A Game of Proof (The trials of Sarah Newby)

by Vicary, Tim

  So the first witness was the forensic scientist from the Rape Crisis Centre. She confirmed that Sharon had suffered extensive bruising to the vaginal area, entirely consistent with her story of forced, unlubricated penetration. There were marks on her wrists and throat consistent with having been bound; and bruising to her cheek and nose, entirely consistent with the right-handed blows to the face which she had described. Julian Lloyd-Davies extracted these facts with careful, polite questions, dwelling on every detail of the injuries to emphasise to the jury the brutality that must have caused them.

  But the most important point, for Sarah, was what the scientist did not say. When Lloyd-Davies had finished she stood up confidently.

  ‘Dr Marson, I would like to take you back to your examination of Ms Gilbert’s vagina. You testified to bruising, did you not? But I heard no mention of semen. Did you not find any?’

  The scientist, an intense young woman with short-cropped hair and steel framed glasses, shook her head. ‘No, I’m afraid we didn’t.’

  Sarah affected to look puzzled. ‘But you did look, I take it? I mean, evidence from semen is very important in cases of rape, is it not?’

  ‘Yes, indeed it is. In this case I took a number of swabs from the vaginal area, but I could detect no semen on any of them.’

  ‘And what conclusion do you draw from that?’

  The young woman shrugged. ‘That the rapist withdrew from the victim’s vagina before an ejaculation took place. Either that or she had cleaned herself with a douche, but there was no evidence of that.’

  ‘Very well. But from your point of view as a forensic scientist this is a pity, isn’t it, because if there had been any semen you would have been able to send it for DNA analysis, which could have established the accused’s guilt or innocence beyond doubt. So no doubt you searched very diligently to find such a sample?’

  ‘I did my best, yes.’

  ‘So to summarise your evidence, Dr Marson, your findings confirm the victim’s story that she was forcibly raped, beaten, and bound. Am I right?’

  The young woman nodded earnestly. ‘I would say so. Yes.’

  ‘But nothing in your findings can help us establish the identity of the man who did these terrible things. Is that also right?’

  ‘Well, no ... that’s true, yes.’

  The answer was hardly as clear as Sarah wanted. She tried again.

  ‘Just to make that crystal clear, Dr Marson, what you are saying is that you know that Sharon Gilbert was raped, but that you have no idea at all whether it was Gary Harker who did it, or my learned colleague Julian Lloyd-Davies here beside me, or his lordship up there on the bench, or any man walking around York today. It could have been any one of those people, couldn’t it, as far as you know? All you can tell us for certain is that it was - a man!’

  The young scientist flushed. ‘Well ... I’m afraid - yes.’

  That had woken them up. Sarah smiled, noticing the raised, bushy eyebrows of the judge, the broad grin of a young newspaper reporter, and the wide, astonished eyes of several jurors.

  ‘Thank you very much, Dr Marson.’ Pleased with her coup de theatre, she sat down.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘HELLO, THIS is the Newby house. There’s no one home at present, but if you’d like to leave a message after the tone ...’

  Damn, Sarah thought. The tone beeped. ‘Come on, Emily, pick up the phone if you’re there. I’m just ringing to see how you’re getting on. Emily? Are you there ...?’

  No answer. She snapped the phone shut, instantly regretting the action. It was hardly an ideal place to show her irritation. She was outside the court on the main steps, where a policeman, a car thief and his solicitor were deeply enjoying the sight of the bewigged lady having a tantrum with her mobile. But Emily had left no message on it this morning. She had already tried her mobile with a similar result.

  Where was the girl? All that fuss about staying at home to work and now no answer.

  She dialled Bob’s number and persuaded the officious school secretary to trek to the school dining hall to fetch him. After a three minute wait she heard his voice, breathless from running. ‘Sarah? Yes - what now?’

  ‘Have you heard from Emily this morning?’

  ‘No. Why should I?’

  ‘I just rang and the answerphone’s on.’

  ‘So leave a message. She’s probably gone out to buy a Mars bar - refresh the brain cells.’

  ‘She was supposed to be revising, Bob, you can’t do that in a sweet shop. What was she like when you left this morning?’

