It was his rigid thinking that might let him down, and despite his outward confidence there was a slight tremble to his voice as he answered the prosecutor’s questions. It wasn’t the speaking in public part, but the prospect that one ill-thought word could trip him. He answered questions slowly, methodically, pausing to think every time, his brow starting to speckle with perspiration, his cheeks flushed.
He was right to feel like that, because Dan was ready to pounce on any slip-up.
The prosecutor sat down. Dan stood, his turn.
This was the part he relished the most. When a cat sees a mouse, its eyes are widest and most keen when the mouse is cornered, still with a chance of racing past before a large paw can trap it, even though its instinct tells it to stay small. It was the anticipation of the kill that excited the cat, not the kill itself.
It was the same for Dan. He paused, as always, giving Hogg another few seconds to wonder what was coming, waited until he licked his lips and tried to cover his nerves with a half-smile.
In the witness box, silences grew long and were only ever filled with more nerves.
Dan stood straight and gripped the edge of his gown. ‘Chief Inspector, did you know of Nick Connor before this investigation?’
Hogg paused for a moment, as if unsure whether he could answer like he wanted to, because experience told him that the jurors couldn’t be told of a person’s criminal past unless it showed a pattern of similar behaviour. He glanced to the judge, who nodded for him to continue, but she raised an eyebrow.
Dan knew what that meant: if the answer was a problem for the defendant, it was the fault of the defence lawyer.
Hogg read the cue and turned to the jury to answer. He was trained to be like that, to give the jurors the impression that he was treating them with respect, but it was really about giving himself a few more seconds’ thinking time. ‘Yes, I knew of him.’
‘As a petty thief, a small-time crook?’
‘He was a target criminal.’
‘Why?’
Hogg faltered for a moment, before he answered, ‘He was a prolific offender.’
‘A prolific petty offender?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘And selling stolen debit cards is consistent with his offending.’
‘I agree.’
‘Were you surprised when he was implicated in a murder?’
Hogg was about to answer, but he paused, knew that he had to revert to his media training. ‘We had an open mind on the case.’
‘You knew him as a petty thief, Chief Inspector. That’s what I asked you, and you didn’t mention that you knew him as a thug or a violent man.’
‘Well, no, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t resort to violence.’
‘You’d agree it was out of character though?’
‘I didn’t know him that well.’
‘But you knew of his reputation, his background. He’s one of your targets, after all.’
Hogg turned to the jury again, trying to re-establish his authority. ‘He was a well-known figure to the police.’
‘I’ll ask you again, because you didn’t really tell the court what your opinion was. Were you surprised that Nick Connor had seemingly graduated from petty thief to murderer?’
Hogg glanced towards the prosecutor, who was ignoring him and staring at the desk.
‘Well, yes, I suppose I was.’
‘But despite your surprise, once you had Nick Connor in your sights, there were no other suspects. Right, Chief Inspector?’
‘We followed the evidence, and it all led to Nick Connor.’
‘Once you’d discovered who was selling the stolen card, what other lines of enquiry did you pursue?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’
‘You know exactly what I mean, because if you only travel down one road, you will only reach one destination.’
‘If the evidence leads you down that road, I really don’t see your point.’
Dan was trying to not let his irritation show, but it was becoming difficult. ‘Do you think you carried out a thorough investigation?’
‘Of course I do. I’m a senior police officer used to dealing with murder cases. I am the SIO in this case.’
‘And for the benefit of the jury, what is a Murder Manual?’
‘It’s a manual that shows best practice in a murder investigation.’
Dan reached to a small book he had secreted under his papers. ‘Is this the one used by your Force?’
Hogg squinted as he tried to see. ‘Yes, it looks like it.’
‘You’ll be familiar with the section on the three elements of homicide.’
‘Of course,’ Hogg said. ‘I’m familiar with all elements of the manual.’
‘Tell the court what the three elements are.’
Hogg spoke with renewed confidence, back on familiar ground, when he turned back to the jury and said, ‘Location, victim and offender.’
‘The manual describes them as being like three circles, doesn’t it, and where they intersect is where the murder is? Where the victim and offender come across one another in a certain location is where the murder happens. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Location is important then?’
‘Of course.’
‘And why the victim was in the location is important?’
‘Yes, absolutely.’
‘Tell me, Chief Inspector, and also the jurors, why was Mark Roberts in Queensgate Park?’
He paused again, his head cocked. His voice had quietened when he answered, ‘That is something we have tried to establish.’
‘I asked you about the actions of Mark Roberts, not your actions. I can ask the question again, if you prefer.’
‘No, I understand it perfectly.’
‘And the answer is that you don’t know why he was there. Am I correct?’
Hogg paused before he answered, working out whether there was a better answer than the truth, but instead went for an apologetic look and said, ‘I’m afraid we were not able to establish that.’
Dan turned to the jurors but kept his mental focus on Hogg. ‘How did Mark Roberts travel to Queensgate Park?’
