TR01 - Trial And Retribution

by Lynda La Plante

  "I mean, from Miss Taylor."

  There was a further moment's silence while Fletcher waited. Sometimes it paid to let distraught witnesses have their outbursts. He cocked his head to one side as he regarded Dunn, inviting him to continue and he did.

  "I mean, I worked for her. She trusted me. She knew I was somebody she could ... you know, trust."

  The last word came out as a mumble. Fletcher cut across it.

  "And you then placed that rope around Julie Anne Harris's neck and you strangled her."

  "No, no. I didn't. I never saw her."

  "After which you took her unconscious body to a building site and you rammed it you rammed it into a sewage pipe like a bundle of rags.

  And you left that little girl to die there .. "

  His mouth turned down in revulsion at the acts he was describing, he stared at Dunn who simply stood before him, drooping.

  "Didn't you?"

  Stunned by the ferocity of Fletcher's attack. Dunn realized at last that his mouth was open but no word was coming out. He had to reply but what could he say?

  "Didn'tyovt, Mr. Dunn?"

  At last, after what seemed an age, Dunn managed to shake his head and whisper the word, the one word that his thick, dry tongue had been groping for.

  "No."

  "No more questions," said Fletcher and sat down. Immediately a rustle of speculation and comment filled the court. Dunn had not cut a convincing figure in the witness box and the public gallery was beginning to wonder if there were to be any further twists in the unfolding of this trial. The buzz died away only as Rylands once more took the stage.

  "I call Terry Smith, m'lord," he said.

  Smith walked into court looking dignified and confident. He was wearing a suit, not new exactly but even if it had come from Oxfam it was clean and pressed.

  He took the oath with a touch of swagger in his bearing that did not escape Rylands's notice. It was OK, even quite attractive, for a witness to display a hint of independence, but it would have to be watched. Juries hate blatantly arrogant witnesses.

  "Now, Mr. Smith, you are an acquaintance of the defendant?"

  "Yes."

  "A friend, even?"

  "We used to drink together, yes."

  "And is it true that you, like' Mr. Dunn, used to have a problem with alcohol?"

  "Yes, I did," said Smith, loudly.

  "I am an alcoholic."

  Rylands almost stopped in his tracks.

  "You are?-- Do you mean you are still addicted to alcohol?"

  "Yes."

  "But you're not... not drinking to excess at present?"

  "I'm not drinking at all."

  Rylands was rarely at a loss, but at this moment he came close.

  "Forgive me, Mr. Smith, but if you say you are an alcoholic--' Rylands was floundering when a voice from the bench came to his rescue.

  "I think what the witness means," said Winfield, amused at the chance to air his knowledge of the operating principles of Alcoholics Anonymous, with which Robert Rylands was clearly not familiar, 'is that addiction to alcohol is considered a lifelong condition, which can be managed only by total abstention. "

  He looked down at Smith who smiled cheerfully up at him.

  "That's right, your Honour."

  Rylands bowed submissively and said, with only the barest suggestion of amusement in his voice, "I'm very much obliged to your Lordship.

  So, Mr. Smith, you now follow a regime of total abstinence from alcohol? "

  "I do, sir. I gave up last month, sir. There's no other way."

  "I see. Now, I want to ask you about the fifth of September. Do you remember that day?"

  "Yes, I do, sir."

  "And did you have a lot to drink on the fifth of September?"

  "Pretty much the usual. I had, um, four cans of lager, then three more. Then half a bottle of vermouth and then some vodka."

  Smith was casting his eye around the court, clocking the jury, the benches for police and lawyers and the public gallery. Finally his eye rested on the dock. He seemed to be looking at Dunn strangely, as if he was trying to remember something.

  "But that wasn't an unusual amount for you. You feel your perceptions and recollections of that day were more or less normal?"

  "Yes, they were. I had a tolerance for drink then, you understand."

  "And who were you with on the fifth of September?"

  "I was with Michael Dunn."

  As he spoke Smith's head turned back to the dock and he pointed at Dunn dramatically.