  ‘Oh, so-so, I suppose. I told her not to worry about the exams - I wish you’d do the same.’

  ‘What do you mean, you wish ... Bob? You asked me to talk to her this morning and I did. I told her to stick to her revision and she’d be all right.’

  ‘She said you put the wind up her. You always do, somehow. Poor kid, she’s terrified she won’t do as well as her mother. You don’t have to remind her of that, you know.’

  ‘Bob, I didn’t do that! I wouldn’t, surely you know that!’

  ‘You remind her just by being there, a living example of over-achievement. You ...’

  ‘Well, thanks a lot, Bob Newby.’ Sarah held the phone at arm’s length while Bob’s voice chattered away tinnily to itself. Why had he started doing this to her recently? She didn’t know but she hated it. Everything they’d shared for so many years - her academic success, her daughter - had suddenly become a cold wet cloth which he slapped in her face. What was going wrong?

  Whatever it was, this was no place to sort it out. The police constable stood a couple of yards away, pretending not to listen; the car thief lounged on the top step, blowing smoke rings with undisguised glee as the mad lady barrister let her phone talk to itself.

  ‘Look, Bob, I can’t talk now and I’ll be in court all afternoon. Give her a ring from your office sometime and check she’s OK, will you? Bye.’

  As she turned back to go in again she collided with a man coming out. ‘Oh, excuse me.’

  ‘Sarah! The devil’s advocate - I was looking for you!’ Terry Bateson grasped her arm. ‘Fancy a spot of lunch?’

  ‘It’s not ... the best moment, Terry.’

  ‘Nonsense. Not a word about the case, I promise. Just a pie in the Red Lion.’

  She sighed. That hadn’t been what she’d meant but that was why he was here, of course - to give evidence this afternoon. But if they didn’t discuss the case, there was no reason why not. And the alternative, a moody meal on her own, suddenly seemed vastly unattractive.

  She had no idea what made this detective so cheerful, particularly given the flaws in the evidence he was here to give. Maybe he wasn’t aware of them, yet. Anyway, she might as well profit by it. He might not be the brightest detective in the world, but he was handsome.

  ‘All right. Just wait while I disrobe.’

  ‘Who could resist?’

  Whether she heard those words or not Terry didn’t know, but six minutes later he found himself squeezed into a seat opposite Sarah in a corner of the pub. On the small round table in front of them he set down two halves of lager and a numbered white ticket entitling them to chef’s special pasties with gravy. The cramped space forced their knees companionably together. He smiled, and tried to wave away the money she fished out of her purse.

  ‘My treat.’

  ‘Oh no. I’m not having my meal subsidised by a prosecution witness. Besides, you’ll want your money back when I’ve finished with you this afternoon.’

  ‘Sounds ominous.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to a long painful sentence for Mr Harker.’

  ‘Terry! One more word and I’m out of here. No shop, remember?’

  ‘I remember.’ The waitress brought the pasties with white napkins, gleaming knives and forks and gravy in a jug. Terry poured for them both, smiling. ‘This place is one of our few rewards for bringing villains to court. Every time we fail I have to eat in the police canteen.’

&nbs
p; ‘Shame.’ Sarah tucked in her napkin carefully. ‘You should learn to cook for yourself.’

  ‘Our nanny does that.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Sarah knew a little of Terry’s personal circumstances, but not much. ‘Norwegian open sandwiches, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sometimes. You should try them.’

  ‘Ask me and I will.’ She smiled. He thought, it’s just an offhand remark, but I wish ...

  ‘How’s your daughter - Emily, isn’t it?’

  Sarah sipped her lager, frowned. ‘Don’t ask. She’s a teenager, she’s got GCSEs next week, she hates her mother ... what else? You wait, Terry, you’ve got it all to come.’

  But Terry was feeling like a teenager himself, on a date. That frown, he thought wryly, the way it crinkles her forehead, the little feminine gestures she makes as she sips her beer and pats her lips with the napkin - they’re such tiny, normal things yet I could watch them all day. This is how it was with Mary, all those years ago - so beautiful that it hurt.

  Don’t be daft, he scolded himself, you’re forty years old. Still, any man can dream ...

