A Kind Of Wild Justice

by Hilary Bonner

  The very idea was so incongruous that Joanna had to fight against an almost irresistible urge to laugh out loud. However, when she glanced at the jury they seemed to be lapping it up. The concept of judgement by your peers, twelve good men and true and all that, left a great deal to be desired, she thought, not for the first time.

  The prosecution barrister, Malcolm Bowman, a slightly plump, earnest young man with a disconcerting squint, did not give up.

  ‘You meticulously checked out the Phillips family,’ he persisted. ‘You appraised their property, you knew that they were a wealthy family well able to raise £50,000 in exchange for Angela’s life. You have been obsessed with the military from an early age, have you not, Mr O’Donnell, and you used your Territorial training when you planned this terrible crime, didn’t you?’

  Jimbo stared straight ahead. ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ he said.

  ‘You believed, because of your training, that you could deal with the logistical complexities of abducting and detaining a young woman against her will, did you not?’ said Malcolm Bowman. ‘And you had considerable local knowledge gained during your training at Okehampton camp.

  ‘We have heard from a reliable witness, Mr O’Donnell, that you had personal knowledge of the mine shaft where Angela Phillips’s body was found. You knew what an excellent hideout Knack Mine was, and I put it to you that when you abducted Angela Phillips it was already your intention to conceal her there.’

  ‘No, that’s not true, sir,’ responded Jimbo mildly but firmly. ‘In any case, if I ever did go to that mine when I was up at the camp, I just don’t remember it at all.’ He was so well briefed it hurt. Obviously acting under instructions, he just kept on calmly denying everything.

  ‘You tortured, raped and mutilated Angela there to satisfy your own perverted desires,’ continued Bowman doggedly. ‘And then, when your attempts to obtain a ransom for her failed, you callously left her in the mine shaft to die.’

  ‘No, that’s not true, sir,’ said Jimbo again, equally mildly.

  Joanna knew that he had not left fingerprints on the little that had been found in Angela’s dreadful tomb and the best forensic had been able to come up with, in the days before DNA, was that the semen found in Angela’s body was from someone with the same blood group as O’Donnell. It was O Positive – the most common of the lot.

  Malcolm Bowman was beginning to look frustrated and became even more so when he brought up the collection of knives found in O’Donnell’s apartment, none of which, Joanna already knew, forensic had been able to prove had been the weapon used to maim Angela.

  ‘They’re military memorabilia, sir,’ said Jimbo.

  Bowman looked incredulous. ‘Memorabilia, Mr O’Donnell? You are talking about a selection of potentially lethal weapons, including one almost new army knife of a particularly vicious design.’

  ‘Well, they’re all memorabilia to me, sir. I’m very interested in the military, you see.’

  ‘And what exactly do you claim that you have used these knives for, Mr O’Donnell, if not to maim and kill?’

  ‘I’ve never used them for anything, sir. I just like looking at them.’

  It was ludicrous, but once again the jury did not seem to think so.

  There did appear, however, to be one irrefutable piece of evidence – and Joanna realised it was this to which Fielding must have been referring when he had refused to give her the details during their conversation after Jimbo’s arrest.

  The prosecution claimed that a gold locket Angela Phillips was wearing when she disappeared had been found in O’Donnell’s London flat. This was not circumstantial. This was hard evidence. This could swing it. Joanna felt her hopes rise. She was aware of a kind of collective gasp from the public gallery behind her, where she knew Angela’s family were sitting, and even the jury looked impressed.

  However, Jo’s hopes were quickly dashed again. The defence had an answer – and Mike Fielding was at the crux of it. The locket bore O’Donnell’s fingerprints clearly enough, and that was not in dispute, but it seemed that after claiming to have found it in a drawer in O’Donnell’s bedroom, Fielding had triumphantly brandished his trophy at the accused man and allowed him to take it from him. Jo could see Fielding almost visibly squirming when, having been asked to take the stand, he was confronted with this.

