Arthurs' Night (Detective Johnny Inch series Book 6)

by J F Straker

  There was a pause while the items of clothing were produced and entered in evidence. So far there had been nothing in the Superintendent’s evidence to which Connor could take exception, but he stayed tense. It wasn’t over yet. And as Brummit went on to describe the meeting at the airport and the subsequent interview and arrest Connor knew that his apprehension had been justified. The bias he had read into Brummit’s evidence at the committal proceedings was there again. The bastard! he thought furiously. The vicious, conniving bastard! All he cares about is a conviction — and to hell with justice!

  His apprehension was not eased by Perfect’s cross-examination. He wanted to see Brummit squirm under a barrage of searching questions and pitiless sarcasm. But Perfect touched on only one aspect, and to Connor it seemed unimportant. Irrelevant even.

  ‘You have told us that on leaving the scene of the crime you went directly to the Malt House Hotel,’ Perfect said. ‘Why, Superintendent? Did you learn from the deceased’s parents that that was where she had intended to spend the previous evening?’

  ‘No, sir. They claimed not to know where she had been.’

  ‘Then why, from the numerous hotels in and around Felborough, did you pick on the Malt House? Was it just a lucky dip? Or did you have information — private information, presumably, since you do not seem to have made it public — which told you where to start your inquiries?’

  ‘Not exactly, sir.’

  ‘Not exactly which, Superintendent? A lucky dip or private information?’

  ‘I happened to know that the Malt House was a favourite meeting place for Rebecca Main and her friends.’

  ‘Happened?’ Connor wondered if Perfect’s surprise was genuine. ‘You were acquainted with Miss Main?’

  ‘No sir. But —’

  ‘You had never met her?’

  There was a pause before Brummit answered. ‘Once,’ he said.

  ‘Why the hesitation, Superintendent?’

  ‘I was about to say ‘no’, sir. But that would have been incorrect. There was an occasion last year when the car in which the deceased was travelling was stopped by the police for showing no lights after dark. Both she and the driver were found to be under the influence of alcohol.’

  ‘Oh? Since when have traffic irregularities been the concern of C.I.D.?’

  ‘The matter was dealt with by the uniformed branch,’ Brummit said. ‘I took no part in it. I merely happened to be a passenger in the car that stopped them.’

  ‘I see. Which brings us back to where we started. How did you come to know that the deceased was a frequent visitor to the Malt House?’

  ‘From one of my officers, sir.’

  Perfect looked pained. ‘You could have saved the Court’s time, Superintendent, by mentioning that fact earlier.’

  The rebuke was too mild to give Connor much joy.

  The name of Arthur Mason was unknown to him, but he recognised the man when he appeared in the box. He had driven Mr. Connor to Heathrow on the morning of September the 19th, Mason said, and he had noticed that Mr. Connor had a large piece of sticking plaster on his left cheek. Had he driven the accused before? counsel asked. Once or twice, Mason said. He was usually a chatty passenger, but on that particular morning he had been subdued, as if he had something on his mind. Or as if he had got home in the small hours, Perfect suggested, and had had very little sleep? Yes, Mason agreed, that too.

  Perfect did not dispute that the pants found in Connor’s car had belonged to Becky, or that the articles of clothing taken from his house had been worn by him on the night she was murdered. Nor did he dispute that soil found on them had come from the ditch in which her body was found. What he did dispute, however, was an expert’s opinion concerning the shoes. There had been no recent rain and the bank was reasonably firm, the expert said, yet the impressions made by the heels were sufficiently deep to suggest that they had been made by someone staggering under a load; and further down the bank there were indications that the load had been dropped and had rolled into the ditch. A man unexpectedly finding himself careering down a steep bank in the dark, Perfect said, would dig in his heels to stop from falling. To assert that he had been carrying a load was irresponsible. The expert denied that he had made such an assertion. He had been giving an opinion, he said, and did not claim to be infallible.

