The Coincidence (The Trial Trilogy)

by David B Lyons

  ‘Well… Bunny is a unique dog, he’s retired now actually.’

  ‘Oh, I’m well aware of his retirement, Mr Grimshaw, and we’ll get to that in just a second. But let me ask you this question first… Who trained Bunny to become a dog who could sense the presence of decomposing bodies?’

  Grimshaw’s fair eyebrows drop.

  ‘Well… I did. I train all my dogs.’

  ‘And who trained you, Sir?’

  ‘Who trained me?’

  ‘Yes. Who trained you to train dogs?’

  ‘I, eh… well, I did a course back in Leeds where I’m from in the late-eighties and eh…’

  ‘Yes, Sir. I am aware of the course you took. A dog handling course. From all accounts, the training you completed didn’t exactly teach you how to train dogs to sniff out decomposing bodies, now did it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In fact, it taught you how to train your dog to sit, and roll over, and fetch a stick, isn’t that correct?’

  ‘Objection, Your Honour, leading the witness,’ Jonathan Ryan calls out.

  ‘You may answer the question,’ Judge Delia says, nodding her head at Grimshaw.

  ‘It was a lot more than just asking a dog to roll over and sit,’ he says.

  ‘But for the record, you never learned or received any qualification in training dogs how to sniff out decomposing bodies, right?’

  ‘I taught myself all of that. I started to help police with some enquiries back in the early nineties and I liked doing that work… so I branched out, started to teach my dogs new tricks.’

  Bracken takes two steps backwards, shuffles some paperwork at his desk, then interlinks his fingers around his navel before taking two steps forward again, leading him back to where he began.

  ‘Right, so what we’ve established is, not only does the dog, Bunny in this case, not have official training in the sensing of decomposing bodies, but his trainer or handler doesn’t either, would that be fair to say, Mr Grimshaw?’

  ‘I know for a fact that Bunny can sense decomposing bodies. Bunny has helped out with major investigations over the years—’

  ‘He has, yes. Nine murder investigations; seven in England, one in Scotland and one here in Ireland. It’s just that four years ago Bunny’s evidence in one trial was questioned, as were your credentials on dog training, and the evidence you brought to that trial was thrown out, wasn’t it? And that is the reason we are here at this retrial today, isn’t it? Because that evidence was thrown out and it now calls into question all of the trials Bunny has provided evidence for, including the trial of Joy Stapleton. Bunny has been retired since he was dismissed from that trial in London four years ago, hasn’t he, Mr Grimshaw?’

  ‘Yes. I have said that already. He’s retired.’

  ‘Because his apparent skills have been called into question.’

  ‘I know he is a dog who can—’

  ‘Sir, I am not interested in your opinion. I am interested in the facts. Bunny was dismissed from a high-profile case in London because his skillsets cannot be determined… correct?’

  Grimshaw sighs, then sheepishly glances up to Judge Delia before turning back to Bracken.

  ‘Yes, I guess that’s what the court said.’

  ‘Okay, well, let me repeat that for the ears of our court again, shall I? Bunny the dog’s particular skillsets cannot be determined. We have no way of knowing for certain if Bunny can or cannot sense the presence of decomposing bodies.’

  ‘Nobody knows Bunny better than I—’

  ‘Ah-ah,’ Bracken says holding a finger up. ‘I didn’t ask you a question that time, Mr Grimshaw.’ Bracken takes a step towards the witness box and eyeballs the witness. ‘Bunny felt he had sensed a decomposing body in a forest near Kent in England in 2016 and you testified on the stand that Bunny had done so. It was, in that same trial, confirmed two weeks later, that Bunny couldn’t have sensed these bodies, because these bodies were never in that forest in the first place.’

  ‘Yes but—’

  ‘Ah-ah, still didn’t ask a question.’

  ‘Well you better soon get to asking one, Mr Bracken,’ Judge Delia says.

  Bracken stares at her momentarily, then pivots his face back to Grimshaw.

  ‘Yes or no, Mr Grimshaw – has Bunny been forcibly retired from this line of work because his findings are not scientifically conclusive?’

  Grimshaw stares around himself, then relents.

  ‘Officially, yes.’

