To Kill a Man - Maggie Costello Series 05 (2020)

by Bourne, Sam

  ‘Legally speaking, the issues confronting Natasha Winthrop have not altered. But the political context of this case has altered dramatically.’ Good thread

  Whatever evidence the DC Police have against Winthrop, they can put it in a file, tie it with a ribbon and forget about it. There is not a jury in America that would convict her for killing a serial rapist and wanted murderer. #IStandWithNatasha

  The two of them, Maggie and Natasha, had not moved from their seats. Instead, they sat there, with their phones in their hands, as the world came to them. The reaction time between the naming of the dead man and the hailing of Winthrop as a modern-day hero was breathtakingly short. What might have once taken weeks or days was now the business of seconds, as public opinion remoulded itself before their eyes. The first shift, triggered by the CCTV story casting Winthrop as a liar and, perhaps, much worse, was now entirely reversed. She had slayed a dragon, exacting revenge on behalf of all womankind.

  Maggie could not stop scrolling. A man had broken into the home of a woman, bent on attacking her. She had fought back and killed that man – unaware that the man she had killed was a murderous rapist on the run. It was the stuff of legend. A myth was building, right now, in real time. Maggie could feel it taking shape between her fingers.

  The phones were still ringing, but Natasha’s was no longer buzzing. She had turned it off. She was resting her chin on her fist and thinking. Maggie spoke first.

  ‘Something tells me that DC Police won’t be rushing you back in for questioning any time soon.’

  Winthrop didn’t move. Her gaze remained fixed on a spot on the carpet.

  Maggie began to collect her things. She was about to say something – ‘Well, that may be the shortest assignment of my career’ – but thought better of it. Of course, Winthrop was subdued. She now understood that the man who had made his way into her house, who had had his hands all over her body, who had pressed her to the ground and violated her, that that man was someone capable of the most extreme violence. Natasha Winthrop now understood that she had had a brush with death and, Maggie knew well, the natural response to that was not only relief.

  Now Maggie stood at the door to the office, the cacophony of phones chiming louder than ever. ‘I’ll be going,’ she said quietly.

  That stirred Natasha out of her thoughts. ‘Oh no, I am sorry. I do that occasionally, I’m afraid: one of my “trances”, Great-Aunt Peggy used to call it.’

  ‘Great-Aunt Peggy?’

  ‘The lady who brought me up. After my parents—’

  ‘Christ, yes. Sorry. Of course. That was inept of me.’ Maggie had read that on Wikipedia and should have remembered it: Winthrop’s parents had been killed in a car crash when she was a teenager, leaving her to be brought up by an aunt. It had happened in Germany, where her father had been serving with the US Air Force. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not at all. No Peggy to pick me up on it now, of course. Probably fallen into the most appalling habits.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Died a few years ago, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Thank you. I do miss her terribly though, as you can imagine.’ Natasha was now on her feet, the two of them walking towards the reception desk. ‘It’s been wonderful to talk. Thank you so much for coming by.’

  ‘It was my pleasure. Really. I’m glad everything’s working out.’

  ‘Well, fate does seem to have dealt us rather a twist.’

  ‘The police should be out of your hair now. But if you need anything, you know where I am.’

  ‘I do, Maggie. Thank you.’

  ‘And Natasha?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you do decide to run for office, I can help with that too. You should think about it.’

  ‘I’m not sure about that. America’s a very conservative country.’

  ‘But the way you put it in there, the way you talked: you’d be surprised how many people would—’

  ‘No, I don’t mean what I stand for. I mean what just happened to me. Is America ready to accept a woman who’s been raped as their president?’ An ironic smile crossed her lips. ‘I suspect they’d rather not have to think about it.’

  Maggie persisted. ‘If you change your mind, call me. You know the deadline to register as a candidate is a week tomorrow. After that, you can’t get on the ballot paper. There’s not much time.’

