by Val McDermid
George tried not to think about the possibility of them rejecting the case he had worked so hard with the lawyers to construct, but he couldn’t help the niggle of fear that squirmed inside him in the night when he tried for sleep that miserably eluded him too often. He sighed and flicked the butt into the street below. He wondered where Tommy Clough was. They’d been supposed to meet at the police station at eight, but when George had arrived. Bob Lucas had told him Clough had left a message that he’d see him at court. ‘Probably chasing some skirt down Derby way,’ Lucas had said with a wink. ‘Trying to take his mind off the trial.’
George lit another cigarette and leaned on the windowsill. Now the clerk of the assize would be calling all those who had business before his Lady the Queen’s Justices of Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol Delivery for the Jurisdiction of the High Court to draw near and give their attention.
God save the Queen. He remembered looking up these strangely grandiose terms in his early days of infatuation with the law. The Commission of Oyer and Terminer literally meant to hear and determine; it was originally the royal writ that empowered the King’s Judges and Serjeants to sit in judgement on treason and felonies. By 1964, it had become an archaic phrase to cover the commission granted to circuit judges, giving them authority to hold courts for trial. Under General Gaol Delivery, the custodial authorities were obliged to hand over to the judge all the persons awaiting trial and whose names were listed in the court calendar.
In practice, today that would only apply to Philip Hawkin. The sole scheduled murder trial of the assizes, his case would be heard first.
Two days previously, George had had one last try at persuading Hawkin to confess. He’d visited him behind the grim high walls of the prison, where they’d come face to face in a tiny interview room that was no more appetizing than the cells themselves. Hawkin had lost weight, George was pleased to see. The principle that a man was regarded as innocent until proven guilty never held fast inside a jail; George knew that Hawkin had already been given a taste of his own medicine behind bars. Prison officers were never quick to intervene when a rapist was on the receiving end of an assault. And they always made sure the other prisoners knew exactly who the child molesters were.
While the civilized part of him objected, the prospective father in George was in total sympathy.
They had eyed each other across a narrow table. ‘Did you bring some cigarettes?’ Hawkin demanded.
Silently, George placed an open packet of Gold Leaf between them. Hawkin snatched one greedily and George lit it for him. Hawkin drew in the smoke and his whole body relaxed. He ran a hand over his hair and said, ‘I’ll be out of here in a few days. You know that, don’t you? My brief is going to tell the world just how bent you bastards are. You know I never killed Alison, and I’m going to make you eat your words, one by one.’
George shook his head, almost admiring the man’s defiance. ‘You’re whistling in the dark, Hawkin,’ he said, deliberately condescending.
‘However hard you try to make the world believe otherwise, I’m an honest copper. You know and I know that nobody’s fitted you up. Nobody had to, because you killed Alison and we caught you.’’I never killed her,’ he said, his voice intense as his eyes. ‘You’ve got me locked up in here, and whoever took Alison is walking around laughing at you.’
George shook his head. ‘It’s not going to work, Hawkin. It’s a good act, but all the evidence stacks up against you.’ He took a cigarette from the pack and lit it nonchalantly. ‘Mind you,’ he continued, ‘you still have a choice.’
Hawkin said nothing, but cocked his head to one side, his lips a thin, unsmiling line.
‘You can choose whether you do life, with a chance of seeing the outside world again in twenty years or so. Or whether you hang. It’s up to you. It’s not too late to change your plea. You go guilty and you live. You make us work for it, and you hang. By the neck. Till you are well and truly dead.’
Hawkin sneered. ‘They’re not going to hang me. Even if they find me guilty, there’s not a judge in the land would have the nerve to send me to the gallows. Not on evidence like you’ve got.’ George leaned back in his seat, his eyebrows raised. ‘You think not? If it’s good enough for a jury to convict you, it’s good enough for a judge to hang you. Especially a hard nut like Fletcher Sampson.
