A Fatal Verdict (36 page)

‘Then what? You drove him to the woods where this awful pit was, got out, moved the fence, heaved him into the driving seat, put the car in gear and stepped back, is that it? The perfect crime, except that you made too much noise and the farmer heard you. Otherwise he’d still be down in the mud today.’ Churchill studied her, his eyes a few inches from hers. ‘That’s what you did, isn’t it, Kathryn? You stopped him, just as you said you would outside the court. You killed him because he killed your daughter.’

‘No.’ She spoke so softly that Churchill doubted it would record.

‘No? For the benefit of the tape, Mrs Walters is shaking her head. But you’re glad he’s dead, aren’t you? You told me that earlier.’

‘If anyone deserved to die, he did.’ This time the words were clear, quite clear enough for the recording. Lucy squeezed Kathryn’s arm in warning.

‘So you don’t regret killing him?’

Kathryn stared into Churchill’s eyes, a cauldron of emotions bubbling inside her. There was only one thing she was certain of, in all this horror and chaos. She was not going to lose another daughter.

‘I regret nothing.’

The cold smile of triumph on Will Churchill’s face broadened slightly. ‘Very well. Kathryn Walters, I am charging you with the murder of David Kidd. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

48. Personality clash

Terry Bateson and Will Churchill were like oil and water, unable to mix. They had clashed the moment Churchill was appointed, parachuted in from Essex while Terry was disabled by the shock of Mary’s death. Since then, despite initial attempts to get on, the conflict between them had become personal. Churchill grated on Terry every time they met. Brash, cocky, ambitious, unencumbered by wife, children, or self-doubt, he focussed relentlessly on his own career when on duty, and his personal enjoyment when free. Nothing else mattered. And yet, it seemed to Terry, the future was with men like Churchill, not himself. The younger officers admired him for his mastery of  buzz words, his skill at jumping through the promotion hoops. Targets mattered more to him than the crimes themselves, or their victims. For him, the failure of Kidd’s prosecution was a catastrophe not because of the pain suffered by the Walters, but because of the damage suffered by the crime figures.

Terry’s own reputation was damaged too, perhaps terminally. Crossing the canteen, he imagined muttered conversations: ‘past it’, ‘too much time with the kids’, ‘can’t hack it any more’. He’d seen it happen before, to an old DI with a legendary string of convictions to his name. Suddenly, in his fifties, the fire had gone out of the man. The younger detectives saw not a star but an old buffer who didn’t understand new procedures or technology. He was shifted sideways into administration, and when he retired, there were more balloons in the canteen than colleagues.

That could be his future too, he thought sadly. Kathryn Walters’ arrest had brought a buzz to the department, as the arrest of a murder suspect always did; but most of Churchill’s team looked at him with eyes that were pitying, embarrassed rather than friendly. It wasn’t his case any more; it was his mess they were clearing up.

Yet he was desperate to know what was going on. The arrest of Kathryn, of all people, was a dreadful blow to him. After all, she was the original victim, not David Kidd. None of this would have happened if Kidd had been convicted, as he should have been. And that, of course, was largely Churchill’s fault, although no one else saw it like that. Terry had been in charge of the case, so its failure gave Churchill an opportunity to crow over him once again.

Grimly, he squared his shoulders and knocked on his boss’s door.

‘Come.’

Terry entered and stood before the broad desk, noting the mocking surprise on the younger man’s face as he looked up from in the comfortable leather office chair. ‘Ah, Terence. What can I do you for?’

‘It’s about the Kidd case, sir. I understand you’ve made an arrest.’

‘Yes. Kathryn Walters. She was charged this morning.’

‘I ... wondered what the evidence is, sir.’

‘Oh, you wondered, did you? Well, it’s not your case now, is it?’

‘No sir, but it was, and ... obviously I feel some concern.’   

‘So you bloody well should, too! For Christ’s sake, man, if you’d thrown the book at Kathryn Walters when she was arrested with a shotgun outside his flat, then Kidd would probably be alive today. And that woman wouldn’t be facing life imprisonment, either. You’ve got a lot to answer for, old son.’

