A Game of Proof (25 page)

‘That takes time, sir,’ Laila murmured, fitting a slide delicately under the microscope. ‘We’ve sent samples away to Manchester. But the blood group is consistent with that on the breadknife.’

‘There’s blood on the breadknife too?’

‘Yes. Just a few stains, in the groove where the blade fits into the handle.’

‘That’s it then! All we need is for those samples to match the victim and we’ve got him!’

 Dr Brewer was berating the gardener outside the window. Churchill grinned at the young black woman, who favoured him with a conspiratorial, bewitching smile. There was no doubt which of the two scientists he needed to work with, to move this case forward quickly.

Perhaps he should drop by tomorrow, to see how things had progressed.

‘So where could he have gone?’ Savendra asked. He and Sarah were sitting upstairs at the quiet corner table of an expensive Indian restaurant overlooking the river Ouse. Pleasure boats moved up and down, and tourists idled in the sunshine on the quay below them. Sarah picked sparingly at her korma, but it and the champagne earned from Savendra’s victory in this morning’s farce had warmed her nonetheless; she had eaten little for the past few days.

‘Even if I could tell you I wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘Much though I respect your discretion.’

‘This isn’t a professional consultation,’ said Savendra, twirling the stem of his wine glass. ‘Just friends, that’s all.’

‘I know, and thanks. But I don’t know where he is anyway. In one way I’m glad of it.’

‘Do you think he could - you know, have done it?’

For a long time she didn’t answer. So long, he thought she wouldn’t. But he could detect no hostility in her silence; just something reflective, silent, thoughtful. A loss of words.

At last she stirred. ‘Do you want to have children one day, Savvy?’

He smiled, remembering, as he often forgot, that she was nearly ten years older than him. ‘When I meet the right woman, yes, I suppose. It happens, doesn’t it?’

‘It happens, yes. And is Belinda the right woman?’

‘She thinks she is. I’m ...
almost
convinced. But you haven’t answered my question.’

‘I was just getting round to it.’

‘Oh. By talking about Belinda.’

‘If ...
when
you marry your Belinda, Savvy, as I’m sure you will, if she wants you to ...’

‘Thanks very much. I have been warned.’

‘ ... and you have children, your life will change for ever. You will no longer belong to yourself - this happy, charming, carefree young barrister that I see before me, with no allegiance to anything but his fees and his motorbike - he will disappear, and part of him will belong to Belinda, and part of him, perhaps more of him, I don’t know, to those children. Sometimes you will love them and sometimes they will make you angry. Really angry, Savvy, if you’re unlucky. More angry than you can easily believe. And of course in your anger you can betray them, and they can betray you, but you won’t let that happen if you possibly can ...’

She stopped, running one finger softly round the top of her wineglass. She looked in his eyes, then away out of the window. He waited, but nothing more came.

‘So even if you thought he did it, you wouldn’t say?’

She smiled, and as she did so the tears came involuntarily to her eyes and she dabbed them with a napkin from the table.

‘That’s it, Savvy, exactly. I couldn’t possibly say. Lesson one in parenthood. You pass.’

Chapter Eighteen

T
HE PHONE call came in the middle of the night. Two weeks after Simon had disappeared, an alert police constable in Scarborough noticed a blue Ford Escort, with the right registration number, parked outside a guest house. The message reached York at 2.15 a.m, and the duty sergeant phoned Will Churchill at home with a certain sardonic glee, which rose to pure sadistic delight when the new Detective Chief Inspector’s phone was answered by a sleepy young woman.

‘Hello ... yes?’

‘This is Fulford Police Station, madam. Is DCI Churchill there, please?’

‘Who?’

‘Detective Chief Inspector William Churchill, madam. It
is
urgent.’

‘Oh, you mean Willy? Yes ... Christ ... it’s for you.’

‘Hello? Who the hell’s this?’

‘Chief Inspector Churchill?’

‘Yes.’
Don’t be long, Willy,
murmured a voice in the background, or so the sergeant would tell his friends in the canteen later, to predictable guffaws.
Was he long Sarge? How long exactly - did she say?

‘Duty Sergeant Chisholm, sir. Sorry to disturb you, but a car registered to Simon Newby has been found in Scarborough - a blue Ford Escort?’

