A Fatal Verdict (41 page)

‘You were dissatisfied, you mean, with the result?’

‘I was concerned that the searchers might have missed something. As it turned out, my lord, I was right.’

‘Yes, indeed. Mr Churchill, after Sergeant Bryant completed his initial search, was there a police guard left at the site?’

Churchill hesitated. ‘There was a constable on duty guarding the site at all times while the site was being actively investigated.’

A small, tight smile crossed Sarah’s face. The evasive answer betrayed a certain arrogance, a belief that she had not done her homework. For a moment she decided to humour him. ‘By
‘at all times’
you mean day and night, do you? Twenty four hours? And that constable’s duty is what, exactly?’

‘To ensure that no unauthorized personnel enter the site. To preserve the integrity of the evidence.’

‘Quite. To ensure, in fact, that no one contaminates the site by, for example, bringing in evidence from elsewhere?’

Again the cold intimate look of hatred flashed between them, invisible to the jury,  perfectly clear to them both. He guessed where she was going now. She watched his body stiffen as he attempted a casual, rather awkward shrug, body language that she associated with guilt.

‘That would be one thing, yes. Another would be to prevent people trampling evidence into the mud by stepping in the wrong place.’

‘I see. So this is quite a vital job, guarding the site?’

‘It’s a small but crucial part of the investigation, yes.’

He thinks he’s got away with it, Sarah thought. She sprang her trap. ‘But you didn’t quite answer my earlier question, inspector. Isn’t it true that after Sergeant Bryant completed his initial search, the police guard was withdrawn on the assumption that the search was completed, and not replaced until the following day, when Sergeant Bryant and his team went back?’

‘I believe there may have been a gap of some hours, yes. But only overnight. Sergeant Bryant ended his initial search on the afternoon of the 19
^th
, and began again on the morning of the following day.’          

‘Only overnight.’ Sarah smiled coolly. Her next few questions established precisely the times when the guard had been withdrawn - 6 p.m. on the 19
^th
- and reinstated - 10 am the next day. ‘And so we are to understand, are we, that this was only a brief hiatus, a time when nothing important could happen?’

‘I didn’t say that. But it’s fair to point out that this is a very remote, isolated site in the middle of a wood. Hardly anyone goes there in the day, let alone at night. So the chances of contamination during that brief period are really very low.’

‘Yes. Of course the murder happened at night, didn’t it, inspector?’

‘What?’

‘Well, you say no one goes there at night, nothing happens, but the whole basis of this case is that David Kidd was murdered in that wood in the middle of the night. That’s a fairly significant event, isn’ it?’

A low murmur of laughter came from the public benches and one or two jurors. Sarah smiled, waiting for her answer. It came in a tone of heavy sarcasm.

‘If your suggestion is that Mrs Walters visited the site during those hours and somehow innocently contaminated it, then you are forgetting, Mrs Newby, that she spent that night in police custody. What are you saying, that she escaped custody in the middle of the night and went for a walk in the woods without anyone seeing her?’

‘I’m not saying
she
did that, Mr Churchill. I’m suggesting
you
did.’

So now it was out in the open. A gasp of surprise went round the court. All eyes were focussed on their exchange now, no one was dozing.

‘I resent that.’ Churchill looked as angry as she had expected him to. But then, there was no other credible response. Sarah continued, her voice cool, hard, relentless.

‘The reason for these questions, Mr Churchill, is the very surprising, very strange discovery of an elastic hair bobble with my client’s hair on it
after
the crime scene had already been searched thoroughly by Sergeant Bryant and his team, who found no hairs whatsoever, nothing to incriminate Mrs Walters except a few footprints which could have been almost anyone’s. He reported this to you and you told him to go back the next morning where, surprise surprise, he found a blue hair bobble in a place he’d already searched. Now, as you say, Mrs Walters couldn’t have put it there, so
who did
? That’s what this jury would like to know.’

Sarah
hoped
the jury wanted to know it.
She
certainly did. Churchill’s smooth face was pink with rage. Or possibly fear.  He turned to the judge. ‘I find that question offensive, my lord.’

‘Nonetheless, Chief Inspector, you should answer it.’

‘All right. You’ve seen the forensic report. The hairs on that bobble came from Kathryn Walters’ head. The only way it could have got near that pit was that she dropped it while she was committing this murder.’

‘So what are you suggesting, Mr Churchill? That my client drugged Mr Kidd, pushed his car into the pit, and then stood there calmly brushing her hair?’

