by Nick Stone
‘Having read Mr Finder’s statement and taken into account the prosecution’s confirmation that Exhibit 3 was not tested for the victim’s DNA, I am inclined to conclude that there is a higher probability that the item marked *Exhibit 3” did not belong to the victim.
‘On this occasion, the prosecution has not been able to provide any proof, nor a satisfactory argument that the item was ever worn by the victim. I therefore rule Exhibit 3 inadmissible as evidence in this trial.’
He banged his gavel.
Redpath clenched his fist in triumph. Christine gave me a respectful nod.
Carnavale took the blow with his eyes wide open.
The courtroom was otherwise silent. A little piece of the earth had shattered and no one else had heard it.
‘That’s what’s known as a “technicality”,’ Christine said to VJ, back in the meeting room. ‘It was a significant bit of evidence against you. Now it’s gone.’
VJ was a little perkier than he’d been earlier, but he was still going back to prison. This triumph had been ours alone.
‘We got lucky today,’ Christine continued. ‘Franco was complacent, thought he had it in the bag. That won’t happen with him again, trust me. He’s at his worst after a setback.’
VJ didn’t know the part I’d played. I’d asked Christine to keep that quiet, saying it was best if he saw us as a team instead of individual components. He’d feel more secure that way. But, really, I didn’t want him thinking I was anything more than a powerless underling. That way, if something went wrong, he wouldn’t be able to blame me and our past history.
‘Where does this leave us?’ VJ asked.
‘In a better place than we were a couple of hours ago. The judge ruled the evidence inadmissible. This means it can’t be brought up in trial. The jury will never know that you masturbated into the thong. And that’s a big deal, because if they had heard about it, they wouldn’t have forgotten it. That would have set them against you.’
‘Can the prosecution bring it up at all?’
‘He may try, but I’ll object, and the judge will support me,’ she said. ‘Remember, the order of things. The police brought the charges, and the prosecutor is trying you based on their evidence. You didn’t say anything about masturbating in your statements to the police, so he can’t ask you about something you never said. Secondly, the judge has ruled Exhibit 3 inadmissible. Which means that legally, it didn’t happen.’
‘Can’t the prosecutor ask me what I did after I got beaten up in the suite?’
‘Yes, he can. And I will object to the question. The judge will know what Franco’s doing and warn him off. If he persists, he’ll be held in contempt.’
‘So I don’t have to answer?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘The judge may ask you to answer according to what you told the police. In which case you say you lay down and passed out.’
‘Isn’t that perjury?’
‘No. It’s the law. The judge has set the boundaries and you’ll be sticking to them.’
VJ nodded.
The judge had set the trial date for Monday, July 25th. We had three months.
‘What about Nikki Frater, the PA?’ Christine asked. ‘Is she going to cause us any problems?’
‘No. She’s a rock. She’s been with me from the start. She followed me over from my last job.’
‘Probably Franco playing mindgames with us, then.’
We fell quiet for a moment. Outside, in the corridor, we heard the shuffle of feet and the voices of barristers and their clients, the locking and unlocking of cell doors. Just another prison.
‘The Royal Wedding’s on Friday,’ VJ said. ‘You know they’re giving us an extra hour in bed and a choc ice, as a special treat? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m actually looking forward to it.’
‘I remember when Prince William’s parents got married,’ Redpath said.
‘Me too,’ VJ said, and he glanced at me for a split second.
We’d spent that day together, my family and his – apart from Rodney – round my house, watching the telly. The Jameses didn’t have one.
July 29th, 1981. Charles and Di.
That was the day I had my first ever drink. Yes, my parents had been giving me a nip of what they were having every now and then, but I had my first full, proper glass then. Me and VJ helped ourselves to a can of my dad’s Guinness. VJ hated it on first sip and didn’t want any more. I thought it was pretty good, like sweet black coffee. I polished it off. We were eight years old.
48
I’d barely had time to sit down at my desk when the phone rang. It was Edwina, summoning me upstairs.
Sid Kopf was putting something back in his filing cabinet when I walked in. On the wall directly above him, the muted flatscreen TV was showing what the Bank Holiday weather had in store for London. Cloudy, with a chance of sun.
I hadn’t quite noticed how big Kopf’s office was. It seemed to stretch the length of the building, as if three rooms had been knocked into one. At the far end, I spied a running machine.
‘Take a seat,’ Kopf said without looking at me.
I went to the same chair I’d sat in before, opposite his desk. For a moment I had my back to him.
I knew he was observing me. I could feel it. I’d developed a sense for being watched when I was at the Lister. The wardens used to monitor us surreptitiously, from a distance, looking out for signs of regression. Their eyes were like tiny, fleet-legged insects, scarpering across my skin before I could catch them. That’s what I felt now. Except this was a bigger insect, and it didn’t need to run.
I gazed at the black-and-white pictures on the wall, noticing how they’d all been taken in the late afternoon, as the sun was starting to set and the shadows were longer and thicker, obscuring at the least a third of every image in darkness. Did he just like the look, or was there some symbolic intent here?
Kopf came and sat down behind his desk. He was in shirtsleeves and a waistcoat.
