The Verdict

by Nick Stone

  ‘Why didn’t you mention it before?’

  ‘I didn’t remember until this morning,’ he said.

  ‘Were you wearing it when you left the hotel the next morning?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘When did you last have it?’

  ‘You know the woman I met – Fabia?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I think she took it. In fact, I’m sure she did,’ he said. ‘When we were having that drink at the Circle bar, she noticed the watch and asked if she could see it. She told me her father was a watchsmith. So I gave it to her – handed it to her, I mean.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Why not? A beautiful woman asks to try on your watch, you wouldn’t turn her down, would you?’ he said, smiling.

  ‘If it was a Rolex, I would,’ I said. ‘Which hand did she put it on?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Which hand did she put the watch on?’

  He squinted, frowned, racked his brains.

  ‘Left, I think.’

  Whenever clients add to their statements, they’re usually lying. They’ve had their first taste of prison and started panicking. I’d just used a classic interrogation tactic on VJ, something I’d seen in every suspect interview video, something Quinlan had used on me – and him too.

  They’d let a suspect talk for a while, get into a comfortable flow, and then they’d interrupt him, make him go back over seemingly trivial points – colour of shoes, what the weather was like that day, what was on TV. Then they’d let him carry on with his story, find his rhythm again, and then they’d ask him the same questions they’d asked before, only in a different order. If the suspect gave different answers, they had him.

  ‘Carry on,’ I said.

  ‘The watch didn’t fit her. It slid up and down her forearm. I joked about it. I told her she looked like a rapper. And that’s the last time I remember seeing the watch.’

  ‘So you’re saying she kept it on the whole time you were with her?’

  ‘I suppose so. She must have. I don’t remember seeing it again.’

  ‘Did she have a handbag with her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you gave someone – a stranger – a piece of your property, and you forgot all about it?’

  ‘Yes. My mind was on other things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Getting laid,’ he said.

  I thought of Melissa. How long had he been cheating on her? This didn’t sound like it was the first time. Did she know?

  And how could he?

  ‘Consider the circumstances,’ he said. ‘I was going up to my room with this really hot chick. The last thing on my mind was what she had on – if you get my drift.’

  ‘So you’re basically saying that this woman – Fabia – had your watch on when she was in the room with you? Which means she would have had it on when she attacked you?’

  ‘That figures, yeah.’

  ‘And when she left the room she was still wearing it, or had slipped it in her bag?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘The only other explanation I have is that the maids or the police stole it.’

  ‘Unlikely on both counts,’ I said. ‘The maids walked in on a trashed room and a dead body. The only thing they’d be thinking of was raising the alarm. As for the police, we’re not talking loose cash or something that could be easily missed. Tell me about the watch itself.’

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘It’s a 1951 Datejust Rolex. One of the earliest models in that range. Stainless steel, with a gold rim around the glass. Ivory face, jubilee bracelet. Serial number is 7353.’

  I froze a second and stopped writing.

  I knew the one he meant.

  It was his dad’s Rolex.

  I carried on writing fast. If I stopped, my hand might start shaking. And I thought of what I’d say to him next, about how I’d look for it. I’d handle the official channels – the jewellers’, watch shops, eBay – and get Swayne to ask around the fences.

  ‘The watch was my grandad’s, originally. He passed it on to my dad,’ VJ said. ‘You remember my dad, don’t you… Terry?’

  Now I stopped writing. My head had been bowed over my notebook, as I was scribbling down the details.

  I blinked a couple of times. Dry swallowed.

  I finished what I was writing, put my pen down and looked up at him.

  He was sitting back, arms crossed, wearing a sardonic smile – and black-framed specs.

  That’s why he hadn’t recognised me yesterday.

  ‘I didn’t know you wore glasses,’ I said.

  ‘It’s been contacts for the last twelve years,’ he said. ‘They won’t let me have them in here. I only got these last night.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, close to a whisper.

  He chuckled at my unintentional pun. Or maybe it was the shock on my face that amused him. Or maybe how my hand was trembling.

  I suddenly couldn’t think any more. My head was blank. I didn’t know what to say, what to ask him, where to begin, where to go. I was lost and intimidated. It might as well have been me in his shoes, him in mine.

  ‘I thought I recognised you yesterday, but I wasn’t sure,’ he said.

  ‘Is that why you got me here?’

  No reply. Instead he looked me over, inspected me, his eyes dashing back and forth over my face like a pair of fat wet flies. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but I knew he was seeing my frozen panic.

  ‘They don’t know about you, do they – your firm?’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I didn’t think so.’

  What did that mean? Was that a threat or an observation, or a bit of both? Then the guard who’d walked me in opened the door.

  ‘Sorry, gents,’ he said to VJ. ‘Time’s up.’

  No.

  We needed more time. I needed more time.

  VJ closed his file and stuck out his hand.

  ‘It’s good to see you again,’ he said.

  I stood up like some summoned zombie and remotely shook his hand.

  The guard cleared his throat.

  ‘Best move it along now,’ he said.

  VJ leaned in closer.