  "And I think that bloke was there too. He had long hair then but it was definitely him. He was there."

  Rylands's train of thought jumped out of gear. What the hell was this?

  Who did Smith imagine Michael Dunn was? Winfield was slow to clamp down on the buzz of talk in court. He was equally mystified.

  "Er, Mr. Smith," he said eventually, pausing in his note- taking, 'let us just be clear about your evidence at this point. Did you say that that man there was with you as well as Michael Dunn? "

  Smith looked puzzled. Had he said something wrong?

  "Yes, your Honour."

  "So the man you see here in court is not the man you have referred to up until now as Michael Dunn?"

  Smith shook his head.

  "No, your Honour. Michael Dunn - he was the other one. At least, that was my understanding."

  The court stirred like a carpet of leaves in a gust of wind. Rylands turned to Belinda Sinclair and whispered to her urgently," What the hell is this?

  She merely shook her head helplessly, the pit of her stomach turning over. She'd never shown Smith a photograph of Dunn. Stupid? No, it was bloody cretinous.

  "But that bloke was there as well," Smith was saying now.

  "I remember him. He's Welsh. We were there in the park, just by the gents toilet."

  Rylands turned back to the witness, smiling tautly, and took a deliberate flyer.

  "Perhaps it doesn't matter, Mr. Smith, by what name the defendant was known to you, if your evidence as to his presence is the same yes?"

  Rylands was decidedly not enjoying this. He'd been forced into breaking rule one in the code that governs the examination of witnesses: never ask a question to which you don't know the forthcoming answer. He wondered if Winfield was going to let him get away with it.

  He shouldn't have wondered.

  "Yes," said Winfield impatiently, 'if it is the same. Now, Mr. Smith.

  Was that man also with you continuously all day? "

  Smith nodded, blinking ingenuously.

  "Near enough,

  your Honour. He went off I think a couple of times when | we ran out of drink. He was the one brought us back the sherry, as I recall. I remember the sherry particularly because the bottle was made of blue glass. "

  Walker murmured to North, "What did Ann Taylor say?"

  "Dunn took a bottle of sherry, guy."

  Walker nodded and pulled out his notebook. He was scribbling a note as Winfield was saying, "Do you have a clear recollection of how long he was absent for?"

  Smith pushed out his lips.

  "Not long. About ... half an hour, forty minutes each time. Round lunchtime."

  Walker passed the note he'd written to Fletcher who read it, nodded and conferred with Griffith.

  Winfield said, "Mr. Rylands, is there anything else you would like to ask this witness?"

  "No, m'lord." Almost dumbfounded, Rylands sat down.

  "Has the Crown any further questions to put to this witness?"

  Still holding Walker's note, Fletcher leapt to his feet.

  "Mr. Smith that bottle of sherry. Do you recall what became of it?"

  "Yes," said Smith, looking pained, 'as it happens I do. It got bust before we ever touched a drop. "

  Before another question was asked. Walker and North were on their way.

  chapter 28

  THURSDAY 21 NOVEMBER. LUNCHTIME

  The tyres squawked in protest at Walker's agg
ressive braking as he brought the unmarked car to a halt beside Princess Elizabeth Park, also known as the Scrubbery.

  "We'll never find it," said North as they strode towards the bench near the public toilet.

  "It's been months."

  "Well, I'm going to have a bloody good try," said Walker.

  "Nobody's cleaned up here for a lot longer than that-years."

  There was rubbish scattered right across the paA but especially among the leafless bushes and shrubs. They started poking around in the bushes. The whole area stank of urine.

  "Jesus," said North, making a face.

  "Why can't they go in the loo?

  It's just over there. "

  "Not open all the time. Look at that we'll have to go through the lot."

  He gestured at the litter of glass, some of the bottles intact but mostly broken, that was scattered around amongst the dead leaves.

  They could hear car doors slamming and the ruPning feet of Satchell, followed by Cranham who had been

  I plucked from the quiet of the Incident Room. Satchell called out even before he reached them.

