A Game of Proof (The trials of Sarah Newby)

by Vicary, Tim

  ‘OK, OK.’ Sarah held up her hands. ‘Fine. You talk, I’ll listen. But remember, Simon, Lucy can only defend you if you tell her a story that makes sense, and is preferably true. So no more stupid jokes, for God’s sake, now.’

  ‘Do you see me laughing?’

  ‘Simon, just let me get this right,’ Lucy continued. ‘You’re telling us that you never wore the balaclava, so the hairs inside it can’t possibly be yours. Is that it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. Well, the hairs have been sent for DNA tests, so we’ll know in a few weeks whether they’re yours or not. They can tell to within one probability in several hundred thousand, which makes it virtually certain. Do you still say they’re not yours?’

  However gently put, it was a killer question, as both Sarah and Lucy knew. They watched keenly for his response. To their surprise it came swiftly. ‘Yes, sure. They can’t be mine, I never wore it.’ When they didn’t react immediately he looked at them in astonishment. ‘OK?’

  Lucy recovered first. ‘Good. If you’re right then the test will prove you’re innocent of any crimes connected with the hood. That’s the great thing about DNA testing; it works both ways.’

  A brief, nervous smile crossed Simon’s face. ‘Good news at last, then. So what are you two getting your knickers in such a twist for?’

  ‘Because we’re worried for you, Simon. The police are trying to use the evidence of this hood, and the things in your shed, to pin more crimes on you. It’s only because your mum found out what they’re thinking that we’re able to ask you these questions now, before they do.’

  Simon looked dazed. ‘More crimes? Like what?’

  ‘Do you know Sharon Gilbert?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The woman who was raped. Your mum defended him. Remember?’

  ‘Oh, yes, her.’ Simon’s look of confusion turned to incredulity. ‘No, of course I don’t. I saw her in court, that’s all. Right slapper, I thought.’

  ‘So you’ve never met her or talked to her in any way?’

  ‘No!’ He stared from one to the other in astonishment. ‘And I didn’t rape her either, for heaven’s sake! I thought Gary did it.’

  ‘He was acquitted.’ Lucy shifted in her chair, uncomfortably. ‘This all stems from the hairs in that hood, Simon, you see. If they’re yours, they may try to prove that you raped that woman. Whoever did it was masked, after all, with a hood like the one found in your shed. From their point of view it’ll clear another crime off their books. So if they are your hairs ...’

  ‘Well they’re not and I didn’t. For Christ’s sake! Isn’t it enough that I’m charged with murdering Jasmine?’

  ‘That’s not the end of the story, I’m afraid. About a year ago, did you do some building repairs at the university?’

  Sarah studied the expression on shock and confusion on Simon’s face closely. It seemed genuine, but she no longer trusted her own judgement. Nothing seemed real any more. Was he really perplexed, or had he become, as so many people did, a consummate actor under the pressure of the fight to preserve his freedom?

  If I no longer believe him, what will I do then?

  ‘A bit, yeah. Some pointing, refixing window frames, and a wall to rebuild. Why?’

  ‘You remember the police coming round? About a student called Karen Whitaker?’

  ‘I remember the girl,’ said Simon slowly.

  ‘What do you remember, Simon?’

  ‘She was attacked in the woods - oh God!’ He stood up abruptly. ‘They’re not saying I did that too? This is bloody ridiculous!’

  ‘What the police say, Simon, is that Gary saw some nude pictures in her room, and showed them to his mates. Like you. You all had a laugh about them. Do you remember that?’

  Simon’s face was flushed, there were beads of sweat on his forehead. ‘Yeah, OK, yeah, I remember some nudey pictures. They were all over her room. So what? It’s not a crime, is it?’

  ‘Not to look, no, Simon. But a few days later someone - maybe a man who saw those photos - attacked the girl and her boyfriend when they were taking some more pictures in the woods. And her attacker was wearing a black balaclava hood.’

  ‘Oh, I get it. So they think I attacked this girl as well, because this hood was found in my shed with these hairs inside. Is that it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lucy patiently. ‘And the main piece of evidence that they have is another hair. The attacker was trying to bind the girl with tape, and a hair from his arm got stuck on it. So they’re trying to match the DNA from that hair to the DNA from the ones in the hood. And then compare the results from both of these to the sample they took from you.’