  ‘And is it true that Bunny provided evidence in the missing persons case of Reese and Oscar Stapleton?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That is all, Your Honour,’ Bracken says before he spins on his heels and walks back to his desk.

  ‘Mr Ryan,’ Judge Delia calls out as she scribbles some notes onto her paperwork. ‘Have you questions for this witness?’

  Ryan rises from his chair.

  ‘You are an upstanding member of society, Mr Grimshaw, correct? You’ve never been in trouble with police? Never even had a misdemeanour? Never been accused of being anything other than just a bit of a loner because you prefer to spend time with dogs rather than humans, right?’

  Grimshaw chuckles.

  ‘I guess you could say that, yes.’

  ‘You’ve never married so therefore have never been unfaithful. But it is true you have the same two best friends that you’ve had your whole life?’

  ‘Yeah, we met at primary school and have been buddies ever since.’

  ‘So, you are an upstanding member of society who has been faithful and who has never been in trouble for breaking the law. All accurate statements, right?’

  Grimshaw nods.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have never, nor never will intend to deceive anybody. All of the work you have done for the police force in the UK and once here in Ireland, it was all done in good faith, yes?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’ve never tried to deceive anybody in my life.’

  ‘That’s all, Your Honour.’

  Judge Delia looks over her glasses at Bracken who stands without hesitation.

  ‘Mr Grimshaw. Deception does not always have to be conscious, would you agree with me?’

  Grimshaw’s eyebrows dip again.

  ‘Sorry… I…’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Mr Grimshaw. You don’t need to answer that question. Thank you.’

  Bracken sits again and as he does Judge Delia dismisses Grimshaw from the stand with a nod of her head followed by a subtle waving of her hand. Then she rifles through her paperwork in the resulting silence, taking note of Bracken’s tactic of disguising a statement wrapped up in a question. She knew he didn’t want to ask Grimshaw if he did or didn’t think deception was always a conscious act, he just wanted to make a statement to the court that deception doesn’t always have to be conscious. She doesn’t want to let Bracken get away with snidey mis-steps, but he covers them so well that she really can’t condone him for asking an actual question… even if he didn’t bother to get an answer for it. There isn’t a more experienced defence lawyer in the country than Gerd Bracken. Although Delia knows she would detest the man if she ever had to spend any time with him outside of a courtroom, she has had to admit in the past that she sure is impressed by his skills when inside that courtroom.

  ‘Recess until after lunch-time, perhaps, Your Honour?’ Bracken calls out. Delia squints at him. ‘Sorry. Our next witness has had trouble with transportation this morning.’

  Delia rolls back the sleeve of her robe and takes note of the time on her wrist.

  ‘It’s not even midday yet. Seems awfully early for lunch but ehm… yes, court dismissed for two hours. We will all return at one forty-five p.m. sharp.’

  Delia wiggles her mouse as soon as she’s back at her office desk, and in the time the screen blinks back to life, she has completed her routine of staring at things she is barely noticing; taking in her cupfuls of pens and the framed photograph of her family – smiling at her husband as he smiles
back at her. One of the last smiles he ever smiled. Then, as soon as her hands hover over her keyboard, she hears footsteps outside, followed, annoyingly, by the rap of one knuckle against her door two times.

  ‘Come in, Callum,’ she says.

  He grins the same grin his father would grin at her when he used to poke his head around her office door.

  ‘So, the dog was dodgy all along?’ Callum says. They both offer the same puffed-through-the-nostrils laugh in sync – a habit they have picked up from way too many years of living with each other. ‘Doesn’t mean anything though does it?’

  Delia shakes her head.

  ‘Don’t mind that… how was your date last night?’

  ‘Good, actually. He was… what would I say? Genuine. Honest. Didn’t seem as if he was full of shit or anything, you know… Nice looking. Nice eyes. Though he needs a beard. His face is a little pasty.’ Delia laughs. ‘We swapped numbers.’

  ‘What does he do for a living?’

  ‘Listen,’ Callum says, smirking. ‘You’re at the start of the biggest retrial in the history of this country and you wanna talk to me about a guy whose second name I can’t even remember.’ He cocks his head. ‘Go on… tell me. Did the dog testimony have any impact on you?’

  Delia removes her glasses, then unclips her pearl earrings and places them carefully to the side of her photo frame.