  He tried unsuccessfully to fudge the issue. ‘Well, we found the locket, sir, no doubt about that, and whether or not Mr O’Donnell actually handled it …’

  ‘DS Fielding, you know perfectly well that Mr O’Donnell did handle the locket,’ persisted Brian Burns. He was tall, slim, handsome and authoritative, in brutal contrast to the unprepossessing Malcolm Bowman. ‘I suggest you tell the truth, Detective Sergeant,’ Burns continued. ‘There were other officers with you, were there not, who may not be as evasive as you are trying to be.’

  Ultimately Fielding had no choice but to admit that he had allowed O’Donnell to handle the key piece of evidence. ‘I was excited by the discovery,’ he said.

  ‘You were excited, DS Fielding? So you allowed a suspect to handle a key piece of evidence and put his fingerprints all over it? Do you really expect this court to believe that?’

  There was no answer. Burns did not push the point any further but continued by asking: ‘And what did my client say to you when you handed him the locket, Detective Sergeant?’

  ‘I didn’t hand it to him, he took it.’

  Joanna felt almost sorry for Fielding. Didn’t he realise that everything he said seemed to be making the whole thing appear worse?

  ‘I see,’ responded Burns casually. ‘So, what did my client say when you allowed him to take the locket from you?’

  Fielding looked defeated. ‘He said he’d never seen it before in his life.’

  Joanna groaned to herself. This was going seriously pear-shaped. She, too, found it hard to believe that Fielding would have made such a silly mistake. The alternative was that he had planted the locket. He had been the first officer at the scene of the crime. If the locket had been with Angela in the shaft at Knack Mine, Fielding would have had ample opportunity to secrete it away – to have the locket up his sleeve, as it were, just in case a little extra evidence was needed later on. She had known it happen before.

  And that was just what Burns went on to suggest. Indeed, he finished his cross-examination by going way beyond suggestion: ‘I put it to you, DS Fielding, that you did not find this locket in my client’s home but that you calculatedly planted it on him. You needed a conviction, didn’t you? You’re a high flyer aren’t you? You don’t like unsolved crimes, do you?’

  Burns was a slick operator and this was devastating stuff. There seemed to be holes in the prosecution case you could drive a bus through – or anyway there did when the dream team were at work.

  The trial lasted six and a half working days including the day and a half it took for the jury to agree its verdict. They found James Martin O’Donnell not guilty – which, after the way the proceedings had gone, came as no great surprise to anybody. But it was a dreadful disappointment – to police, prosecution, the family and friends of Angela Phillips, and indeed to Joanna, whom Fielding had quite convinced of O’Donnell’s guilt. She had not realised, in fact, just how much she had wanted to see him brought to justice for his appalling crime until he was cleared.

  The jury could not be told, of course, of O’Donnell’s previous conviction for rape, nor of his and his family’s criminal reputations, although most of them must surely at least have heard of the O’Donnells, Jo thought. It was a majority decision, so maybe if the law were different and that kind of information had been made available to them – as many people thought, certainly in the case of sex crimes, it should be – the balance could have been tipped. As it stood, a majority of ten to two was all that was necessary for Jimbo O’Donnell to walk from the court a free man. And walk he did.

  Joanna wondered if the clenched-fist salute Jimbo gave when their foreman read out the v
erdict made any of the jurors question their judgement. Certainly, once he realised the case was won he cast aside his demeanour of quiet respectfulness with alacrity.

  She joined the crush to follow him outside the court. His father had been at the trial every day and now Sam the Man stood alongside Jimbo in the middle of the ancient courtyard, smiling for a cacophony of flashing snappers. ‘Justice has been done – for once,’ Sam announced with a big grin. ‘My boy could never have done what they said he did. He’s an O’Donnell. We don’t hurt women or children. I never doubted him for a minute. Never. He’s straight down the middle, my boy, look at him I ask you, look at him …’ Sam the Man reached up and ruffled his son’s new haircut.

  The younger O’Donnell did his best to look innocent, endearing and wronged – but he succeeded only in looking smug and pleased with himself. However, inside the court during the trial his performance had been convincing, certainly good enough to convince the jury, and that was all that mattered.

