12 comments/ 16076 views/ 6 favorites Presumed Guilty By: Cromagnonman This is another story that, like my previous story 'A View From the Bottom' and others, draws from my personal experience. This time it is a wife who accused me, wrongly and often, of having affairs, and would launch into a screaming, sometimes public, tirade. While you may think these incidents are unreal, believe me they are very real. Other elements of the story are from my imagination and should not be taken as perfect in every way, I may, and probably will, get it wrong. I use these elements as a vehicle in a romance, the getting of two people together. Whether the romance is long lasting, or short-lived, it is still a romance. CM * "Don't lie to me!" The words were hurled at me from a distance of around ten centimetres. "You have been fucking Paige!" Paige was her younger sister and I wasn't fucking her. "I have not been fucking her, I don't know where you got that idea from." I said as calmly as I could. This had been going on for the almost all of the five years of our married life, these accusations of infidelity borne of her insane jealousy. "She told me! That's how I know you've been fucking her!" I have tried to convince her that she should seek treatment for her jealousy before she really goes off the rails and ends up needing psychiatric care. These moments are balanced out by her loving nature at other times, a loving nature that encourages me to persevere with our marriage, but at times like this I begin to seriously wonder why I bother. "I have not been fucking Paige. I am not going to stay here and listen to your irrational jealousy, I'm going for a drive while you cool down." "That's right, you're going for a drive, straight over to her place to cry on her shoulder and tell her what a bitch her sister is, and then she'll get all sympathetic and caring and fuck you." "Look, if it puts your mind at ease, why don't you call her and you can talk to her until I get back. That way you'll know that I've been telling the truth." "Don't worry, I will, I'm not going to let you bluff me." "Take care of yourself and I'll see you in a little while." I would have kissed her but the look on her face told me not to bother. This was the last time I saw Emily alive. My stress relief driving course took me up into the hills on winding country roads, where even the speed limit can be testing in places. I found that the combination of having to concentrate on my driving, and the adrenalin rush that this brought on, took my mind off my problems, and when I turned back it gave me time to think. My thoughts bore no resemblance to what waited for me when I turned into my street. There were two cars out front of my house, both with 'red and blues' flashing, and there was an ambulance backed up in the driveway, also with flashing lights. I pulled up out front and walked up to the front door, there was a policeman standing beside the door who blocked my path. "You can't go in there sir." "Why not, it's my house?" What was going on. "What's happening here?" "Just then another policeman came out of the house. "Mr. Holland?" "Yes, what's happened, why won't you tell me what's happened?" "I'm Detective Sergeant Peterson, would you come this way sir." He led me into our bedroom. Emily's naked body was stretched across the bed, I assumed that she was dead because no-one was making any attempt to revive her." "What happened here?" I was shocked at what I saw. "That's what we thought that you might be able to tell us." Alarm bells were clanging in my brain, surely they don't think that I had anything to do with this. "I'm afraid that I know nothing of this, she was fine when I left here about an hour ago." "Where have you been for the past hour?" "Well, you see the thing is, we were having an argument and I left her here while I went for a drive to let her calm down." I realised the moment I said it, that they would now elevate me to the top of the list of suspects, a long list of one. "How long ago did you leave" Peterson asked. "About an hour ago, give or take a few minutes, I didn't actually look at the time but I remembered that the news had just started on the car radio, so it must have been on the hour." "That would make it fifty-two minutes ago." He looked at his watch and wrote this in his little book. "Now this argument, what was that about?" "She accused me of having an affair with Paige, that's her sister." "And you of course denied this?" "Of course." "Were you having an affair with this Paige woman?" "No!" "Of course you wouldn't admit it even if you were, would you?" He asked. Well he asked me, but I got the impression that it was a statement to himself. "Tell me sir, who packed the dishwasher and set it going?" "I did, why?" "Very convenient." "What has this got to do with Emily's death, come to that, how did she die?" "We believe that she was poisoned, and by putting the dishes into the dishwasher, any chance we might have of finding traces of the poison, or fingerprints have been effectively erased. "I think Mr. Holland, that you should accompany us to the station. I am arresting you on suspicion of murdering your wife Emily Holland, anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence against you," "Yeah, I know, I can contact my lawyer and all that." "I'm sorry sir, but I have to tell you your rights in full." "Get on with it then." He did, and then he put handcuffs on me and led me to a waiting police car. To the neighbours and onlookers, I was guilty, it's hard to look innocent when you're being led off in cuffs. I was formally charged and I was allowed to call my lawyer who came as soon as he could. George McTiernan and I sat in an interview room. "First things first, did you do it?" "No." "Right, now that's out of the way, let's get down to the nitty-gritty. What evidence do they have for reaching the conclusion that you're guilty?" "Emily and I had one of our regular arguments this morning, and I went for a drive to calm down and give her a chance to calm down. When I got back she was dead and the police were there. Before I left I had stacked the dishwasher and turned it on, they say it was to erase any evidence." "When did you do that, was it before or after the argument?" "Before, why?" "How long does it take to complete the full cycle?" "About an hour and a half." "Was it running when you got home?" "No, but I don't know when it would have finished. Is this important?" "It could be very important. Do you feel up to being grilled by the police?" "Let's get it over with." He pushed a button on the desk and a couple of minutes later Detective Sergeant Peterson and Constable Stevens arrived and sat opposite us. "Mr Holland, when we spoke to you earlier, you mentioned that you had been having an argument with your wife, is this correct?" "Yes." "And this was because she had accused you of having an affair with your wife's sister Paige, is that correct?" "Yes." "Were you having an affair with her?" "No, I've already told you that." "Would it interest you to know that we have spoken to Paige Middleton, and she has told us that you were in fact having an affair." "We weren't." "What possible reason would she have of saying that you were?" "I don't know, I get on well with her but the very thought of having an affair with her has never entered my head." "So you say. Tell me, why did you turn on the dishwasher?" "Because it was full." "While you were on your drive, did anyone see you?" "Hundreds of people would have seen me but I don't expect that any of them would remember me." "I thought that you might have stopped for fuel somewhere." "No, I had plenty of fuel and didn't need to stop." He asked several more rather innocuous questions before telling