Verdict Unsafe (14 page)

“Then did you have to work so hard to get him off?”

“Yes. Because once you’ve agreed to defend someone, that is what you must do.”

“Even when the odds are three million to one against its being anyone else?”

“Especially when they are. No one must ever be allowed to think that DNA is some sort of magic formula that means you can do away with trials altogether. I have a book at home,” he said, his face growing serious for the first time., “which says in words of one syllable—or thereabouts—that either the DNA doesn’t match, in which case the suspect is not guilty, or it does, in which case he is.” He sat back, and looked at Judy. “That is fallacious, and dangerous, and it’s gaining credence, which is frightening.”

Judy sighed. “All right,” she said. “But did you have to ride your hobbyhorse for Drummond?”

“I
was defending
Drummond,” he said, with a little shrug. “It only became my hobbyhorse because of him. Because that’s my job, Inspector Hill, and I’m far from ashamed of it.”

“Judy,” she said, a little grudgingly.

“Hotshot,” he said seriously, extending his hand.

This time she shook hands with him, and smiled. “I’m sorry I was so rude to you,” she said, “I’m not usually rude to anyone.”

“No problem.”

“But I believe he raped those women,” said Judy. “And what I do know to be true is that he gave me that statement of his own free will, that he threatened me, and that he’s back, and he’s still threatening me.”

Harper nodded seriously. “But I don’t know it to be true,” he said. “Forgive me. But I don’t. I only know which of you I believe, and what I believe is of no importance at all.”

“And if I do become his sixth victim?” asked Judy. “What would you feel like then?”

“I’d be very distressed indeed.”

“Would you feel guilty?”

“No.”

“Would you defend him?”

There was a pause. “No,” he said.

“Why not?”

He looked at her. “I imagine you know why not,” he said, with a smile.

Judy looked back at him. He had gray eyes. Gray eyes that were looking amused; looking into hers. She didn’t speak.

“I don’t suppose you’d consider making it dinner next time?” he asked.

“No,” she said softly. But firmly.

“Why not?” he asked, in a deliberate echo of her last question to him.

“Well … since you obviously know Freddie, and Freddie is a gossip, I imagine
you
know why not,” she said, in an equally deliberate echo of his answer. This wasn’t right. This was all wrong, this minueting with Hotshot Harper.

“Yes,” he said. “But perhaps you’ll take my card, anyway.” He put it on the table between them.

She looked at it, smiling.
Harper, Harper, Singleton and Streete, Barristers at Law
, it read. “Why should I want your card?” she asked.

“I’m hoping you’ll change your mind. It could be fun.” He got up. “I have to get back into court,” he said apologetically. “I’m delighted to have met you at last, and I enjoyed lunch very much.”

Judy looked up at him. “So did I,” she said.

“Then do please take the card,” he said. “You never know when you might need a good lawyer.”

He left. Judy watched his back view making its way through the tables, had an argument with herself, then picked up the card, and she too made her way out.

THE CHIEF SUPER WAS BACK FROM HQ, AND LLOYD and Judy had been summoned. Lloyd affected introductions, and they all sat down, eyeing one another suspiciously.

“The rape inquiry is to be reopened,” said Case. “We’re to have an incident room—the lot. And we’re using the service station’s security camera picture of Rachel Ashman on a poster.”

“A poster?” said Judy. “What for?”

“To jog people’s memories.”

“It was over two years ago, sir,” she said.

“The Assistant Chief Constable doesn’t care if it was over twenty years ago. This is window dressing. No one’s expecting an early arrest—just a nice, high-profile, reopened inquiry, so Drummond can’t say we aren’t looking for anyone else. We are not, of course, looking for anyone else, and neither are you, Inspector. This is damage limitation, nothing more. Don’t make waves.”

“What about the victim’s anonymity?”

Case reached for a bundle of files, opening the top one, glancing at it as he spoke. “Rachel Ashman’s dead,” he said, not looking up. “Anonymity doesn’t come into it anymore. Anyway—the husband’s agreed, so that’s that. Her face is going to be on posters all over Malworth and Stansfield whether you like it or not.” He marked something off on the file, closed it, and picked up another. “And your being given protection is out of the question—you’ll just have to avoid dark alleys if you think he’s going to come after you next.”

