Mistaken Identity 1/4

Disclaimer:- Don't own them just borrowing!

Episode:- None

Pairing:- Sandra/Gerry

Rating:- M

Achieve:- . /group/new_tricksff/

Summary:- A possible case of mistaken identity takes Sandra and Gerry on a road trip to the highlands.

Author's Note:- Seasonal word challenge with 1 chapter per season and different words for each chapter words for chapter 1 are – Spring, sofa, cinema room, Yellow, Dress, 22, Tapir, Mama Mia, Of mice and men, Phone, Pen, Hair Brush, Pancake, Deodorant, Pineapple. Thanks Bethy xxx

"Jesus we're in the wrong line of work we really are!" Gerry sighed looking around the room as Sandra glanced at the floor plan in her hand.

"Ok so according to the sister they had spent the evening in here watching rom coms, it was something they did once a month when the vic's husband went up north to check on their business interests up there." She began flicking through the file in her hand,

"What does the husband do again?" Brian asked flicking through the DVD's on the shelf beside the 60inch plasma screen in the plushly decorated cinema room that was just one of the excessively luxurious rooms in the central London three story Victorian house they were in.

"Oh you've heard of him." Jack replied contempt dripping from his words. "Pierce Mc Mathew the aerosol millionaire, killing the ozone layer for 50 years with hair sprays, deodorants, and spray cans in general. Now he's a patron of the arts apparently."

"Well with this sort of set up in your basement who wouldn't be a patron of the arts. With a screen that size I'd patronise the arts 24/7." Gerry agreed as Sandra rolled her eyes.

"Oh yeah I remember now!" Brian replied enthusiastically. "Didn't he pay for that "alternative" theatre group that put on Macbeth in the nude?"

"Yes he did." Sandra interrupted before the conversation could completely descend into a playground situation as it so often did when they got talking about things that had no relevance to the case they were working. "This time though he was sponsoring a fully clothes performance of "Of mice and men" with an all dwarf cast at the barbican in Manchester so he wasn't in London at the time of his wife's death and the sister left her after their movie night and went straight home. Her neighbour has confirmed that she saw her arrive home around midnight then she heard what sounded like a one sided argument like the sister as on the phone that went on for over an hour she complained that she was trying to get to sleep and all she could hear was muffled shouting through the wall. That puts the sister at home and the husband 200 miles away when she was killed."

"What movie did they watch?"

"What does that matter? Jesus Brian would it matter if they were watching Titanic or Bridget jones we can be pretty sure that neither Leonardo D'Caprio nor Colin Firth came out of the screen and killed Janet Mc Mathew." Sandra snapped shaking her head and about to continue when he interrupted her again.

"Of course it matters it's details Sandra the more details we have the better I'm trying to build a mental picture of that night to….."

"It was Mama Mia apparently now can you make your mental picture in silence so the rest of us can get one with some real work?"

"So the husband is away and he has an alibi, the sister is in the clear too and yet there's no sign of forced entry." Jack sighed as Gerry sat on one of the matching recliners in the corner of the room. "So she must have let her attacker in, she trusted them otherwise he'd never have got past the door at that time of night. Is there a chance there was a lover involved? Did the husband say if it was normal for them to receive visitors at that time of night?"

"No the affair line was discounted by all accounts and from every interview with friends, family even acquaintances that the original Di did they appeared to be loves young dream, sickeningly happy was used on more than one statement. As for late night visitors the husband says no the only way he can think of there being anyone she let in that night was if she called a friend to come stay with her apparently she didn't like being alone in the house at night when he was away." Sandra explained as Gerry took new photos of the area.

"Did she make any calls? I assume that was checked." He said putting the camera back in his pocket and staring at her waiting for an answer.

"No outgoing or incoming calls that evening on the land line. She had a mobile but the phone was never found."

"She had a mobile in '95? God I thought only city tossers and the uber rich had them back then." Jack replied shaking his head, everything about this case screamed that a family member did it, no defence marks on the victim, no forced entry, a house full of seriously high end goods none of which were taken and the fact she was stabbed 22 times and her face was caved in, serious overkill that implied the fury from the killer had to be personal.

"Yeah well they were uber rich he still is and the 2.5 million life insurance policy he got on top of the fact he was already loaded means that we're looking at serious politics with this one so we need to tread carefully or Strickland will be all over us about pissing off the higher ups." Sandra replied as they all agreed the room had nothing more to tell them and walked through the lavish house and back out on to the street, She was sure there was a family element to this but unlike what she knew the guys were thinking she believed they hadn't yet found the connection behind it. All three of them had fought against going over this case it had been lying in the middle of the moth ball pile for years and since nothing new had come in she'd decided it was time to blow the dust off it and some of the others and do a little spring cleaning. Strickland was constantly on her case about how nothing ever seemed to move from that pile now next time he asked she could say they'd started on it and that should keep him quiet for a week or two.

