The Verdict

by Nick Stone

  ‘Do I have any fans among them?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ I said.

  She smiled at me. She appreciated my honesty. ‘How many times have you read the witness statements?’

  ‘Three, four times.’

  ‘And you can’t see what’s coming?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Stick around. All will be revealed,’ she said.

  The afternoon session began with DCI Reid taking the oath on the witness stand. Dark-blue two-piece suit, white blouse and black loafers – police uniform colours, I noticed. Subliminal messaging or an institutionalised imagination on wheels?

  Carnavale got her to talk briefly about her career – fourteen years on the force, all at the Met. He referred to her by her longform rank the first few times – Detective Chief Inspector. Subtext one: senior officer, lot of experience, top of her game. Subtext two: you can trust her.

  He eased her into the cross-examination. What was her role in the investigation? She headed it up. Had she been in charge of similar investigations before? Yes, several – unfortunately. Why ‘unfortunately’? Because they were all murders.

  Nice touch. A caring copper, a regular bleeding heart.

  It worked too: five jurors smiled, including the foreman.

  ‘Can you please tell the court what happened when you first encountered the accused?’

  ‘Myself and Detective Sergeant Mark Fordham went to Vernon James’s offices at One Canada Square, Canary Wharf —’

  ‘When you say “offices”, you mean the London headquarters of the business owned by the accused?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which occupies two floors?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Point: Vernon James is very rich and very successful. His offices are in London’s second financial centre.

  Jury: no reaction. We already know he’s rich, thanks.

  ‘When we were shown to Mr James’s office, we found him standing in the middle of the room. Straight away I noticed scratches on the right side of his face, and his swollen bottom lip. We identified ourselves as police officers and introduced ourselves by name.

  ‘Mr James said, “I know what this is about. It’s about what happened in my hotel room, isn’t it? I can explain everything. You really don’t need to be here.”’

  ‘Those were his exact words?’ Carnavale said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have very good recall.’

  ‘DS Fordham wrote everything down in his notebook,’ she said.

  ‘Please continue.’

  They’d rehearsed this. There was a lack of spontaneity to their exchanges.

  ‘Mr James went on to say he’d got drunk in the hotel nightclub after the award ceremony and invited a group of people he’d met there up to his room. Things had got out of hand and the room was damaged as a result. He promised he’d pay for everything – and asked us to apologise to the hotel on his behalf.’

  There was a stray chuckle from the press area.

  ‘What was his demeanour?’

  ‘Nervous, edgy. He couldn’t look us in the eye.’

  ‘Did he appear to be drunk?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was he lucid when he was making this unsolicited statement about a party in the room?’

  ‘Yes. Totally. We could follow everything he was saying.’

  ‘Please continue.’

  ‘I informed Mr James that a dead body had been found in his suite, which is why we’d come to see him.’

  ‘And how did he react?’

  ‘He was surprised. His exact words were “What are you talking about – a body? What kind of body?”’

  Laughter from the press section. Judge Blumenfeld glowered at them until the laughter stopped. Carnavale waited for silence before asking DCI Reid to resume.

  ‘I then informed him that a body of a woman had been found in the bedroom of his hotel suite. Mr James replied, “I never went in the bedroom. I passed out on the couch.”

  ‘We told Mr James we were arresting him on suspicion of murder and taking him to the station for questioning.’

  ‘And what was his reaction?’ Carnavale asked her.

  ‘He said nothing. He sat down on the couch.’

  ‘He said nothing? He didn’t deny it?’

  ‘No.’

  Another pause.

  I checked the jury. They were all riveted.

  I checked Christine. She was listening, casually.

  I checked Redpath. He was listening, glumly.

  Carnavale continued his cross-examination.

  DCI Reid talked the court through VJ’s first interview at the police station. That was when he changed his story. There hadn’t been a party at all. It was just him and another woman there. He’d tried to seduce her and she’d attacked him ‘out of the blue, just like that’. Why had he lied? Because he didn’t want his wife to find out he’d been with another woman – and, more importantly (his words, she stressed), it would be highly embarrassing, given the award he’d just won.

  That elicited a gasp and a ‘No!’ from a juror, and a shake of the head from the foreman.

  Carnavale heard it. He cut off his cross-examination and asked for the video of the interview to be played for the jury.

  No matter how many times I’d seen the tape, watching it in open court with a jury was like seeing it for the first time. Every inconsistency in VJ’s story was exposed and magnified. He looked and sounded guilty. His version of events came over as made up on the spot. DCI Reid would back him into a corner and he’d lie his way into a tighter one. He spoke haltingly, his voice rising and falling in pitch. His hands trembled. The most damning moment came when he was shown the post-mortem photograph of Evelyn Bates and asked if that was the woman he’d been in his room with. He studied it for a long moment – a whole minute – before saying, ‘I’m not sure.’

  Carnavale paused the tape right there – VJ looking up at DCI Reid, his palms flat on the table, Evelyn Bates’s photo between his hands. It was a close-up of her face, dead eyes still open. That was a clever little move: on the screen VJ looked like he’d just strangled her again.

