Verdict Unsafe (5 page)

Harper smiled at the doctor. “Given that information, would you, on the medical evidence alone, have come so readily to the conclusion that this young woman had been violently assaulted by the defendant?”

“Possibly not,” she said, after a moment’s thought.

My God, thought Judy. He wants him found not guilty because he hadn’t had the chance to tear her open like he had his other victims.

“I understand that you have made a particular study of both the victims and perpetrators of rape and sexual assault, is that right?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Mr. Drummond was eighteen years old at the time of these offenses, and yet this court has heard of someone who washes his victims, and removes the materials used to bind their hands and feet, in order to foil the forensic procedures—does that seem likely to you?”

“It isn’t as unusual as you might think for rapists to wash their victims,” said the doctor. “Or to remove other evidence.”

“You were of the opinion, weren’t you, that the assailant was likely to be a previous sex offender who had been through the mill of a forensic examination, and knew to some extent what would or would not incriminate him? But now you are happy to accept that it was an eighteen-year-old boy with no experience of such a police investigation?”

“There is a great deal of literature on the subject of both rape and its forensic detection,” she said. “And literature of this sort was found in the defendant’s possession. This is again not unusual.”

“And does this literature contain references to
coitus interruptus
, which the assailant apparently practices with the ease of a considerate Victorian husband?”

The doctor smiled. “No,” she said. “But I don’t imagine it was
coitus interruptus
as such. I think it much more likely that the assailant suffers from ejaculatory inhibition whereby penile erection can be maintained for long periods, but emission during coitus cannot be achieved. Self-stimulation may be an alternative to the eventual loss of penile erection without emission.”

“Is this condition common in eighteen-year-old boys?”

“It’s not common at all, but less uncommon amongst sex offenders than the rest of the male population. Offenders have a marked tendency to sexual dysfunction, and since dysfunction is almost always psychological, eighteen-year-olds are as likely to have the condition as anyone else.”

“The court has heard that Mr. Drummond was in the habit of visiting a prostitute,” said Harper. “If she were to give evidence to the effect that Mr. Drummond functions quite normally in this regard, would that preclude his being the assailant?”

“Mr. Harper,” said the judge. “Is it your intention to produce this witness to the court?”

“Not at the moment, my lord. As the court has heard, the lady in question gave up the profession, or at least gave up
practicing it in this area, alarmed by these very rapes. We have unfortunately so far been unable to trace her.”

“Then unless and until this witness is located, such evidence as she might present cannot be evaluated. Please confine your questions to the evidence which has been or will be presented to the jury.”

“I beg your lordship’s pardon,” said Harper, having achieved what he wanted to achieve merely by asking the question. Judy shook her head slightly.

The courtroom emptied almost as rapidly that afternoon as it had filled up that morning as the scientist who had carried out the DNA tests explained at considerable, and to Judy at least, virtually incomprehensible, length how a DNA profile was arrived at. She wasn’t convinced that any of the jury was still awake; she was having to work hard at keeping her own eyes open.

“DNA analysis is as accurate and as reliable a means of identification as a fingerprint,” he said, in what she sincerely hoped was a winding-up tone, “hence its popular name. No two people have the same DNA profile, except identical twins.”

But it seemed he had only just started. The first lecture had been on the nature of DNA, and the reasons why it was such a powerful tool of identification; now, he was explaining exactly how this specific test had been carried out, with illustrations which necessitated the bringing in to court of an overhead projector, which at least caused sufficient diversion to waken everyone up, if only for a moment. At last, the result of this test was being shown.

Judy looked at the two profiles; one, with the DNA fragments showing as bold black bands, was Drummond’s DNA profile, while the other, with paler but clearly matching lines, was the profile obtained from what the man called, rather coyly, “the scene.”

What had happened to Rachel Ashman had been reduced to lines on a piece of paper, as impersonal and untraumatic as a supermarket bar code. Her life had been shattered to the extent
that it had seemed to her no longer worth living, but science was there to come along and tidy everything up for the investigators, for the judge and jury. It had yet to come up with a similarly painless treatment for the victims.

