Verdict Unsafe (3 page)

He took a deep breath. “Drummond was asked about the assault on Mrs. Carole Jarvis, which occurred in one of a block of garages behind the houses in Austen Street, Stansfield, at ten-thirty in the evening on the fifteenth of August last year,” he began. “And stated, ’I saw that one getting into her car in Malworth, and I followed her …”

The crude language employed by Drummond sounded incongruous coming from the prim, God-fearing Chief Inspector, who read the words with as little vocal and facial expression as was possible in the circumstances. The catalog of increasingly violent assaults carried out on Carole Jarvis, read in a near monotone, produced a more shocked reaction than it would have done if it had been related gleefully by Drummond himself.

Judy sighed. Mrs. Jarvis had not been the only victim of that particular assault; what had happened to her after she had driven her brand-new car into that garage was appalling, but it hadn’t ended there. Her marriage must have been severely tested once what she had been doing prior to the attack had come to light. But all that would have to be explained at the appropriate time; right now it was Drummond’s version of events, that the court was hearing.

Merrill was nearing the end of Drummond’s blow-by-blow description of the first assault. “‘When I had finished with her, I cleaned her up. Then I cut the tape off her wrists and ankles. I took it away with me so you lot couldn’t trace it.’” Merrill took another breath, and looked at the jury before embarking on the account of the second assault. “Drummond was then asked about the assault on Mrs. Rachel Ashman, which occurred in the ladies’ lavatory of the Percy Road Service Station, Malworth, at eleven-fifteen
P.M
. on Saturday, September seventh, last year,” he said. “And stated, ‘I pulled her into a toilet at a petrol station. I got her down just like the first one …’”

Mrs. Ashman had been in all evening with her husband and baby. Her husband, recovering from a bad accident at work, had been home for the weekend from hospital, still in a wheel-chair. She had gone out to get some milk from the all-night petrol station, and he had dozed off. The police had awakened him with the news of what had happened to his wife, who had been found by the next female customer who used the toilet. Mrs. Ashman had committed suicide three months ago; she had been twenty-two years old.

Merrill paused before moving on to the third assault. “When asked about the assault on Lucy Rogerson, which took place at Oakleigh Farm, Malworth, at eight o’clock in the evening on the tenth of September last year,” he read doggedly, “Drummond stated, ‘I got that one in a barn right after she’d been with some bloke. I did everything the same. I made her take down her own knickers and undo her shirt, and I did her just the same as the others. After, I cleaned her up—everything.’”

Lucy Rogerson had just celebrated her seventeenth birthday; she had been in the barn with a boyfriend who had been kept secret from her parents, because they would have disapproved. He had left her to walk the three hundred yards to the farmhouse; broad daylight, within sight of home, on her own land—what danger could there be?

Merrill cleared his throat, adjusting his stride to take the final hurdle and get to the finishing post. He gave the details of the fourth assault, and turned back to Drummond’s statement. “When asked about this assault, the defendant stated, ‘I saw her on her own, and I drove past her and took the bike into an alley. I thought I’d be all right because there’s never anyone up that end at night, not even your lot because everywhere’s being demolished and there’s nothing left to nick. I pulled her into the alley. She was wearing these skin-tight leopard-skin pants—I got her to pull them down and unbutton her top—she wasn’t wearing anything underneath, the slag. I’d only just started when I heard people coming, so I ran, but someone came after me and pulled me off the bike.’ Drummond was asked if he had said anything to the women during these assaults, and he replied, ‘I told them not to make a sound, not to make any trouble for
me, or I’d cut them open. I told them what to do. And I told them I was the Stealth Bomber, because that’s who I am.’ The statement ends there, my lord.”

“Thank you, Chief Inspector,” said the judge.

“Did you have evidence other than the defendant’s confession on which to base the charges?” asked Whitehouse.

