Rush of Blood (32 page)

‘So, can you tell the court what happened when the argument moved from the living room into the kitchen?’

Sue stood three-quarters on to the jury in the way she had been told would be most effective. For the last six months she
had done everything she had been instructed or advised to do. By prison officers, solicitors and by her defence counsel, who
now stood looking up at her. What to wear and how to present herself. She had chosen a dark skirt with a simple white blouse
and, even though she’d put on weight in prison, she thought she looked as respectable as could be expected, given the circumstances.

‘Mrs Dunning?’

She looked at the barrister’s face; jowly with a drinker’s nose, but creased into a suitably compassionate expression. She
knew what was coming and how painful it would be, but understood that it was necessary if she was to avoid spending years
in prison. Certain facts had come to light since her arrest that it would be stupid to deny.

She knew what she would need to confess.

‘Ed was … storming around,’ she said. ‘He’d thrown the duvet off the sofa-bed and a few things had got knocked over, candles
and
things. I was telling him to be calm and to stop shouting, because at that stage I was only concerned about waking the others
up. I was …
embarrassed
more than anything.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘Then he hit me.’

‘Had your husband ever struck you before?’

‘No, never. If he had then I don’t think I would have been so shocked. He had this look on his face though that I’d never
seen before. It was as if he was suddenly stone-cold sober and while I just stood there holding my face he started telling
me … what he’d done.’

‘What did he say to you, Mrs Dunning?’

She took a deep breath, but it was not quite enough, so she took another. She leaned forward and grabbed hold of the rail
that ran around the witness box. ‘He said that for all these years he’d stood by me. He’d supported me no matter how stupid
I’d been, no matter what I’d said and what I’d done because he loved me so much … and now it was my turn to do the same for
him.’

‘To stand by him?’

Sue nodded. ‘I asked him what he meant.’

‘And this was when he told you what had happened in Florida.’

‘It was so strange, because as soon as he started to tell me it was like I … wasn’t surprised. I mean, I didn’t shout out
or fall on the floor or anything. I just stood there and listened to this … what he’d done to that girl and how he did the
same thing all over again when we came home. I was just so cold, that’s what I remember most. I was suddenly shivering.’

‘So, what happened after he told you about these murders?’

‘I was just standing there, like I said … frozen, almost literally … and he said, “Aren’t you going to ask me
why?
Don’t you want to know
why?
” He looked … desperate and his face was getting redder and redder and when I said no, I didn’t want to know why because
there couldn’t be any reason that would explain something like that … he got angry again and started coming towards me.’

‘And how did this make you feel?’

‘I was frightened,’ she said. ‘That was when I was suddenly very scared and I bolted out of the door and ran into the kitchen.’
She lowered her head for a few seconds. ‘I should probably just have gone upstairs and knocked on one of the doors. I should
have woken up Angie or Dave or someone and told them what was happening, but I didn’t think. I panicked.’

‘Did your husband follow you?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, he was right behind me. He was ranting about how I never supported him and how it wasn’t fair. He kept saying
that he
needed
me and that if I wasn’t going to stand by him there wasn’t any point to it.’

‘What did you think he meant by that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sue said. ‘Thinking back now, I wonder if he meant that he was going to kill himself, but right then I was
just thinking … just …’

‘What were you thinking, Mrs Dunning?’

She blinked, breathed heavily. ‘I was thinking that he was going to kill me. He kept coming towards me and I didn’t have anywhere
to go and I couldn’t take my eyes off his hands. I couldn’t stop thinking that he’d strangled those girls with them and the
edge of the worktop was digging into my back … I just kept looking at his hands.’

‘Was your state of mind affected by the threats your husband had made earlier in the evening? The threats to which other witnesses
have already referred?’

Sue said that it was and the QC asked her to repeat them so that the jury could hear.

‘So, what did you do then?’

‘I just put my hand out without thinking and there were all these dirty plates and knives and forks. The dishwasher was already
on, you see, but there was lots of stuff that wouldn’t fit in … I knocked a lot of things on to the floor … scrabbling around.
I was still looking at his hands and he was shouting and I just put my hand around this knife. This knife …’

‘Do you need to take a minute, Mrs Dunning?’

She shook her head, swallowed. ‘He put his arms out in front of him and he lunged and I sort of … pushed forward.’

‘With the knife?’

She nodded. ‘I remember screaming when I did it. I thought his face … the
look
on his face was just because I’d let out this God-awful scream, you know? I wasn’t even sure what had happened until he stepped
back and he was looking down and his mouth just sort of fell open.’