“Forensic DNA testing is done, not on the whole DNA code, but on the four genetic markers in which the core differences can be seen, where individuals differ most widely,” he finished. “In theory, there is a chance of an accidental match, which is capable of being computed.”

Judy had a strong suspicion that Whitehouse had begun nodding off again as the expert launched into an even more wordy explanation of how one strand gave you a one-in-a-thousand chance of an accidental match, the next one in a hundred, and those multiplied to give one in a hundred thousand, and the next …

“In this case there is one chance in three million that this could be an accidental match,” he concluded.

He
concluded
. The few who had remained throughout shifted in their seats; Whitehouse looked up, smiled at his expert, and stood.

“While I am sure that the jury is grateful to you for your detailed explanation of the process,” he said, “they are going to be asked to judge a man’s guilt or innocence in respect of a series of exceptionally serious crimes, and your analysis will form a very large part of that judgment. I imagine that they would like to know what conclusion you, as an expert, draw from that analysis.”

“That the seminal fluids found on the underclothing of the second victim, Mrs. Rachel Ashman, originated from the defendant,” he said.

“And you have no doubt of that?”

“None at all.”

“Thank you,” said Whitehouse, with an audible sigh of relief. “No further questions, my lord.”

“Mr. Harper, do you wish to cross-examine?”

“No, my lord,” said Hotshot, who at least knew when to fold his cards, thought Judy.

Whitehouse rose again. “That is the case for the prosecution, my lord.”

The jury filed in, conscious that they were merely dressing the set. The excited murmur of anticipation from the gallery began only as the stage filled up with the players.

And in they came, the black-gowned court officials, the be-wigged barristers. Amid the muted hubbub, Harper and Whitehouse talked seriously to their instructing solicitors about nothing whatever, aware of their more substantial roles in the drama, and trying to look as though they were not.

The public gallery which had emptied yesterday during the DNA expert’s dissertation on his infant discipline was full once more, and Harper was beginning to recognize a few of the faces; whether their interest was personal, professional, prudent or prurient, he had no way of knowing. DI Hill was there, as she had been every day; her interest, he presumed, was professional. His interest in her was rather more personal. He’d found out so far that she was a Londoner, whose father was some sort of academic. He wondered what he thought of his daughter’s choice of career.

The murmur fell away to nothing as the houselights metaphorically dimmed, and the entrance of the judge, solemn and stem, brought those who had business with the Queen’s Justices to silence, and their feet. But even he was to be upstaged, for the packed house awaited the appearance of only one man: the accused.

The first witness for the defense was to be Colin Arthur Drummond himself; he was going to attempt to account for both the circumstances in which he had been arrested and his subsequent confession, in the hope that he would somehow be found not guilty.

Harper had had one last go at dissuading his client from entering the witness box, but had failed. Before that, he had failed to persuade him to plead guilty in the light of the DNA evidence,
he had failed to persuade him to change the story to which he obstinately clung, and he had failed to get out of taking the case at all.

Drummond’s solicitor was an old friend of Harper’s father; he had sent the young Harper a lot of good work when he had been starting out, and he had called in all the favors he had ever done him when he had asked Harper to represent Drummond.

Now, assuming his pessimism as to the outcome of the trial was justified, Harper knew that he was simply going to fail. Period.

“… and nothing but the truth.” Drummond handed back the testament, and slightly loosened the tie which his mother had doubtless insisted that he wear. Judy sat slightly forward in her seat.

“Mr. Drummond,” Harper began. “The night you were arrested, you were wearing black Doc Marten boots, black jeans, a black sweater, black leather jacket, black PVC gauntlets, and a full face-mask. Why were you thus attired?”

“I always dress like that.” Drummond looked down at his brand-new suit. “Usually,” he added.

