Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

existence of a niece could even explain why Sam thought she had seen Harrison before. If their DNA was sufficiently similar for the niece’s traces to be confused with Harrison’s twenty-year-old sample, then it made sense that the two women would look alike. Suddenly everything was beginning to fall into place. All that remained was to trace the niece.

     
    Arriving at her flat, she regretted returning home instead of going straight to her office. She couldn’t settle to anything. She fiddled around in the kitchen making herself supper but although she was hungry she couldn’t eat. She switched on the television but couldn’t concentrate. In the end she went to bed very early but lay for hours unable to sleep, thinking about Linda and wondering where her niece was. By the time Sam arrived at work the next morning, Geraldine had been at her desk for a couple of hours, searching for the niece.

     
    Sam perched on Nick’s chair.
    ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘If he catches you sitting on his chair, there’ll be hell to pay,’
    Sam leaned forward, peering earnestly at Geraldine.
    ‘So what you’re saying is that if you don’t agree to come to the canteen with me for breakfast, I could end up in serious trouble. Is that really what you want?’
    Geraldine shook her head, laughing.
    ‘I had breakfast hours ago. I’ve got work to do, Sam.’
    ‘All the more reason for you to come to the canteen for a coffee. It’ll clear your mind. Plus you’ll have the added bonus of a super-intelligent and sympathetic listening ear to run your theory by.’
    ‘Who says it’s only a theory?’
    Geraldine stood up. She would value Sam’s views about Linda’s niece.

     
    Sam wasn’t helpful. To begin with she was sceptical about the idea that Linda’s niece might have murdered her uncle.
    ‘Think about it, Geraldine, it doesn’t really stack up. I can understand that you might suspect she killed her uncle, although why her aunt would have confessed to it, I can’t imagine.’
    ‘To protect her.’
    ‘Well, maybe. But serving more than twenty years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit, is that likely? And anyway, the case was closed. A jury found Linda Harrison guilty. End of. Even if there was a miscarriage of justice twenty years ago, and Linda was sent down instead of her niece, you’re saying that, after a gap of twenty years, the niece suddenly decided to kill Henshaw, Corless, Bradshaw, and this new victim, four murders in the space of a fortnight? That doesn’t make sense.’

     
    ‘The method of killing was similar,’ Geraldine insisted. ‘Linda’s husband was battered to death in exactly the same way as the four recent victims. Hit on the head and beaten in the genitals.’
    Sam wasn’t persuaded.
    ‘So? The method of killing was similar. So what? That doesn’t prove anything. The Harrison killing was all over the news twenty years ago, wasn’t it? Going by what you’ve said, and what I’ve seen, it was front page stuff for weeks. Anyone could have been influenced by it.’
    ‘But like you said, after twenty years, why would anyone start copycat murders?’
    ‘Exactly. Why start up again after twenty years? That’s what I was saying to you.’
    ‘No, it’s not. You’re talking about copycat crimes. What I’m saying is that this might be the same killer repeating the same murder, reliving the original event for some reason. Perhaps something triggered it off.’

     
    They argued round in circles for a while, neither of them prepared to concede. Geraldine hid her increasing irritation. At length she returned to her desk, her conviction shaken. Despite her exasperation, she knew the sergeant had done her a favour, warning her against giving her theory undue credence without proof. It was a desperate trap to fall into, in the absence of any useful leads, and all too easy to do. Without her theory that Linda’s niece was culpable she had no leads, but that was no reason to believe the niece was guilty.

     
    Despite Sam’s scepticism about using DNA from twenty years ago, Geraldine focused her attention on looking for Linda’s niece. She discovered a girl called Emily Tennant had gone to live with Linda Harrison and her husband a year after their marriage. Emily was only six years younger than Linda. As her sister had been ten years older than Linda, it was likely that Emily was her niece. Emily Tennant’s birth certificate and school records weren’t difficult to trace. The