"What I don't get is why it took three days before anyone noticed she'd dropped off the radar and someone went looking for her." Brian commented standing in front of the incident board staring at the photos and information he'd put up there as he chewed the end of the black whiteboard marker pen "I mean we know Mc Mathew wasn't due home till the day after she was found but what happened to the sister. She claims they were really close more like best friends than siblings. Well I know what Esther and her sister are like they talk to each other at least once a day every day. I wonder what the hell they find to talk about but my point is if Esther was calling Ruth and it had been more than a day with her not answering or returning her calls she'd be worried. If it got to two days with nothing she'd be round there like a shot so what happened here?"

"That's what I've been wondering too." Jack agreed as Sandra sank into the corner of the sofa her fingers gently brushing Gerry's as he smiled. "Not only that but why wasn't Mc Mathew concerned? I know he wasn't due home until the day after she was discovered but why wasn't he trying to contact her? There wasn't a single message from him on the home answer phone and although the mobile was never recovered he admitted to the main enquiry that he hadn't tried to contact her. According to his witness statement he hadn't tried to check on her at all which strikes me as odd if they were so in love and as happy as everyone claims."

"I can't imagine being away for that long and not calling home regularly." Gerry agreed "Unless you knew there was no point I mean unless you knew no one as going to answer anyway."

"Something' not right here, I'm looking back over the family background and there's something that just doesn't gel. The sisters are close, they look so alike they could be wins there's only a year between them, they have no other family their parent are dead and there are no other siblings and no extended family to speak of." Sandra interrupted scanning the file in her hand again a fact that seemed to be so obvious jumping out at her for the first time.

"What are you thinking guvnor?" Brian asked as they all gave her their full attention.

"Well when we were doing the board you initially got the pictures of the sisters the wrong way round Brian what if we're looking at this the wrong way round and the original team were too? What if Janet Mc Mathew is alive and kicking and it was actually Jessica who was murdered?"

"But she was identified using DNA Sandra and Mc Mathew insisted on seeing her body in spite of the state it was in he identified the gold tapir pendent that he said he bought her when they were on honeymoon. You remember in the witness statement he said she loved the tapirs she'd seen on their trip to Brooklyn Zoo and he'd had the necklace made." Gerry replied shaking his head, it was an interesting theory but he couldn't see how it could be true.

"Wait Sandra might have a point." Jack interrupted staring at the board for a second before continuing. "The two sisters are alone and something happens that causes Janet to lose it with Jessica. A fight breaks out and Janet stabs Jessica maybe they weren't as close as we've been lead to believe or maybe something happened that caused her to snap."

"So she's stabbed her sister, it was pretty frenzied so it'll have been done in the heat of the moment." Brian picked up "She panics, maybe calls Mc Mathew and they decide maybe they can get away with it if we believe it's Janet now lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the floor. We know that while she was bleeding out the attacker rearranged her face with the heavy pineapple shaped ice bucket from the bar in the room. So now they have an unrecognisable female body."

"Yeah but the DNA came back as Janet Mc Mathew, it's not like the original team just took the husband's word for it that it was her they did a DNA test." Gerry replied still now ready to get on board with the idea that they could simply swap identities.

"The DNA was verified using a hairbrush and toothbrush." Sandra replied "Her DNA wasn't on file so when the body was discovered the housekeeper gave them the victim's tooth brush and hair brush from the bathroom but…."

"But what if in the meantime Janet had swapped the brushes belonging to Jessica for hers and hey presto the sisters identities are swapped." Gerry sighed finally seeing what they were seeing. "And since the murder Mc Mathew and "Jessica" have been living in the highlands supposedly separately but who's to know and by removing themselves from anywhere that might mean they bump into anyone who might ask awkward questions they cement the deception."

"Exactly!" Sandra smiled triumphantly "But that still doesn't tell us why Jessica or Janet or whoever was murdered and we have no way of proving any of this. Even if we could exhume the woman which we can't because she was cremated, the only DNA on file is from the sources supplied when she died which proves nothing."

"We need to get them in and talk to them." Jack agreed staring at Sandra as she laughed picking up a yellow highlighter from the desk before running it over two numbers on the sheet of paper before handing it to Jack.

"That's Ms Mathews home and mobile numbers why didn't you give him a call and suggest he pops in, let's see how far you get." She sighed going into her own office and picking up the phone on her desk as Jack did what she asked.

"Mr Mc Mathew will be unable to jump on his private jet and join us to help with enquiries because he and his sister-in-law are hosting a charity pancake ball on Tuesday evening in aid of the Scottish Cancer Trust since it's shrove Tuesday." He told her when she emerged again ten minutes later.

"Imagine my surprise, it's just as well I've just persuaded Strickland to sign off on a trip to the highlands. Gerry you're with me so get online and see if you can get us a couple of tickets to this charity ball we'll leave on Monday morning first thing. While we're gone Jack, Brian I want you to go back over all the witness statements, speak to the neighbour, and the Mc Mathew's house keeper basically anyone the original team spoke to and go back to that house and go through it for anything that might give us another DNA sample. In the meantime I'm going to take my party dress to the cleaners before they close for the weekend."