  ‘I didn’t do this, Terry. I know what it looks like, but I didn’t do it. You know I didn’t do it.’

  25

  On the Tube, rattling and clunking back into town…

  … thinking:

  What was that about?

  Not what I’d expected.

  Not what I’d expected at all.

  It’s good to see you again.

  He’d been… friendly. Not suspicious, not hostile, not even questioning.

  Friendly.

  As in: we were long-lost mates.

  As in: he acted like he didn’t know I hated him.

  As in: all the stuff that had happened between us was trivial, a mere ‘tiff’, just water under a bridge – the diary, getting me kicked out of Cambridge, marrying my ex-girlfriend.

  Maybe he saw things Karen’s way. He thought I’d moved on with my life, as he had with his. Maybe he even thought I’d forgiven him.

  He’d have to be naive and stupid to believe that.

  Or…

  They don’t know about you, do they – your firm?

  If VJ was really innocent, surely he wouldn’t have wanted me on his defence team. How could he? I could jeopardise things. If not actively, then passively – by doing something close to nothing, the absolute bare minimum.

  My best guess was that he was guilty, he’d done it – he’d killed Evelyn Bates – but he was going to use me to try and wriggle his way out of it. He was going to make me do things – unethical things, illegal things – to get him off the hook. Just like I’d done before.

  If I refused, he’d tell Janet about my past.

  He had me…

  Or so he thought.

  But he didn’t know I was going to get f
ired anyway; that I had nothing to lose.

  So, really, I had him, right where I wanted him.

  At my mercy.

  What was I going to do?

  I didn’t know. I didn’t have to make a decision right now, but the options were clear. I could quite easily screw him over. Do unto him as he’d done unto me. What if I found that piece of evidence that could exonerate him… and I lost it. Or what if I found Fabia… but never found her.

  But could I live with myself, if I did that?

  Irrespective, today I’d learned my first real lesson in how to be a defence lawyer:

  You don’t have to believe in your client’s innocence. You only have to make believe you do.

  26

  Back at my desk, I’d taken out my sandwiches and turned on the computer when Janet walked in, with Sid Kopf right behind her. Time busted a spring and everything stopped dead. Everyone looked up and gawped. Kopf had never graced us with his presence.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ Janet asked me. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you.’

  ‘My phone was off, sorry,’ I said.

  Adolf was typing, pretending to mind her own business, but I could see her smirking away. Kopf stepped out from behind Janet.

  ‘Where were you?’ he asked.

  ‘Client visit,’ I said.

  ‘You didn’t have a VO.’

  ‘Didn’t need one.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Our client’s bought himself a friend,’ I said.

  ‘Why didn’t you call in?’

  ‘No time.’

  He glowered at me.

  Adolf kept typing.

  ‘What did he want?’

  I told him about the watch. I tried to include Janet in my explanation, but she was hanging back, behind her boss.

  Kopf shook his blanched mane and let out a theatrical sigh.

  ‘So, he gives a valuable family heirloom to some woman he’s just picked up?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘Do you really believe someone that clever would do something that stupid?’

  ‘Everyone can be stupid sometimes,’ I said. ‘He was drunk and horny.’

  ‘I’m not the jury. And if I was, I still wouldn’t believe it. The watch probably doesn’t even exist.’

  ‘It does exist,’ I said.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve seen it.’

  Then I realised what I’d just said.

  ‘What I mean is… I’ve seen… I know the one he means. He was very specific.’

  Adolf stifled a laugh.

  Kopf looked at me like I was talking crap. Which, of course, I was.

  ‘Terry,’ he said, putting both his palms flat on my desk and leaning in, pivoting his weight. ‘The only thing that interests us here is proof. All right? Maybe you can prove this watch exists, but can you prove he actually wore it that night?’

  The office had fallen silent. Everyone was listening to me getting a dressing down from the Big Boss Man. Even the phones had stopped ringing. I could imagine Iain and Michaela exchanging gleeful grins across their desks, suppressing sniggers. Much like Adolf was. She’d gone red with the effort. She couldn’t even pretend to type now. She didn’t want to miss a beat of this. They probably thought I was about to get fired.

  ‘Good point,’ I said.

  And someone laughed in the far corner.

  ‘But here’s the thing,’ I continued. ‘I may work for you, but we work for our client. And our client met me today and gave me instructions. And those instructions concerned finding his missing watch. If I find the watch and it leads to Fabia, that won’t just help our defence, it’ll make it.

  ‘Ultimately, it’s your call. If you don’t want me to look for it, say the word. But then that same burden of proof falls back on us. If I can’t prove that I made a serious enough attempt to find the watch, our client will be well within his rights to use the incompetence of his defence team as grounds for an appeal.

  ‘If it comes down to that, and his appeal is upheld, we’ll get investigated. I’ll be legally compelled to say I didn’t look for the watch because you told me not to. And I’ll have four witnesses to back me up, because everyone here’s heard what you’ve just said. That will look like you instructed me to ignore our client’s instructions. And that could have serious consequences for both you and this firm.’

