A Game of Proof (The trials of Sarah Newby)

by Vicary, Tim

  The judge listened, smiled, and gave her client seven years for armed robbery.

  She walked disconsolately back to her chambers, still in her gown, her wig in her hand. A group of foreign tourists photographed her as she waited to cross the road.

  God help Simon if he gets a judge like that, she thought. Or a barrister like me. Seven years for stealing a sandwich! As she crossed the road she saw Terry coming towards her on the opposite pavement. She smiled as he approached.

  ‘Hello, Sarah. Can we talk?’

  Something in his manner made her heart lurch unpleasantly. ‘What, here?’

  He looked around. ‘Wherever. It won’t take long.’

  ‘There’s a bench free by the river. Let’s go there.’

  They sat on the bench and watched a pleasure cruiser move upstream. Terry watched it briefly, then met her eyes. She saw no warmth, no sympathy.

  ‘Terry, what is it? What do you know?’

  ‘It’s more what I don’t know and what you do,’ he said harshly. ‘For instance about your son’s previous jobs and how he lost one of them.’

  ‘Terry, I don’t understand. What jobs?’

  ‘You really didn’t know, when you spoke to me the other night? That he worked as a delivery driver for Robsons, the builders’ merchants?’

  ‘So? He’s had dozens of jobs.’

  ‘He was sacked from this one.’ Terry studied her keenly. ‘You know why, don’t you?’

  ‘No! Terry, what is this?’

  ‘He stuck his hand up the secretary’s skirt.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ A mother with a toddler frowned disapprovingly. ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘Tracy found out. And what’s worse, he delivered two loads of building materials to Maria Clayton, the prostitute who was murdered. So he did have a connection with her, after all.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean he killed her.’ Sarah’s voice was faint, little above a whisper.

  ‘Of course not, yet. But Churchill thinks it will. His theory is that Simon had sex with her, it went wrong somehow, and snap, something broke in his head and the first of these killings started. With the balaclava and the knife.’

  He flew into a rage, Sarah thought. Like yesterday in the prison.

  ‘All this because he delivered things to her house? Terry, really!’

  ‘I’m just telling you how he’s thinking.’ Terry heard the strain in her voice and saw her fingers shaking. ‘Sarah, are you really saying you didn’t know?’

  ‘I knew he had the job, yes, but not every delivery he made. Why should I?’ And why should did I believe what he told me yesterday? She gazed unseeing at some tourists feeding a swan. ‘And certainly not how he was sacked. Jesus, Terry!’

  In profile, he thought he saw tears in her eye. He got up.

  ‘Well, that’s it. I really shouldn’t tell you any of this. I have to go.’

  She stood to detain him. ‘Terry. I thought we were friends.’

  ‘I saw Maria’s body, Sarah.’

  ‘And I saw Jasmine’s. You know that, you were there.’

  ‘Yes.’ He hesitated. ‘Look, there are still the DNA tests. I’ll let you know.’

  Then he left, with that long, loping stride that would make it impossible for her to catch him without running and making herself look ridiculous.

  She stood and stared after him while a tourist, an enormously fat man in blue shorts and orange teeshirt, took a photo of her with an expensive Japanese camera.

  ‘All right, let’s go through this again. You stuck your hand up this woman’s skirt.’

  ‘It was a joke, mum. She was a fat cow, she’d been giving everyone grief, and when she bent over she farted. The other drivers were pissing themselves.’

  ‘And so you got the sack for molesting her.’

  ‘She only had the job because she was the boss’s moron sister. She deserved it.’

  ‘Oh, Simon, Simon.’ Sarah shook her head in despair. ‘You realize what they’ll make of this, don’t you?’

  ‘Mum, the woman’s still alive ...’

  ‘But Maria Clayton isn’t, is she? And you delivered building materials to her house.’

  ‘I never met the woman, mum. Honest. She wasn’t there.’

  ‘Two days ago you told us you’d never been there.’ Sarah jabbed her finger at Lucy’s notes. ‘Never worked there, you said. Never saw her.’

  ‘Yeah, well. There were that many deliveries ...’

