by Nick Stone
We sat on a leather banquette, the only furniture there. It was opposite a black lift, without external buttons.
I felt a bead of sweat dribble down my cheek.
‘Are you OK?’ Janet asked, noticing.
‘Too many layers,’ I said, wiping my face with my hand, only to feel more sweat build up around my temples. We’d stepped in from the cold to comparative warmth. I had on a T-shirt underneath my suit and shirt. But I wasn’t at all hot. It was nerves.
My heart rate was jacked. The whole way up from Embankment I’d been desperately thinking of ways to get out of this, drawing blank after blank, getting more and more panicked.
I watched Janet read through her notes, close to a dozen pages filled with blue semi-legible cursive handwriting. She was jotting things down in a separate notebook as she read through her pad.
Half an hour later, the lift doors opened and a youngish officer in white shirtsleeves stepped out.
‘James?’ he called out.
We stood and went to the lift.
‘He’s in 29,’ he said and pressed a button for the third floor.
We rode up in silence. I heard my heart thudding in my chest.
The lift stopped and we got out.
The officer led the way down a corridor. To the right were interview rooms, to the left windows with a view of St Martin’s Lane, the Duke of York Theatre and, opposite, the revolving globe atop the London Coliseum’s spire, and the roof of the Chandos pub. I saw a small group of tourists pointing their cameras up at it, no doubt marvelling at the mechanical man manoeuvring the barrel of beer on the upper window, looking like he was going to push it into the street below.
Some of the interview rooms were open. A detective was going through his notes in one, two were talking in another. The rooms were different. Some were spartan, white walls, with just a table, three chairs and CCTV. Others were set up to resemble living rooms, with a comfortable couch facing two easy chairs, a carpet and drawn curtains to give the illusion of a window. I guessed VJ would get the first option.
I tried to steel myself as I counted down the numbers to the rooms, but they were random, non-sequential, which may or may not have been deliberate. Room 33 followed Room 15. Then it was Room 7. I kept expecting to arrive at 29 any moment, but we continued walking.
The officer greeted passing colleagues with a nod or a hello. Everyone so far was younger than me. That was a sign you were getting old, when the cops looked fresh out of school and barely acquainted with a razor.
Suddenly we were outside Room 29.
The officer swiped his keycard along a pad next to the door and the lock clacked open. He went in first, holding the door for us.
It was a plain interview room, a white-walls-and-striplight set-up. The next thing I saw was the bright-red panic button on the wall, sprouting out of the brick like a painted toadstool.
And then I saw him. VJ. Not fully, just a glimpse. Sat at the table with his fingers interlaced, dressed in a blue paper boilersuit.
‘Who are you?’
A woman was blocking the doorway. She was talking to me.
‘I’m… I’m…’
The woman advanced, forcing me to step back.
‘He’s the clerk,’ Janet said behind her.
‘Solicitor only in here, sorry,’ she said, holding up a palm at me.
The woman had short grey hair and a thin, tired face, which contrasted with her broad frame and stout build. I’d seen her before, but I couldn’t place her. I guessed she was a detective.
The young officer who’d led us up came out and took me to a waiting room at the end of a corridor.
When he left I let out all the breath in my body, one long, lower-reg whistle of escaping pressure.
In the waiting room, I took off my coat and jacket. My shirt was soaked through.
I sat there a while, without a single thought forming. I got up and had several glasses of water from the cooler. I read and reread the posters and notices on the wall. I checked my phone messages, but had none.
Nicks still freaked me out a little. It couldn’t be helped. I’ve been arrested four times, all in Stevenage. One you already know about, after I’d last seen VJ. The next was a few months later. No charge, just a night in the cells. I’d been out drinking with my brothers, Aidan and Patrick. I don’t know how we got separated, but we did and I found myself alone in the street, too pissed to walk home. So I went to the shopping centre and bedded down in a doorway under the arcade. A cop woke me up with his bootcap and took me to the nick, bent on charging me with vagrancy and disturbing the peace. The desk sergeant knew my parents and waived the charge. But I was shoved in a cell just the same. The next morning I got driven home. Dad thought it was funny, said he used to do the same thing in Cork.