‘Nicely done today,’ he said.
‘Thanks, but it was all Christine. I just —’
He cut me off with a wave of the palm.
‘Spare me the shopfront modesty. Good days are rare in this racket – and you always pay for them in kind. A day in the sun, a month in the rain. It all evens out.’
He sat back and stared at me for a few seconds. The whites of his eyes matched his hair. Through the door I heard Edwina’s phone ring twice before she answered it.
‘The reason I wanted to see you is that I have some concerns about your methods.’
‘My “methods”?’
‘There’s a fine line between ambition and recklessness, and you’ve got both feet planted on it. Only luck has stopped you going over so far,’ he said. ‘In the few weeks you’ve been on this case, you’ve obtained a DNA sample illegally, trespassed on an active crime scene, and impersonated a police officer – “Detective David Stratten”.’
The shock on my face made him smile.
Fucking Adolf!
She’d grassed me up.
And so had Andy Swayne.
I don’t know which I was least surprised and more pissed off about.
‘I set the bar very high here for a reason,’ Kopf said. ‘It’s the only way I know how to get the best out of people. Pressure. Some you squeeze, they fold. Others flourish. The law’s a tough game. Not everyone’s invited, and not anyone can play.’
Was I getting fired?
He leaned forward and crossed his forearms on the desk.
‘Janet was right to hire you. She said you were a natural, and you are. You’re bright, sharp, tenacious, persistent, analytical, inquisitive, argumentative – when you need to be. Core qualities in a lawyer.’
His tone was pleasant and conversational, no clouds on the horizon. He could have been asking what my bank holiday plans were, if we were going to watch the Wedding at home or on the street.
‘But – and consider this a very friendly warning, but
a warning nonetheless – a lawyer who breaks the law is no longer a lawyer, Terry. He’s a fraud. An impostor. And an idiot. In short, he’s not the kind of person I want here. Lawyers never get their hands dirty. That’s why we have investigators. Do you understand?’
Still no harshness to his tone.
‘Yes.’
He studied me for a moment, made sure I wasn’t just telling him what he wanted to hear.
‘I understand,’ I said.
I did.
And I didn’t.
I was confused all over the place.
Andy Swayne had not only conned me into going into Suite 18, then told Kopf all about it, but he’d also tried to keep me in line, tell me my place. Fetch and carry… Don’t get above your station.
Then both Janet and Christine had implied that I was to get them results by any means necessary.
And now Kopf was calling me out on my methods.
Who was the true master here?
‘In the meantime’ – Kopf opened a drawer and took out a white envelope, which he pushed across the desk at me – ‘that’s for you.’
From the heft and outline of the contents against my fingers, I knew it was cash – a wad of twenties. It must have been a grand, at least.
‘Enjoy your day in the sun, Terry. You’ve earned it.’
49
I fell asleep during the Royal Wedding, missed the whole show. After breakfast we’d all sat down together to watch it. Aerial views of Westminster Abbey and the masses of people carpeting the pavements all the way up to Buckingham Palace filled the screen. I closed my eyes and promptly conked out.
I couldn’t help it. The week had caught up with me. I’d finally come down from the high of the court triumph and crashed.
I opened my eyes a few hours later, just in time to see Prince William driving his new bride out of the gates of Buckingham Palace in an open-top Aston Martin and speeding up the Mall. That was the coolest thing the Royal Family had done since they got rid of Oliver Cromwell.
The kids laughed at me, still dazed, yawning and rubbing my eyes, my hair all porcupined. They said I snored so loudly through the vows, they had to turn the volume up.
We went to the public street party in Battersea High Street. It was Karen’s idea. She wanted to give the kids a memory to go by, and spend a little time together as a family.
Half of Battersea had thought the same way. The street was full to capacity. Long tables and benches had been laid out in the middle of the road, and every seat taken. People were doubling up, sitting on each other. The pavements were overspilling with human traffic, proceeding slowly in either direction.
There was music in the air. A red double decker bus was parked at the top of the road and Capital Radio was broadcasting live from inside. On a big stage down the opposite end of the road, an eight-piece Cuban band was playing wild salsa. Cooked food was on sale at stalls – Jamaican, Thai, Chinese and Indian. And in-between the tables were tents hosting samba and rumba classes.
Ray and I got ourselves some rice and peas and curry goat from the Jamaican stall and ate as we watched Karen and Amy getting samba lessons. Amy was taking to the dance well, finding her steps and rhythm. She was graceful and briefly no longer a child. Like me, Karen wasn’t one of life’s natural dancers, and quietly gave up to watch our daughter from a corner.
A woman in a Union Jack T-shirt and leggings stepped into the tent. She had a riot of brown and blonde-tinged curls. She knew all the moves and was showing the others how it was done. One of the instructors stepped up behind her and they started dancing together, moving their hips in time, the man looking over his shoulder at his colleague and winking.
And just like that, I started thinking about Fabia.
If only we could find her – I could find her. Someone other than VJ had to have seen her at the dinner. But no one had come forward, no one had called me back – not the Hoffmann Trustees, not even the Silver Service temps. I was going to have to step up my game.