  ‘What’s the joke?’ Sarah asked, her napkin patting the puzzled half-smile on her lips.

  ‘What? Oh - nothing. Just you.’

  ‘Me? What did I say?’

  Careful, Terry. This is a married woman, a barrister, a dangerous lady who’s about to cross-examine you in court. Not a fantasy in your dreams.

  ‘Just - a look on your face. It took me back, that’s all. To a girl I once knew.’

  ‘Your wife, you mean?’ A look of careful sympathy crossed Sarah’s face.

  ‘No, no. Before that. Long ago. When I was a student.’ That’s it. Clever move, old son. Get her interested in your exotic past.

  ‘Where were you a student?’

  ‘Here in York.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sarah glanced at a group of students near the door. To her they looked like children, little more than Emily’s age. ‘Well, I’m flattered, if I remind you of someone as young as that. What were you like as a student? Long hair and flowered jeans?’

  ‘No, I was an athlete ...’

  And for a while he told her about his running career, and his reminiscences of student life. His ambitions then had been to bed all the pretty girls on campus and win the Olympics, neither of which he had quite achieved. He knew very little of her background, but realised as they talked that she did not seem to have the same sort of carefree student memories. She had studied in Leeds, he gathered, as a mature student. There seemed to be some mystery about what had happened before, but before he could solve it she glanced at her watch.

  ‘Court resumes in ten minutes, Detective Inspector. I hope you’re ready for a roasting. I mean it.’ The sharp, ironic, smile irritated him somehow.

  ‘What for? Putting a serial rapist in the dock? As a woman you should be grateful.’

  ‘For providing a brief with so many flaws in it? Oh, I am, Detective Inspector, I am!’

  This time the cynicism definitely got beneath his skin. She might be pretty and clever with words, he thought, but if she’d seen the things I’ve seen ... Sharon Gilbert shaken and bruised in front of her little kids ... Karen Whitaker sobbing in the woods ... Maria Clayton’s dead body ...

  ‘No, not that. For making the streets safer by getting scum like Harker locked up. Play your games in court if you like, Sarah, but his place is behind bars, because he’s guilty as hell. You know that as well as I do.’

  Sarah flushed. She had enjoyed the banter over lunch, but she was in no mood to be lectured. She seldom was. ‘You may think you know that, Terry, but can you prove it? The courtroom game, as you call it, means that you must prove his guilt to the jury. And my job is to defend him, in case you get it wrong. Which you have done, I’m sorry to say.’

  ‘Have I? How?’

  ‘You’ll see. In court this afternoon.’

  ‘I hope not.’ Terry’s anger made him clumsy. ‘I’ve worked hard on this case, you know.’

  ‘So have I.’ She shrugged and walked to the door. ‘We’d better not go back together, it wouldn’t look good. Anyway it’s a different world in court. We meet as strangers.’

  Just how right she was, he was about to find out.

  As she came back into court, Sarah checked her mobile. But there were no messages, from Emily or anyone else. Probably she was still in a sulk, or revising hard. And Bob would ring some time in the afternoon, if he remembered. Maybe her father’s voice on the answerphone would induce her to pick up the receiver.

  The judge entered, and Julian Lloyd-Davies began to take Terry Bateson through his evidence. Terry explained how he had gone to Sharon’s house when she had called the police, at 1.22 a.m. Sharon’s friend Mary had been there with her. A female officer had stayed with Mary and the children while Sharon was taken to the rape suite and examined by a female doctor.

  Both during and after the medical examination Sharon had stated clearly that she had recognised the rapist as Gary Harker. Terry had arrested Gary in his flat at five that morning.

  Lloyd-Davies then played parts of the tape of Terry’s interview with Gary. He had asked the judge to allow this, because he believed that the tone of what was said was as important as the substance. The real reason, Sarah guessed, was to ensure that even if Sarah kept Gary off the stand, the jury would still hear him speak in his own coarse, brutal fashion. Sarah had resisted, but not as strongly as she could have done. When he had won his point Lloyd-Davies had smiled smugly at his junior; and Sarah had been inwardly delighted, realizing he had made his biggest mistake so far.

