The Verdict (49 page)

‘No,’ he said.

Another murmur, louder. I thought that was going to prompt another Blumenfeld glare, but it didn’t.

‘Was Mr James aware that you were taking down everything he was saying when you were talking to him in his office?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Was Mr James drunk at the time, in your opinion?’

‘He smelled of alcohol, but he seemed
compos mentis
to me.’

‘Did you know he was under the influence of Rohypnol when you first interviewed him?’

‘Not then, no. I read about it in the toxicology report later.’

‘As DCI Reid told the court a few moments ago, Rohypnol can cause amnesia when mixed with alcohol. So wouldn’t it be fair to say that Mr James was telling you the truth when he claimed he couldn’t remember what he’d said to you earlier?’

‘He didn’t say anything about Rohypnol,’ Fordham said.

‘Probably because he didn’t know he’d taken it, DS Fordham. Probably because one of the many drinks he’d had the night before had been spiked.’

Carnavale stood up.

‘My Lord, my learned friend is leading the witness. She’s asking him to comment on something of which he wasn’t aware – and couldn’t have been aware of.’

‘I wasn’t leading the witness, Mr Carnavale,’ Christine said. ‘I neither asked him a question, nor solicited his opinion. I was merely making a point.’

‘Do you have a question for the witness, Mrs Devereaux?’ the judge asked.

‘No further questions, My Lord.’

Christine sat down.

Carnavale tried to salvage the situation. Had Fordham – to the best of his knowledge – taken down every word the accused had said accurately? Yes, he had.

But the damage was done. Procedure hadn’t been followed. And Christine had told the jury VJ’s drink had been spiked.

After Fordham left the courtroom the judge ruled the statements VJ had given in his office inadmissible, and told the jury to disregard them. He also admonished Carnavale for entering the notebook into evidence, and for wasting half a day of both the court’s time and the jury’s.

‘What the fuck just happened?’ VJ asked, with a smile.

‘In order of importance?’ Christine said. ‘DCI Reid effectively let the jury know she doubts your guilt. They
definitely
picked up on the way she hesitated before she answered. Secondly, the prosecution can’t now legally say you lied to the police, because they bungled that first interview. And the jury knows you were drugged. In short, we had a good day.

‘Now, don’t get your hopes up. This is still the prosecution’s trial to lose. Procedural mishaps are common, and juries tend to overlook them unless they’re major cock-ups. But I’ve planted that all-important seed of doubt in the jury’s mind.’

VJ rubbed his temples and then his eyes.

‘How did you know I hadn’t initialled the notebook?’

‘When Janet first called me about taking your case, she sent over copies of the statement she’d taken from you at Charing Cross, as well as her notes. She wrote that she’d advised you not to sign anything without her being present,’ Christine said. ‘This is a good start.’

Dinner for one: a prawn stir fry I managed to mess up with too much oil and too high heat
.
It was a soggy brown mess, the prawns shrunk to the size of fingernail clippings and all the nutrients of the vegetables floating about the kitchen in a pall of oily smoke.

I turned on the TV to BBC News 24.

Breaking news on the Strand shooting.

Jonas’s face popped up on the screen. Some kind of black-and-white ID photo. Square head, dimpled chin, small porcine eyes and a hint of a smile. He was younger and had hair – albeit clipped short – but it was the same man who’d tried to kill me.

Cut to: Shaky, low-res mobile phone footage from Saturday. The car had stopped in the road after running over the traffic light and people were attacking it.

Cut to: A reporter standing outside Charing Cross Station, talking live to camera.

I braced myself.

And then I didn’t understand what I was looking at.

There was a picture up on screen, but it wasn’t me.

It
did
sort of match the general description – tall, dark-haired, white – and our clothes were the same, minus the pink bandanna that had slipped off his face.

I recognised the face.

It was the person who’d been running just behind me, to my right. The wild-eyed sprinter.

I checked the other news channels to make sure the BBC hadn’t made a mistake. They hadn’t.

First thought: Thank God! What a relief… One less thing to worry about.

