Room 15: a gripping psychological mystery thriller

by Charles Harris

  She arrives an hour later and Stone asks her for Paul’s shoe size. The FO checks her files and says, ‘In British shoe sizes, twelve and a half.’

  Stone nods, taps my note thoughtfully for a moment, then asks for permission to recall the wire-thin Scene of Crime Officer from Crystal’s flat.

  The man reappears on Monday morning, looking even scraggier and more disgusted than before. Stone asks him two questions, in his soft unassuming manner.

  ‘You recall a footprint on the floor near the unfortunate Crystal, a footprint which didn’t match anyone there – not the nurses, not the late Darjus Javtokas and certainly not the defendant, Detective Inspector Blackleigh?’

  ‘I do, sir, yes.’ The SOCO waits patiently in the witness box, gazing down his nose at those around him.

  ‘What size was it?’

  ‘Twelve and a half.’

  It’s a small thing, but it’s the second serious point we’ve scored in this whole case and the first evidence that Paul may have been in Crystal’s flat. Stone takes a moment to underline the point, turning to the jury to ensure they’ve been listening.

  ‘Did you, at any point, check Paul Blackleigh’s shoe size and compare it to this print?’

  ‘No, it didn’t come up.’

  ‘Did you know that his size happens to be a twelve and a half?’

  The SOCO has to admit that he didn’t.

  As the prosecution case builds, we try to add a few more small hits. DCI Jagger takes the stand, to tie all the murders together and describe her interviews with me after I was arrested. She stands solid and unshakeable as she outlines her evidence. In her view, Becks was my accomplice, but I killed him to stop him betraying me. She shows CCTV pictures from the snowbound police station car park on the Sunday evening. The CCTV is blurred but the two of us can be identified clearly enough. Two hours later, I am caught on camera abandoning Becks’ car in King’s Cross.

  Jagger squares her shoulders and describes how her team found a metal box containing traces of heroin where I used to live, two hundred metres from Becks’ body. They also discovered Amy Matthews’ diary in the pool car parked nearby, with the page covering the date of her death ripped out. Alongside it, in the car, were two files on the Kleizas that had been removed without permission from Haskins’ office at the station.

  Stone stands to cross-examine. ‘I ask you to look at your plan, showing where DC Parvin’s body was discovered in the wasteland. Would you not agree that this position is no nearer to the house where the defendant once lived than to where his father once lived? If anything it is closer to the father’s.’

  Jagger taps the ledge of the witness box in irritation. ‘Marginally, yes.’

  ‘Yes. And the same applies to the tin box which you found some distance from the body.’

  ‘You could say so.’

  ‘Please answer yes or no.’

  Jagger grows more annoyed. ‘Yes.’

  Stone moves on to ask her to explain the two-hour gap in CCTV pictures of Becks’ car. She explains that there was no CCTV at the building site; then she hazards that Becks and I deliberately took roads without surveillance cameras, or maybe that the blizzard reduced visibility. But he forces her to admit that this is pure guesswork.

  ‘Nor can you explain why DC Parvin signed out a thousand pounds from the CID safe. Money which, as we’ve heard, hasn’t been seen since.’

  ‘No, we have no explanation for this.’ Her voice has dropped and her complexion has coloured at the admissions he’s forced her into. Step by step, Stone continues to needle Jagger with his cross-examination, pushing her to accept that she has no more proof that Becks was my accomplice than he was Paul’s, until she as good as confesses she’d do anything to put me behind bars.

  It helps, but not much.

  For the first two days of the defence case, Stone calls our expert witnesses: forensic experts, in an attempt to shake the certainties of the facts; ex-bosses who can attest to my strong record, previously calm personality and general niceness; our young Portuguese psychiatrist, who says I did have amnesia, I wasn’t faking it and it could have been brought on by the revival of previous traumas initiated in childhood.

  We have our fierce arguments in the downstairs meeting room over whether I’m to take the stand. Until the fateful moment when finally Stone gives in. And now it is my time.

