Blind Justice

by Nathan Burrows

  “The IBAN started with the letters ‘RO’. That’s the identifier for Romania,’ Alfie replied.

  “Mr Wainwright was making regular payments to an account in Romania?”

  “Yes,” Alfie said. “Until March. That’s when the payments to the Romanian account stopped.”

  Paul paused, making notes on a pad.

  “Mr Nesbitt, let me make sure I understand this,” he said, looking across for an instant at Miss Revell before returning his gaze to the investigator. “Mr Wainwright was paying cash into his bank account regularly, separate to his wages. He was spending a lot of money each month on internet gambling, and making regular payments to an unknown account in Romania which stopped in March.” Paul stopped at that point, looking toward the jury. It looked as if he was contemplating carrying on, but he didn’t say anything further.

  “No more questions, Your Honour,” Paul said, turning to face the judge for a second before returning to his seat. As he sat down, Laura put her hand on his arm as and squeezed it, coaxing a brief smile from him.

  “Miss Revell?” Judge Watling said. I looked over at the prosecutor’s bench. She was deep in conversation with one of the suited men, and I didn’t think she’d heard the judge call her name. “Miss Revell?” the judge said again, louder than the time before. He looked pissed off which I thought was a good thing.

  “Sorry, Your Honour,” Miss Revell replied, rearranging the wig on her head where it had slipped forward. “Er, yes, I do have some questions.”

  Alfie crossed his hands in his lap as Miss Revell got to her feet.

  “Mr Nesbitt, you have specified that all of the data you obtained from this laptop was easily available? Not password protected in any way?”

  “Yes, that’s correct,” he replied. Miss Revell turned to Judge Watling.

  “Your Honour, as we discussed in chambers, I have serious concerns about the integrity of this laptop’s data. You offered me the opportunity to explore this in open court.” The judge nodded and she turned back to Alfie. “Mr Nesbitt, you are quite au-fait with computers, are you not? Given your history working within the computer crime unit of Suffolk Police?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “And one of the tasks that you undertook within that unit was the forensic analysis of computers, which included password retrieval?” Alfie started to reply when Paul cut him off.

  “Your Honour, please. My witness appears to be about to be accused of a crime by my learned colleague,” he said. Miss Revell shot an immediate response back at Paul.

  “I am not, I simply suggest that the laptop could have been compromised.”

  “Miss Revell, you are skating on rather thin ice with your suggestion,” Judge Watling warned her. “There is a fine line between suggesting a compromise, and linking the witness to this compromise.” Miss Revell looked at the judge, and I wondered if she was taking one for the team to put the suggestion into the jurors’ heads.

  “Judge Watling?” I heard a voice and realised that it was Alfie. The judge looked at him, as surprised as I was to hear him interrupt the argument.

  “Yes, Mr Nesbitt?”

  “Perhaps I could point out I never had possession of the laptop. It was collected directly from Mr and Mrs Wainwright’s address by courier and taken to Digital Solutions Incorporated. It was never in my possession at all,” Alfie said. “Nor the defence team. It was sent directly from Mr and Mrs Wainwright’s house to the analysts by courier.”

  “I have an audit trail to support that, Your Honour,” Paul chipped in, and I had to concentrate on keeping a straight face and not look at David. Who could possibly be a better courier to collect a laptop than him? Miss Revell looked crestfallen at this news, looking back to her colleagues on the bench who both gave her blank stares in return.

  “Oh,” she said as Paul sat back down in his chair. That hadn’t gone well for her at all. She rallied and went on to ask Alfie more questions about not being able to trace the origin of the cash payments made to Robert or the recipient of the payments, but the questions soon petered out.

  I looked across at the jury and could tell from the look on their faces that this innings had definitely gone to Paul and Alfie.