Judy shot a less than kind look at Lloyd. He’d be in trouble for that.

“I don’t want protection!” she said. “I want the little creep to have a go! I’ll go down every dark alley in Malworth until he tries something. And we’ll be watching him, so when he does, we’ll have him on something he can’t wriggle out of. Then I might be able to persuade Bobbie Chalmers to bring charges, and his statement to me about her rape would be admissible this time.”

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s out of the question.”

Lloyd and Case spoke in unison, and in total agreement. Lloyd had a feeling that it might be the first and last time.

“I can handle myself,” Judy argued. “I teach self-defense classes twice a week—I should be able to.”

Did she? Lloyd frowned a little. He didn’t know that. Why had she never told him? How long had she been doing it? But all that was, for the moment, beside the point.

“He carries a knife, Judy,” he said. “I can’t let you put yourself at risk even if you can do jujitsu or whatever.”

“More to the point—having Drummond watched is a non-starter,” said Case. “His legal team would put another nought on the claim.”

“You mean we’re not going to be keeping an eye on him?” said Judy.

“No,” he said. “He’s been acquitted. He’d do us for harassment. And since he already seems to have been beaten up, set up, and fitted up once, who could blame him?”

“With respect, sir,” said Judy. “That’s—”

Case held up a hand, “I believe I outrank you, Inspector, so you will
always
regard me with respect, and you won’t need to draw my attention to the fact unless you intend being disrespectful. And if you do, you’ll keep your mouth shut. Got it? You can go now—I want to talk to your boss.”

Judy looked as though she was going to say more, but she evidently decided against it. “Sir,” she said, icily, and left.

“I’ll say this for her,” Case said, as the door closed. “She’s got spunk.”

Spunk. Now there was a word Lloyd had thought he would never hear again. It was nicer than its modern equivalent.

“Which is more than I can say for the rest of the department,” said Case. “Or this burglar wouldn’t still be giving us the slip.”

Lloyd groaned. Not out loud, of course. At least—he hoped it wasn’t out loud.

Carole waited for the bus, feeling cold, though it wasn’t really a cold day. An autumnal chill in the air, that was all. But she was cold. Rob had come downstairs as she was getting ready for work, and had told her that Drummond had come back.

The little bus came up the hill to the stop, and she got on, making her way to where she could sit on her own. She didn’t want to make conversation with her fellow passengers, all on their way to the same industrial estate. She wanted to come to terms with what Rob had told her.

She supposed she should be afraid. But she wasn’t. It was other women who should be afraid. Other, unsuspecting women who parked in their own garages, who walked in sunlit meadows. She was bewildered, she was confused; she couldn’t understand why they had let him out. But she wasn’t afraid. She was angry, as her mind kept dragging her back to the blind terror of the garage.

She had thought it was all over when the painful anal thrusts had stopped, but the thought, the prayer, had barely formed when her hands had been whipped away from under her, her head had hit the floor with a sickening, dizzying blow, and her hands and feet had been bound.

What had followed she consciously refused to think about. She had never known she could do that; had never known anyone could. But she could; she could force her mind past that.

When it was over, she had been on all fours, sobbing with pain and fear, when the garage door had swung noisily open, and light from the courtyard had invaded her private hell. She had turned to see a dark figure mount a motorbike, and drive off. She could have got the number of the motorbike, and she
hadn’t. She hadn’t. And because of that, it had happened to more women.

What had happened to her might happen to someone else tonight, tomorrow night. And it would be her fault.

Judy went into the CID room when she saw Tom Finch come in, his curly fair hair in need of a trim that she was sure would be advisable before he met DCS Case, though he looked even more like a cherub with the halo effect. It might be nice to have Case discover the hard way that Tom was as tough as they came, despite his looks. He was alone, so she could get it off heir chest.

“That man is insufferable,” she said.

Sergeant Finch smiled. “So I’ve heard,” he said, not having to ask which man.

“He actually believes that Drummond was set up—can you beat it? He must know that someone like Ginny wouldn’t lift a finger to help us out, never mind tangle with a rapist.”