  ‘My God.’ Simon dropped his head into his hands for a moment, then looked up, shaking his head slowly. ‘What’s it like, mum, to have a serial rapist for a son? Will they lock me in a cave with a glass wall, like in Silence of the Lambs? It couldn’t be much worse than this shit hole, could it? Jesus! The world’s gone mad! They don’t just think I murdered Jasmine, but ...’

  He paused, tears in his eyes, unable to go on. ‘ ... God, Jasmine. As if that wasn’t enough. And now this! Rape this Sharon woman, attack this student what’s her name - Whitaker? All because of the hairs in a hood that Gary must have left in my shed, the bastard!’ An idea came to him suddenly. ‘They must be his hairs, mustn’t they? It’s his hood, he did it!’

  ‘No. His hair’s brown,’ said Lucy quietly. ‘Anyway his DNA doesn’t match Whitaker’s attacker. They’re not his.’

  ‘Well, they’re not bloody mine either!’ Simon stared at them both furiously, trying to pierce through the masks of concern and sympathy to what they really thought. ‘You’ve got to believe me, all right? Mum? Come on now, this is a load of crap, I didn’t do any of these things! They’re not my hairs in the hood, OK?’

  ‘OK, Simon,’ Sarah said quietly. ‘If that’s what you say, I believe you.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that.’ He held her gaze, trying to reassure himself that what she said was really true. She gazed back, trying to do the same in return. Both wanted to believe the other, but neither found that they could quite, completely, manage it.

  Simon turned away first, to Lucy. ‘So, is that it, then? All my multiple crimes?’

  Lucy sighed. ‘Not quite, Simon, I’m afraid. There are two more they’ll probably want to ask you about. Helen Steersby and Maria Clayton.’

  Not for the first time, Churchill was castigating Terry. His ammunition had come to light during further investigations into Simon’s background. Tracy had discovered it, but Churchill latched onto it with delight. Terry sensed the atmosphere as soon as he entered the room.

  ‘At last! The man himself!’ Churchill was perched on a table, with one foot on a chair and the other swinging free, beaming. Harry Easby and Mike Candor seemed to share his mood, but Tracy looked flushed, embarrassed maybe. She flashed Terry a look which he was unable to interpret - a warning, or a hint of pity, perhaps?

  ‘You remember how convinced you were, Terence, that our Simon had no connection with any crime except the murder of his girlfriend? He couldn’t possibly be our phantom rapist, you said, he doesn’t have the right profile. No criminal record, and no connection with the first murder, Maria Clayton. Remember that, Terence old son?’

  ‘Yes. It’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not any more it isn’t, no siree! Wrong on both counts. Tell me, when you made your list of possible contacts with Maria Clayton, you checked all her clients, right? And then the building workers, of whom friend Harker was one?’

  ‘Yes,’ Terry agreed cautiously.

  ‘But what you didn’t check, old son, was who delivered things to those building workers. They needed bricks, sand, cement, all that kind of stuff. And they didn’t collect it themselves, they had it delivered from a builders’ merchant called Robsons. Who just happened to employ, for a period of three weeks, guess who?’

  A sick, empty feeling flooded Terry’s stomach. ‘Not Simon Newby?’
<
br />   ‘The very same, old son. The very same.’

  ‘But ... for three weeks, you say?’ Terry floundered feebly. ‘Was that the same period ...’ The triumph on Churchill’s face told him the answer before he had finished the question.

  ‘More or less, yes. We’ll come to that. But first, Tracy here has charmed their manager into showing her all his delivery notes, and - you guessed it - the driver who delivered two separate loads to Maria’s house was none other than Simon Newby. We’ve got the sheets, look, with his signature on both.’

  Terry took the two pink sheets, stunned. The signature S Newby was quite plain at the bottom of each. He looked up, catching Tracy’s eye. He saw what the anguished expression her face meant now. It was an apology, and underneath that an expression of pity. I didn’t mean to show you up, her face was saying, but what could I do? These are the facts, and we should have discovered them before.

  Worse was to come.