‘Of course not.’ Churchill’s answer came back swiftly, stilling the giggles from the public gallery. ‘Probably Mr Kidd tore it loose during the struggle. Or it fell from her coat or her bag.’

The answer was strong and reasonably convincing. If Sarah lost this point, she knew, she would lose the case. ‘The body was discovered on the 17
^th
, Mr Churchill. On the 18
^th
and 19
^th
, Sergeant Bryant’s team searched that site very thoroughly and found no hairs whatsoever. They completed their search and left the site unguarded. Then you told them to go back and look again and - lo and behold! - a blue hair bobble is there.’

‘As I have already explained, this was a difficult site to search. Small items were easy to miss. As the senior officer in charge of the investigation I took the decision to search the area one more time. The likelihood of contamination overnight was very small. As a Detective Chief Inspector I am engaged in a search for the truth, and I resent extremely the suggestion that I or any of my officers could manufacture evidence, my lord.’

Again he turned away from Sarah, but he could not escape her for long. ‘I am not suggesting that your colleagues did it, Mr Churchill. I am suggesting that
you
did.’

Assaults on police witnesses don’t get much more raw than this, Sarah thought, the adrenalin making her hand tremble on the pad of questions in front of her. She saw the judge draw breath for a comment and, realising she not really asked a question, continued: ‘Let me ask you this. On the day you first searched Mrs Walters’ house, did you go into her bedroom?’

‘I did, yes.’

‘Were you there alone, or with other officers?’

‘Sometimes alone, sometimes with others. The search took some time.’

‘During that search, did you see Mrs Walters’ dressing table?’

‘Really, my lord, this is absurd ...’

‘It would only have taken a moment, wouldn’t it, for you to have picked up this hair bobble and slipped it into a bag in your pocket, without anyone seeing?’

‘I had no reason to do that, my lord. None whatsoever.’

‘I suggest you had the perfect reason. The need to supply yourself with DNA evidence where none might otherwise exist.’

‘I did not do that, my lord. Of course I did not.’

‘No, Mr Churchill? I suggest that is exactly what you did. From the first moment you visited the crime scene you knew it would be difficult to find convincing forensic evidence, and you took this elastic hair bobble to keep in reserve in case you needed it. Then, when Sergeant Bryant completed his first search, you realised you had nothing, nothing except a few inconclusive footprints, to put Mrs Walters anywhere near the scene. But you weren’t prepared to accept that, were you? You weren’t prepared to see the police fail once again. So you slipped out that night, when you knew the crime scene was unguarded, dropped the hair bobble near the barbed wire, and sent Sergeant Bryant back to find it. That’s what happened, isn’t it, Inspector Churchill?’

‘No,’ said Churchill coldly. ‘It is not.’

And since she had nothing more to say, Sarah sat down.

Immediately Sarah sat down Matthew Clayton had stood up to re-direct, and in a smooth, emollient voice fed Churchill a number of questions designed to reestablish his reputation as a conscientious senior detective concerned only to uncover the truth. He did it well, but Sarah was gratified to see several thoughtful, if not openly cynical expressions of the faces of the watching jurors. I did the best I could, she thought; I’ve sown the seeds of doubt; let’s hope they flourish.

At the end of the afternoon, Sarah ran briskly down the stairs to see her client. She was feeling confident, determined, optimistic.

‘Well, I think we did as well as could be hoped,’ she began, taking off her wig and picking at a tuft of horsehair that was working loose. ‘Now we have to talk about tomorrow.’

‘What about tomorrow?’

‘Your evidence. How you behave on the stand.’ She noted how Kathryn sat dejectedly on the bench, looking pale and strained. Had this afternoon’s performance really seemed that bad to her? In Sarah’s opinion it had given them a real chance. ‘Now look, before you say anything, I know you’re worried about it, but really, this is the moment of decision. In my opinion that man Churchill looked shifty today - too smooth, too sure of himself by half to appeal to the average juror, and some of them are certain to believe he planted that evidence, whether we can prove it or not. So what we’ve got to do now is reinforce their impression of his character by comparing it with yours - a decent, respectable mother who’s been through terrible suffering because of the death of her daughter and then framed by the police to disguise their own incompetence. If you can just make them feel sorry for you as well as telling the truth, we’ve got a good chance.’

‘And what if I refuse to give evidence? I’ve a right to do that as well, haven’t I?’