‘Take your time. There’s no rush …’

‘Then I saw the blood on the knife, and he sat down … dropped down and he was up against the cupboard.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘I got down on the floor with him. It was just a natural reaction, I suppose. I got down there and I lifted his head up. I
put my hand on the … on the hole in his chest and the blood was bubbling up through my fingers and the next thing I remember
was seeing everyone in the doorway and wondering what they were doing there. They were staring and I was saying things, but
I don’t know what. It’s stupid … but I can remember feeling bad because I’d woken everybody up. Because of all the mess …’

The QC nodded and said, ‘Thank you, Mrs Dunning. I know this can’t be easy for you. However, if you’ll bear with me, I do
need to take you back to what happened between you and your husband just
before
the alleged offence. To the argument itself. Do you feel up to that?’

Sue knew what he wanted. What was coming. She told him she felt fine.

‘Earlier on you told the court that your husband had said’ – he read from his notes – ‘he’d supported you no matter how stupid
you’d been, no matter what you’d said and what you’d done because he loved you so much. Do you know what he meant by that?’

Sue looked at him, her breathing growing heavier by the second.

‘Mrs Dunning, what was your husband referring to?’

She said, ‘Our daughter.’ She cleared her throat and said it again.

‘Your daughter, Emma?’

Sue nodded.

‘Did your husband want you to talk about Emma?’

‘No, he hated it,’ she said.

‘Why was that?’

She shook her head.

‘Mrs Dunning, you are giving evidence under oath and this is your opportunity to explain things to members of the jury. Now,
you made a statement shortly after your arrest during which you talked about your husband’s attitude towards your deceased
daughter, Emma. How much it upset him when you talked about her. We have also heard from two different witnesses who have
testified that privately you told them all about Emma’s illness and her tragic death from leukaemia. Is this true?’

Sue nodded.

‘Mrs Dunning, you do understand that while you’re telling the truth about what happened that night, about your husband threatening
you … the truth about fearing for your life after he had confessed to a double murder, that you must tell the truth about
everything? You do see how important that is, don’t you?’

Sue nodded again, barely perceptibly.

‘Good. Thank you.’ Standing behind the table that Crown and defence shared, the QC glanced down at his notes and cleared his
throat. His voice dropped a little. ‘Now this will inevitably be extremely painful for you, but can you please tell this court
the
truth
about your daughter Emma?’ He waited, knowing that there would be a reaction in the courtroom. There was an outbreak of low
chatter in the public gallery and several of the jurors leaned forward in their seats. ‘Can you tell us about Emma? Mrs Dunning
…?’

Sue closed her eyes. Seconds passed. ‘There was no Emma …’

‘Could you speak up, Mrs Dunning?’

‘I never had a daughter.’

The chatter in the gallery grew louder and more than one juror looked stunned. The barrister waited for the noise to die down.

‘Did you purchase clothes for her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you put up a swing in the back garden for her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you frame pictures of a girl you cut out of a magazine and hide those pictures away in drawers?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you tell us why you did those things?’

Sue shook her head again, then opened her eyes. ‘We wanted children, both of us did, but it just … never happened.’ Her eyes
were fixed on a point just above her counsel’s head; eyes that brimmed and spilled tears down her face as she spoke. ‘We had
tests … all the tests, and nobody could find anything wrong, but just … nothing. Ed bottled up all the pain … all the
grief
, and I thought I’d done the same. Then one day I just woke up and Emma was there.’ She put a hand to her chest. ‘In
here
. An Emma that
had
been. I don’t expect anyone to think it makes any sense, but I never even questioned it. Suddenly I was able to get up in
the mornings and get through the days, because I had a reason for the grief. It filled me up. I had memories of this girl
and they were real, do you understand? Every … detail of her. Things we’d done and places we’d been together. I could hear
her laugh and I knew what vegetables she hated and I remembered the pain of watching her slip away in that hospital. I remembered
all
of it.

‘The smell of the place. The clothes I picked out to dress her in afterwards …

‘Of course, Ed wanted me to see somebody, to get some help. He thought it was unhealthy … no, worse than that, he said it
was “sick”. In the end he just left me to it, because he could see I wasn’t going to stop, because I wasn’t going to say goodbye
to her again. I couldn’t
do
that. He was concerned about me, in the beginning at least, I know that … but sometimes I’d need to talk about her, to share
it with him and we’d always end up screaming at one another. So sometimes I’d tell somebody else. I’d talk about Emma to complete
strangers when I was shopping or having a coffee or something. They’d say how sorry
they were and they’d ask me what she was like, and I felt
alive
. Like I was worth something.

