A Fatal Verdict (44 page)

‘My lord, I find myself in an invidious situation. Mrs Walters is aware of this confession and the other evidence that supports it - Mr Clayton can apprise you of that - and she is very shocked by it indeed. She has already lost one daughter and stands to lose another, if this is true. She has asked me to tell the court that it is not true. Her daughter Miranda did
not
murder David Kidd, she says - she did it herself, in exactly the way the prosecution allege - or did allege until now. She wishes to plead guilty to that crime and is prepared to confess to it on oath, if necessary.’

‘Mr Clayton?’

Briefly, Matthew Clayton recited the evidence of the airline tickets and the witnesses Terry had told him of when he produced the confession, while the judge shook his head in a surprise which, both lawyers suspected, contained a faint trace of hidden amusement. ‘I see what you mean, Mr Clayton. This is an occasion wholly without precedent, in my experience, at least. You cannot really be asking this court to convict your client, Mrs Newby?’

‘My lord, as her counsel I must represent her wishes.’

‘Yes, but you are also an officer of this court, with a duty to assist in the search for truth.’

‘Indeed, my lord. Clearly this new confession and the supporting evidence of the airline tickets and the witness who saw a younger woman with David Kidd are important evidence which I would call in Mrs Walters’ defence, if those were my instructions. Unfortunately, they are not. She is adamant that she
did
kill Mr Kidd, and wishes me to point out that
her
hair, not her daughter’s, was found at the scene of the crime. That is - or was - the key to the prosecution’s case, after all. She believes her daughter felt pressure to confess out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to her mother. That is why she wishes to change her plea to guilty.’

‘To protect her daughter?’

‘To ensure that her daughter is not wrongly convicted of a crime which she, the mother, committed, my lord. That is her position now.’

‘Well, well. She has a point, I suppose, Mr Clayton. If this new evidence is to be trusted, how do you account for the hair bobble found at the scene of the crime?’

‘My lord, we seem to have switched roles here. You will recall that in her cross-examination of DCI Churchill, Mrs Newby did her best to persuade the jury that the hairs on that bobble were the result of deliberate contamination of the crime scene by the police. I have no opinion on the truth of that other than to say there is a doubt, I put it no higher than that. But without the DNA evidence from those hairs, I concur with Mrs Newby’s arguments earlier in the week - the prosecution case fails. All the rest is circumstantial. So when we combine the doubt about those hairs with this startling new evidence of a confession, supported by eyewitness accounts and a return trip to America, deliberately concealed, I cannot in all conscience allow this prosecution to go forward.’

‘Even when the defendant intends to plead guilty?’

‘Even then, my lord. In the interests of justice, this must be stopped.’

Lord Justice MacNair thought for a moment, cracking his long bony knuckles under his chin. Then he smiled. ‘Very well, I agree. Mrs Newby, if you will call your client into the dock, I will deliver the apparently unwelcome news that the charges against her have been dropped, and she is now free to go.’

58. Riverside talk

They met, as so often, on the riverside walk. It was quiet here, and private; they could stroll along, watching the birds and boats on the river, stepping aside for joggers and cyclists as they passed with a quiet nod of thanks. Such meetings had an indeterminate feel to them; they could walk for miles if they chose, south out of the city past the A64 to the fields opposite the Archbishop’s palace; or they could go nowhere, just sit on a bench and watch the sunlight flicker through the leaves of the ancient alders and horse chestnuts.

Both were still bruised by the case, Terry perhaps the most, for he had Churchill’s fury to cope with at work, and the man had been understandably enraged at the way the case had ended: Kathryn set free, weeping, her daughter Miranda arrested, reporters crowding round with their cameras and microphones and tapes while DCI Churchill stormed away to his car. It had been a two day wonder in the news - two days of horror for Churchill, his hopes of promotion gone; two days of savage schadenfreude for Terry, his boss publicly humiliated, unanswered questions buzzing around the station about how the hair bobble had got there, and when the charge of fabricating evidence would be brought. Never, was Terry’s guess, though time would tell. Churchill was too well connected, too good a politician for that; and the powers above, those he so longed to join, were too skilled in ambiguity, maintaining the reputation of the service by washing their dirty linen in private, or not at all. Churchill would stay, but he was wounded, and like a bear tied to a stake he saw tormentors everywhere, and was prepared to lash out again.

