The Verdict (18 page)

‘So what’s the damage?’ Janet asked.

‘It’ll be argued that Vernon James poses a risk to both women and society as a whole. A crime of this nature, with the drug and fetish element – the posed body, the post-mortem masturbation – suggests an escalating pattern. If he isn’t locked up for a long time, he’ll do it again. And again. So he’s looking at twenty-five to thirty years minimum.’

‘Is there any way around this?’ Janet asked.

‘He can spare himself a trial and plead, but he won’t get a reduced sentence.’

‘What about claiming diminished responsibility?’ Redpath asked.

‘That won’t hold,’ Christine said. ‘The mad-not-bad angle only works if the accused is deemed mentally incapable of understanding court proceedings. Nilsen tried it, and failed. Ian Huntley tried it, and failed. They’re both in prison, not an asylum. A few hours before he killed Evelyn, Vernon was up on a podium delivering a clear, articulate, well-constructed speech.’

‘When are you seeing him next?’ Janet asked.

‘Monday morning.’

‘I’d like to be there.’

‘I’ve already booked us all in,’ Christine said.

Twenty-five to thirty years. VJ would be in his sixties when he got out. And prison added an extra decade to a body. He’d be a very
very
old man. The life he’d known and worked for and built would be long gone. His kids would be adults, Melissa would’ve divorced him and his business would have been taken over. Even if he deserved it, it was a horrible fate.

‘Where are we on the research?’ Christine asked me.

I filled her in. So far so slow and getting nowhere fast. Swayne and I had managed to interview three of the thirteen witnesses the police had so far. All of them had confirmed their original statements and hadn’t stumbled. Two were at the hen party with Evelyn, and had told us she’d been drinking, but not excessively. The other person we’d spoken to had been in the Casbah nightclub. He said he’d been pissed that night, but he clearly remembered seeing VJ and Evelyn talking together. We were still working on setting up meetings with the rest of the witnesses.

We’d also made no headway finding the watch.

‘What about CCTV?’ Christine asked.

‘Still waiting on that,’ I said.

‘Footage from the speech?’

‘Channel 4 turned their tapes over to the police.’

‘The CPS will only share those with us if they intend to use them at trial. Which I can’t see them needing to, given what they already have,’ she said.

‘Fabia could be on that tape,’ I said.

‘You mean that woman you haven’t been able to find any trace of in the last fortnight?’

Yes, the same. I’d drawn a complete blank there so far. Swayne had spoken to some of the waiters who served at the awards dinner. None remembered seeing someone matching her description. And none of the Hoffmann Trust guests had called me.

‘Do you want me to carry on looking for her?’

‘Are you also a brain surgeon, Terry?’ Janet asked.

‘No.’

‘That’s a pity – because the only place you’ll find Fabia is in our client’s head.’

The next day I went on the witness interview round with Andy Swayne.

It was my third time passing myself off as a cop, and I wasn’t happy about it – not one bit. It didn’t make any kind of sense, risking everything for someone who didn’t deserve it, who was going down anyway.

So why was I doing it?

Simple. I couldn’t afford not to. I was pretty sure what Swayne would tell Janet if I refused to go the distance to get information. And I still wanted a career in the law. Christine was relying on me to bring her ‘silver bullets’. If I did this job well and helped her build an impressive enough defence case, I could come out of it looking good enough to a prospective employer.

Besides, I was starting to get the hang of the fakery.

Compared to your average conman, we had it easy. We weren’t there for money, only information; so lying, not stealing. We’d already got the hard part out of the way – gaining trust and access – because our marks hadn’t just invited us in, they’d picked the time and place. Sometimes they even made coffee. And there was no doubt in their minds we were the real deal, as we had copies of their sworn and signed statements. All we had to do was turn up, look the part – weary of face and suit (not a stretch for either of us), cantankerous, but holding it in – and talk like satnavs reading out an Ikea assembly manual, and that was that. Job done. So far, no one had asked us for ID or even to repeat our names. They were too distressed and overwhelmed by what had happened – and so very keen to help us any way they could.

I’d arranged to meet Swayne at a Caffè Nero on Regent Street at nine on the dot. I got there early, but he’d beaten me to it. He was sitting at the back, chatting up one of the baristas – in fluent Portuguese.

As I got my double espresso, she was heading back to the sinks with a tray full of dirty cups and a smile on her face. He was following her with a melancholic look. I guessed he hadn’t pulled.

‘
Garota de Ipanema
,’ he said, as I sat down.

‘Hello,’ I replied.

‘Brazilian,’ he said, still watching her. ‘They look their best when they’re walking away.’

‘Let’s go through what we’re doing today,’ I said, putting the interview file on the table.

