The Death Messenger (Matthew Ryan Book 2)(113)
An hour later, police moved in and picked them up, a hard stop with a firearms team on the northbound carriageway of the A1. While they were waiting for the suspects to arrive under a police escort, in separate vehicles, Grace called the path lab. DNA comparison was complete. Scientists had identified familial DNA to that of Mark Montgomery at two crime scenes, proving an indisputable link to Sophia. The team had no doubt that a third, as yet unidentified sample, belonged to Dan Spencer.
Ryan stopped pacing and sat down.
The Ne46 Technology report O’Neil had given him was lying on his desk, waiting to be read. The company had already proved themselves invaluable. He couldn’t wait to put their findings to Sophia Montgomery in interview. Even though he knew the gist of the updated document, he picked it up, his eyes skimming the words on the page.
As stated previously in our report dated Friday, 20 December, it was not possible to establish the exact type and brand of camera used from the sample DVD you asked us to examine. The camcorder now under analysis could be the equipment used. We are unable to say with absolute certainty that this is the case. What we can say is that the timer on the equipment is running seven minutes and thirty-six seconds fast . . .
Ryan shut his eyes, hoping for inspiration. He found it too. Throwing the report down on his desk, he got up suddenly. Feeling O’Neil’s eyes on him, he punched a code into the safe and took out the DVD from the Whitley Bay crime scene, then shifted across to his desk under his boss’s watchful gaze. Grace and Newman were observing too. The disk slid effortlessly into the computer slot as they gathered round.
‘What are you after?’ O’Neil wanted to know.
‘I’ll show you in a minute.’ Footage of Fraser’s flat uploaded on screen. Ryan could feel the tension in his chest as he fast-forwarded to the point he was interested in. O’Neil was standing directly behind him, so close he could almost feel the warmth of her body. When he got to the relevant section, he restarted the DVD to run in real time. On screen, the camera paused dramatically to dwell on the long-bladed knife glinting from the overhead light, before running on slowly and deliberately across the old tea chest the nurse used as a bedside table, Fraser’s uniform shirt, his ID lanyard. Ryan paused the disk, rewound slightly, freezing the screen on the digital radio-alarm clock.
‘Look at the time on the clock,’ he said.
‘Eleven fifty-one,’ Grace said. ‘So what?’
‘Compare it to the DVD counter.’
‘Eleven, fifty-eight – it’s fast by seven minutes.’
‘And thirty-six seconds, if we wait,’ Ryan said triumphantly. He didn’t need Technical Support to prove his point. ‘I’d like to see Sophia try to wriggle out of this one.’
O’Neil reached forward, placed her hands over his ears and kissed the top of his head.
63
O’Neil offered Ryan the interview with their prime suspect, if he wanted it. No chance would he turn it down. There was, without doubt, enough evidence to convict: DNA, the camcorder, reams and reams of circumstantial evidence, all of which amounted to a watertight case. Despite the fact that Montgomery was refusing to speak, they had to go through the motions of questioning her.
Ryan cautioned her, making sure she understood that she’d been arrested and brought to Newcastle on suspicion of five murders: Paul Dean, Lord Trevathan (Leonard Maxwell), Michael Tierney, James Fraser and Laura Stone. Sophia didn’t answer to her name or give her date of birth. She sat passively beside her solicitor, staring across the table, hands loosely in her lap.
O’Neil wasn’t wrong . . .
Sophia was creepy.
‘I’d like to take things chronologically.’ Ryan sat forward, elbows on the table, Montgomery’s file in front of him. ‘Do stop me if you need to take a break. We’ll probably need one too. We’ve been working very hard on this case. We didn’t find your brother’s computer, but I suspect you removed it from his flat. Actually, we don’t need it because our technical support unit has examined the chat room he used to frequent under the username: Shdwman.’
Ryan opened the file.
‘On the tenth of January 2013, Shdwman (Mark) had a fascinating conversation with another chat room user with a similar profile who called himself dude1980. We now know that dude1980 was in fact your co-accused, Daniel Spencer. Spencer was a predator, not a chat-buddy to Mark. I thought I’d better make that distinction. I’m guessing you already know that, because you were doing some grooming of your own, weren’t you?’
Montgomery’s solicitor sighed. ‘Is there a point to this line of questioning, Detective? If so, I’m not seeing it.’
‘As I said to your client on the phone on Christmas Eve, we have an eyewitness who identified her loitering outside the British Embassy in Copenhagen (Denmark) at around three o’clock on Friday the twenty-sixth of July 2013.’ Ryan waited for the brief to stop scribbling. ‘Ms Montgomery was in the company of Daniel Spencer, who has since been identified by the same witness. This was just two days prior to the disappearance of Ambassador Paul Dean who was found dead on July thirtieth.’
More note-taking.
Ryan had eyes only for Montgomery. ‘Daniel Spencer is talking to us, by the way. He’s in the next room with my colleague. It might help your defence if you follow his lead.’ Ryan winced, shook his head, a sorry face. ‘Loyalty is not his specialist subject.’