‘On foot, we presume, as his car was still at the hotel he was staying at.’
‘Not a taxi?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘Or a bus?’
‘Well, yes, equally.’
‘And he must have passed numerous security cameras?’
‘We couldn’t find any footage of him.’
‘It would be fair to say that you don’t know how long he had been there?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Or how he got there?’
He swallowed. ‘No.’
‘And what he was doing there?’
A shake of the head. ‘No.’
Dan paused before the next part. He knew he’d made some headway: he’d been able to get the officer to admit that they knew little about Mark Roberts, revealing how they’d focused on the offender and stopped thinking about the victim.
This next phase in his questioning was the crucial phase though, because it was where Nick’s case became interesting, where the jurors would think that there was a story they weren’t being told and that perhaps Nick Connor was nothing more than what he said he was: a weak and dishonest thief. But a murderer? Not a chance.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Jayne was in her car, watching, waiting, parked across the road from the council offices.
Most people had a lunch break and the day was warming up, so Jayne expected Leoni to go for a walk.
She’d been there for a couple of hours. The offices were in a row of seventies concrete squashed between Victorian millstone, a modernisation that aged the most quickly of all. The interior was dim, smoked glass preventing her from getting a good view inside. The main door had opened occasionally, but if Leoni was at work, she was either staying at her desk or else she had copped for the
late lunch.
Jayne was unsure if she’d recognise Leoni, the photograph she’d seen in Wakefield was from when she was a teenager, but she needn’t have worried. She knew it was Leoni as soon as she emerged; even though her hair had changed from the dyed black Jayne in the photograph to blonde and scraped back, she bore a strong resemblance to her mother. Or at least how Sarah might have looked had she not been derailed by drink and boredom.
Leoni headed towards the main street in the town centre, now pedestrianised, so Jayne had to get out of her car to follow. Leoni was wearing a long jacket, her hands jammed into its pockets, and almost seemed to shrink in the crowd.
Jayne kept a discreet distance, but Leoni was enjoying her leisurely stroll away from the office and it was hard to maintain a slow pace.
There was a department store on the main street and Leoni was headed right for it, so Jayne decided that the sudden crowd of people enabled her to get closer. She was almost on Leoni’s shoulder by the time they reached the store, and Leoni held the door open for her as she went in. There was no look of recognition, no anger at being followed. Just a woman buying her lunch, not paying attention to her surroundings.
Leoni went to the food aisle and picked up a meal deal, couscous and salad.
There was only one way out of the shop, so Jayne went back outside to wait. There was a bench in the middle of the precinct, next to a stone planter. The drinkers would take it over later, but for now it was filled with lunch-break people, enjoying their sandwiches in the sun. Winter was tough and bleak in Highford, so people grabbed at whatever sun appeared, with men in tracksuit bottoms and nothing on top, drinking from lager cans, their bodies lean and ripped.
Jayne was about to head over to them when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
She jumped back, surprised. When she turned, she gasped.
It was Porter.
He started pulling her towards an alley that ran between two shops.
Jayne tried to push him away, but his grip was strong. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Just get in here. Don’t make a scene.’
She yanked her arm away and pushed him in the chest. People stopped to watch. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Quick, in there, before she sees me,’ he hissed. ‘We need to talk.’
‘There’s no debate,’ Jayne said, remembering the threat she’d made to Porter the night before when she’d called him. ‘Rodney is talking and telling everything.’
‘Please, out of sight. She can’t see me.’
Jayne considered him, wary, but there was something in his eyes that was more plea than threat. She looked towards the department store. Leoni was at the till, fishing in her purse for some money. ‘You better make this quick.’
She went into the alley but told Porter to go further in, so that she’d be able to run to the street if he turned nasty. Once they were out of sight, she said, ‘Are you ready to talk?’
‘I’ve come a long way and dreaded this moment for a long time. Let’s at least have lunch.’
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Dan turned a page on his notebook, just to emphasise to the jurors that he was moving on to the next part, and to allow Chief Inspector Hogg to wonder what was happening next.
Dan straightened. ‘Chief Inspector, what do you know about Mark Roberts’s movements in the months leading up to his death.’
‘I know some of it, but fairly limited, due to his lifestyle.’
‘Lifestyle?’ Dan worried for a moment that there was something he didn’t know, that Barbara had kept back from him. ‘How do you mean?’
‘He was a loner. No one ever came forward that he confided in, and when we spoke to those people who knew him, no one knew what he had been doing with his time. His bank accounts showed that he travelled around a lot, but that might have been to do with his job.’
‘As a journalist and writer?’
‘Yes. And self-employed, so there was no one to keep any records except himself.’
‘What about his laptop, or his phone? Were his appointments on those?’
Hogg narrowed his eyes. Dan knew the answer, and Hogg knew that he couldn’t avoid it. ‘We don’t know if he had a laptop.’
‘A journalist and a writer without a laptop? As the senior officer, the one directing the investigation, didn’t that strike you as unusual?’