Second thought: Wait a minute… How had the police got it so wrong?
Or had they?
There were half a million CCTV cameras in London. That’s roughly one for every fourteen people. It’s estimated you’re filmed an average seventy times a day. I’d been in the
middle
of central London, a hive of cameras; electric eyes on you everywhere, all the time.

Overriding thought: The police hadn’t made a mistake at all.

What about Rudy Saks? What had happened to him? What if he was the driver, the one in the coma? What would that do to the trial?

I turned on the computer to check my emails.

A message from Albert Torena, sent this morning; the information I’d asked him to get me.

Two attachments – a list of hotel security personnel who’d worked the nightshift on March 16th, and keycard data for Room 474, where Evelyn Bates and Penny Halliwell had stayed.

The keycard info.

gk – Guest Key

pk – Passkey

17.3.11: 02.19am (pk15t)

Bingo
.

Evelyn had
never
gone back to her room after she left for the hen party.

Yet Penny Halliwell had found a note from her on her pillow, when she’d finally returned to the room the next morning.

@
Private party @ Suite 18. Evey x

Who’d left it there?

Not Evelyn, but the person who had used a passkey to open the door at 2.19 a.m. on March 17th. And it was the same passkey they’d used to get into VJ’s room.

Next, the list.

That confirmed what I’d suspected:

Jonas Dichter
–
aka the late Daniel Bronstein, the Strand shooter – had worked that night, on hotel security.

I was now sure he was also the ‘big bald bugger’ who’d helped raid David Stratten’s house. Just as I was sure he was the man Fabia had seen Evelyn Bates talking to in the corridor.

What was he doing there?

He’d been following VJ.

Which meant he’d been in the nightclub first.

Which meant…

I fed the Casbah club CCTV disc into the computer drive and hit play.

I watched

… Evelyn Bates come in; Evelyn with her back to the dancefloor, talking on the phone; VJ approaching her, their brief exchange; the conga line bursting in and Evelyn flying forward… Evelyn leaving the club, hurrying out, bent over… Then VJ leaving the club a few moments later…

I let it play on after I’d always stopped it.

Ten seconds passed.

Twenty.

Then…

Bingo
.

Jonas Dichter – shaven-headed, broad shoulders stuffed in a suit, and an earpiece wire clearly visible – walked hurriedly past the bar and out the door.

What was that Swayne had said to me on the phone after he dropped off this DVD?

Evelyn Bates is on it. So’s the Strangler
.

I’d thought he meant VJ.

He hadn’t.

He’d meant
Jonas
.

He’d
known
who’d really killed Evelyn Bates. And he’d
told
me.

And I’d missed it.

Completely.

Forensics.

In his opening statement, Carnavale had billed this as one of the showpieces of his case – absolute, undeniable proof of VJ’s guilt:

‘Science – unlike people – does not lie,’ he’d said, with a melodramatic flourish. ‘Science is honest. Science is certain. We may sometimes doubt science, but science never doubts us. And science will prove – beyond
all
doubt – that Vernon James killed Evelyn Bates.’

A whiteboard had been set up near the witness stand. It was a line diagram of Suite 18, sectioned into three parts – ‘Area A (Crime Location)’, ‘Area B (Bedroom)’ and ‘Area C (Lounge/Couch)’.

Dr Derek Beales was called to the stand. He’d headed up the team that analysed the evidence. Bald and round of cranium, long and thin of body, Beales had the mirthless expression of someone who’d never heard a joke in his life.

Carnavale began by asking his witness to explain how evidence was gathered at a murder scene. This was a populist ploy. The jury was about to be deluged in all manner of data – chemical, biological, physical and mathematical. They couldn’t be thrown in at the deep end. They had to be spoonfed, starting with the easiest bits. And what’s easier than picking something up from the floor?

Beales cleared his throat and started speaking.

‘A SOCO team —’

‘What does “SOCO” stand for?’ Carnavale asked.

