Gareth Dawson Series Box Set

by Nathan Burrows

  “I was a police officer, serving for eleven years in Suffolk Constabulary. I was a cybercrime specialist.”

  “But you are no longer a police officer now?”

  “That’s correct. I resigned from the force two years ago.”

  “Could you share with the jury the details of your resignation?” Paul asked. Alfie turned to face the jury square on, tilting his head upward.

  “Yes. I resigned due to allegations about my behaviour. These allegations were never proven, and no formal action was taken against me, but I felt that my position within the police had become untenable.”

  “I see,” Paul said. “So regardless of whatever these allegations were, no charges were ever brought against you?”

  “They weren’t criminal allegations,” Alfie said. Paul shot a swift glance at Miss Revell, who was leaning forward on her desk.

  “No criminal allegations, no formal action taken, is that correct?” Paul asked.

  “Your Honour,” Miss Revell stood. “If I may, could I question the impartiality of this witness?” The judge looked at Paul for a response.

  “Your Honour, my learned friend is quite within her rights to question his impartiality, and this is precisely why I have raised the witness’ former occupation. However, Mr Nesbitt is here to present tangible evidence he has uncovered in his role as my investigator,” Paul said. It was obvious that he had been expecting the challenge. “He is not here to offer an opinion, nor to speculate. His character cannot be queried by this court, surely?”

  The judge took a few seconds to consider what Miss Revell and Paul had said.

  “Very well,” he replied over the top of his glasses. “But Mr Dewar, I will be swift to intervene if your witness steps outside those parameters.”

  “Thank you, Your Honour,” Paul said. As Miss Revell sat back down in her seat and whispered to one of her colleagues, I noticed Laura let out a deep breath. The burning question I had, and I was sure everyone else in the room had, was exactly what the allegations against Alfie Nesbitt were. It didn’t look like we would find out, though. “Your Honour, I would like to introduce a new exhibit. This is footage from a dashboard camera, or dash-cam, that my investigator has uncovered.” Judge Watling nodded, and the usher wheeled a large flat screen television to the centre of the courtroom. “Alfie, could you tell us how you uncovered this footage?” Paul asked.

  Alfie cleared his throat before replying. When he spoke, he was softly spoken which was a marked difference to when he had taken the oath.

  “I canvassed the taxi firms operating in the area, asking them to review their taskings for the evening in question. I was trying to find any cabbies, sorry, taxi drivers, who may have been in the area at the time of the attack.” Alfie spoke in a similar way to Malcolm, but not as stilted. I wondered if this was something they taught at police school. How to talk in court, or something like that.

  “I see,” Paul said. “And you found some, I take it?” Alfie obviously had, or there would be no need for the big television. I got the impression that Paul was just trying to keep the momentum going and avoid everyone waiting in silence for the usher to plug the damn thing in.

  “Yes, I did,” Alfie replied. “I found a taxi firm based in Norwich, ABC Taxis, which had sent a vehicle for a pickup in Dussindale. They put me in touch with the driver, and I was able to confirm with him that he had a dash-cam fitted. I was also able to obtain the device itself from the driver.” Paul looked across at the usher, who was still struggling with the television. If it wasn’t for the two prison officers either side of me, I’d have gone to give him a hand with it.

  “So, what did you do with this device?” Paul asked.

  “I sent it to a company called Digital Solutions Incorporated, based in Cambridge, for analysis.”

  “Why did you send it to that particular company?” It was obvious that Paul and Alfie were following a well-rehearsed script, but that didn’t make it any less interesting.

  “They’re Home Office approved analysts of digital media and devices.” Alfie glanced across at the public gallery where Malcolm was still sitting. I’d not noticed him come back into the gallery after he’d finished giving evidence. The look the two of them exchanged was fierce. Not much love lost there, then. I wondered again what Alfie had done to get himself thrown out of the police, and whether or not Malcolm had been involved. “They’re the same company that Norfolk Police outsource all their digital analysis to.”