“Well …” said Tom, looking uncomfortable. “There’s something you maybe ought to know before you go shouting the odds with senior officers.”

Judy looked at him, her mouth slightly open. “You’re not going to tell me Drummond was set up,” she said.

“No,” said Tom.

Judy expelled her breath. “Good,” she said.

“Ginny was.”

She stared at him.

Tom sat down at his desk, looking up at her. “I didn’t tell you any of this at the time, because … well, because—”

Judy pulled a chair across and sat down. “Never mind why,” she said. “Tell me now.”

“Right,” said Tom, running his hands down his face, taking a breath, letting it out. “Drummond gave us a blood sample on the Saturday morning that we brought him in for questioning over the murder,” he said. “There was blood on the jeans he’d been wearing the night before, and we wanted to know whose—he said it was his. We got his sample tested for the blood group.”

Judy hadn’t known about his jeans. She was very interested in that blood, but she let Tom carry on.

“And it turned out that his blood group was the same as whoever had raped Mrs. Ashman,” he said. “That was when it got sent for DNA profiling. When they heard that, Malworth CID were convinced that Drummond was the rapist. But they had been told hands-off, because he’d made this complaint about Burbidge and Turner doing him over, and everyone was a bit jumpy about harassment. So … some of them and the uniforms arranged a little off-duty surveillance from a van. They watched him, kept in touch with the on-duty ones with mobiles.”

He paused; Judy didn’t speak.

“And they were watching him the night Drummond was waiting for you outside your flat,” he said. “You were never in danger,” he added quickly. “If he’d tried anything—”

“Oh, sure,” said Judy, wondering just how long it would have taken her hostile ex-colleagues to come to the rescue.

“But you came home with Lloyd, and …”

Judy flushed slightly. She had been in Lloyd’s car, trying to persuade him to spend the night with her, and they had been
watching?
No prizes for guessing what the canteen gossip would have been the following day. Tom had obviously been given an account, and he hadn’t even worked there.

“That’s one reason I never told you,” Tom said.

“Go on.”

“Well, when Lloyd went into the flats with you, Drummond left, and they followed him. He cruised around, then went up to the airfield and did wheelies and things. Meanwhile, Ginny was caught giving some old guy a blow-job on a park bench, and was brought in. They didn’t know if she was to be cautioned or charged, and the inspector was busy, so they stuck her in a cell, and then someone—I’m not telling you who—someone realized that Ginny had to go along Andwell Street to get home, and so did Drummond. They figured if the guys at the airfield let them know when Drummond left, and they let Ginny go at the same time …”

Judy’s eyes widened. “A tethered lamb?” she said.

“Pretty much,” said Tom. “They knew he was up for it, because he’d been waiting for you. Reckoned he’d have a go at Ginny if he saw her on her own.”

“They sent that little girl on a collision course with a
rapist?”

“Yes, well. But someone was right behind her all the way,” he added. “Anyway, the retired major nearly ruined it all when he rang in complaining about Drummond, but they managed to head the patrol car off at the pass, And when they got the word that Drummond had left the airfield, they let Ginny go.”

More like badger-baiting, thought Judy, angry beyond words. She just listened.

“The guys with Drummond made the bogus nine-double-nine to get the area car in position. Then they followed him from the airfield, saw him pass Ginny, then turn into Hosier’s Alley, and they drove off. The guy following Ginny was supposed to wait until he taped her hands, then
he
had to ring nine-double-nine, say someone was being attacked, give the location, and melt away. The area car would have been there in seconds, and they would have got him, with all the evidence they needed. But these two guys from the factory rescued her before it got to that stage, so he just made himself scarce and let it take its course.”

Judy couldn’t believe she was hearing this. “Are you telling me someone stood an
d watched that
happening to Ginny?” she said, her voice quiet.

Tom nodded. “But in fairness, Judy—Drummond didn’t do anything before he taped them up that hasn’t happened to Ginny a hundred times. They knew she wouldn’t get hurt.”

“Wouldn’t get hurt? She had a knife held—” Judy broke off, still too angry to speak. After a moment, she shook her head. “That’s really why you didn’t tell me,” she said. “Isn’t it? I’d have reported the lot of them.”