‘Yes, it would.’
‘Bearing that in mind, can you say how many hours before you saw the nose the injury had been inflicted?’
‘Several hours, certainly.’
‘Well, three? Ten? Even more?’
‘That is hard to say. With complete accuracy.’
‘Then let me put to you a possibility. A young man goes out on the Monday evening, gets lamentably drunk in a pub, and on the way home wishes to urinate in the gutter. But, stumbling over an uneven paving stone, he falls heavily forward and smashes his nose into the tailboard of a jobbing builder’s lorry parked by the kerb. Could that have inflicted the injury you saw? The previous night?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Well, Dr Melrose, yes or no? Is it possible?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you, Doctor. No further questions.’
Vansittart was speaking to Jonathan Stein; in code, but it came through loud and clear. What he said was: that is exactly my client’s story and if he sticks to it, we both know the prosecution cannot disprove it.
At the back of the court Jack Burns swore inwardly. Why could not Melrose simply have insisted the injury could not possibly have occurred more than four hours before he tended it? No-one would ever have known. Damn scrupulously honest doctors.
Mr Paul Finch was the head of forensics. He was not a police officer, for the Met has for years used civilian scientists on contract for its forensic work.
‘You received into your possession a large quantity of items of clothing taken from the flat shared by the accused?’ Vansittart asked.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘And every stitch of clothing worn by the victim during the attack?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you examined everything with the latest state-of-the-art technology to see if any fibres from the one set could be found on the other set?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were there any such traces?’
‘No.’
‘You also received a T-shirt soaked in dried blood?’
‘Yes.’
‘And a sample of blood from my client, Mr Price?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did they match?’
‘They did.’
‘Was there anyone else’s blood on that T-shirt?’
‘No.’
‘Did you receive samples of blood taken from the pavement in the area of Paradise Way or the streets of the Meadowdene Grove estate?’
‘No.’
‘Did you receive samples of blood taken from beneath and around a builder’s truck in Farrow Road?’
Mr Finch was totally bewildered. He glanced at the bench, but received no help. DI Burns had his head in his hands. Miss Sundaran was looking out of her depth.
‘Farrow Road? No.’
‘Precisely. No further questions.’
Mr Hamilton presented his post-mortem report with cheerful self-confidence. Cause of death, he pronounced, was due to severe axonal damage to the brain stem caused by repeated and heavy blows to the skull, compatible with blows administered by boots.
‘Did you,’ asked James Vansittart, ‘examine every inch of the body during post-mortem?’
‘Of course.’
‘Including the right hand?’
Mr Hamilton referred to his notes.
‘I have no reference to the right hand.’
‘Because there was no damage to it?’
‘That would be the only reason.’
‘Thank you, Mr Hamilton.’
Unlike the professionals, Mr Whittaker, the elderly dog-walker, was slightly nervous and had taken some trouble with his dress. He wore his blazer with the Royal Artillery badge; he was entitled: in his National Service he had been a gunner.
There had already been a pleasing stir at the Over Sixties Club when it was learned he would be a witness in a murder trial, and a grateful but bewildered Mitch had received a lot of petting.
He described to the bench, led by Miss Sundaran, how he had taken Mitch for his daily walk just after dawn, but how, fearing rain was coming, he entered the walled-off waste ground via a missing panel and headed for home by a short cut. He explained how Mitch, running free, had come back to him with something in his mouth. It was a wallet; so, recalling the appeal in the Friday paper, he had taken it to Dover Street police station.
When he had finished, the other man rose, the one in the West End suit. Mr Whittaker knew he represented those bastards in the dock. They would have been hanged in the witness’s younger days, and good riddance. So this man was the enemy. But he smiled in a most friendly fashion.
‘Best hour of the day on a summer’s morning? Cool, quiet, no-one about?’
‘Yes. That’s why I like it.’
‘So do I. Often take my Jack Russell for a walk about then.’
He smiled again, real friendly. Not such a bad cove after all. Though Mitch was a lurcher cross, Mr Whittaker had had a Jack Russell when he was on the buses. The blond man could not be all bad.
‘So you are walking across the waste ground and Mitch is running free?’
‘Yes.’
‘And there he is, suddenly back beside you, with something in his mouth?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see exactly where he found it?’
‘Not exactly, no.’
‘Could it have been, say, ten yards from the fence?’
‘Well, I was about twenty yards into the field. Mitchcameupfrombehindme.’
‘So he could have found the wallet about ten yards from the sheet-metal fence?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Thank you, Mr Whittaker.’
The elderly man was bewildered. An usher beckoned him down from the witness stand. Was that it? He was led to the back of the court and found a seat.
Fingerprints is another discipline the Met contracts out to civilian experts and one of these was Mr Clive Adams.
He described the wallet that had been delivered to him; the three sets of prints he had found; how he had eliminated those of the finder, Mr Whittaker, and those of the owner, now dead. And how he had matched the third set exactly to those of Harry Cornish. Mr Vansittart rose.
‘Any smudges?’
‘Some.’
‘How are smudges caused, Mr Adams?’
‘Well, one fingerprint imposed over another will cause a smudge that cannot be used in evidence. Or rubbing against another surface.’