‘Right. I’m on my way. Have they made an arrest?’

‘No sir. They’re keeping the car under surveillance.’

‘Good. Put me through to the crime desk, will you? I’ll need someone to come with me to Scarborough right away.’

‘Right sir.’ Sergeant Chisholm transferred the call, grinning at PC Burrows who had just brought him a welcome mug of coffee.

‘That’s something you’ll learn, son, when you’ve been here a while.’

‘What’s that, sarge?’

‘A keen detective’s always on the job.’ He winked, and sipped his coffee happily.

It was a windy morning in Scarborough when Churchill and Harry Easby arrived just before four, with the breakers bursting along the esplanade. The blue Escort was parked outside a peeling establishment called Seaview Villas. The only things moving in the street were a milk float and a few seagulls, their feathers ruffled by the wind.

DS Conroy waited at one end of the street, a uniform car at the other. ‘We’ve made enquiries, sir, and your man’s in room 7. DC Lane’s getting a key from the landlady now.’

‘Right. Send your uniform lads round the back, and we’ll go in.’

Three minutes later the four of them pounded up the worn stair carpet, surprising an old man tottering towards the loo on the landing. Inside room seven lay a young man, sleeping peacefully. Churchill held the photograph next to the face on the pillow. There was no doubt at all. They matched. He shook the boy roughly by the shoulder and he started up in shock.

‘Simon Newby, I am arresting you in connection with the murder of Jasmine Hurst. 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.’

‘What? Who the hell are you?’

‘Come on, lad, we’re off to York.’

Simon was handcuffed and bundled into the car in his pyjama trousers and a coat before he fully realised what was happening. Harry Easby waited with him there while Churchill and the two Scarborough officers searched his room and sealed his clothes in plastic evidence bags.

‘What’s going on?’ Simon asked desperately.

‘You’re under arrest, son, didn’t you hear? For the murder of Jasmine Hurst.’

‘For the
what?
Jasmine?
You’re out of your skull!’

‘Not me, son. We think you killed her.’

‘You mean she’s
dead? Jasmine?
Where? How?’

‘You tell me, son.’ The boy was in a panic, thrashing about. But he couldn’t get out because his hands were cuffed behind his back and he was held in place by the seat belt.

‘She can’t be dead! What are you doing - let me out of here!’

Easby watched him with a quiet, satisfied smile. The wild eyes, the tears, the desperate thrashing movements. He had seen them all before. They might mean either guilt or innocence - most likely just panic. As Simon struggled, he watched, and said nothing.

Churchill returned to the car with two bags of clothes which he flung into the boot. He opened the back door and glanced at Simon with a fierce, triumphant smile. ‘Gotcha!’

‘I didn’t kill her. Let me out - where are we going?’

‘To York, my son. Remember anything you say may be used in evidence. Move over.’

‘But how did she die? What happened, for Christ’s sake?’

As Harry drove Churchill examined his prisoner with a long contemplative stare. He looked a mess - unshaven, his short hair tousled with sleep, his eyes wide with shock and panic. As he twisted angrily in his seat Churchill could see the muscles that he and Harry had felt as they bundled the lad downstairs. More than enough to subdue a girl, however tall and fit.

‘You can’t just break in and tell me Jasmine’s dead, for Christ’s sake! It’s not true!’

‘When did you last see her?’ They weren’t supposed to interview a suspect in the car but if the boy was going to talk anyway they couldn’t very well gag him.

‘I haven’t seen her for days - weeks. What happened - how did she die?’

‘She was raped, and someone cut her throat with a knife.’

‘Oh no.’
The bald statement seemed to shock Simon, and dissolve his rage and panic into grief. He slumped sideways on the seat and began to weep. It was a human reaction that in a normal person might mean innocence, Churchill knew; but in his experience rapists and murderers were not normal people. They were
normal looking
people whose emotional wires had got horribly crossed. It was perfectly possible for a murderer to weep at the injuries he had himself caused, either out of remorse or schizophrenia or self-pity because his own guilt had been discovered. So all that mattered was the evidence.

‘It made me puke, seeing that girl’s body,’ Harry said. ‘People like you should be hanged, slowly.’