  It took me a second or two to realise that I’d been stabbed. Well, stabbed may be a bit dramatic. Slashed with a homemade knife is a more accurate way of describing it. I was queuing up for supper back at the prison, chatting with Pete about the day’s events and the investigator, Alfie Nesbitt. We were discussing what he might have been accused of when he was a copper. Pete was sure Alfie had been on the nick, perhaps using computers to syphon off money somehow, when someone brushed past me in the queue, knocking me toward the food counter. I was just about to say something to the prisoner who’d barged into me when I felt a white-hot pain across my buttock. I put my hand on my backside and it came away covered in blood. My blood.

  As soon as other prisoners saw the blood on my hand, a commotion started up that soon got the attention of the prison officers. Several of the prisoners shouted and jostled about, and I heard someone shout “knife” at the top of his voice. I wasn’t sure whether they were just doing it to create confusion to allow whoever had sliced me to get away, whether it was a genuine concern for my welfare, or both. It didn’t matter anyway. The prisoner with the knife was long gone.

  “Move, move,” Mr Jackson shouted as he cleaved a path toward me through the prisoners, closely followed by another two officers. His bulk cut through the small crowd with ease. Once he reached me, he looked at me with an impassive expression before reaching out and grabbing my shoulder with a huge hand. He spun me around and looked down at my tracksuit trousers which were getting heavier with the blood pouring out of the cut. I’d still not seen the extent of the damage, but started to feel light headed. I’d never been good with the sight of blood, and when it was mine it was ten times worse. “Right, let’s get you to the infirmary,” he said, pushing me away from the food counter. “You’re not going to faint on me, are you?”

  “No, I’m good,” I replied, even though I wasn’t.

  Other than asking me if I’d seen who the prisoner with the knife was, Mr Jackson didn’t say another word as he led me to the infirmary, a room the other side of two very serious doors. I knew there was a small ward attached to it from what Pete had told me, but I’d never been here as a customer. A male nurse came out to meet us as Mr Jackson pointed toward the single examination couch in the room. I shuffled onto it, face down.

  “What’ve we got, then?” the nurse said. He was dressed in the same pyjamas I’d seen at the hospital when Jennifer died, but his were blue instead of green.

  “Knife wound to the buttock. Looks deep,” I heard Mr Jackson say. “His name’s Dawson.”

  “Mr Dawson?” the nurse said. I turned to look at him. “My name’s Damien, I’m the nurse practitioner here. I’m just going to have a look at this wound, okay?” I wasn’t sure what the difference between a regular nurse and a nurse practitioner was, but he looked like an okay bloke, so I let that one go.

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” I replied. The nurse pulled some bright purple gloves from a box attached to the wall and snapped them on before pulling the back of my tracksuit trousers down.

  “Hmm,” I heard him say. “That’s going to smart a bit.”

  “You’re telling me,” I replied as he prodded at my buttock.

  “It’s not too bad though. Only went as deep as fatty tissue from the looks of it, bleeding’s pretty much stopped already. Do you know what the weapon was?” I wasn’t sure if he was asking me or Mr Jackson, so I kept quiet. The nurse kept prodding at my arse cheek. “Looks like it was probably a razor blade to me, it’s quite surgical.” I figured if anyone would know about weapons inside a prison, it would be a nurse practitioner who worked in one. The nurse mumbled something I didn’t quite catch, and I heard Mr Jackson reply with a curt ‘yep’.

  When I heard the door clang shut, I raised my head and realised that the nurse h
ad left the room. Mr Jackson was sitting on a plastic chair, looking at me.

  “He’s gone to get some stuff to patch you up,” he said. “So what’s going on, then? Who’ve you pissed off?” I didn’t reply at first, but thought I’d better say something to the man.

  “I didn’t see who it was,” I replied. “One minute I was standing there talking to Pete, the next I’ve got blood pissing down my leg.” He fixed me with a hard stare, no doubt used to having conversations like these. “I don’t know who I’ve pissed off.” That last statement at least was the truth. I had no idea who had slashed me, but thought I probably knew who had put him up to it.

  The nurse came back in a couple of minutes later, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had developed between me and Mr Jackson. He had a handful of very clinical looking stuff in his hands, including what was quite obviously a syringe and needle.