  The nearest policeman opens the gate to the dock. But my legs shake from hours of sitting and I can’t move. Everyone watches me. Slowly, taking great care to hide how much pressure I’m feeling, I manage to stand and maintain some scrap of dignity as I descend to the well of the court, crossing in front of the journalists in their box. Some are writing rapidly on their laptops, others observing me without expression. The trial has generated a great deal of media interest, just as I told Gerry it would when we stood in the snow that morning almost a year ago. But, as he rightly said at the time, it’s not the sort of interest that will enhance my CV.

  I’ve given evidence in court many times before, but even so I find it difficult to breathe – it’s like the air has been sucked out of the courtroom. It feels more personally frightening than any physical danger I’ve faced, worse than being attacked by a mob, or even a man with a knife. When I see Laura take her place in the public gallery, her first time at the trial, I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse.

  Once again, I decide to ask R to do the talking. Stone gets to his feet. I know he thinks it’s a disastrous idea for me to take the stand and fought hard against it. But he shows no sign of his true feelings as, half turning to me, half to the jury, he says in an even voice, ‘Mr Blackleigh. Tell us what you first realised on the evening of Saturday, 13 February 2010.’

  R says, ‘I realised it was snowing.’

  54

  In an even voice, R tells the court how I found myself wandering the streets of Kentish Town, unaware that eighteen months had passed, confused at seeing snow in what I thought was mid-summer. He explains how I painstakingly reconstructed my past actions. How I grew to suspect there was a corrupt policeman – or ex-policeman. How I learned that the murderer had planted guns and drugs on the Kleiza twins and was blackmailed for it by Matthews, who he then killed. How I told no one about my amnesia, in case I was suspended from duty and placed in even greater danger.

  With feeling, he describes the anxious decision I took to trust Becks, despite not being able to remember him. How I tried desperately to save Javtokas when he fell through the ice on the canal. How, finally, I laid a trap, asking my wife to phone the station and Gerry Gardner, to say I was going back to the hotel where Matthews was killed to get my memory back. Then, he says, as I waited, Paul arrived, holding Matthews’ phone and the gun that killed her, which he must have taken the night before, after he knocked me unconscious.

  Moreno is on his feet. ‘My Lord, surely this is speculation. The defendant can’t give evidence of what he didn’t see if he was indeed unconscious.’

  The judge instructs me not to guess but to answer the questions truthfully and factually.

  ‘Certainly, My Lord,’ R says and continues. ‘Paul came to the hotel room and asked if my memory had come back. I told him it had. That I’d remembered what had happened. That I remembered coming to the hotel on the Saturday night and fighting him. That I remembered seeing Amy Matthews die, even as he knocked me out.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said he’d hoped I’d never remember. He said that to the end there’s always hope. Then he put the gun to his head.’

  Moreno rises to cross-examine. He too begins softly, politely, with the exaggerated conversational manner that suggests a snake eyeing up a rabbit, and proceeds to tear my defence to pieces. He’s good at his job. He calls my amnesia ‘convenient’ – that word yet again. Convenient that my father arrived with a gun with which he conveniently killed himself. Convenient too that my two mobiles were so often turned off, when they could have proved where I really was.

  I�
�m expecting him to underline the phone issue more than he does, but unusually he misses that trick. However, I have little time to think about this, before he moves on to Paul. It was my father trying to save the nurses, he says, not me. I was the bent cop being blackmailed. When I said there was a corrupt cop, I was right – DI Ross Blackleigh. He asks how it was that I created my so-called trap so – he searches for the right word – so blithely on the second night, so blithely unconcerned for my own safety. Why wasn’t I afraid of being killed by the murderer? Unless of course I knew there was no danger at all, because the murderer was me.

  R tries to answer, but even I feel his replies are flimsy and the jury shifts uneasily in their box.

  That evening, my meeting with Gupta, Wasunna and Stone is gloomy in the extreme. We all know how badly it went. Stone restrains himself from saying he told me so, but I can’t see how remaining silent would have helped. Wasunna tries to keep our spirits up by reminding us all that cases have their ups and downs, but no one’s really listening. I feel more afraid than ever.