me that I would be remanded in custody until a court hearing in the morning and that he would be opposing bail. "I'll see you in the morning." George said as he stood up. "I'll do a little fishing and see what I can come up with." "Thanks George." "Come with me sir." Sergeant Peterson said as he led me to the front desk where the rest of the formalities took place. Prison cells are not designed to raise the spirits of the prisoner. I lay on the bunk and tried to think what had happened and who could have killed Emily. No inspiration came. Some time later the flap in the door clanged open and a tray was slid in, on it was my cordon bleu evening meal. It remained on the tray untouched. I had no appetite for the muck that was on the tray. The committal hearing was brief, the police presented their case, accusing me of killing my wife, when asked, I pleaded 'Not guilty' and I was committed. The police asked that I be held in custody, George opposed this and applied for bail, the police objected to this application, the Magistrate set bail at fifty thousand dollars, George agreed to this, the police were unhappy, a trial date was set in three weeks and the matter was adjourned. "What are you going to do?" George asked as we left the courthouse through the milling crowd of media each trying to get me to answer their inane question. "Did you murder your wife?" Some clown asked. Do they think that I'm totally stupid enough to admit it even if I had? "No comment." George stepped in. "My client is innocent of this charge and we will prove his innocent if this ever gets to trial, which I very much doubt, because what little evidence the police have will not hold up in court." He drove me home to my now empty house. I set about tidying up the mess left by the police, the finger print powder was almost impossible to get off without using harsh cleaners. They'd emptied the dishwasher but left everything lying around, which was probably just as well because I had to wash them again. I had just emerged from the shower when the front door bell rang. It was Paige. "Hi Matt, I hope that I'm not bothering you, can I come in?" "Sure." I stood back and let her in. "I just dropped by to see how you were holding up." "Tell me one thing, did you tell the police that we were having an affair?" "No, I haven't spoken to the police. Why, did they tell you that I had?" "Yes, they told me that they'd spoken to you, and you told them that we were having an affair." "I can't for the life of me understand why they would do that?" "Did you tell Emily that we were having an affair?" "No, I told her that I'd met someone but wouldn't tell her who it was, she must have assumed that it was you." "Can I get you something, a cup of coffee?" "Sure, let me help you." She filled the kettle and pushed the go button while I got a couple of cups from the cupboard and the coffee from the pantry. We sat and sipped, both of us for a moment lost in our thoughts, me reliving the sight of Emily's lifeless body stretched across the bed, she probably having thoughts of the sister so callously taken from us. "I'm going to miss her, she wasn't the easiest sister to live with, but I don't know whether I can live without her." "What do you mean when you say that she wasn't the easiest sister to live with?" "Well, she had this jealous streak, even with me, she was jealous of my achievements, she was jealous of the men I dated, she was even jealous of my freedom, I think in a way that was why she got so angry with you, she wanted her freedom and thought that if she made life difficult for you that you'd leave her. She couldn't face the stigma attached to her leaving you." "Do you think that she may have been seeing someone?" "Why would you ask that?" "It's just that I can't think of any reason why she would want to break up our marriage, I can't see her as wanting to live on her own, she wasn't the type to do that, she would have prepared for the future, and that could mean her backup plan of another man lined up already." "No, I can't see her doing that." "Why not?" "She doesn't have the guts to go behind your back with another man." "I'm not sure about that, she's been a little pre-occupied lately, as if something was bothering her." "So you think it was something other than your supposed affair with me?" "Yes, I wasn't aware that she was thinking about me having an affair with you, but I think it was something else." "She never said anything to me, and I think that she'd tell me if she was seeing someone." "I don't know, I don't know what to think, and now I have the police who are convinced of my guilt." "If you feel the need to talk to someone, just give me a call, okay?" "Oh, sure, thanks Paige, you've been a great help already." "That's what sisters are for." She stood up and bent over to kiss me. "I'll let myself out." And she was gone. I sat and thought about how I could clear my name and then it hit me, my Sat Nav. I rang George and asked him to come over. "What is it?" "Come with me." I led him outside to where my car had sat since I got home. I opened the door (I hadn't locked it and it was still there, amazing.) I turned the ignition on and waited for the Sat Nav to boot up. "What are you doing?" "You'll see." The screen burst into life and went through the usual routine of loading the maps until the main menu opened. I pushed a button. "Look," I said, pointing to the screen, "that's the trip log with details of my drive yesterday, it gives not only the number of Kilometres down to two decimal places, but the running average and overall average speed as well as the highest speed that I drove at. You will notice that the running average and overall average are very close, this means that I stopped only for traffic lights and turns, no major stops. From this information we can get a pretty good estimation of how long I was driving." "How do we convince them that this is actual evidence?" "It sets a time line, and helps me account for my movements from the time I left the house to the time I returned." "We need to preserve this, how do we do that?" "By taking a photo of the screen using a camera with the time and date stamp, and I just so happen to have one of those. I have the feeling that if I give the police access to this evidence they might just accidentally erase the information." "Do it, and then we contact the good Sergeant and let him impound the car." While I took the necessary photographs George contacted the Police Station. "Sergeant Peterson, it's George McTiernan, Matthew Holland's lawyer, my client has remembered that his car is fitted with a Sat Nav that records trip data, and we intend to use that to prove that he was away from his home for forty-nine minutes, this establishes an alibi for the time that Emily was killed." "We will need to impound the vehicle so that we can verify that information. I will send a police tow truck to pick it up." The evidence lasted less than five minutes after the tilt tow truck arrived. We expected that the car would be winched onto the flat-bed, instead the tow truck driver drove it onto the truck, effectively wiping the last trip data from the Sat Nav. "I hope that Detective Inspector Peterson didn't tell him to drive it onto the truck." I said as the driver began to place the shackles onto the car. George walked over to him a spoke to him for a minute before the driver drove away. "He was not told to winch it on so he decided to drive it onto the tray." "This could prove interesting, apart from wanting me to be guilty, I wonder if there could be any other reason for Peterson's actions." "I'm going to have fun finding out in a couple of days when we get to court." "How did she die, do we know that?" "It was poisoning, it was