Page 132 of One of Us Is Guilty

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ I said, as Harry reached into his pocket for his handkerchief.

Vanessa brushed the water off her shirt, jacket, but mostly her white pants which were now dark with cold water.

‘Yes,’ said Carey, smiling at my incompetence. ‘That’s an almost exact match for her clothing. Apart from the sta—’

She stopped herself. Shut her mouth tight.

The other shoe had dropped.

‘Go on, Detective. Finish your answer.’

‘I’ve finished,’ she said.

‘I think you were going to say it’s a match apart from that staining that’s on her clothes now. Correct?’

She didn’t answer.

Didn’t have to.

‘This is one of the photographs taken by your forensic photographer of Molly Green’s apartment.’

Harry brought up an image on screen. A picture of a large wet bloodstain on the carpet.

‘That’s a thick pool of blood, correct?’

‘Yes,’ said Carey as she uncrossed her legs and put both feet firmly on the floor. She wasn’t so relaxed now.

‘So it’s your case that the defendant entered the victim’s building, crushed her skull with a jewelry box, leaving traces of the victim’s blood on the box, used some kind of tool, which you have never recovered, to then saw off the victim’s head, and then take it with her in that bag when she left. Is that right?’

She swallowed, then said, ‘Correct.’

‘And she did this without getting one single drop of blood on her clothes?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Carey.

‘You do know. You testified that this is a high-resolution pictureof the defendant leaving that apartment, and because of what she’s wearing we would be able to see any bloodstaining very clearly, wouldn’t we?’

I turned to Vanessa. She hadn’t known what I was going to do, but she followed along and at least had the good sense to remain standing.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Carey.

‘Just a simple water stain is clear enough now. Blood would stand out even more, wouldn’t it?’

‘I suppose it would,’ said Carey.

‘There’s another entrance to this building. Isn’t that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘The front entrance, otherwise called the main entrance.’

‘Yes.’

‘And there’s no security camera covering that entrance?’

‘No.’

‘So anybody could have come to that building after my client left and visited Molly Green’s apartment and you wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?’