‘Refuse?’ Sarah shook her head in surprise. ‘Then we lose, it’s as simple as that. The prosecution and the judge will both comment on it, and the jury will be wondering what on earth you’ve got to hide. It’s not an option, Kathryn, not this time. Not unless you want to spend the rest of your life behind bars.’

‘Maybe I do.’

‘What?’ The words were said so softly that Sarah wasn’t sure if she’d heard them. ‘You don’t mean that?’

‘I don’t know what I mean.’ Kathryn sat hunched on the bench avoiding Sarah’s eyes, twisting her wedding ring on her finger. She’s more depressed than I thought, Sarah realised. She sat down beside her, taking Kathryn’s hand in her own. She didn’t have much time; she could hear footsteps and loud laughter along the corridor, where the van crew had probably arrived to take Kathryn back to prison for the night.

‘Kathryn, listen to me. You pleaded not guilty because you didn’t do this, all right? If that’s the truth then you have a duty to yourself to give evidence, however hard it may seem. A duty to yourself and your family. We’re talking about a long time in prison for a crime like this - ten years at least - for a murder you didn’t commit, however glad you are that it happened. So give yourself a chance tomorrow, okay? At the very least it will help when we go to appeal. Whereas if you say nothing ... you’ll have a long time to regret it.’

A long time to regret it, perhaps, but no more time to talk. The security guard came in with her handcuffs, and Sarah watched Kathryn walk away. Still wondering, as she had since she took the brief, exactly what her client had to hide.

55. Frequent Flyer

Terry had seen Miranda in court, sitting in the public gallery next to her father. He’d thought nothing of it at first; it was natural for her to be there. He realised of course that she, like her mother, had a clear motive for killing David Kidd, but she was no more on his list of suspects than she was on Will Churchill’s. In the first place, as Churchill had pointed out, she had the perfect alibi. Two days before David Kidd died, Mrs Miranda Ward had landed in New York.

And in the second place, she had shoulder length wavy brown hair.

The first eye witness, the elderly colonel, said the woman he’d seen getting into David Kidd’s car had fair hair; he wasn’t sure if it was short or long. The second, the woman Terry had found, said her hair was ‘a sort of spiky blonde’, which agreed with the description he’d had from Wetherby bus station. Forget the spikes, and it was the colour of Kathryn Walters’ hair, exactly. Not her daughter’s. Nothing like it.

But Terry only had to walk into his bathroom at home to see the flimsiness of that evidence. His Norwegian nanny Trude, when she’d arrived, had been blonde, but there was another time when her hair had been almost white, and another when it had sported streaks of orange and blue. He had no idea what her natural colour was. And now, after a brief, hopeless battle from her father, his own daughter Jessica had begun to join in the fun, spending hours locked in the bathroom with Trude, involved in some mysterious alchemy which, to Terry’s relief, produced no more than a few delicate streaks of auburn in her naturally dark locks. So far, he had to admit, it didn’t look too bad. By the time she was fifteen, she might look like a walking rainbow.

He picked up a tube of dye in the bathroom and looked at it. The colours, it promised, would last for weeks. No doubt it did exactly what it said on the tin. But however carefully he read, he couldn’t find a promise to transport the user across four thousand miles of ocean. Not even the most extravagant advertiser claimed that. But it was the key point. Until yesterday’s phone call from Martha Cookson, Terry, like Will Churchill, had ruled Miranda out of the picture. Now, it seemed, he might have to think again.

But how could she have done it? He’d been back to BA, checked her flight to New York. It tallied, just as his boss had claimed. Her father had driven her to the airport for an early morning flight, she’d got on the plane and flown home - two days before David Kidd died. So why had the Cookson woman been so nervous, then, rung off so abruptly? It didn’t fit the facts. And after all, if Miranda
had
done it, why risk coming back now? The wise thing would be to stay in America. But only if she was guilty. Perhaps the very fact that she
was
here argued her innocence. Come to support her mother, like a loving child.

It can’t be her, Terry thought. I’m clutching at straws. And this particular straw is one I don’t want. And yet ... Terry’s motives for continuing this unofficial enquiry were mixed. Partly, he wanted to put things right for Kathryn Walters. If Kidd’s trial had succeeded, she wouldn’t be in this position in the first place. But equally strong, in Terry’s mind, was the urge to expose Will Churchill, and the dangerous way he treated evidence. Any suspect, even Kathryn’s own daughter, would serve to do that. And after all, he told himself grimly, whoever killed Kidd, it wasn’t me. The killer did it on her own.