‘But
I didn’t kill her
!’ The car swayed with the violence of Simon’s response. ‘So shut your fucking trap!’

‘Stow it, Harry,’ Churchill ordered. ‘Questions at the station.’

‘Sir.’

Several more times during the journey Simon protested his innocence, but when Churchill made no response, he lapsed into silence. As they entered York he asked: ‘What happens now?’

‘You go into a cell and the custody sergeant gives you breakfast, and then we’ll have a proper recorded interview.’

‘I can have a lawyer, can’t I?’

‘If you want. I’ll call the duty solicitor.’

‘No. My mother’s a barrister, she knows who’s best. I want to call her.’

Churchill sighed. ‘All right, it’s your choice. But I suggest you tell the truth, son. That’s my advice to you.’

It was a rare event for Sarah and Emily to eat breakfast together; usually everyone grabbed their own in a headlong rush. Now both of them, shattered by the last few days, were attempting to restore their relationship. Out of consideration for Sarah, Emily had switched on the pop music station more quietly than usual; out of consideration for Emily, Sarah had refrained from switching it off.

‘Which exam are you most worried about?’ Sarah asked tentatively.

Emily frowned, and instead of dismissing the question as Sarah had expected, considered it. ‘History, I think.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, there’s such masses to learn, far more than any other subject; and then you don’t get proper essay questions which let you explain it. It’s all ‘what does this cartoon of Adolf Hitler prove’ -  stuff like that.’

‘Is there anything I can help you with?’

‘Mum, it’s better if I do it on my own, honest. We’d only quarrel.’

‘Well, maybe Larry knows some history. Are you going to see him today?’

As Emily nodded, the phone rang. She got up, a slice of toast in her hand. ‘I bet that’s him. Hello? Oh,
Simon!
God, where are you? Yes, she’s here.’

As she passed the phone over Emily noticed her mother sway for a second in shock; but the hint of weakness was gone as soon as it came. With a recovery so complete it was almost a change of personality, Sarah’s voice became crisp, sharp, businesslike.

‘Yes. Right. I’ll get someone down there right away. In the meantime say nothing to anyone. Do you understand? Just say your solicitor’s coming and you can’t answer any questions until you’ve spoken to her. And you’re entitled to food and rest and decent treatment so if you don’t get it, ask to see the custody sergeant. Say if you’re not treated properly there’ll be a complaint. And Simon - I’ll be coming too.’

As Lucy Sampson entered the main police station, she was relieved not to see a reporter. But it was only a matter of time. Few of her clients came from middle-class families, and when they did, in a small city like York, there was enormous potential for social embarrassment. The
Evening Press
would be delighted - a local barrister’s son charged with murder! It would be the talk of the legal circuit for months; it might ruin Sarah’s career.

‘Yes, madam?’ The young desk constable looked up reluctantly from the
Sun
.

‘I’m a solicitor. I’ve been called to a client in custody here - Mr Simon Newby.’

‘Mr’ was an important touch. Despite the safeguards of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the processes of arrest still stripped the accused of freedom, dignity and sometimes their clothes as well; it was her job to get  all of these back, if she could.

‘Right, madam, if you’ll wait there.’

‘I need to see the officer in charge of this case, right away. My client is facing a murder enquiry, young man; I don’t intend to sit around like a spare piece of furniture.’

‘I dunno ...’ The constable met her eyes. ‘I’ll see what I can do ...’

A faint grin crossed Lucy’s face. She had that sort of effect on young men nowadays; Savendra had once suggested, unkindly, that she reminded them of their mothers when they were being potty trained. Not flattering, perhaps, but it had its uses. Lucy was a large woman who had abandoned the struggle with diets and corsets years ago. She disguised her bulk in a long voluminous black skirt, white blouse and loose jacket with many useful pockets. Her feet spread comfortably in Doc Martin boots, a fashion she had adopted from her teenage son. When her hair had started to go grey she’d had it bleached pure white in an anti-ageist fashion statement. If she had been carrying a couple of plastic bags instead of a monogrammed briefcase she could easily have been taken for a vagrant on the street.

The constable returned with Will Churchill, who held out his hand.