Rush of Blood (30 page)

‘Both those girls. Both those girls …’

The 999 call was received at the national emergency call centre in Hendon and was immediately patched through to Lewisham
station. Within a few minutes of the response car and the ambulance service being dispatched, Jenny Quinlan was woken up.

‘Jenny … it’s Sandra from the control room. Listen, we’ve caught a nasty-looking one and there’s a flag come up on the address.’

Shivering in the hallway in nothing but a T-shirt, Jenny immediately began walking back towards her bedroom. Suddenly she
had goosebumps on goosebumps. She ignored her flatmate who was peering angrily around her own door, having only recently returned
from a late shift.

‘I flagged up three addresses,’ Jenny said. ‘Which one is it …?’

Fifteen minutes later, she was pulling up behind a paramedic motorbike on the small street in Forest Hill. There were already
two other marked police vehicles parked up parallel to residents’ cars; the blue lights still flashing on one of them, a uniformed
officer digging a roll of crime scene tape from the boot of another.

She showed him her warrant card then stood back and looked at the
house while he made a show of studying it. The only one she hadn’t visited.

As the PC tied tape to a fence post behind her, Jenny walked the few steps from pavement to front door and pushed through
it. She took a deep breath and, in that moment before she released it, she could feel her heart racing.

I was right. I knew there was something. Right from the kick-off
…

There was another uniform standing at the foot of the stairs and she could see movement on the landing one floor up. Training
shoes were lined up neatly just inside the door. A pushbike was leaning against a radiator.

Jenny could smell something like curry, and blood.

Has anyone called Gardner yet? It should be me, of course it should
.

The door to her right was closed, but the one directly ahead opened and a man she recognised as the on-call uniformed inspector
stepped out and walked towards her. She could see straight away that he had come from the kitchen. Over his shoulder she caught
a glimpse of the body; a red smear on a low cupboard and a paramedic getting to his feet and snapping off protective gloves.

‘Who are you?’

Jenny introduced herself, though once the man knew she was Job, he did not seem overly interested in exactly what her connection
to the people in the house might be. He had more important things to think about. She had seen him stalking around the station
and knew that he had only recently been transferred south from the other side of the river. There were rumours he had been
bumped down from CID to uniform; a major slap on the wrist for something or other, though nobody was very sure what. On the
few occasions Jenny had run into him, it had been clear enough that he was not thrilled about the situation, though now –
watching him taking in his surroundings, seeing the way he carried himself – he seemed a little more energised than usual.

One of those who came to life at a crime scene, she guessed.

Easy enough to recognise, because she was one of those too.

She heard a siren growing suddenly louder and guessed that the HAT car had arrived. A minute or so later she was proved right
when the two plain-clothes detectives from the Homicide Assessment Team stepped into the house. She saw the uniformed inspector’s
expression harden.

The banter was not long in coming, the habitual Suits v Lids windups, though it
did
seem a little less good-natured than Jenny was used to.

‘All right, Thorne, we’ll take it from here.’

The inspector glared at them.

‘Why don’t you make yourself useful? Actually, the car needs parking …’

Grinning, the detectives pushed past the inspector towards the kitchen, just as the paramedic was on his way out.

‘Straight through the heart by the looks of it,’ the paramedic said. ‘More or less instant, I reckon.’

‘What about the weapon?’ one of the detectives asked.

The paramedic pointed back down towards the officer who was standing at the bottom of the stairs. He turned and for the first
time Jenny noticed the plastic bag he was cradling as if it were a newborn. The blade pressed against the plastic, a tablespoon
of blood pooled at the bottom of the bag.

What had Dave Cullen said to her?

‘
Should be interesting on Saturday
.’

Christ
…

The detectives stood in the doorway staring at the body, still sharing a laugh at the things they’d said to the inspector.
The paramedic smiled as he walked past Jenny. Now it would just be a question of the formal pronouncement of ‘life extinct’,
but the doctor would not need to hurry. The on-call scene of crime officer would be on their way together with a forensic
photographer, but the body would be staying where it was for a few hours yet.

Jenny took a step closer to the inspector. Said, ‘Where’s the suspect?’

‘Upstairs,’ he said.

‘The witnesses?’

He nodded towards the room with the closed door. ‘You know them then?’

Jenny said that she did and that she’d interviewed all of them.

‘There’s a new lad in there with them,’ he said. He took a few steps back towards the kitchen. ‘Why don’t you go in and give
him a hand?’

