The Verdict

by Nick Stone

  Every time a card was used to open a door in the hotel, data was logged into a central server. The data was archived for a year, before being wiped.

  Christine asked Torena to identify the prefixes for the two different types of card that appeared on the lists.

  GK – Guest Key.

  PK – Passkey.

  ‘Looking at the data for Suite 18, I note that Mr James – using the card starting “GK” – entered his room only twice during his stay. Once at 5.38 p.m., shortly after he checked in, and then at 11.57 the same night, which is when he returned to his room after going to the nightclub. Would I be right in assuming that he only used his key to open his door twice?’

  ‘That seems to be true, yes,’ Torena said.

  ‘Mr James attended the award ceremony function from roughly 8 p.m. onwards, where he was seen by many people. Yet these records show that someone, using a passkey, entered his room at 8.52 p.m., while he was out. Who was that?’

  ‘It could have been the maid, for the turndown service.’

  ‘For the benefit of the jury, what is a turndown service?’

  ‘It’s when the sheets of the bed are folded down so that the guest can get in. It usually happens in the evening.’

  ‘So that’s it, just the sheets are turned back?’

  ‘No, the pillows are plumped up and mints are left on top of each.’

  ‘What kind of mints?’

  ‘Mints,’ he shrugged.

  ‘Are they in wrappers?’

  ‘Yes, blue plastic wrappers.’

  She asked me for the pictures of Evelyn on the bed.

  She went through them on the lectern, then looked at the court clerk. ‘Can the witness be handed Exhibits 9b and… 10e, please. And can copies of both be passed to the jury.’

  9b was a shot of the row of pillows to the right of Evelyn’s head.

  10e showed the bed after Evelyn’s body had been removed.

  ‘Looking at photograph labelled 9b. Is that a mint on the pillow?’

  ‘No, it’s a chocolate. They’re placed on the pillow the first day the guest arrives.’

  ‘But not as part of the turndown service?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. This could have been a mistake, though.’

  Christine cleared her throat.

  ‘Now please look at photograph 10e. Has that bed been turned down?’

  ‘No.’

  The sheet was covering the bed, the edge covered by the bank of pillows.

  ‘So would it be fair for me to suggest that the bed was never turned down that night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then who used a passkey to open the door to Suite 18 at 8.52 p.m. – while Mr James was out?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘But someone definitely opened the door then?’

  ‘According to this print-out, yes.’

  ‘Did the police question you about this data?’

  ‘No.’

  Christine killed a few seconds at the lectern, crossing off her list of questions.

  ‘Moving on to the second data sheet, for Room 474. Evelyn Bates was a guest in that room, wasn’t she? She shared the room with Penny Halliwell, who organised the hen party she was attending on March 16th.’

  ‘Yes, I believe so.’

  ‘According to the data, Evelyn or Penny last opened the door at 6.11 p.m. on March 16th. They went out. That was the last time a guest keycard was used to open the door until 11.12 a.m. the following morning.

  ‘We have a statement from Penny Halliwell, saying she returned to the room at around 11 a.m. on March 17th,’ Christine said. ‘However, that wasn’t the only time the door was opened. When does the turndown service stop, Mr Torena?’

  ‘Usually around 9 p.m.’

  ‘Not later?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So there wouldn’t be a turndown service at 2 a.m.?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why is there a record of a passkey being used to enter Evelyn Bates’s room at 2.19 a.m.?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’re head of security, Mr Torena. The keycard’s full code is “PK15t”. That’s the same card that was used to enter Mr James’s room at 8.52 p.m., was it not?’

  ‘It’s a generic code,’ he said. ‘All the passkeys are called PK15t.’

  ‘So you don’t actually know which individual members of staff are accessing the rooms?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s hardly secure, is it?’

  ‘I don’t make the rules,’ he said.

  ‘Our clerk here obtained the information from you, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘Did you not notice that someone had entered the victim’s room at around two in the morning?’

  ‘I just copied and pasted the data and emailed it to Terry, as he requested.’

  ‘So you didn’t look at it?’

  ‘I’m not a cop any more,’ he said. ‘I just work in a hotel.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Torena.’

  DCI Reid was recalled and handed the keycard information.

  ‘Do you recognise the data for Suite 18?’ Christine asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you should, DCI Reid. It’s your evidence.’

  DCI Reid didn’t flinch.

  ‘Did you notice that someone had used a passkey to enter Suite 18 while Mr James was out?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you find out who it was?’

  ‘We thought it was a maid.’

  ‘Did you confirm it was a maid?’

  ‘No. It’s a fancy hotel, we assumed it was a turndown service.’

  ‘We’ve just spoken to the head of security, who informed us that the bed wasn’t turned down at all.’

  The policewoman didn’t reply.

  ‘DCI Reid?’

  ‘What’s your question?’

  ‘Did you notice the bed hadn’t been turned down?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know what a turned-down bed looks like?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, with a hint of indignation.

  ‘Did you ask who had entered the room at 8.52 p.m., using a passkey?’

  ‘We assumed it was a maid.’

