Arriving in court is a relief, not just as a decisive conclusion to my time on remand, but to the last twenty-four years. I’ll never have to wake in the night, shaking and drenched in sweat, fearing the worst. This is the worst. Brandon has been found, and Gideon, Alan and I are here, in court, on trial for his murder.
The court clerk reads out the charges. He sounds distant, underwater. My surroundings feel artificial and unreal. The room begins to blur around me. I’ve no idea if I’m guilty or not. To be convicted of murder, the accused needs to have shown malice aforethought, and I can’t deny, by the end, I did want Brandon dead.
‘Not guilty,’ I say.
In the public gallery, a few rows of fold-down chairs, a man and woman flinch at my assertion of innocence. I recognise them from the New Zealand news clips. They are Mari Hewlett and Austen Wells, Brandon’s brother and sister.
Audrey, Pearl and Andre sit together, their faces sombre. And Sam is also here. Though I’ve been longing to see him, I wish he hadn’t come. Ralph has warned me of the line the prosecution will take, as regards to my character: a harlot, a bad mother, a murderer. It will only remind Sam of what happened with Hugh and further convince him that his mother is a whore.
Perhaps he wants to see me jailed, to be rid of me for ever. We used to be close, laugh at silly in-jokes. I’d sneak money to him behind his father’s back. Sam used to hate him. Now his loathing has switched to me. Is he close to his father now? Has he made Sam realise the value of looks and charm? Does he know the importance of making a good impression with the cut of his suit, the brand of watch, make of car?
So many parents would be proud of a son like Sam, academically gifted and excelling at sport. But my only wish for him is that he’s nothing like his father.
The prosecution, Thomas Mapplethorpe and his junior, Alexandra South, sit behind Ralph and Helena Dryden, Gideon’s barrister, and Arianne Baptiste, who is Alan’s.
I wonder why Gideon chose her. He deliberates extensively over his every action. Hiring Helena will have an exact purpose, she’s not just a competent barrister.
Thomas Mapplethorpe QC stands up and addresses the jury.
‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ He speaks slowly and with purpose. ‘Brandon Wells was a young man from New Zealand, who came to England as part of an adventure. He wanted to travel the world. He was last seen in August 1994. Twenty-three years later his body was found on the North Downs, not four hundred yards from where he shared a house with the defendants, Gideon Risborough, Alan Johns and Julia Winter. His skull had been smashed and he had sustained a serious wound or wounds before death.’
Mapplethorpe pauses to allow the jurors to digest his words.
‘The defendants may appear to be upstanding members of the business and professional classes, but the prosecution will prove that together, for financial gain, the defendants took part in a cowardly attack, which led to Brandon’s death. I would remind the jury that in such circumstances the law considers all three equally culpable, regardless of who struck the fatal blow that left Brandon’s family with nearly a quarter of a century of doubt and fear. Brandon’s mother unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, never lived to discover his fate.’
Brandon’s siblings squeeze each other’s hands.
‘Please do not be swayed by appearances or unsubstantiated supposition, but only by the facts and the facts alone. Facts that demonstrate, beyond reasonable doubt, the shocking events that led to Brandon’s death. If, members of the jury, you do indeed find, as we believe you shall, that only one set of circumstances can explain how a young man met a brutal death, was rolled in a rug, wrapped in plastic and buried in an unmarked grave on a Surrey hillside, thousands of miles from his birthplace, the Crown would urge you to find all three defendants guilty of the charge of murder.’
Chapter 37
1994 – Guildford
Gideon hooked his elbow under Julia’s arm and pulled her up the steep bank that led from the road to a small stile and up onto the open downland. The sun had long fallen below the horizon but a faint red glow lingered across the hill’s ridge.
Julia wished she hadn’t worn her sandals. The loose dirt slipped beneath her feet and she had difficulty keeping her balance, while the boys had no trouble, tramping across the grass in their boots and trainers. Gideon came and grabbed her hand. Relying on him made her feel like some helpless Victorian lady – all she needed was smelling salts. In the end, she took the sandals off and went barefoot. The ground was dry, the grass caressed her toes and the breeze made her feel lighter and alive. She skipped to keep up with the boys who were now nearing the ridge.
