The Verdict (48 page)

Carnavale paused the tape right there – VJ looking up at DCI Reid, his palms flat on the table, Evelyn Bates’s photo between his hands. It was a close-up of her face, dead eyes still open. That was a clever little move: on the screen VJ looked like he’d just strangled her again.

The jury wouldn’t miss it.

Carnavale asked DCI Reid about the second interview, three hours later.

That was when VJ had been shown Evelyn’s photograph again and had said no, it wasn’t her. No way would he have even talked to someone like that, unless she worked for him. Why not, asked DCI Reid. ‘Because she’s no looker,’ he’d said.

Both female jurors frowned at that. Angrily.

VJ went on to describe the woman he’d been with. He gave her name – Fabia – and physical description. What had she been wearing? A green dress and high-heeled shoes.

Carnavale stopped the tape there and turned to DCI Reid.

‘We heard the defendant describe the clothes the woman he claims he was with was wearing. “A green dress.” Had you or DS Fordham mentioned a green dress to him in any of your earlier conversations?’

‘No, we had not.’

‘And what items of clothing were found near Evelyn Bates’s body?’

‘A dress and a pair of high-heeled black shoes.’

‘What colour was the dress?’

‘Green.’

A murmur all around court, from upstairs in the gallery, and in the well, behind us.

‘So would it be fair for me to suggest that there is no way the accused could have known the colour of the victim’s dress unless he’d met her that night?’

‘That would be a fair suggestion, yes,’ DCI Reid said.

‘Thank you, Detective Chief Inspector. No further questions at this time.’

DCI Reid stood down.

A short recess.

The courtroom emptied. We stayed put.

‘If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was guilty,’ Christine said.

Twenty minutes later DCI Reid was back on the stand for Christine’s cross-examination.

‘DCI Reid, you’ve been a police officer for fourteen years – correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many arrests have you made in that time?’

‘Uh…?’

‘I don’t need an exact number. Is it over a hundred?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Can you explain to the court what the correct arrest procedure is, when you first visit a suspect in connection with a crime?’

‘Yes,’ DCI Reid said. ‘An officer must initially identify themselves as police and give their name and rank. Then they inform the individual of the reason for their visit. If they decide to arrest the suspect and take them into custody, the officer has to inform the suspect that he or she is under arrest for suspicion of committing whatever offence prompted the visit.’

‘Did you do all of that when you visited Vernon James at his offices?’

‘Eventually.’

‘
Eventually?
’

‘We introduced ourselves to him when we walked into his office, but he immediately started talking to us.’

‘He was making these “unsolicited outbursts” about a party in his hotel suite and the damage that was done?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you let him finish?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

DCI Reid didn’t answer.

‘According to the rules of procedure you’ve just outlined, you’re supposed to inform the suspect of the reason for your visit. After all, it’s not a social call, is it?’

‘He didn’t give us a chance.’

‘He didn’t give you a
chance
? You’re
the police
.
You
give the chances, not a suspect.’

‘The way Mr James was talking – babbling, really – I thought he might admit to murdering Evelyn Bates,’ DCI Reid said. Her earlier poise was gone.

‘So you let him “babble” away on the off chance he’d incriminate himself?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘But he didn’t, did he?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Not
exactly
? Did he tell you he’d killed Evelyn Bates?’

‘No.’

‘Then Mr James didn’t incriminate himself at all, did he?’

‘No.’

Christine stared across at DCI Reid. DCI Reid lowered her gaze.

‘Approximately how long into your visit to Mr James’s office was it before you informed him that a body had been found in his hotel suite?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she said.

‘It wasn’t immediately, was it? It wasn’t the first thing you said to him, right after introducing yourselves?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It was some time later.’

‘How much later?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she repeated.

‘I will suggest an estimated time to you,’ Christine said. ‘DS Fordham marked the time you entered Vernon James’s office as 10.23 a.m. He marked the time you informed Mr James that he was under arrest as 10.57 a.m. Which means you spent over thirty minutes – half an hour – talking to him in his office. Is that right so far?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’d say, judging from the testimony you gave my learned friend, it was a good twenty minutes before you informed Mr James he was a murder suspect.’

