A Fatal Verdict (The Trials of Sarah Newby)

by Vicary, Tim

  ‘And how did he look, during this conversation?’

  ‘A little agitated, perhaps. Sweating, as though he was hot.’

  Sarah smiled encouragingly. So far everything was going to plan. In his statement Mr Patel had said that David had only been in the shop for a maximum of four minutes, meaning that he was away from his flat for no more than six minutes in total, thus making it quite possible for him to have cut Shelley’s wrists before he went out, and return to find her still alive. Hesitantly, he confirmed this for Sarah now.

  ‘I think that is probably right, yes. I mean, that is what I told the policeman.’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Churchill, you mean?’ Sarah had the witness statement in front of her, with Churchill’s signature beside Patel’s on every page. The shopkeeper’s words were faithfully recorded in Will Churchill’s smooth, rounded handwriting.

  ‘Yes, I believe that was the officer’s name.’

  ‘Very well. And you stand by that statement now, do you?

  ‘I ... well, it’s hard to remember exactly after such a long time, you see, madam, but ...’

  Don’t hesitate now, Sarah thought, for Christ’s sake. Not when we’re almost there. Yet it seemed if that was exactly what the man was doing. Small beads of perspiration were appearing on his domed brown forehead; he was looking around the court nervously. She was concerned, but not particularly surprised. Many witnesses found it an ordeal to give evidence in open court, particularly in a serious trial like this, with the man accused of murder only a few yards away, glaring at you from the dock as David Kidd was doing now. Smoothly, she moved to help him.

  ‘But at the time you gave this statement, on the 25th of May, your memory of the events was much clearer, presumably? Only four days after Miss Walters died?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

  ‘So you were clear enough in your mind then. David Kidd was in your shop for no more than four minutes, you said. Is that correct, Mr Patel?’

  ‘That ... is what I told the Inspector, yes.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Sarah gave him a warm, encouraging smile. You have done your public duty admirably, the smile was meant to say. Just stick to your story for a few more minutes and your ordeal will be over. You can go back to your shop and sell baked beans in peace.

  But first, the shopkeeper had to face Savendra, who had been watching him like a hawk. Last night Savendra had studied this man’s witness statement with unusual care - a task made the more pleasant by the faint traces of Belinda’s scent which still clung to his copy of the document. The longer he watched Patel in the witness box, the more his confidence grew. This man was the keystone of Sarah’s case; if he couldn’t stand the pressure, the arch of evidence she was trying to build would collapse in rubble and doubt. And the shopkeeper had been sweating, even before a friendly advocate.

  The man’s eyes followed Sarah regretfully as she sat down. Savendra rose and waited, saying nothing, until the shopkeeper reluctantly turned to face him.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Patel. My name is Savendra Bhose. I am defence counsel for Mr Kidd.’

  ‘Good afternoon, sir.’

  That one word, ‘sir’, was important. It was an acknowledgement of Savendra’s social and professional status; a level far superior to that of this elderly shopkeeper or, probably, anyone in his family.

  ‘Just now, Mr Patel, you told my learned colleague how difficult it was to remember events that took place some six months ago.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I did.’

  ‘I am sure the members of the jury appreciate your difficulty. I doubt if many of them could remember events that took place so long ago. And it’s fair to say, isn’t it, Mr Patel, that you had no idea, when Mr Kidd came into your shop, that his visit that day was an important one, that you should try to remember. You thought he’d just popped in to buy some food, didn’t you? Like any other customer.’

  ‘Yes, sir, of course.’

  ‘Quite. Could you give this court an estimate of how many customers come into your shop every day? In general terms, I mean. How many? Fifty? A hundred perhaps?’

  ‘On a good day, sir, perhaps two or three hundred.’ The shopkeeper swelled with defensive pride. ‘I have a thriving business. I have a large family and it supports them all.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it, Mr Patel. Very commendable too. So, of these two or three hundred customers, do you remember in detail what each one of them buys, how long they spend in the shop, and so on?’

  ‘Not in detail, sir, no, of course not.’

