‘Which makes him of special interest,’ Gill noted. A significant proportion of killers actually ‘discovered the body’ and reported it to the police. Assumption being, in their tiny brains, that if they did this it put them above suspicion.
‘We’ve got the domestic violence too,’ Andy said.
‘Agreed. Janet, your report flags up two areas-’ Gill pointed the remote at her.
‘Yes,’ Janet said. ‘Could be nothing, but at one point Sean hesitated more than I’d have expected and couldn’t make eye contact. Then later he’s anticipating a question and again he’s tense, he won’t look at me. I know we can’t rely on body language, but…’
Gill nodded. It was notoriously difficult to spot lies from a person’s gestures. The old saws of licking lips and eye movements (up and left for recall, up and right for invention), of sweaty brows and hands covering mouths had all been discredited in study after study. There was one rock-solid way to tell whether someone was lying: by proving what they said was untrue. Nevertheless, Gill trusted Janet’s intuition.
Janet carried on speaking, ‘First time was with the shopping, then when I asked if he’d taken anything-’
Rachel Bailey burst through the doors, a clutch of papers in her hands, breathless. ‘Sorry, I’m late, it’s just that I-’
‘Sit.’ Gill pointed to a chair.
‘When I was going over the-’
‘And shut it,’ Gill said sharply.
Rachel sat down, placed the reports on the table. Gill turned back to Janet: ‘Go on.’ She passed the remote to Janet.
‘This bit – when he says she was going shopping – he was reluctant to talk about it.’ Janet played them the sequence. ‘And this is where I ask him about taking anything.’ She skipped the tape forward to the next excerpt. When it had finished, Janet froze the image. ‘Then we’ve the unaccounted for thirty-five minutes. It doesn’t take that long to cover somebody with a duvet. Could’ve been his chance to clean up, get rid of the knife.’
‘Boss,’ Rachel interrupted again.
‘Hey, madam!’ Gill hated having her concentration broken. ‘You swan in here late, you fail to provide a report on time – we’ve still not got cell-site location, which was on your slate. So stop bloody interrupting.’
‘But the shopping…’ Rachel ploughed on regardless. Gill was gobsmacked. Had she no sense of self-preservation? ‘She’s been in town all morning,’ Rachel said urgently, ‘but there was nothing in the exhibits. Where was the shopping?’
Gill froze. Valid point.