‘I don’t know if it was that long,’ DCI Reid said.

‘But it was still a considerable amount of time. In the course of this time, did you ask him about the injuries to his face?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘And what did he tell you?’

‘He said that he’d tried to break up a fight between guests and got caught in the middle of it.’

Christine turned a page in her pad.

‘Did you caution Mr James at any point in this first meeting?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘After we’d informed him that he was under arrest for suspicion of murder.’

‘So at 10.57? Over thirty minutes after you’d first walked in to his office?’

‘That’s what it says in the notes.’

‘In other words, for a full half-hour Mr James had no idea he was a murder suspect?’

DCI Reid didn’t answer. She looked at Carnavale, then at Christine, then at me for a second.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Reid, could you please answer my question?’

‘I don’t know what Mr James was thinking.’

Christine looked down at her pad.

‘You told my learned friend that when you first spoke to Mr James in his office you didn’t think he was drunk. What is the drink-driving limit?’

‘Eighty milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.’

‘In plain English?’

‘Roughly four units. So two pints of standard beer, two normal glasses of wine, a double shot of spirits.’

Christine scribbled this down.

‘Moving on, after that first interview at the police station, what’s the procedure with a suspect?’

‘After they’re first interviewed?’

‘Yes.’

‘The suspect is fingerprinted, photographed and blood, hair and DNA samples are taken in the form of —’

‘How much blood?’

‘A hundred millilitres, or so – maybe more.’

‘And why is blood taken?’

‘For DNA analysis, to match against any blood found at the crime scene, and it’s also sent for toxicological analysis.’

‘Toxicology being a test for the presence of narcotics and alcohol in the body, yes?’

‘That’s right.’

Christine made a big show of thumbing through a sheaf of papers on the lectern.

‘I have the toxicology report on Mr James’s blood sample. It states that he was more than twice over the limit. So eight-plus units.

‘Mr James told us – and this is confirmed by eyewitnesses – that he’d been drinking vodka on the rocks the night before the murder. Double shots. The receptionist at the Blenheim-Strand told this court that Mr James appeared to be drunk when he checked out of the hotel at 6.30 a.m.

‘Now, it’s medically confirmed that alcohol is eliminated from the body at the rate of roughly one unit per hour. So, assuming Mr James didn’t drink alcohol between leaving the hotel and the time his blood was taken at Charing Cross at 15.39 p.m. the same day, we can say that he eliminated nine units of alcohol.

‘This means he left the hotel with seventeen units in his system. You started talking to him about four hours later, so four less units, therefore thirteen. Thirteen units of alcohol is approximately three times over the limit. Legally that makes him drunk as a skunk.’

DCI Reid didn’t respond.

There was silence in the courtroom. The jury had followed everything.

‘And alcohol wasn’t the only intoxicant found in Mr James’s bloodstream was it, DCI Reid?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘What else did the toxicology report reveal?’

‘Rohypnol.’

‘Rohypnol is commonly known as the date-rape drug, is it not?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you investigated rapes where Rohypnol was used on a victim?’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘What are the general effects of Rohypnol on an individual?’

‘It’s a sedative. It causes drowsiness and physical incapacitation. Mixed with alcohol, it’s known to cause blackouts, amnesia, disorientation,’ DCI Reid said.

‘So you not only interviewed a drunk, Detective Chief Inspector, but someone under the influence of a powerful drug?’ Christine said.

‘We had no way of knowing that at the time,’ DCI Reid retorted.

People laughed. Christine didn’t.

‘Vernon James was drugged and drunk when you interviewed him at his office. And he was still somewhat under the influence of both when you first interviewed him at the police station.

‘Furthermore, DCI Reid, I will suggest that both you and DS Fordham knew that Mr James was in no fit state to be interviewed and you didn’t care. You took down anything and everything he said, called it testimony and jammed it through as evidence. Didn’t you?’