  "I spoke to Ann Taylor. The sherry bottle was blue glass all right.

  She can't remember the make. "

  "Right," said Walker, as Cranham, Phelps and Brown arrived panting from their exertions, 'we are searching this area for a blue bottle or fragments thereof. If we find it, it will need to go to forensic, so handle carefully. Got it everybody? "

  In court Rylands had called Mrs. Wald to the stand. His performance as he questioned her was downbeat, as if still affected by the stun grenade that had been tossed into court by his previous witness.

  '.. and what did he look like, this man who you saw at five past one in the Howarth Tower by the way, was he coming in or going out? "

  She was giving her evidence with a primness bordering on the fastidious.

  "I'm afraid I cannot remember if he was going into the building or coming out. But he was certainly wearing a dark overcoat and he had long hair."

  "And did you on that day see the defendant, Michael Dunn, in or around the playground?"

  "No. I did not."

  "Thank you, Mrs. Wald. I have no further questions."

  Nor did the Crown have anything to ask Mrs. Wald so Rylands rose again and said to Winfield, "M'lord, that concludes our case."

  Winfield beamed benevolently up and down the court.

  "Thank you, Mr. Rylands. Shall we adjourn for five minutes before speeches? No, fifteen minutes to allow the jury time to muster their Fullest concentration."

  "I don't understand why Smithy didn't recognize me," said Dunn to Belinda, fretting.

  "He knows me perfectly. Bastard."

  Belinda soothed him as best she could.

  "It was a bit of a surprise, I'll admit. But don't forget, you couldn't remember the name of the other man yourself- and he probably thinks you're Terry Smith. So it seems everybody's mixed up all round."

  "So what's going to happen now?"

  "There'll be closing speeches by Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Rylands, and then the judge will sum up. That's why you see him writing notes during the evidence: he has to summarize what's been said in court by both sides before he sends the jury out to decide."

  "But they will find me innocent, won't they? I mean it's gone well, hasn't it?"

  Belinda considered. Had it gone well? Not half as well as they originally hoped. The alibi had been a near disaster, and it had been her fault. But, self-protectively, she said nothing of this.

  "It's gone very well, Michael. And another thing. Mr. Fletcher will close tonight but there's every chance our side will be held over till tomorrow. That's good because Mr. Rylands's words will be much fresher in everybody's mind than Mr. Fletcher's."

  She left him then. Michael Dunn shut his eyes. He didn't think he could bear to sit through another session of blame and denigration from that Fletcher man. Why

  should he? He was just a scapegoat, a sacrificial victim. The filth had only picked him up because everybody on that estate hated him.

  Why should he have to put up with listening to Fletcher's lies and sneers? He was innocent, wasn't he? This whole thing was a nightmare and he couldn't wake up.

  "On Tuesday," Fletcher reminded the jury, "I asked you to consider this case like a jigsaw puzzle. You are now in possession of the available pieces and I trust you are also in a position to fit them together to form a true picture. It is a picture of a man, Michael Frederick Dunn, living alone, who admits to holding open house for children in his flat. Dunn is a heavy drinker- a very heavy drinker indeed, one might say and he is also a man who harbours a tendency to anger and violence which, in his pathetic way, he dares to turn only against those very children who come so trustingly to his house.

  "But there is another figure in this picture, a very tragic figure.

  This is a little girl of very appealing appearance, five years old, whom Michael Dunn knows. But even more significantly this little girl, Julie Anne Harris, knows Dunn for she has been to his house and watched cartoon videos there. These are the people in the picture. Now let us turn to what is happening in this picture .. "

  Fletcher went on to spell out the timetable of Julie Anne's death between her last sighting and her finding the next day, ignominiously stuffed into the sewage pipe. He recalled Enid Marsh's evidence and her positive identification of Dunn at the parade. He ran through the pathologist's evidence of strangulation and sexual assault. Lastly he laid out the forensic evidence the footprints, the dog faeces, the soil samples, the clothing fibres, the washing line, all of which, he said, compellingly placed Michael Dunn, the rope and Julie Anne together on the day of her death.