‘Like the inside of a pocket?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which were the clearest prints?’
‘Those of Mr Whittaker and Mr Cornish.’
‘And they were on the outside of the wallet?’
‘Yes, but two prints from Cornish were inside, on the inner faces.’
‘So, those of Mr Whittaker were imposed on the plastic when he held the wallet in his hand and never smudged by being shoved inside a tight pocket?’
‘So it would seem.’
‘And those of Mr Cornish were also imposed in the same way and also remained clear because after that point the wallet was not rubbed against the fabric of an inside pocket?’
‘So it would seem.’
‘If a man, running from the scene of a mugging, opened the wallet, plucked from it all its contents, then shoved the wallet into the rear pocket of his jeans, it would have his clear prints on the outer cover of the plastic?’
‘Yes,it would.’
‘But would the denim fabric, the tightness of jeans pockets and the running motion, blur those prints within, say, half a mile?’
‘That might be the effect.’
‘So, if our runner half a mile later plucks the empty wallet from his rear pocket with forefinger and thumb in order to throw it away, he would leave just that forefinger and thumb print for you to find?’
‘Yes.’
‘But if a finder came along and so covered the plastic surface with his own prints, could he not over-smudge the forefinger and thumb?’
&nbs
p; ‘I suppose he might.’
‘You see, your report says that there were some smudges, over-covered by fresher prints, that could have come from another hand.’
‘They are only smudges. The prints under the smudges could also be those of the owner or Cornish.’
In the back of the court Jack Burns’s stomach turned. Miss Verity Armitage. She had picked up the fallen wallet from the floor of her flower shop.
‘Mr Adams, the wallet was plucked from the deceased’s pocket just after two last Tuesday fortnight. By the same hour on Wednesday or shortly afterwards, Mr Cornish was in police custody. He must have put his prints on that wallet within that twenty-four-hour period?’
‘Yes.’
‘But the wallet was only found on Sunday morning. It must have lain in that grass for between four and a half and five and a half days. Yet the prints were clear.’
‘There was no sign of water damage, sir. In fine dry conditions that is perfectly possible.’
‘Then can you say precisely whether Mr Cornish’s prints were impressed onto the plastic on Tuesday afternoon or the Wednesday morning?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Wednesday morning two young men are walking down Mandela Road when they see, lying in the gutter, a wallet. With quite normal curiosity, one of them stops to pick it up. He opens it to see what it contains. But there is nothing, neither money nor papers. It is a cheap wallet, worth nothing. He flicks it high over the sheet-metal fence separating Mandela Road from some waste ground; it lands some ten yards into the area and lies in the long grass until discovered by a dog on the Sunday. Feasible?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Yes or no, Mr Adams. Would the prints then match the ones you found?’
‘Yes.’
Another message for Jonathan Stein. That is what Harry Cornish is going to insist happened, and it is a complete explanation of his prints on that wallet. Mr Jonathan Stein stared down thoughtfully and made notes.
There remained Mr Veejay Patel. His two identifications and his statement were completely unambiguous. Miss Sundaran led him through his evidence stage by stage. At the back, Burns relaxed. He would get his committal. Vansittart rose.
‘Mr Patel, you are an honest man.’
‘I hope so.’
‘A man who, if he thought, just thought, that he might have made a mistake, would not be too arrogant to admit the possibility?’
‘I hope not.’
‘You say in your statement that you saw Mr Price quite clearly because he was facing towards you.’
‘Yes. He was to my right, from the shop window, facing three-quarters towards me.’
‘But he was also facing the victim. So the victim was facing away from you. That was why you could not later help in the identification of his face.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you say the second mugger, whom you believe to be Mr Cornish, was standing behind the victim. Surely he also was facing away from you?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Then how did you see his face?’
Mr Patel looked worried.
‘I did not do so, then. Only when they began to circle the man on the ground, kicking him.’
‘Mr Patel, if you were kicking someone on the ground, where would you look?’
‘Well, at the man.’
‘Meaning, downwards?’
‘Yes.’
‘If I may crave the court’s indulgence, sir. Mr Cornish, would you stand up?’
In the dock, Harry Cornish rose, as did the prison officer to whom he was handcuffed. Mr Stein looked startled, but Vansittart would not pause.
‘Mr Cornish, would you please look down at a spot in front of your feet.’
Cornish did so. His lank hair fell in a screen covering any sign of his face from the court. There was a stunned silence.
‘Sit down, Mr Cornish,’ said Vansittart. He addressed the Indian shopkeeper quite gently.
‘Mr Patel, I suggest you saw a thin, sallow-faced man with ear-length hair at a distance of thirty yards. The next day when you saw a photo of a thin, sallow-faced man with ear-length hair you assumed it must be the same man. Could that be what happened?’
‘I suppose so,’ mumbled Veejay Patel. Burns tried vainly to catch his eye. He would not make eye contact. He’s been got at, thought Burns in despair. Someone has been on the blower to him, a quiet voice in the middle of the night, mentioning his wife and daughter. Oh God, not again.