  ‘It’s made an impact. But not a huge one,’ she says. ‘There were no revelations, were there? Not much we didn’t know before today. The dog that sniffed a decomposed body in the Stapleton bedroom all those years ago turns out to be a bit of a fraud. That was pretty apparent in the original trial… to me anyway.’

  ‘Grimshaw was always just a forensic witness fitting the needs of the officers, right?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But you still think she did it, right?’

  ‘Callum!’ Delia barks. ‘I am looking at this trial with totally fresh eyes.’

  ‘Course you are, Mum,’ he says.

  ‘Y’know, you’re not the first one who’s dropped by to ask what I’m thinking.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Eddie Taunton… he popped by yesterday. Sounded most suspicious. As if he was leading me towards a guilty verdict.’

  ‘Well, he would want a guilty verdict, wouldn’t he? He can’t have his whole system come crashing down by admitting we got the Joy Stapleton trial all wrong in the first place. Heads would roll… Lots of them. His would probably be the first to go.’

  ‘Can you imagine the pay-out Joy would get if she was found not guilty after all these years?’

  ‘Tens of millions, right?’ Delia turns out her bottom lip and slowly nods her head. ‘Taunton couldn’t have been leaning on you though, right, Mum? I mean I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, but he’s not that dodgy, is he? He wouldn’t put pressure on you to deliver a specific verdict, right?’

  Delia creases up her nose.

  ‘It was just kind of odd how he spoke to me. He brought up the fact that he asked me about the Stapleton case in an interview years ago. He remembered I was insistent the judge and jury got it right in the original trial; that Joy is guilty of killing her sons. I think that’s why I landed this case. He fought for no jury, and one judge. Then he picked me as that one judge, knowing I had once given him a detailed analysis of why the first trial got it right.’

  ‘Jesus. You seriously think he picked you to ensure a guilty verdict?’ Callum’s eyes narrow, and he sits back in his chair, blowing through his lips. ‘He’s right in one way though, is Eddie. You’re certain she’s guilty, aren’t you?’

  ‘Callum…’

  ‘Yes! I know… You’re looking at this case from fresh eyes. I get it. Of course.’ Callum grins. ‘So, who’s up next after the dog handler?’

  ‘Ehm…’ Delia picks up her paperwork and begins to file through it.

  ‘Geez, Mom. How can you be somebody with brains to burn, but no idea how to ever get your paperwork in order?’

  ‘Ah, here, I got it,’ she says, removing a sheet from the pile and bringing it to the top. ‘Bracken is going to call an ex-detective who was involved in the original case. A Mrs Sandra Gleeson.’

  Sandra Gleeson

  I’m not nervous. The opposite in fact. I’m bullish. Determined.

  I actually wasn’t invited to give evidence at this trial, I offered to do so. As soon as I heard there was going to be a retrial – and that Gerd Bracken would be defending Joy Stapleton – I immediately picked up the phone.

  I sheepishly take a peek at Joy as I sit. She hasn’t changed. Well, not really. You’d still know it was her. Big bushy curls smothering her tiny features. Though I can tell from here that her skin looks drier, as if she’s been parched of fluids for the entire eight years she’s been inside. She has one deep lined wrinkle that runs vertical between her eyebrows that wasn’t there before. And some of the tips of her curls have faded to grey. Though she’s still tiny. Still rake thin. And still unmistakably Joy Stapleton.

  ‘Thank you for being here, Mrs Gleeson,’ Bracken says.

  ‘Oh, Sandra, please,’ I reply, batting my hand at him.

  ‘Okay… Sandra it is then. The court appreciates and thanks you for your time. Can you state your occupation – and if you don’t mind, former occupation – for the record of the court, please?’

  ‘Sure,’ I say, repositioning my seating position. ‘I work for Integration.’

  ‘Well, you don’t just work for Integration, do you?’

  ‘No,’ I say, laughing, until I realise this is really not the place, nor the time for my snorty chuckle to be heard. ‘I am the founding member of Integration. We are a non-profit organisation whose goals are to ensure immigrants and refugees transition into our societies as seamlessly as possible.’

  ‘Very noble,’ Bracken says, nodding. ‘And before that?’