something very potent administered orally, this is why they're convinced of your guilt, you turned the dishwasher on destroying any evidence. But it now appears that you haven't." "But how can we establish the time line?" "Apparently they received a call from a neighbour reporting a disturbance, this call would have been logged so we'll know roughly when the argument started and when it finished. We know that the dishwasher was finished its cycle when you arrived home. Now the poison that they say was used is very quick acting, it takes less than a minute to cause a death that appears to all intents and purposes to be a heart attack. If you started the dishwasher before the argument began you could not have destroyed the evidence after she ingested it because you weren't there when she died." "Who could have done this? And what was the motive?" "I don't know, but what you have to worry about is proving your innocence and to do that we have to cast serious doubts over any evidence that they put forward to show that you had the key elements, motive, opportunity and method. The opportunity we have covered, as for motive, I think we're pretty safe unless they come up with something like the phony admission by Paige, if she says you were having an affair with her we could be in strife. As for method, unless you have access to this poison that I don't know about they'll have their work cut out. Our best bet is to convince the Magistrate that you have neither of those elements and ask that it be thrown out of court." Who could have done this and why? My mind drifted back to when I first met Emily. It was seven years ago. . . . * "Hi." She had just sat next to me on the QANTAS jumbo at Heathrow. She was much better than the usual passenger that I was forced by circumstances I neither understood, nor had any control over, on these long-haul flights from London to Sydney via Hong Kong. "Hi, are you going all the way or just to Hong Kong?" "All the way." She smiled at me to reassure me that she would be the perfect passenger. "Good, I'm Matthew by the way, Matthew Holland." "Emily, Emily Middleton. Is this a business trip or pleasure for you?" "A bit of both, I had business in London and took the opportunity to do something that I had promised myself when I was a kid. I went on a tour of the Morgan car factory." "Oh." She said it like she couldn't understand why anyone would want to waste time doing that. "I enjoyed it, it was interesting to see where my car was built, to see those tradesmen forming the body panels by hand, it's a lost art. How about you, was your trip business or pleasure?" "Business, I'm afraid." "Who do you work for, if you don't mind me asking?" "I work for the Government." She caught the puzzled look on my face. "I was lucky to get upgraded to First Class, the thought of spending all that time crammed in cattle class was just too horrible to contemplate." We talked for a while and after an hour she nodded off and her head dropped onto my shoulder. I tapped her shoulder. "Would you like to lay the seat back to get more comfortable?" "No, I'm quite comfortable enough, thank you." She closed her eyes and left me to dream about this beautiful young woman who was comfortable with her head on my shoulder. This was so much better that the usual overweight business man snoring his head off into the night. I eventually went to sleep myself. "Matthew, wake up." I opened my eyes to see her face looking at me. One of the cabin crew stood behind the dinner cart. "What would you like?" "What do you have?" I asked the stewardess. She rattled of the list of exciting menu selections. "I'll have the chicken thank you and a white wine." The dinner tray was handed over along with one of those ridiculous little bottles of wine and a plastic wine 'glass'. Oh well, haute cuisine it wasn't, but it was better than nothing. Emily selected the same and we munched our way through the meal in silence. After the remnants were collected Emily turned to me. "Don't take this as an insult, but do you mind if I check to see if there's a decent in-flight movie on?" Presumed Guilty "No, go ahead, I'll probably just listen to some music." I took the earphones out of their plastic bag and plugged them into the jack on my armrest. Soon my ears were being soothed by some classical piece. "What are you listening to?" Emily asked. "There's nothing on that I want to watch and you look so relaxed there that I thought that I'd listen to what it is that you're listening to." "It's on channel sixteen, it's classical, if you like that sort of thing." "Like it, I love it. I just didn't take you for the classical music type." "Would I be this calm and relaxed if I was listening to rap music?" "No, I guess you wouldn't." We sat with our eyes closed listening to the soothing music. I felt her hand on my arm and opened my eyes. "I really love this piece, it's not as good as sitting in some hall listening to a Symphony Orchestra playing, but it's good enough to enjoy." I smiled at her and she smiled back. The stop-over in Hong Kong wasn't long enough but we had a good time together doing touristy things and just generally enjoying ourselves. By the time we had reached Sydney she had agreed to have dinner with me the following evening. I couldn't believe my luck, I had met a beautiful woman who was actually going to dinner with me. I would have to choose carefully, do I go completely upmarket and stretch my budget to impress her, or settle for a less pretentious venue that was still a good restaurant. I chose the latter. "This is nice." Emily said as we finished our meal with coffee. "I was pleased that you didn't choose something really expensive just to impress me, believe me I wouldn't have been." "I gave it a little thought before I decided on this place, like you said it's nice, and my favourite restaurant." "I suppose you bring all the young ladies that you're out to impress here." "Was I that obvious?" "Yes." She laughed. "But I don't mind as long as there are no more." What was this? Was she coming on to me? "Take me home." "Certainly." I called for the bill and we left. We walked to where I'd parked my car. I opened the door for her. "Now I'm disappointed, where's the Morgan?" "At home, safely tucked away in my garage. You didn't really expect me to bring it out on a rainy night, did you?" "I suppose not, this is nice too." "Now, where do you live?" She gave me her address and I headed for it. Her apartment was not overly large, it had a reasonably large lounge/dining room with a kitchen behind a breakfast bar, off the living room was a passage leading to the main bedroom and a small second bedroom and a bathroom. The furnishings were functional rather than fashionable, there was a sofa and two matching lounge chairs and against the wall was an entertainment unit with TV and sound system on a cupboard that probably contained her supply of DVD's and CD's. "Take a seat and I'll find us something to drink. She went into the kitchen to emerge with a bottle of wine and two glasses. "You're in no hurry to go home are you?" "No, I have the weekend to recover." "Oh, you think you're going to need it do you?" "A man can dream, can't he?" "So can a girl." She sat next to me and handed me the bottle, "You pour." She held the two glasses and I poured. I put the bottle on the floor out of danger's way at the end of the sofa. We sipped, she looked at me, and I looked at her, our eyes met, our lips met and it was on for young and old. For a girl who had looked and acted so reserved on the plane and at the restaurant, she surprised me with the enthusiastic way that she approached her love making. While she allowed me to lead the way showed an eagerness to actively participate in my