by Dick Francis
‘I haven’t got access to the actual text,’ he said, turning to the judge as if for assistance.
‘No,’ I said. ‘But does that sound about right to you?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I believe it said something like that.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, putting down the paper. ‘And were the police able to establish that this text message had indeed been sent to Mr Barlow by Mr Mitchell?’
‘No,’ he said softly.
‘Sorry, Inspector,’ I said. ‘Could you please speak up, so the jury can hear you?’
‘No,’ he repeated more strongly.
‘And were the police able to establish who was, in fact, responsible for sending that text message to Mr Barlow?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘We were not.’
‘Am I correct in saying that you discovered that the message had been sent anonymously by a free text messaging service available to anyone with access to any computer and the internet anywhere in the world?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That is correct.’
‘And is it correct that you were unable to establish which computer had been used to send the message?’
‘That is correct,’ he replied.
‘So, in addition to an anonymous, unrecorded telephone call to the police directing them to a murder scene to discover incriminating evidence against the defendant.’ I glanced at the judge who was looking back at me intently. ‘There was also an anonymous text message sent to Mr Barlow’s telephone that was made to appear as if it had come from the defendant?’
‘I didn’t say that it hadn’t come from the defendant,’ said the inspector. ‘I only said that we were unable to establish that it had.’
‘Are you claiming now that, in fact, it did come from the defendant?’ I asked him with mock astonishment.
‘We don’t know who it was from,’ he said, digging himself further into a hole.
‘Thank you,’ I said to him. ‘No further questions.’
I sat down feeling rather pleased with myself. Bruce Lygon patted me gently on the shoulder. ‘Well done,’ he whispered.
I turned round to thank him and caught sight of young Julian Trent sitting right next to Mr and Mrs Barlow in the seats reserved for the public. He was watching me. I went quite cold. Damn it, I thought, how much of that cross-examination had he been listening to?
The next witness for the prosecution had been called and there was a lull in proceedings as the court usher went outside the courtroom trying to find the right person. Julian Trent watched me watching him and he clearly decided it was time to leave. He stood up and pushed past the usher as he made his way to the exit. For a moment I thought about going after him, but good sense prevailed so I stayed put. I could hardly chase him on crutches and I am sure the judge wouldn’t have taken kindly to me leaving the court in the light of the continued, but unsurprising, absence of Sir James Horley QC.
My cross-examination of Detective Inspector McNeile proved to be the high point of the day for the defence. The three further witnesses called by the prosecution gave us little respite from the damning evidence that implied that the murder had been carried out by the man in the dock.
A specialist DNA witness was followed by a police forensic science expert. Both explained to the jury, in monotonous detail, the method of extracting DNA from blood and hair, and then went on to show beyond any doubt that drops of blood and two hairs from Scot Barlow had been found in the driver’s footwell of Steve Mitchell’s car and also that more of Barlow’s blood and four more of his hairs had been found adhering to the underside of both of Steve Mitchell’s wellington boots, subsequently discovered at the Mitchell premises.
They further were able to show that fresh bloody footprints at the scene matched both of Mr Mitchell’s wellingtons.
I did manage to extract a small victory for our side by getting the forensic expert to concede that none of Mr Mitchell’s DNA had been discovered in Barlow’s residence, on the murder weapon, or on the deceased’s body. Furthermore, I also got them both to agree that, even though Barlow’s DNA had been found on Mr Mitchell’s boots and in his car, this did not prove that Mr Mitchell had been wearing his boots at the time, nor driving his car at any point during that afternoon.
In re-examination by the prosecution, however, the first expert did state that traces of Mr Mitchell’s DNA had been found inside his own boots, as you might have expected, but that no other person’s DNA had also been found there. It didn’t exactly further our argument that someone else must have been wearing Mitchell’s wellies at the time of the murder, but it didn’t destroy it completely either. I managed partly to salvage the situation by getting the second expert to agree that someone could wear a pair of rubber boots without leaving any DNA trace in them, especially someone who was keen not to do so.
The final witness of the day was the pathologist who had done the post-mortem examination of Scot Barlow’s body, and his evidence wasn’t for the squeamish. The two curved metal prongs of the pitchfork had not, as I had imagined, passed through the rib cage and then into the heart, but had been thrust upwards underneath the ribs, through the diaphragm, one of them entering the heart from below. The five-feet-long double-pronged murder weapon was produced as an exhibit. It looked huge and menacing in the stillness of the courtroom with its ten-inch-long thin, curved, and very sharp metal prongs glinting in the light. The pathologist was invited by the prosecution counsel to demonstrate, on the floor of the court, the upward thrusting action that would have been needed to cause the injuries sustained by Barlow’s body. It was a moment of high drama and I noticed some members of the jury shuddering with revulsion. The pathologist explained that a single strike had been sufficient to cause death within just a few minutes with only moderate bleeding from the two wounds, and also a little from the victim’s mouth.
The bleeding had not been so moderate, I thought, that both of Mitchell’s wellington boots hadn’t been able to walk in it.