‘Scene of Crime Officers,’ Beales said. ‘They’re responsible for gathering all physical evidence. They usually arrive on site within an hour of the police and medical services. The teams vary in size from four to six officers. While SOCO personnel are trained in all aspects of evidence harvesting, some are better at certain aspects of it than others. For example, not everyone can take a good crime-scene photograph, and fingerprint lifting requires a certain deftness of touch as well as patience. The best duster I knew once sourced a print from a victim’s eyeball.’

That last detail didn’t impress the jury. Several of them looked queasy. Carnavale missed it. Beales didn’t notice.

‘The body is photographed first – full shots with background, then close-ups of the face – and injuries. Bags are then placed over the body’s hands and feet to preserve evidence under nails or on the skin. The bags are sealed with rubber bands. The body is then photographed again.

‘Once that’s done, an outline is drawn around the body and markers are placed in all pertinent parts of the crime scene – where significant evidence is visible. The area is photographed again.

‘The body is removed and the SOCO team search the scene for trace evidence – hair and fibre, tissue, footprints, paint chips, soil/dirt, bodily fluids including blood, and, of course, fingerprints.

‘Once harvested, the evidence is placed in bags and envelopes, logged on to a computer and placed in containers. Everything is sent to the lab for analysis, which is where I come in.’

Now…

This all
should
have been fairly interesting to the jury – especially the crime writer – but they were bored rigid; eyes glazed over or wandering every which way, mouths quivering as they fought yawns, hands constantly fidgeting.

Beales didn’t speak in sentences but multiple paragraphs, delivered in the bored, monotonous drone of a professor giving the same lecture for the thousandth time.

Carnavale moved on to the evidence itself.

Hair. Beales explained that he’d analysed a total of seventeen hairs – eight from Area A, the floor near the three steps leading to the bedroom, where the murder happened, two from the bedroom, three from the couch and the remainder from VJ’s suit. The hair was DNA matched against a sample taken from Evelyn Bates during the autopsy. It was hers.

Carnavale asked him how sure he was of the match. Beales talked percentages, probabilities and likelihood ratios.

‘Is that a yes or no?’ Carnavale asked him at the end of that long, jargon-laden answer.

The courtroom laughed. The jury smiled. Christine yawned. The judge rolled his eyes.

‘That’s a yes,’ Beales said.

We broke for coffee.

In the canteen Christine swallowed some pills and looked longingly at my cup of steaming black coffee.

‘Couldn’t Carnavale find a more interesting witness?’ I said.

‘Witnesses are like family,’ she said. ‘You’re stuck with what you get.’

Fibres took us up to lunch. These mostly came from the floor, but several were found on the couch and in the bedroom, and one was discovered in the rubbish bag taken from VJ’s office, where he’d bundled his dirty suit and left it for his PA to dispose of.

Again Beales took the slow scenic route around the answers.

I could see Carnavale wanting to hurry him, but the scientist’s sentences were so long and technical he didn’t know where to interrupt. His witness ran and overran in his dreary flatlined voice… univariate projections based on the first principal component…. multivariate kernel density estimates… until he finally came to the conclusion that the fibres matched Evelyn’s green dress. Same colour, same composition.

I yawned. The jury foreman saw me and stifled a laugh. Carnavale’s junior looked at her watch. The public grew restless. Bodies shifted on their uncomfortable seats, legs were stretched, feet shuffled, shoulders rolled.

As for the jury – they were all the way gone, zoned out, no longer listening but willing themselves to stay awake. Carnavale had lost them.

Fluid and tissue evidence took much of the afternoon and used up everyone’s patience – including Carnavale’s.

He wrapped it up by asking Beales for his brief conclusions as to what had happened in the room – based on the evidence.

‘Evelyn Bates was murdered on the floor of the living room – designated as Area A – hence the abundance of hair and fibre there, as well as the presence of urine, saliva and a trace of faecal matter. The pattern of the urine stains and the preponderance of hair indicate that the victim was lying on her back while being strangled. Her killer then carried her into the bedroom post-mortem, where she was stripped naked and laid on the bed.’

Now it was our turn.

The judge looked at the clock. We had half an hour left.

‘Mrs Devereaux, how long is your cross-examination likely to take?’

I helped Christine to her feet.

