Homer clambered down from a slime-covered boulder, his booted feet slipping and sliding their way to the beach where I stood hugging a collection of rods. He picked up the bag of reels and other tackle. ‘Don’t you not know nothing about what happened here?’
When he put it like that, I wasn’t sure. However, I was happy to learn something, anything.
‘There was a helicopter crash. Mr Thorn who used to run this place died. So did his girl.’
‘Philip Thorn’s dead?
‘Not Mr Thorn senior.’ He tilted the peak of his baseball cap at the North Sea. ‘It’s not him who’s out there, more’s the pity. It’s wee Jerry. Sir Philip’s son.’
12
It was a long windscreen-slapping drive back to Linlithgow. Crossing the Forth Road Bridge at the back of four o’clock I phoned my dad to say I’d be swinging by to pick up Tina and we’d be having our tea out. As luck wouldn’t have it my dad was also free that evening and so the two of them, little and extremely large, were waiting for me when I pulled up outside the cottage.
When it came to dining out, the Munro shortlist of eateries was not a long one. Topping the bill was Alessandro’s Bistro, as the proprietor liked to call it, or Sandy’s Café as everyone else did. I parked outside and before we’d unbuckled a seat belt my dad said he had to go see someone about something very important. It didn’t matter. It was still early and his absence gave me the chance to drop into the office, collect some files and inspect the troops.
‘Anything new?’ I asked Grace-Mary. It was half past four so she was winding down and preparing for departure.
‘If you mean, has there been a steady stream of criminals looking to pay privately for your services, then no. If you mean, am I having to cram all new legal aid appointments into Joanna’s diary, then yes.’
Right at that moment my assistant arrived back from the High Court looking windswept and as lovely as ever. Tina ran over and Joanna lifted her up, did a quick spin and carried her through to my room, with only a brief, ‘Hi,’ in my direction.
‘I take it you’ve told her?’ Grace-Mary said.
‘I have, though somehow she already knew.’
‘Then good luck trying to talk her into staying,’ she said, without so much as a flinch to corroborate my suspicion as to who had been responsible for leaking the news.
‘What do you mean? Has she said anything about leaving?’
Grace-Mary pulled open a drawer and began tidying up an already tidy desk.
I planted my hands on the desktop and peered over at her. ‘Grace-Mary, has Joanna said anything to you about moving on?’
She didn’t look up, allowing me only the minutest of shrugs. Another person who wouldn’t grass on a workmate.
I slipped out of reception and into my room. Joanna was sitting in my big, looks-like-leather chair with Tina balanced on some files that were stacked on the chair opposite. The two of them were laughing and giggling and playing some kind of tennis game with a ball of crumpled paper, using the avalanche of paperwork on my desk as a make-shift net.
‘This looks good fun,’ I said, catching the paper ball and setting it down out of my daughter’s reach. ‘You know what would make it better? If you had a proper net. A great big one. Tina, why don’t you go through and ask Grace-Mary if she’s got a long stand?’
Once Tina had skipped off, I removed the files, set them on top of a filing cabinet and sat down in the chair vacated by my daughter. ‘How’s the rape going?’ I asked. We were both lawyers and a chat about a serious sexual assault was just the thing to help break the ice.
‘Nightmare,’ was Joanna’s verdict. ‘First of all you’ve got our client, Captain Sensible, never been in trouble before, family man, business man, Rotarian.’
I had to admit that Keith Howie had looked extremely normal when I’d seen him sitting in the dock. Not young, and with a face I’m sure he wouldn’t have chosen for himself if given the chance, but he could wear a suit and make it look like it wasn’t for the first time. For me it was a case of so far so good. Any alleged sex-offender who lacked a bad comb-over, stained joggies and specs with beer-bottle lenses was a bonus. ‘What about the complainer?’
‘Sixteen coming on seventeen, pretty, seems quite timid. I don’t think she gets out much. She’s lived next door to the accused all her life. Calls him Uncle Keith. When her parents were away for a long weekend she stayed in our client’s spare bedroom because she didn’t like being in her own house alone.’