  “Yes, thank you, Alfie. A previous witness has covered that part already,” Paul replied.

  The court usher prodded at a remote control, and the screen flashed into life. He crossed the court and handed the remote control to Paul.

  “Your Honour, I would like to introduce this footage to the court.” The judge nodded in response. “Alfie, before we view the footage, could you just read out the introductory paragraph of the report from Digital Solutions Incorporated?” Alfie unfolded a sheet of paper he had pulled out from a pocket.

  “Following detailed forensic analysis of the device, Digital Solutions Incorporated are able to state with certainty that the device settings have not been altered in any way since installation. These settings include the date and time, which have been confirmed to be correct at the time of the examination and unaltered since the device installation. The device has been found to be in full working order, including the Global Positioning Satellite functions which maintain the date and time stamp.” Alfie’s voice suited the dry jargon perfectly.

  “So the date and time on the device are correct, and haven’t been altered?” Paul summarised.

  “That’s correct.”

  “And this is confirmed by a Home Office approved analyst?” Paul said, hammering the point home for the jury. I leaned forward in my chair, eager to see the footage itself.

  “Yes,” Alfie replied.

  “Thank you,” Paul said. “Could the jury see the footage, please?”

  The usher pointed the remote control toward the television and pressed a button. The DVD player underneath the television whirred into life, and the view through a windscreen flickered onto the screen. In the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, there was some small white text showing a date and time. On the television, the car was driving slowly, and I recognised the area it was driving through as Thorpe St Andrew. It even went past the primary school that I had gone to as a child. It stopped at a red light at the top of one of the main roads leading through the town, Thunder Lane, and a pedestrian could be seen crossing the road in front of the car. It was a very familiar looking pedestrian. Me.

  Paul stabbed at the remote control just as I looked at the car, freezing my face on the screen. The quality was very good indeed, much better than the grainy images from the camera that caught me at The Griffin pub. There was no doubt who it was.

  “Alfie, for the benefit of the jury, could you confirm the location of the vehicle and read out the date and the time on the screen please?” Paul crossed to the map, another red sticker in his hand.

  “The location is the traffic lights between Thunder Lane and St William’s Way, as you can see from the road signs. This is supported by the GPS chip in the dash-cam.” Paul located the junction on the map and placed the sticker on it. It almost overlapped the sticker that was placed over The Heartsease pub, they were that close together. Paul took the lid off his marker pen.

  “What is the time on the footage please?”

  “10:20 pm,” Alfie said.

  Paul wrote 10:20 pm on the sticker and took a step back.

  “Alfie, what is the distance between this junction and The Heartsease pub?” Paul asked.

  “It’s just under half a mile. I measured it using GPS when I walked the route.”

  “How long did that take you?”

  ‘Five minutes,” Alfie replied. Paul tapped the sticker over the Heartsease pub and looked thoughtfully at it, no doubt hoping that the jury was doing the same thing.

  “And the distance betwee
n the junction and the location of Mr Wainwright’s body?” Paul asked.

  “That’s one point three miles. It took me twenty three minutes at normal walking speed,’ Alfie replied. “That was the direct route, not through the park,” he added. Paul tapped again at the map, this time highlighting the sticker over The Griffin pub with ’10:22 pm’ written on it before turning to the jury. He said nothing, but just looked at them with his eyebrows raised, inviting them to make the conclusion themselves. There was no way I could have made it from The Griffin to the spot where the dash-cam had caught me in two minutes. Even Usain Bolt wouldn’t have been able to do it that quickly.

  The screen showing my frozen face stayed turned on as Paul returned to the defence table. Laura handed him another set of notes. Paul looked up at me briefly before he turned back around. He had his back to the jury, and I caught the faintest of smiles on his face before it disappeared as he turned back around.

  “Now, Alfie, you also did some more work for me looking more closely at Mr Wainwright,” Paul said. “Could you tell the court about that?”