The town came into view below them. Somewhere down there, Lucy was embracing Linden. Julia didn’t envy her, she wanted to be here, with the inky star-studded sky arching above her. It felt ancient and wild, a different world from the bustling town spread beneath them. Here, she felt more connected to her surroundings, giddy and high, long before Gideon rolled the first joint.
They found a patch of shorter grass on a spot overlooking the town and sat down in a circle, all animosity forgotten.
‘Where did you get the grass?’ Brandon asked.
‘Contacts,’ Gideon said and inhaled.
Julia had only smoked once before, some resin. She’d not liked it and hadn’t bothered since. From Alan’s spluttering as he smoked, she suspected he was also unused to it. Brandon, however, appeared to be a connoisseur.
‘This is good stuff,’ he said after his first drag. ‘I’d go as far as to say excellent.’
Gideon nodded. ‘Only the best,’ he said.
Julia took a shallow puff, then a couple more. She felt the effects immediately. Her head started to spin and expand at the same time. Each muscle within her body twitched, she heard every blade of grass swish in the warm breeze. She lay on her back and watched the sky as the stars appeared, one by one.
‘They’re so beautiful, so far away,’ she said.
She heard laughter. Had that been a stupid thing to say? She didn’t care.
‘Back home we’d drive out of town, until the only lights were the stars and moon,’ Brandon said. ‘You never get that here.’
‘Do you miss it?’ Julia asked.
Brandon rolled onto his side and propped his head on one hand.
‘I don’t think about it too much,’ he said. ‘Sometimes, you just have to get away and that’s that.’
How had his relationship ended? Like hers – a broken engagement, a friendship betrayed?
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘What are you sorry for, Julia?’ Alan asked.
She closed her eyes and felt the breeze brush her body. Every microscopic hair on her skin shivered beneath it.
‘I’m sorry that Brandon had to leave everyone he loved and start again.’
‘You didn’t have to leave, did you, Brandon?’ Alan asked.
Brandon had the joint and took a long inhalation, then an even longer exhalation.
‘What does “have to” mean? No one put a gun to my head. But I couldn’t stay. A bad situation – have you never done that – just left?’
An unfair question – Julia had already told him everything. He shouldn’t make her retell it in front of the others. And only when Alan replied did she realise Brandon hadn’t been asking her.
‘I never had to leave anywhere. I chose to. But I can go back – it’s only forty miles to Southsea.’
‘What was that like growing up?’ Brandon asked.
‘Great,’ Alan said. ‘It’s on the coast, the summers were fantastic – parties on the beach every night. We’d have a ghetto blaster and a fire, bowls of lethal rum punch, all the girls drunk, dancing around in tiny bikinis, a bit of spliff going around.’
‘So why did you leave?’ Brandon asked.
‘Work,’ Alan said.
Julia had barely heard Alan speak of anything without a heavy dose of sarcasm. The overwhelmingly positive description of his youth was alien to his nature. It was a
fun-filled youth observed rather than experienced. The teenage years he’d wanted. Parties he’d heard other boys in sixth form laugh about on Monday mornings, or perhaps he’d watched from the promenade, as the bikini-clad girls danced round bowls of punch, before he returned home alone to his bedroom and a clutch of computer games.
Julia experienced a wave of sympathy for Alan. They weren’t so different. Always shy and clumsy, she’d not have had friends at school if it hadn’t been for Pearl and Andre. Christian was a blip, one that had now been adjusted. Girls at school would deliberately let her overhear their ‘What is he doing going out with her?’ comments. And one of Christian’s friends once told him, ‘Mate, you could do a lot better.’ Well now he had done better, he had Ellie. Who would stick to the exact same shopping list from Tesco’s every week, remember his sisters’ birthdays and make homemade Christmas presents. Christian’s parents would like her – they’d never been sure about Julia and their pretence ran thin.