efforts. My lips had not left hers for several minutes and my hand, the one that wasn't holding her face to mine was exploring her breasts, at first through the material of her blouse and bra and then without the hindrance of either garment. I felt her hand slide my zipper down and slip under the waist band of my jocks. She didn't have to look far to find him, he was moving up to meet her. "I think that we should move to somewhere more comfortable, don't you?" "I totally agree with you." We stood and she led me to her bedroom, dispensing with the rest of her clothes on the way. My clothes joined them in untidy piles on the floor, I hoped that they behaved themselves. We dispensed with preliminaries and got straight into it, within thirty seconds she had guided my cock into 'prepared beforehand' pussy. I have to admit that making love to Emily was a wonderful experience and, even if it went no further than tonight, it would become a one night stand to remember for the rest of my life. The one night stand became a two night stand and we became an item. Six months later I asked Emily to marry me and she accepted, and I was introduced to her family, her mother Brenda and sister Paige. Her father had apparently left her mother some twenty years earlier and the divorce settlement allowed her mother to live comfortably enough with her hurt. The wedding was a small personal affair with only the close family present. The wedding night was as good if not better than our first night together and things were really happy between us for the first six months until I got a phone call from Brenda. "What do you mean by having an affair." "What are you talking about? I'm not having an affair, I love Emily and will do nothing to hurt her. I have no need to look outside our marriage." "That's what you tell me, but she's heard from someone that you were seen with another woman." "That person is lying to her, I have not been with another woman, I don't want to be with another woman, ever." When Emily came home from work she said little. "What's wrong, what's going on? I had a phone call from your mother accusing me of having an affair. If she hadn't sounded so angry I would have laughed at her, I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my entire life." "But I was told. . ." "Whoever told you that was lying to you." I took her in my arms and kissed her. At first she resisted but eventually she relaxed and returned my kiss. After several minutes of passionate kissing my cock was hard and pressed against her, she grabbed him and began to caress him through the material of my pants. Minutes later my pants dropped to the floor, closely followed by my jocks. She didn't even bother to take off her panties, she pulled them to one side and straddled him, feeding him into her pussy. Somewhere during this I had her pushed against the wall with her legs around me. This was the first time that I'd ever made love standing up, and when we finished she stuffed her dress between her legs and grabbed my hand, pulling me to our bed. Dinner was late. That was the first of a steady stream of accusations of infidelity that I have had to endure, the time between them decreased as the vehemence of each outburst increased, until the outburst of her last accusation before she died. I walked into the kitchen and went to a cupboard to get a glass so that I could have something stronger than coffee to drink. That was when I noticed the thin film on one of the glasses. My thoughts immediately went to whether this could be evidence or not. I took no chances, I rang George. "George, I think that I might have found something interesting, can you come over?" "I'll be there as soon as I can." He hung up. Several minutes later he arrived, and I led him to the kitchen and pointed out the glass to him. "That's interesting, I think that we should have that residue analysed, don't you?" I took a pair of rubber tipped kitchen tongs from the drawer and picked it up, I then placed it into a zip-lock bag and sealed it. I placed a strip of paper tape, the kind that athletes use to strap joints, not that I'm anything of an athlete, along the zip slide, and George and I both signed the tape. "With a bit of luck there might be some fingerprints on it, given that it wasn't thoroughly washed." "I'll take it to a forensics laboratory that I use from time to time and get them to run tests on the sediment and see if they can lift any prints off it. The lab is certified so there can be no challenge as to the authenticity of the results." "Great, I hope that we can get answers that will strengthen my case." An hour after he left the phone rang. "Hi, this is Matt." "Hi Matt, Paige, I'm just ringing to see how you're getting on, How are things going?" "You know how it is, a lot of waiting and not much else, it's driving me up the wall." "Would you like me to come over and keep you company for a while, or maybe let you take me to dinner?" "Attractive as both of those options sound, I don't think that it'd be a good idea, you never know if the good Detective Sergeant has someone watching me." "I suppose you're right, it's just that I feel that I could be doing more to help you. In a way I'm sorry that we weren't having an affair, I really like you, and didn't like the way Emily treated you." "What do you mean, the jealous rages?" "No, that was only part of it." "What do you mean? You're not trying to tell me that she was seeing someone behind my back?" "I have no proof of anything, it's just that something was going on and she wouldn't tell me what it was." "Now you've got me intrigued, and you can't just come out and make a statement like that and just leave it." "I'll see if Mum knows anything, they were as thick as thieves lately." "Do that and let me know what you find out." "I'll do that. You know you married the wrong sister, don't you?" "Don't go there, please." "I'm not going to give up on you, you know that don't you?" "I'm not listening to any more of this, good-bye." I hung up on her. The thought hit me, maybe she was right, I should have married her instead of Emily. I dismissed the thought immediately and set about doing nothing. Going back over my life with Emily I realised how little I knew about her work. Whenever I asked her about her job and how things were going at work, she gave me an intentionally vague answer, and if I tried to find out more she just told me that she couldn't talk about it, even to me. I knew that she worked for the Government but I didn't know which section, I can't remember if she told me, or hinted, that it was DeFAT. (Foreign Affairs and Trade.) When we first met we both travelled overseas a lot, but her trips began to get fewer and fewer. She told me that her role in the department had changed and that someone else was doing all the travelling now. This didn't bother me all that much because we weren't able to co-ordinate our travel plans very successfully and spent more time apart than we did together up until now. The one real benefit of her job was that she could arrange my travel plans much more efficiently than I could, so that role fell to her each time I had to travel. She would arrange flights and transfers along with hotel bookings, restaurant bookings for me and clients for which I was eternally grateful, she knew all the good places. I had the feeling that she might have been having problems at work and contacted the Department. They had no record of Emily Holland working for them. "Could you try Emily Middleton, she might not have changed her name when we got married." That didn't work either. There was something decidedly odd about this. My next thought was that I could not recall ever having met any of her work colleagues, of never having been