‘Is she sexually active?’
‘Not according to her statement and not that we’d be allowed to ask such a question anyway.’
‘Got a boyfriend?’
‘Yes, he’s nineteen and works offshore. He was in the middle of the North Sea when this is supposed to have happened.’ Like Jeremy Thorn and his girlfriend, I thought. Except there’d be no helicopter bringing them home. ‘They’re both Mormons. Pre-marital sex is a definite no-no.’
‘And the evidence?’
Joanna leaned back, picked up the crumpled ball of paper and began tossing it around. ‘Complainer goes out for the evening, comes back around midnight and goes straight to bed. Six in the morning our client’s wife is woken by the girl screaming that she’s been raped in the night.’
‘So the girl’s claiming to have been raped.’ That was one source of evidence. ‘And then there’s evidence of distress.’ That was a second source. Enough at least to corroborate an assault, if not actual rape, but not who was responsible. ‘If it was rape, what is there to say it was our guy?’
‘He sells kids’ toys now. A few years ago when he had a hardware store he put mortise-type locks on the front and back doors. The keys are kept hidden after the house is locked up for the night. Nothing fancy, just under a plant pot on a window ledge, but the girl wouldn’t have known where they were.’
‘Which means no one else could have got in during the night?’
‘And the only other occupants of the house were Mrs Howie and the three kids. All girls. The oldest is nine and the twins are three. That leaves our guy in the frame.’
‘There has to be more.’
‘There is.’ Joanna finished playing with the ball of paper by expertly pitching it into the bin on the other side of the room. ‘A lot more.’
‘Injuries?’
‘Thankfully not.’
‘That’s good. Leaves the possibility it could have been consensual.’
Joanna shook her head. ‘We haven’t intimated a consent defence.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re overlooking two things. One, the fact that the victim—’
‘Alleged victim.’
‘All right, alleged victim. You’re overlooking the fact that she’d been drinking and, secondly, even if she had been sober enough to consent, you’ll recall what our client said during police interview. The interview in which he declined his right to silence. The interview that you attended,’ Joanna reminded me. ‘Mr Howie made it very clear he hadn’t laid a finger or anything else on her. Sex with consent was always a non-starter.’
Joanna was right. I’d not just overlooked that part, I’d forgotten all about it until then. The fact was that some clients wouldn’t listen to advice. The innocent ones were particularly bad at it. They knew best. Keith Howie sold toys. I’d only spent five years studying law, another two in training and thirteen as a court lawyer. What did I know? He’d actually believed the interviewing police officers when they said they only wanted to find out the truth. Keen to shovel his version of events at the cops, he’d dug a hole for himself. Telling the cops anything during an interview was like playing poker with a card sharp, showing him what a great hand you had so he could deal himself a better one.
‘What do the forensics say?’ I shifted in my seat, discomfited as much by what seemed to be developing into a slam-dunk of a prosecution as by the chair I reserved for clients and the wooden ribs that jammed into my lower back.
Before Joanna co
uld answer, Tina skipped back into the room. ‘Dad, Grace-Mary says to tell you she only has short stands.’
At the mention of her name, my secretary, attired for a polar expedition, appeared in the doorway to say goodnight. ‘And don’t forget you’re going out for your tea tonight,’ she said, before scurrying off. The woman thought she was my mum. It was only five o’clock. Plenty of time. My dad would still be off on his important business.
‘The forensics?’ I asked Joanna again. ‘Any DNA?’
Tina jumped up, plonked herself in Joanna’s lap and began playing with the pendant that hung on a thin gold chain about my assistant’s neck.
‘The Howie file is in my briefcase,’ Joanna said. ‘The forensic report is inside.’
Joanna’s briefcase was more of a satchel, chestnut leather, like a much larger version of the one I’d had on my first day at school. The file inside was neatly assembled and tidy, everything in order. By that stage in a High Court case, one of my files would have resembled a burst mattress.
