The next day Miss Ava Yock confessed to the fatal stabbing of Benn. It was an unambiguous testimony. She’d stolen the cleaver from a chef she knew – hid it in her handbag. Benn answered his front door, the knife was out, the blood began spurting. The backstory was left out for now, but once known, a long queue of criminal barristers would line up to defend Ava, making a case for voluntary manslaughter rather than murder. Sant reckoned the young Romanian would be charged with the lesser offence and receive a ten-year sentence, out in five.
Maria Balgin admitted to deceiving Sant when pretending not to recognise the photo of PC Benn he had shown her. Her reason for denying knowledge was that she wanted to talk to Ava first, tell her what she’d found out from Sant, and let her friend decide