  Natasha extended a hand with another smile, signalling that it was time to part. ‘I’m grateful, Maggie. Really.’

  TUESDAY

  Chapter 12

  Washington, DC

  Ratface had had to give up his solo spot at the head of the table. He now shared that space with another, his chair placed a deferential inch behind hers, just to remove any doubt. She being Carol Ward Tucker, Chief of Police.

  ‘Thank you, colleagues,’ she began, her voice the firm, no-nonsense timbre of a school principal, one that carried an unspoken warning: Don’t even think of messing with me. I worked twice as hard as any white woman to get here and four times as hard as any white man. The men in this room were terrified of her, starting with Ratface.

  ‘Assistant Chief Hussey has briefed me on the Winthrop case. I am fully up to speed. I would say only this. No officer on this force should draw the mistaken conclusion that, in light of recent developments relating to the identity of the dead man found in the Winthrop property, our interest in resolving this matter has somehow terminated. It has not. I do not want the people of this city believing they can kill people in their houses with impunity, so long as those they kill have a sufficiently ugly history. That’s not how it works. We are part of the criminal justice system. Each of those words matter. We bring criminals to justice. And we have a system to do it. A system. We do not condone, explicitly or implicitly, vigilante action, no matter how justified that action might look to the people we serve. Is that clear?’

  There was a recalcitrant murmur, akin to a morning greeting from the sixth grade.

  ‘With that in mind, I want to make clear that we will pursue this case with our usual vigour. If a crime has been committed, we will find the evidence and lay it before a court of law. Whether that is a crime that should be punished and, if so, whether severely or leniently, will be a decision for the courts. Not for us. Our job is simply to find the evidence, wherever it may lead. If we find that two crimes have been committed, one by the dead man and another by the woman who killed him, we shall establish the evidence pertaining to both of them. Is that clear?’

  Another murmur of affirmation, louder this time.

  ‘One final thing, colleagues. Do I need to emphasize how little I care that the woman at the centre of this case is well-known? Do I need to spell out that we do our jobs, without fear or favour, that we follow the evidence, wherever it may lead? To put it more directly, is there a need for me to make plain that I give precisely zero fucks that this woman is a celebrity on cable news, that she has an adversarial history with this department, that she may have political ambitions which could make the “optics” of this case “uncomfortable”? The best way we can “play” this politically, either for the police department or – should this be on anyone’s mind at this time –’ and here there was the tiniest, almost imperceptible movement of the eyes towards Ratface – ‘for our own ambitions and careers, is not to play this politically at all.’

  She placed her palms down on the table, as if preparing to push away her chair, and let out a small, tight smile, signalling that the speech was over. ‘In conclusion, then, my fellow police officers: get to the bottom of what happened in that townhouse in Georgetown as if it were a crack-house in Anacostia. And here’s the three-word version for anybody who tends to zone out when a woman talks too long: Do. Your. Jobs.’

  Chapter 13

  TMZ Update: Twist in Vigilante Tale

  Badass legal legend Natasha Win
throp – the DC hotshot lawyer who whacked her rapist – may have some tricky questions to answer. The #IStandWithNatasha heroine won millions of admirers when police announced that the attacker she’d killed in self-defense in the early hours of Monday morning was none other than Jeffrey Todd, wanted for a suspected murder and a string of rapes across several states. All signs pointed to the dropping of charges against the glamorous Washington attorney, who’s been dubbed a role model for the #girlsfightback movement.

  But our sources say trouble is brewing for Winthrop. Her browsing history has emerged and it’s not pretty. She’s been on a ton of dating sites, all of them firmly in the NSFW category. Put it this way, this is not your mom’s Tinder. She was a regular at BDSMdate.com as well as fetish sites Fetlife and Fetster, KinkCulture and even Perversions.com. Word is, she was looking to hook up with those who like their sex rough, offering herself as a sub for a male dom.