  In stark contrast, the Phillips family, accompanied by Jeremy Thomas and escorted by a grim-faced Todd Mallett, tried to slip away quietly into a waiting car. They had no chance at all. The press swarmed on them. Joanna joined in, calling out ‘Mr Phillips, Rob, Jeremy, just tell us how you feel’ – to no avail. They all looked devastated. Reporters needed words to make copy, but snappers always insisted a picture could be worth several thousand of them. Certainly in this instance they were probably right, Joanna thought. Nothing any of the family might say would ever convey their feelings as effectively as their shattered appearance. Bill Phillips glanced towards her at one point, but all she could see in his eyes was the emptiness of a broken man confronting yet another tormentor.

  Fielding and DCI Parsons were right behind the family and hurried them through the throng. They also refused to comment to the horde of press who surrounded them, making their passage difficult. Both men looked grave, but Joanna was riveted by Fielding. The normally suave, cocksure detective seemed stricken. His face was ashen.

  She supposed he would bounce back eventually, he was that sort. But his career had suffered a potentially fatal blow. Apart from any other consideration it must be a policeman’s nightmare to be accused in open court of having planted evidence. She felt almost sorry for him. His rosy future did not look quite so rosy any more, that was for certain.

  She filed an early story and, with Manners under instructions to look after the police angle although nobody was expected to put their head up over the bunker for a bit, set out across Dartmoor and spent most of the rest of the afternoon and evening doorstepping the Phillipses. They continued to refuse to speak to the press, but nonetheless she had to wait until the desk sent Harry Fowler down to take over her watching brief outside the farm before she was allowed to leave at about 10 p.m. She was thoroughly exhausted and there appeared to be little more she could do. All she really wanted was to go back to her Exeter hotel room, order herself a large malt whisky and maybe some sandwiches, and take to her bed.

  But on a whim she found herself making a detour to Heavitree Road police station. She swung the car into the car park, fairly empty at that time of night. There were still a couple of reporters and one photographer outside. Manners had been there earlier, she knew, but he was no longer about. Jo wasn’t surprised. Not one to hang around on a doorstep, that man, but he never seemed to get caught out. He did have a way of covering his back, she had to admit that.

  She walked straight past the reporters, both of whom she knew only by sight, and into the front office where she asked the clerk if she could speak to DS Fielding. She was never quite sure what made her do it. Did she really think he would give her an exclusive on a night like this or even talk to her about the case? Or did she, in the depths of her subconscious, have another reason even then for trying to contact the detective sergeant?

  The clerk studied her without enthusiasm. ‘He’s not talking to the press and neither’s anybody else. You may as well join your friends out the front.’

  ‘Look, will you just ask him?’ She treated the man to what she hoped was her winning smile.

  He looked uncertain.

  ‘Please. Just ask him. That’s all.’ Jo smiled again. She might draw the line at sleeping with guys for stories, in spite of what her husband thought, but would resort to feminine wiles at the drop of a hat. And she had the honesty to admit to herself that while Manners and the rest of the heavy mob wouldn’t have a hope of getting anywhere with Fielding, she at least was in with a chance.

  Quite deliberately, she bit her bottom lip and did her best to look as if she might be about to burst into tears. That did it. The clerk picked up the phone on his desk. Strange how she had somehow not doubted that Fielding would still be in his office at almost 11 p.m.

  ‘… Joanna Bartlett, the Comet, yes, Mike, I told her you wouldn’t …’

  There was a pause while the man listened. He looked mildly surprised. Then he turned away from Joanna and lowered his voice. She could still hear him clearly enough, though: ‘… Look, are you sure, mate? You don’t need any more bother, do you … OK, OK, whatever you say.’ With a sigh he replaced the receiver. ‘You can go up,’ he told her. ‘Second floor. He’ll meet you at the stairs.’