  ‘You lied to me, Simon. Again.’

  ‘I forgot, mum. That’s all.’

  Sarah sighed, speechless. They had been in this dreary prison room for half an hour now. Simon gazed sulkily at the clouds outside the window. Sarah fiddled with the wedding ring on her finger. After a pause, Lucy resumed.

  ‘All right. Let’s leave that and concentrate on the murder of Jasmine, which is the only thing you’ve been charged with so far. We’ve agreed that you’re pleading not guilty. So we have to establish several things. First, what exactly did happen on that day, the last day you saw her, and whether you have any witnesses to prove it. Second, we have to examine all the evidence that the police produce, and in particular why your trainers and breadknife have Jasmine’s blood on.’

  ‘I told you. She cut her thumb in the kitchen.’

  ‘Yes. The pathologist’s report confirms there was a small cut on her thumb ...’

  ‘I put a plaster it,’ Simon said.

  ‘But he doesn’t mention a plaster. I’ll check that, though.’ Lucy frowned, and made a note. ‘Third - this is the least important but it would be wonderful if we could do it - we have to think about who did kill her if you didn’t.’

  ‘What do you mean, least important? It seems like the most important to me.’

  ‘Of course it’s important, Simon,’ Lucy explained patiently. ‘But it’s not strictly our job. It’s a matter for the police. All we have to demonstrate is that you didn’t kill her. Or in fact less than that - simply that there’s no evidence that you did. But believe me, even that’s going to be hard enough. Finding out who did do it is another matter altogether.’

  ‘Well, I can give you one name for a start. David Brodie. He should be locked up instead of me, the bastard! See how he likes it!’

  ‘Why do you say that, Simon?’

  ‘Well, isn’t it obvious?’ Simon snorted contemptuously. ‘She was living with him but he was no good at sex - she told me. That’s why she came back - treated me like a fucking stud! Well, he must have known that, mustn’t he? She needed it too much, she’d have told him. So that would have driven him mad, even a wimp like him. And where was her body found? Quarter of a mile from his house. So why aren’t they searching his place, eh? Looking for bloody knives in his cupboard?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lucy answered cautiously. ‘I can ask the police, though.’

  ‘Well, ask then, will you? Please?’ Simon glanced aside at his mother.

  Sarah smiled faintly, encouraging his attempt at politeness. ‘We’ll ask, certainly. But while we’re on this, Simon, what about another possibility? Gary Harker?’

  ‘Gary?’ he said. His face paled slightly. ‘Why him?’

  ‘Well, he’s a violent man, as you know. He almost certainly raped Sharon Gilbert, and ...’ Sarah hesitated. She hadn’t told Simon how Gary had attacked her, and she didn’t want to tell him now. Partly because she was ashamed of the whole incident and wanted to block it out, but more because she feared Simon’s response. He would be outraged by an attack on his mother, and she’d had enough of his rage already. No doubt the prison warders had too.

  So she continued, rather feebly: ‘... and he has a record of petty crime and violence going back to his teens. In addition to which he had met Jasmine, hadn’t he? At your house?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose he had, once or twice. But he had nowt to do with her, surely?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘I wasn’t there.’

  ‘No, well, he didn’t. She was always with me when h
e was there, and ... Christ, I’ll kill the bastard if he’s touched her!’

  ‘We don’t know that he did, Simon,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s just that, you see, he’s the sort of man who could have killed her, isn’t he? If he asked her for sex, perhaps, and she refused.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Simon banged his forehead with his fist, repeatedly. The thought of Gary with Jasmine clearly hurt him badly.

  ‘So if you can think of any occasions, any incidents that might suggest his involvement, tell us about them and we’ll pass them on to the police and if possible use them in court,’ Lucy continued. ‘Any suggestion that someone else may have killed her is good. But Gary’s rather a long shot. He was only released from court on the afternoon of the day she died. You didn’t see him at any time that day, did you?’

  Simon looked at her blankly. ‘No, how could I? I was with Jasmine all afternoon, in bed mostly. I didn’t see him there.’

