A Game of Proof (The trials of Sarah Newby)

by Vicary, Tim

  ‘Your argument is flawed on several grounds, Mrs Newby. Firstly, until this man is arrested, tried and convicted we cannot know for a fact any of these things - either that he is a murderer, or that he killed Sharon Gilbert, or that he made this statement knowing that he was about to kill her. Even we accept that he did actually make the statement, it does not necessarily follow that he was telling the truth. In the absence of other evidence, it might be argued that he lied deliberately in order to frighten or torment his victim.’

  ‘And the jury? I doubt if they would see it like that.’

  ‘They might very well not. But it is my function, as trial judge, to decide what evidence does and does not go before this jury. And I regret to say that in view of its undoubted nature as hearsay at second hand, the evidence of DC Easby cannot be put before this jury.’

  There was a silence, as the short-hand writer’s fingers rattled out the decision on her keys. Sarah felt faint, as though a hand was squeezing her heart.

  ‘And if other evidence comes to light? As it may very well do now that the police are investigating this man. What then?’

  ‘Then, if your son is convicted, he will have grounds for an appeal.’

  ‘After three or four years in prison.’

  ‘That is the nature of the law, Mrs Newby. We cannot bend it to suit ourselves, as you well know.’

  Sarah was struck dumb. She had lost another argument, the worst of all. She gazed at the judge helplessly, hoping for pity. He smiled faintly.

  ‘After all, the jury are still out. They may well acquit him today.’

  The traffic police spotted the van on the A64. When they stopped it two men got out and sprinted away across the fields, but one of the traffic policemen, a rugby back, brought down Gary with a fine tackle as he paused to cross a ditch. A second squad car arrived in time to rescue Sean from a farmer with a shotgun who had found him, covered in mud and cow pats, fiddling with wires under the dashboard of his Range Rover.

  Terry watched as the pair of them were booked in at the police station by the custody sergeant. The knife, wrapped in a plastic bag, had already been checked in. In the back of the van the arresting officers had also found a rucksack, packed with clothes and other items.

  ‘Is that yours, son?’ Sergeant Chisholm asked Gary.

  ‘No, it’s his,’ said Gary sullenly. ‘All of it’s his.’

  ‘Yours, then,’ said Sergeant Chisholm placidly, turning to Sean.

  ‘Never seen it before in me life.’

  Terry studied the man he had been hunting for so long. He was filthy after his attempted escape. Apart from that he was big, powerfully built like Gary, with the red-gold hair and boxer’s nose they’d seen in the photofit. But it was the eyes that interested Terry mostly - the eyes that he was going to look into during the interrogation to come. As far as he could see they were flat, devoid of any obvious emotion - no fear, no panic, no resentment or anger at his predicament. Just emptiness, and a sense of sullen, reserved control. This was not over yet, clearly.

  He turned his attention to the rucksack, which Sergeant Chisholm was unpacking methodically. Clothes mostly, and a few items of toiletry, as though for a journey. And then, at the bottom, a crumpled brown envelope. Sean shifted uneasily as the sergeant emptied it.

  ‘A pair of female panties, white, stained - these yours, son?’

  ‘None of it’s mine.’

  ‘No? And yet it’s your rucksack, Gary says. And what’s this - dog collar? And a scrapbook?’ He opened it. ‘Oh my God! Sir - I think you’d better have a look at this.’

  Terry and Sergeant Chisholm leafed through the book together. Newspaper cuttings, locks of hair, and photographs. Large, black and white pictures. The sort of quality any scenes of crime officer would die for. The sort of subject two women had died for.

  Terry’s phone trembled in his pocket. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he answered.

  ‘Sir? It’s Harry. I’m at the court now.’

  ‘Oh yes, Harry. Good. Did you get the trial stopped?’

  ‘No, sir. That’s what I’m ringing about. The judge won’t listen. Says Sharon’s words are hearsay. Not real evidence.’

  ‘What?’ The graphic pictures in front of Terry’s eyes were branding themselves on his brain. ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘Usual lawyer crap, sir. Anyway the point is that the jury’s still out but they may come back any time. I did my best, sir, but ...’

  ‘OK, Harry, just wait there. Tell them I’m on my way.’

