She called me up, out of the blue, telling me she has a copy of the CCTV footage from fuck knows where, and that her husband couldn’t be the killer as he is supposedly taller than the person on a grainy black and white image. It was only that I didn’t want to face a pile of paperwork that I didn’t have her arrested for perverting the course of justice.”
“But the doorway thing, Kelly?”
“John, if they want to bring this up as part of their defence, fine. We have enough on him, we’ve got prints, we have his necklace and his wife admitted that the jumper he was wearing was a one-off. The fact that, on a dark, out of focus CCTV image it looks like he didn’t duck for a doorway. Honestly, I expected more of you. No, for Christ’s sake John, start acting like a proper copper! Stop pissing about in cases that are all sewn up.”
* * *
I’d been staring at the computer screen for hours. Still nothing. However, what had I expected? A sudden flurry of people messaging me telling me that they knew where Sally was? And even then, what was I going to do? I suppose I would cross that bridge when I got to it.
I’d told the barrister about the CCTV. He had been pretty non-committal, saying that, as interesting as it was. The fact it looked, from the angle of the camera, in the dark, that someone had been shorter than the doorway, wasn’t much to go on.
He