  ‘He didn’t come round to your house, ring you, anything like that?’

  ‘No.’ He swallowed nervously. ‘Look, if he killed her - and you’re right, mum, he could have, he’s the sort of bastard who could, no doubt about that - then I don’t know why or how he met her. But - oh God ...’ He sank his head in his hands, and Sarah realised he was crying. ‘ ... it’s bad enough that she’s dead, but to think it might be him ...’

  They waited until he recovered his composure. Sarah remembered the suspicion she had voiced so unwillingly to Terry Bateson the other night; what if this series of crimes had actually been perpetrated by two men, working together, one perhaps under the influence of the other? Had Gary controlled her son, in some way?

  When he looked up, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, she asked gently: ‘Why do you hate him so much, Simon?’

  ‘Because ...’ He shook his head. ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘Because what? Tell me.’

  Still no response. He looked away from her, at the wall, but found no comfort there.

  Lucy added her voice. ‘Come on, Simon. We can’t help you if we don’t know.’

  ‘Oh God!’ He put his hands flat on the table, looked at the two women desperately. ‘Because I’m afraid of him, that’s why, if you really have to know. So if he can scare me, what he might have done to Jasmine ...’

  ‘What did he do to you, Simon?’

  ‘It wasn’t just him.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Him and that bastard Sean. They beat me up in the loo and ... I shit myself.’ He shook his head violently from side to side, as though to escape the memory. ‘They stuck my face down the loo ... That’s why I let them use the bloody shed! I don’t want to talk about it, mum, I’m sorry.’

  He got up and turned away from them again, banging the wall repeatedly with the flat of his hand, and then his head, thump, thump ...

  Sarah stood up and held him, put her hand on his forehead so that he would have to bang that if he wanted to bang his head. She could feel him sobbing, her big strong son ... She put her slim arms around him but how could they protect, if his own strength had been destroyed?

  He tried to push her off but she wouldn’t let go. As she held him she met Lucy’s eyes and they both thought, we’re Gary Harker’s defence team, we got him off ...

  At last Simon sat down. Ashamed and embarrassed, he tried to regain his dignity. ‘I’m sorry, it weren’t that bad really, just their idea of a filthy joke. But no one’s ever done owt like that to me before and if they tried I could always stop them. But not these two. And the thought of him, either of ‘em, having to do with Jasmine, it’s ... I don’t want to think of it.’

  Two of them, Sarah thought. But not Simon and Gary, after all ...

  Terry was at home, in his living room, reading. His daughters were, he hoped, asleep. His Norwegian nanny, Trude, was on the phone in the corridor, talking to her boyfriend. Terry could hear the conversation but he wasn’t intruding; he couldn’t, he didn’t know any Norwegian.

  He was reading Maria Clayton’s diary. Re-reading it, rather; he had read it several times before. It was an odd mixture of personal appointments, notes, lists, philosophical reflections and comments on her clients.

  It was the latter, naturally, which interested Terry most. They had a wide number of preferences, some of which, clearly, Maria had found amusing. Terry sympathized with her. Why, for example, would a salesman, married with two children, want to dress up as a French maid and have his bottom spanked if he spilt Maria’s drinks? Or a bank manager pay her to cover his erect penis with ice cream and lick it slowly off while he gave her £5 notes?

  No wonder some of these men had been reluctant to help the police enquiry. Still, Terry thought, such activities were harmless, if absurd. Whatever the men who indulged in them were, they were not dangerous psychopaths.

  So it was the other details Terry was checking on now. The appointments, the notes. He checked them all, one by one, against a timetable of the last two months of Maria’s life. It was a slow, painstaking search for the one vital clue which would throw everything else into place.

  But not tonight, it seemed. He yawned, his mind wandering. Best to stop now, he told himself, before I miss something. He heard Trude put the phone down in the corridor and as she came in he dropped the diary gratefully on the sofa beside him.

  ‘How’s Odd?’

  She smiled. ‘Oh, happy, I think. His team won yesterday so - that makes up for me.’

  ‘He prefers football to you?’

  ‘Sometimes, yes, I think he does.’