I was strictly business with Swayne, all about doing the job and getting out of his orbit as fast as possible. I didn’t try to hide it either. No point. I hadn’t mentioned the pictures he’d taken of me in Suite 18, because I knew he’d done it for insurance; as something to have over the firm. I almost didn’t blame him, because I guessed Kopf had burned him in the past, but I also wondered if he hadn’t deserved it, wittingly or unwittingly, because of his drink problem, and his way of doing things.

‘So this isn’t goodbye?’ he said.

He knew about the lab report.

‘I’d have done that by phone,’ I said. ‘It’s business as usual.’

‘Lawyers are born optimists.’

We went over today’s witness list. We were meeting more of Evelyn Bates’ friends, among them the woman whose hen party she’d attended.

It wasn’t just about cross-checking information and identifying potential blindspots and contradictions in their statements. We were also looking at the people themselves, how they answered, how they came across, how well they handled pressure. The more presentable and empathetic the witness, the more likely they are to sway or even swing a knife-edge verdict.

And, of course, we were also digging for dirt on Evelyn. Anything that might have made her complicit in her own demise. Promiscuity, childhood traumas, substance abuse, drink issues, choking fetishes or related fantasies.

But so far we’d found exactly nothing.

Evelyn Bates had been well liked by her friends. They all said the same things about her. ‘Nice’, ‘bubbly’, ‘a right laugh’, and ‘a good listener’.

Yet something struck me as odd. No one we’d talked to seemed to have known Evelyn very well, or got close enough to her to get past a good first impression. This could mean she’d been an open book, a what-you-see-is-what-you-get type. Or it was all a front, and she’d been hiding something.

I was leaning towards the latter.

If Evelyn had been a listener, and a ‘good’ one, it meant she didn’t talk much. Which in turn meant she’d given nothing away, that she liked to get to know people before committing to them.

I knew this for a fact, because I’d never been the same after VJ’s treacheries. I’d gone from open to closed, accepting to suspicious, outward to inward. And do you know what people said about me?

They said I was a good listener.

We took the train to Waterloo, then the Tube to Piccadilly, where we got off and walked to our first meeting.

It was warm and sunny; too bright and too hot for this time of year, which meant summer had come prematurely and the real one was going to be a washout. Just like last year. And the year before.

Regent Street had been done up for the Royal Wedding. Big vertical Union Jacks, five in a row, twelve feet apart, were suspended over the traffic and pavement bustle; hovering straight and still, in staggered tiers, their colours sharp and vibrant against the tawny Georgian buildings and clear blue sky. Tomorrow it would be a postcard, but today the scene was almost magical; as if the flags had come off every pole and awning in the city and gathered here, in orderly formation, waiting for the Oxford Circus lights to change so they could progress towards Portland Place.

Our first interview was with Clare Oxborrow at her workplace on Beak Street. She’d given the most detailed of all the hen party statements. No surprise there: she was an analyst for a management consultancy, which meant she made a living out of specifics.

She met us in the company boardroom. Tallish in flat leather pumps, with medium-length dark blonde hair and a clear complexion suggesting regular exercise, a healthy diet and zero vices, she was a steel blade sheathed in a designer suit. Everything about her seemed figured out in advance, geared towards making the right impression for the moment at hand. She was happy to help, but on a clock.

We refused her offer of coffee or water and got to work.

I may have been running the investigation, but it was The Andy Swayne Show. He was both frontman and conductor, carrying the burden of our deception on his thin shoulders and setting the pace and tone of each interview. And he was loving every minute of it. For today’s turn he’d opted for the kind of no-budget dark-blue suit you’d bury an unloved relative in, a mauve-and-black tie woven from the finest polyester and, to cap his throwback cop shtick, a 1970s vintage Timex watch he’d got off eBay. He’d also tailored his voice to match. Compassionate, with enough restrained gruffness about it to let witnesses know he was on a leash, playing nice and polite strictly for their benefit.

I was his opposite – the strait-laced, by the book, younger cop who’d been through PC camp and sensitivity training. We hadn’t agreed on these roles beforehand, merely improvised off each other until we’d found our respective places. Not that they were too far removed from reality. Swayne dug for dirt, while I sat on the sidelines, making notes and avoiding eye contact.

I’m not sure anyone actually noticed these details. In fact, I think the whole act was more for Swayne’s benefit than the outside world’s. He’d been a broken man long before I met him, his confidence buried so deep within him it’d fossilised. Dressing up as someone else allowed him to escape himself. For a few moments he got to be a person who hadn’t completely messed up their life – even if it was only a moderately successful public servant. And for that same short space of time, I actually admired him. He may have been a fraud, but he was a sincere one, fooling himself as much as he did others.

Swayne walked Clare through her statement.