He’s not scared of the bleeding heart liberals.’ He suddenly jerked forward, forearms on the table, gaze locked on Hawkin’s. ‘Look, do yourself a favour. Tell us where to find her. Put her mother’s mind at rest. It’ll go down well with the judge. You get a good mitigation from your barrister and you could be out in ten years.’
Hawkin shook his head in frustration. ‘You’re not hearing properly, George,’ he said, turning the name into an insult. ‘I don’t know where she is.’
George got to his feet, sweeping his packet of cigarettes into his pocket. ‘Please yourself, Hawkin.
No skin off my nose. I’ll get the promotion whether you cough or not. Because we are going to win out there.’ Now, as he watched the people in the street below about their business, oblivious to the drama unfolding inside the courtroom, he wished he felt as confident as he hoped he had sounded.
He turned away from the window and slumped into a chair. By now, the charges would have been read and Hawkin would no doubt have answered, ‘Not guilty,’ twice. Stanley would wait until the jury were settled, then make the opening statement for the prosecution. It was, George thought, the most crucial moment of any trial. He believed people were most impressed by what they heard at the start of a trial, when they were fresh and their minds most open to persuasion. If the prosecuting barrister delivered an opening address full of conviction and stated what he intended to prove as if it were already demonstrably incontrovertible fact, it left the defence with a steep mountain to climb. George had every confidence that Stanley could do just that. George didn’t expect to give his own evidence until the second day of the trial, but he couldn’t stay away.
He just wished Clough would turn up. Then at least he’d have someone to share his restlessness with.
Desmond Stanley rose. ‘Your Lordship, I appear for the Director of Public Prosecutions in this matter. Philip Hawkin is accused of the rape of Alison Carter, aged thirteen. He is further accused that on a separate occasion, on or about the eleventh of December, nineteen sixty-three, he did murder the said Alison Carter.’
He paused to let the gravity of the charges sink in. The courtroom was silent; it was as if everyone had stopped breathing the better to hear Stanley’s sonorous voice.
‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Philip Hawkin moved to Scardale in the summer of nineteen sixty-two, following the death of his uncle. He inherited a substantial estate—the entire dale, consisting of fertile farmland, extensive stock in the shape of sheep and cattle, Scardale Manor itself and eight cottages comprising the hamlet of Scardale. Everyone who lives and works in Scardale does so solely with his blessing, which you should bear in mind when you listen to the evidence of those who are his tenants. It shows commendable courage and lack of self-interest that those people are prepared to appear as witnesses for the prosecution.
‘Not long after he arrived in Scardale, Philip Hawkin began to take an interest in one of the women in the village, Ruth Carter. Mrs Carter had been widowed six years previously and had a daughter, Alison, from that marriage. Alison was then twelve years old. You must consider, as our evidence unfolds, whether Hawkin’s primary interest was in the mother or the daughter. It may have been that he sought to divert suspicion from his perverted interest in Alison by marrying her mother. If Alison had accused her tormentor, who would have believed such a tale from the daughter of his new bride? Doubtless she would have been accused of acting out of dislike of her stepfather, or jealousy of the attention he had won from her mother. Whatever his motive, the accused pursued Mrs Carter ruthlessly until eventually she agreed to marry him. ‘It is our contention that at some point after the marriage took
place, Hawkin began to molest sexually his stepdaughter. You will see photographic evidence of a particularly loathsome kind that demonstrates not only the debauch of his stepdaughter but also proves beyond a scintilla of doubt that Philip Hawkin is guilty of the rape of Alison Carter in the most calculated and disgusting manner.
‘The Crown intends to show that Alison was further victimized by a man who owed her the duty of care of a father. We may never know the reason why Philip Hawkin decided to silence her for ever.
She may have threatened to reveal his bestial practices to her mother or to someone in authority; she may have refused to cooperate further with his vile demands; he may simply have ceased to find her attractive and wished to dispose of her to leave him free to debauch another child. As I said, we may never know. But what we do intend to prove is that, whichever was his motive, Philip Hawkin abducted Alison Carter at gunpoint, abused her sexually for one last time and then murdered her. ‘On the afternoon of the eleventh of December last year, Alison Carter left the family home to take a walk after school with her dog, Shep. It is our contention that Philip Hawkin followed her into a nearby wood, where he forced her to accompany him. Her dog was later found there tied to a tree, its muzzle taped shut with elastoplast identical to that purchased by Hawkin the previous week in a local shop.