The accusation, as Terry had expected, was brutal and directly on target. He’d reflected on it long and bitterly last night. He’d destroyed evidence to spare Kathryn, and now it seemed she might be guilty of a murder. If she had committed that crime it was largely his fault, first for failing in the prosecution and then for hiding those cartridges. And yet he still could not fully believe she was guilty. But if she hadn’t killed Kidd, who had? These questions consumed him like a fever, the more insistent for the fact that they had no answer. Certainly he could expect no sympathy from Churchill.

‘We discussed that fully at the time, sir. The shotgun was unloaded; I had no reason to suppose that it was anything but a futile gesture.’

‘Well, it’s not so futile now, is it? The man’s dead, at the bottom of a stinking pit. You know, if I wasn’t so soft, I’d send you back to traffic duty. Might be a good idea, at that. The shift patterns would be easier for your kids, and the decisions less taxing for your brain.’

Terry drew a deep breath, driving his fingernails into his palm to control his temper. Churchill loved to goad him; an outburst of temper would make the wretched man’s day. And he deserved something like that, after all; that was the worst of it.

‘What I wanted to know, sir, was whether you’re sure Mrs Walters is guilty.’

‘Sure?’ Churchill sat back in his chair and laughed. He spoke in a tone adapted to the understanding of a three year old. ‘Well, yes, Terence, as a matter of fact I am. That’s why I’ve charged her with murder, do you see? Because of the evidence, and so on. It’s what policemen do.’

‘And that evidence is what, exactly?’

For a moment Terry thought his boss wouldn’t answer. The idea of telling him to get lost flitted across the younger man’s face. But the opportunities for mockery, for rubbing his subordinate’s face in it, proved too strong. Churchill leaned forward, counting out each point on his fingers. Terry listened numbly - the motive, the threats Kathryn had made outside court, the shotgun attempt, her husband’s failed alibi, the rohypnol in Kidd’s body, the missing drugs from Kathryn’s pharmacy, the partial footprints which matched a pair of her trainers, and a witness who had seen a woman answering Kathryn’s description getting into Kidd’s car the night before he died. Churchill smiled grimly.

‘Good enough for you yet? To say nothing of the fact that it happened in woods a few miles from her house, in a place she knew well. Oh yes, and in case you’re wondering, the only other obvious suspects, her husband and daughter, have rock solid alibis for the night of his death. Hubby was tucked up in bed with his mistress, and daughter flew home to the US of A two days before. I checked, you see. That’s what detectives do.’

Terry thought about what he had been told. ‘This witness, where did she live?’

‘It was a he, actually. An old colonel who lives off Lord Mayor’s Walk. Knew Kidd, had had several conversations with him. His window overlooks the garage where Kidd kept his car.’

‘How far away is it?’

‘About forty yards. He didn’t claim he recognised Mrs Walters directly, of course. But he saw her face briefly under a street lamp and picked her out from a list of possibles we showed him. Same height, same age, same colour hair. What more do you want?’

‘And his eyesight’s all right, is it?’

Churchill shrugged. ‘Seventy years old, wears glasses. But he’s still got his marbles, the old boy. Commanded a battalion in Korea.’

Terry shook his head doubtfully. ‘So what was she doing in the car with Kidd?’

‘Planning to kill him, I presume. She’d probably doped him already. You’re too soft on this woman, Terence. You don’t understand how devious the female can be, when she plans a crime like this.’

There was a case, Terry could see that. But he didn’t want to accept it; it didn’t fit the Kathryn Walters he knew. Something was wrong here, somewhere. ‘It’s not good enough, it’s all circumstantial. Even those footprints, they could be anyone’s. You haven’t got anything which puts her at the scene of the crime.’

Churchill looked up at him, the smile cool, controlled, devoid of doubt. ‘Not yet, Terence, no, but we will. Don’t worry, SOCO are still working on it. I’ve sent them back to scour the site for another day, or as long as it takes. If she was there - and take my word for it, she was - they’ll find something, you know. They always do.’

49. New client

‘Kathryn Walters?’ Sarah said. ‘I’m not sure I can do it. I prosecuted David Kidd, remember? For the murder of her daughter.’