  Shoving his phone into his pocket, Terry slipped the scrapbook into an evidence bag. ‘Book this out sergeant. I need it for evidence.’

  Sergeant Chisholm protested. ‘Sir, you can’t! I need to list each item separately.’

  ‘Later, sergeant, later. This is more important now. I’ll take full responsibility.’

  As he ran down the stairs, two at a time, the phone in his pocket said: ‘DCI Churchill’s here too, sir. He’s not very happy ...’

  ‘This is it, then,’ Lucy said. ‘Chin up, Simon. Hope for the best.’

  ‘Yeah, OK. Now or never, eh?’

  Handcuffed to the security guards, Simon made his way up the grim concrete stairs, into the wood-panelled courtroom with its stucco pillars and elaborate domed ceiling. The court was full. Above him the public gallery creaked and hummed, fifty mouths muttering, a hundred eyes staring down. Lucy smiling encouragingly back at him as she took her seat.

  In front of Lucy, he could see his mother’s slim gown and the back of her horsehair wig. He wondered why she didn’t turn and smile too when he came in, and if it might be a bad omen. Neither he nor Lucy had seen Sarah since she left them half an hour ago, and Lucy didn’t know why she had gone.

  The judge in his red robes entered, bowed, and sat down. The clerk intoned the ancient formula: ‘All those having to do with the case of the Crown versus Simon Newby draw nigh and give your attendance. Her Majesty’s Crown Court at York with his Lordship S. Mookerjee presiding is now in session.’ The judge nodded to the usher to fetch the jury.

  For a minute, perhaps longer, there was silence. Simon stared at his mother’s neck, slender under the ribbons of the wig. Why doesn’t she turn and smile, he wondered desperately. He crossed his fingers like a child. If only she turns and looks at me it’ll be all right. Come on, Mum, turn. Turn now!

  But she didn’t.

  Simon watched anxiously as the jurors filed back into court, willing them to meet his eyes. He had read somewhere that if they looked at you it was all right; if they avoided your eyes you were done for. Six of them glanced at him. Three of those looked away quickly when they met his eyes. None of them smiled.

  When they had all taken their places the clerk of the court rose.

  ‘Members of the jury, would your foreman please stand.’

  Simon closed his eyes. When he opened them it was still true. The elderly woman at the back, the one with the grey hair and the string of pearls, was standing up. She wasn’t looking at him. None of them were.

  Terry drove with one hand on the wheel and the other holding the phone to his ear. Twice on the busy Fulford Road he had pulled out to overtake, once causing a car to hoot at him directly outside the police station. He was talking to Harry Easby.

  ‘Look, Harry, I’ve got new evidence which proves it was him beyond a shadow of a doubt. You’ve got to get back in there and stop it, son, before it’s to late.’

  Harry was on the steps outside the court. ‘I can’t, sir, you don’t understand. The lawyers have told DCI Churchill what I tried to do, and he’s hopping mad, sir, I daren’t go back in ...’

  ‘If you don’t, Harry, there’ll be a miscarriage of justice!’

  ‘If I do there’ll be murder, sir. You haven’t seen him. Anyway I haven’t got the evidence to show. You’ll just have to bring it yourself before the jury come back.’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to do, Harry - Christ!’ Terry swerved to avoid a cyclist. ‘I’m in Fish
ergate now, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Just stall them till then, Harry, will you?’

  ‘Just get here, sir, will you?’ But Terry’s phone had already switched off. Cautiously, Harry made his way back into court, hoping he would not run into DCI Churchill on the way.

  Sarah couldn’t face Simon. It was all she could do to sit here, facing the judge and the assembling jury. She was conscious of Phil Turner a few feet away, but couldn’t meet his eyes. He had beaten her, persuaded the judge to disallow evidence that strongly suggested Simon’s innocence. There was no justice in it but what did that matter? He had won the game of proof.

  As the elderly woman identified herself as the jury foreman Sarah shuddered, as Simon had done. My worst enemy on the jury, the one who had fiddled in her handbag when I was making my strongest points.

  ‘Madam foreman, have you reached a verdict?’

  ‘We have, yes.’ A thin clear voice, slightly more educated than Sarah had expected, but cold, too, without emotion. The old cow would probably vote for hanging if she could. Oh well, I’ll win on appeal, but that could take years.