  It’s amazing just how big your balls grow when you’ve got nothing to lose.

  Kopf pushed himself away from the desk and straightened up. He eyeballed me like he wanted to kill me at least. Then he quickly glanced around the office, and back at Janet, before returning to me – cold, furious, but cornered.

  And then he left, quickly. Janet followed him out, eyes straight.

  A long minute later we heard his office door slam three floors up.

  ‘Bet you wished you hadn’t picked up my phone,’ Adolf said, smiling.

  Part Two

  Can’t Cheat Karma

  27

  On March 31st, exactly two weeks after VJ’s arrest, we got the police lab report. A dozen pages of DNA and toxicology analysis, plus a one-page summary in bullet points.

  It was devastating. All the prosecution would have to do to get a conviction was stand up and read the report out to the jury. From now on in, any defence we mounted would be irrelevant, strictly for show, an exercise in legal box-ticking at best. Nothing we could say or do would make any difference. The outcome was as good as preordained, the verdict beyond doubt.

  VJ was officially fucked.

  ‘Slim’s left town. Sends his regards.’

  That was Janet, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had settled in Christine’s office as soon as we’d taken our now usual places around her.

  Christine retorted with the thinnest of smiles and a grudging nod.

  Touché.

  She was leaning on her walking stick, hands folded over the top, pressing down on it hard like she wanted to gouge a hole in the carpet. There was a distant look in her eyes, and her face was a study in dourness.

  Janet couldn’t hide her dejection either. She’d known the case was a loser going in, but now it had turned into something far worse – an absolute loser.

  ‘Let’s assess the damage, shall we?’ Christine said finally, resting her stick against the chair and opening the case file.

  The report had come in first thing this morning. Swayne had called me at 5 a.m. to tell me he’d scored a copy, but there was no point in my getting a preview, because it was already on its way to us.

  I knew that meant it could only be bad. The prosecution only show and tell early when they have a solid piece of evidence, something incontestable. It’s gamesmanship disguised as cooperation; helping us prepare our defence while letting us know we’ve as good as lost anyway.

  I’d read the report in Janet’s office. At first I thought there’d been a major mix-up at the lab, that someone else’s results had been swapped around or misallocated.

  Then I read it again. And again. Confusion ceded to disbelief, and then to disgust.

  Who exactly were we defending?

  ‘The prosecution contends that Vernon strangled Evelyn Bates in the lounge. He then moved her body to the bedroom, where it was found,’ Christine said.

  She looked at the three of us individually, left to right, her eyes pausing a moment to take our measure, before moving on.

  Then she came back to Janet. They stared at each other. And I picked up a little of what was going on. These two seasoned pros, for whom setbacks and defeats were par for the course and nothing to get worked up about, had never been blindsided quite like this. They weren’t just in uncharted waters. The boat was leaking, the sharks were circling and neither of them had the slightest clue what to do.

  ‘Now, the report…’ Christine said.

  We all looked at our stapled, photocopied pages.

  ‘The first item is a black iPhone. It was in the pocket of the jacket Vernon wore that nig
ht. It belonged to the victim. The glass is smashed, but the phone still works.

  ‘Vernon says Evelyn dropped the phone in the Casbah when she fell into him. He found the phone on the floor and put it in his pocket, intending to hand it in at reception. He failed to do that when he checked out. In fact, he forgot all about the phone.

  ‘The prosecution will say Vernon took the phone off Evelyn in the suite and smashed it. Maybe she was going to call for help. They found fragments of glass from the phone in his jacket.’

  She turned a page.

  ‘The phone was found when the police searched Vernon’s offices in Canary Wharf. It was in a bin liner containing the clothes he’d worn the night before – a blue two-piece suit and a white shirt. The trousers were alcohol-stained. The jacket was missing buttons and the shirt pocket was torn. There were also small bloody holes in the back of the shirt – probably from when he fell on the broken glass in the lounge. He’d stuck a Post-it note on the bag. “Nikki, please dispose”. “Nikki” is his PA, Nikki Frater.’

  ‘So, they’ll say he was planning to destroy evidence?’ Janet said.

  ‘Of course. And they’ll call Ms Frater as a witness. She’s proved to be most cooperative with the police’s inquiries so far. It was her who gave them the bag.’

  ‘Come again?’ Janet said.

  ‘They missed it when they searched his offices. She’d already put it in with the general trash. She went and got it for them. And she also told them where Vernon kept his personal laptop – not just the one in his office, which they’d taken away.’

  ‘What laptop? And how do you know this?’ Janet asked.

  ‘Didn’t you get Franco’s fax?’

  She handed Janet a single sheet of paper.

  ‘It’s an addendum to the report,’ she explained to me. ‘It says that computer forensics are going through Vernon’s laptop, as well as looking at the mobile phone and three SIM cards they found with it.’

  No one said anything, but we were all thinking along the same lines. Why did he have a separate laptop, phone and SIM cards? Because he wanted to keep something separate from his professional life. And why did he keep them out of sight? Because whatever they were for was private, therefore secret.