  I groaned and put my head on my forearms.

  “The defence calls Doctor Anthea Klein.”

  The court settled down as the small woman in the witness box took the Bible in her hand. As she recited the oath in a much louder voice than I had been expecting, I could see what Paul had said about her being straight from the set of Miss Marple. Dr Klein, Paul’s favourite witness if he was to be believed, was only about five foot tall if that. She was thin, dressed in a grey tweed jacket and matching skirt, and had curly grey hair that would have looked fine with a blue rinse. As she sat down, I half expected her to pull out a ball of wool and a couple of knitting needles, although I’d had enough of needles for one week.

  “Dr Klein, before we begin, I would just like to introduce you to the jury if I may?” Paul said. Would you mind telling them a bit about yourself please?”

  “Certainly,” Dr Klein replied, smiling warmly at the jury. I looked across at them, and pretty much all twelve of them returned her smile. “I’m now retired and only undertake consultative work, but I first qualified as a Medical Doctor back in the late nineteen seventies, and then as a pathologist in the early nineteen eighties.” She described her career in some detail, listing courses, degrees, fellowships, all sorts of stuff I didn’t really understand. I was concentrating more on the fact she’d qualified as a doctor before I was even born. She carried on detailing her career and explaining all the qualifications and awards that she’d got along the way. Dr Klein got my attention back when she started talking about the time she’d spent in the United States, as a specialist examiner in New England. “I developed a keen interest in a specific type of trauma. Blunt force cranial trauma.” I was beginning to understand why Paul was so keen on Dr Klein in this particular case. “I authored a book titled ‘The Pathophysiology of Low Velocity Cranial Trauma,” she said in a light voice, as if she was about tell a joke. “It’s now in its tenth edition, but is used by most pathologists in the United States and the United Kingdom as a definitive resource in the investigation of blunt force trauma to the head.”

  Paul looked across to the prosecution table as Dr Klein offered this, as if he was expecting Miss Revell to object. When she didn’t respond, Paul turned to the judge.

  “Your Honour, I would like to introduce this witness as an expert witness in the analysis of blunt force trauma to the head.” Judge Watling looked across at Miss Revell when Paul asked this. She half got to her feet before replying.

  “No objection, Your Honour,” the prosecutor said. “She seems eminently qualified in the field.” I looked back at Dr Klein who put her hands together as if she was praying and smiled at the jury. To my surprise, most of them were smiling back at her, even Albert who didn’t seem to pay attention at the best of times.

  “Your Honour, I would also like to take this opportunity to remind the jury that the forensic accounts from the original trial have been entered into evidence with no challenges from the prosecution.” I saw Miss Revell grimace, and then nod her head.

  “Very well,” Judge Watling said.

  “Dr Klein,” Paul continued. “I asked you to review both the murder scene itself and also the post-mortem results. Could we go through your analysis of the murder scene first, please?”

  “Of course,” Dr Klein replied. “I do hope that you’ve all had breakfast, though,” she continued, looking at the jury. I looked up at the public gallery, concerned for a moment that Robert’s parents were still there, but they’d not returned this morning. The usher was manoeuvring the television back into place as Dr Klein introduced the material she was going to talk about.

  “Now obviously I wasn’t involved at all at the time of the incident, so my analysis of the scene is based on the reports. I commenced with a thorough examination of the murder scene reports, provided by the police.” She looked at the public gallery and catching Malcolm's eye, smiled at him and I realised that they must know each other. Dr Klein wasn’t in the courtroom when Malcolm was giving evidence, and I wondered how their paths had crossed. “I must say they did a thoroughly good job of documenting the scene. It made the analysis so much easier for me.” I looked up at Malcolm. Was he blushing?

  The usher brought the screen to life and Laura walked over to the television carrying a laptop. She plugged some cables in and the television flashed a couple of times before showing a mirror image of the laptop screen. Laura opened up a presentation, and on her way back to the defence table she handed Dr Klein a small remote control.

