A Kind Of Wild Justice (20 page)

‘Hello, Mike.’

It seemed a long time before he spoke again. Perhaps he was hoping she would continue. But he had phoned her. He could take the lead.

‘How are you?’ he asked eventually.

‘Fine. How are you?’

‘Oh. I’m fine too.’

Awkwardly polite, what a way for them to be after all that had happened between them, she thought. But then, eighteen years or so was a big chunk out of your life.

‘Something’s happened, though, something I thought you might want to know about, maybe help with …’

‘So you phone after all this time because you want my help, do you? Bloody typical!’ She wasn’t sure if she was angry or amused, or maybe just exasperated. He didn’t seem to have changed much, that was for certain.

He didn’t respond to her remark, but continued as if she had not spoken. ‘The Beast of Dartmoor – we’ve got a DNA match,’ he told her flatly. ‘And it’s O’Donnell.’

‘Ah!’ Again she wasn’t surprised. Like Mike she’d always believed in O’Donnell’s guilt and had never been able quite to forget the case, however much she pretended to herself that she had. She had been almost as involved in it as Mike had, perhaps always believed it would one day come back into her life again.

He told her all he knew, about the drink-driving arrest, the routine DNA swab, the computer picking it up.

‘Bang to rights, but I can do bugger all about it,’ he finished. ‘I don’t need to tell you about double jeopardy. The bastard can’t be tried again.’

‘No, but why don’t you guys do what you usually do in these situations?’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked sharply, instinctively on the defensive, even with her, perhaps particularly with her.

She gave a small tut of irritation. ‘Get him for something else, of course. He can’t stand trial for murder again, but what about rape and kidnap? If O’Donnell’s guilty of murder he’s certainly guilty of both of those, and he’s never actually been charged with either.’

‘Doesn’t work, Jo,’ he said. ‘We tried. Put just that
to the CPS and they threw it out. Still part of the original circumstances. Abuse of process. Not in the public interest after twenty years. Prospect of a conviction unlikely. Usual crap.

‘You’ve no idea how tough it is to get the Crown Prosecution Service to accept that kind of sidestepping nowadays. And the mess the law’s in over DNA doesn’t help. If they don’t have a precedent to look up in some dusty old book, lawyers don’t have a clue.

‘Apart from double jeopardy the biggest snag with O’Donnell is that you can’t use DNA obtained during one case, a drink-driving offence or anything else, come to that, as evidence in any other unrelated investigation. Section 64 of PACE. Bloody daft, if you ask me and high time it was changed – but there it is.’

Joanna leaned back in her chair. PACE. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act. Of course. She’d kind of known that part of what he had told her. But he was right. It was complex. ‘Presumably you haven’t still got the blood and urine samples taken when he was originally arrested for murder?’ she asked.

‘Destroyed on his lawyers’ instructions right after the case. Acquitted man’s right, as you know. And, God knows, he had the kind of legal team who weren’t going to miss that.’

‘You’ve checked, I suppose? It’s not unknown for those forensic boys to keep samples they should have destroyed, is it?’

‘No, it’s not. It’s a lottery, though. In fact it’s always a lottery whether or not samples from a twenty-year-old case are still in store. But if they had been we would have had a match come up before the
drink-driving thing, because we went through every outstanding murder and rape on our books about three years ago and did DNA checks on all the suspects whenever there were samples still available – I think every force in the country has done it now. That’s why O’Donnell’s DNA, taken from Angela Phillips’s body, was already logged.’

‘And you can’t make him give a new DNA sample because the CPS won’t let you charge him with anything?’ She was beginning to remember now. PACE again. The police had the power to take non intimate-samples – like head hair or a buccal swab – without a suspect’s permission only under quite precise conditions, basically if he is charged with a recordable offence or is being held in police custody on the authority of a court.

‘Exactly.’

‘Of course, you could pop round and ask the wanker if he’d like to give a voluntary sample, to clear the matter up once and for all, as it were,’ continued Joanna.

Fielding’s laugh was mirthless.

‘You mean you don’t think there’s much chance of him co-operating?’ she queried ironically.