  The jury wouldn’t miss it.

  Carnavale asked DCI Reid about the second interview, three hours later.

  That was when VJ had been shown Evelyn’s photograph again and had said no, it wasn’t her. No way would he have even talked to someone like that, unless she worked for him. Why not, asked DCI Reid. ‘Because she’s no looker,’ he’d said.

  Both female jurors frowned at that. Angrily.

  VJ went on to describe the woman he’d been with. He gave her name – Fabia – and physical description. What had she been wearing? A green dress and high-heeled shoes.

  Carnavale stopped the tape there and turned to DCI Reid.

  ‘We heard the defendant describe the clothes the woman he claims he was with was wearing. “A green dress.” Had you or DS Fordham mentioned a green dress to him in any of your earlier conversations?’

  ‘No, we had not.’

  ‘And what items of clothing were found near Evelyn Bates’s body?’

  ‘A dress and a pair of high-heeled black shoes.’

  ‘What colour was the dress?’

  ‘Green.’

  A murmur all around court, from upstairs in the gallery, and in the well, behind us.

  ‘So would it be fair for me to suggest that there is no way the accused could have known the colour of the victim’s dress unless he’d met her that night?’

  ‘That would be a fair suggestion, yes,’ DCI Reid said.

  ‘Thank you, Detective Chief Inspector. No further questions at this time.’

  DCI Reid stood down.

  A short recess.

  The courtroom emptied. We stayed put.

  ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was guilty,’ Christine said.

  Twenty minutes later DCI Reid was back on the stand for Christine’s cross-examination.

  ‘DCI Reid, you’ve
been a police officer for fourteen years – correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How many arrests have you made in that time?’

  ‘Uh…?’

  ‘I don’t need an exact number. Is it over a hundred?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Can you explain to the court what the correct arrest procedure is, when you first visit a suspect in connection with a crime?’

  ‘Yes,’ DCI Reid said. ‘An officer must initially identify themselves as police and give their name and rank. Then they inform the individual of the reason for their visit. If they decide to arrest the suspect and take them into custody, the officer has to inform the suspect that he or she is under arrest for suspicion of committing whatever offence prompted the visit.’

  ‘Did you do all of that when you visited Vernon James at his offices?’

  ‘Eventually.’

  ‘Eventually?’

  ‘We introduced ourselves to him when we walked into his office, but he immediately started talking to us.’

  ‘He was making these “unsolicited outbursts” about a party in his hotel suite and the damage that was done?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you let him finish?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  DCI Reid didn’t answer.

  ‘According to the rules of procedure you’ve just outlined, you’re supposed to inform the suspect of the reason for your visit. After all, it’s not a social call, is it?’

  ‘He didn’t give us a chance.’

  ‘He didn’t give you a chance? You’re the police. You give the chances, not a suspect.’

  ‘The way Mr James was talking – babbling, really – I thought he might admit to murdering Evelyn Bates,’ DCI Reid said. Her earlier poise was gone.

  ‘So you let him “babble” away on the off chance he’d incriminate himself?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘But he didn’t, did he?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Not exactly? Did he tell you he’d killed Evelyn Bates?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then Mr James didn’t incriminate himself at all, did he?’

  ‘No.’

  Christine stared across at DCI Reid. DCI Reid lowered her gaze.

  ‘Approximately how long into your visit to Mr James’s office was it before you informed him that a body had been found in his hotel suite?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said.

  ‘It wasn’t immediately, was it? It wasn’t the first thing you said to him, right after introducing yourselves?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It was some time later.’

  ‘How much later?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she repeated.

  ‘I will suggest an estimated time to you,’ Christine said. ‘DS Fordham marked the time you entered Vernon James’s office as 10.23 a.m. He marked the time you informed Mr James that he was under arrest as 10.57 a.m. Which means you spent over thirty minutes – half an hour – talking to him in his office. Is that right so far?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d say, judging from the testimony you gave my learned friend, it was a good twenty minutes before you informed Mr James he was a murder suspect.’

  ‘I don’t know if it was that long,’ DCI Reid said.

  ‘But it was still a considerable amount of time. In the course of this time, did you ask him about the injuries to his face?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘And what did he tell you?’

  ‘He said that he’d tried to break up a fight between guests and got caught in the middle of it.’

  Christine turned a page in her pad.

  ‘Did you caution Mr James at any point in this first meeting?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘After we’d informed him that he was under arrest for suspicion of murder.’

  ‘So at 10.57? Over thirty minutes after you’d first walked in to his office?’

  ‘That’s what it says in the notes.’

  ‘In other words, for a full half-hour Mr James had no idea he was a murder suspect?’

  DCI Reid didn’t answer. She looked at Carnavale, then at Christine, then at me for a second.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Reid, could you please answer my question?’

  ‘I don’t know what Mr James was thinking.’

  Christine looked down at her pad.

  ‘You told my learned friend that when you first spoke to Mr James in his office you didn’t think he was drunk. What is the drink-driving limit?’