‘That’s not correct,’ DCI Reid said.

‘I’m suggesting it is. You saw an open and shut case and an opportunity to make a quick arrest.’

‘That’s not correct.’

‘You failed to note – for the record – that the suspect was drunk when giving evidence.’

‘He appeared sober.’

‘Appearance is not fact, DCI Reid,’ Christine said.

‘Testimony given by someone under the influence of alcohol is admissible in court,’ DCI Reid said.

‘Yes, it is, Detective Chief Inspector. As long as it’s made perfectly clear to the jury in advance. Which is not the case here,’ she said. ‘
In vino veritas
goes the saying. Latin for “in wine there is truth”. But we all know that’s complete rubbish. No one takes the words of a drunk remotely seriously. My husband was a drinker. After he’d had a few, he’d tell me he loved me. Unfortunately he stopped drinking in 2000. Our marriage hasn’t been the same.’

Half the jury laughed. The rest smiled. They’d been transfixed, following the exchanges between Christine and DCI Reid, their eyes moving from barrister to witness as each spoke.

‘One further question,’ Christine said, closing her pad. ‘Do you believe Vernon James killed Evelyn Bates?’

The question took DCI Reid by surprise.

For a few seconds she looked completely stunned.

And that was enough for the jury – especially the foreman, who frowned in confusion.

‘Based on the evidence at hand at the time, I believed the accused to be guilty,’ she said, eventually.

Believe
d
…

Past tense.
 

The jury heard it loud and clear. They
all
made a note.

I saw Carnavale clench his pen hand into a fist.

‘No further questions,’ Christine said.

I got up to help her to her chair but she waved me off and stayed standing.

She waited until DCI Reid had left the courtroom and then addressed the judge.

‘My Lord, would it be possible for us to see DS Fordham’s original notebook from March 17th? My learned friend has only provided us with a typescript.’

‘Mr Carnavale?’ the judge said.

Carnavale stood up.

‘The notebook has been logged into evidence, My Lord. It’s Exhibit 14.’

A few minutes later the court clerk passed the notebook to Christine. The pertinent pages had been marked with Day-Glo page tags.

Still standing at the lectern, Christine rifled through the notebook.

‘My Lord, is DS Fordham in the building?’

‘Mr Carnavale?’

‘Yes, he is.’

‘With the court’s and my learned friend’s permission, I would like to call him to the stand.’

‘On what grounds, Mrs Devereaux?’

‘To explain his note-taking process to the jury,’ she said.

‘Mr Carnavale?’

‘DS Fordham will appear as a witness later this week. Is his appearance now strictly necessary?’ Carnavale said.

‘This relates to the credibility of DCI Reid’s testimony, My Lord. Part of the evidence she gave the court relied extensively on the contents of DS Fordham’s notebook. I would merely like to be satisfied that the notes he made on that initial visit to Mr James’s offices were taken according to police procedure.’

‘Very well,’ the judge said. ‘Call DS Fordham.’

Fordham came into the courtroom. Cheap grey suit over a light-blue shirt and tie.

‘Detective Sergeant Fordham, did you accompany DCI Reid to Vernon James’s offices on March 17th?’ Christine asked.

‘I did, yes.’

‘And you took notes of the conversation you had?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘In your notebook?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘You wrote down both DCI Reid’s questions and Mr James’s responses, yes?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Is it not standard procedure to have a suspect read through the statements you’ve taken down in your notebook and initial or sign after every answer, to make sure they acknowledge that you’ve taken down their words accurately?’

‘Yes, it is,’ he said.

‘And you also initial every answer?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So, after every answer there should be two sets of initials, yes?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

She leafed through the notebook.

‘Why do I only see one set of initials here? “M.F.” Yours, I presume?’

‘The accused – Mr James – didn’t sign my book.’

That caused a murmur in court.

‘Why not?’

‘I… I failed to get him to do this.’

‘Why?’

‘I neglected to do this.’

‘Did you show Mr James your notebook at all?’