  ‘For the turndown service that never happened? I will suggest that you made the wrong assumption, DCI Reid. I will in fact suggest that you completely overlooked a small, but potentially vital discrepancy. In fact, I’ll go further. Your investigation was downright sloppy.’

  DCI Reid didn’t answer.

  Christine had chalked up another major point in the police-not-doing-their-jobs-properly tally.

  ‘Can the witness please be shown Exhibit 5. And can copies of Exhibit 5 also be circulated among the jury,’ she said to the clerk.

  That was Evelyn’s note, written on hotel stationery.

  @ Private party @ Suite 18. Evey x

  ‘DCI Reid, what is Exhibit 5?’

  ‘It’s a message written by Evelyn Bates to the person she was sharing her hotel room with, Penny Halliwell. Ms Halliwell found it on Evelyn’s pillow when she returned to the room the next morning.’

  ‘What steps did you take to confirm that this note was actually written by Evelyn Bates?’

  ‘The letter was shown to members of her family and we had a handwriting expert compare it to a sample. They’re an exact match. We also tested the paper for fingerprints. Her prints are on there.’

  ‘Were there any other prints?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Two different sets.’

  ‘Did you make any attempt to find out who they belong to?’

  ‘It’s from a hotel room notepad. It could have been a guest or a maid.’

  ‘Another assumption, DCI Reid. I’m seeing a pattern here, aren’t you?’

  DCI Reid stayed calm. ‘Anyone could have handled that pad. It’s a popular room.’

  ‘Di
d you think to track down previous guests?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We didn’t think it was relevant.’

  ‘Did you even think about doing that at all?’

  DCI Reid sighed. ‘Probably not.’

  Christine put lines through a couple of questions.

  ‘Penny Halliwell said she only saw the note when she returned to the room on March 17th.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Please look at Sheet 2 of the keycard information, for Room 474. Take your time over it, please, DCI Reid.’

  DCI Reid studied it for a few seconds and looked up.

  ‘Have you ever seen that data before?’ Christine asked her.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you never accessed keycard data for the victim’s room – just the suspect’s?’

  Silence.

  ‘Is that a yes or a no, DCI Reid?’

  ‘No, I did not access the data for Room 474.’

  ‘Surely, in any investigation – but especially a murder investigation – you want to track the victim’s last movements every bit as much as the suspect’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yet you didn’t even attempt to find out whether Evelyn had gone back to her room that night.’

  ‘We’d found the note.’

  ‘And you didn’t want to know when she’d left it? Isn’t establishing a timeline of events elementary police work?’

  DCI Reid swallowed and tightened her jaw. ‘We’d found the note. We deemed that sufficient proof that the victim had been back in her room. We also deemed it sufficient proof that she’d gone up to Suite 18 – especially since she was found dead there.’

  ‘You didn’t do your job properly did you, dear?’ Christine said.

  DCI Reid finally lost her cool. She flushed, and gave Christine a ferocious look, but said nothing.

  ‘Because from the data, I cannot understand how Evelyn Bates could possibly have left this note in her room. She didn’t have her keycard with her when she went out. That was found on the bedside table.

  ‘Someone else put the note there, someone employed at the hotel, someone with a passkey. I’m going to suggest that her killer placed the note there. Her real killer. Not Mr James.’

  DCI Reid looked at Christine a moment, and then at Carnavale.

  ‘Evelyn could quite easily have given the note to a receptionist, or another member of staff with a passkey to put in her room,’ DCI Reid said.

  ‘Unlikely,’ Christine snapped. ‘DCI Reid, over the course of this trial, it’s become obvious that you and certain members of your team cut corners in this investigation.’

  DCI Reid didn’t reply.

  When Christine sat down, I wasn’t sure who the jury had sided with.

  Janet joined us in the canteen for lunch.

  ‘I’ve just got off the phone with Melissa James. She doesn’t want to give evidence,’ she said.

  I’d completely forgotten about that. I’d been focusing on the bigger event – VJ’s turn on the stand, which was happening this afternoon.

  ‘Why not?’ Christine asked.

  ‘She said she doesn’t want to commit perjury.’

  86

  Day 7 (p.m.)

  VJ left the dock and crossed over to the witness stand.

  The jury saw him at ground level – their level – no longer the elevated entity behind a bulletproof shield. His walk was unhurried and stiff-backed, his head held high. The jurors followed him with their eyes.

  Janet had joined us on the benches. She was sat behind me, next to Carnavale’s clerk.

  ‘What were you doing at the Blenheim-Strand on March 16th?’ Christine asked VJ after he’d settled in.

  ‘I was there to attend an award ceremony…’

  And they went through his version of what happened, from the moment he walked into the hotel to the instant the police told him he was under arrest for murder.

  He was immediately impressive and stayed that way. He abided by the SQUID rules. He looked Christine in the eye the whole time. He got the tone absolutely right. They’d worked on it in Belmarsh. She’d got him to speak in a slightly bemused manner, as if he’d just woken up and didn’t recognise his surroundings. It made him sound powerless and vulnerable, even in his shortest answers.