‘I’ve been round, actually … well, I just happened to be in his neighbourhood.’ Fielding paused. ‘Only it was unofficial, if you see what I mean …’

She saw. And she wasn’t surprised. He’d been told it was over, that there would be no further police action, but he couldn’t resist jumping straight in. ‘Brilliant,’ she said. ‘And how far did it get you?’

‘Not very. I just wanted him to know that I knew. That’s all.’

She could imagine it all too well. ‘Did he say anything?’

‘Smug as ever. Even if we could prove he’d had sex with the dead girl, so what, he said. Maybe she’d been a willing partner, maybe she’d begged him for it. Didn’t mean he’d killed her. I tell you, Jo, I nearly smashed his face in.’

‘You didn’t, though, I hope.’

‘Let’s just say it was a very close thing.’ He chuckled.

‘Mike, not even a jury would swallow that “willing partner” crap, surely. Not with what happened to that poor kid?’

‘I don’t think so either, but it’s irrelevant, like I’ve told you, certainly as far as police action is concerned.’ His voice suddenly became very earnest. ‘Look, Jo, I’ve gone over and over in my mind what we could do to get the bastard. I reckon there’s only one thing left. A private prosecution.’

‘But double jeopardy still applies. And the burden of proof is the same.’

‘Yes. I reckon he could be done for rape and kidnap in a private action, though. The CPS wouldn’t have to be involved and I believe a really good barrister could swing it. I really do. Particularly if we made sure that the committal proceedings were after October.’

‘What happens in October?’

‘The Human Rights Act finally comes into force in the UK,’ he said.

Of course. She should have remembered that. ‘But it won’t change double jeopardy, will it?’ she asked. ‘It’s supposed to be about protecting people’s rights, after all.’

‘Yes. But the rights of victims as well as suspected criminals, Jo. I’ve just been on a course. It’s mandatory for coppers now, it’s got to be, or the whole damned lot of us will end up being locked up instead of the fucking villains. You can start forgetting Westminster and the Law Lords. Think Strasbourg and Brussels. Mostly it’s a nightmare, but hard to believe as it may be, Europe’s actually come up with one thing that might help those of us who are at least supposed to be on the side of the good guys. Look it up. The Seventh Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights, Article Four. Oh – and then go to Section Six of the Human Rights Act.’

‘OK,’ she said casually. ‘I’ll look it up. I don’t quite get where this conversation is leading, though. Why are you telling me all this?’

‘Because I want you to go to that poor kid’s family and persuade them to take out a private prosecution,’ he said.

‘Oh, is that all?’

‘Christ, Jo, you’re a bit heavy on the sarcasm today, aren’t you,’ he countered, the irritation clear in his voice.

‘You really don’t change, Mike,’ she murmured softly.

‘I was thinking just the same thing about you,’ he said.

‘OK, why do you want me to go to her family? Why don’t you go to them yourself? Do they know about the DNA match, has anybody told them?’

‘No, they don’t know and the brass have decided they shouldn’t be told. No point, too painful, some such bollocks. I don’t agree with it, but I don’t dare go against them. I’ve only got two and a half years to
do for my thirty and I have enough blots on my record as it is.’

‘Maybe you have changed after all,’ she said, her tone lightly bantering.

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Or maybe I’ve just settled for what I’ve got. I’ve risked enough already. There comes a time. The Phillipses wouldn’t want to hear from me anyway; they blamed me, you know, left me in no doubt that they considered me responsible for the whole damn cock-up. I’m the last person to persuade them to get involved in another major court case, to drag it all up again.’

‘I don’t think they were exactly mad about me in the end either,’ she remarked wryly. ‘Not after the buy-up.’

‘Perhaps, but you didn’t have the same personal involvement – and you’ve still got clout.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Well, I’m damn sure they’d still like to see their daughter’s murderer get what’s coming to him, but whether or not they’ll be prepared to take on a case against him by themselves I very much doubt. Apart from the anguish of it, there’s the financial side too. A case like this could cost hundreds of thousands if it went wrong. I know they were wealthy people then, but I’m told their fortunes have changed considerably. I don’t think they’d dare take the risk. Not after all this time. I was hoping you might be able to get the
Comet
behind this one. Get the paper to finance it.’

‘Mike, for God’s sake. What planet are you on? Papers don’t throw money around like that any more.’