  “Yes,” Alfie replied. He looked up toward the public gallery. I followed his gaze and saw that the old couple had returned and were sitting in their original location. “With the permission of Mr Wainwright’s parents, I was able to access his laptop.”

  “Really?” Paul said with a note of what sounded like surprise. “They were happy to hand it over to you?”

  “When I explained what we were looking at, yes.” In the public gallery, the old man nodded at me. “Mr Wainwright’s father was quite surprised that the police hadn’t already asked for it,” Alfie continued.

  “Your Honour,” I heard Miss Revell call out. “This is hearsay, surely.”

  “Yes, you’re quite right,” Judge Watling replied. “Mr Nesbitt, you should know better as an ex-policeman.” Alfie managed to look suitably apologetic for a few seconds, but it didn’t last for long.

  “So, you had the laptop analysed?” Paul continued after the judge had finished telling the jury to disregard the statement. It was as if the objection hadn’t even registered with Paul.

  “Yes, using the same firm as before. Digital Solutions Incorporated.”

  “Which is the firm that the police would have used, had they analysed the laptop?” Paul asked.

  “That’s correct, yes.”

  Paul paused for a few seconds, looking at his notes. I watched him as he stood there, and wondered what was coming next.

  “Could you give us some information about what you found on the laptop, please Alfie?” he asked a couple of seconds later.

  “There were three main elements. His social profiles, his e-mail, and his banking records,” Alfie replied.

  “Let me just check, you were able to access all this information through his laptop?” Paul said, no doubt trying to head off an objection from the prosecutor about whether or not they would be allowed in court. Just as Alfie was about to reply to Paul, the prosecutor got to her feet.

  “Your Honour, may we approach the bench?” she asked. Judge Watling looked down at her, across at Paul, and back to her again. He raised his eyebrows for a few seconds before replying.

  “Yes, please do,” the judge said. Paul and Miss Revell both walked from behind their respective tables toward where the Judge was sitting. For a few minutes, there was a hushed conversation between the three of them. It was impossible to hear anything that was said, and their body language gave nothing away although it was difficult to get any cues as they were facing away from me. There was a quiet hubbub of conversation in the courtroom as the discussion went on, until Judge Watling lifted his head up to address the jurors.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid that I am going to recess the court at this point for further discussions between myself and the counsels.” Judge Watling looked up at the large clock on the wall of the courtroom. “It’s now just after eleven o’clock, so we’ll break here for lunch and reconvene at one o’clock this afternoon.”

  The usher stepped forward and half the people in the court were already on their feet by the time he had told us to ‘all rise’, no doubt keen to make the most of the extra time for lunch. The only people who didn’t move were the two court officials sitting at the table behind the lawyers. Paul and Miss Revell walked behind the judge as they disappeared through the door behind the judge’s bench. As I stood watching them, I tried to imagine what his chambers were like. Mahogany walls, comfortable armchairs, and an endless supply of cigars and brandy perhaps? Or was it magnolia walls and plastic tables and chairs like the rest of the courtroom? The chances of me finding out soon were slim, that much I knew.

  Mr Jackson and his nameless colleague led me back down to the holding area underneath the courtroom and locked me into one of the cells. I sat on the plastic mattress, loosened my tie and undid the top button on my shirt. The cell doors and walls were just bars, so although I was locked in, I could see out through the chipped painted metal. I was the only occupant in there. The second prison officer disappeared back through the door, no doubt off for a smoke, and Mr Jackson sat on one of the chairs in the communal area between the cells. A battered copy of a newspaper sat on the table in front of him.

  “What do you think then, Mr Jackson?” I tried engaging him in conversation. It was worth a try.

  “About what? Norwich’s chances against West Ham at the weekend?” he replied in a gruff voice. That was probably the closest I’d heard him ever come to humour. “I think City’ll get stuffed,” he said. I desperately racked my brains to try to remember something about the current team, but came up short.