‘He then took her to a secluded spot, a cave in some disused mine workings whose very existence was unknown to all the other inhabitants of the dale save one. On the way, while passing through another piece of woodland, Alison somehow managed to break free and a struggle took place. She struck her head against a tree in the course of this struggle and Hawkin was then able to transport her to the cave. We will present forensic evidence to support this.
‘Once her stepfather had managed to bring her to this isolated spot, safe from prying eyes and ears, he brutally raped her yet again. Then he killed her. Afterwards, he moved the body to another site.
Although it has not been found, that is not entirely surprising, for the limestone around Scardale is riddled with underground cave systems and potholes. But he had no time to return to clear away the rest of the evidence, for by the time he returned home in time for tea, the hunt was already afoot for his stepdaughter.
‘We know for a fact that shots were fired in that cave by a gun that was later found on Philip Hawkin’s property, in a locked outhouse which he used as a photographic darkroom. We know that a shirt belonging to Philip Hawkin was heavily stained with blood which is not his. There is no forensic evidence to contradict the convincing conclusion that Hawkin murdered Alison Carter.
‘There is an overwhelming burden of evidence to support the case for the prosecution, which we intend to demonstrate in this courtroom. With Your Lordship’s permission, I should like to call my first witness?’ Sampson nodded. ‘Please proceed, Mr Stanley.’
‘Thank you. I call Mrs Ruth Carter.’ Now the silence in the body of the court was disturbed by a ripple of muttered comments. The only island of silence was the stolid-faced contingent of Scardale villagers. Every adult who was not required as a witness was there, dressed uncomfortably in Sunday best, determined to see the justice they wanted done for their Alison. Ruth Carter walked through the courtroom with her eyes fixed firmly ahead of her. Not once did she succumb to the temptation to look at her husband in the dock. She wore a simple black two-piece suit, the collar of her white blouse the only relief from its bleakness. She carried a small black handbag, clutched tightly between her gloved fingers. Once she reached the witness box, she carefully positioned herself so she could not accidentally catch a glimpse of Hawkin. She took the oath without a stumble, her voice low and clear. Stanley mopped his eyes and looked gravely at her. He took her through the formal questions of identity and relationship, then moved straight into the meat of his interrogation. ‘Do you remember the afternoon of Wednesday, the eleventh of December last year?’
‘I’ll never forget it,’ she said simply.
‘Can you tell the magistrates what happened that day?’
‘My daughter Alison came home from school and came into the kitchen where I was getting the tea ready. She went straight out again to take the dog for a walk. She usually did that unless the weather was too bad. She liked to get out into the open after a day in the classroom. The last words she said to me were, ‘See you in a bit, Mam.’ I haven’t seen her from that day to this. She never came back.’ Ruth looked up at the bench of magistrates. ‘I’ve lived in hell ever since.’
Gently, Stanley led Ruth through the events of that evening; her desperate door-to-door search of the village, her emotional call to the police and their arrival at the manor house. ‘What was your husband’s attitude to Alison’s absence?’
Her mouth tightened. ‘He took it all very lightly. He kept saying she was doing it on purpose to frighten us so that when she came home, we’d be so glad to see her we’d let her get her own way.’
‘Did he agree you should call the police?’
‘No, he was very opposed to that. He said there was no need. He said nothing could happen to harm her in Scardale, where she knew every inch of the land and everybody on it.’ Her voice shook and she took a small white handkerchief from the black handbag. Stanley waited while she dabbed her eyes and blew her nose.
‘Did your husband resent your devotion to your daughter?’ Stanley asked. ‘I mean in a general way.’