“And do you always wear a mask?”

“No. I got it to look like him,” muttered Drummond.

“To look like whom?” asked Harper.

“The bloke that was raping women.”

“Why?” Harper asked.

Drummond looked down at his feet. “I wanted women to be scared of me,” he mumbled.

“Why?”

“Because they scare me.”

It was all Judy could do not to join in the cat-calling that the judge quietened with a look. There was a whole gang of women in the gallery of the rapists-should-be-castrated school; she would doubtless be regarded as being among their number by some of her colleagues.

“And did you also carry a knife?”

“No.”

Knives scare them witless, that was what he had told Judy. She glanced at the jury, tried to gauge what they were thinking, but they sat listening, their faces not giving anything away.

“
He
carried a knife,” said Harper.

“Yeah, but … I didn’t
do
anything to them. I just wanted to scare them a bit. I didn’t need a knife to do what I did.”

“And what did you do?”

“I’d follow them, if I saw them on their own. I’d follow them real slow on the bike. They’d start to walk faster, and then run. They’d see me and think I was the rapist. It put the wind up them. And sometimes I’d watch them, in parked cars and that. With men. You know.”

He had had to admit to that, of course, thought Judy, because the police were aware of his Peeping Tom activities. Hotshot would have advised him to bring it up himself rather than let Whitehouse do it.

“Why did you do that?”

“So I could follow them after, when they got dropped off. They usually got out a bit of a way from home if they’d been—you know, with other men. Men they shouldn’t have been with. But I didn’t ever do anything. Just like … you know. Imagined I was him. What I’d do to them if I was.”

“Did that excite you?”

“Yeah.”

“So what did you do about that?”

“I’d go to Rosa.”

“Rosa was the prostitute whom you were in the habit of visiting?”

Drummond flushed. “Yeah,” he said.

“When was the last time you saw Rosa?”

“It was September seventh. I remember, ‘cos it was my mum’s birthday, and she was mad when I came home late and missed the barbecue.”

“September seventh. What time were you with Rosa?”

“About half nine.”

“How long were you with her?”

He shrugged. “Twenty minutes, half an hour.”

“And then what did you do?”

“I drove around for a bit—took the bike along the dual carriageway and that. Fast. You know. Then I went home.”

“What time did you get home?”

“Just after eleven.”

“So, on September seventh from half past nine until a few minutes to ten you were with Rosa, and from a few minutes after eleven you were with your parents and several other relatives and friends?”

“Yes.”

Rosa, of course, could not be found to confirm this, and oddly enough, only Drummond’s blood relations could recall at what precise time he had arrived home that night. The other party guests had thought that it might have been closer to midnight when Drummond had come home. The earlier time would, of course, have made it impossible for him to be raping Rachel Ashman, as Hotshot was busy pointing out. Whitehouse had felt that determined cross-examination would have got the other guests to revise their opinion of when Drummond had come home; they had all been halfcut anyway, and their memory of something entirely unmemorable was best left alone. It had seemed better just to let their nonappearance on Drummond’s behalf speak for itself, he had said. Judy wasn’t so sure.

“Would you tell the court what happened the night the police stopped you for reckless driving?” Harper said, moving on.

“I’d been at the football match. It was this special match with celebrities and that. But it was too foggy, so it was abandoned. And I drove around in the fog for a bit. I was going fast—I didn’t have my lights on.”

“Why were you doing that?”

“I like it. And they stopped me and said they’d seen me before. That I’d got away from them that time, but I wouldn’t this time.”

“Did you know what they meant?”

“Yes. One of the times I took the bike on the dual carriageway I was speeding, and they couldn’t catch me, and they couldn’t get the bike’s number, because I didn’t have the lights
on. But this time they caught me, and they knew it was me, because I was doing the same thing. They kept me there an hour and a half. Then when they couldn’t find anything wrong with the bike, and they couldn’t get me for drink or drugs or anything, one of them punched me in the face.”