Imperfect Killing by Luke Delaney Page B

sure?’ Stokes asked, his eyes narrowing. ‘I thought maybe you did.’
    ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Sean persevered. ‘I was checking my notes of our … conversation and noticed my mistake. If you could just clear that up for me.’
    ‘Of course,’ Stokes seemed to relax and started to walk, Sean keeping pace. ‘I’d say it was about five or six years.’
    ‘Five or six years,’ he faked surprise. ‘That’s a long time. From watching the early shows you did with her I would never have guessed you’d known each other that long. When did you start making that show together – about two, three years ago?’
    ‘About that,’ Stokes replied sounding casual.
    ‘Yet by then you’d already known her for at least a couple of years.’
    ‘Known her,’ Stokes explained, ‘but we didn’t really become friends until we’d been filming together.’
    ‘And as friends you’d have known if she was seeing anyone?’
    ‘If it was anything more than a casual relationship, yes, I suppose she would have told me,’ Stokes co-operated, ‘but I thought we’d covered all this in some detail.’
    ‘’Yes,’ Sean sighed as he followed Stokes into his own office, ‘Yes we have. To be honest I’m just going over old ground, in case we’ve missed anything – before we really go to town on the man we already have in custody.’
    ‘Naturally,’ Stokes agreed as he sat in his chair. ‘But it certainly sounds like you’ve got the right man.’
    ‘Looks that way,’ Sean smiled, ‘although I’ll feel better once we find the gun he used, and the clothing too, if we’re lucky.’
    ‘You think you’ll find them?’ Stokes asked, involuntarily sitting forward a little. ‘I would have thought the gun would be at the bottom of the Thames by now and the clothes incinerated somewhere.’
    ‘No, no … I don’t think so,’ Sean told him.
    ‘No?’ Stokes asked.
    ‘No,’ Sean explained. ‘With someone like him, the gun would have been far too precious to get rid of, and the clothes too in all likelihood.’
    ‘I don’t understand,’ Stokes admitted.
    ‘The thing is,’ Sean continued, ‘this was no professional hit or gangland slaying – this was a crime of passion. The killer thought about it for months – maybe even years – planning every aspect of it, fantasizing about it. He probably did so holding the gun he eventually used and almost certainly while he was dressed in the clothes he wore when he killed her.’
    ‘But once he’d made his fantasy a reality surely he’d just get rid of the lot?’
    ‘No,’ Sean told him. ‘Once he’d used them in her murder they would have become even more precious to him. No doubt he planned to wear them over and over, holding the gun in his hand to help him relive every moment of killing her. We’re not dealing with a sane or rational man here, Mr Stokes. We’re dealing with a man who was obsessed – made homicidally insane by her rejection. We’ll find the gun and the clothes. I can assure you of that.’
    ‘And if by some chance you don’t?’ Stokes asked – his eyes a little narrower, his lips a little thinner – his body unwittingly betraying him with signs he couldn’t control.
    ‘Then I’ll know he didn’t kill her,’ Sean smiled with serpent eyes. ‘But we will. If not now then sometime in the future. We’ll keep looking for them, that’s for sure. Maybe someone else will find the gun and use it in another crime and drop it at the scene. Maybe someone will be stopped, searched and arrested for carrying it. As a matter of routine it would be sent to the lab for ballistic and DNA testing – to see if it had been used in other crimes. If it has our man’s DNA on it, we might be able to match it. If we find DNA on the gun maybe I’ll be told to take DNA from everyone who knew her or worked with her. We do it sometimes – I’m sure you’ve heard of it, seen it on the news.’
    ‘I see,’ Stokes answered, his confident veneer slipping