Page 96 of Vengeance is Mine

‘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.’

Chapter Forty-Three

‘Do you think it’ll snow?’ Kyra said, climbing out of the car and buttoning her duffel coat.

Terry looked up at the greying sky. He thought for a moment and inhaled deeply. ‘I’m not sure. The wind is coming from a north-north-easterly direction at a speed of twenty-seven miles per hour. I believe the jet stream is to the south of us?—’

‘You’re not going to drop this Sherlock shit, are you?’

‘I’ve got to get my kicks from somewhere.’ He smiled, zipping his jacket up and heading for the supermarket.

Terry introduced them both to the first member of staff they saw and asked to speak to the manager. She limped over to the customer service kiosk and asked an elderly woman to radio for him and say there were two police officers to see him.

‘I don’t suppose you’ll let me do a bit of shopping while we’re here,’ Kyra said, as they waited.

‘No,’ he replied flatly.

‘It would save me battling rush-hour traffic this evening if I could pick up a few mushrooms, onions and pasta, seeing as we’re standing in a supermarket.’

Terry snorted a laugh.

‘What?’ Kyra asked.

‘I find it funny you think you’ll be finishing in time for rush hour this evening.’ He turned to her and proffered a broad grin.