‘Why are you crying?’ Brandon asked.
‘I’m not.’
‘You are.’
Julia touched her cheeks. They were wet with tears.
‘You’re wiped out,’ Gideon said. He checked his watch. ‘It’s time to head back.’
The stars dimmed and the breeze was cooler. Gideon had to help Julia to her feet. Her legs wobbled beneath her and she leant on him as they tottered down the hill, no pride preventing her this time.
Alan and Brandon seemed as out of it as she was. Only Gideon appeared lucid.
‘I’ll get her upstairs,’ Brandon said to Gideon, as they entered the house.
‘I can manage,’ Gideon said.
He placed her arm over his shoulder, helped her up the stairs and sat her on the bed, lifting her legs on top. He drew the curtains. She hated closed curtains – they made her feel boxed in.
‘Sleep tight,’ he said.
‘Gideon,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘You never told us about yourself, where you grew up, what you did as a teenager.’
‘Another time,’ he said. ‘Go to sleep.’
One by one the doors shut, and the house returned to silence.
The dirt on her feet began to bother Julia. She should have washed them before coming to bed. She’d walked back barefoot. Where were her sandals? She’d left them on the Downs. The idea came to her to go back and get them but her heavy limbs anchored her to the bed. Her mind drifted back up the slopes, to the stars and the breeze. Her drift towards sleep was interrupted by a rap on the door.
‘Julia.’
It was Brandon. She stayed silent and willed him to go away.
Another rap.
‘Julia,’ he repeated.
Then Gideon’s voice. ‘She’ll be asleep.’
‘Yeah, of course,’ Brandon said.
‘Best to leave her alone,’ Gideon said.
Brandon’s heavy tread retreated from her door. She heard a door shut and waited, straining to listen for any movement. But Brandon did not return. And she had Gideon to thank for it.
Julia woke early, her mouth dry and her tongue swollen. She needed water. She crept to the bathroom without bothering to turn on the light. It was very late, or rather very early. The sky had just started to lighten. The water ran lukewarm from the tap and she stared out of the open window as she waited for it to cool.
The bathroom was at the rear of the house and overlooked the garden. Her stare was aimless, and it took a moment to register a figure at the back by the fence. It was Gideon, dressed only in a T-shirt and boxer shorts. He was on the phone. A strange time to make a phone call – it must be gone four in the morning, and why couldn’t he talk in the house? And something else, other than the ridiculous hour, troubled her about the call.
The water was colder now. She filled her glass and returned to her room. The fan sent out a pleasant stream of cool air. She heard Gideon’s door click below. Perhaps he had only gone outside so as not to disturb the rest of the house. Perhaps someone had rung him, though she’d not heard the phone.
She put it out of her mind and returned to bed.
Chapter 38
2018 – Guildford Crown Court
The prosecution’s first witness is forensic scientist Dr Ambrose Urquhart. He has grey hair and a gaunt face, with deep lines that speak of having seen one too many corpses.
‘Dr Urquhart,’ Thomas Mapplethorpe says. ‘Would you state your credentials and experience.’
In a soft Scottish accent, which certainly isn’t from Glasgow where he studied, he tells the jury about his career, including working to identify victims of massacres from the Balkan conflict and many years working for Surrey Police, as well as being requested by other forces whenever his expertise is required. He has an understated confidence. If we walk free at the end of this trial, it won’t be because he has overlooked or misrepresented the evidence. He calmly explains that the DNA has a one in a billion chance of not belonging to Brandon or a close relative. The dental records match those sent from Brandon’s dentist in New Zealand.
Mapplethorpe nods along to each point Urquhart makes.
‘Taking all these factors into account, Dr Urquhart, are you satisfied the body recovered from the North Downs does belong to Brandon Wells?’
‘I am.’
‘And given your extensive experience, how long would you say Brandon had been buried?’
Brandon. Mapplethorpe keeps repeating his first name, making him human, not a faceless statistic. He was a young man, who could have been your boyfriend, brother or son.