  ‘And is ...’

  A hand was tugging on Sarah’s sleeve. Turning, she saw it was Harry Easby, the detective who’d brought the news of Sharon’s death and Sean’s confession. He was crouched, whispering something to her earnestly. ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘DCI Bateson’s on his way. He’s got more evidence. He says it proves Sean did it.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s too late now - look!’

  The court clerk, irritated by their whispered conversation, frowned at them in reproof, before continuing, in a slightly louder voice. ‘... and is that the verdict of you all?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Very well. On count one, the murder of Jasmine Hurst, do you find the defendant, Simon Newby, guilty or ...’

  ‘He’s got the proof,’ Harry insisted. ‘He’ll be here in a minute. If you want to stop them now’s the time ...’

  ‘... not guilty?’

  ‘My Lord.’ Sarah rose to her feet, slowly, so slowly it seemed, as if she was trying to run through water in a dream, a nightmare in which she had to act but couldn’t because her muscles wouldn’t obey her. She couldn’t even seem to attract their attention; the clerk and the judge were both looking at the jury forewoman, not her, as though she wasn’t there. Even her voice wasn’t working. She tried again. ‘My Lord ...’

  ‘Not guilty.’

  There was a gasp, a murmur of mingled outrage and relief from the public gallery behind her. At least they’ve heard me, Sarah thought, why hasn’t the judge noticed yet?

  ‘My Lord ...’

  ‘Mrs Newby?’ The judge studied her curiously, almost with compassion, rather than the anger she had expected. ‘It’s all right, Mrs Newby, there’s no need any more.’

  He looked past her and said, ‘Simon Newby, you are free to go.’

  And then it sank in. There was a roaring in Sarah’s ears, and she sat down quite suddenly, like a puppet whose strings are cut. She heard talking around her and felt Lucy’s soft hands on her shoulders but it was all a blur and her arms didn’t seem to work. Judge Mookerjee, about to thank the jury and discharge them, noticed the commotion about Sarah and looked down, concerned. ‘Mrs Newby, are you all right?’

  Sarah looked up through a film of tears and straightened her spine as she had always done, all her life. ‘Oh yes, My Lord, thank you.’ Then she turned to the jury, where the elderly woman she had called a cow was still on her feet and said again, ‘Thank you. Thank you all very much indeed.’

  Chapter Forty-Four

  ‘SO IF you’d come in time, what were you going to show the judge?’ Sarah asked Terry, as they strolled along the riverbank the following day. Terry had meant to invite her to his office, but the atmosphere there was so poisonous after Churchill’s humiliation that fresh air was a relief.

  ‘Well, this first of all,’ said Terry passing her a photograph in a plastic cover. It was of Jasmine - a living, healthy Jasmine running along the track by the river, her hair blown back lightly from her face. ‘You see the clothes are very different from the ones she was wearing on the day of her death.’

  ‘Well, yes, exactly.’ Sarah handed it back to him, surprised. ‘It doesn’t prove he killed her, Terry, the judge would never have stopped the trial for that.’

  ‘He would have for this, though.’ Terry passed her a second photograph, also of Jasmine. But this time a dead Jasmine, lying with her throat cut in the undergrowth. It was like the police photographs, except that this one had been taken at night, by flash.

  Sarah studied it, transfixed. ‘What did he want with a photo like this?’

  ‘Gruesome, isn’t it? But it’s the context that explains it. Those photos were found with other things - newspaper clippings, several locks of hair, a pair of stained panties - and he was carrying a knife.’

  ‘A complete sicko, then?’ Sarah handed the photo back.

  ‘Yes, and one like a magpie too. There weren’t just things to do with Jasmine; there were trophies from all the other women he’d attacked as well.’

  ‘You think he did them all, do you?’ Sarah asked. ‘Karen Whitaker, that girl Steersby, and Maria Clayton as well?’

  ‘It looks like it. Karen Whitaker’s boyfriend has already identified the camera as the one that was stolen from him when they were attacked. There were photos of Karen in this scrapbook too - probably the ones the boyfriend took. There were no photos of Maria but the rest of it fits, if we believe what he told Sharon, poor woman, before she died. Anyway we’re testing the hair, and a little dog collar to see if belongs to Maria’s dog, and the panties to see if they’re Jasmine’s. Hers were never found, were they?’