The next time he wasn’t so amused. I got done for shoplifting. I got tanked up one afternoon and found myself in Sainsbury’s, going aisle to aisle, piling up a trolley past the brim. Then I wheeled it straight out of the shop. I made it about halfway down the road before store detectives caught up with me. I was taken back to the shop. Mum was working there then as a cashier, but she was on her break. The staff all recognised me. The cops were called and I got carted off. I got a caution and a ten-year ban from the shop. Mum was humiliated. That was in the summer of 1994.
No one had worked out or understood then that things were seriously wrong with me. The beating I’d taken in Cambridge had caught up with me. Everyone thought it was the drink. I didn’t think anything. Most of the time I wasn’t even conscious of what I was doing.
A year later I got sectioned. I’d found out that VJ and his family had moved again, to Ashwell, a village outside Stevenage. I got wankered on Guinness Export and Jameson doubles and went out to confront him. On foot. In the middle of the night. The cops found me the next morning, sitting in a field miles away, talking to a scarecrow. We’d swapped clothes. Sort of. I had the hat on and nothing else.
It was then that the collective penny dropped, and I got carted off to the Lister Hospital. The local nuthouse. Bed, meds and four months of therapy:
Tell me about your mother. Let’s start with the good things…
Over the next hour, the waiting room got busier. Solicitors came and went. They talked on their phones. They talked to plainclothes cops. They talked to each other.
And then Franco Carnavale came in. He was one of the CPS’s main prosecuting barristers. I’d seen him on the news. He always got the media-friendly trials. He looked better on TV than he did in the flesh – a shortarse in his late forties with thick light-brown hair and a chunky gold watch.
Then the woman from the interrogation room came in. She and Carnavale chatted in whispers and mumbles for a while, before she handed him a thick manila file.
I kept my head down and pretended to be busy studying notes in my legal pad, even though the pages were blank.
‘It’s all here,’ she said.
‘Thanks, Carol. Do the away side have this?’
‘Minus a few players,’ she said.
Carnavale chuckled. He leafed through the file. His pinkie ring and watch kept catching the light and flashing in my eye.
Carol…?
Carol Reid – DCI Reid, the Met’s rising star. A few years back she’d caught the serial rapist they called the ‘Polish Pimpernel’. The media loved her. Karen liked her too, reminded her of a TV cop, she’d said.
DCI Reid sensed me staring and looked my way. She recognised me and frowned. Then she whispered into Carnavale’s ear and they both left the room.
An hour later Janet came in. She had a file in her hand, the same colour as the one Carnavale had been given, but about half as full.
She was glaring at me, hard. I’d seen her angry before, but never like this.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
Had VJ told her already?
‘Everything,’ she said.
11
‘This case is a loser, Sid,’ Janet said.
> ‘Do tell.’
We were sitting in the boardroom on the second floor, the three of us around the conference table, a thick circular slab of varnished mahogany set on a pedestal sculpted into an eagle’s claw.
‘Where to begin… exactly?’ Janet said. She was knackered, her face pinched and pale, a vein ticking away at her temple. I could hear the Canning Town roots in her voice, the ones a private education and university had almost completely patioed over, bar the odd recalcitrant weed, which a few drinks or a bad mood pushed up.
She opened the manila folder and separated the contents into three short stacks, which she placed before her – crime-scene photos, witness statements, interview transcripts. Then she flipped through her two pads, backwards and forwards between pages, pausing here and there to quick-scan and cross-reference her notes.
I let my eyes drift around the room. Vast, high-ceilinged and whitewashed, with all the warmth and personality of an empty fridge. Apart from the silent clock on one wall, the only thing that broke up the uniform blankness was another of Kopf’s black-and-white photographs, hanging above the fireplace – a pie and mash shop, its eponymous menu advertised as stained glass illustrations in its front windows.