‘Yes, I know. That’s why she asked for you, apparently. She wants you and no one else.’ Lucy Parsons laughed, a cheerful, encouraging sound. As Kathryn’s solicitor, she was ringing to ask if Sarah would defend her client in court. ‘Heaven knows why, but you seem to have this effect on some people, Sarah. They trust you. It seems you were nice to her during David Kidd’s trial, and she thinks you’re the best there is.’

‘Even though I lost?’ Sarah answered wonderingly. ‘Surely it’s partly my fault that all this has happened.’

‘She doesn’t see it that way,’ Lucy assured her. ‘She blames the police, not you. And she thinks you’ll be able to defend her better because you know so much about the background.’

‘Well, I’m flattered, Luce, and intrigued. But I’ll have to check with the judge first, to see if he thinks there’s a conflict of interest. If he doesn’t, I’d be happy to do it, of course.’

Sarah put down the phone and leaned back in her chair, thinking. In the months since David Kidd’s acquittal many things had happened. Her career had begun to pick up; she had been involved in several high profile cases. Her husband had got the job at the school in Harrogate,  and seemed absorbed by the new challenge. Emily had been to Cambridge for an interview, and been offered a place to study environmental science if she got two As and a B in her A levels. And her son Simon had a new girlfriend, Lorraine, a shy girl who seemed so terrified of Sarah that she’d scarcely uttered ten words on the two occasions they’d met so far.

But for all this time Kathryn Walters had been in prison on remand, charged with  murder. Sarah had never quite forgotten her; David Kidd’s prosecution had been her first notable failure, and the results that had flowed from it made everything worse. Just like Terry Bateson, she wished she could put things right, and this unexpected request to be Kathryn’s defence counsel gave her the opportunity. She contacted the judge who was listed for the case, and was relieved when he made no objection. But as she sat reading through the brief which Lucy sent over, her sense of relief and excitement drained away, to be replaced by a burden that pressed on her brows like a migraine.

The prosecution case was stronger than she had expected. If she took on Kathryn’s defence and lost, Sarah realised miserably, then she’d feel doubly depressed: for failing to convict Kidd in the first place, and then for failing to defend his victim.

For victim was what Kathryn Walters was, whichever way she looked at it. Even if she had killed David Kidd, she’d only done it to avenge her daughter’s murder; and if she hadn’t, well ... the injustice was ten times worse. Sarah began to jot down a few phrases for a speech in mitigation, then stopped as she realised what she was doing. Her task was get Kathryn Walters acquitted, not to minimise her sentence out of pity. Not yet, anyway. Though it might come to that in the end.

When she met Kathryn in prison her sense of pity increased. The woman looked thin, grey, diminished. Her body, once trim and muscled by regular visits to the gym, had begun to sag; her mind, previously kept sharp by the demands of running a business, seemed dull and blunted. Sarah had come equipped with a pad of vital questions, but to her surprise, the answers were vague, hesitant, rambling. Several times Kathryn stayed silent, as though she had not heard the question at all.

‘Your defence is, simply, that you didn’t do it, you weren’t there. So why did you give a false alibi?’

‘That was my husband, it was his idea. I panicked, I suppose, and went along with it.’

‘Not the best decision by either of you. The trouble is, the prosecution will use it to imply that your husband knew you were guilty. Or at least, that he thought you were capable of murder. Is that what he thought?’

‘He may have done, I don’t know. He was probably just trying to help me.’

‘Then they’ll bring up your motive: your words outside the court, and your arrest with your husband’s shotgun.’ Sarah frowned, remembering her earlier interview with Kathryn in the police station. ‘You’ll have to be careful what you say about that. If you tell the court what you told me that night, it can only help the prosecution.’

‘That I went there to kill him, you mean?’

‘Yes. You can’t afford to say that, Kathryn. Even if it’s true. Is that still how you feel?’