  ‘You haven’t asked why he only worked for three weeks,’ Churchill prompted gloatingly.

  But you’re going to tell me, Terry thought. ‘All right, why?’

  Churchill nodded to Tracy. ‘Your discovery. You tell him.’

  In a cool, neutral voice Tracy said: ‘He was dismissed after a complaint from a female employee. She says he felt her legs, and sexually harassed her.’

  ‘But why isn’t this on the computer?’ Terry asked. ‘He hasn’t got a record - I checked.’

  ‘The manager didn’t want a fuss. He gave young Simon his cards the same day, and said if he ever came back he’d call the police. So that was that.’

  ‘My God.’ Terry sank down on a chair. ‘What day was that?’

  ‘March 7th. Two days before they started work on the extension. But it still gives him a link to Maria Clayton, doesn’t it?’

  Terry nodded numbly. ‘Have you got this woman’s statement?’

  Tracy passed him a sheet of paper. ‘Here.’ As Terry read, his nausea increased. The image of Sarah Newby came back to him, standing slim, upright and alone outside her son’s house, protesting his innocence. What had he thought, as he left? She’ll grow old like that, no career, no family, all alone.

  And then a second thought, worse than the first. Had she known about this, when they met? Had she already known her son had lost a job for - what did this statement say? He touched my legs from behind when I was bent over picking something up, and when I protested he grabbed my wrists and asked if I’d let him fuck me.

  Wonderful! And he’d told Sarah that in his - Terry’s - judgement her son couldn’t have committed these crimes, because he just wasn’t like that. How could his judgement be so wrong? Because - face it, Terry - you were infatuated by the boy’s mother, so you wanted it to be true. You were trying to please her. But if she knew about this, she must have been laughing up her sleeve as I spoke, taking me for a sucker all along.

  Dear God, Terry thought. I can’t do this job any more. I’ve lost my touch.

  With deep satisfaction, Churchill was watching Terry’s reaction. ‘Don’t take it personally, old son,’ he said, in his oiliest manner. ‘The world is full of surprises.’

  ‘I read about it in the paper, that’s all,’ said Simon firmly. ‘No more than that.’

  ‘You never met this woman, Maria Clayton, then?’ Lucy asked, patiently.

  Simon shook his head. ‘Not that I remember, no.’

  ‘Never went to her house, worked on any buildings there?’

  ‘What’s the address again?’

  ‘47, Flaxton Gardens. It’s in Strensall.’

  ‘I’ve had that many jobs ... but no. No, I never worked there.’

  ‘And Gary didn’t talk to you about her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right.’ Lucy made a brief note on her pad. ‘Well, as far as we know, that’s the only possible connection between you and Maria Clayton - the fact that you know Gary who did some building work there. It’s not much, so let’s forget it. But then there’s Helen Steersby.’

  ‘Another one?’ Simon shook his head wearily. ‘It’s daft, all this.’

  ‘DCI Churchill doesn’t think so. It seems that a schoolgirl, Helen Steersby, was accosted by a man when she was riding her pony in the woods, not far from the shopping development. He tried to pull her off her pony, but she hit him with her riding crop and rode away.’

  ‘What’s this got to do with me?’ Simon asked wearily.

  ‘Nothing, I hope. But the girl made a photofit of what she thought the man looked like. And since they claim it looks a bit like you, they want you to go in for an identity parade.’

  ‘They’re screwy,’ said Simon, putting a finger to his forehead and turning it like a screwdriver. ‘Totally screwless. If they lose any more their heads’ll drop off.’ He laughed manically, gratified to draw a faint smile from Lucy.

  ‘So you didn’t attack a young girl on a pony? On...’ She checked her notes. ‘9th March?’

  ‘As it happens, no, I didn’t. It was only little lasses on elephants that day. And giraffes.’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘Look, can’t you just stop it, all of it? I didn’t even know any of these bloody women, let alone rape them or murder them or drag them off their stupid ponies. I didn’t hurt anyone except Jasmine. Christ!’

  He got abruptly from his chair again and drummed his fists on the wall, hard, so that flakes of plaster floated down. Then he noticed that both women had fallen silent, staring at him.

  ‘What?’

