Lynda La Plante - Wrongful Death

‘Oh, my goodness, that’s awful. It makes me feel sick.’

Apologizing to Dobbs, Dewar turned the photograph face down and suggested to Anna that he could go and deal with his other viewings. They could always lock the door after them and return the keys to the lettings agents’ office when they had finished. Dobbs said that was fine by him and he was out of the door like a shot.

Dewar asked Anna to help her move the sofa and other furniture into the same positions they had been in when Josh’s body was found. Having done this, Dewar said that she had a copy of Donna’s statement and suggested they re-enact her arrival home and her discovery of Josh’s body. Anna agreed it was as good a place as any to start.

They went back into the hallway and stood by the front door. Dewar started to go through the statement.

‘Donna returned home and used the Yale key to gain entry. There’s also a Chubb lock but no mention was made of it in her statement,’ Dewar observed.

‘Could be it was already unlocked therefore she only needed to use the Yale key,’ Anna suggested.

‘If it was unlocked then surely she should have expected Josh to be in – her statement says that whenever they went out their door would be double-locked.’

Dewar had made a good point but Anna was worried that her sole intention was to find fault in Donna’s statement.

‘Do you mind me suggesting alternative propositions as we go along? It will help to prevent cognitive and confirmation bias,’ Anna asked, recalling Dewar’s earlier comments.

‘Not at all.’

They walked down the hallway and into the master bedroom on the left. Dewar placed the photograph of the room down on the bed and looked at the statement. The furniture was still laid out as it had been at the time of Reynolds’ death. Upon entering, the bed was on the left with the fitted wardrobes and en-suite bathroom to the right. A chest of drawers and vanity table were up against the opposite wall.

‘In the photograph, the left door of the fitted-wardrobe door is open,’ Dewar said and slid open the left wardrobe door, revealing an electronic-key-coded safe, which was bolted to the wall.

‘In this close-up, the clothing on hangers had been pushed to one side, clearly showing the safe. Strange, isn’t it?’

Anna looked at the photograph, ‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’

‘Donna walks into the bedroom, unpacks her case, gets the dirty laundry from the basket in the bathroom yet never noticed the wardrobe and safe were open?’

Anna checked the photographs again. ‘The makeup bag, evening gown and other stuff from her case are scattered on the bed so maybe she didn’t go near the wardrobe,’ she suggested.

‘Or she already knew what had happened to Josh and staged her actions to look like she was behaving normally,’ Dewar said, walking out of the bedroom into the living room and turning towards the kitchen on the right. She suddenly stopped then took two steps backwards and stood by the living-room door. Anna, who was following behind and writing notes at the same time, swerved to avoid bumping into her.

‘Question for Donna. Was the living-room door open or closed when she returned home?’

Dewar then went into the kitchen and, glancing at the scene photographs, opened the integrated-washing-machine door and the cupboard under the sink.

‘She puts the dirty clothes in the machine then gets the laundry liquid and softener from under the sink. After starting the machine she walks back towards the bedroom,’ Dewar said, re-enacting Donna’s movements then stopping by the door to the hallway. ‘Only at this point do we get the shock and horror of finding her husband dead in a pool of blood.’

‘Why would she do all that if she already knew he was dead? It seems to me she was acting perfectly normally and wasn’t expecting to find Josh dead,’ Anna remarked, but Dewar said nothing.

Anna watched fascinated as the agent walked around the living room deep in thought and talking to herself. She laid the blown-up photographs of Josh’s body and the blood distribution on the floor and on the sofa. It worried Anna that Dewar still seemed to have it fixed in her mind that Donna was in some way culpable. Anna felt that suggesting Donna left the Savoy, murdered her husband and then returned to the hotel in the early hours was clutching at straws.

‘Simms’ report said that Donna’s alibi checked out. She went to the Savoy charity ball with her mother and sister and stayed there overnight,’ she observed.

‘I think Simms took Donna on face value as the grieving widow. She totally hoodwinked him,’ Dewar said.

Anna turned back through the pages in her notebook, looking for references she had jotted down regarding the forensic pathology. The pathologist had stated Josh had died between eight to twenty hours before midday on the sixth of November. She did a quick calculation in her mind.

‘Dr Harrow, the pathologist who attended the scene, estimated time of death anywhere between four p.m. on the fifth and four a.m. on the sixth of November. Donna was at the Savoy,’ Anna said firmly.

‘Maybe she didn’t kill her husband,’ Dewar replied.

‘But you just insinuated as much,’ Anna said, surprised by Dewar’s ever-changing theories.

‘No. I was insinuating that Simms never regarded her as a suspect because he thought it was a suicide. Although she may not have pulled the trigger I now think she knows who did.’

Anna disagreed. ‘There were no signs of forced entry to the flat and the pathology report said no injuries consistent with a struggle before death. All of which surely points towards suicide?’

‘Or someone Josh knew and let into the flat.’

‘Who unbelievably overpowers him, gets the gun out of the safe-’

Dewar interrupted Anna: ‘How do you actually know that the gun was in the safe or even belonged to Josh Reynolds? His killer could have brought it with him.’

‘Forensics said there were heavy traces of firearms residue in the safe. There were four bullets still in the safe and they matched the single one loaded and fired from the gun.’

‘I know it sounds far-fetched, Anna, but please hear me out.’

‘I’m listening,’ Anna said despairingly.

Dewar then produced a gun from her jacket pocket, explaining that it was a plastic toy. She handed it to Anna then lay down on the floor on her right-hand side in the semi-foetal position that Reynolds was found in. Dewar then eased herself up onto her knees and explained that she was working backwards to try and assume Josh’s posture at the time of the fatal shot. She asked Anna to hand her the gun and held it to her right temple.

‘BANG!’ Dewar shouted loudly, making Anna jump back. She fell slowly forward, rotating her body slightly and moving her right arm so she landed on her right-hand side with her right arm, hand and the gun outstretched above her head. Her left arm was lying across her hip at a right angle.

‘Am I in the same position as Reynolds is in the photograph?’ Dewar asked while still on the floor.

Anna told her that she was and Dewar then asked her to place the close-up photograph of Reynolds’ right hand and the gun underneath her right hand. Anna did as she was asked and Dewar then eased herself up onto her knees again. She held the gun to her right temple and once more shouted, ‘BANG!’ Although Anna was expecting it this time it still made her jump. Dewar started to fall forward again, rotating slightly to her right, but now her right hand and the gun ended up under her right breast.

‘Even allowing for some recoil when a gun is fired this end position or something similar would be more natural. It’s hard to see how his right hand could be outstretched above his head. Unless…’ Dewar remarked before sitting up on her knees again and handing Anna the toy gun. The agent then held her hands in the air and asked Anna to hold the gun against her right temple. Anna was about to ask, jokingly, if Dewar would like her to go bang this time but never got the chance. ‘BANG!’ Dewar shouted and fell forward. As she did so her left arm hit the side of the sofa and ended up across her left hip and her right arm was outstretched above her head.