invited to any work functions, it would seem that, as far as her work went, I didn't exist. She went to any of my work shows, and even at these she was vague about her work. What was the big secret? Could this secret have any implications in her death? I rang Paige. "Hi, it's Matt, a quick question, do you know anything about Emily's job, who she worked for, what she did?" "Not really, she said that she worked for the Government but would not give me a work number, if I needed to speak with her I had to ring her mobile." "It was the same with me. I've been trying to contact her through the department she told me she worked for, and they have no record of her working for them. I tried both her married and maiden names and I got nothing." "That's strange. As you know, I'm seeing Mum this afternoon about what was happening with her of late and I'll ask her about that as well. I'll get back to you if I find anything out. I'm not this complicated, you do realise this don't you?" "You keep going down this path and she's not even buried yet." "Speaking of which, when will you get the body? We have to make arrangements for her funeral soon. Mum's insisting that it should be just our family, she doesn't want you there." "That's a bit harsh, I didn't kill her despite what the police say, I have as much right to be there as she does, possibly more, and I will be there whether she likes it or not. I would also like to be involved in the arrangements, if you'd pass that on to her I'd appreciate it." "I'll see what I can do for you, 'bye lover." She hung up before I could tell her to stop this. My next call was to George. "George, it's Matt. I have a problem, I've tried to contact Emily's work to let them know that she's dead, but when I rang the department that she told me she worked at, they had no record, either under her married name or her maiden name. She was very tight-lipped about her work, only that she worked for the Government at DeFAT. I'm confused and beginning to think that I know nothing about the woman that I've been married to for five years." "Have you tried Births, Marriages and Deaths, they will have some information on her birth, they can work back from your marriage certificate. Failing that, you can go to the newspaper archives and see if there was a birth notice for her on and around her birthday." "Thanks Mate, that'll give me something to do, I'm sick of hanging around here like a bad smell." "In the mean time, I'll see if I can get a mate to check her tax records." It took a while for me to become totally confused. The NSW BMD office had our marriage record but no birth record for her. When we had applied for the marriage licence she had produced a copy of an Australian Birth Certificate. On the off chance I asked them if they had a record for Paige Middleton and they did. Interestingly, her mother was listed as 'Widow', not divorced as I'd been led to believe. I tried Brenda's Marriage Certificate, it didn't exist. I tried the BMD offices in all other states, with a similar lack of success. Was Emily adopted? A visit to the newspaper archive did little to ease my confusion, no birth notices for an Emily Middleton in the period of two weeks either side of her birth date. This was strange, she carried an Australian Passport, gave her birth country as Australia and yet there was no record of her having been born here. How had she managed to get a Passport when the requirements were so stringent, you couldn't just walk in off the streets and get one. And it got worse, George's mate at the Tax office could find no taxation records for her under either name, no Tax File number had been issued and, as far as the Tax Office was concerned, she did not exist. I had been married to someone who had no record of birth, yet she was able to get a Drivers Licence, presumably using the fake Birth Certificate. Who was she? Then a weird thought struck me, could I be charged for murdering someone who doesn't exist? But then she does exist, she used to be a living, breathing person who lived in the flesh but nowhere else. She was currently residing in the morgue being prodded and poked, sliced diced and dissected in the name of Forensic Pathology The news from Paige made me even more confused. "I spoke to Mum and she either wouldn't or couldn't tell me anything much. She did say that something was bothering Emily and that it wasn't another man. I pushed her a little and she said that she didn't know the details, but it was something to do with her work. This gave me the opportunity to ask her what she knew about Emily's work, and she could only tell me that she worked for the Government. When I told her that you had tried to contact her work colleagues to tell them of her death and they had no record of her working at that department, she just said that it was classified information and she could not say any more. I don't know what to think about this, you don't think that she could have been a 'Spook' do you?" "Emily never struck me as the right type to be one of those, Jane Bond she wasn't. She was an organiser, she used to arrange my overseas trips for me far better than a travel agent could have done." I had hit a brick wall, and while I didn't like to admit it, I could think of no way that I could get any more information. I just had to wait for the police to release her body so we could bury it and then prepare for my trial which was rapidly approaching. It was a quiet funeral, as with our wedding it was family only with the exception of Detective Sergeant Peterson, George, and a couple of people that I didn't recognise. After the cremation her ashes were scattered in Brenda's back yard. All traces of Emily Holland were expunged, she no longer existed except in the memories of her family, and the police. I sent 'Thank You' cards to the few people who had signed the register at the Funeral Home. Two of them came back marked 'not at this address'. "Your Honour, members of the Jury," Roger Albright, the Crown Prosecutor, stood and addressed the Judge and the Jury panel. "The Defendant, Matthew Holland, has been charged that on the 13th of February this year, he did wilfully murder his wife Emily Holland. He has pleaded 'not guilty' to this charge. The Prosecution will prove, beyond any shadow of doubt, that the Defendant did murder his wife. The overwhelming evidence that we will present to this court will leave no-one in any doubt as to the guilt of the Defendant. We will prove that he had the motive to kill her. We will prove that he had the means by which to kill her. And we will prove that he had the opportunity to kill her. These are the three most important elements in this trial, motive, means and opportunity. We will hear from a witness that he and his wife were involved in what could only be described as a 'blazing row' just moments before her death. We will also hear from this witness that the Defendant left the house soon after this argument and did not return until much later. We will hear from this witness that no-one else came near the house in the period between when this argument occurred and when the police found her dead body. No-one else came anywhere near the house. No-one else had the opportunity to kill her. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, when we have finished the Crown case, you will have no choice but to find the Defendant guilty of this crime. You will be left with no choice, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you." George rose and glanced briefly at the Prosecution table before turning his attention to the Judge and Jury. "Your Honour, ladies and gentlemen, the Prosecution claims that my Client, Matthew Holland, killed his wife Emily. It is a claim that lacks one of the fundamental principles of a successful prosecution case, credible evidence. There is not one shred of credible evidence to suggest that my client had either the motive, means or opportunity to commit this crime. They are relying entirely on a witness who told them what she thought she saw or didn't see. My client does not deny that he and his wife were having an argument before she died. This argument was no different from countless other arguments that had taken place during their marriage, but my client didn't kill her after these, he did what he normally did on the day that she died, he left her at home while he went for a drive to calm down and allow her to calm down, fully expecting her to greet him lovingly on his return. Normally, they would kiss and make up, they would kiss and make out. That is what normally happened on such occasions, and that's what my client expected to happen this time. He simply did not have the motive to kill his wife Emily." Presumed Guilty He looked at the jury, some were thinking that this wasn't the open and shut case that the Prosecution claimed that it would be, others would take some convincing. "As to the means, my client is not a member of any International Espionage force, nor is he a member of any radical International Terrorist group, nor does he have any other way of obtaining the chemical used to poison his wife Emily. He simply did not have the means to kill his wife Emily. The Prosecution will make much of the fact that my client set the dishwasher in motion before he left, and that this was in an effort to destroy evidence. We will prove that this simple action of starting the dishwasher will actually prove that my client could not have committed this crime. We, the defence, will prove that evidence that the Prosecution will introduce to establish the time line of events could not have happened that way. We have evidence to prove our version of events. He did not have the opportunity to kill his wife Emily." George looked once more at the jury, the signs were more encouraging. " When this trial is finished, when you withdraw to consider your verdict you will be in no doubt that my client is innocent of the charges brought against him. No doubt will exist that he did not kill his wife Emily. Thank you ladies and gentlemen." George sat down. "The seeds of doubt are sown, now all we have to do is to keep them watered." "Mr Albright, you may begin, call your first witness." "I call Detective Sergeant Peterson to the stand." Detective Sergeant Peterson took the stand and was sworn in. "Detective Sergeant, can you tell the court, in your own words, the events that transpired on the morning of the 13th of February?" "The police received a 'Triple 0' call saying that there was a heated domestic dispute going on next door and that the caller feared for the safety of the woman involved. A patrol was not far from the scene and was dispatched. On arrival the officers found the deceased lying on her bed. Their efforts to revive her were unsuccessful. Myself and Detective Constable Stevens arrived soon after the patrol and immediately called for the Medical Examiner to attend. Shortly thereafter the Defendant arrived back at the house. On questioning him he stated that he had been involved in a heated argument with his wife and had decided to go for a drive to, in his words, calm down. He could not account for how far he had driven or how long he had been away from the house. When I asked him who had started the dishwasher, he stated that he had. As the dishwasher would have destroyed any evidence I decided that the police had enough evidence to formally charge him with murdering his wife." "Did the Defendant offer any evidence to support his claim of having been away from his house for the entire time between the argument and his return?" "Yes, his lawyer called the next day and stated that the trip log in his Sat Nav supported his version of events and would prove his innocence. I sent a tow truck to retrieve the vehicle so that we could view the evidence. Unfortunately, on arrival at the police garage, no such evidence was found to exist." "Thank you Detective Sergeant." He turned to George, "Your witness" "Detective Sergeant, was the dishwasher operating at the time that you arrived or had it completed its cycle?" "It had stopped." "Did you test this machine to determine how long the wash cycle lasted?" "No." "Why not?" "I didn't think it relevant." "You didn't think it relevant? A major part of your case against my client hinges on this very fact, and yet you didn't consider it relevant. You accused the Defendant of attempting to destroy incriminating evidence, isn't that true Detective Sergeant?" "Yes." "Yet a simple examination of that dishwasher would have completely exonerated my client, yet you didn't consider such a simple examination relevant. Now moving to the Sat Nav evidence, when you dispatched the tow truck, did you instruct the driver to winch the vehicle onto the truck's tray?" "No." "Why not? Surely you would have known that driving it even that short distance onto the truck would have been enough to erase the existing trip data?" "I wasn't aware that the driver would not winch it onto his truck." "Getting to the witness, you stated in your opening address to this court that you had a witness who saw the Defendant leave the house and no-one else enter the house, presumably other than the police, until he returned some time later, is this correct?" "Yes." "I am going to pre-empt my questions of this witness, but first I want to examine your conduct of this investigation. This witness, was he or she watching the front of the house the whole of the intervening time?" "I don't know." "So, presumably someone could have gone in and out of that house during that time?" "It is possible." "And he or she wasn't watching the rear of the house the whole time either?" "I don't know." "So you have no way of knowing whether someone could have entered the house from the rear, do you?" "No." "The police conducted a thorough search of the house, is this correct?" "Yes." "Including emptying the dishwasher and searching for fingerprints on all of the dishes and glasses and cutlery that were in the machine?" "Yes." "Did you search the cupboards to see if there was anything in them that could have been used to administer the poison?" "We didn't think it necessary." "Why did you think it un-necessary? Was it because you had already decided that the Defendant was guilty of this crime?" "No!" "In our legal system we are supposed to work on a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, you were approaching this case on a presumption of guilt and failed to consider any evidence that did not support that presumption. Is this not correct, Sergeant Peterson?" "No!" "No further questions of this. . .witness" "Mr Albright, are you ready to call your next witness?" "Call Wendy Russell." The call echoed down the corridor but no-one answered. It was repeated three times with a similar lack of response. "Your Honour, I don't understand this, I was talking to the witness not thirty minutes ago." "Do you have another witness while you try to find this witness?" "Yes, your honour. Call Doctor James McPherson." This time there was a reply and a tall thin man in a crumpled grey suit took the stand, and was sworn in. "Doctor McPherson, you are the Chief Medical Examiner for the police are you not?" "Yes I am." "Did you carry out a forensic examination on the body of the deceased, one Emily Holland?" "Yes I did." "Did you establish a cause of death and what was that cause?" "She died from an ingested poison." "What was that poison?" "It took some research to isolate the actual toxin, it was Sarin, and