  ‘Eighty milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.’

  ‘In plain English?’

  ‘Roughly four units. So two pints of standard beer, two normal glasses of wine, a double shot of spirits.’

  Christine scribbled this down.

  ‘Moving on, after that first interview at the police station, what’s the procedure with a suspect?’

  ‘After they’re first interviewed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The suspect is fingerprinted, photographed and blood, hair and DNA samples are taken in the form of —’

  ‘How much blood?’

  ‘A hundred millilitres, or so – maybe more.’

  ‘And why is blood taken?’

  ‘For DNA analysis, to match against any blood found at the crime scene, and it’s also sent for toxicological analysis.’

  ‘Toxicology being a test for the presence of narcotics and alcohol in the body, yes?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Christine made a big show of thumbing through a sheaf of papers on the lectern.

  ‘I have the toxicology report on Mr James’s blood sample. It states that he was more than twice over the limit. So eight-plus units.

  ‘Mr James told us – and this is confirmed by eyewitnesses – that he’d been drinking vodka on the rocks the night before the murder. Double shots. The receptionist at the Blenheim-Strand told this court that Mr James appeared to be drunk when he checked out of the hotel at 6.30 a.m.

  ‘Now, it’s medically confirmed that alcohol is eliminated from the body at the rate of roughly one unit per hour. So, assuming Mr James didn’t drink alcohol between leaving the hotel and the time his blood was taken at Charing Cross at 15.39 p.m. the same day, we can say that he eliminated nine units of alcohol.

  ‘This means he left the hotel with seventeen units in his system. You started talking to him about four hours later, so four less units, therefore thirteen. Thirteen units of alcohol is approximately three times over the limit. Legally that makes him drunk as a skunk.’

  DCI Reid didn’t respond.

  There was silence in the courtroom. The jury had followed everything.

  ‘And alcohol wasn’t the only intoxicant found in Mr James’s bloodstream was it, DCI Reid?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘What else did the toxicology report reveal?’

  ‘Rohypnol.’

  ‘Rohypnol is commonly known as the date-rape drug, is it not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you investigated rapes where Rohypnol was used on a victim?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  ‘What are the general effects of Rohypnol on an individual?’

  ‘It’s a sedative. It causes drowsiness and physical incapacitation. Mixed with alcohol, it’s known to cause blackouts, amnesia, disorientation,’ DCI Reid said.

  ‘So you not only interviewed a drunk, Detective Chief Inspector, but someone under the influence of a powerful drug?’ Christine said.

  ‘We had no way of knowing that at the time,’ DCI Reid retorted.

  People laughed. Christine didn’t.

  ‘Vernon James was drugged and drunk when you interviewed him at his office. And he was still somewhat under the influence of both when you first interviewed him at the police station.

  ‘Furthermore, DCI Reid, I will suggest that both you and DS Fordham knew that Mr James was in no fit state to be interviewed and you didn’
t care. You took down anything and everything he said, called it testimony and jammed it through as evidence. Didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s not correct,’ DCI Reid said.

  ‘I’m suggesting it is. You saw an open and shut case and an opportunity to make a quick arrest.’

  ‘That’s not correct.’

  ‘You failed to note – for the record – that the suspect was drunk when giving evidence.’

  ‘He appeared sober.’

  ‘Appearance is not fact, DCI Reid,’ Christine said.

  ‘Testimony given by someone under the influence of alcohol is admissible in court,’ DCI Reid said.

  ‘Yes, it is, Detective Chief Inspector. As long as it’s made perfectly clear to the jury in advance. Which is not the case here,’ she said. ‘In vino veritas goes the saying. Latin for “in wine there is truth”. But we all know that’s complete rubbish. No one takes the words of a drunk remotely seriously. My husband was a drinker. After he’d had a few, he’d tell me he loved me. Unfortunately he stopped drinking in 2000. Our marriage hasn’t been the same.’

  Half the jury laughed. The rest smiled. They’d been transfixed, following the exchanges between Christine and DCI Reid, their eyes moving from barrister to witness as each spoke.

  ‘One further question,’ Christine said, closing her pad. ‘Do you believe Vernon James killed Evelyn Bates?’

  The question took DCI Reid by surprise.

  For a few seconds she looked completely stunned.

  And that was enough for the jury – especially the foreman, who frowned in confusion.

  ‘Based on the evidence at hand at the time, I believed the accused to be guilty,’ she said, eventually.

  Believed…

  Past tense.

  The jury heard it loud and clear. They all made a note.

  I saw Carnavale clench his pen hand into a fist.

  ‘No further questions,’ Christine said.

  I got up to help her to her chair but she waved me off and stayed standing.

  She waited until DCI Reid had left the courtroom and then addressed the judge.

  ‘My Lord, would it be possible for us to see DS Fordham’s original notebook from March 17th? My learned friend has only provided us with a typescript.’

  ‘Mr Carnavale?’ the judge said.

  Carnavale stood up.

  ‘The notebook has been logged into evidence, My Lord. It’s Exhibit 14.’