by Vicary, Tim
I’ll bet you did, Terry thought, wryly. ‘But what was the joke about?’
‘Well, he came back, didn’t he? After all the building work was done. And he had some sort of problem, maybe like it says there in her diary. I wasn’t here, it was in the evening, but she told me about it. She said a workman had brought her another extension but this time she couldn’t make use of it. Something like that.’ She smiled apologetically. ‘It was just a silly joke.’
So that’s it, Terry thought. He’d missed the delivery driver in his first investigation, but Tracy had missed the fact that there’d been a second one, a replacement when Simon Newby lost his job. This man, it seemed, had sex with Maria - and had a problem. Terry sat silent, thinking.
‘I’m sorry, dear, I’ve shocked you. But we were very discreet, most of the time. That was the key to the business.’
‘I’m sure it was, Ann.’ He folded his notebook and smiled, ready to go. ‘I’m glad I wasn’t one of your customers, though.’
‘Are you? Oh no, don’t say that, Mr Bateson, please.’ She escorted him to the door. ‘You’d have been welcome, any time at all.’ And to his complete, unmitigated astonishment, as he stepped over the threshold she patted his bottom gently.
‘So it can’t be him, sir,’ Terry said. ‘When he delivered the stuff, she was in Austria.’
‘You trust the old bird, do you?’ Churchill asked. ‘She knows what day it is, and so on?’
‘She’s as sharp as you or me, sir. Sharper, probably.’
He couldn’t prevent a silly grin from playing around the corners of his mouth. The day was starting out well. The pat on the bottom had been good; Churchill’s scowl of frustration was even better. It was a while since he’d felt so pleased about something at work.
The look on Tracy’s face was gratifying too. She had shown him up before; now the tables were reversed. She hadn’t checked the dates; he had.
A uniformed constable, PC Burrows, came in. ‘Fax for you, sir,’ he said to Churchill. ‘From the forensic lab. Sergeant Chisholm said you’d want to see it straight away.’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Churchill scanned the papers greedily. As he did so the expression on his face changed. The eager wolf-like grin faded. He frowned, flushed, and peered at the words more closely. Then he turned abruptly to the second page as though he wanted to rip the information out of it with his fingers. Offensive information which ought not be there at all.
The others watched him silently. Mike Candor spoke first.
‘Bad news, sir?’
Churchill looked up at the ceiling, ignoring them all.
‘Wonderful,’ he said at last. ‘Don’t these blasted scientists always let you down just when you need them most!’ He thrust the paper at Mike. ‘Here. Read it for yourself.’
Mike read the sheets carefully, and then passed them to Harry. ‘It’s the DNA analysis of those three hair samples - you know, the ones from inside the balaclava; the one left by Karen Whitaker’s attacker; and the ones we took from Simon Newby.’
‘Yes,’ Tracy prompted. ‘And?’
‘Well, the good news is that the hairs in the balaclava match the one left by Whitaker’s attacker with a certainty of several million to one. Which proves that whoever attacked Whitaker wore that hood. The bad news is that neither the Whitaker hair nor the ones in the hood match the sample we took from Simon.’
‘Simon didn’t attack Whitaker?’ Tracy’s voice reflected her surprise. ‘So who did?’
‘Well, there’s the mystery,’ said Harry. ‘We said it wasn’t Gary Harker because we checked that already, but get to this! There were two sets of hairs in the balaclava, not just one!’
‘Two?’
‘Yes. A lot of fair hairs and some brown ones. And the brown ones match the sample we sent them from Gary last year. They’re his! Only it was a fair hair we found on Whitaker’s tape, wasn’t it?’
Tracy nodded. ‘Which meant Gary couldn’t have done it. So we dropped the charges.’
Terry turned to Churchill, who was pacing up and down morosely, his hands in his packets. ‘You never told me there were any brown hairs in that hood, sir.’
‘No, well I didn’t know, did I? All I saw were fair hairs.’
‘So what this does prove,’ Terry continued belligerently. ‘Is that all this about Harker not raping Sharon is a load of cock. He did rape her, after all. Wearing that hood.’