  One thought nags at me though. A question occurred to me while Moreno was cross-examining. I try to remember what it was, going over it all again in my head, but can’t pin it down. He’s a clever barrister and I can’t imagine him giving anything away.

  Then I remember, it wasn’t what he mentioned, it was what he left out.

  ‘My father’s phone records,’ I say, interrupting Wasunna’s latest spirit-raising speech. ‘Did the police ever give us his phone records?’

  Gupta calls his office and reports back. Paul’s phone records weren’t in the prosecution’s discovery materials.

  ‘Don’t you think that’s strange?’

  ‘It must be a mistake. They sent all the evidence they had. But there is a great amount of material in a case like this.’

  ‘His phone records got missed out then.’

  ‘So what? He probably turned his mobile off all the time, like you. That won’t help us now.’

  ‘Can you ask for them?’

  Stone looks weary. ‘Is this really necessary?’ What he means to say is that I’m clutching at straws. He’s probably right.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, nonetheless. The request is put through. I don’t sleep at all well that night. Some nutcase is creating a noise in a nearby cell and it starts the others off. It’s not till long after midnight that the officers manage to calm them down, probably by strategic application of pain and drugs.

  Next morning though, Gupta looks positively radiant. They have received Paul’s call records and Becks’ too, for good measure. It turns out not only did Paul keep his phone on, but that he received two calls in the evening. From Becks. I check the timing – he must have phoned my father from the pub after we saw Nathan and then again while we were on our way to my old house. Was Becks working with Paul all along? Or was he innocently phoning Paul for advice after Nathan’s injection had begun to make me act unpredictably? I’ll never know.

  What I do learn, to my surprise, is that Paul then drove to Pinner and stopped within a hundred metres of the building site where Becks’ body was found. My feelings are in turmoil.

  Stone recalls Jagger to the stand. He asks her to read out the phone data and then forces her to agree that Paul could have killed Becks. Stone accuses her of deliberately suppressing evidence. He speaks quietly but I’ve not seen him so cold and ruthless.

  ‘Why,’ he asks, ‘did you make such a deal out of the defendant’s phone and yet remain silent about evidence relating to his father? Phone evidence which I suggest might have led you to a completely different conclusion.’

  Jagger ducks and dives, but she knows he’s landed a punch. In short, Stone does the best he can with the little he has.

  It’s the last significant action before the final statements. As I expected, Moreno is clear and concise in summarising all the reasons why I should be found guilty. Cleverly, he doesn’t ignore the few points we’ve made but addresses each with care. He suggests that the jury may consider that the footprint in Crystal’s flat, a footprint which has no forensic evidence linking to my father, proves nothing. He looks at the evidence of Becks’ calls to Paul and notes that both participants are now dead. Killed, he feels confident in saying, by me.

  ‘You are free to conclude,’ he continues, patting the files in front of him, ‘that there may be many reasons why they should have been in communication. We’ve heard that DC Parvin knew Paul Blackleigh and had indeed sought advice from him in the past. We’ve also heard that many people were concerned about the defendant’s mental health and you might conclude it would be totally logical for DC Parvin to call on the defendant’s father for help, and that Paul Blackleigh, who was so deeply concerned to preserve the honour of the Blackleigh name, should try to meet them and intervene.

  ‘Sadly, it seems, before he could do this, DC Parvin was dead. Killed, you will surely conclude, by his own boss. As were Amy Matthews and her good friend Darjus Javtokas. It is only by luck, you may decide, that her flatmate, Crystal, has so far survived the beating he inflicted on her. Given the weight of evidence you’ve seen and heard, you will certainly conclude that all of this was committed by the defendant, and will find him guilty on every count.’

  I look at the jury and they are serious, composed, grim. The woman in the yellow T-shirt glares at me. The oldest man avoids my eye.