  ‘Some of them talk to you, no doubt. Do you remember what each of them say?’

  ‘One or two, perhaps. Not all of them, no.’

  ‘And you gave this statement to DCI Churchill when? Four days after Shelley Walters died. Well, today is Monday. Can you remember, for instance, who came into your shop last Thursday?’

  ‘I ... well ... some of them, perhaps. I’m not sure. It’s hard to say.’

  ‘You see, the reason I ask, Mr Patel, is that in this statement you gave the police some very precise details about one of your customers who’d been in your shop four days before.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You say - let me see, I have it here...’ Savendra looked down at the words he had highlighted in yellow on the fragrant statement in his hand. “...he knew where everything was in the shop and he found it quickly. We had a brief conversation about football but it didn’t last long because there were some ladies behind him queueing very fiercely. He couldn’t have been in the shop more than four minutes in total.” It’s very precise, isn’t it, Mr Patel. “Ladies queuing very fiercely ... four minutes in total.” Do you really remember all of those things?’

  ‘I ... I remembered them when I spoke to the police officer. It’s a long time ago now.’

  ‘You remember them less well now, you mean?’

  ‘I am less sure, perhaps.’

  ‘Less sure. You see, this is a very important matter, Mr Patel. You do realise that, don’t you? A man could go to prison for life on the basis of your evidence. You have sworn an oath to tell the truth in this court of her Majesty the Queen. With her royal coat of arms above the learned judge’s throne.’

  Watching, Sarah felt her own concerns increase. The sweat on the shopkeeper’s brow was more prominent now, his anxiety greater. The jury were watching him doubtfully.

  ‘Yes, sir. I understand that.’

  ‘Yet you still stand by this statement, do you? You mean to tell this court - this jury - that you remember clearly how long this man, Mr Kidd, spent in your shop more than six months ago?’

  ‘It is very difficult, sir. That is what I told the policeman.’

  ‘I see.’ Savendra sighed as though dissatisfied with the answer. ‘Let’s look at your statement, shall we? You have a copy in front of you. Is that your handwriting?’

  ‘Mine? No, sir. The policeman wrote it.’

  ‘The policeman wrote it? Not you? So he wrote it, and you just signed it?’

  ‘Yes, sir, that was the way.’

  Sarah leaned her elbows on the table, massaging her forehead with her fingertips. This was a familiar issue to both barristers. Police regulations advised that, whereever practicable, witnesses should write out their statements in their own hand, but in practice this seldom happened. It took twice as long, and many witnesses were simply not up to the task, crossing things out, including masses of irrelevant details, and being unable to spell or punctuate. So the police officer did it for them, in the process fashioning a statement that simultaneously suited the purposes of the investigation and laid them open to the charge of putting words into the witness’s mouth.

  The difficulty for Sarah was that it was not Terry Bateson, but Will Churchill, who had written out this man’s statement for him. And Churchill, in Sarah’s opinion, had about as much respect for the truth as a fox had for the life of a chicken.

  ‘Did you read what he wrote, before you signed?’

  ‘Yes, well
... not exactly. He read it to me.’

  ‘He read it aloud to you, after he had written it. Then you signed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see. Did he offer you the chance to correct what he had written, then? To put in a sentence explaining how difficult it was to remember, perhaps?’

  ‘No sir. It was all correct.’

  ‘All correct, was it? And very precise. He couldn’t have been in the shop more than four minutes in total. Do you have a stopwatch on your counter, Mr Patel?’

  ‘No sir, of course not.’

  ‘And yet you state very precisely how many minutes this man spent in your shop. Did DCI Churchill explain to you exactly why the timing was so important?’

  ‘Well yes sir, of course. Because the young man had murdered his girlfriend.’

  ‘Oh really? He told you that, did he?’

  Sarah groaned softly to herself. Oh Terry, Terry, why didn’t you interview this man yourself?

  ‘Well, yes, sir, of course. Everyone knew it. That’s why we are here.’