‘Yes, well, it’s a pity you didn’t get a conviction then, isn’t it?’ Churchill scowled.
‘Let me see that,’ said Terry, taking the report from Harry. ‘It seems to me this, together with Mrs Slingsby’s evidence, puts Simon in the clear, doesn’t it? At least as far as Maria Clayton and Karen Whitaker are concerned. He had no connection with either of them.’
‘No,’ Churchill agreed gloomily. ‘There’s more than one villain after all, it seems.’ He thumped the wall, sending several sheets of paper fluttering from the noticeboard. ‘Shit!’
The day was starting well, Terry thought, enjoying his boss’s discomfiture. The mystery was no clearer than before, but his interest in it was beginning to revive.
In his office, Terry put his feet up and thought. Both he and Churchill, it seemed, had been wrong. They had both believed that all these crimes were committed by one person. He had believed that person was Gary, Churchill that it was Simon. But the evidence supported neither of them.
Gary must have raped Sharon - his hairs in the hood, added to all the other evidence, made that more certain than ever. But the reddish fair hairs in the hood suggested that someone else had attacked Karen Whitaker; someone who was neither Simon nor Gary. And the evidence for Gary murdering Maria Clayton was no better than it had ever been. And the idea that Gary had killed Jasmine seemed even more remote; he had no motive, there was no evidence that he’d been anywhere near her that night.
And it seemed neither Gary nor Simon had attacked Helen Steersby
On the other hand there was compelling evidence that Gary had raped Sharon and that Simon had murdered Jasmine. Both were, in a sense, crimes of passion - the assailants well known to their victims, the motive a form of violent vengeance.
Three facts still worried Terry. The fact that Gary and Simon knew each other. The fact that at least one, and possibly two assaults had been committed by neither of them. And the fact that the evidence which proved this had been found in a shed owned by one of them, inside a balaclava hood used by the other.
He puzzled over this for an hour without getting anywhere. Then he remembered his promise to tell Sarah when the DNA results came in. For her, clearly, it would be a kindness, but it was risky, all the same. It was Churchill’s case; for Terry to anticipate him might well be construed as a disciplinary offence.
But there was such a thing as compassion, too. He decided to ring her from home tonight.
‘So he’s out of the frame for all these other cases. You should be pleased.’
‘Because my son’s no longer suspected of being a serial killer? Oh, I am, Terry, I am.’
The ironic edge to Sarah’s voice couldn’t disguise her relief about the DNA results, and the result of his interview with Ann Slingsby. But as usual, her mind was on to the next thing.
‘So if you admit you were wrong about this, maybe you’re wrong about Jasmine, too?’
‘That’s not my case, Sarah.’
‘Well, your DCI Churchill, then. Is he having second thoughts?’
‘Not about that, no. Like me, he thinks we may have been mistaken to see these crimes as part of a series. But he still thinks he has enough evidence to convict Simon for the murder of Jasmine. I imagine he’s treating it as a crime of passion again, just as he did at the beginning.’
‘So the prosecution’s still going ahead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even though it could have been Gary? You said so yourself, remember?’
‘Yes, well that’s the other piece of bad news, I’m afraid. I’ve checked his alibi for the night of Jasmine�
��s death and for once it seems to add up. Five witnesses saw him in the private room of the Lighthorseman until after midnight, celebrating his acquittal. I’m sorry, Sarah.’
‘Oh.’ There was a pause. In the lounge, Terry could hear Trude reading to his daughters. ‘But you say Gary’s hair was in the balaclava too,’ Sarah resumed thoughtfully, remembering the night he had attacked her in the shed.
‘Yes. Which is more proof that he raped Sharon, if we needed it.’
There was a silence on the other end of the phone.
‘The jury decided on the evidence presented to them at the time, Terry. Which is less than we know now.’
‘And that’s my fault, is that what you’re saying?’
‘I’m not saying anything. Look, we’re neither of us perfect, but what concerns me is Simon’s defence. You said yourself you didn’t believe he could have killed Jasmine.’
This time, the silence came from Terry’s end. With every second, Sarah’s pain increased.