There’d been fifteen of them at the hen party. They’d all rendezvoused in the hotel lobby and had a cocktail before they went to their rooms on the fourth floor. Everyone doubled up except for Hazel, the bride to be. She had her own room, paid for by the others.

They went to the spa at around 4.30 p.m. Sauna first, then a swim in the heated indoor pool. Two hours later they went out to the Paramount in Centre Point for dinner. The Paramount was a private members’ club on the thirty-first floor, where the food competed with a God’s-eye view of the West End.

Swayne stopped her there.

‘Who was a member of the club?’

‘Penny,’ she said. ‘Penny Halliwell.’

She was next on our list.

‘Did you talk to Evelyn much?’ Swayne asked.

‘Not really. I think she mentioned she was auditioning for a reality TV show.’

She said the last contemptuously, and then blushed when she noticed Swayne had caught her tone. She knew it betrayed her attitude to Evelyn, that she’d thought her shallow and frivolous. To her credit she didn’t try to backtrack and undo the damage. She stayed silent, standing by what she’d said, no matter how it made her look.

Carnavale wouldn’t want her on the stand – a career woman with an empathy bypass. That’s all the jury would see. I put a cross by her name and wrote ‘Cold, going on freezing.’ So far I’d crossed everybody off. ‘Forgetful.’ ‘Vague.’ ‘Unreliable – too pissed on the night.’

Swayne continued with her account.

Dinner had lasted two hours. Then they’d gone to Heaven, the famous gay club under Charing Cross arches. Penny had wangled them a table in the VIP area. They drank champagne, and then switched to their favourite tipples. Clare had taken it easy, because she had to be at the office the next day.

She remembered Evelyn leaving them at around 10.30 p.m. Couldn’t fail to notice her, because she was the only one at the party in a green dress.

No one in the group noticed or commented on Evelyn’s absence until around 2 a.m., when they were all debating whether to carry on drinking somewhere else, or go back to the hotel. They noticed she hadn’t touched her drink. It was still on the table – a shot of tequila, complete with salt and lemon. They wondered if she hadn’t met a man and slipped away. Not that they paid her much mind beyond that. They were drunk, happy, sentimental and distracted. The club was dark, the music loud, and the bride to be was the centre of attention. This was Hazel’s time, not Evelyn’s.

Swayne pushed Vernon James’s mugshot across the table to her.

‘Did you see or meet this man at any time that night?’

‘No,’ Clare said.

‘You’re sure of that?’

‘Positive. I would’ve remembered.’

He asked her for her personal observations about Evelyn.

‘I’d say she was probably a nice person.’

Jesus, I thought. Not another one. Luckily Swayne had had enough too.

‘You implied she was stupid earlier,’ he said.

‘The two aren’t mutually exclusive,’ she said.

I wanted to laugh there – in complete agreement.

‘We didn’t have a lot in common,’ she added. ‘Maybe if…’

Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a tear ran down Clare’s face and the rest of whatever she was going to say was curtailed into a stifled sob. It seemed to take her by surprise, as much as it did us. She looked from Swayne to me and back to Swayne, blinking and confused, like she’d woken up from a deep sleep to bright lights and strange faces.

She patted herself for a tissue, but didn’t have one. Swayne took out a packet he carried around with him for moments like these – of which there’d been a couple. She took one and wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I barely got to know her…’

‘It’s OK,’ Swayne said.

I changed my cross to an emphatic tick. If she cried when – or if – Carnavale decided to use her, he’d have his first star witness. She looked good in tears.

‘I thought about Evelyn afterwards, thought about her a lot,’ Clare said. ‘And, this’ll sound strange, but I realised I’d never met her before that night. I thought I had. Somewhere. But I hadn’t. The only thing I really know about her is that Vernon James murdered her. How sad is that?’

Penny Halliwell had organised the hen party and shared a hotel room with Evelyn. She’d also been the first person to be notified about the murder.

We’d arranged to meet in the restaurant of the Architectural Association on Bedford Square, off Tottenham Court Road. She worked for a music publisher on the same block.

Even if the place hadn’t been almost empty, recognition would’ve been instant. The detective who’d interviewed her had written ‘Myra Hindley’ in brackets next to her name in the notes accompanying her statement. One look at her and I understood what he meant.

It was probably the hair that did it. A peroxided bouffant, complete with a batwing fringe which exposed the middle of her forehead and covered her temples. Or maybe her interrogator had been struck by her passing resemblance to the infamous Hindley mugshot – that dead-eyed, faintly pouty expression where the Moors Murderess looked like she was about to blow her photographer a kiss before telling him where she’d buried his kids. Either way, I got it. She was definitely not Carnavale material.