The pathologist conceded that considerable force would have been needed to cause the fatal injury but, as he said, probably less than that needed to go through the rib cage, where there would have been the risk of one of the fork’s prongs hitting and bouncing off a rib. The prosecution counsel then established without difficulty that a fit man of thirty-three, especially one who was a professional sportsman, would have easily had the strength required to deliver the fatal blow, even if he did only stand five foot six inches tall in his socks.
‘Had the murder weapon been withdrawn from the victim after death?’ I asked him in cross-examination.
‘No,’ he said. ‘When I was first called to the scene, I found the pitchfork still stuck very firmly into Mr Barlow – so firmly, in fact, that it proved impossible to remove at the scene. And I later determined that the puncture wounds to his abdomen, his diaphragm and his heart were all consistent with the weapon having been inserted into the body just once.’
‘So anything found on the prongs of the fork between Mr Barlow’s body and the fork handle would have had to have been there prior to the fatal blow being struck?’
‘Indeed,’ he said.
‘And was there anything on the prongs?’ I prompted him.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘There were some pieces of paper.’
‘Debit card receipts, I believe?’ I said.
‘I’m not aware of what they were, just that they were present,’ he said. ‘They were taken away by the police during the postmortem examination at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, when the murder weapon was finally removed from the body.’
I could only imagine the trouble someone must have had in transporting Barlow’s dead body the twenty-six miles from his kitchen floor to the Royal Berkshire Hospital mortuary with a five-foot-long pitchfork firmly embedded in its chest.
The judge adjourned early for the day at four o’clock.
Eleanor didn’t come to Oxford on Tuesday night either. There was a message from her on my mobile after the a
djournment explaining that one of her colleagues was ill and she had to stay in Lambourn to cover for her. Again, strangely, I was somewhat relieved.
Perhaps it was the expectation, her expectation, that worried me most. It had been a long time since I had slept with anyone, and then it had been Angela, with whom I had been familiar, relaxed and comfortable. Suddenly the prospect of someone new between my sheets filled me with apprehension and worry. Stop being stupid, I said to myself, but the nagging fear of failure and rejection still persisted.
There were, in fact, two messages on my phone.
The other one was from the whisperer.
‘Lose the case,’ he whispered. ‘Or else.’
The message had been left at twelve noon that day. No doubt shortly after Julian Trent had reported back to him on the court proceedings and my determined efforts to undermine the police inspector. How long would it take the whisperer to work out, I wondered, that I became more and more determined to win every time he told me to lose?
I hadn’t been outside the court at lunchtime for fear of running into young Mr Trent. Now, at the end of the day, I waited in the courthouse lobby until I saw my taxi pull up close to the doors before I emerged. Most of my boxes remained in the court secure storage overnight but I had one with me in order to prepare for the following day’s witnesses.
I clambered into the taxi with my box and crutches and made it safely, unmolested, back to my hotel.
The reception staff thought me a little crazy when I insisted that under no circumstances were they to give my room number to anyone, not even, I said, if they tell you they’re my father. And, also, they were not to put any calls through to my room without asking the caller for their name, and telling me that first.
I also asked them how many rooms were free in the hotel for the night.
‘Twelve,’ one of the female staff said.
‘Then could I please change rooms from last night?’ I asked.
‘Didn’t you like your room, sir?’ she said.
‘It was fine,’ I said. ‘I would just like to have another one tonight.’
‘I will have to check with my manager,’ she said. ‘The old room would then need to be cleaned and the staff have left for the day.’
‘Could it not be left until tomorrow?’ I said.
‘But then, sir, we couldn’t let it tonight, could we?’ She was being rather condescending, I thought.
I decided not to mention that, with twelve rooms still unreserved at five o’clock in the afternoon, it was unlikely that they would all be needed.
She went out the back to consult and returned to tell me that it would be fine to move but I would need to pay a late check-out fee on the first room.
‘Right, then,’ I said to her. ‘Can you please arrange a taxi to take me to the Randolph?’
She rapidly disappeared out the back again. A man in a suit, presumably the manager, came out from his office.
‘Mr Mason,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about the confusion. Of course you may change rooms if you wish. There will be no extra charge.’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Would you please send a porter up for my things?’
‘Which room would you like to have?’ he said.
‘One at the Randolph,’ I replied.
‘Now Mr Mason,’ he said with a smile. ‘I am sure we can come to an arrangement.’
We did. I secured a twenty per cent discount on the room rate, backdated to last Friday, together with a complimentary bottle of red wine to be sent up to my new room. It really was useful, sometimes, to be trained in advocacy.
In truth, I didn’t really want to move hotels at all. I knew the Randolph, and I liked it, but the converted modern interior of this place made it much easier for me to cope with the crutches even if the room doors were rather narrow as they had been the cell doors of the old prison.
Having settled in to my new room, I lay on the bed with a glass of wine and started reading through the papers for the next day.
The phone rang. I answered it.
‘Mr Mason? This is the hotel operator. I have a Miss Clarke on the phone for you. Will you accept the call?
Miss Clarke? Who was Miss Clarke?