‘C’mon, Jo. They do if a story’s big enough. We
both know that. You do a deal with this family and you get everything first. Think about it. It’ll be a huge ground-breaking court case and the
Comet
will be on the inside. All you have to do is pay the costs and it’s yours.’

‘Just like that,’ she responded.

‘Just like that,’ he repeated expressionlessly.

‘Well, it’s not just like that, Mike, not any more, not if it ever was. What if it all goes pear-shaped again? The CPS have turned you guys down. The risk factor of a private prosecution would be huge. Apart from anything else, there’s a big argument that, right or wrong, this case was buried a long time ago.’

‘I don’t think it ever will be, not for you and me,’ he said quietly.

He was right, of course, and perhaps it was that which made her so angry. ‘Oh, grow up, Mike,’ she snapped. ‘The case, you, me, everything – it was two decades ago, for Christ’s sake. It’s over. Anyway, even if I wanted to get involved again I honestly don’t think I would have a hope in hell of getting the
Comet
to back it, not in the present climate.’

She knew she must sound patronising. She knew how much he hated being patronised, particularly by her. But she still didn’t expect him to come back to her quite the way he did.

‘I wouldn’t have thought you’d have any problem there, Joanna,’ he shot back at her. ‘After all, you are sleeping with the editor.’

The anger overwhelmed her then. ‘Fuck off, Mike,’ she told him.

Joanna put one hand to her head and glared at the telephone, which she had promptly slammed down
on him. Just who did Mike Fielding think he was? How could he be so damned arrogant? How could he think he could just bowl back into her life with all his baggage? The whole O’Donnell business was his problem, not hers. She had just been a young crime reporter covering the case – not the detective who blew it wide open because, as usual, he was in too much of a hurry. For her it was history. She had a new life. She had the column she had always wanted, ‘Sword of Justice’, a weekly eulogy championing the rights of the individual against the restrictions of a government and a legal system which purported to be liberal but actually, in her opinion, encroached upon freedom more than any other in her lifetime. She was proud of ‘Sword of Justice’, even though she knew well enough it was little more than the
Comet
’s sop to great campaigning days long past.

She also had a family she was proud of, an eleven-year-old daughter who was the apple of her eye – and a husband. A husband who happened to be the editor. Anybody but Mike would have said, ‘After all, you are married to the editor.’ Not Fielding. He had always had a way with words. He could always out-snide the best. He could never resist going just that bit further than other people would.

Her eyes were drawn to the photograph on her desk. She and Paul, taken at their wedding reception. Both beaming at the camera. She was wearing a tailored cream silk suit. It still seemed very beautiful to her, as indeed it should have been. It was Paul Costelloe and had cost nearly £1000 even then. Her bridegroom had wanted the best for her. For them both.

She studied him closely. Even features. Average
height. Mousy brown hair, thick and springy, slightly longer then than would be fashionable now. Horn-rimmed glasses. He was never a typical Englishman in any way. She always thought he had looked more like a Harvard preppie in those days, a real American WASP. He was glancing at her sideways, smiling proudly, shyly almost. He did not have the appearance of a remarkable man at all. He had never looked like one or, in his younger days at any rate, appeared to behave like one.

She switched her attention back to her own image in the photograph. The long mid-blond hair framing a thin person’s narrow face, her smile easy and wide, displaying even white teeth. She’d had them professionally scraped and cleaned four times a year then, in order to keep the nicotine stains at bay. That had been her big vanity. She hadn’t been able to stand the thought of yellow teeth, but she never even considered giving up smoking, not until years later. All too often it had felt as if only the cigarettes got her through the day. She looked happy in the picture and she supposed she had been happy, though what she actually remembered more than anything else was her sense of bewilderment.

She looked into her husband’s eyes in the photograph, masked by those thick-lensed glasses. She had often thought they must be very convenient to hide behind and once she had asked him if he really needed such thick lenses. He had laughed lightly and changed the subject. She had never asked again.

Absently she stretched out her right hand and placed the tip of her forefinger very precisely over his smile so that the lower part of his face was covered and you could only see his eyes. Masked by those
heavy lenses they were, as ever, merely cool and fathomless.