  Fielding was waiting for her by the time she had climbed the two flights. If anything, he looked even worse than he had outside the court. He did not smile, just gave her a quick hello and escorted her to his office. She thought he had probably been drinking and it turned out she wasn’t wrong. There was a three-parts empty bottle of whisky on his desk. He offered her a drink, which she accepted. He found a paper cup and poured her a large measure, waved her into a chair, sat down himself behind the desk, put his feet up on it, and took a deep swig straight from the bottle. Then he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. She could feel the blackness of his mood. She felt pretty down herself. She had believed in O’Donnell’s guilt and had wanted to see him go down. And she had lost the bulk of her background. All that hard work for nothing. A huge chunk of it could not be printed now that he’d been acquitted, legally far too dodgy.

  ‘I’m sorry it went so wrong for you,’ she said eventually.

  Mike opened his eyes, which she noticed then were bloodshot, and regarded her steadily. His skin still looked ashen. There was certainly none of his usual God’s-gift-to-women smugness about him. His wits hadn’t completely deserted him, though. ‘Are we off the record?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied quickly. It was probably unprofessional not to have attempted, at least, to get something from him on the record, but her response had been quite automatic. The man must have got to her in some way for her to behave in such an out of character way. Joanna was usually just as hard-nosed in her approach to work as the normally tough policeman she was talking to.

  He took her at her word, as she expected him to. And she sensed him relax a little.

  He tipped the whisky to his lips once more. ‘What a fuck-up,’ he said. ‘What a bloody fuck-up.’

  ‘Yours wasn’t the only mistake,’ she told him, sensing that he was blaming himself. ‘You were a bit overeager, that’s all.’

  ‘Story of my life. The locket was the only really hard evidence. And I gave Jimbo a lifeline on it. Did that bloody jury really believe I planted it?’

  She shrugged. They did, of course. They had to have believed that in order to acquit O’Donnell. She too had some doubts. Not about O’Donnell. Not really. But about Fielding, definitely. And so, presumably, did his superiors. Fielding was deeply in the mire and he knew it. She changed tack. ‘You still don’t have any doubts about O’Donnell, do you?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, none at all. Bastard’s as guilty as sin. Just that the might of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary combined with the Crown Prosecution Service didn’t have the wit to get him convicted, that’s all. A major fuck-up to which I contributed …’ He paused as if seeking a word. ‘Majestically,’ he concluded with a bit of dramatic flourish.

/>   ‘What’ll happen to you?’ she asked.

  ‘Probably fuck all. Which is what I deserve. I won’t make DI for years, now, that’s for certain. Maybe not ever. There’ll be an inquiry, of course. If it goes against me I could get chucked out. I doubt it, though. Whatever they believe privately, the bastards will prefer to sweep it under the carpet. At best I behaved like a bloody fool, at worst I tried to plant evidence. Sod’s choice, isn’t it?’

  She didn’t say anything. She could think of nothing to say.

  He took another slug of whisky, got up from his chair and walked over to the window. He continued to talk as he stood with his back to her, looking down on the street below. ‘I wake up at night and I see Angela, you know, lying there, mutilated, in all that filth.’ There was a catch in his voice.

  She was momentarily surprised. All she had really expected from him was self-pity. He was a professional detective. As hard-nosed as any of the villains he pursued. It took one to catch one. That’s what they always said about the CID, wasn’t it?

  ‘I can’t get it out of my head,’ he went on. ‘I’ve never been on a case that’s got to me like this one. I thought, if we can send the bastard down, then that would finish it. But we’ve failed. And there’s no second chances in this game.’ She saw his elbow rise as he took yet another drink from the bottle. ‘So that’s it. I’ve let myself down and I’ve let Angela down.’

  There was no doubt about it. There was definitely a catch in his voice now. Perhaps, after all, there really was more to this man than just another ambitious cop, she thought. She got up from her chair and walked over to join him at the window, gazing in silence for a moment at a lone car travelling along the road outside, its headlights picking up for a moment the two reporters still standing together, chatting, on the pavement. It was a beautiful night, the sky clear and star-studded. That didn’t seem right, somehow. It should have been raining or, better still, there should have been a storm raging, something dark and moody to mark what had happened that day. ‘You are not single-handedly responsible for it all, you know,’ she told him. ‘You did your best.’