  "So much for the truth," he declared.

  "Now we must turn to the big lie: the defendant's alibi. He claims he was with Terry Smith throughout the day, and Mr. Smith gave evidence that he was indeed drinking heavily with Michael Dunn on the fifth of September. But and here is the crucial piece of our jigsaw ladies and gentlemen Michael Dunn was not continuously with Mr. Smith all day. He absented himself for two separate periods.

  "When did Mrs. Marsh see the defendant? At lunchtime. When did he absent himself from Mr. Smith and the other man? At lunchtime. If you accept the evidence of Mrs. Marsh and Mr. Smith, Michael Dunn has not only lied to the police, as was admitted you will remember what he said when he was first interviewed about the doll but he has lied here today, on oath in front of you. You must ask yourselves what motives Michael Dunn might have for telling these lies. And it is my contention that his only possible one is that he killed Julie Anne."

  Fletcher took a drink of water and approached nearer to the jury for his final flourish.

  "A jigsaw puzzle, ladies and gentlemen, often has a few pieces missing but, as I said at the outset, the overall picture can be clearly distinguished. A clear picture has, I believe, emerged from the evidence you have heard in this case, and it is one which points conclusively to Michael's Dunn's guilt."

  He sat down and immediately Winfield, as Belinda had predicted, called a halt for the day.

  "We shall resume at ten-thirty tomorrow," he decreed.

  Jason wet the bed earlier than usual that night. He woke up at half past ten in a pool of his own urine and came out of the room crying for his mum.

  She gave him fresh sheets and pyjamas while Peter stood with the damp under sheet trying to dry it out in front of the bar fire in the lounge.

  "Don't bother drying it," said Anita, coming in after tucking the child back in.

  "I'll put it in the wash bag for tomorrow."

  "Did you get that rubber sheet like I told you?"

  Anita shook her head. She took the sodden sheet and wrapped it around the pyjama bottoms.

  "I meant to, I--' Peter came up to her and held her hips. He said, very gently, " You thought about what I said? This. " He nodded to the wet bundle.

  "It's every night now. It would be better for him. They know how to handle this kind of
thing."

  Anita looked at him sadly.

  "You'd know, would you?" She sighed.

  "Well, I spoke to Mum, but she couldn't take him."

  "Look, " Nita. It would give you some rest. I'm only thinking of you.

  They've got special homes for kids like Jason. The way things are--' "I don't want to talk about it."

  Anita suddenly turned away and walked out of the room with the sheet and pyjamas. She felt hot, suffocated. Peter stood there without moving, his fists clenched in frustration. A few seconds later Anita came back and moved over to the sideboard where the shrine to Julie was. She started to rearrange some of the photographs.

  "It would only be for a short while?" she said quietly. The fight had all gone out of her.

  "I mean not for ever?"

  "Course not," said Peter.

  "Just so you can get yourself back to ... you know."

  "Normal."

  "Yeah. Normal."

  Anita was drifting out towards the hall.

  "I'll call them ... in the morning."

  In the dark at the Scrubbery the work went on under arc lights. The ground had been carefully squared off in a grid made of string, each grid sifted and any debris bagged. So far there had been no blue glass found.

  But Satchell had raised a drain cover that had been hidden under a thick pelt of dead leaves. As the one with the longest arm, he was lying down, trying to search the inside of the drain.

  "I can't reach any further. Should we start digging it up?"

  "Yes," said Walker decisively. The rest of the ground had turned up nothing. The drain looked their last hope.

  "You sure?" said Satchell grunting with effort.

  "We're talking about going into the drains now, guy. It'll be a big job and it's way past midnight... Hang on! I've got something. Glass."

  He pulled out a sizeable shard of glass. Eagerly Walker shone his torch on it.

  "Shit!" said Satchell.

  It was green glass.

  "Is there a chance of more in there?" Walker asked.

  "Sure, guy."

  Walker nodded grimly at the fragment in Satchell's glove.