  ‘No.’ Sarah grimaced. ‘And he raped Sharon too, you say. Not Gary after all?’

  ‘So it seems. Though what I don’t understand is, how Gary’s hairs were in that hood, as well as Sean’s.’

  ‘No. Unless ...’ A sudden memory came to Sarah. ‘When Gary attacked me in that shed, I pushed the hood into his face, to blind him, and he had to drag it off. Maybe then ...’

  ‘Maybe.’ Terry frowned. ‘I wish you’d told me before.’

  ‘I never thought of it before.’

  ‘No. Well, we’re all human.’ He picked up a stone and skimmed it across the water, where it bounced twice and sent a startled duck clattering into the air. ‘It’s not just Churchill who got things wrong. I had Gary down for them all - now it seems he’s pure as the driven snow.’

  ‘Week-old slush, more like,’ said Sarah grimly. ‘You’re forgetting what he did to me. But what I don’t understand is, how things worked out between those two, Sean and Gary. Why were they in that van together?’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to understand, over the past two days,’ Terry said. ‘Sean says nothing much, but Gary’s positively voluble. He thinks he’s been deceived.’

  ‘Sad. My heart bleeds for him, poor lamb.’

  ‘Yes. Well, according to him, he thought Sean was just an ordinary decent thief, like himself. That’s how they met, in prison, after all. He didn’t think Sean was particularly interested in sex, and when I started trying to trace him Gary thought I was out to pin all these crimes on Sean in the same way as I’d tried to do with him. So he thought he’d help this innocent mate of his to get away - go back to Ireland, perhaps. Only he had the bright idea of asking Sean to visit Sharon on his behalf first, to make her admit that she’d got everything wrong. Fatal mistake - for Sharon, anyway.’

  Briefly, Terry explained about the unsigned note they had found in Sharon’s bedroom. ‘Gary thought he could show it to the TV people. Like Sharon, he trusts TV more than he does the legal system.’

  ‘Well, he has a point.’ Sarah moved aside for a cyclist who passed between them. ‘But why did Sean rape her, anyway?’

  ‘Same reason he did everything. He hates women. No wonder, with a problem like his.’

  ‘Problem? What’s that
?’

  Briefly, Terry explained Sean’s sexual disability. Sarah stopped dead, forcing two women pushing babies to move around her while she gawped in wonder. ‘But ... that’s astonishing! Is it possible?’

  ‘So the medicos tell me. Luckily, it only affects something like one man in a hundred thousand. Poor buggers.’

  ‘But don’t you understand what it means?’ The two young mothers turned at the excitement in her voice, but Sarah didn’t care. ‘He could have raped Jasmine after all, and it wouldn’t have left any semen. That would account for the bruising!’

  The young mothers were rapt now, dawdling deliberately to hear what came next.

  Terry smiled. ‘So not only is your son not a murderer, he’s not a rapist either.’

  ‘No.’ As Sarah shook her head, the emotion finally began to hit home. She felt dizzy, and Terry grasped her shoulders to steady her. ‘Just a great, lumbering, clumsy ignorant fool. Even last night when he was acquitted, I couldn’t quite forgive him those bruises. Oh, Terry, you’ve made my day.’

  ‘Glad to be of service.’ He scowled at the rubber-necking mothers until they moved reluctantly away. ‘Anyway, that’s why Sean killed Maria and raped Sharon, as far as I can make out. They were both prostitutes and he’d hoped they might solve his problem, and when they didn’t, he turned nasty and came back with revenge in mind instead. In Sharon’s case, my guess is he probably did meet Gary that night. Gary told him how he’d quarrelled with Sharon over his watch, and Sean thought he’d get his mate’s watch back and take his revenge at the same time.’

  ‘But ... why were the watch and hood found in Simon’s shed?’

  Terry shrugged. ‘Well, I’m guessing, but we know both Gary and Sean used that shed for stolen goods. And it was just round the corner. Perhaps he changed his clothes there, so no one could trace them to him. And he left the watch because he knew Gary would come back there some time and find it, and start to think ... which isn’t Gary’s strong point, as you know. Perhaps the idea of Gary gawping at this watch in the shed amused him.’