Hogg swallowed. ‘All I know is that we didn’t recover a laptop. Either from the scene or where he was staying.’
‘And a phone?’
‘Yes, he had a phone. We got his phone records and he’d last used it at eight thirty, but we don’t know who called him because the number belonged to a pay-as-you-go bought in cash six months earlier. The shop where it was bought didn’t have any CCTV going back that far.’
‘But Mark Roberts had a phone with him?’
‘I just know he made a call at eight thirty.’
‘And the location the call was made from?’
Hogg let out a long breath. He knew where the questioning was going. ‘The cell siting put it close to where he was found the next morning.’
‘And his phone was on a contract?’
‘It was.’
‘What sort of contract?’
‘An iPhone contract.’
Dan allowed himself a smile. This had all been buried in the unused material, not considered relevant by the prosecution, because who Mark Roberts was calling was not relevant when it was a robbery gone wrong.
Dan straightened. ‘How far did you look to see whether his phone had been passed on?’
‘We kept an eye on the online sites.’
‘And no one has been caught trying to sell an iPhone?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘And no one has been caught selling a laptop that could be traced back to Mark Roberts?’
‘No.’
‘If I understand it correctly then, the only item Nick Connor sold on was a couple of contactless debit cards.’
‘You’ll have to ask your client about that.’
‘But you’ve no evidence of Nick Connor selling a laptop?’
‘Well, no.’
‘Or an iPhone?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘The two items that could contain information about whatever Mark Roberts was writing about, or would explain why he was in Highford, were never found?’
‘I’ve just answered that.’
‘And these are much more valuable than a couple of debit cards.’
‘That depends on how much you spend before they get stopped.’
‘How much was spent before they were recovered?’
Hogg had stopped looking towards the jurors and was fixated on Dan now. A bead of sweat ran down his temple. ‘Nothing. They were never used.’
Dan paused to let that sink in, before he asked, ‘As the senior officer, what was your theory about a laptop or phone not being recovered?’
‘I didn’t have one.’
‘You ignored their disappearance?’
‘I follow the evidence.’
‘And the evidence concludes that Mark Roberts had a phone not long before he died you haven’t recovered, and you can’t establish a link between the phone and Nick Connor, right?’
‘Well, yes, I see what you mean.’
Dan widened his eyes and turned to the jury. ‘You ignored it because if the phone or laptop had been taken before Nick Connor chanced upon the scene, he would no longer fit your case?’
Hogg didn’t answer, so Dan turned back to him.
‘That’s the uncomfortable truth, isn’t it, because if the laptop or phone had already been taken, someone other than Nick Connor had already been at the scene?’
There was a fine bead of sweat on Hogg’s top lip as he replied, ‘All I can say is that the items were never found.’
‘There was no laptop or phone found in either Nick Connor’s flat or the cottage Mark Roberts was renting?’
‘No.’
‘Nor in the burnt remains of Nick Connor’s clothes?’
‘No, they were not.’
‘What about footprints at the scene?’
‘Yes. We recovered burnt trainers at the back of the defendant’s home. Nike Air Vapormax, size 10. Very distinctive. They matched the footprints in the blood.’
Dan rummaged in his papers for the crime scene photographs before inviting the jurors to go to their bundles and go to the page he was holding aloft. ‘Those footprints?’
Hogg squinted as he peered forward before answering, ‘Yes.’
‘Pointed towards the body?’
‘They appear to be so.’
‘Perhaps from someone peering in for a closer look as they stumble across someone already dead?’
The judge intervened. ‘You can’t expect the officer to speculate on that, Mr Grant.’
Dan nodded his apology, but the seed had already been planted. He turned back to his notes. ‘But turning to what you might know, Chief Inspector, you said that Mark Roberts had been travelling around. Did that include to somewhere called Brampton?’
Hogg thought about that, and answered, ‘Yes. A small resort on the Yorkshire coast.’
‘Did you find out what he was doing there?’
‘We didn’t pursue that line of inquiry.’
Dan made a show of seeming surprised. ‘Really? A murder victim’s movements in the months leading to his death didn’t seem important?’
Hogg blushed. ‘There was no known connection between Brampton and Nick Connor, and Mark Roberts visited a number of places.’
Dan smiled when he said, ‘Your focus was on the offender again, not the victim, wouldn’t you agree?’
Hogg took a deep breath as he tried to hide his irritation. ‘No, I don’t agree.’
‘How long before he came to Highford was Mark Roberts in Brampton?’
Hogg put his head back as he thought about that. ‘A couple of weeks.’
‘Shortly after visiting Brampton, he was found murdered in Highford?’
‘Yes, that’s what I just said.’
‘Have you heard of someone called Rodney Walker?’
A few seconds pause and then, ‘Is he the man who killed some children years ago.’
‘Two children, to be exact, so the allegation went. It was the Brampton connection that reminded you, wasn’t it?’
The Innocent Ones Page 28