He had a nightcap and went to bed, trying not to confront his own feelings. How would it feel, to see your own mother in the dock accused of a murder you’d committed yourself? He’d seen the girl in court; she looked so still, so calm. It couldn’t be her; this was all a stupid fantasy. He was probably as far from the truth as Churchill was. But how would it feel, to arrest Miranda in front of her mother? What sort of triumph would that be? Shit.

He dozed off into a dream in which he was shouting at the judge while his own mother drove a Lotus with a drowned man in it across a ploughed field. As he ran behind her, black water rose up to his neck.

A long time later the phone rang. He fumbled to pick it up. ‘Hello. Who’s this?’

‘Terry Bateson? Hi. This is Larry. Larry Eagleton. Sorry, did I wake you?’

‘Who? Oh, Larry - yes, of course.’ The man was his sole contact in the New York Police Department, someone he had met on a training course a few years ago. Terry had rung him earlier in the week. ‘You did wake me, matter of fact. It’s ... er, 3 a.m.’

‘No kiddin’. Sorry, guy, me being insensitive again. But you did say ring anytime ...’

‘Yes. Yes I did. What is it? Have you found something?’

‘Have I found something? Wait till you hear this. Listen, your question was did this lady, Miranda Ward, fly on to Wisconsin after she landed in New York, right? And the answer is no - not for three days. Then she catches the redeye straight down there to land four in the morning central time. So there’s a question to ask, straight off. I mean, why the redeye?’

Terry sat up, feeling a dull ache behind his eyes. ‘The last plane, you mean? Leaving in the middle of the night?’

‘That’s it. Flies out of La Guardia at 12.09 Eastern Standard Time on Friday 18
^th
. I mean, this chick’s been in the Big Apple three whole days, right? Sure it’s a big attraction for a babe married to some hick vet in a cow town out west, she probably wants to do some shopping, see the sights, all that stuff - but why the redeye? Why not take some normal flight that would get her home in time to kiss the kiddies, ball hubby on the couch, you know - things a married lady might expect after a few weeks away. So that sets me thinking.’

‘What did you come up with?’

‘Get this, feller. A lot of those people on that flight, they’re flying straight on from somewhere else, right? Land in New York without an onward booking and take a standby, you follow? So since this lady’s English, I check back, and guess what? She flew in from Manchester two hours earlier.’

‘What?’ Terry was wide awake now. ‘On the same day?’

‘The same day exactly. Thursday 17
^th
October. Three days after she arrived before, here she is again, flying British Airways from Manchester, England.’

‘But that means she wasn’t in New York at all for those three days. She was back here!’

‘Looks like that, doesn’t it? But just to make sure, I went back to the 14
^th
and checked again. Last time I was looking for connecting flights on from New York to Wisconsin, and what did I come up with? Zilch. Because I was looking in the wrong place. This lady didn’t fly on to  Wisconsin at all. She got off the plane from England, went straight over to the booking counter, and took an Air France flight to Paris. From there, I’m willing to bet, she hops over the Channel back to your neck of the woods. I guess you can check that out for yourself.’

‘I certainly can. Larry, you’re a genius. You’ve just solved a murder mystery.’

‘I have? Tell my boss, maybe I’ll get a raise.’

‘I’ll do better than that, Larry. Next time you’re in the UK I’ll show you the sights of North Yorkshire, and buy you a five star dinner every night.’

‘You mean that? Hey, you’re on. Can I bring the wife, too? She eats for America.’

‘Sure. Bring the whole family - in-laws, dogs, horses - the lot. I’ll look forward to it.’

But even as he put down the phone Terry was thinking:
anyone but her
. I’m not looking forward to this. Kathryn Walters may be safe but she’s not going to thank me this time.

Miranda, next morning, approached the court in some hope - insofar as hope could survive in the toxic cocktail of tension, guilt and fear that she had come to regard as normal everyday emotions. She had slept for several hours last night, reliving in her dreams the way Sarah Newby had cross-examined that loathsome detective, Will Churchill. In her dreams it went even better at first: Churchill’s face, smooth and arrogant at the beginning, gradually developed new seams and lines with every question, black wrinkles which criss-crossed his face like a net, and began to ooze some foul dark liquid, until quite suddenly his head and then his whole body  burst and became a dark pool on the courtroom floor. A pool which she dared not look into, and which, when she turned to leave, followed a few yards behind her.