‘One hundred per cent accuracy is impossible,’ Urquhart says. ‘But between twenty and twenty-five years.’
‘So, between 1993 and 1998?’ Mapplethorpe asks.
‘That’s correct.’
‘And were you able to ascertain the cause of death?’
‘Almost certainly it was due to massive head trauma. The skull was smashed.’
Mapplethorpe lets the jury wait a few moments for the importance of Urquhart’s statement to sink in, before saying, ‘Members of the jury, I would ask you to look at exhibits 3.1 to 3.3.’
The court clerk passes plastic folders containing the same photographs Warren and Akande showed me. A collective gasp escapes from the jury. One woman puts her hand to her mouth, another leans forward. Mutters run around the court. Mari Hewlett turns her face away, although the photographs are too distant for her to see. Her brother stares straight ahead, stern and stoic.
‘I’m afraid this is going to be unpleasant, but I would ask you to take your time,’ Mapplethorpe says.
The juror in the floral dress on the front row remains with one hand clamped across her mouth, holding the photographs in the other. The tattooed man clutches each picture for as long as possible, bringing them close to his face and twisting them to various angles.
Mapplethorpe adopts a serious tone. ‘And what could cause such substantial injuries?’
‘On examining the skull, I concluded that Mr Wells was lying on the floor and struck from above, at least twice, by a large object.’
Mapplethorpe appears to brace himself. ‘If the jury will please observe photographs 3.4 to 3.9. Can you explain what we are seeing here please, Dr Urquhart?’
‘The blows landed in a downward direction.’ He makes a vertical strike with his arm and open palm. ‘They split the left side of the skull. The right side is also fractured, injuries corresponding with the opposite side of the head striking a hard surface.’
‘Such as a parquet floor?’ Mapplethorpe says.
‘Any hard surface.’
‘Are you able to say what did cause these injuries, Dr Urquhart?’
‘We found a tiny chip of marble, along with gold paint and metal fragments, crushed into the bone. These materials would have been integral to the weapon.’
‘And has this object been identified?’
‘Not the exact object,’ Urquhart says. ‘However, the police were able to provide me with photo
graphic evidence of a lamp that was in Mrs Pike’s living room around the time of Mr Wells’ death.’
‘I refer members of the jury to photographs 7.1 and 7.2,’ Mapplethorpe says. ‘I will be covering the photographic evidence with DI Warren shortly.’
Photographs of Genevieve’s ugly marble lamp are passed to the jury. They receive them more calmly than the last.
‘We were able to locate a replica lamp and analyse the materials used in its construction,’ Urquhart says. ‘They matched those we found on the deceased.’
‘From the materials found buried with Brandon, did you draw any other conclusions about his injuries?’
‘No soft tissue remained, so it was impossible to speak of exact wounds. However, we know Brandon lost a lot of blood before his death.’
Mapplethorpe turns to the jury. ‘This would be the evidence of the rug?’ he asks.
‘That’s correct,’ Urquhart confirms. ‘It was a popular IKEA rug, far easier to track down than the lamp and yes, the same make and design as the one in the photograph provided by Surrey CID.’
‘Please observe exhibits 4.1 to 4.4, showing a bloodstained rug.’
The woman on the front row looks ill. Though the blood is barely discernible from the dirt and original dark pattern.
‘And you identified the blood as belonging to Brandon Wells?’ Mapplethorpe says.
‘We did.’
Words such as genetic fingerprinting and DNA profiling are so common today, they hardly require explanation. In 1994, we were completely ignorant of their existence.
‘Brandon lost around two pints of blood,’ Urquhart says. ‘Not enough to be fatal in itself – that would depend on the actual injury. However, whatever the injury, it would certainly have required medical attention.’
Mapplethorpe looks upwards, away from Urquhart and the jury.
‘And though you’re unable to state the exact cause, could you give the jury an indication of the sort of wounds that would typically result in such blood loss?’
The Verdict Page 18