As soon as Jenny stepped through the door into the living room, two of the four people who had been sitting on the edge of
the sofa-bed got to their feet. The uniformed officer standing on the other side of the room stepped forward, a little concerned,
but Jenny showed him her warrant card, assured him that there was nothing to worry about.

‘What’s happening?’ one of the witnesses asked.

‘How long do we have to stay here?’

‘I think they’re just trying to organise some vehicles,’ Jenny said. She looked around, saw a duvet lying in a heap next to
the fireplace. ‘We’ll need to get you down to the station in separate cars if possible.’

‘Why?’

‘So we don’t talk to each other. They need to make sure our statements aren’t tainted.’

‘That’s right,’ Jenny said.

‘Any chance we could get a drink?’

Jenny looked at the uniform. ‘They’ve had some tea,’ he said.

‘I was thinking about something a bit stronger. I mean, it’s been a bit …’

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ Jenny said.

‘Because they’ve got to make sure our statements stand up in court or whatever. If some lawyer finds out we were drinking
after it happened …’

‘I don’t think one drink’s going to make any difference, the amount we’ve put away in the last few hours.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Jenny said. ‘Just try and get comfortable and we’ll get this sorted as quickly as we can.’

‘Is he dead?’ Angie asked. ‘Nobody’s told us anything.’

‘Yes, he’s dead. I’m sorry.’

The woman shook her head, though it was not possible to tell if it was disbelief or a simple indication that the apology was
unnecessary. Barry put his arm around his wife and Jenny was about to settle down on the arm of the sofa when she heard footsteps
on the stairs.

‘Is that her?’ Angie asked. ‘Are they taking her out?’

Jenny opened the door just the few inches necessary to see out and watched as a uniformed officer led a handcuffed Sue Dunning
down the stairs. She stared at her feet and her lips were moving just a little. Her cheek was marked high up, as though she’d
been slapped hard. There was dried blood on her face and hands and a patch that still looked wet on the front of her blouse.
She and the uniform were joined at the foot of the stairs by the inspector and when he glanced across at Jenny, Sue followed
it and caught her eye.

She stopped.

The uniformed officer laid a hand on her arm to urge her towards the front door, but the inspector told him to wait.

Sue licked at a flake of dried blood at the corner of her mouth. Swallowed and shuddered. She looked as though she had just
woken from a nightmare and had yet to discover if she was still dreaming.

When she spoke, her voice was cracked and colourless.

‘I know where she is.’

DI STEVEN BARSTOW
(Homicide Command): How soon after the noise started did you go downstairs?

ANGELA FINNEGAN
: Straight away, near as damn it. I mean … a few minutes? Barry got up to see what on earth was going on and when he opened
the door, Dave was already standing at the top of the stairs. I came out the same time as Marina did and then we all went
down
.

God, I couldn’t believe it
…

SB
: What did you see?

AF
: She’d killed him, hadn’t she?

SB
: If you could stick to what you actually saw
, that would be helpful.

AF
: Sorry … he was lying on the kitchen floor and she was sitting back against one of the cupboards and she sort of had his
head in her lap and she was … Her hand was on his chest and there was just loads of blood. And the knife was in her hand.
In her right hand, I think. Yes, must have been. There was a red mark on her face where he’d hit her. Sorry … where it looked
like he’d hit her. We just stood there, you know? Listening to her
…

DAVID CULLEN
: She was gabbling a bit, hysterical sort of thing. She was saying sorry all the time and talking about how he’d told her
what he’d done. Just come out with it. All the details. She said he was expecting her to be on his side, to stick up for him,
I suppose, and then when she wouldn’t he’d just lost it and gone for her
.

SB
: This was after you’d called the police?

DC
: Right, yeah. Marina wanted to go into the kitchen, try and help Sue or whatever, but I knew that she shouldn’t really be
touching anything because it would contaminate the crime scene. Somebody said, ‘What if he isn’t dead, shouldn’t we try to
help or something?’ But he definitely wasn’t moving and something on Sue’s face sort of made it obvious he was already dead.
So I went to get a phone and made the call and the others stayed where they were. She was talking all the time though, telling
them everything. The girl in the boot of his car in Florida and what he’d done with that girl in Kent. Like I say, it was
a bit hysterical. I don’t know what the others thought and maybe they’re saying how shocked they were and all that. I mean
seeing what had happened was definitely a shock … the blood and everything else … but about
him
and the business with those girls … I can’t honestly say I’m really surprised
.

SB
: Any particular reason you say that?

DC
: I just think he had it in him
.