I extracted the Crown’s forensic report and a brief history compiled by the police surgeon who first met with the girl. I recognised the name of the doctor. His reports were about as objective as one of my brother’s match reports after an Old Firm game. The attack, as the doctor described it with no room for doubt, reasonable or otherwise, despite the lack of injury, had taken place sometime after midnight on Saturday morning. The girl hadn’t reported it to the cops until Monday evening when her parents came back. A delay in reporting a rape wasn’t a problem for the Crown. Reporting early helped the complainer’s credibility. Reporting late also helped the complainer’s credibility because it was classic victim behaviour. What didn’t help was that the girl had washed and showered between times.
Turning to the Forensic report I saw that swabs had been taken from the girl in all the usual intimate areas. The same with the accused. There was reference to pubic hair samples, combed, cut and plucked. The last of those always made me wince no matter how many reports I read. The swabs were examined using differential extraction, separating the DNA into cellular and sperm fractions. Cellular fractions of DNA belonging to the alleged victim and the accused were found on each individual. This wasn’t surprising. The cells could have been transferred innocently just by sitting in the same room. It was the next section of the report and the tests on the sperm fraction that was more problematic.
Deep vaginal swabs had been examined and sperm heads identified confirming the presence of semen. Not good. Now any assault was officially sexual and therefore a rape.
‘Evidence of penetration and ejaculation,’ I mumbled to Joanna as incoherently as possible. By now she was playing pat-a-cake with Tina and, according to my daughter, losing at it. Up until then I hadn’t realised there was a competitive edge to the game. Joanna nodded, not looking up. I continued reading. Tapings had been taken from the underwear worn by the girl on the night in question. These too revealed the presence of sperm heads, but probably due to the passage of time, attempts at obtaining a DNA profile from the samples had been unsuccessful. No doubt about it, this was a real stinker of a case.
‘I’m hungry,’ Tina announced, with a final double-handed slap.
Joanna lifted her down and stood up. ‘So am I. Where will we go for tea?’
My daughter was in no doubt about that. ‘Sandy’s!’
‘Then I’m having a Caesar Salad. Why don’t you have the same, Tina?’ Joanna rubbed her stomach. ‘Lovely crispy lettuce, croutons and Parmesan cheese all smothered in Sandy’s special sauce. Mmm.’
While Tina, face screwed up, considered that option, Joanna took the reports from me, reinserted them carefully into the file and returned the folder to her satchel.
‘Could be worse,’ I said. ‘Could all have been caught on CCTV or witnessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.’ I prised myself out of the wooden chair, rubbing the small of my back. Legal aid lawyers on fixed-fees had a saying that you should never speak to a client long enough for their bum to warm the seat. Perhaps my wooden contraption was the reason I never seemed to have much trouble with long interviews. ‘Anyway, it’s too late to plead now. Time to don the old tin helmet, fix bayonets and battle it out. You win some, you lose some.’
‘But I really want to win this one. I know it should be a matter of complete indifference to me whether our client’s guilty or innocent, but—’
‘It’s natural to want to win,’ I said. ‘It’s your job.’
No matter what anyone said about the public interest or defending liberties, with criminal lawyers, be they for the prosecution or defence, it all came down to one thing — winning.
‘No, it isn’t just that. It’s his wife, Liz. She’s lovely. Despite everything that’s been thrown at her husband, she’s stood by him, believing one hundred per cent that he’s innocent. I’ll be more upset for her than him if he’s convicted. After all, if he is a rapist he deserves whatever he gets, but what’s she going to do with three kids and a beast for a husband?’
‘She’ll do what every other wife does,’ I said. ‘Divorce him and sell the house and business while he’s in jail and can’t do much about it.’
‘I think she’d wait for him.’
‘Ach, some women are like that,’ I said. ‘They could have the whole thing on video with David Attenborough doing a running commentary and they’d deny it ever happened.’
Joanna hooked her satchel by a strap over the back of my chair. ‘It’s called standing by your man,’ she said, taking Tina’s upstretched hand in hers.