  ‘Let me be clear about this. He told you Mr Kidd had murdered his girlfriend, did he? Not that he was investigating her death, but that it was a murder, and Mr Kidd had done it?’

  ‘Well yes, sir. I think that’s what he said.’

  ‘Very well. You are being very honest, Mr Patel. And so that’s why you remembered this visit to your shop in particular, is it? Because you knew, or believed you knew, that Mr Kidd had murdered his girlfriend. Did the policeman also explain to you why the length of time Mr Kidd spent in your shop was so important?’

  ‘Yes, I think ... if he had spent a long time in my shop, then she must have killed herself. But if it was only a short time, then he was the murderer.’

  ‘He said that to you, did he? Before you made your statement?’

  ‘I’m not sure when he said it. But it’s true, isn’t it? I mean, that’s what I’ve heard.’

  ‘Are you telling this jury, Mr Patel, that before you made this statement to the police, DCI Churchill told you that if you said Mr Kidd had only spent a few minutes in your shop, that would be proof that he had murdered his girlfriend?’

  ‘I’m not sure if it was before. Maybe after I made the statement. I don’t know.’

  ‘But he did tell you this, did he?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’ Something about the reaction to his evidence, maybe the way the judge and Sarah were staring at him so intently, was beginning to unnerve the elderly shopkeeper even more than Savendra’s questions. ‘Perhaps, yes. I may have got this wrong.’

  Savendra studied the witness carefully. The man was sweating, his plump hands clasping and unclasping nervously as he gazed anxiously at the faces in front of him. ‘You’re being very honest, Mr Patel. That’s good, that’s very important in a court of law. You’re saying you can’t remember precisely what the Detective Chief Inspector told you about this crime when he wrote down your statement more than seven months ago?’

  ‘Yes sir, that’s right.’

  The man looked relieved, but Sarah, watching, guessed that his relief would be short-lived. It was often when he was being kind to a witness that Savendra was at his most lethal.

  ‘And yet you can remember, very precisely indeed it seems, exactly how many minutes Mr Kidd spent in your shop on the 21st May. Is that what you’re asking this court to believe?’

  The shopkeeper hesitated. ‘Well, I’m not sure. I thought ... remembered it then.’

  ‘You remembered it then, when the Chief Inspector was sitting in front of you, writing down words for you to sign. Do you remember it now? Are you sure that these words which the detective wrote down for you are the truth?’

  The pudgy hands on the witness stand clasped each other in agony. ‘I don’t know. It’s a long time ago. I thought they were true.’

  ‘You thought they were true, yet you didn’t even read them before signing. And you can’t remember now, exactly what the Chief Inspector told you before you signed this paper, can you? That’s the truth, isn’t it?’

  ‘I think he said what I told you. That David had murdered his girlfriend. That’s why I tried so hard to remember. It was my duty, you understand. She was a lovely girl. She had been in my shop many times.’

  ‘You tried hard to remember what the Chief Inspector wanted you to remember. That’s the truth, isn’t it? And he wrote it down for you. Think hard now, Mr Patel. You’re on oath, in the court of her Majesty the Queen. Can you honestly tell this court that my client, Mr Kidd there, was in your shop for only four minutes? Could he have been there for six minutes, maybe? Eight minutes? Ten perhaps? Fifteen? Can you really be so sure?’

  The man took a folded handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead anxiously.

  ‘It is very difficult to be sure, sir. But he was not there for fifteen minutes, certainly. Ten minutes ... well, perhaps. Possibly eight. But I honestly believed four at the time. I was not lying, sir, you understand. I was trying to do my duty. To help the police solve a murder. That poor girl - she was murdered!’

  ‘You don’t know that, Mr Patel. None of us do. It is quite possible that she committed suicide. That is why your evidence is so important, you see. Now, let me ask you one more time. Can you be sure that he was there for only four minutes?’

  Patel took a deep breath, and seemed to withdraw into himself for a moment as he searched his memory for the truth. Then he sighed, and looked up.

  ‘No sir. If I am honest, I cannot be sure.’