“Later, a positive DNA match was made with a sample of seminal fluid taken from the clothing of one of the victims of the previous assaults. At the time, there was not only the way he was dressed, but the manner in which the assault on Miss Benson had been carried out, and the specific threats made. Also, surgical tape of the type believed to have been used to bind the hands and feet of the previous victims was found in the first-aid kit on the defendant’s motorbike, and he was carrying the sort of wipes used to wash the victims of the other assaults. A search of his bedroom revealed a great deal of literature on the subject of rape and its detection, and several newspaper clippings of the offenses with which he was subsequently charged.”

When Whitehouse had finished his lengthy (questioning of the Chief Inspector, Hotshot Harper made a performance out of sorting out some papers before he rose slowly and looked up at the witness box.

“With regard to the incident on Monday, twenty-eighth October,” he said, “was the alleged victim known to you, Chief Inspector?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“You knew that she was a prostitute who plied her wares on the street, and frequently also performed sexual services on the street, and that she had been arrested for just such an offense earlier in the evening?”

“I did,” said Merrill.

“And yet you had no doubt that her story was true, and that she had been assaulted by the defendant?”

“The forensic medical examiner said that in her opinion the young woman had been the victim of a sexual assault,” said Merrill stolidly. “Saliva found on the defendant’s glove
proved to be that of the victim, supporting her contention that he had held his gloved hand to her mouth to prevent her crying for help. That, taken in conjunction with the eye-witness statements, left me with little doubt that an offense had been committed.”

“And—like the arresting officer—you thought you had got your man, the one you were seeking in connection with the other three assaults?”

“Yes,” said Merrill. “In view of the circumstances of his arrest.”

“That he was dressed in black, and possessed a first-aid kit and the means to clean his hands after working on his bike?”

“I think the face-mask clinched it,” said Merrill.

There was muted laughter; the judge immediately silenced it.

“Was he carrying a flick-knife, or any other knife or weapon?”

“No, my lord. But a flick-knife and mask had been found the previous day, which it was reasonable to suppose the rapist had discarded. And in daylight a knife was found close to the scene of the last assault, which could have been the one used to threaten the victim.”

“Do you have any forensic or other evidence that either of these knives was ever owned or handled by Mr. Drummond?”

“No, my lord. The knife found by the river had no fingerprints on it, and the flick-knife had been handled by a number of people before it was handed in. But it was found not far from where the defendant had been stopped by the police for reckless driving two nights previously.”

“Where he had been stopped and badly beaten by one of the officers while the other stood by and watched,” said Harper. “My client was very aware of that during these interviews—were you, Chief Inspector?” said Harper.

Whitehouse rose, and Harper sat down.

“My lord, the officers involved in that assault on Mr. Drummond were not directly concerned with the rape investigation, but in view of the way in which he was dressed, they routinely questioned him about his movements on the dates involved.
His replies caused one of them to lose his temper. They have since been convicted of the offense, and dismissed from the police force—there is no justification for suggesting that this behavior was in any way condoned by their fellow police officers.”

Judy, unwittingly instrumental in the downfall of her two ex-colleagues, felt guilty about that, too. Her inadvertent whistle-blowing had created hostility at Malworth; she had been transferred back to Stansfield, to work on a murder investigation. But Colin Drummond had turned out to have vital information about that murder; she had found herself interviewing him, an experience she had no desire to repeat.

They shouldn’t have beaten him up, but Judy knew that the quiet, handsome young man in the dock was not at all the Colin Arthur Drummond they had had to deal with, He had been taunting them with being unable to catch him; she had understood their actions from the moment that Drummond had told her how narrowly she had avoided being his fifth victim, and had promised her that she would be his sixth.

The judge looked a query at Harper, who stood up.