Particularly if he could damage Terry or Sarah.

In the intervals of fending off Churchill and dealing with Miranda’s arrest, Terry had phoned Sarah several times without success. Either she was refusing his calls or too busy, he wasn’t sure which. When he’d finally got through, her voice had been cool and businesslike; no hint of shared triumph or sympathy. She’ll have had Kathryn’s grief to deal with, Terry thought; perhaps this case has damaged us all. But she’d agreed to meet, and here they were at last, strolling uneasily together. Her face was tired and closed, her manner brusque and bitter. But they both needed to understand.

‘You really didn’t suspect her before?’ she asked, stepping aside for a cyclist.

‘Only when Larry rang from the States,’ he replied cautiously, kicking a stick into the river. ‘Until then I thought her alibi was watertight. A lowlife like Kidd - it made sense he’d have dozens of enemies. I just couldn’t find them. I was off the case, remember - I had plenty of other matters to deal with.’

‘Don’t make excuses, Terry, it doesn’t suit you.’

He looked at her - a slim dark woman with hazel eyes, staring at him coolly, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her coat.

‘We destroyed that family between us, you realise that.’

They’d stopped walking, stood facing each other on the path, theleaves of a huge horse chestnut tree rustling above. Terry threw a stone into the river, watched the ripples rush away downstream.

‘I
did, you mean. I bungled the investigation into Kidd. Missed crucial evidence.
You
didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘I could have ridden that psychiatrist harder. If it wasn’t for him ...’ She paused, glanced at Terry in surprise. ‘
What
crucial evidence, Terry? The shopkeeper, you mean?’

‘Not him, no. It’s worse than that.’ He looked at her, wondering how to say this. All this time he’d blamed his boss, Will Churchill, for David Kidd’s acquittal and the dreadful consequences which had followed it. But it wasn’t as simple as that, after all. Life never was. ‘I found out something yesterday which, if we’d only known it at the time, would have saved all of this. Every bit of this tragedy.’

‘What? Terry, tell me.’

He drew a deep breath. If only I could go back and put this right, he thought. It would have changed things from the beginning. ‘You remember the roofies?’

‘The rohypnol, you mean. Which Kathryn was supposed to have given David Kidd?’

‘Yes. Well, he
was
drugged with it, the post mortem established that. Only it wasn’t Kathryn who slipped them in his beer, it was Miranda, and here’s the thing: she didn’t get them from her Mum’s pharmacy, as Churchill tried to make out.’

‘From where, then?’

‘From David Kidd’s flat. That’s what she told me yesterday, when she went through her confession in more detail.’ They resumed walking slowly downstream, and Terry told her the story of how and why Miranda went to David’s flat where he’d drugged and raped her just as he’d done to her sister. ‘Only when she woke up, she found them at the bottom of the sugar jar, and took them away.’ He shook his head bitterly. ‘The sugar jar, of all the obvious, simple places. The first place every junkie thinks to hide his pills. And that was
my
investigation. I searched that flat, and never thought to look.’

Sarah was silent for a minute, stepping carefully around a cluster of crocuses. ‘There was no sign of rohypnol in Shelley’s blood, was there?’

‘No. Not according to the pathologist, Tuchman. But he’s an old man, you know ...’

‘He missed it, you mean? If so, he ought to retire.’

‘Yes. Could be. Anyway, that may explain it but it’s not much of an excuse. I mean, all along we were wondering how Kidd persuaded Shelley to make love to him and get into that bath, when the only reason she was in his flat was to dump him for good and pick up her stuff. If only I’d found those pills as I should, I’d have taken them to Tuchman, he’d have checked, and everything would have been clear. She couldn’t possibly have killed herself, she was too doped to know what was going on. Instead, her sister finds them, and look what’s happened to her now. It’s my job to charge her with murder, for Christ’s sake!’

He found another stick and flung it as far as he could, out into the muddy swirling water, then stood and watched it borne swiftly away to the sea.

If he’d been expecting sympathy from Sarah he was disappointed. ‘You should have seen her mother, Terry.’ Sarah strolled to a little paved observation area above an old watergate. She turned and leaned with her back to the railing, the collar of her coat turned up against the fresh spring breeze. ‘The woman was devastated. She’s lost both daughters now.’