  It was, as both lawyers knew, a terrible admission - possibly the decisive moment in the trial. As Savendra sat down, he smiled at Sarah and made a quiet clicking noise with his mouth. Very soft, but Sarah knew exactly what it meant: you’ve lost this, darling, he’s dropped you in the sewage. If David Kidd had been in that shop for ten or twelve minutes, with at least two more minutes walking to and from his flat and another couple talking to the priest outside his door, then his alibi worked in the way he had always claimed: he would have been away from the flat for fifteen minutes or more, too long for Shelley to be still alive by the time he had returned, phoned 999, and waited a further seven minutes for an ambulance. But plenty of time, on the other hand, for her to have got out of the bath, found a knife, and cut her own wrists while he was away. Mr Patel had just given Kidd a lifeline, by denying the written statement he had given to the police.

  22. Recriminations

  SARAH STORMED out of court at the lunchtime adjournment, Mark Wrass following anxiously behind. ‘Where is that man Churchill? I want to speak to him right now.’

  ‘I rang as soon as this started and left a message,’ Mark said apologetically. ‘He’s out on a case, it seems.’

  ‘Well, ring again and get him here now. This case is going down the pan unless something is done.’

  But as Mark began urgently punching numbers into his mobile phone, Sarah spotted Will Churchill running jauntily up the stone steps outside the court. She strode smartly over to confront him as he pushed his way into the foyer. Seeing the scowl on her face, he raised an ironic eyebrow. ‘Problems, Mrs Newby, is it? Cock-up on the legal front?’

  ‘I’ll say. Come with me, through here, now.’

  She led the way swiftly to a small conference room, holding the door open when she got there so that Churchill, following with deliberate slowness, was shown as if into her office. She stood behind the table and glared at him.

  ‘A key witness, a man interviewed by you, has just gone back on his evidence. Unless something is done about it David Kidd is going to walk free.’ Briskly, she outlined the events of the morning, while Churchill stood opposite her, stunned, his insouciance blown away by her story. ‘He now says that Kidd was in his shop for eight or ten minutes, which means that if Kidd cut her wrists, Shelley Walters would have had to survive for more than twenty minutes with a pierced artery to be still alive when the ambulance came. Which the defence are going to claim is impossible.’

  ‘The little bastard! Why did h
e do that?’

  ‘He’s saying you bullied him into making that statement. Did you?’

  ‘Of course I bloody didn’t! What do you think I am?’

  A man who wants to get to the top, fast, Sarah thought bitterly. A man who needs successful prosecutions and will bulldoze his way through until he gets them.

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time a policeman has manufactured evidence. If this man had come up with this story before, I doubt I’d have advised the CPS to bring this case.’

  ‘Are you saying I lied, woman?’ Always on a short fuse, particularly where women were concerned, Churchill had raised his voice several decibels. The bitter history of their previous conflicts replayed ghostly battles between them.

  ‘I’m not saying it,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s Mr Patel who’s saying it, on oath, in court. You told him Kidd was a murderer, he says, wrote out his statement for him, and bullied him into saying what you wanted to hear.’

  ‘I didn’t bloody bully him, the toe-rag,’ said Churchill controlling his voice with an effort. ‘I sat him down nice and quiet, helped him make up his mind, and wrote down every word he said. Then he read it all over carefully, and signed it. It’s called procedures, Mrs Newby, doing things properly. The way I always operate.’

  ‘Helped him make up his mind?’ Sarah said. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Just what it says. It’s hard to remember exactly how long a conversation took, even you must realise that. So I focussed his mind on the things he did, the words he could remember, and made him think how long each one took. Then we added the times up together.’

  ‘And you call that objective?’

  ‘I call that careful investigation, getting at the truth. Why, what would you call it?’

  Putting pressure on the witness to come up with the right story, Sarah thought grimly. That’s what I’d say if I had this man on the stand in front of me. But right now, we’re on the same side. Gritting her teeth, she said: ‘This still looks like a murder but it’s going to be a lot harder to prove. Some of those jurors have been brought up on stories of police brutality, and you’ve just played right into their fantasies.’