  On the tape Gary was surly, aggressive and uncooperative. After he left the Station Hotel, he said, he had been to another pub with a friend called Sean. There they met two prostitutes, and screwed them up against a wall for a tenner each. He could remember neither of their names. The older jurors looked appalled and disgusted, just as Lloyd-Davies had hoped.

  On the tape Terry insisted that Gary had gone to Sharon’s house, broken in, and raped her in front of her kids. Gary denied it. ‘She’s a lying bitch if she says that.’

  ‘But that’s exactly what she says, Gary. She recognised the man who did it. It was you.’

  ‘Well, she’s lying then. She couldn’t have recognised me, the cow!’

  ‘Why couldn’t she recognise you, Gary?’

  ‘Because I wasn’t bloody there, that’s why!’ The retort was followed by a long silence, broken at last by a nervous Gary. ‘Do you hear what I said, copper? She couldn’t have recognised me because I wasn’t there.’ Silence. ‘Can you prove I was there, eh? Go on then, tell me how.’

  And then came the statement which Sarah had noticed.

  ‘We know you were there because she recognised you, Gary. She saw your face!’

  There was a silence which seemed, to Sarah watching the jury’s pained faces, to be longer than all the others. Gary’s voice on the tape was having the effect Lloyd-Davies had anticipated: it was loud, aggressive, mocking. ‘Silly bitch, that’s all crap, she’s lying! Recognise my arse!’

  As the court clerk switched off the tape, Lloyd-Davies turned to Terry Bateson in the witness box. ‘Now, officer, I have a few questions about that interview.’

  ‘Very well.’ Terry glanced at Sarah, who sat watching him intently. There was nothing flirtatious or friendly about her eyes. They were as cold as those of a lizard watching a fly.

  ‘Did you look for this man Sean - Murphy, or Mulligan, or Moriarty?’ Lloyd-Davies was practised in the use of sarcasm and it oozed from him now. ‘The one Mr Harker claims to have spent the evening with?’

  ‘Yes, sir, we did. Without result.’

  ‘I see. Well, were you able to find these two prostitutes that he claims to have met?’

  ‘No, sir. We had no name or address, no real description ...’

  ‘So what is your opinion of Gary Harker’s alibi, as I suppose we must call it?’

  ‘I think it’s a pack of lies, sir.’

&n
bsp; ‘Thank you. Now, in the interview you repeatedly told the accused that he had been recognised by Ms Gilbert. How did he appear to react to that?’

  ‘Well, I think you can hear it on the tape, sir. He was really surprised and upset. But he wasn’t upset when I told him she’d been raped, or even that it had happened in front of her kids. That didn’t seem to worry him much. What really got to him was that she claimed to have recognised him. He went white when I said that. He couldn’t speak.’

  Lloyd-Davies stood silent for a while after Terry had finished speaking, pretending to think, while Terry’s last words echoed in the jury’s minds. The silence continued until judge Gray raised a quizzical eyebrow and Lloyd-Davies reluctantly sat down.

  ‘Thank you, Inspector, wait there, please.’

  Sarah stood up. She looked across the court at Terry Bateson. No flicker of recognition passed between them. The easy conversation of a hour ago was forgotten. They were strangers. As she asked her first question, the hair rose along the back of his neck.

  ‘Detective Inspector, you lied to Mr Harker, didn’t you?’

  For a long telling moment Terry didn’t answer. ‘I ... don’t understand you.’

  ‘Let me help you then. Do you recall these words: “We know you were there because she recognised you. She saw your face.” You said that, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was it true?’

  ‘Ms Gilbert recognised Gary Harker, yes. That’s why we arrested him.’

  ‘Was it true that she saw his face?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you lied to Mr Harker, didn’t you?’

  Terry recovered himself slightly, and addressed his reply to the judge as the police were trained to do. It was a subtle way of insulting defence counsel, making them seem unimportant in the eyes of the jury. ‘She didn’t actually say she saw his face, my lord, that’s true, but she stated very clearly that she recognised her assailant as Gary Harker, and the reason I ...’

  ‘I didn’t ask you why you lied, Detective Inspector, I asked you if you lied. And the answer is yes, isn’t it?’