“My lord, I shall be calling one of the police officers involved in that assault on Mr. Drummond to give evidence. My client maintains that no mention of the rapes was made during this incident; he believes that he was beaten up because of a previous encounter with these two officers in which he had come off the better, and that he was being targeted by the police. The next morning he was taken to Stansfield police station on another matter altogether, and was questioned—for the first time—about his movements on the dates and at the times of these rapes. He was released only when he made a formal complaint about the officers who had assaulted him, and that night was visited by the police at his home. The following night he was arrested and taken to Malworth police station, where he was questioned all night about the rapes. He is quite prepared to admit that he admired the exploits of the rapist, and that his mode of dress could have led the police genuinely to believe that he
was
the rapist, but his contention is that
he
at no time led
them to believe this, and that he eventually confessed to these horrendous crimes in the belief—mistaken or otherwise—that he would be hounded until he did, and quite possibly once again be physically harmed if he did not.”

The judge nodded. “I agree that the incident is relevant,” he said, glancing up at the gallery, quietening the disbelieving whispers.

Harper turned back to the witness box. “Mr. Drummond agreed to take part in a voice identification procedure, didn’t he?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Each of a number of male speakers spoke the words ‘I am the Stealth Bomber,’ including Mr. Drummond?”

“Yes.”

“With the exception of the alleged assault on the twenty-eighth of October, which lasted an estimated five minutes, and during which the alleged victim is unable to confirm that she heard these words spoken, the assaults went on for some time, didn’t they?”

“The assaults lasted from twenty to thirty minutes,” said Merrill.

“And in addition to the threats and instructions issued, that phrase was used incessantly by the rapist to his victims throughout, wasn’t it?”

“It was.”

“How many of the victims picked out my client’s voice as that of their assailant?”

“None, my lord.”

Harper looked astonished. “None? Didn’t that surprise you?”

“No. The rapist was in a state of violent sexual stimulation during the assaults, and his voice might well sound very different in other circumstances.”

Voice identity had always been a long shot, and an unnecessary trauma for the victims, in Judy’s opinion. Now Harper was trying to make something of it.

“But the evidence we have been given of the assaults describes a man frighteningly in control of his actions, doesn’t it? A man who commits the same acts in the same order on each
of his victims, a man who removes every scrap of evidence that is capable of removal before he leaves the scene—that is not someone in a sexual frenzy, Chief Inspector. That is deliberate, calculated violence perpetrated on victims whom he has first rendered helpless.”

“He was highly sexually aroused during these assaults, nevertheless, and it is reasonable to suppose that the character of his voice would alter when he was not.”

“One wonders why you attempted such a distressing procedure, in that case,” said Harper.

Damn the man. Judy didn’t want to think that she agreed with him about anything.

“If that is your last question on that topic, Mr. Harper,” said the judge, “I think this might be a convenient time to adjourn for lunch.”

The court rose, once again at a point that did not suit Harper, who had had the upper hand for once. But in the afternoon, DCI Merrill once again faced Harper across the courtroom, and Judy knew that this wasn’t going to be easy.

“Now we come to Mr. Drummond’s statement itself,” Harper said. “It is perfectly possible, isn’t it, Chief Inspector, that this statement was a fabrication from beginning to end?”

Judy gasped as loudly as anyone at the sheer nerve of the man.

“No,” said Merrill. “It is not. Drummond’s statement is very explicit. The only details made public were the descriptions of the assailant’s clothing, and the fact that he carried a knife, in order that the public might be warned.”

“But while I have no wish to take up the court’s time by asking them to listen to the seven hours of taped interviews, the statement read by you was given by Mr. Drummond after he had been questioned several times, but had said nothing in reply, wasn’t it?”

“It is normal practice only to transcribe relevant information given by the interviewee,” said Merrill.

“Quite. But during the earlier interviews, it was indicated, wasn’t it,” said Harper, “by way of various questions and remarks, that the victims had been forced to remove their own
clothing, that the same assaults had been carried out in the same order on each victim, including anal and oral assault? That the victims had been bound hand and foot, and repeatedly raped and assaulted?”

“I would have been surprised if these things hadn’t been put to him,” said Merrill. “Leading questions are often very efficacious in eliciting a response.”

“I’m sure they are. They also supply information that the interviewee might not otherwise have had, as we lawyers are only too well aware.”