‘Terry?’
‘What I think I said was, I didn’t believe he was the type to attack a range of women. I’ve been proved right on that. But for a single attack on his girlfriend, perhaps in jealous rage ...’
Moments like this, Terry thought, are crueller over the telephone. Her voice came back at him tinny, bitter, distant. ‘I thought you were on my side, Terry.’
‘I’m on the side of the truth. I have to be. That’s my job.’
‘And I’m just Simon’s mother, which makes me blind, I suppose. Look, just because Gary didn’t do it, it doesn’t mean that Simon did. What about David Brodie, Terry? He had a motive - jealousy, because Jasmine was two-timing him with Simon. Dozens of times, it seems.’
‘Have you met him, Sarah? He’s a nurse - clean, house-trained, inoffensive ...’
‘So was Dr Crippen, probably.’
‘Yes, but he used poison, not a knife. Jasmine was a big girl, athletic, probably stronger than him ...’
‘Jealousy can fire people up,’ said Sarah desperately. ‘What if I told you I had a witness who saw this David Brodie full of anger, stalking off to find Jasmine a few hours before her death?’
‘Then I’d suggest you investigate further,’ said Terry slowly. ‘Tell Churchill, if you’re sure it adds up to something. In the meantime he’s still got the blood on the shoes and the knife, and the semen, and the fact that Simon was the last person to be seen with her before he ran off to Scarborough. He’s dead set on it, Sarah. It’s a strong case to upset with a little bit of incidental jealousy.’
‘But if it’s all I’ve got, Terry?’
‘Then I wish you luck. If it leads to the truth, at least.’
And that, Sarah thought, was the difference between them. He, as a moderately decent policeman, had the moral luxury of an objective search for the truth, whatever it might turn out to be; she, on the other hand, was committed to Simon’s innocence.
There had been many moments over the past few weeks when she had doubted him; but as a lawyer she was used to that. You don’t ask clients if they’re innocent; you ask how they wish to plead. Then you present their case to the best of your ability. The search for truth is conducted by the court and the jury, the lawyer is supposed to be biased.
But when the lawyer is a mother too - well, that’s just more of the same. Simon may be a liar, she thought, violent, unstable, and downright stupid at times - but he’s not a murderer, he can’t be.
I couldn’t live with that.
The more Terry thought about his meeting with Ann Slingsby, the happier he felt. It wasn’t the exquisite tea or the pat on the bottom which cheered him, though both were welcome; it was the priceless jewel of information which had not only confounded Churchill but might also, with luck, solve the Clayton murder, all in one go.
There had been a second delivery driver - something that Tracy had missed! And not only had this man delivered tiles to Maria’s house when she was at home - unlike Simon Newby - but he had also, apparently, had sex with her and had a sexual problem! If that wasn’t a suspect, what was?
On the way to the builder’s merchant, Robsons, a second thought struck him. What if this same driver had delivered building materials to the university lodgings where Karen Whitaker lived? Might as well check those dates too.
The receptionist at Robsons was uncooperative. A burly girl with fat legs and a hint of a moustache, she kept him waiting for nearly five minutes while fiddling with some paperwork which she didn’t seem to understand. The employment clerk in the back office seemed brighter, but worried somehow. He checked the two addresses and sets of dates Terry gave him, and fished some delivery notes out of the files. He laid them before Terry reluctantly.
‘There you are, that’s them.’
The handwriting on each was identical. So it was the same driver, Terry noted with a pulse of excitement. ‘What’s this signature at the bottom? The driver’s name?’
The man inspected it in surprise, as though wondering why it was there. ‘Hard to read, isn’t it? Just a scrawl. Some of these lads are barely literate, you know.’
Terry had met this sort of response before. ‘Look, I’m not from the DSS or the Revenue, OK? This is a murder enquiry. So if you’re going to be obstructive ...’
The scales seemed to lift from the man’s eyes. ‘Irish fellow - name of Sean ... something.’
‘Sean what?’
‘Ah well, there’s the problem, see. He’ll have wanted to avoid tax, you see ... we wouldn’t keep a record.’