  He gazed at her, astonished - this slender young woman with the cropped teeshirt and provocative, lithe bellybutton. ‘How could he, Trude? That’s really odd, you know.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it? Let’s hope he’s not bent as well.’

  It was an old joke between them. Terry had been bemused to learn that her Norwegian boyfriend was called Odd, and astounded to hear of other boys in Norway called Bent. Later he had learned that she herself had nearly been christened not Trude, but Randi.

  He could imagine what the lads at work would have said about that. It was hard enough anyway, sharing a house with a lovely young girl in whose eyes he was, presumably, geriatric. He had wondered sometimes what might happen if she ever cast an erotic glance his way; but sadly, it seemed the thought never entered her head.

  ‘I’m off to bed soon,’ she said innocently. ‘Would you like a drink, Terry?’

  ‘A hot chocolate if you’re making one. Thanks.’

  While Trude made the drinks Terry thought about his conversation with Sarah earlier that day. Had he been too harsh? No, probably he’d been too soft before. All that guff the other night about Simon being not the type to commit such crimes was just self-deception on his part.

  Churchill was right. The lad had assaulted a secretary and hit his girlfriend; why couldn’t he murder as well? He had a problem relating to girls; probably caused by his bitchy, over-achieving mother. I should keep clear; the pair of them are nothing but trouble.

  When Trude had gone to bed he picked up the diary and leafed backwards to an entry that had puzzled him earlier. It seemed to refer to one of Maria Clayton’s clients. He read it again.

  S big promise, no result. Gets it up but can’t get it out. V frust for him, poor lamb, blames me. Outside? No way, Jose, I say.

  What did it mean? Terry wondered. Like many entries it seemed to refer to a client with sexual difficulties. But Maria’s attempts at therapy had caused more frustration, which he apparently blamed on her. Outside? was a little more puzzling. Was the man waiting for her outside the house, and she had told him to leave - No way, Jose, I say? Or had he, perhaps, wanted to have sex outdoors?

  Either way, it was interesting. Maria had refused, leaving the man frustrated; so he might have returned to force himself upon her. And his name, apparently, began with S. Well, there were millions of Samuels and Sidneys and Stephens in the world, and no doubt several had come to Maria. Simon began with S, too. Could he be the client Maria was referring to here?

&nb
sp; On reflection, Terry doubted it. Firstly, the diary entry was dated 18th April, a fortnight after Gary and the others had finished the extension, and six weeks since March 5th, Simon’s only recorded visit.

  And what about big promise, no result? It seemed to suggest some sort of impotence in the man. Yet everything Terry had learned about Simon suggested a vigorous, healthy, red-blooded young male, violent and aggressive perhaps but hardly someone who, in bed with Maria, would have the slightest difficulty in getting it up. And yet, and yet ... what other sexual problems were there? It wasn’t a subject Terry was expert in.

  Most of Maria’s clients, he reflected, had been middle-aged men like, well, himself. The ones he felt least sympathy for were those with a wife and children at home, but others had reached their early forties to find themselves single, or divorced, or widowed as he was. Their need for discreet sexual gratification was easy enough to understand.

  Easier, at least, than a desire to rape and murder.

  He yawned and finished his chocolate. Then he climbed the stairs quietly to the landing, crept into his daughters’ bedroom, and listened for the reassurance of their quiet steady breathing. Trude’s light, he noticed as he came out, was still on under her door. Writing to Odd, perhaps.

  He went into his own room, undressed, put on his pyjamas, and climbed wearily into bed.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  THE INSPECTOR smiled. ‘You must be Helen Steersby?’

  The girl nodded, and Lucy thought how young she was. Like many fourteen year olds she was long-limbed and gawky but still obviously a child, even if she was tall enough to look adults in the eye. Lucy imagined her being assaulted by a burly young thug in a mask, and shuddered.

  Inspector Harvey, in charge of the identification parade, introduced Lucy to the girl and her mother, then explained the procedure. ‘Through that door you’ll find a long window in one wall. Behind that window you’ll see ten young men. They can’t see you, because the window is made of one-way glass. Do you understand that?’