‘It appears she was never asked about it until now,’ I reply curtly. ‘How would she even have known it was important? Samantha Valentine’s name was never released to the media back then and no one was looking for her. They wrote off Erin’s account of what happened. They didn’t believe her story.’
‘But you do, Riley?’
‘The people Erin worked with, they all expressed how shocked they were at the time about what happened to her; none of them knew why she did what she did. They say she was nice, she wasnormal…’
‘She had mental health issues, Riley,’ she cuts in. ‘She’d been in a psychiatric hospital before she went on to kill Radulovic. She’d had a traumatic childhood, problems with drugs and alcohol, she no doubt wasn’t in her right mind at the time. I feel sorry for the woman, really, genuinely, I do have compassion for her.’ She meets my eyes. ‘Don’t look so surprised, Dan!’
‘I didn’t realise I was, ma’am.’
She sprays some of the perfume on her wrist, waves her arm around a little. I’ve seen women do this before and have always wondered why.
‘It helps the scent to settle.’ She sniffs her pulse point, as though I’d asked the question aloud. ‘Hmmm… not bad…’
It hits my nose instantly, that strong, woody, musky amber-type smell, earthy, yet somehow sweet too. I’m almost certain it’s the same perfume the red-headed journalist was wearing at the press conference. It’s very distinctive.Intoxicating.
‘What I’m saying, ma’am, is?—’
‘I know what you’re saying, Riley.’ She squirts herself liberally with a couple more blasts from the bottle – probably somewhere around thirty quid’s worth.
‘I think we should get this Zoe Brookes in to make a formal statement, ma’am, like she should’ve done seven years ago.’
‘And she was introduced to this person as Samantha Valentine, was she? Does she have any evidence, CCTV footage, photos, witnesses, anything to support this?’
‘No, ma’am, but the description alone and…’
‘Did she positively identify her as Samantha Valentine from the sketch?’
‘Well, she said it “could’ve” been her, ma’am.’
‘… Itcould’vebeen anyone, Riley,’ she snaps. ‘Look, Erin Santos’s DNA was found at Milo Harrison’s crime scene. Her hair was found on his corpse, for Christ’s sake, mixed in with the poor man’s blood! There were only three sets of DNA found in that apartment: the victim’s, the perpetrator’s and… Erin Santos’s.’
‘Yes, ma’am, about that…’
‘Even after what DI Pritchard told you,’ – she ignores me, continues – ‘and what Dr Wainwright said, if you’re so convinced this Samantha character exists, then how do you explainthat?’
She’s sort of got me on that one, I’ll admit. But I do have a possible explanation, a possible explanation I’m pretty sure she won’t want to hear.
‘DNA doesn’t lie, Riley, youknow that. Erin Santos was there at the crime scene. Erin SantosisSamantha Valentine, or thinks she is, and we need to find her – fast.’ She replaces the lid on the perfume bottle, smacking it shut with the palm of her hand.
‘So, with your shopping expo complete, perhaps now you can get back to the job in hand of finding our suspect and bringing her in before this bloody story breaks the internet? Have you seen the insane nonsense people are coming up with on social media? No doubt Netflix will be sniffing around for the rights to turn it into a docudrama in no time at all.The Woman Who Wasn’t There… or something,’ she says with an uncharacteristic theatrical flourish.
‘But what if she reallywasthere, ma’am?’ I know I’m pushing my luck, but I can’t just ignore conflicting information, and now a potential sighting from a witness. Moreover, I can’t ignore my intuition.
She isn’t listening to me, I can tell.
‘Has Erin contacted you again?’
‘No, ma’am. I think my TV appearance may have put paid to any ongoing communication with her.’
‘Yes, well, that’s regrettable,’ she sighs. ‘But our duty is to protect the public – the innocent must always be our first priority, Riley.’
‘What if Erin is one of the “innocents” herself in all of this, ma’am?’
‘Well, then her DNA wouldn’t be on the body of our victim, would it – and yet it is, Riley?’ I can feel her irritation rising.
‘What if it wasplantedthere, ma’am?’
I’d taken a call from the forensic lab on the journey back to London and spoken with a very jovial lady by the name of Muriel Barnes-Jones. I needed to know their exact findings.