‘Not long, My Lord,’ she said.

A few of the jury scowled.

Christine looked to the witness stand.

‘Dr Beales, I’m sure you’re very busy and would rather not have to return tomorrow. Could you please therefore limit your answers to “Yes” and “No”,’ she said, raising laughter from the public and smiles and smirks in the jury. There was even a smattering of applause. The judge banged his gavel, but he was smiling too.

‘Very well,’ Beales said, acting oblivious to the mockery.

‘How much of the victim’s hair was found in the bedroom?’

‘Two strands.’

‘Only two?’

‘That’s right. On the pillow.’

‘And how many on the couch?’

‘Eight strands.’

‘And on the carpet of Area A?’

‘Seventeen.’

‘Which led you to conclude that Evelyn Bates was strangled on the floor, as opposed to the couch or the bedroom?’

‘Correct.’

‘Did you recover any relevant fingerprints from the bedroom – either the accused’s or the victim’s?’

‘No.’

‘None whatsoever?’

‘No.’

‘Did you recover any of the accused’s hair or fibres from the bedroom?’

‘No.’

‘None whatsoever?’

‘No.’

‘So would it be fair to say that the accused never entered the bedroom?’

‘Not necessarily,’ he said. ‘If the accused wore gloves to commit the crime, he wouldn’t have left any prints on the door.’

‘But not all gloves obscure fingerprints, do they?’ she said. ‘Cloth gloves will leave prints, leather ones leave an impression, as do surgical gloves.’

‘Thick latex gloves won’t.’

‘We’ll return to that shortly,’ she said.

The jury were back. They were listening.

‘Can you tell the court which of Mr James’s clothes were tested for DNA.’

‘His shirt, trousers, shoes, socks, boxer shorts and his jacket.’

‘Were traces of the victim’s bodily fluids found on any of these?’

‘There was a slight amount of saliva on the collar of his shirt, mixed in with the victim’s lipstick,’ Beales said.

‘Anything else?’

‘No.’

‘You found no other traces of the victim’s bodily fluids on Mr James’s clothes?’

‘No.’

‘Strangulation’s a messy death, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘It can be.’

‘How many such murders have you had to analyse over the course of your career, Dr Beales?’

‘I don’t keep tallies,’ he said. ‘But it’s quite a few.’

‘Did any of those previous victims void their bowels and bladders, as happened here?’

‘In most cases, yes.’

‘And in those cases, when you examined those suspects’ clothing, did you find traces of their victims’ bodily fluids?’

‘Where the clothes were recovered, yes. Very often.’

‘Yet, there were no traces on Mr James’s clothes.’

‘No.’

She paused. The four main jurors were writing furiously. She waited until they’d finished.

‘It’s been determined that Evelyn was lying on her back when she was murdered, so facing her killer,’ Christine said. ‘This means the killer was very close to her, on his knees, straddling her. The pattern of bruising at the back of her neck tells us his hands were all the way around her throat, and he’d interlaced his fingertips around her nape. For him to have done this, Evelyn Bates’s head would have to be off the ground, and her killer would have been leaning very close to her, using his full body weight to apply pressure on her throat. All the while, Evelyn was fighting hard – fighting for air, fighting for her life. So, Dr Beales, why was no trace of the victim’s saliva found on the front of Mr James’s shirt?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘Could it be it’s because Mr James didn’t kill Evelyn Bates?’

Beales looked at Carnavale before answering.

‘I don’t wish to speculate on the reasons,’ he said.

Christine paused there.

She’d scored a definite point in the reasonable doubt area.

‘Were there any fingerprints found on the victim’s neck?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘But you looked for them?’

‘Of course.’

‘So, not a
single
fingerprint was found on the neck and throat. Any explanation for that?’

‘The killer most likely wore gloves. It’s the only explanation.’

‘Were any gloves found at the crime scene?’

‘No.’

‘Were any gloves found in the search of the accused’s property and workplace?’

‘No.’

‘How would you explain that?’ she asked.

‘It’s unlikely the killer would have kept them. Perhaps he threw them away.’