MARINA GREEN
: It was funny because all I could think about, standing there and seeing what had happened, was that we’d heard him threatening
her before. When we were eating, I mean. They went out into the kitchen after this big argument. He said, ‘You’ll be sorry,’
or something like that. He was really drunk and getting aggressive and he seemed OK when everyone went to bed, like he was
just going to crash out, but I suppose it must have all kicked off again. There was this thing about kids, you know? They
had a daughter who died
.

BARRY FINNEGAN
: Is that true? The stuff she said about him killing those girls? Jesus
…

SB
: Obviously we’ve passed that information on, but right now we’re just interested in the incident this evening
.

BF
: Well, it was pretty bloody obvious what had gone on, her sitting there with this dirty big carving knife in her hand and
him covered in blood and that. She was looking at us all standing there in the doorway, but it was like she couldn’t really
see us properly. I suppose that’s shock or whatever. Then she starts saying that it was him who’d done it … the girl who was
killed when we were in Florida and that one who went missing a couple of weeks ago. She said he’d told her where she was,
that girl … what he’d done with her. I mean I don’t know if she knifed him because of that or because he attacked her or what.
Not sure I care very much, if I’m honest. I was probably the only one he
hadn’t
had a pop at over dinner and that’s only because he knew I’d smack him if he tried it on. I never really liked him, no point
me sitting here and pretending I did, but still … I can’t say I had him pegged for that. Just goes to show, doesn’t it?

DC
: He was always pushing her around a bit, but some of us thought she liked that. You know, like she wanted to be … dominated
or something. He was definitely the boss though. He didn’t like not getting his own way
.

SB
: Had you heard him threaten her earlier on that evening?

DC
: Yeah, we all heard it. ‘You’ll pay for that,’ or ‘You’ll be fucking sorry.’ Something like that. She was really upset when
she came back in … it was almost like she was trying to defend him because he’d had too much to drink, but you could see she
was shitting herself
.

SB
: You said that after things started breaking downstairs, you heard screaming
.

DC
: Yeah, Sue was screaming
.

SB
: Like she was angry? Like she was scared?

DC
: I don’t know … just this scream that went on and on. Because of things getting smashed up, I presumed she was screaming
because he was trying to hurt her, but I suppose it could have been after he’d told her what he’d done. One sort of scream
probably sounds much the same
as another, doesn’t it? She was definitely terrified, I can promise you that, but if the person you were married to just came
out and told you they’d killed two people that’s pretty understandable. She
still
looked terrified, just sitting there on the kitchen floor. I don’t know … terrified because of what she’d done, I suppose
.

SB
: Can you remember any of the things she said? Specifically?

AF
: I don’t know about word for word
.

SB
: Do your best
.

AF
: She definitely said, ‘It was him.’ And she said, ‘He told me what he did to them.’ Then she was sort of ranting and raving,
talking about water and kayaks and keeping a body in the boot of his car. Something about chocolate and a place in the woods.
I remember there was one point, not long before the police came, when she suddenly looked even more scared than she was already.
She looked at us and said, ‘I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know
.’

MG
: Yeah, she kept on saying that, right up until the police and the paramedics arrived. She was saying it to them too, I think.
We got taken into the living room as soon as they arrived, so I don’t know what happened after that. I heard someone asking
her to put the knife down
…

SB
: How much had Mrs Dunning had to drink?

MG
: I don’t know … not much. Probably less than anybody else. That’s the stupid thing, because she could easily have driven
home. She was just too scared to, I think. She probably thought she was safer here with everyone else, that he wouldn’t do
anything with other people in the house. I reckon they started fighting in the living room, because there were a few things
knocked over in there. He probably tried to tell her what he’d done when they were still in bed and she freaked out … I mean
quite understandably, and then when he attacked her she ran into the kitchen and … I don’t know … just grabbed the knife.
Is that about right, you reckon?

SB
: We’ll know more when we’ve finished in the house
.

MG
: If it was me … if I found out that Dave had done something like that … I’d want to kill him
.

BF
: I’m not even sure she
really
knew what she’d done, you know. She looked … dazed or something sitting there like that. Like a kid with ketchup round her
mouth. She had her hand on his chest, where the knife had gone in I suppose, sort of patting it, and she was stroking his
head with her other hand … the same hand she still had the knife in. All the while she was telling us this stuff, the things
he’d done to these girls, it was like part of her just thought he was asleep or something. Like she didn’t know there was
blood everywhere
.

SB:
OK, thank you. I think we’re about done. Interview terminated at
—

BF
: Listen, I know she stabbed him, nobody’s arguing with that … but if he did kill those two girls and, you know, she only
did it because he was trying to kill
her
or whatever … will she still get done?