  Stone starts his own closing statement by going over my record in the police: highly regarded, fast-tracked, being considered for an important position in Scotland Yard on the very day before all this happened. ‘This is a man who has devoted his life to bringing down villains and done so with praise from his superiors and not a single stain on a glittering career.’

  Then he coughs and pours himself a glass of water, before asking the jury to contemplate two stories. ‘In one, a series of horrible murders and attacks are allegedly carried out by a detective with an unblemished record. In the other, they are the actions of an ex-policeman who has previously been forced to resign in disgrace.

  ‘You don’t have an enviable job. No, I don’t envy you at all. Because, I agree, the Crown has amassed an impressive amount of evidence, forensic and otherwise. However, what have they actually proved?

  ‘They have proved the defendant was present at the killing of Amy Matthews – he doesn’t deny it. He was trying to save her from his father. They have proved that he was in contact with her flatmate, Crystal. He doesn’t deny it – he found her lying on the ground, went to her and quite possibly saved her life, despite being himself attacked by Darjus Javtokas. They have proved that Javtokas himself drowned while trying to escape the defendant, who deeply regrets it, but was doing his duty in trying to arrest a suspect who fought viciously to evade custody. They have proved he was with DC Parvin, his own protégé, before he died, but cannot prove that he was anywhere near him when it happened. Unlike his father.

  ‘They have proved, finally, that he was in the room when his father was shot, but again he doesn’t deny it. He has told you he was trying to stop his father killing himself and evading the justice that was rightfully his to face. You may, looking at the evidence, conclude that it is Paul Blackleigh who, had he lived, should be sitting in the dock today.’

  Stone glances at his papers, then up again at the jury box. ‘I don’t ask you to decide what is true. I don’t have to. All I have to ask is whether you can be sure. Beyond a reasonable doubt.’

  After the judge’s own summing up, the jury files away and I go back down to the cells to prepare for a long wait.

  At the end of the day, we’re recalled for the jury to be asked if they can reach a unanimous verdict. They can’t. It’s the first sign that there may be hope, though I try not to think about it. It’s too painful.

  After a second day, the judge tells them to try for a majority, eleven to one or, failing that, ten to two. The following afternoon, they return to deliver a majority verdict.

  Not guilty on all counts.

  55

>   I’m paralysed. I can’t move, not even to walk out. R won’t let me. Gupta looks surprised. Jagger and Franks stare at me from the gallery, like I’m setting some devious trap. The policeman who’s been guarding me tells me I can leave but I stand motionless, sweating, arguing inside with R, demanding to know why he’s doing this.

  R says he wants to savour the moment. As for myself, I just want to get out. Finally, after three long minutes, R lets me turn and leave the courtroom.

  In the hallway outside the court, a number of journalists try to speak to me, but Gupta delivers a statement on my behalf.

  And then it’s over. I walk down the stairs and out through the double doors. I’d lost track of time. We’ve been in court for four weeks. Winter is going but yesterday it briefly snowed again – as if to remind me of last year.

  The air smells sweet with the oncoming of spring and already almost all the snow has melted, leaving only a few small grimy bergs swept up against the walls.

  56

  Sometimes Laura and I meet up with Gerry and Isobel and the four of us have dinner or, as it gets warmer, a barbecue, but the truth is that Gerry is a heavy person to be around now. He’s never got over Paul’s death and never mentions it. We skirt around the subject, like a room in a house that we never enter. Meanwhile when I talk to him about new initiatives in the deputy assistant commissioner’s office, he looks at me like it has nothing to do with real policing. He picks at the carcass of a duck or a game bird Laura has bought at the organic butcher’s and changes the subject.

  Strangely, Isobel is less abrasive than she was. Maybe she’s mellowing more than Gerry. She does say, from time to time, how much she misses my father. I tell her that I do too and I’m not lying. It’s like there’s an enormous black hole in my life. When he was alive, everything I did, everything I thought, somehow referred to him. He loved me, in his own twisted poisoned way. I didn’t even realise that fully until he was gone and now it’s too late.