death would have been instantaneous." "Is this important?" "It is if you want to establish that the Defendant administered the poison." "I see, so the speed of the toxicity of this poison gave the Defendant the time to administer it before he left the house, knowing that she would be dead when he returned?" "Objection!" George was on his feet. "This question calls for an opinion not related to the facts of this case?" "Sustained. Mr Albright, would you like to rephrase the question?" "Doctor McPherson, could the defendant, having administered this poison, be sure that she would be dead when he returned to the house?" "Yes." "Can you give this court a time of death?" "Going on my initial examination of the body at the scene, she would have been dead no more than an hour." "Doctor McPherson, this poison, would traces of this withstand the wash cycles of a domestic dishwasher?" "No, given the amount needed to administer a lethal dose it would be impossible to find a trace of it in a receptacle that had been washed in a dishwasher." "Thank you." He turned to George with a smug look on his face. "Your witness." "Doctor McPherson, how much Sarin is a lethal dose?" "A drop from an eyedropper would be more than enough." "If a person was to place this drop in a glass of water, say, and that glass was rinsed out, would it leave a residue?" "The amount remaining would be that minute that it would be virtually impossible to detect." "So there would be no need to put it in a dishwasher?" "No." "A person experienced in the use of this poison would know that, would he?" "Yes." "How readily available is this poison?" "It is almost impossible for someone to walk in off the streets and buy some, that person would have to have contact with the International Espionage Industry." "So, what you are saying is that my client would not be able to buy some of this stuff?" "It is highly unlikely." "Thank you Doctor McPherson." George turned to Albright and smiled at him. "I Think that it is an appropriate time to adjourn for lunch, this court will re=convene at two o'clock." It was a short walk from the courthouse to George's office so we collected a couple of sandwiches and coffees on the way. Paige was waiting in his reception area. She stood as we entered. "Matthew, I just had to see you, I found out something of what Emily's job was." "You'd better come with us." George said. He led the way to his office. "Would you like half of my sandwich?" "No, I'm fine thanks." "Okay, what is it that you have to tell us?" There was a tap on the door and his receptionist poked her head in. "I'm sorry to bother you but. . . " Two men pushed past her and came into the office. "Who the hell are you and what do you want?" "Who we are is of no concern of yours, but what we want concerns you very much. You are to discontinue your International Espionage line of inquiry." "Just like that, we are to drop that line of inquiry?" "Yes, just like that. I'm afraid that we can't go into any detail at this time, but it's a matter of National Security that you don't take this any further than you have already. Is this understood?" "Yes, we weren't going to, because we have no need to explore this any further." "Very good, and you shouldn't concern yourself with the non-appearance of the Prosecutor's main witness, the house next to Mr. Holland's is on the market, if you get my drift." With that they left. "Shit, what are we involved in here?" George asked. "That's what I came to tell you about, Emily was a Spook, well not actually a Spook, she was a confidential courier." "What did that involve?" "Apparently our local spy agency needed to find a method of moving information around the world without the Americans knowledge. They have been able to monitor all electronic information transfers between Australia and other countries and this included certain information this country didn't want them to know about. The solution was simple. Emily travelled around the world visiting our Embassies for various reasons, but the main reason was that she was carrying information. You see, most business people carry a laptop computer with them, and airport checks consist of nothing more that the computer being fired up to show that it was working and presumably had no bombs in it. Where her computer differed from others was that it had a hidden file that contained the contents of a USB Flash drive. This she or one of the team she worked for, would have uploaded before she left and when she got to the other end the person who was to receive this information had the password to access this file and download it to his own Flash drive. It was un-necessary for her to know what was on the file and she could deny any knowledge of it." "How does this fit into her death?" "Two years ago she had the feeling that someone was taking more than a casual interest in her many overseas trips, so another courier had to be found." Paige looked at me. "You were the chosen one Matt. She planned all of your trips, booked your hotels, made restaurant bookings for you, it was perfect. She would input your itinerary into your computer for you while, at the same time, she would upload the contents of the Flash drive that she'd been given. While you were having dinner at the restaurant that she booked for you, someone from the Embassy or wherever would enter your room and download the file from your computer and upload a file, if one was going back. You knew nothing of the hidden folder on your computer and had no knowledge that you were being used like this." "So who killed Emily?" "You told me that you found a glass with some fingerprints on it. You will not find a match for those prints, the person whose prints they are is dead." "How do you know this?" "I went past you house this morning just as two men were carrying a large bundle out of the house next door and a third was erecting a real estate 'For Sale' sign out front. I guessed that the move was permanent." "Why were you driving past my place?" "I've been doing a lot of that lately, trying to get up the nerve to stop and tell you how I feel about you and not having the nerve because I knew that you'd tell me to not go there, as usual." "Thank you for that." I said. "For what, not stopping, or driving past this morning?" "The driving past, next time you can stop." George looked at us. "Back off a little here. I don't think that you two should get 'involved' at this point in the scenario. We have a case to win." "I think that we've already won, the police don't have a case left." "I'm going to ask for a conference with the judge when we get back. We are going to continue with this trial because to stop now would leave too many questions unanswered, and for you, and I include you in this Paige, to get any sort of closure, we need for the jury to return a 'not guilty' verdict, or the judge to dismiss the case for lack of credible evidence." George and the Judge disappeared to his chambers for several minutes after lunch. On his return the Judge announced that the trial would proceed. "Mister McTiernan, you may proceed." "I call Wayne Brown." A tall gangly man dressed in grease stained work clothes and sporting a promising crop of stubble on his chin, slouched to the witness stand. "Mister Brown, will you tell the court your occupation?" "I'm a tow truck driver." "And on the 14th of February last, you were asked by Detective Sergeant Peterson to collect a vehicle from in front of the Defendant's house, is this correct?" "Yes." "When he gave you your instructions, did he explain to you that he needed to preserve the Sat Nav trip log of that vehicle?" "No sir, he did not." "If he had, would you have driven the vehicle onto the tray of your truck?" "No sir, I would not." "And