Death in Profile

by Guy Fraser-Sampson

  “Oh Bob. Not here, not now, please.”

  “I just need to know,” he said abjectly, “whether you’ve made a decision, I mean. I’ve been on tenterhooks since you went away.”

  “Yes I have, and yes, it’s you,” she said. “There, so now you know. But please give me time to do this right, or as right as I can anyway.”

  “Have you said anything to Peter?”

  “No, and that’s why I need some time,” she said calmly. “We’ve been together for five years now, and it’s not the sort of thing I can just blurt out. I need to choose my moment.”

  “OK, OK,” he said hurriedly, trying to stop himself from beaming. “You must play it exactly how you want. Don’t worry. Now I know how you feel I can be as patient as you like.”

  “Thank you, Bob. I won’t be long, I promise.”

  She leaned towards him and they kissed, awkwardly, for the first time. It was the briefest of kisses, no more than a peck on the lips, but he smelt her perfume and felt giddy with happiness. He gazed at her, unsure of what to say.

  “Goodbye, Bob,” she said gently. “See you tomorrow.”

  Little more than an hour later she was home in Hampstead and beginning to prepare dinner when she heard Peter’s key in the lock. She called out to him, “I’m in the kitchen!”

  He came into the room and, putting his arms around her from behind, kissed her gently on the top of her head. “Evening, old thing,” he said. “How did it go?”

  She finished chopping some garlic. “Why don’t you pour us both a glass of wine?” she suggested. “Then we can sit down properly and I can tell you all about it.”

  “Good thinking,” he replied.

  As he judiciously selected a bottle of Meursault and drew the cork, she washed her hands and went to sit down in the living room.

  “All right,” he said, following her into the room and handing her a glass of wine, “now shoot.”

  So she did. He listened carefully, nodding now and then, particularly when she told him about the discussion over the McCormick evidence.

  “Our ‘perp’ is still denying it, then?” he commented when she had finished. “That’s odd. It worries me a bit, in fact.”

  “How so?”

  “Well most serial killers deny everything at first, of course. In fact they may be interviewed several times, as the Yorkshire Ripper was. But when they’re confronted by hard evidence of their guilt, they usually flip and start bragging about that they’ve done and trying to explain why.”

  “Which is never anything to do with them, of course.”

  “Absolutely not. Either they’ll claim to have heard voices telling them what to do or it will be some sort of big grudge against society, usually brought about by their own inadequacies. And yet you say there’s no sign of that?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “And he claims that the police planted the evidence in the loft area outside his flat?”

  “Yes,” she said with a grim smile. “Big mistake, hopefully. The prosecution evidence was agreed at the committal proceedings so the only way he can challenge it now is for his barrister to ask the judge for a new trial, and there are no real grounds for doing that.”

  “But the jury have already heard his allegation, haven’t they? I mean, it’s all very well the judge directing them to disregard it, which is presumably what he will do, but that’s easier said than done. Might they not be prejudiced by it? I hate to tell you this, but there are a lot of people out there who believe that the police do fabricate evidence, you know.”

  “And sadly, they’ve been right on various occasions in the past,” Karen acknowledged.

  “My point exactly. Aren’t the prosecution worried that the jury might feel the defence has raised just enough doubt for them to be unable to convict?”

  “They don’t seem to be,” she said. “Their view is that they’re likely to go the other way, taking a dim view of him casting aspersions on the police evidence without being able to make good his claims. At first I thought exactly the same as you, but having had a chance to consider it some more I think I incline the other way.”

  He was silent for a while. “I’m still troubled by this apparent stalking of the last victim. It really doesn’t fit the pattern.”

  “But he does,” Karen reminded him. “He fits the profile you gave us exactly. You were brilliant.”

  “Was I though?” he mused, tugging the lobe of his ear. “Suppose all I did was to create a template and you lot just went off and looked for the first chap who fitted it?”

  “But that’s what profiling’s all about, silly,” she said in exasperation. “The profiler limits the search to as narrow parameters as possible so that from then onwards the police are still searching for a needle, but in a much smaller haystack.”

  “And I suppose the evidence is pretty overwhelming, isn’t it?” Peter asked, as if to reassure himself.

  “You bet it is. He fits the perpetrator’s profile exactly, doesn’t have an alibi for a single one of the murder dates, and the murder weapon and trophies taken from the victims were found at his property.”

  “Yet he claims that he does have an alibi,” Peter objected, “and for the most important of the murders in many ways, as it seems to be the only one that might not quite fit the pattern.”

  “Oh that’s stuff and nonsense and you know it. There’s ample evidence that the man is a complete fantasist. Look at how he lied about his supposed military service, for example. I’ve no doubt he’s held out Susan McCormick to various people as being his girlfriend and now feels he has to live out the lie regardless, perhaps because reality is now so far away from what he wants for himself, what he wants to be or do.”

  “Timothy Evans was a fantasist,” Peter said mildly, “but he was still innocent, while Christie had a police commendation but was guilty.”

  “Oh, Peter, you really are quite impossible this evening,” she replied. “I’m going to see to the dinner.”