  Winthrop wouldn’t be the first celeb with a taste for the dark side, but detectives are said to be taking a very close look at evidence that the legal eagle was on the lookout for those who shared a very niche taste: rape fantasies. Our moles in the DC copshop are wondering if there might be more to the Winthrop story than first met the eye, asking if the rising star lawyer all over political TV in the last month during those wall-to-wall, must-see congressional hearings has been telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Remember those early reports that security cameras showed Winthrop opening the front door to her attacker, even though she is reported to have said the man busted his way in? Yup, we thought you did . . .

  Maggie scrolled down, looking for an update, but that was it. That’s all they had. She pushed back out of her chair and headed to the kitchen, reflexively reaching for the shelf above the counter before remembering that she had deliberately moved the Ardbeg from here – relocating the whisky to a high, hard-to-reach cupboard in the bedroom. Not quite the same as pouring it down the sink – that would be a criminal waste – but a gesture in that direction. This way, she reasoned, she would have a glass only when she really needed it, rather than simply out of habit. She would have to make a decision. She glanced at her watch: too early.

  Her first instinct was to tell herself that this story must be false. She knew from direct and still painful experience that wholly invented stories did make their way online. There was no reason for her to assume that this was any different.

  She checked herself. Actually, there were three good reasons. First, those references to ‘our moles in the DC copshop’: pretty bold to insert those if this was pure invention. Second, while this site was not exactly the New York Times, it was rarely flat wrong. It had scooped the world on a couple of big celebrity moments – reporting star deaths was a specialism – and, by its own standards, had a reputation to defend. Third, Maggie was aware of confirmation bias, and knew she was hardly immune from the desire to seek out or accept evidence which supported what she already felt. It struck her now as confirmation of something else: that her subconscious was rooting for Natasha Winthrop. It – she – was resistant to anything that dented that faith.

  Interesting, Maggie thought, trying to affect a detachment from her own feelings. They had only just met and for little more than half an hour. And yet here she was, already acting like an online true believer, ready to dismiss any uncomfortable facts as fake news. Christ, it happened so fast.

  Maggie dipped into what had once felt like the stream of social media, but which these days resembled a flash flood or, more often, an open sewer. One feminist activist had linked to a Guardian piece:

  Natasha Winthrop’s sexual preferences are no one’s business but hers. She’s still a hero.

  That had been tweeted out by a flurry of other women, along with a few young, bearded men, under the hashtag #IStillStandWithNatasha, each of them jostling to show that there was no sexual preference that could faze them. Several mentioned witches and witchhunts, with this message from a writer of experimental novels typical:

  Since the dawn of time, men have tried to punish women for their sexuality. Well, sexuality is no crime. The only crime here was the attack on Natasha Winthrop by Jeffrey Todd and those seeking to make excuses for it.

  What Maggie couldn’t help but notice was the voices that were now silent. Earlier, when Winthrop was the woman who had defended herself against a serial rapist, every right-thinking blue-tick on Twitter was eager to declare that they stood with Natasha: TV anchors and pundits, a couple of pop stars and Instagram clean-living gurus, some well-loved Hollywood actors, several of the younger generation of congresswomen. They had all been happy to #StandWithNatasha. Now, they were keeping their counsel, waiting to see how this played out.

  And despite that spirited call in the Guardian, it wasn’t because they disapproved of Winthrop’s alleged interest in rough sex (though that would certainly have persuaded most of the politicians and family-friendly actors to keep their distance). No, the worry was the one that few online were daring to spell out. It was the same worry prompted by yesterday’s reports of the CCTV footage.

  What if Natasha Winthrop had not just admitted her assailant into her home, as the police claimed that video footage showed, but invited him there? What if she had scoured some of the darker edges of the BDSM world to find a man who would stage a rape against her? The thought was disturbing; Maggie shuddered at the idea of it. Nor could she square it with the woman she had met and enjoyed meeting last night. She could barely compute such a thing.