  “Thank you, my dear,” Dr Klein said to Laura before turning back to the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid that some of the photographs in this presentation are rather gruesome. I do hope that everyone’s okay with that?” I wondered what would happen if one of the jurors put their hand up and said they weren’t, but none of them did. Dr Klein pointed the remote control at the laptop, and the screen changed to a photograph. I recognised it straight away as the alleyway behind The Griffin pub, and Robert’s body lying at an angle in the middle of the photograph would identify the location for everyone else.

  “This is a photograph showing the entire scene, illuminated by police spotlights. As you can see, there is the body of the victim, identified as Mr Robert Wainwright, in the centre of the frame. Can I ask you to pay attention to the position of his body in the photograph?” Dr Klein pressed the remote control again, and the picture changed to a zoomed in image of Robert. He was lying on his side, pretty much exactly as I’d left him, facing towards the back wall of the alleyway. The only difference between how he looked in the photograph on the screen and how he’d looked when I’d left him was that in the photograph, his head was completely smashed in. On the screen, a large depression in his skull was obvious, as were the flecks of white tissue splattered around. Were those bits of bone? Or was it brain tissue? I felt slightly nauseous, and as I looked at the jury several of them looked how I felt. I saw juror number three, Ella, dab at her forehead with a tissue as she looked at the screen.

  “Now the piece I want to focus in on is the position of the body, and the injuries that the victim has sustained. I will go into more detail on the injuries later, so for the time being this is just an overview,” Dr Klein said. “As you can see, the victim is lying on his side with his face toward a wall. He is approximately eight inches away from the wall. The scene was examined carefully by the forensic science team who confirmed the body had not been moved. The post-mortem also confirmed this, as there was grit embedded in the other side of the victim’s face.” Dr Klein paused, looking at the jury as if she was assessing whether or not they understood her. “When the fatal blows took place, the victim was in exactly the position you see him in now.”

  Dr Klein looked at the bench just behind Laura as a man who I’d not noticed before got to his feet and walked into the middle of the courtroom. There was another man sitting on the same bench and from how they were both dressed, I figured that they were together. They both wore grey suits, white shirts and black ties, and for a moment they reminded me of the two men who’d attacked Robert before I got to him, although they looked nothing like the attack
ers that night. “This is my colleague, Daniel,” Dr Klein said. “Daniel, if you would, could you assume the position that the body in the photograph is in, please? If you would use the judge’s bench as the wall, that would be great.”

  Daniel looked at the screen, and lay on the floor of the courtroom, manoeuvring his body into an approximation of Robert’s. He lined himself up so he was the same distance away from the judge’s bench as the wall was in the photograph. Dr Klein looked back at the screen, pressing the remote control. On the screen, a red line appeared superimposed across Robert’s head. It intersected with the depression in the side of his skull, and pointed away from the wall and into the main part of the alleyway.

  “This line represents the angle of the blows on the victim. It has been calculated from the injury patterns and the blood spatter on the wall behind the victim using a standard set of forensic algorithms.” She pressed the button again, and an image of a baseball bat replaced the red line. “As you can see, this was the angle that the bat was being held at when the blows were struck.

  “This is my other colleague, Jeremy,” Dr Klein said as the other grey suited man got to his feet. He was holding a baseball bat in his hand, and I saw the surprise on the faces of some of the jury as they saw it. He stepped forward and walked towards his colleague on the floor. “Jeremy, please could you kneel down with the baseball bat in your right hand.” Jeremy did as he was instructed. “Now raise and lower the bat as if you were hitting Daniel. But please, don’t actually hit him.” There were a few nervous laughs from the jury bench and as I looked across at them, I could see that Dr Klein had their complete attention. As if he was hitting his colleague in slow motion, Jeremy raised the bat over his shoulder and brought it down until it was lying across the other man’s face. “Could you do it again please?” Dr Klein asked. He did as instructed and the bat ended up in the same position. Dr Klein pressed the button again and another line appeared on the screen, but this time it was at an opposite angle to the first one. The two lines made a large X over Robert’s face.