Page 64 of The Cut
‘Before the Patel trial. He switched the sample.’
‘What?’ She retracted, folding her arms and tightening herself into a ball.
‘She was my girlfriend; my DNA would have been everywhere. I was panicking and Chris had access to the forensic team at the police station, or at least his dad did. He helped me. I didn’t know what else to do.’ Ben was white, his hands were shaking.
Dani stared at him. ‘But he went to prison, Ben.’
‘Because he was guilty.’ Ben was calm. ‘Yes … and the sentence for that crime has been served.’ The pain in his chest had lifted and his hands were still.
‘What are you trying to tell me?’ Dani stood up calmly, but her knees were trembling.
‘I’m telling you that Karine is investigating the case, and if she finds that detail out from somewhere, I’m in serious trouble. She’ll burn us to the ground.’
Dani felt light-headed. There was an awful silence.
‘I loved her. We were teenagers.’ Ben’s voice was distant and broken.
‘Ben, I think you need some time to yourself.’ Dani turned, her eyes searching for her car keys on the kitchen counter. She had to get out of this house. ‘I don’t know what’s happening here, but I’m … I’m going to go to my sister’s for the night. Lily is having a sleepover at Gaynor’s and Nate is upstairs talking to God knows who on the internet.’
She leant in for a kiss and pecked him on the cheek. Her hand touched his face and then she backed away and left the room.245
Ben stood at the front door and listened to Dani’s car engine disappearing down the street. He turned to the door of the basement, flicked the light switch on and descended the stairs.
The service cupboard door was open and a bundle of heavy-gauge cables trailed along the floor. Ben followed them with his eyes, past the shelving covered with junk, and his wine collection, to the door at the end. The entrance to the garage was cracked open so the cables could pass through.
He opened the door and moved into the empty concrete bunker that was supposed to have been home to a collection of classic cars. The cables trailed across the pristine floor towards the up-and-over double door. Set up in a square, like a hide, were a number of heavy metal trunks, stacked high. Trolleys with piles of cabling and electronics, and two LED large-screen monitors. Ben sat in the fold-up camping chair that was set in front of them and pressed the switch on the side of the monitor.
A flicker of electronic activity burst into life as the monitor turned white, then a time code and date flashed in the corner of the screen. He leant forward to the small electronic box below that looked like a hard drive. He pressed play and it whirred into action. On the screen, various thumbnails appeared with dates and times. Shots of his children, frozen in small postage-stamp-sized icons, and other faces and names he recognised.
Ben sat with his head in his hands for a moment, then moved the cursor to ‘Davis’.
‘CouldhavebeenanotherRipperifmydadhadn’tfinallygota conviction. Weallknewwhoitwasanyway.’
Ben stopped the tape. The floor felt soft under his feet and the sensation of sinking into the concrete overwhelmed him. He clicked on the next one: ‘Patel’.246
‘Theyotheredhim, soheburiedhimselfinseparatepursuits,solitaryinterests…Pitytheydidn’tfindallthetapes.’
‘You think there were more?’
‘Well,let’sjustsaysomehouseswereneversearched…notlikeours.LikeIsaid…shouldn’thaveletthemin.’
Ben’s heart thumped inside his ribcage and his palms began to sweat as he frantically moved the cursor to fast-forward to the next thumbnail: ‘Lynette’.
‘Stringing them all along she was. She weren’t a virgin neither. She were on the pill. Din’t tell her parents.’
He stopped the tape and pressed his fists into his temples, then smashed his knuckles hard against his skull, over and over. Like a frenzied madman. He tore at his hair and sank to his knees, pushing his face into the rough concrete floor. But he couldn’t cry, for help or for sorrow. Nothing came out; he had no tears. He wanted the flesh to burn off his body right there, but he felt nothing except an excruciating pain in his chest. His head lifted to the monitor.
Ben sat in stunned silence, with his head in his hands. John Maddock had been right. This film wasn’t fiction, it was an investigation.
A steely coldness started from the crown of Ben’s head and descended through his body. His heart slowed. He looked up from his hands and into the monitor.
He knew what he had to do. He needed to put a stop to this, whatever it took.
He began to erase the hard drive.
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