‘Am I glad he’s dead, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well ... I always thought I would be, until it happened. But now that I’ve had time to sit here for months and think about it - think about nothing else, really - it doesn’t help.’ She sighed, looking down at her hands. ‘Nothing brings Shelley back. All I think about is her.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Watching, Sarah remembered those terrible moments when she’d believed her own daughter was dead. Every second of that time was still vivid to her. She still had dreams about it from which she awoke trembling, tearful, afraid. Occasionally she crept out of bed at three or four in the morning, to listen outside Emily’s door and check she was still breathing. All that for a child who hadn’t died. How much worse it must be to grieve for a child that had.

‘But how do you feel about David?’ she asked gently, after a moment’s silence.

‘Him? Oh ...’ Kathryn shook her head, as though distracted by an irrelevance. ‘Well, he deserved punishment, of course he did. But you failed to get it for him, didn’t you? I don’t mean just you on your own; I mean the police and the jury as well. The whole rotten system. So ...’

So I killed him myself,
Sarah thought. Is that what she’s going to say? If she says that I can’t defend her. Not on a not guilty plea. It’s best to make that clear now. Then if she does confess I can make a strong plea in mitigation.

She waited, and the moment passed.

‘So now he’s dead,’ Kathryn continued wearily, ‘and of course I’m glad he can’t harm anyone else’s daughter. But it doesn’t make me happy, if that’s what you mean. How can it? Shelley’s still dead and I’m locked up in here. The damage he’s done doesn’t end.’

‘Did you kill him, Kathryn?’

Lucy Parsons looked at Sarah in surprise. This was not a question she, or any barrister, usually asked: not as bluntly as this, anyhow. Normally if a defendant decided to plead not guilty, their barrister would argue the case accordingly, however tenuous or incredible that defence might appear. It was a useful convention, because criminal barristers regularly found themselves defending clients who they were virtually certain were guilty; but so long as the client hadn’t actually admitted that guilt, the barrister’s duty was to suspend judgement and defend the case as instructed, whatever her own opinion. Judgement was for jurors, not lawyers.

Now Sarah had deliberately broken the convention. If she was going to take this case, she had decided, she wanted to believe in it.

Kathryn met her eyes. She appeared to be thinking, weighing things up. But she didn’t give the impression of lying. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I didn’t. I had my chance, and I failed.’

That’s another thing it would be better not to say in court, Sarah thought. She nodded slightly, accepting Kathryn’s assurance, but wondering about the cautious, almost balanced way it had been given. There was something strange here, which wasn’t quite clear. Maybe it would become clear later. She turned to the evidence.

‘Did you know David Kidd had that car? The Lotus Elise?’

‘Yes, of course. He drove Shelley to our house in it once. To show off, no doubt.’

‘And this drainage tank in the woods. You knew that was there, I suppose?’

‘Of course I did. I used to take the dogs for walks in those woods. Lots of people knew it was there.’

Kathryn thought about saying more, but decided not to. In her mind she saw again, as so often over the past few months, the images of two little girls, sodden, filthy, and exhausted, their clothes dripping, their hair hanging in rats’ tails, on that terrible day when Shelley had saved Miranda from drowning. That was when Kathryn had first learned about the pit, and she had regarded it with horror ever after, avoiding it herself and forbidding her daughters to go there; but it was a story she didn’t want to tell her lawyers, because she guessed what they would make of it. This barrister, Sarah Newby, had children of her own; she would know how strong childhood impressions could be. If she heard that story she would realise how powerful an impression the drainage pit must have made upon Miranda, as a place so nearly associated with her own death - a place where a body could so easily drown under black, filthy water, far from any possible help. And with luck, never be found.

Kathryn didn’t want Sarah Newby, or anyone else, to think about Miranda just now. Like the lapwing feigning injury in the fields, she was still trying to draw attention further away from her nest, until finally she could escape, sure that her chick would never be found. But she knew that at any moment her deception might fail, and she would face a terrible choice. To see her daughter devoured by the jaws of justice, or to throw herself in front of them instead.

That was why she had chosen Sarah Newby to defend her. Not because she thought she was the best barrister in the world - she had failed, after all, to get David Kidd convicted - but because Sarah had defended her own son in court before, so Kathryn thought she would understand, better than most, how much a mother would do to save her child.

But it had not come to that yet, and Kathryn hoped it never would. If Sarah could save her from the clutches of Will Churchill, she might never have to mention Miranda at all.