We sat at a small corner table meant for two. Penny was tell-tale nervous. Darting eyes, involuntary blinking, hands fidgeting from her empty teacup to imaginary lint on her black jacket. Swayne did his best to put her at ease, layering on the avuncular charm; nothing-to-worry-’bout-luv, just a few questions and we’ll be on our way; you’re not under arrest. She responded to the last with a thin laugh that was meant to be ingratiating, but was too short and shrill to mask her stress.

We got started.

After they’d come out of the hotel spa, they went to their respective rooms.

Evelyn and Penny had changed for dinner. Then Evelyn had gone to the bar for a couple of ‘liveners’ – shots of silver tequila. She’d said she was a bit nervous about the evening ahead and how it would go, because she didn’t know anyone that well.

Penny barely noticed Evelyn after they got to the restaurant. She was too busy making sure everything ran smoothly and on time; and then catering to Hazel’s every need. Hazel was her best and closest friend. They went back fifteen years. Like me they were satellite town refugees, Norwich being their dark star.

They’d stayed in Heaven until closing time, at around 3 a.m. Some of the party had left for their hotel beds. She, Hazel and a couple of others had gone off to a private drinking den on Dean Street. They’d stayed out until just before five. Then they’d gone back to Hazel’s room, where Penny had fallen asleep.

Penny checked out at 11.40 that morning. Before she left, she noticed Evelyn’s things were still in the room, and she found a note on her bedside table:

@
Private party @ Suite 18. Evey x

That’s when she realised Evelyn hadn’t been back. But she was too hungover and knackered to think about more than getting home and going back to bed. She left the note where she’d found it.

All pretty much what she’d told the police, when they’d come round her flat later that day.

Swayne looked back over her statement. Or pretended to. He was just buying time, letting her stew a little. Penny rubbed her fingernails. They were painted black.

‘What drugs did you do that night?’

The question might as well have been a slap for what it did to her. She sat up, eyes wide, mouth agape. Her hand started trembling.

To be honest, it threw me too. I was glad Penny was too shaken up to notice the shock on my face.

‘You’re not under oath,’ Swayne said. ‘And this is all off the record. But I do need to know.’

‘I… I… did some coke.’

‘What about Evelyn?’

‘No,’ Penny said.

‘None at all?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Who else did coke?’

‘I… I… I’d rather not say.’

‘I don’t need names,’ Swayne said. ‘A ratio or percentage’ll do.’

‘Why d’you need to know?’

‘A member of your party disappeared right under your noses – forgive the pun. No one seems to have noticed. Or cared one way or another,’ Swayne said. ‘We’ve established that Evelyn left Heaven at around 10.30 p.m. The place closed at 3 a.m. She was gone over four hours. I just need to work out why and how that could happen. Now I have. Coke makes you feel like you’re the centre of the universe, top of the world. Of course you wouldn’t have noticed.’

Silence.

Swayne had his answer. Most of them had done coke.

He let her dangle for a while, while he went back to her statement. She was blinking like crazy now.

‘Why did Evelyn leave the club?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did someone say something to upset her?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah. I would’ve heard about that.’

She glanced at me, quickly, then looked away. I knew she was holding something back. A fellow omitter. Takes one to know one, and all that.

Swayne opened his file now and turned over some stapled documents.

‘What else can you tell us about Evelyn?’ I asked her.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Swayne stop what he was doing.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You shared a room with her for a bit. What did you talk about?’

‘Hazel, the wedding…’ And then she smiled, and I saw that some of her red lipstick had come off on the tip of her canine. ‘When I say “the wedding”, I mean
the
Wedding. As in the
Royal
Wedding. Kate ’n’ Will’s.’

And she pulled a dismissive, conspiratorial face, as if she were sure I found the subject matter crass too.

Then something clicked.

I remembered my first week at Cambridge; the daily get-to-know-you parties, trying to make conversation with the cooler than thou types. The universal icebreaker was, ‘What did you do in your year off?’ And you were meant to listen while the stranger you were hoping to find common ground with told you about their gap year, and then you told them all about yours. Except I hadn’t had a gap year. I went straight from school. So I’d tried another tack. Music. But grunge was the big hip new thing then, and I knew close to nothing about it. What I’d heard sounded like bad heavy metal – the only heavy metal there is. I said I was into Paul Weller. They looked at me like I’d just beamed in from Planet Sad.

And suddenly I felt for Evelyn. The deepest empathy. She’d spent the last few hours of her life with a bunch of people who didn’t give a toss about her.

‘None of you liked her much, did you?’ I said.

I heard Swayne catch his breath.

Penny opened her mouth in surprise. That red-tipped canine again.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ she said, hurriedly. ‘I can’t say I liked her. No. I mean… OK. This… this’ll sound horrible but I… I thought she might’ve been a bit of a slapper.’