why would that have been?" "Because, as soon as the engine is started and the vehicle is moved, the Sat Nav loads up and wipes the previous trip log data from its memory." "Thank you Mr Brown." George sat down and the witness was about to leave. "Just a moment, Mister Albright, do you have any questions for this witness?" "No, Your Honour." "Very well." He addressed the witness. "You may be excused. Do you have any further witnesses Mister McTiernan?" "Yes, Your Honour, I would like to call Professor William Butler." This brought a puzzled look to Albright's face. "Professor Butler, would you tell the court the nature of your profession?" "I am a Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University." ""And you have how many years experience in your field?" "I have been working in Forensic Medicine for over twenty years, the last ten of them as a Professor at the University." "Professor, I am going to show you a glass that I would like entered as Defence Exhibit one. Before you examined this glass at my request, can you tell me the way that it was packaged?" "It was in a sealed zip lock bag and there was a tape over the zip lock that had been signed by yourself and the Defendant." "So there was no way that this glass could have been tampered with?" "No, none at all." "What can you tell me about your examination of this glass?" "Inside the glass there was a faint residue, analysis of this proved inconclusive," This brought a smile to Albright's face. "In that it was consistent with the glass having been rinsed out and not washed in any other way." "What else did you find on this glass?" "There were two sets of prints. The first was consistent with someone having taken this clean glass and placed it in the cupboard. The second set of prints was different, they were of someone who had held the glass as you would if you were drinking from it and then turning it so that it sat rim down in the cupboard." "The fingerprints, were they identified?" "The first set belonged to the deceased, the second we have not succeeded in finding a match and the police were unable to find a match either." "You asked the police to see if they could match those prints for you?" "Yes, they were unable to find a match on their database." "And they will not unless. . . " "Unless what Mister McTiernan?" "Unless they conduct a thorough Forensic examination of the next door neighbour's property. There they will find a match, but not the neighbour whose prints they are." A buzz went through the courtroom, Albright was in deep conversation with Peterson who was shaking his head. "Order!" The courtroom gradually quietened down. "Mister Albright, Mister McTiernan, in my chambers now." The three of them left the courtroom. "Right, this is what's about to happen, Mister Albright, you are going to announce that in the light of this new evidence you will withdraw all charges against the Defendant. I will dismiss the Jury and we can all go home. Mister McTiernan, you are aware that if I allow this trial to continue that you will be entering very dangerous territory, I also understand that you and the Defendant have already been made cognisant of the consequences of any further excursions into this dangerous territory. You probably already know too much for your own good, so you are well advised to keep your mouth shut, and that goes for your client as well. The situation as I have put it to you is not open to negotiation. This matter is now final, do both of you understand that?" "Yes, Your Honour." They both said. George and I sat in his office hardly daring to talk about what had happened. We had a glass of his best Scotch in hand. "I don't want to go through anything like this again. I want you to promise me that you'll be a little more careful about the woman you fall in love with in future." I was just about to comment when Paige and Brenda were ushered into the office. "We have come to explain to you what this was all about." Brenda said. "Are you sure that we want to hear this?" George asked. "I have to tell, what you do with it is entirely up to you, all I know is that I'm getting the hell right out of here, and disappearing forever. I thought Darwin would be as good a place as any, a lot of people go there to disappear." "Okay, tell us all." George said. "It all began just before Paige was born, I already had Emily, although she wasn't Emily then. My husband was involved in some bad stuff back in the US and, in return for his evidence against his bosses, we were placed on the Witness Relocation Program. Unfortunately, before he could testify they got to him. I demanded that Giovanna, as she was then, and I be relocated outside the country, I chose Australia, and here we were. We were given Australian identifications, including Birth Certificates that unfortunately were not registered, as you have already found out. When Emily left University she was approached by some men representing the US Government. In return for her co-operation they would find her a position in an Australian government agency. It appeared that the Australians were transferring information that the US could not access, and this bothered them. Emily was to find out how it was done and become a part of the operation, she was then to allow them access to the information that she carried. This worked well and when you came into her life she included you into the operation, although you weren't aware that she was using you like that. But then she began to have second thoughts, and told them that she wanted out. She was threatened, and she lived in fear for the past two years." Presumed Guilty "Yes that fits in, that's when she really began to have these jealous outbursts." "She did that to save you." "How was that supposed to save me?" "She figured that you would leave her, and no longer unwittingly carry the information, then they would lose interest in you. But she under-estimated your staying power, you refused to leave her. But they were getting more insistent, and threatening. When that woman moved into the house next door, she realised that something had to be done and soon." "Why didn't she just tell me, I'd have understood?" "She thought that if you didn't know what was going on you'd be safe, and that if she told you, you might do something silly." "You're probably right there." "You're a good man Matthew, I would have hated you to leave her, but I knew that you must. I had to try to distance myself from you to further put some distance between you and them. But then something else happened, I didn't count on Paige falling in love with you. She told me that she's been in love with you for a long time." I looked at Paige. "Try three years, I didn't understand until now why Emily was putting you through all of that pain, but you refused to leave her, and I didn't understand that, the men I'd known would have left at the first sign of what you were going through. I decided that you were the strong man that I wanted, and it sort of grew from there, and yes, I'm going down that path but I won't stop until I reach the end." She reached over and held my hand. "Give me a chance, at least give me a chance." "All right, you'll have your chance, but I'm not going to rush into this, but I will concede that I like you, like you a lot." "That's a starting point I guess, but what would you call a reasonable time to wait?" "I can't answer that, I think that we should take it slow for now and see how it progresses, if you love me like you say that you do, you'll wait for as long as it takes." "Oh well, I've waited two years already, another two won't kill me." The look she gave me told me that if I managed to hold out for two years it would be a miracle. I was almost looking forward to this.