I Know It Was You

Chapter 5

FIVE

Doherty stared malevolently at Grace and Terry as they entered the interview room.

‘About f*****g time,’ he snarled, ‘what’s this all about anyhow, I’ve been here hours?’ but he got no response from either detective.

‘This is a digitally recorded interview with Mr Eoin Doherty,’ Terry said calmly, switching on the recording device. ‘Present are DCI Grace Swan and DS Terence Horton.’ Terry checked with the clock on the wall. ‘The time is 5.25pm. Eoin Doherty, you have been arrested under suspicion of having murdered Mr Mohammed Khan. You are being interviewed in connection with this murder. Do you understand?’

Doherty, yawned, or pretended to and then nodded.

‘Please answer, a nod is not sufficient for the tape,’ said Terry.

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m being interviewed because some Paki got offed. But not by me.’

‘Do you want a solicitor present? You are entitled to a duty solicitor if you wish,’ asked Grace.

‘Nah, f**k it. If I ain’t done nowt, what do I need a brief for, eh? Doherty answered smugly, leaning back, trying to look cocky.

‘OK, it is duly recorded that Mr Doherty was offered the services of a duty solicitor but has declined’ said Grace and then nodded to Terry who opened up a laptop and began showing Doherty the dash cam and CCTV images, the images also shown on a large screen on the interview room wall.

‘Mr Doherty, I’m showing you some CCTV and dash-cam footage. Are these images of you? Is it you on this bicycle?’ Terry asked.

‘No f*****g way, man. Look at it? That dash-cam,’ he said pointing at the footage on the large screen, ‘it could be of anybody, how the f**k can you say it’s me, eh? Look at it! Whoever it is, he’s got his hoodie up, can’t tell who it is. Anyhow, what’s all the fuss about? It were only some f*****g Paki, good on whoever done it, I say.’

‘He was a married man with five children and his wife is pregnant. How do you think they feel about it?’ Terry, the father of two daughters, asked indignantly.

‘Don’t give a s**t what they think about it, do I? Five kids you say and another on the way, yeah, always breed like f*****g rabbits, don’t they? Least he’ll not be breeding any more Paki bastards. So for me, it’s one down and five to go. Seven if you include his missus and the brat inside her!’ Doherty said, smirking at his own perceived cleverness.

Grace and Terry looked at each other in disgust, more than ever determined to bring this nasty little racist killer to justice.

The interview was proving fruitless as Doherty continued to deny any involvement and so he was returned to his cell where he could be held for twenty-four hours before being charged. The first twenty-four hours in any murder investigation are crucial, the so called ‘golden hours’ although Grace could request an extension of Doherty’s detention if she needed more time to gather sufficient evidence to charge him. The dash-cam footage was simply not enough.

Although footage from the Skoda dash-cam did appear to indicate that the attacker was Eoin Doherty, well known to Fred Burbage and Garside police. the images were not sufficiently clear for positive 100% recognition. As the attacker had the hood of his sweatshirt up, a good defence lawyer would undoubtedly challenge the identification as unsound, particularly as facial recognition technology had proved inconclusive.

Even when several witnesses picked Doherty out from a stack of photographs, none were sufficiently positive to make the case secure. Comments such as ‘I think it’s him, but I can’t be certain,’ or ‘It looks like him, but I couldn’t swear to it in court,’ would be enough for a defence lawyer to cast doubt in a jury’s mind.

Grace needed more evidence.

She needed to find the knife and the bike he was riding at the time, neither of which were found at his house. Police searched road gullies and rubbish bins close to Doherty’s house, looking for the knife but without success.

Grace and Terry next studied a map of the town, tracing possible routes Doherty would have taken as he fled the murder scene on that bike. If it was not at his house, where had he dumped it? And where could he have disposed of the knife?

‘Mohammed was killed here,’ said Terry, pointing to the location marked with a red pin, ‘and Doherty lives on the Firth Hall estate, 87 Bentham Street, here.’ He traced his finger along three possible routes, all of which came within close proximity to the West Garside Canal, which led to the Victoria Docks in Sheffield. ‘That’s where he’s dumped them,’ Terry declared, ‘I’d bet my miserable pension on it.’

‘I’ll not take you up on that, Terry. You’re right. That’s where he will have tossed them.’

‘Just goes to show how stupid he must be, it’s obviously the first place we’re going to search’

Grace was already on her phone, requesting for police divers to search the canal. Once the diving team was in place, Grace and Terry drove to the canal to coordinate the search as floodlights were lowered into the waters.

It did not take long.

Within an hour, an Apollo Slant Mountain Bike was pulled out of the murky canal.

The bike had a security mark which had been fitted by the police at an advertised event held in the market square and a check of the records identified the bike as one which had been reported stolen from the garden of a house in Easedale two days ago, the morning of the murder.

‘Can’t believe it,’ Martin Hopkins, the aggrieved owner of the bike had said when he reported the theft, ‘Couldn’t have left it outside in the garden for no more than a minute or two. Just nipped back inside to get my helmet and gloves, come back and it’s gone. Gone. Nowhere in sight. Couldn’t believe it, thought I was going mad.’

However, Easedale is within easy walking distance of the Firth Hall estate where Doherty lived.

Although an attempt had been made to wipe off fingerprints, the print of a thumb and two fingers were found on the lower frame and identified as Eoin Doherty’s. Still not enough evidence to be conclusive.

Two hours later, despite the murkiness of the water, a kitchen knife with a 6” blade was recovered, meanwhile Doherty was detained overnight.

Early the following afternoon Grace received confirmation that Doherty’s prints were found on the handle of the knife, as were traces of Mohammed Khan’s blood.

Doherty was subsequently interviewed a second time.