Finally Janet was ready.
‘The case against Vernon James goes like this,’ she began. ‘At 6.27 a.m. yesterday morning, he checked out of Suite 18 at the Blenheim-Strand. The receptionist noticed cuts on his hands and scratches on his face. She asked if he was OK. He said he was fine, signed his bill, left and caught a cab to his offices in Canary Wharf.
‘At 8.03, two maids went up to clean the suite. Now, it’s a big place. Separate lounge and bedroom, two bathrooms, one en suite. The maids entered together and the first thing they noticed was that the lounge had been trashed. Broken glass everywhere, upturned furniture.
‘One of them went to check the bedroom. That’s when and where she found the victim. White, female, blonde, late twenties to early thirties. The victim was on the bed, face up, naked. Her clothes were on the floor. A green dress, shoes. No underwear. Her name is Evelyn Bates. She —’
‘Who again?’ Kopf asked.
‘Evelyn Bates.’
Kopf frowned and then scribbled in his pad.
‘Any other details?’ he asked.
‘Such as?’
‘Appearance?’
‘Five five to five seven in height. Chubby-looking.’
‘Was she a guest at the Ethical Person awards?’
‘No. She was at a hen party.’
Kopf frowned even harder.
‘Why are you asking?’
‘To get a mental picture,’ he said, scribbling some more, still frowning. ‘Carry on.’
‘The maids alerted hotel security, who called the police. Two officers arrived at the scene at 8.39 a.m. Medics followed a few minutes later. They confirmed the victim was dead. Apparent cause: strangulation, possibly manual. There was noticeable bruising around her neck.’
‘What was the time of death?’ Kopf asked.
‘Preliminary estimate is under eight hours from the time the body was found. The autopsy’s being conducted later today, so we’ll know more.’
‘All right.’
‘At around 9.20, police units were dispatched to Vernon James’s home and business addresses. DCI Carol Reid and DS Mark Fordham found him at his office.
‘Reid states that Vernon’s first words to her were: “If it’s about the damage, I can explain.” She let him talk. He told her he’d invited some people up to his suite after the ceremony. Things got out of hand. The room got trashed. He said he was very sorry, and that he’d pay for any damages.
‘Reid then asked him about the dead woman in the bedroom. He said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”’
‘That wasn’t under caution?’ Kopf asked.
‘No. But it’s his word against theirs,’ she said. ‘At 10.30 he was arrested and taken to Charing Cross nick. He was interviewed under caution two hours later. There he changed his story completely. He said he’d lied about having people up in his room, because he didn’t want his wife finding out he’d been with another woman.
‘He then proceeded to tell DCI Reid the same story he told me, give or take. He went up to his suite with a woman called Fabia, who he described as white, blonde, around six feet tall, late twenties to early thirties. She spoke with a French accent and told him she was Swiss. And she was wearing a green dress.’
‘Like the victim?’
‘Like the victim,’ Janet said. ‘Vernon says Fabia attacked him in the suite and ran off. Shortly afterwards he passed out on the couch in the lounge. He woke up at around 6 a.m. – still on the couch – packed his overnight bag and checked out. He didn’t know anything about a dead woman in the bedroom. In fact, he says he never even set foot in the bedroom.
‘When Reid showed him a photograph of the victim and asked if she was the woman he was with, he replied, “I’m not sure.”’
Kopf shook his head. ‘Tell me he didn’t say that.’
‘It’s in the transcript,’ Janet said, tapping one of the stacks of paper in front of her. ‘Therefore on record, therefore admissible in court.’
‘Doesn’t he know what “no comment” means?’
‘He does now,’ she said. ‘The first interview was terminated at 1.18 p.m. Vernon was then photographed, had his samples taken – hair, blood, mouth-swab, etc. His clothes were also taken away. Then he got his phone call.
‘He called Ahmad Sihl, his business lawyer. Ahmad turned up at 3.30 p.m. He saw Vernon at 4.15. He advised him to say nothing and told him he was going to get him a criminal lawyer. Which is where we came in.’