Suddenly I remembered. ‘Oh yes, thank you,’ I said to the operator.
‘What’s all that about?’ Eleanor asked when she was put through.
‘Just my way of screening unwanted calls,’ I said cheerfully.
‘And have you had any?’ she asked me seriously.
‘One or two,’ I said.
‘From Julian Trent?’ she said.
‘From whoever is behind him,’ I said.
‘You take care,’ she ordered.
‘You take care too,’ I said. ‘Remember, he knows where you live. Don’t go anywhere on your own. Not even across to the hospital from your house.’
‘Surely I’m safe enough here?’ she said.
‘Trent attacked me within five yards of the front door of my chambers,’ I said. ‘Please don’t assume anything when it comes to this man. He’s very dangerous.’
‘Stop it. You’re frightening me,’ she said.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Be frightened. Be very frightened. I am.’
‘OK, OK,’ she said. ‘You’ve made your point.’
‘Are you sure you can’t come over here?’ I said. ‘I would be much happier if you were here with me.’
‘Now, now, Mister Barrister Man, don’t be too eager.’ She laughed.
‘I really meant for your security,’ I said seriously.
‘You really do mean it, don’t you?’ she said.
‘Yes. I do. You have no idea how frightening these people are until it’s too late. Remember what they did to my house.’
There was a long pause at the other end of the line.
‘How are we ever going to be free of them?’ she said.
‘I’m working on it,’ I said. But I didn’t know how either.
Detective Constable Hillier, the young policeman I had first met at Barlow’s house with Bruce Lygon, was the next witness for the prosecution when the court reconvened at ten thirty on Wednesday morning.
I had kept my eyes open for Julian Trent as I had arrived at the court building but there had been no sign of him. Somewhat perversely, I had rather hoped that he would be there, as it meant he wouldn’t have been elsewhere delivering mayhem to my loved ones or their property. Now, I simply worried.
DC Hillier proved to be a model witness for the Crown, stating clearly and persuasively to the jury how the murder weapon was found to be identical to two other pitchforks found at Mitchell’s property and how further investigations had discovered a receipt from a Newbury supplier showing that Mitchell had purchased three of the forks the previous year.
He went on to describe how he had ascertained that the debit card receipts, found impaled on the prongs of the fork between Mr Barlow’s body and the fork handle, were from a Maestro debit card issued by Lloyds Bank in the name of Mr Stephen Mitchell. Furthermore, the said debit card receipts were from payments made by Mr Mitchell to a licensed bookmaker based in Hungerford.
‘Detective Constable Hillier,’ I said, starting my cross-examination. ‘Do you not think it is strange that a murderer would leave incriminating debit card receipts with his name on them at the scene of the crime?’
‘No, not particularly,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘Many criminals do strange things.’
‘But did you not suspect that the receipts had been left on the fork by someone who simply wanted the police to believe that Mr Mitchell had been responsible for the crime?’
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Perhaps Mitchell put them on the fork to goad Barlow and he hadn’t really intended leaving them behind. Maybe he just panicked, or perhaps he couldn’t get the murder weapon out of the body to remove them, or indeed to take the fork back home with him.’
‘This is conjecture,’ interrupted the judge. ‘The witness will confine himself to the facts he knows, rather than tho
se he can merely speculate about.’
‘Sorry, Your Honour,’ said DC Hillier. But the damage had already been done.
I thought of further pointing out that the murderer could surely have ripped the receipts away from the fork without removing it from Barlow’s body if, of course, he’d actually wanted to, but this whole line of questioning clearly wasn’t helping our case so I let it go.
The next witness was the Hungerford bookmaker who confirmed that the receipts had been issued by the card machine at his premises.
‘And are you aware,’ the prosecuting counsel said to him, ‘that betting on horse racing by a professional jockey is against the Rules of Racing?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am aware of that.’
‘But you took the bets anyway?’ the QC asked.
‘Yes,’ said the bookmaker. ‘It was not against either the terms of my permit or the licence of my premises.’
‘Was it a regular arrangement with Mr Mitchell?’
‘Fairly regular,’ the bookmaker replied.
I started to rise but the judge beat me to it.
‘Is the regularity of any significance?’ he asked the prosecutor.
‘Perhaps not, My Lord,’ said the QC.
The bookmaker was dismissed. I could have asked him if he regularly took bets from other jockeys but that also wouldn’t have been significant, and would probably have antagonized him and the jury unnecessarily, so I didn’t. I had no reason to think that he had taken bets from Scot Barlow, so I didn’t ask him that either. As for how Steve Mitchell’s debit card receipts had found their way onto the pitchfork was anyone’s guess. Steve still, unbelievably, refused to comment on the matter, but he wasn’t here being tried for gambling in contravention of the Rules of Racing, he was being tried for murder.
‘You have one new message,’ said my voicemail when I turned my phone on at lunchtime. It was from Nikki Payne.
‘Mr Mason,’ her disembodied voice said in some excitement. ‘I’ve found your Jacques van Rensburg, or at least I’ve found out who he is. Call me back when you get this message.’