‘I know.’ Terry leaned on the railing beside her, looking out across the river. ‘Miranda talked about that, too. How her mother meant to sacrifice herself. But in the end she couldn’t let it happen, she said.
What sort of daughter would I be, letting my mother go to prison, for a crime I committed myself?
’

‘I might have got the mother off,’ Sarah said. ‘There was still a chance. Not a big one. But with Churchill planting those hairs ...’

‘If he did.’

‘What?’

Terry shook his head grimly. ‘That’s another thing. Miranda admits she wears her mother’s clothes sometimes. Like when she went to the woods a few days before, to check things out and loosen the fence, she was wearing her mum’s wax jacket. She might have dropped something then.’

‘So your boss might even be innocent?’ Their eyes met, Sarah’s shocked and angry. ‘Christ, Terry! After all the things I said about him! Do you believe that?’

‘Not really. But it adds a doubt.’

‘My God!’ She pushed herself away from the railing, and walked away along the path. ‘What a murky world we work in.’

‘Murky?’

‘Mucky. Foul. Confused. One stupid mistake by you and all this happens.’

For a while they walked on in silence. The vehemence in her tone surprised him, and yet the pain, he thought, was deserved. Most of it anyway. After a while she stopped and turned towards him.

‘I trusted you, Terry, damn it! After you saved Simon last time I thought you’d get everything right. I should have known better.’

‘I’m not superman, you know.’ As he stared into those intense, hazel eyes, Terry wondered if he saw the hint of tears? Surely not. She wasn’t the type. And yet ...

‘Clearly not. Very far from it, in fact. It’s just that sometimes, Terry ...’

‘What?’

‘I could wish that you - that any man, really - but if it isn’t Bob any more then you would have done ... I’m sorry, I’m not making sense.’ She walked briskly off the path to the riverbank  and stood hunched for a moment, staring at the muddy water. Then she turned and came back. ‘Look, what I’m trying to say is, just like you I spend my life dealing with human inadequacy. Clients who lie, cheat, get smashed out of their heads and beat their wives and children. Policemen who lie on oath, plant drugs in kids’ pockets and even rise to high rank, like your boss, whether he did it this time or not. And I try to stand up against this on my own, making sure that what I do in this sink of swirling iniquity is somehow straight and honest, while all around me people are casually wrecking each other’s lives and lying through their teeth. I’m used to it, but just sometimes, Terry, I think it would be nice to meet someone as competent and reliable as ... as I try to be, anyway. And just for a moment - a moment back there - I thought that might be you.’ She smiled and shook her head bitterly. ‘Stupid of me, I know. It doesn’t work like that.’

She turned and began to walk away down river, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her long coat. Terry ran after her, turned her to face him.

‘That was ... your idea of a compliment, was it?’

‘No it wasn’t. It was the opposite. We’re part of the system, Terry, we make mistakes, we get things wrong, we wreck people’s lives. The criminal justice system. It chews people up and spits them out in small bits.’

Terry nodded. He took his hand off her shoulder and for a while they walked side by side.

‘It’s not just you,’ she said, relenting. ‘It’s me too, I should have asked more questions before I agreed to prosecute Kidd in the first place. I should have been tougher on the psychiatrist. That sodding pathologist Tuchman should have done his job. And as for Will Churchill ... well, that man should be put down.’

Terry laughed. ‘He will be, one day. If he doesn’t do for us first.’ They walked slowly on. ‘What this adds up to,’ he said at last. ‘Is that we should do better.’

‘Exactly,’ she said passionately. ‘Much, much better - always and all the time. That’s it, Terry - that’s what these two cases have made me think. Justice means getting it right - or else why are we here?’

‘All right,’ he said wryly. ‘If a lawyer can talk like that, the world must be changing. Where you boldly go, I’ll follow. Stumbling with feet of clay.’

She smiled, the tension partly released. ‘All right, I know it sounds pompous, but that doesn’t stop it being true, for all that. You do that for me, will you? Get it right, let me believe in justice, for a change.’

‘I know it exists,’ said Terry. ‘We just don’t see enough of it, that’s all.’

‘Next time, we’d better look harder.’

They turned back towards town, strolling through the dappled sunlight under the trees. When they passed under Skeldergate bridge they stood for a moment, a man and a woman quietly talking. Behind them, the elegant stone buildings of the city’s Crown Court. In front, the muddy swirling river rushing swiftly to the sea.

Companions, but still apart.