‘More like wilful blindness.’
Joanna shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. Her belief could be based on trust. They’ve been married twenty-six years. Maybe she knows him so well she can tell when he’s speaking the truth. Do you think he is? How can he be?’
I didn’t answer. The truth was something I tried not to think about when it came to criminal trials. Just like talk of guilt or innocence, it only clouded the issues. In the end it all came down to proven or not proven. The evidence and how it was viewed by the jury was all that mattered.
‘If you want an acquittal, you’ll just have to hope Howie puts on a good performance in the witness box,’ I said, reaching down to take Tina’s other sticky little mitt. ‘And this year’s Oscar for most believable rape-accused goes to...’
Joanna’s wry expression suggested that such an eventuality was about as likely as my daughter eschewing sausage, beans and chips for a lump of lettuce. We left the office, swinging Tina between us. Discussions on legal aid and Joanna’s future career could wait. At least until after tea.
13
My dad was already sitting at our usual corner table, his breath smelling faintly of that something very important he’d gone to meet the mysterious someone about. He had taken the liberty of ordering sausage, beans and chips all round, not realising Joanna was coming along too. The old man stood and pulled a chair out for her, simultaneously waving Sandy over.
There had been a time, back when the traitorous Jill, daughter of my dad’s best pal, and I had been an item, that the mere mention of Joanna’s name would have had the old man scowling and threatening filicide. Now my assistant was almost an honorary Munro; picking Tina up from nursery if I was late back from court, dropping her off at the house, even babysitting from time to time.
‘She’s a lawyer not a nanny,’ was Grace-Mary’s take on things, and perhaps I did take advantage of Joanna’s good nature, but only because she really didn’t seem to mind. In fact, so far as I could make out, she enjoyed it. Vikki was pleasant enough towards Tina, just not a lot of fun. That might change with time. My daughter’s other chief female contacts being her gran and my secretary, I couldn’t have asked for a better role model than Joanna. If she ever left Munro & Co. I didn’t know who’d miss her the most, Tina or me.
Another person who would be inconsolable at Joanna’s departure came over to the table, black and white checked apron about his middle, sleeves rolled up to reveal
impossibly hairy forearms, and juggling a damp cloth. Sandy had a number of propositions for Joanna, some of them culinary. Eventually he persuaded her against a Caesar salad. His ricotta cheese and spinach ravioli drizzled with homemade pesto was a much better option. And he’d run out of lettuce.
‘Here we are, then,’ I said, having cleared my plate in a new personal best time. My dad had gone off to help Sandy with a blocked sink in the kitchen and I was sitting between Joanna and Tina who were still eating. I pushed my empty plate away and draped an arm over the backs of their chairs. ‘Just me and my two girls.’
‘There’s only one girl here,’ Joanna said, through a mouthful of pasta. She snatched a paper napkin from the silver dispenser in the middle of the table and caught a drip of olive oil that was running down her chin.
‘Dad says that Pyxie Girl isn’t really a girl she’s a woman,’ Tina told Joanna while slurping beans from her fork. ‘He says it’s because she’s got those,’ Tina pressed a sticky finger against one of my assistant’s breasts. ‘Like yours.’
I handed Joanna another paper napkin and hurriedly explained how, to the best of my recollection, that wasn’t precisely the way the father/daughter conversation had gone.
‘Your dad is quite right,’ Joanna said to Tina, doing her best to remove bean sauce from her blouse. ‘But he should remember that there is a difference between real girls and real women, not just the ones on telly.’
‘That’s not all he should remember.’ My dad pulled up a chair alongside and gave me a nudge. He frowned and tilted his head at the door. I’d heard the bell ping and assumed it was just another customer. It wasn’t. It was Vikki, back from her trip to the States. She was looking very nice. All done up, like she was going out somewhere. To dinner perhaps. Shit. That’s what Grace-Mary was trying to remind me about.
Present Tense Page 7