‘I thought they had a special Irish card, for that?’
‘That was in the old days, before 1999. Most of them were forgeries but no one ever checked. But now the Revenue’s tightened up; it’s not just a card but a proper booklet with photo, name, address, everything. They need a passport and a driver’s licence to get it - and a utility bill, to prove their address over here, see?’
‘So? Didn’t this Sean fellow have one of these?’
‘Ah, well, no, that’s just it.’ The clerk gave him a wry, embarrassed grin. ‘The Revenue think they’ve solved this problem of the lump by making the paperwork hard to get, but it’s just driven them underground. Most of these lads can’t produce a utility bill even if they want to - either they share lodgings or they’re not over here long enough. Anyway why should they go to all this trouble just to pay tax? They just don’t bother with cards any more. But they’re still there, looking for work, and we’re short-handed So ...’ He shrugged apologetically.
‘You pay them under the counter, no questions asked?’
‘Your words, not mine. No address, no phone number, nothing.’
‘But you let this man drive. You must have seen his licence!’
‘Oh, yes, of course, but ...’ The man shrugged again. ‘I didn’t keep it, did I?’
Terry sighed. ‘Well, at least you can give me a description. Or I will tell the Revenue.’
The man held up his hands. ‘Look, in a murder case, no question. I’ll get some lads too. There’s several knew him. When he left us he worked for MacFarlane’s, I think.’
At MacFarlane’s he was embarrassed to meet the foreman, Graham Dewar, who had given evidence at Gary’s trial. It had been one of Terry’s lowest moments. Dewar had told the court that the man Gary had claimed to be with did exist after all. A man called Sean.
‘If you’d asked me at the time,’ Graham Dewar said reprovingly. ‘I’d have told you then.’
Terry sighed. ‘Yes, well ... But he wasn’t on site even then, was he?’
Dewar shook his head. ‘Lads like him, they don’t stay long. We were well rid, at that.’
The reason for Dewar’s dislike of the man became clearer as he talked. Two other labourers also remembered him. Their information confirmed what Terry had learned at Robsons. Sean was a big man, everyone agreed, strong and exceptionally fit. He could carry a hod of bricks up ladders for eight hours a day, before going out in the evenings for a run. He had done some boxing, appare
ntly, and had the face to show it.
But none of this accounted for the informants’ clear dislike of him, or the anxiety some showed when Terry’s questions began. One problem seemed to have been his unpredictable temper. He could be working equably one minute, in a violent rage the next. They’d seen this happen several times. Anything could set it off - someone who jostled him, perhaps, or an apparently harmless joke - but the result was frightening. Two men had left, rather than work alongside him. Sometimes he was backed up by Gary Harker, who had also worked there - the two appeared to have known each other before, possibly in prison.
The day Sean left MacFarlane’s, a number of tools went missing. This had been reported to the police and Sean’s name mentioned as a possible suspect, but the investigating officers, like Terry, found no address or surname. MacFarlane’s, like Robsons’, had no record.
So, what did this add up to, Terry wondered, as he drove home. On one level the man seemed just a petty thief. One of many casual Irish building workers avoiding tax, a situation which helped to avoid investigation for theft as well. A fitness fanatic with an unpleasant, somewhat obsessional character.
But this was also a man with a sexual problem which Maria Clayton had joked with her maid about. Something about an extension or erection that was no good - that would drive any man wild. What if she had laughed about it, told him to get lost - this ex-boxer, this fitness fanatic who perhaps trained to compensate for his sexual inadequacy, whatever it was? There was his motive all right - a hatred of women, a sudden violent loss of control.
And this same man had delivered building materials to Karen Whitaker’s lodgings. And, like her attacker, had fair hair. So, how to find him? The Irish passport office couldn’t help without a surname, passport number, or address in the Republic. Not even a record of a driving licence, for God’s sake - what if he’d had an accident driving Robsons’ lorry?
But he knew Gary Harker, an ex-convict. A friendship possibly made in prison. So this Sean, too, must have previous convictions. He could check the court and prison records - particularly where Harker had served - but without a definite surname, that would be difficult too.