‘I know it’s … I know what it sounds like and I know it’s time to move on, but those years I had with Emma, with Emma’s
memory
, were … well, I wouldn’t swap them for anything. I’m probably not … explaining it very well, but I felt as though I was a
whole person again because of this special girl I’d lost.’ She lowered her head for a few seconds, nodded. ‘This girl I hadn’t
really
lost.’

The QC leaned even closer, asked if she would perhaps like a drink of water. Sue raised her head, but managed only a few more
words before the sobs took hold completely.

‘I felt like a mother …’

After a nod from the opposing counsel, the judge announced that the court would rise and that questions from the Crown were
to commence after an early lunch. He told Sue that she could step down. When he saw that her fingers were still wrapped tightly
around the metal rail, he asked an officer of the court to come forward and help her from the witness box.

There was a good-sized crowd at the bottom of the steps when they emerged. Members of the public jostled for space with newspaper
reporters and TV crews, holding up mobile phones to take blurry pictures or shoot video. Some had gathered well in advance
of the verdict and were there to show support, while a good many others – passers-by who had spotted the cameras and decided
that something important must be happening – simply took the opportunity to stand around or record proceedings.

You never knew what you might get outside the Old Bailey.

Several uniformed police officers gathered themselves into an impromptu cordon as Sue Dunning’s solicitor stepped forward
to make a statement.

‘We are obviously relieved and delighted at today’s verdict,’ he said. ‘At seeing justice done in
every
sense. Mrs Dunning will not be speaking or taking any questions this afternoon, but she has asked me to say a few words on
her behalf …’

Angie, Barry, Marina and Dave stood close together a few feet behind and to one side. Next to them, Sue’s colleague Graham
Foot stood with his arm around Annette Bailey. They had all appeared as
witnesses for the defence. They stared at the back of Sue’s head, at the ranks of microphones thrust in her direction and
the line of camera vans beyond. They struggled to hear the solicitor’s words above the noise of passing traffic and the constant
clicking of camera shutters.

‘
I am so relieved that this nightmare has finally come to an end. Or at least this part of it, because I don’t expect that
living with what has happened, with what my late husband did, is going to be easy
…’

Dave leaned across to Barry. ‘Do you fancy going to get some lunch?’

‘What about Sue?’ Angie asked. She saw Sue angle her head slightly, and thinking that she might turn round, she raised a hand
to wave. Sue didn’t see her.

‘I think she’s probably going to be a bit busy for a while,’ Barry said. ‘I’m up for it though.’

‘I’m starving,’ Marina said.

Angie nodded. ‘Be good to celebrate.’

‘Be even better if that murdering prick had been banged up for the rest of his life.’ Dave took Marina’s hand. ‘He got off
lightly if you ask me.’

‘Yeah, but how much does it cost to keep someone like that in prison though?’ Angie said. ‘PlayStations in their cells, some
of them.’

‘Right result, I reckon,’ Barry said.

‘I wonder what
they
think.’ Dave nodded across to where Sonia Gold was standing with her husband and son. Their faces were grim as the solicitor
continued to read out Sue Dunning’s statement.

‘
Above all, I want to take this opportunity to pass on my sympathies to the families of the two girls that my late husband
murdered. However hard this has been for me, I cannot begin to imagine what they are going through
.’

‘God, that stuff about the daughter though,’ Angie said. ‘I still can’t get my head around it.’ Then Sue did turn round and
Angie caught her eye, then raised her little finger and thumb to her ear and mouthed, ‘Call you later on.’

Sue gave a small nod and turned back towards the reporters again.

*

Jenny Quinlan had mixed feelings. She was as pleased as anyone else that Sue Dunning had been acquitted, but this was not
her case. Connected, but not hers. Jeff Gardner had made a point of thanking her, as had the SIO on the Samantha Gold investigation,
but she still felt as though Ed Dunning’s death had robbed her of the kudos that should rightfully have been hers. She’d been
moaning about it the night before while she and Steph had put away two large pizzas and a bottle and a half of wine. Steph
had told her she was being stupid, that she was the one who had drawn all the attention to Ed Dunning in the first place and
hadn’t
she
been the one who had found out what had really happened to Annette Bailey? That was important stuff, wasn’t it? I mean, surely
all the work she had done would be noticed.