Ray nudged me in the ribs.
I snapped out of it. I’d been gawping at the woman in the tent, without seeing her, chasing my thoughts.
‘It’s not what you think, son,’ I said.
Ray frowned and made that cauliflower pattern with his brow.
‘What do I think?’
‘That I fancy her or something,’ I said, nodding at the woman, who was now sandwiched between two instructors and dancing with her hands in the air.
Ray looked at her and then back at me, quizzical and confused.
‘Wasn’t what I was thinking,’ he said. ‘I’ve been talking to you for the last five minutes.’
‘Oh…’ I said. I hadn’t heard him. ‘What did you say?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, sadly.
There was a large manila envelope waiting for me on the doormat, when we got back. Another Swayne delivery. He obviously hadn’t taken the day off.
It was a single sheet of paper with a black-and-white photograph run off on a printer whose ink was starting to run low. It showed a young woman in semi-profile, from the torso up, dressed in a beret and a white T-shirt, holding an automatic pistol in a double-handed grip.
I phoned Swayne.
‘What’s this?’ I asked.
‘A recruitment poster for the Rhodesian police.’
‘So?’
‘That’s Beverley Wingrove.’
‘Is it?’
I looked again. The woman’s face hadn’t come out particularly well because of the poor resolution and poorer print quality. It could’ve been anyone. So I had to take his word for it.
‘The very same,’ he said. ‘I’ve dug up some interesting stuff on her.’
‘Like what?’
‘Not on the phone,’ he said.
‘Are you being bugged?’ I asked, sarcastically.
‘My battery’s running low,’ he said.
‘Where are you now?’
‘Looking at Michael Caine Towers.’
Swayne meant the Belvedere tower in Chelsea Harbour. A high-rise block with a brass-coloured roof shaped like a witch’s hat. Michael Caine was said to live – or have lived – in the penthouse, hence its nickname. It was the centrepiece of an upscale apartment complex, with appended marina, where all manner of flashy boats were docked. A whole other world.
Swayne should have been waiting for me on the opposite side of the river, on Battersea Embankment, but he wasn’t. As I approached, I saw him standing outside a nearby block of flats called Archer House. He was talking to a black woman. She was about his age, with short grey hair, round glasses and a pair of long white earrings.
They were standing too close together to be strangers. I stopped to observe them. Swayne was smiling, laughing. And when he wasn’t, he was looking at the woman affectionately – and she at him. He was a completely different man, one briefly freed from the weight of all the bitterness and poison he carried on his back like a life-support system.
A moment later he left the woman, kissing her on the cheek, before he crossed the road and made for the embankment. She watched him go and then turned and walked through the gate into the building.
I gave it two minutes before I went to meet him.
He’d found himself a bench, taken off his jacket and undone two buttons on his shirt. He was gazing across the river at the Belvedere. On the grass verge behind him, a family of five was having a picnic.
‘I remember when that didn’t exist,’ Swayne said, pointing to the tower. I was now used to the absence of any kind of greeting – formal or familiar – from him when we met. ‘It used to be nothing but rubble, weeds, squatters and scummy water.’
‘You lived around here?’
‘Just across the road.’ He hitched his thumb over his shoulder. ‘We used to come here all the time.’
‘“We”…?’
‘My wife and daughter. Well… my ex-wife and daughter.’
I hadn’t picked him as the sentimental sort. Too disappointed
in humanity. Yet here he was, literally back on memory lane.
‘My wife is from Zimbabwe,’ he said.
‘Not Rhodesia?’
‘Definitely not. She’s black.’
So, that’s who the woman was. I was surprised at how affectionate they still were towards each other. I wouldn’t have thought Swayne the type to have amicable break-ups – quite the opposite.
It also explained his interest in Beverley Wingrove.
‘What about your daughter?’ I asked.
‘We don’t talk,’ he said. ‘Kids grow up, that’s the trouble. They start out looking up to you, then they look through you, then they look down on you.’
‘When was the last time you saw her?’
‘Ten, twelve years ago. Can’t quite remember. Bright girl. Pretty too, full of life. Nothing like me. Thank God.’
I thought of Ray and how I’d upset him. And I remembered making Amy cry at the dinner table. All because my head was elsewhere, on the case, on VJ – on things that would soon pass. The idea of losing them, of someday telling a near-stranger a story similar to Swayne’s, made me shudder.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said.
‘But you’re not surprised?’
‘That you were an arsehole? No.’
Swayne laughed.
There was a smell of seawater in the air. The tide was low. The river had retreated over the bank, exposing drying green-brown sludge and dumped bricks and masonry, plus acres of rubbish, much of it bottles and cans.
‘Tell me about Beverley Wingrove.’
‘I recognised her name from years back,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t in the Rhodesian police, just modelled for the propaganda. But her husband – Oliver – was in the force. He was a captain in PATU – the Police Anti-Terrorist Unit.
‘In Rhodesia, as in South Africa, a “terrorist” was anyone black who’d taken up arms against the regime. PATU basically hunted them down and killed them where they found them. No mercy,’ he said.
He looked off into the distance, his expression grim.