She woke up shaking, as she often did now in the night, and told herself
it was him who was destroyed, not me.
Not me, it was him, and he deserved it.

Only a couple more days, she told herself, approaching the grim elegant courthouse with the statue of Justice on the roof. Then Mum will be acquitted and we can escape. Never see this place again.

There was a man standing beside the main entrance. A tall, lean man, in a loose-fitting double-breasted suit. As she came closer she recognised him as the detective who had given evidence in David Kidd’s trial. She had seen him once before at the court, but paid him little attention. But as she climbed the wide stone steps he seemed to be watching her, and when she reached the top he came up and blocked her way.

‘Miranda Ward?’

‘Yes.’

‘Detective Inspector Bateson. I’ve a few questions to ask, if you don’t mind.’

He put his hand lightly on her elbow and steered her through the foyer to a small conference room with a table and six chairs. It was horribly like the one in which she had waited with her parents for the verdict in the earlier trial, preparing a press release to tell the world how  pleased they were at the conviction of Shelley’s murderer. If only Kidd
had
been convicted, as he should have been! Everything would be different. The detective pulled out a chair but she refused to sit, her first sign of resistance since he’d surprised her. ‘What do you want?’

‘I think you know, Miranda, don’t you?’

He stood a few feet from her, the grey-blue eyes in his lean, unforgiving face watching her intently.

‘No. Of course I don’t know.’

‘Why are you here, Miranda?’

‘For my mother’s trial, of course. What do you think?’

‘How does it feel to be watching her? Sitting in the dock for something she didn’t do?’

‘Terrible, of course. But it went well yesterday. That policeman lied about the hairs, the jury could see that. I think she’ll get off. I hope so, at least. Then ...’ Her voice, which had been running away with her, suddenly stopped. Those cold grey eyes sent a chill to her heart.

‘Then you won’t have to make a decision, will you?’ he said after a pause. ‘That’s what you’re hoping for, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Terry smiled; a thin smile which to Miranda looked as cruel as the grin of a crocodile. But it was only a surface reflex prompted by her choice of a phrase so common with suspects whose game was up. But this time, it was a particularly nasty game. Terry might look cold and unforgiving to Miranda, but the expression on his face was a sign of his own weary disillusion at the role he found himself forced to play. There was no satisfaction in this discovery, only despair.

He took a sheet of paper from his pocket. ‘You flew from Manchester to New York on Monday 14
^th
October, flight BA 349. Correct?’

‘Yes.’ Miranda felt the blood draining from her face as she guessed what was coming.

‘Where did you go from there?’

‘I ...’ Her mind was racing.  He must have phoned Bruce, she thought. So he knows I didn’t go home. ‘... stayed a few days in the city. Seeing friends, doing some shopping.’

‘I see. Did you stay with a friend?’

‘No, I ... stayed in a hotel.’

‘Really. A hotel in New York, you mean?’

‘Yes. I ... don’t remember the name, though. It was a small one ...’

‘Not a hotel in Paris?’

‘What?’ There was no blood in her face at all now. In a moment, Terry guessed, it would all come rushing back in a flood. ‘
Paris?
’ she said in a whisper.

‘Oh come on, Miranda, the airlines do keep records, you know. The same day, Monday 14
^th
October, you flew from New York to Paris, arriving 8.37 p.m. at Orly. But you didn’t stay there long, did you? Because three days later you flew from Manchester to New York again, on the same flight, BA 349, from where you took the night flight home to Wisconsin. Quite the globe-trotter, aren’t you?’

Miranda stared at him, speechless. In her mind thoughts and emotions were running wild, crashing off the walls in panic -
confess, escape, deny, cry, hide, scream, say nothing
.

‘Want to tell me what you were doing?’

She shook her head. Her secret had encysted itself so deep it was hard to release, even if she’d wanted to. She had admitted her guilt to no one so far except her mother. And she had come here this morning in such
hope!
She looked into Terry’s eyes and saw something there flicker in response to the heightened consciousness in her own mind - pity, perhaps, doubt, reluctance, compassion, uncertainty. Something in her own brain screamed
he doesn’t know yet, he’s not sure, don’t tell him!

‘I don’t want to say.’

‘I’ll bet you don’t. You see the thing is, Miranda, on the day you left Manchester the first time, the 14
^th
, your sister Shelley’s killer was still alive. But by the 18
^th
he was dead. And you weren’t in New York on the day he was killed, as everyone thought. You were in
old
York, Yorkshire, England.’