  ‘Well before that I was a member of An Garda Siochana. For eight years. I was a uniformed Garda for four years, then an inspector for two years and a detective for the last two years before turning in my badge.’

  ‘Mind telling the court why you turned in your badge?’

  ‘Sure. I, eh… I didn’t feel comfortable. My honest opinion is that the police force is somewhat controlled by what I call systemic fractures. I found, as an investigator, that I was forced to fit my investigations into a certain pattern that was already structured. So, often I found myself having to arrest somebody without true investigation and I felt… well… I felt as if I wasn’t doing what I set out to do.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Which was to play a role in society. That’s why I wanted to be a policewoman as far back as I can remember. I thought I could help people in our society that way. But that’s not what being a member of An Garda Siochana turned out to be.’

  ‘That’s interesting. We’ll come back to that in a minute or two actually. But for the court, can you firstly detail a case you began investigating back in November of 2008?’

  ‘Well, I assume you are talking about the Oscar and Reese Stapleton case?’ I say. We rehearsed that bit. Not that I’m in any way here just to please Gerd Bracken. Truth be known, I don’t really like the man. He’s a bit slimy. A bit full of himself. But we did talk through what he would ask of me during this trial and I agreed to go along with his script – as long as I was telling the truth. He just wanted to frame the truth in his own pattern. Which is fine by me. He knows what he’s doing.

  ‘You assisted Lead Detective Ray De Brun on the Stapleton case, correct?’

  ‘Yes, I did indeed,’ I reply. ‘But I should stress at this point, that although I am likely to point to some flaws in the investigative practices here in Ireland, I am not here to slander any persons, specifically. The people aren’t the problem. The system they work in is the problem. For example, Detective Ray De Brun – as you chose to bring up his name – was a fine detective. And is a fine human being.’

  I didn’t rehearse that with Brack
en. It actually takes him by surprise and he stalls, twitching his fingers. I didn’t even plan to say it; it’s just that he brought up Ray’s name. And I don’t wanna go shouting my head off about how flawed the system is and have everyone think I’m defaming Ray. I’m not. I actually like Ray.

  ‘Okay, so you mentioned a flawed system, Sandra. Can you detail that for me?’

  ‘Objection, Your Honour. That’s a rather broad question,’ the young lawyer on the opposite side of the room calls out.

  I look up to Judge Delia who is sucking on her lips, stewing in thought. Her features are hard to read. The eyes behind her 1950s style retro glasses are oval and so dark that it looks as if her pupils are constantly dilated. And she has that cropped brown haircut most women in their sixties seem to have. Though, it’s hard to put an age on Judge Delia with any accuracy, but she’s got to be around the sixty mark, surely. Or perhaps the hair-do just adds a few years.

  ‘Yes, be more specific in your line of questioning, Mr Bracken,’ she eventually says.

  ‘Of course, Your Honour,’ Bracken replies, shuffling his frame back around to face me. ‘Sandra, you said you felt you were part of a fractured system when you worked for the police force. Can you detail to me how you feel that fractured system played a role in the investigation into Joy Stapleton?’

  ‘Oh, well.’ I sit more upright, leaning my forearms onto the small shelf carved around the squared edges of the witness box. ‘The Stapleton case, I guess, is a good example of the systemic issues we face with regards policing in this country, because the investigation focused on one suspect from the get-go and then fitted a case entirely around that suspect. Like I say – and I want to repeat this – I don’t think the personnel who work in the force are to blame. They – we – we were just following a decades old system that can, in my humble opinion, lead even the best of detectives down the wrong path. My honest opinion is that the system gives investigators tunnel vision. And as I said, I don’t blame the individuals, personally. I just believe a lot of detectives suffer with tunnel vision because, ultimately, they are led to believe that success in their line of work is measured by a successful prosecution. But that is so far wide of how success for a detective should be measured. Success for an investigator should be seeking the truth. Bottom line. But that’s not what it is. Detectives are measured by the justice system based on whether or not they get a successful prosecution. Detectives are measured by the top end of the police force based on whether or not they get a successful prosecution. And they are measured by their line managers and peers on whether or not they get a successful prosecution. They’re even measured by the public by that means too. And it must be said that there is a huge difference between striving to find a successful prosecution, as opposed to striving to find the truth.’