‘The police found partial footprints near the tank, matching the tread pattern of a pair of your trainers,’ Sarah continued. ‘And they have this forensic report saying the mud on your trainers matched that of the soil in the woods.’

‘So?’ Kathryn smiled faintly. ‘I often went for walks in those woods. Just not near that tank, that’s all.’

‘And you don’t know anyone else who has trainers like that?’

‘No.’ It was the first direct lie. Kathryn met Sarah’s gaze and found she could hold it quite well. She’d had practice, after all, with the police.

Sarah nodded. ‘Well, there must be thousands of people with trainers like that - possibly millions. Lucy will check, get the exact figure from the manufacturers. Now, what about this other point they’re going to focus on - the rohypnol David Kidd was drugged with. It doesn’t help that a couple of packets are unaccounted for in your pharmacy, does it? It’s circumstantial, of course, like all of this stuff, but ...’

‘Yes, well, I’ve been thinking about that.’ Kathryn interrupted with, for once, a trace of eagerness. Here at last was a trail which led away from Miranda. ‘You see, in the months after Shelley’s death, as you’ll imagine, it wasn’t easy at work. I took some time off, and even when I was there, I wandered round like a ghost. My partner, Cheryl, did what she could, but she has troubles of her own: her grand-daughter’s autistic, so she had to help there. So we hired a young locum. Neither of us liked him much, but he was the best we could get. And, well, there were several complaints from the girls in the shop, and when Cheryl rang round the places he’d worked before it was the same story. So ...’

‘You’re suggesting he may have stolen the rohypnol for use as a date rape drug?’

‘It’s possible, yes. From the way he behaved and what the girls said.’

 ‘Did you tell the police this?’

‘Yes. They weren’t interested.’

‘Well, that’s useful, at least.’ Sarah made a note. ‘The other main detail is this hair bobble of yours, that was found under some leaves near the tank. It had your hairs on it - they’ve established that by DNA. That’s the only thing that puts you indisputably near the scene of the crime. How do you account for that?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Not at all? It’s the one thing that’s likely to convict you.’

‘Then the police must have put it there themselves. That’s the only possibility, isn’t it?’

Sarah’d had the same thought herself, when first reviewing the papers; and the fact that DCI Will Churchill was in charge of this case increased the possibility considerably. But there was a deep gulf between suspicion and proof. She sighed. ‘Yes, but it’s going to be hard to convince a jury of that. Let’s go through exactly how it could have happened, shall we? When did the police first visit your house?’

For the next half hour they went through this in detail, Sarah making extensive notes. The police had searched Kathryn’s house and the pharmacy as well, and she wanted to know the names of all the officers involved, and exactly where each of them had been, as far as Kathryn could remember. It was a difficult business, because she had not seen everything that had happened, but Sarah had a sense that Kathryn was being more helpful than before - perhaps too helpful, at times, claiming to remember details that she couldn’t easily have known. Nevertheless, she wrote it all down: if her client was being a little creative with the truth now it didn’t matter; she could weed out the bits the jury were least likely to believe before she challenged Will Churchill in court.

Kathryn, watching, was pleased. The more her lawyers accepted the possibility of police corruption, the better. It was of course quite plausible that the hair bobble had indeed been planted at the crime scene by the police; she’d seen enough of DCI Will Churchill to believe him capable of anything. But there was another, equally plausible explanation, which Kathryn was trying to hide. Since they had been teenagers both of her daughters had regularly borrowed not only each other’s clothes but hers too. They would wear any top, shoes or jacket that took their fancy, as if clothes were something owned in common, rather than individually. On the day after the shotgun incident, for example, Miranda had wandered in from a walk wearing an old wax jacket of her mother’s. The more Kathryn thought about it, the more she realized how many things were stuffed in the pockets of that jacket - tissues, coins, gloves, dog biscuits, wisps of hay. A hair bobble too, perhaps. Kathryn could remember several occasions, on a windy walk with the dogs, when she’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail to keep it from blowing in her eyes. Whereas Miranda, of course, had cut her hair so short after the trial that she’d have had no use for such a thing.