  “They’re not bad at the back, but they’ve not got much up front,” I tried, remembering a conversation I’d overhead back at the prison. Mr Jackson looked at me, a curious expression on his face. He made a sound that was somewhere between a grunt and a moan and opened the paper in front of him. I guessed that the conversation was over.

  About ten minutes later, the other prison guard returned closely followed by Laura who was carrying a Sainsbury’s carrier bag. She walked over to the cell and pushed the bag through the bars. I opened it to see a prawn sandwich, a packet of cheese and onion crisps, and a can of coke. I’d not had a prawn sandwich since before I’d been locked up, and it was quite possibly my favourite sandwich in the world.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “Who told you?” I looked up at her to see a broad smile on her face.

  “Your mate Tommy mentioned that you had a bit of a thing for prawn sarnies, so I thought I’d treat you,” she said, still grinning. I looked across at Mr Jackson, afraid for a second that he would come across and confiscate the bag. He didn’t seem bothered in the slightest, so I tore open the sandwich and took a huge bite out of it. I closed my eyes and savoured the taste. When I opened them again, Laura was sitting on one of the plastic chairs just the other side of the bars. I’d been so focused on the taste of the soft bread and prawn mayonnaise that I’d not even heard her fetch a chair.

  “So, what’s going on?” I mumbled through another bite of the sandwich.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she replied with a smile. “I’m not sure, to be honest. I think it’s probably about whether what’s on Wainwright’s laptop is admissible or not.”

  “Why would it not be?” I asked.

  “Er, because he’s dead,” Laura said, the smile fading. “All sorts of consent issues there. I wouldn’t worry though, Paul’s all over it.”

  “How important is what’s on the thing?” I said, my appetite starting to fade. Laura looked at me, her face now deadpan. She blew her breath out through her cheeks.

  “Well, I wouldn’t quite say ‘no laptop, no case’, but probably not far off it, to be honest. It’s pretty crucial.”

  I put the remains of the sandwich back in the plastic bag, my appetite now completely gone. This made little sense. Surely they all had to agree what could and couldn’t be talked about in the court before the trial? Laura and I sat in s
ilence for a few minutes before she looked at her watch.

  “I need to get going, Gareth,” she said. “I’m meeting Seb for lunch around the corner.” I tried to hide my disappointment as I thanked her for the sandwich, but from the look on her face as she said goodbye, I didn’t think I’d done a very good job of it. When she’d left the cell block, I slipped my shoes off and lay down on the thin plastic mattress, lacing my arms behind my head and staring at the ceiling.

  I seemed to spend most of my life in this position, just thinking.

  38

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I trust that you all had an enjoyable lunch,” Judge Watling said from his raised position at the front of the courtroom. I thought about my half-eaten sandwich that was in the bin of the cell block downstairs. I’d eaten the crisps and drunk the can of coke, but had not been able to finish the sandwich. “I apologise for the delay over lunch, but the counsels and I had a couple of the finer points of law to discuss. For the record, I have ruled that the evidence contained within Mr Wainwright’s laptop should be allowed into evidence.” I exhaled, not even aware that I’d been holding my breath. Laura turned around to look at me, and I tried to keep my face neutral but might have let a small smile slip through. I just caught the judge saying something about the Criminal Justice Act from the year two thousand and something or other. I couldn’t care less what the legal point was, I was just relieved that it was going to be allowed. As Paul stood to face the front of the courtroom, I had to remind myself that I had no idea what the evidence actually was, but I trusted his judgement. I didn’t have any other options.

  “Mr Nesbitt,” Paul said to Alfie who was back in his original position on the witness stand. “Let’s start with social profiles, shall we?”

  “Yes, certainly,” Alfie replied. “Until almost a year ago, Mr Wainwright was an active social media user. He had accounts on Twitter, Facebook and also Instagram, and was active on all of them. These accounts have all been verified with the relevant service providers as existing and used until that point.” Alfie stopped there and looked at Paul. This looked like it was a well-rehearsed play for the jury, but I guessed it didn’t matter whether it was or not.