  Sarah drew a deep breath. ‘You said you hurt Jasmine, Simon.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah, well I mean I hit her, mum. In the street, you know that.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘Of course that’s all! Jesus!’ He kicked the chair aside with a crash, and leaned forward, both hands on the table, glaring into his mother’s face. ‘You said you believed me, didn’t you?’

  ‘I’m trying to, Simon. You’re not making it easy.’

  ‘Well try harder, can’t you? I’ve got no one else.’

  Once again their eyes locked. All Sarah could see was the face of an angry, hurt young man, thrust deliberately forward a few inches from her own. The smack of the chair hitting the wall still rang in her ears, and the sense of rage and injustice radiated from him so palpably that if she had not been his mother he would have terrified her.

  She wondered how Jasmine would have coped with this level of fury from her lover. Was this why she left? Or had she - arrogant, beautiful, self-centred young woman that she was - actually enjoyed the reaction she could arouse? Maybe she even got a thrill out of his rage and the occasional slap or blow that she received, because it proved that she, not he, had emotional control. Was that why she had behaved as she did with David Brodie and Simon, playing games with the jealousy of both? Perhaps she enjoyed the game and wanted to see how much rage and jealousy she could provoke. That was very like the Jasmine Sarah remembered. Had she simply pushed the situation too far, tested Simon quite literally to destruction - the destruction of her own life?

  Sarah had never articulated this fear to herself so clearly before. Now it came all at once. It was the best explanation so far. And his own words had led to it. She gazed back at him coldly.

  Lucy tried again. ‘Sit down, Simon, please. We can’t discuss these things in a rage.’

  ‘I’m not in a bloody rage. I just want to be believed, that’s all.’ Slowly Simon withdrew from his aggressive crouch over the table, picked up the chair, and straddled it, still glowering at his mother.

  ‘Thank you. Now look, if we’re going to defend you, we have to do a number of things. Firstly, we have to be sure that you’re going to plead not guilty. Because if you did kill Jasmine, we can mount a completely different defence, claiming that she provoked you and you didn’t know what you were doing. You understand all that?’

  ‘What?’ Simon’s rage switched to Lucy. ‘I didn’t bloody kill her. How many times ...’

  ‘OK, OK ...’ Lucy raised her hands, but Simon
was not propitiated.

  ‘No it’s not OK, Mrs Parsons! Either you accept that I didn’t kill her, understand? I didn’t bloody do it! Or you can piss off out that door and I’ll get someone else! Get it?’

  ‘OK, Simon ...’

  ‘I’ll defend myself! I could do it a sight better than you, any road ...’

  ‘Simon!’ Sarah didn’t move but there was something in her voice so sharp and hard that it stopped him short like a small boy. ‘If you want Lucy to help you you’ll keep a clean tongue in your head and listen to her, all right? Because you’ve got no one else, no one better. If you even try to defend yourself like that, they’ll give you life with a minimum tariff of twenty years, straight off. And make no mistake, that’s what you’re looking at, if this goes wrong. This is the most serious thing in your whole life. Believe me.’

  ‘You think I don’t know that?’

  ‘Well, treat it seriously then. Listen to Lucy, think, and get a grip. Flying into a rage will get you nowhere at all.’

  Except here, she told herself grimly. Maybe his rage was the cause of it all.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  SARAH WAS in court. Lucy had suggested that she take a holiday, but Sarah found work therapeutic; after all, whatever happened to Simon, she told herself grimly, she would have a life afterwards, a daughter to support, and a career that she had struggled to achieve; she wasn’t going to abandon that now. Not even for Simon.

  She could accept sympathy, from her colleagues. But not pity, not from anyone.

  This morning’s case, however, had hardly boosted her confidence. The accused, a well-known thug, had been seen eating a chicken sandwich in a supermarket without paying for it. When the police arrested him they found, to their delight, a replica gun in his pocket. He was charged with going to the supermarket armed, intending to commit an offence. With his previous convictions for armed robbery, this was a serious matter.

  Sarah, in defence, had argued that her client had been simply carrying the weapon, with no intention to use it. Her client had neither intended to commit armed robbery nor done so; he had simply eaten a chicken sandwich, and left the store peacefully. It was petty theft, no more.