  But he’d added an ingredient of his own – his accent. The Stevenage Estuary was flowing through his vowels again, easy to hear when his speech took too sharp a corner. He was someone who’d had most of his rough edges rubbed smooth by the pumice stone of polite company, yet retained the grain of his background too – aka his soul. He hadn’t changed, his circumstances had.

  I watched the jury throughout. No reaction, but they were hanging on to his every word.

  And I watched Carnavale too. He was also paying strict attention and continuously making notes. As was his junior, who passed him messages on Post-its from time to time.

  ‘One final question,’ Christine said. ‘Did you kill Evelyn Bates?’

  No,’ VJ said. ‘I did not.’

  ‘Mr James. Did you kill your father?’

  That was Carnavale’s opening.

  There were a few baffled gasps and grunts from the public.

  Christine was on her feet.

  ‘My Lord, we object to the question on the grounds that it is not only completely irrelevant to this trial, but it’s also a gratuitous attempt by the prosecution to prejudice the jury against the defendant.’

  Judge Blumenfeld nodded and looked to Carnavale for a retort.

  ‘This isn’t the first time the accused has been suspected of murder, My Lord.’

  ‘I think “suspected” is too strong a word,’ Christine countered. ‘Mr James was neither arrested nor charged in connection with the tragic murder of his father. He was merely questioned, along with his mother and his sister. As my learned friend well knows, it is standard police procedure to question immediate family during murder investigations.’

  Carnavale was quick on the comeback.

  ‘My Lord, the police interviewed the defendant’s mother and sister once before eliminating them from their inquiries. However the defendant was interviewed under caution on five separate occasions. He was quite obviously the main suspect.’

  The judge sighed heavily.

  ‘Mr Carnavale, the defendant is not on trial for the murder of his father.’ He turned to the jury. ‘Please disregard the question.’

  Christine sat down.

  ‘You didn’t like him much, did you?’ Carnavale said to VJ.

  Christine was back on her feet. The judge cut in before she could speak.

  ‘Mr Carnavale, what is the relevance of the defendant’s relationship with his father?’

  ‘Credibility, My Lord. On March 16th the accused gave a speech expressing his love and admiration for his father. Yet on the day his father was murdered, the accused was seen having a violent argument with him. The police later discovered that the accused and his father had had a volatile relationship.’

  The judge nodded and turned to VJ.

  ‘Please answer the question.’

  Christine sat down, pissed off.

  ‘Our relationship was troubled,’ VJ said.

  ‘That’s not what I asked you,’ Carnavale said. ‘I asked if you liked your father.’

  ‘Then no, I didn’t like him. I didn’t like him at all,’ VJ said. ‘My father was a very angry, bitter man who resented everything about his life, including his family. He considered us a burden rather than a blessing. It’s hard to like someone like that.’

  ‘In other words your award speech was a complete lie?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. As I got older and when I became a father myself, I understood the man who made me. He’d suffered when we moved to England, financially and professionally. He went from being a somebody in a small country to a nobody in a big one. He took it out on those nearest to him. Yet, despite that, he always put food on our table and kept the roof over our heads. I�
��d like to think that if he were alive today we’d be friends.’

  The SQUID rules had gone out the window, but the Asian juror was moved.

  ‘You had an alibi for the night your father was murdered, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I was with friends.’

  Oh no…

  Here it comes…

  The judge banged his gavel hard.

  ‘Mr Carnavale,’ he said, wearily. ‘You may not have exhausted this particular line of questioning, but you’ve exhausted my patience. The defendant is not on trial for killing his father. Irrespective of what the police at the time thought or suspected, they had no proof to back it up. So you may not ask the defendant any more questions about this. Is that clear?’

  Then Carnavale turned and looked straight at me.

  My heart started pounding, my mouth went suddenly dry. The prosecutor’s eyes were burning into me. I didn’t want to look at him, but couldn’t look away.

  ‘Do you have any questions to ask the defendant relating to the case at hand – the murder of Evelyn Bates?’ the judge asked.

  ‘I do, My Lord.’

  ‘Then please ask him those. Thank you.’

  What had just happened?

  Christine tossed me a handkerchief.

  ‘You’re sweating,’ she whispered.

  I touched my brow with cold fingertips, which came away wet.

  Carnavale’s junior passed him some sheets of paper. He took his time looking them over on the lectern.

  ‘What was the name of the award you were accepting?’ he asked.

  ‘The Ethical Person of the Year.’

  ‘Ironic, don’t you think?’

  VJ didn’t answer.

  Carnavale craned forward.

  ‘You’re not “ethical” at all, are you? Not this year, not last year, not any year.’ That was a pre-prepared line if ever there was one. He’d delivered it with an adenoidal sneer, a full blast of the dreaded kazoo. ‘After all, you have cheated on your wife, haven’t you?’

  ‘It wasn’t the Ethical Husband of the Year award,’ VJ said. ‘If it had been, I’d have turned it down.’

  Laughter. Smirks from the jury. Carnavale had walked right into that one. He blushed at the nape.