  The next morning the defence, as anticipated, indicated that they would not be pursuing the point raised by Gary Clarke the previous day and the judge, as anticipated, directed the jury to disregard it.

  Having chosen to give evidence in his own defence, Clarke now had to submit to cross-examination by Patrick Barratt who rose to his feet, spent what seemed like a long time studying a note in front of him and then looked up to gaze at the accused in a vaguely absent-minded manner.

  “Mr Clarke,” he began, “you’re asking the jury to believe that Susan McCormick spent the night with you at your flat, whereas you have heard for yourself that she flatly denies that any such thing ever took place.”

  “Yes,” Clarke replied. “I am, because it’s true.”

  “Ah, well there we may have a bit of a problem. You’re not much given to telling the truth, are you? In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, you tell what might fairly be called a pack of lies on a regular basis, don’t you?”

  “Sit down, Mr Smithers,” the judge said as the latter showed signs of intervening. “Mr Barratt, I will grant you some indulgence, but I trust you are going somewhere specific with this line of questioning?”

  “Indeed I am, my lord,” Barratt replied smoothly. “Mr Clarke, is it not the case that you told various of your work acquaintances on several occasions that you had spent some years in the military, and had in fact served as part of what are generally known as special forces?”

  “I don’t know,” Clarke said uncertainly.

  “Allow me to assist you,” Barratt said evenly. “The evidence to which I refer is contained in various of the prosecution statements, the contents of which were agreed by your counsel at the committal proceedings. I will ask you the question again: is it true that you have claimed in the past to have served with special forces?”

  “I might have done.”

  “And is it not the case that in fact your only military training was a few weeks with the Territorials, with whom you failed even to complete
your basic training?”

  “Yes,” Clarke admitted reluctantly.

  “So those were lies then, the stories which you told.”

  “If you say so.”

  “It’s not I who say so, Mr Clarke, but you,” Barratt explained as though to a backward child. “You made specific statements of truth to various people which you now admit to be untrue.” He paused but Clarke made no response. “You told lies.”

  Again there was no response.

  “Very well,” Barratt said, having gazed meaningfully at the jury. “Let us move on.”

  He picked up a piece of paper and held it out for the clerk. “Would you please look at this, Mr Clarke? Members of the jury, my lord, you will find this behind tab 6 in prosecution bundle 3.”

  The jury shuffled self-importantly through their binders. Barratt waited for them to find the right place and then went on. “Mr Clarke, do you recognise this document? It is in fact the CV which you submitted when you took up your present employment, isn’t it?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Right at the top of the document, you list your qualifications: A Levels in Physics and Mathematics, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology from the University of East Anglia. That is correct, is it not?”

  “That’s what it says.”

  “It is indeed what it says, Mr Clarke, and yet it’s all untrue, isn’t it? The police have ascertained that you never attended the University of East Anglia or indeed, so far as they can tell, any other university.”

  He waited ostentatiously for a response, but none was forthcoming. “I see that you do not challenge the police evidence on this point.”

  “I may have made up the degree,” Clarke acknowledged, “but the A Levels are real enough. I could have gone to university if I’d wanted to. I just chose not to because I couldn’t afford it.”

  “I see,” Barratt replied. “You refer, I assume, to the A Level certificates which the police found at your flat?”

  “Yes.”

  “Also behind tab 6, members of the jury,” Barratt said with a smile in their direction. “You will see that they are A Level certificates in Physics and Mathematics issued by the Oxford and Cambridge examination board.

  “There is only one problem, Mr Clarke,” he went on, turning back to the witness box. “They’re fakes, aren’t they? The police have checked with the examination board and they have no record of you ever obtaining any A Levels with them. Their opinion is that these are in fact O Level certificates, or GCSEs as we must say these days, which have been altered, possibly having first been scanned into a computer.”

  Clarke made no reply.

  “So it comes to this, then,” Barratt continued. “You ask the jury to believe something, a crucial piece of evidence, mind, in spite of the fact that the only person who can confirm your story – a respectable lady with no apparent reason to lie, and someone moreover who is giving evidence on oath in court – flatly denies it.”

  “I’m on oath too,” Clarke pointed out.

  “Indeed you are, Mr Clarke, and I ask you to remember the significance of that. Now, let me ask you again, having admitted that you have lied repeatedly in the past, is it not the case that you lied earlier when you told work colleagues that you had a girlfriend, namely Susan McCormick, when in fact you did not? Is it not the case that she was by way of being a fantasy girlfriend and that your relationship with her, beyond a few innocent everyday encounters, existed only in your imagination?”

  “No,” Clarke said stubbornly, “it’s true.”

  Barratt waited a few moments and then smiled at the judge. “No further questions, my lord,” he said, sitting down with another significant glance at the jury.

  A few minutes later he was on his feet again, beginning his closing address to the jury. Briefly he rehearsed the details of the first four murders, those of Amy Grant, Jenny Hillyer, Joyce Mteki and Tracy Redman. At the conclusion of each description he stated coldly that Clarke had no alibi for the night of the killing. He described how in each case the victim’s underwear had been removed and found later by the police in the loft space outside Clarke’s flat. Then he came to the last murder.