VJ was no stranger to police interrogations. I was sure he’d remembered Quinlan’s grillings. I wondered if he wasn’t thinking about those now. Maybe he was even thinking of me. Little did he know… for now.
‘The police already have enough to charge him with, but they won’t until the autopsy report confirms cause of death,’ Janet continued.
‘Now, we haven’t had anything like full disclosure from the CPS yet, but their case so far is pretty damn solid. They already have statements from four eyewitnesses who saw Vernon with a woman who matched the description of the victim – blonde, youngish, green dress. And all four ID’d Evelyn Bates from the photo they were shown.
‘Of the witnesses: three were waiting staff in the hotel nightclub where Vernon went after the award ceremony. Two saw him and the victim dancing together. The third says she saw them rolling about on the floor.
‘“Rolling about on the floor”?’
‘The club got pretty rowdy, apparently,’ Janet said. ‘The most damning statement so far is from a barman in the Circle, a few floors up from the nightclub. He says he served Vernon and a blonde in a green dress shortly before midnight. They sat in a corner, had a drink, talked, “looked intimate” – his words – and then left together, approximately half an hour later. Again, he positively photo-ID’d the victim as the woman.’
‘What did the client have to say to that?’ Kopf asked.
‘He’s sticking to his story. Except for one detail. He had another look at the victim’s photo, and now insists she wasn’t the woman he went to his room with. He says Evelyn Bates looked nothing like this “Fabia”.
‘But he admits to meeting the victim in the nightclub, by accident. He was looking for Fabia and mistook the victim for her, because they were both wearing green dresses. While they were talking they both got knocked over. She tore her dress and left the club. He then —’
Kopf held up his hand.
‘OK. Enough,’ he said. ‘His story’s a mess. Obviously made up on the hoof.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ Janet said.
‘Did you tell him?’
‘I told him how it’ll look to a jury. And I outlined the police’s case.’
‘Did you suggest a plea?’
‘Of course. I told him if he pleads guilty now, we could negoti
ate in his favour.’
‘And?’
‘He refused. He insists he’s innocent. He says he never brought Evelyn Bates up to his room. He clearly remembers lying down on the couch, and waking up there at daybreak,’ she said.
‘When do you think they’ll charge him?’
‘The autopsy’s due soon. They could have him in front of a magistrate first thing Monday.’
‘Any chance he’ll change his mind?’
‘Not at the moment,’ Janet said.
There wasn’t even the suggestion of a presumption of innocence here. We were a defence team in name only. I might as well have been working for the prosecution. But I held my tongue.
‘So we’re potentially in trial mode. We need to —’ Kopf said, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.
His PA looked in.
‘Mr Kopf, I’m sorry to interrupt but Scott Nagle’s on the phone. Shall I put it through to here?’
‘No. I’ll take it in my office,’ Kopf said. He looked from Janet to me. ‘Let’s have a short break.’
After he’d left, I turned to Janet.
‘Who’s Scott Nagle?’ I asked.
‘There are people who make you jump, and people who make you ask, “How high?” before you jump,’ Janet said. ‘Nagle is the firm’s biggest client. And we’re all his pole-vaulters.’
‘What does he do?’ I asked.
‘What hasn’t he done?’ she smiled.
‘I mean for a living.’
‘None of our clients do anything for a living, Terry. They’re way past that. They all have what Americans call “Fuck-Off Money”.’
And she went back to her three stacks. I wanted to see the crime-scene photos, but I didn’t want to ask right now. Too crude, too voyeuristic for a future lawyer. I needed to concern myself with higher things, like police reports and witness statements – except Janet was working through those.
I pondered VJ’s story. Kopf was right. It was bullshit, the kind of desperate lie you conjure up in a cornered panic. It was almost infantile too, a variation of the “twin brother defence”… It wasn’t me who broke the window, Miss, it was my identical twin. I’d found out how useless that lie was when I was five.