‘I never thought so. I thought he spoiled her. He was always buying 234 her things. He bought her an expensive record player, and every week he’d go into Buxton and buy her records. He spent a fortune on doing out her bedroom—more than he ever spent on our room. He always said he was trying to make up for what she’d missed out on, and I was daft enough to believe him.’
Stanley let her words sink in. ‘What do you think now?’ he asked. ‘I think he was buying her silence. I should have taken more notice of how she was with him.’
‘And how was that?’
Ruth sighed and looked down at her feet. ‘She never liked him. She wouldn’t be in the same room alone with him, now I think about it. She was moody in the house, which she’d never been before, though everybody said she was just the same as always when she was away from me and him. At the time, I put it down to her thinking nobody could replace her dad. But I was just kidding myself.’
She lifted her eyes and fixed the judge with a pleading gaze. ‘I thought I was doing what was best for her as well as me when I married him. I thought she’d come round in time.’
‘Did you know your husband took photographs of Alison?’
‘Oh aye,’ she said bitterly. ‘He was always getting her to pose for him. He’s a clever beggar, though. Nine times out of ten, it would all be innocent and above board and out there in public. Alison posing with the calves, Alison by the river. So I never questioned the other times when he took her off to one of the barns, or when he’d say he was going to have a session with her when I was out shopping.’ She put a hand to her cheek, as if appalled by what she was saying. ‘She tried to tell me what was happening, but all I heard was the words, not what was under them. A few times, she said she hated the photography sessions. She didn’t like posing for him. But I told her not to be daft, that it was his hobby and it was something they could do together.’
Her words fell like stones in the courtroom. Throughout her testimony, Hawkin sat shaking his head, as if in puzzled wonderment that she could be saying such things about him.
‘Moving on, Mrs Carter. Has your husband ever owned a gun?’ She nodded. ‘Oh yes. He showed it to me after we were married. He said it was a wartime souvenir of his father’s, but it wasn’t licensed so I shouldn’t tell anybody about it.’
‘Did you notice anything distinctive about it?’
‘The handle grip was all criss-crossed. But there was a chip out of the bottom corner on one side.’
Stanley made a note, then continued. ‘Where did he keep the gun?’
‘It was in his study, in a locked metal box
.’
‘Have you seen that box recently?’
‘The police found it when they searched his study the day they arrested him. But it was empty.’
‘Can Mrs Carter be shown exhibit…’ Stanley shuffled his papers.
‘Exhibit fourteen.’
The court clerk handed Ruth the Webley, tagged and labelled. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘The handle’s chipped there, on the bottom, like I said.’ Hawkin frowned, casting a glance across at his barrister, Rupert Highsmith, who shook his head almost imperceptibly. Stanley moved on to the discovery of the shirt and gun in Hawkin’s darkroom, taking Ruth through the painful evidence with courtesy and patience. At last, he seemed to have reached the end of his questions. But halfway to his seat, he stopped, as if suddenly struck by something. ‘One more thing, Mrs Carter. Have you ever asked your husband to buy elastoplast for you?’
Ruth looked at him as if he’d lost his senses. ‘Elastoplast? When we need elastoplast, I buy it off the van.’
‘The van?’
‘The mobile shop that comes once a week. I never asked him to buy elastoplast.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Carter. I have no further questions, but you must wait to see if my learned friend wants to ask you anything.’ He sat down. By then, the town hall clock had long since struck noon.
Sampson leaned back in his seat and said, ‘We’ll adjourn now. We shall resume at two o’clock.’
Before the door had closed behind the judge, Hawkin was already being hustled from the court. He threw a look over his shoulder towards his wife and his mask of imperturbability finally slipped to reveal the bitter hatred behind it. Highsmith registered the look and sighed. He wished there was another way for him to exercise his skills to the full, but unfortunately, there was nothing more exacting or enthralling than defending someone he knew in his bones to be guilty. He was often asked how it felt to know he’d helped murderers escape punishment. He would smile and say it was a mistake to confuse the law with morality. It was, after all, the prosecution’s job to prove their case, not the defence barrister’s.