  In the case of Katherine Barker, he noted, there were two additional factors. On the one hand there was the fish food which, while admittedly circumstantial, could be argued to link Clarke to the killing. On the other hand lay the fact that for the first time Clarke was claiming to have an alibi which, if true, would conclusively show that he could not possibly have committed the murder and thus, by implication, any of the murders.

  “You have heard what the accused has to say on the subject,” Barratt said, staring hard at the jury, “but against that you have to weigh three things. First there is the evidence of Susan McCormick, a lady who has no reason to lie. Second, you have heard evidence, including from the accused himself, that he has in fact lied regularly about various matters in the past. Third, and I make this point reluctantly but I think it is a necessary one for you to consider, you may look upon both the accused and Ms McCormick, an attractive and intelligent woman, and ask yourselves how likely it might be that such a relationship would appeal to her.”

  “Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, for all the reasons I have stated, I put it to you that the accused’s allegations of an alibi are quite simply incredible, and that you should disregard them. The prosecution’s evidence, on the other hand, is overwhelming. There is no reason why the murder weapon and the trophies taken by the murderer from his wretched victims should have been found outside the accused’s flat, in an enclosed space not publicly accessible, unless the murderer himself put them there, and the conclusion is inescapable that the murderer and the accused are one and the same man.”

  Barratt sat down with the air of a job well done, and Smithers rose to reply.

  The evidence was entirely circumstantial, he argued. It was not for Clarke to prove that he had not committed the murders, but for the prosecution to prove that he had. Yet all the evidence they had produced simply did not meet the necessary burden of proof. Many people bought the same fish food. Anyone who had at any time had a front door key to Clarke’s building would have had access to the loft space.

  He moved onto the alleged alibi. Just because Clarke had been untruthful about certain minor events in the past did not mean that he was being untruthful now about a completely different subject and in very different circumstances. The DNA evidence was at the very least consistent with his story, even if it was not conclusive. All that the defence needed to do, he reminded the jury, was to raise reasonable doubt as to the defendant’s guilt, and surely the claimed alibi did exactly that?

  The judge then summed up for the jury. He urged them to place “whatever weight they felt to be appropriate” on the discoveries in the loft. The fish food was indeed circumstantial but again it was for the jury to decide for themselves how much weight they attached to it; they were the sole arbiters of fact. As to the alibi, there was a straight conflict of evidence. Only one of Susan McCormick and Gary Clarke could be telling the truth. It was for the jury to decide which witness they found the more compelling.

  The jury retired to consider their verdict.

  “Don’t go far,” Barratt warned the detectives. “I can’t see this taking very long.”

  His instincts proved accurate. In less than an hour the jury filed back into court and gave a unanimous verdict of guilty on all counts.

  Sitting in the public gallery, Metcalfe felt a strange feeling of unreality. The case had consumed his life for so long that it was hard to come to terms with the fact that it was all over. Sitting next to him Collison smiled, shook his hand and then reached across to do the same with Karen. Meanwhile the judge asked Clarke if he had anything to say.

  “Yes,” Clarke said loudly. “I didn’t do it.”

  Having asked if that was all he had to say, the judge then sentenced him to life imprisonment. He was taken down the stairs to the cells while the judge th
anked the jury for their efforts.

  A few minutes later Collison was facing the inevitable barrier of cameras and microphones outside the Old Bailey. Standing on the steps, he gave a brief statement. “As always,” he said clearly, as the journalistic clamour quietened, “the police are delighted that a criminal has been brought to justice, particularly in a case of this nature since it also achieves closure for the victims’ families. We’d like to thank them for their patience and support during this inquiry.”

  “Do you think he may have killed more than five times?” shouted a journalist.

  “Did he have an accomplice?” called another.

  Collison raised his hand for silence and waited as the hubbub threatened to derail proceedings. Some of the journalists at the front of the crowd turned and shouted “Quiet!” to their colleagues further back.

  “I’m just going to say one more thing,” Collison said, ignoring the shouted questions, “and it’s an important one.”

  “This has been a long investigation and a thankless and often difficult time for the investigating team, which I joined only recently. I’d like to express my respect and appreciation for the efforts and professionalism of everyone who was involved, particularly my predecessor, Detective Chief Inspector Tom Allen, who led the team for over a year.”

  More questions rang out but he turned and walked away to where Bob Metcalfe and Karen Willis were waiting a little way off. “A job well done,” he commented with a smile, “congratulations, both.”

  They thanked him awkwardly.

  “Not sure what I’m going to do with myself now,” Metcalfe said ruefully.

  “I know what you mean,” Collison replied. “You were on the case from the beginning, weren’t you? That’s a long time.”

  “There were times when I wondered if I’d end up spending my whole career on it.”

  Collison nodded. “I once spoke to someone who worked on the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry from the start. Six years, I think it was. It must have felt like a lifetime.”

  “That must be really awful,” said Karen. “I wonder what happens if it goes on so long that your hope eventually dies, that you stop really believing that you’re ever going to catch him.”