‘But no blood?’ says Mr Cromer.
‘That is correct.’
Miss Dixon takes each item in turn, twisting it from a damning piece of evidence into something neutral and inconclusive.
‘From the analysis of blood spatter, can you tell us anything about the assailant?’ Miss Dixon says. ‘Height or weight, for example?’
‘Only that they would have been average height – neither very tall nor very short,’ says Mr Noon.
‘The residue in the ash tray, were you able to say specifically where that came from?’
‘No,’ he says.
‘Can you state categorically that it was even a pair of shoes?’
‘No.’
‘Were you able to determine who had used the shower at the house?’ Miss Dixon says.
‘No.’
‘Is it possible that it was Mrs Tennyson?’
‘Yes, although her hair was dry and the shower cap in the bathroom was also dry.’
‘You detected blood traces in the shower, that’s correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you able to identify the blood?’ says Mr Cromer.
‘It was Mrs Tennyson’s,’ he says.
‘If Mrs Tennyson had a cut on her arm or a nosebleed, could that account for the presence of blood in the shower?’
‘It could,’ says Mr Noon.
Lizzie did suffer from nosebleeds. Did you tell them that? Ammunition to shoot down the prosecution case?
Miss Dixon goes on, calm, methodical, relentless. ‘The shoe print at the scene, the Adidas summer trainer. That’s a popular brand, it was a popular design?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘The top-selling style that season?’ says Miss Dixon.
‘Yes,’ Mr Noon says.
‘Thousands of pairs sold in the north-west alone?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘You can’t be certain who wore that shoe at the scene?’
‘No,’ says Mr Noon.
‘Or who it belonged to?’
‘No.’
No. No. No. All the negatives piling up, sandbags against the tide.
By the end of the session, she has eaten away at the foundations, like woodworm boring holes through the joists. So the jury see that someone wore those trainers, wielded that poker and cleaned it, but not necessarily you. The bloody footprint, the marks on the wall, the blood in the shower: they have lost their power. They no longer damn you.
I steal a glance at you, intent on finding some gleam of arrogance, a smirk tugging at your lips or cold pride in your eyes, but you are still in character. Method acting. You’re good at that. But you have a great range. I saw your Richard III at the Everyman. Brutal. The transformation was spectacular.
Ruth
CHAPTER THREE
17 Brinks Avenue
Manchester
M19 6FX
Marian and Alan are here for the trial. Your staunch supporters. We have done no more than nod to each other coolly so far. Today, the third day, Marian approaches me as we wait to go through the security scanners.
‘Hello,’ she says. Thankfully she doesn’t ask how I am – or I might just tell her. ‘We’d like to see Florence,’ she says. Colour in her face.
Tony arrives with Denise; he sends a question my way with his eyes. Everything OK?
Not so as you’d notice. I give him a jaded stare.
I want to refuse Marian and Alan, don’t want them anywhere near me, or Florence.
‘We are her grandparents too,’ Marian says when I fail to offer any response.
‘That’s right,’ Alan chips in.
‘We could take her out,’ she says.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ I say. We shuffle forward in the queue, closer to the scanner and the guards checking the bags of everyone entering or leaving the building.
‘You can’t just-’ Marian almost loses her temper.
But I cut her off. ‘Florence is still very clingy. She doesn’t like new situations; you’d be better seeing her at the house.’
She makes a little noise, ‘Pfft!’ as though she doesn’t believe me, as though I am being obstructive.
‘You can see for yourself,’ I say bluntly. The woman ahead of me puts her bag on the tray, and when the guard signals, she goes through the security gate.
‘Come round this evening,’ I suggest to Marian, ‘or tomorrow. She usually goes to bed at seven. Routine is important.’
The guard nods to me and I put my bag down.
‘Okay,’ Marian says crisply. The dislike snaps between us like static. I’m itching to throw some of the prosecution case at her. Taunt her with your missing shoes, with pristine clothes and baby wipes. But she is not the enemy, not really; you are. She just happens to be your mother, poor cow.
I pin my hopes on DI Ferguson. She must have more to tell us about the case against you.
She looks fresh and full of zest as she swears on the Bible. She describes her role much as she did when she met us.
‘You supervised a series of interviews with Mr Tennyson after the murder?’ says Mr Cromer.
‘That’s correct.’
‘Can you please tell the court what Mr Tennyson’s version of events was on the night in question?’
‘Mr Tennyson said he and his wife had been at home, Mrs Tennyson was watching television and Mr Tennyson went to the gym. On his return, he discovered his wife on the floor in the living room. He tried to rouse her, and when that failed, he called the police, then his mother-in-law, Mrs Sutton.’
‘What time did you receive the 999 call?’
‘Ten fifty p.m.,’ says DI Ferguson.
‘Had you reason to question his account?’
‘Yes. The forensic evidence did not consistently support Mr Tennyson’s story.’
I like the word ‘story’; it implies a fiction, something you made up to hoodwink us all.
‘Please elaborate,’ Mr Cromer says.
‘Mr Tennyson stated that he tried to rouse his wife. Specifically that he approached her from the doorway, bending over to see if she was breathing. And that he shook her shoulder, her right shoulder, calling her name.’ Her ruined face, draped in blood-thick hair. ‘Had that been the case, we would expect to find traces of blood on Mr Tennyson’s clothing, and certainly on his footwear, as the blood on the floor formed a pool around the deceased’s head and upper body.’
‘No such traces were found?’
‘None.’
You cleaned up too well, that’s what she’s saying. In an effort to obliterate all signs of your crime, you compromised yourself. You have put your foot in it by not putting your foot in it. Priceless!
‘We began to wonder if Mr Tennyson had been present at the time of the murder and had subsequently changed his clothes and footwear and concealed them. A number of items of evidence supported this scenario. The skin under Mrs Tennyson’s fingernails was matched to Mr Tennyson,’ says DI Ferguson.
A murmur ripples round the room, and I feel light-headed for a moment.
‘Mr Tennyson had grazes on his forearm,’ she goes on. ‘His fingerprints in blood on the wall by the stairs and on the bathroom door showed us that Mr Tennyson had blood on his hands but not on anything he claimed to be wearing at the scene.’
‘To be clear, did he have any blood on his hands when the police examined him later that night?’ says Mr Cromer.
‘No, he said he had washed his hands in the basin in the bathroom. We considered the presence of the victim’s blood in the water droplets on the shower screen, and in addition the material from the ashes of the wood-burner, which gave us a potential explanation for the absence of the Adidas running shoes that had left an impression at the left-hand side of Mrs Tennyson’s body.’
‘Those shoes were never found, that’s the case?’ says Mr Cromer.
‘That’s right. However, we did find proof of purchase of a pair of those running shoes on Mr Tennyson’s credit card statement from July 2009. Bought on the twenty-ninth of the month.’