Jenny could only hope her friend was right.

She looked across to where Jeff Gardner was drinking takeaway coffee and talking quietly to Steve Barstow from the Homicide
Command. Barstow didn’t look too disappointed with the outcome, despite the failure to secure a conviction. It was hard to
read Gardner though. He seemed a bit … bemused by the whole thing.

She smiled when he glanced in her direction, wondered how long he was planning on staying in London.

Steph was right, of
course
she was. Whichever way you looked at it, it had to be a feather in her cap, didn’t it? There had certainly been talk in the
pub about fast-tracking her up to DC, plenty of banter and backslapping from Adam Simmons and the rest.

She’d gone back to making them coffee anyway, just in case.

‘…
and I hope that you’ll understand my need for some privacy at this time. To come to terms with everything that’s happened
and to try and rebuild my life
.’

Jeff Gardner stepped away from the English detective and reached into his jacket for his phone. God, it was every bit as cold
as his wife had said it would be. He couldn’t wait to get back to the sunshine and the ocean. Back to courtrooms where they
didn’t wear those stupid wigs …

He thought about calling Patti Lee Wilson to give her the news, then decided it could wait until later. When he got home would
be fine. She would probably pick it up on CNN or something anyway, if she was tuned in.

There was movement on the steps below him, as the solicitor tried to move Sue Dunning towards a waiting car, as police tried
to keep the scrum of reporters at bay, despite the solicitor’s insistence that no questions were going to get answered.

Sue Dunning was pale and still looked as if she wasn’t quite sure where she was. He was grateful for all her help in putting
the final pieces together for him on the Amber-Marie killing, but having heard what had been said in court, he was still shocked
at the way she had spoken about her daughter in that interview room in Holloway.

What had he said to her? Something about not being a psychiatrist. He hoped to God she was able to find a good one.

He watched her now as she suddenly stopped a few feet from her car and stared across its roof at a BMW parked on the opposite
side of the road. Gardner craned his neck to see who was sitting at the wheel, but couldn’t make him out. Her solicitor laid
a hand on the small of her back and, after a few more seconds, they both climbed into the car, which quickly pulled away from
the kerb and out into the traffic.

‘It’s all about children, isn’t it?’ Sue Dunning had asked him.

She’d been in hell a lot longer than he’d thought.

As the crowd dispersed and a few reporters lingered to talk to senior detectives, Gardner saw that Jenny Quinlan was on her
way over. He smiled as she approached and when she was next to him, he said, ‘You did well in there.’

‘Thanks.’

‘No, really. Nice job.’

Quinlan shrugged like it was no big deal, but Gardner knew it was the first time she had given evidence in court. She’d seemed
confident and calm as she’d read excerpts from her interviews with Edward Dunning and with others. When she was questioned
by the defence,
some of the comments made about Dunning by Angie Finnegan and Marina Green had clearly resonated with the jury.

‘Not that it did any good,’ she said. ‘I mean we didn’t win.’

‘One of those cases,’ Gardner said. ‘Not sure anyone won. We all get those occasionally, right?’

‘Right,’ she said. Once again trying to sound like the seasoned pro she so clearly wanted to be. ‘So, when are you heading
home?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘All set for a last night on the razzle then?’

‘I’ve got an early flight.’

‘You sure?’ She rocked from foot to foot, her hands stuffed into the pockets of her jacket. ‘I know some good pubs. Happy
to show you the town.’

‘It’s an early flight,’ he said.

‘You could always sleep through it.’

‘Probably not a good idea.’

She looked away for a second, then turned back and nodded towards the phone in Gardner’s hand. ‘I’ll let you make your call
then,’ she said.

Gardner watched her move away, then looked down at his phone and began to dial. Thinking about it, a last night out in the
city might not be such a terrible idea. It wouldn’t take him long to pack, after all. Maybe he could find an old-fashioned
English pub whose name he would not be able to remember on the flight home and it
was
always better to drink with somebody else. He looked across at Jenny Quinlan standing alone, then remembered who he was calling
and decided that he should probably do the sensible thing and ask Barstow.

Yeah, he seemed like a good guy.

When Michelle answered the phone, Gardner told her about the ‘Not Guilty’ verdict. She said she was pleased and that their
daughter was missing him. She asked him when he was coming home.

‘First flight out tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘You can tell her I’ll be back for talking tiger time …’