‘Now, regarding Mr Price. Do you ever go to watch Arsenal at Highbury, Mr Patel?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You see, looking across that road on that terrible day, you saw a beefy young white man with a shorn skull, did you not?’
‘Yes.’
‘And if you went to Highbury, you would see a hundred of them. And if you look behind the windscreens of fifty per cent of the white vans that cut up other drivers on the roads of north London every day, you would see another hundred. And do you know what they wear, Mr Patel? Blue jeans, usually grubby, leather belts and a soiled T-shirt. It is almost a uniform. Have you ever seen men like that before?’
‘Yes.’
‘All over the streets of London?’
‘Yes.’
‘On television when we are all shamed by the spectacle of foreign policemen trying to cope with English football hooligans?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mr Patel, the victim could not have punched his attacker with the force you describe. It would have grazed his right knuckles, probably bruised the bones of his hand. I suggest you saw him raise his right hand, probably to ward off a blow to his face he thought was coming. Could that be what you saw?’
‘Yes, I suppose it could.’
‘But if you could make a mistake like that, could you not also make a mistake about a human face at thirty yards?’
Burns held his head in his hands. Whoever had briefed the frightened shopkeeper had done a good job. Patel had not withdrawn all co-operation from the police, for then he could have been treated as a hostile witness. He had just changed ‘absolutely’ to ‘possibly’ and ‘definitely’ to ‘maybe’. Maybe is not enough; a jury cannot convict on maybe.
When the abject Mr Patel had left the witness box, Miss Sundaran said to Mr Stein, ‘That is the case for the prosecution, sir. We would ask for a committal to Crown Court on a charge of murder.’
The stipendiary raised an eyebrow to James Vansittart. Both knew what was coming. One could have heard a pin drop.
‘Mr Stipendiary, we both know the meaning and the significance of the Law’s Test. You have to have before you sufficient evidence upon which, if uncontradicted . . .’ Vansittart dragged the last word out slowly to stress how unlikely this was, ‘. . . a reasonable jury, properly directed, could safely convict.
‘It just is not there, sir. The Crown had three real pieces of evidence. Mr Patel, the broken nose and the wallet. Mr Patel, clearly a thoroughly honest man, has come to the view that he could, after all, have picked two men bearing a similarity, but no more, to the ones he saw that afternoon.
‘That leaves the matter of the broken nose of Mr Price and the fingerprints of Mr Cornish upon an empty and discarded wallet. Although you here today, sir, are not strictly concerned with what may, or may not, be said at another date in another court, or indeed with the obvious lines of defence which arise in this case, it must be clear to you from your considerable experience that in due course the allegations regarding both nose and wallet will be comprehensively and indeed compellingly refuted.
‘There is a perfectly logical explanation both to the broken nose and the wallet. I think we both know that a jury cannot safely convict. I must ask for a dismissal.’
Yes, thought Jonathan Stein, and a jury will see your clients looking spruce and clean, shirt, jacket and tie; the jury will never see the records of these two homicidal thugs. You will get your acquittal and waste a deal of public time and money.
‘It is with the most considerable r
eluctance that I must concur with Mr Vansittart. The case is dismissed. Let the accused be discharged,’ he said. Thoroughly disgusted by what he had had to do, he left the bench.
‘All rise,’ shouted the clerk, a bit late, but most of those present were rushing for the doors. Cornish and Price, uncuffed, tried to reach from the dock to shake Vansittart’s hand, but he stalked past them towards the corridor.
It takes time to get from the second to the ground floor: the several lifts are usually busy. By chance, Jack Burns made it first and was staring gloomily and angrily.
Price and Cornish, free citizens, swaggering, swearing and snarling, came out of a lift and walked towards the doors. Burns turned. They faced each other across twenty feet.
In unison, both thugs raised rigid middle fingers and jerked them up and down at the detective.
‘So much for you, filth,’ screamed Price. Together they swaggered out into Highbury Road to head back to their squat.
‘Unpleasant,’ said a quiet voice at his elbow. Burns took in the smooth blond hair, the lazy blue eyes and languid, self-confident manner and felt a wave of loathing for Vansittart and all his type.
‘I hope you are proud of yourself, Mr Vansittart. They killed that harmless old man as surely as we are standing here. And thanks to you they are out there again. Until the next time.’ His anger boiled over and he did not even make an attempt at courtesy. ‘Christ, don’t you make enough taking cases for the mega-rich down in the Strand? Why do you have to come up here for Legal Aid peanuts to set those animals free?’
There was no mockery in Vansittart’s blue eyes, but something very like compassion. Then he did something strange. He leaned forward and whispered into Burns’s ear. The detective caught a whiff of an expensive but discreet Penhaligon essence.
‘This may surprise you, Mr Burns,’ the voice murmured, ‘but it has to do with the triumph of justice.’
Then he was gone, out through the revolving doors. A Bentley with a driver at the wheel swept up as if on cue. Vansittart threw his attaché case onto the rear seat and climbed in after it. The Bentley eased away and out of sight.
‘Triumph of my arse,’ snarled Burns.
It was the lunch hour. He decided to walk the two miles back to the nick. He was halfway there when his pager sounded. It was the station. He used his mobile. His colleague on the front desk came on.
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