The Last 10 Seconds

‘Well, there’s something I don’t understand, either. I’ve been trawling through all the witness statements, from friends, family, neighbours, everyone who knew her, and it seems she was a nice, ordinary girl with no enemies. In fact, only one thing stands out. I don’t know if you remember, but Roisín lived in an old four-storey house in Pimlico that had been converted into luxury flats.’

‘I didn’t, but go on.’

‘Each floor had its own apartment, and they were linked by a communal staircase, with Roisín’s on the top floor. About a week before her murder, and three months after Kent had fitted the alarm, one of the neighbours ran into someone she didn’t recognize coming down the staircase from the direction of Roisín’s apartment. Her statement said . . .’ He paused while he checked his notes. ‘He was, and I quote, “a very suspicious-looking character, a young man with long hair, quite short, who didn’t want to meet my eye”.’

‘Did she challenge him as to who he was?’

‘No, she didn’t say anything. She probably didn’t want a confrontation. She said he left through the front door and that was it. I remember at the time we didn’t take it that seriously.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, mainly because the sighting was a week before the murder, rather than the day it happened. Also, the neighbour was a bit of a busybody, in her seventies, and when we tried to do an e-fit based on her description, it just didn’t work. Every attempt turned out to look nothing like him, according to her. We did go back to Roisín’s friends to ask if she knew someone who fitted the guy’s basic description, but, unsurprisingly, none of them did. Which was why it ended up going to the bottom of the pile.’

Tina had never heard about this sighting, although given the size and scale of the inquiry, and the number of detectives involved, this wasn’t that surprising. ‘So, what makes it stand out now?’ she asked.

‘Because the description might be basic – short, long hair, moles on cheek – but it’s possible that it fits Kent.’

Tina recalled the two very small dark moles an inch apart on Kent’s left cheek. ‘It’s more than possible. It does fit him.’

‘Listen, ma’am, it wasn’t my fault,’ said Grier defensively. ‘How was anyone to know at the time that he could have been our killer?’

‘Have you got a number for this witness?’ she asked, not wanting to get into a debate about past mistakes. When he nodded, she told him to call her straight away. ‘Arrange to get a photo of Kent across to her, see if she recognizes it.’

Two minutes later, Grier was on the phone to seventy-six-year-old Beatrice Glover, reminding her of the case and asking if he could come round with a photo to show her. ‘Oh, you’ve got email,’ she heard him say, unable to hide the surprise in his voice. Ageist sod, thought Tina, and typical of an arrogant young guy like Grier to make rash and thoughtless generalizations. She wondered if that’s why he’d been so dismissive of her testimony in the first place.

She waited as he emailed Beatrice Glover the mugshot that had been taken of Kent after his arrest the previous night. Grier stayed on the line while she opened up the file to view it.

When he came off the phone, he looked utterly confused. ‘She’s not a hundred per cent sure – she says it’s been a long time – but she’s pretty confident the man in the photo is the man she saw on the staircase the week before Roisín’s murder.’ He sighed. ‘But if Kent didn’t kill her then what on earth was he doing hanging round her place when he had no reason to?’

Tina had been thinking about that for the last five minutes, and there was only one conclusion she kept coming up with. ‘I really hope it isn’t the case,’ she said quietly, ‘but it’s possible that Andrew Kent wasn’t working alone.’

Twenty

Grier shook his head disbelievingly. ‘My God, two of them? No one’s even mentioned that as a possibility in the whole time I’ve been on the case.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Tina. ‘Two serial killers working together is a real rarity. I can only think of one case like that in the UK in the past thirty years.’

‘The Railway Killers, Duffy and Mulcahy,’ he said, confirming that he knew exactly who Tina was talking about. ‘Do you think there could be an innocent explanation for his presence there?’ he asked. ‘Maybe she called him back to service the alarm or something?’

Tina shook her head. ‘We’ll check with the alarm company, but as far as I’m concerned, Kent may not have been the killer, but he knows a lot more than he’s letting on.’

Tina was annoyed with herself. She’d been taken in more than once by Kent. At times, even with all the evidence against him, she’d thought it possible he’d somehow been framed. Now she knew he was nothing more than a cunning and manipulative sociopath who could potentially get himself acquitted over the Roisín O’Neill case, even though he had to have had something to do with it.

‘I’m going down to see him,’ she announced, getting to her feet.