  Still, as Uri often liked to say, ‘Who are we to gaze into the human heart?’ People were complicated, human sexuality endlessly so. If that’s what Natasha Winthrop liked, sure, it would finish her off politically and, doubtless, professionally too. There would be no way back from it. But it didn’t change what had happened to her. The man had clearly crossed whatever line he and Natasha had agreed; what had begun as consensual sex had turned into actual rape; she had defended herself and that man, a violent criminal, was dead. The facts remained the facts.

  No, Maggie thought. That would not fly, and certainly not with the police. For one reason above all. It meant Natasha had not told the whole truth. She’d claimed the man’s presence in her apartment was a shock that came out of nowhere. If she had – in whatever elaborately coded way – summoned him to her home, then she had to disclose that. The police would now disbelieve every word Natasha Winthrop said to them. Natasha’s only defence would be embarrassment: she was simply too ashamed to admit to her sexual kink, and had sought to keep it private. Maggie could hear her saying it. Given that the sexual act at that moment was not consensual, given that I believed my life and safety to be in danger, the claim of self-defence still stands. Legally, this information is irrelevant. No, it would not fly.

  Maggie looked out of the window. She wasn’t high enough to have a view of the city, just a flavour of these few streets around Dupont Circle. How many other people were doing what she was doing, at this very moment? Gobbling up every word of the Winthrop story; Googling ‘staged rape’; visiting Perversions.com when their partner was not looking.

  Hold on, she thought. This is precisely what Marcia Chester and her team were hoping for. It was such a classic move: leak the incriminating evidence, try the case in the court of public opinion. It had to be the police who had done it, and this had to be the reason.

  Let’s say every word in that story was true. Let’s say that Natasha was indeed an enthusiast for that kind of sex. That didn’t necessarily explain what had happened with Todd. The two could be wholly unconnected. It might be a complete coincidence that a rapist had entered the home of a woman who had an interest in rape. Or the two facts could be related, but in a way that didn’t incriminate Natasha: her address might have been known to others who shared that interest, and then somehow found its way to Todd. Nothing in what was reported of that browsing history proved that Winthrop had opened her door, literally or in any other way, to Je
ffrey Todd.

  No. This was a dirty trick and, by police standards, not an original one.

  Maggie reached for her phone and sent Natasha a text:

  I’m on the case.

  Next she scrolled through her contacts to find the name of a man who knew how this game was played. She thumbed out the words:

  I need your help.

  Chapter 14

  Washington, DC

  He’d been promoted six months ago, so that Jake Haynes now headed up his paper’s investigative team in Washington. For most people, that would mean getting to see him at such short notice would be next to impossible. But, as Jake had explained on the phone, ‘You’re not most people, Maggie.’

  She couldn’t argue. In her closing days at the White House, when she was a holdover from the team of the president she had revered and worked instead for the president she abhorred, she had handed Jake the story of the year. No one ever knew she was his source and, perhaps for that reason, neither of them ever said out loud what they both knew to be true: that he owed his promotion to her.

  So he paid her back a different way. Instead of the rumpled, on-deadline impatience that used to be his default response to Maggie – and remained so for everyone else – he now reacted to her name appearing on his phone by answering within one ring and with an eagerness disguised as warmth.

  ‘If it isn’t Maggie Costello! What can I do for you, Maggie?’

  ‘Oh, hi there, Jake. I haven’t called you at a bad time?’

  ‘No such thing with you, Maggie. No such thing.’ She heard him lower his voice, as if speaking to the room he was in. ‘I’ll catch up with you guys later. I need to take this.’ So he was in a meeting, probably hosting it, given his position. And he was stepping out to talk to her.

  ‘Thanks, Jake. It’s about Natasha Winthrop.’

  ‘Sheesh, I got whiplash just following that story. One minute, it’s Death Wish, the next it’s Fifty Shades of Grey. You working for her?’