  Connor was the only defence witness, and having listened to Brummit’s version he welcomed the opportunity to air his own. Nor did prosecuting counsel’s searching cross-examination shake him or make him regret taking the stand. The truth might be unpalatable and would probably disenchant the jury, but it was a lot less unpalatable than Brummit’s version. He wanted the world to hear it. They might not accept it, but they had to hear it.

  He felt better when he had told it, better still when he saw Woolmer’s approving nod. But his confidence wilted as he listened to the prosecutor’s summing up. A woman picked up in a bar and plied with drink as a preliminary to sex, anger when sex was denied, attempted rape and finally a corpse: that, counsel asserted, was the obvious sequence of events as they had occurred that fateful night. If the defendant were innocent, why had he lied to the police about the wound to his cheek? Why had he at first denied leaving the car? If, as he claimed, he had done so in order to relieve himself — well, fortified with whisky as he undeniably was, would it have worried him greatly if he had been seen by a passing motorist? Wasn’t it more likely he had lied because he connected leaving the car with the disposal of his victim’s body, and to his guilty mind it seemed probable that others would so connect it? The defence had been at pains to depict the deceased as a woman of easy virtue, and no doubt his learned colleague would argue that she had expected sex when she went with the defendant. Accept that, he would say — and the prosecution did accept it — and one must also accept that the defendant would not have had to fight to get what he wanted. Why then would he kill her?

  The prosecutor paused. ‘It sounds logical, doesn’t it? But there is a flaw in the argument which I doubt if my learned colleague will bother to mention. Yet it cannot be ignored. The witness Adam Grant has testified that Rebecca Main did not give her favours for free. There had to be payment, either in cash or in kind. But what did she get from the defendant? Not cash — as you have heard, there was one pound and twenty-two pence in her handbag — and certainly not a present. All she got was a sandwich and a few whiskies. And I suggest that that was the cause of the struggle that resulted in her death. Rebecca Main demanded money and the defendant refused to give it. Perhaps he thought the handout in the bar was sufficient. Perhaps he thought she was trying to cheat him of his just reward. So he tried to force her, and in so doing he killed her.’

  Perfect did his best, but much of the ground had been cut from under him. Rebecca Main had not gone with the defendant for reward, he said. He was a personable young man and she had fancied him, as Adam Grant had testified. He had offered her dinner and she had refused, preferring a sandwich. There had been no struggle because nothing had occurred to provoke one. It had been the woman, not the man, who had been eager for sex, and when he was unable to comply she had shouted foul abuse at him. Humiliated and shocked by his failure, he had at first suffered her abuse in silence; only when her invective became unbearable had he told her to cease and, when she continued to revile him, had finally slapped her face — whereupon she had viciously streaked his cheek with her nails and had left him. And wasn’t it natural, Perfect said, that he should have lied about that to the police? Foolish, yes — but natural. He had realised the way their minds were working; to have admitted an exchange of blows would have hardened their suspicion. As for his statement that he had not left the car, that had been made under a misapprehension. Confused by their questioning, he had assumed they were accusing him of having followed the woman from the car, whereas in fact it had been some fifteen minutes later that he had got out to relieve himself. The prosecution doubted that he would have been greatly concerned had he been caught in the approaching ca
r’s headlights. Well, possibly not. But he had been standing by a bush. Would it not be the instinctive reaction of any man caught in such a predicament to step behind it? It was dark, he was a stranger to the locality; he could not know about the bank. Again, would a man who had just committed murder take a nap in his car before leaving the scene of the crime? Wasn’t it more likely that he would leave as soon and as fast as he could?

  Perfect concluded by stressing that there was not one shred of factual evidence to connect the defendant with the crime. With the woman and the place, yes. But not with her death. The jury might ask — who, then, had killed her? That was not a question for the defence to answer. That was for the police after the defendant had been acquitted. But the dead woman was known to have had many male acquaintances. Was it beyond the bounds of probability that one of them had been waiting for her along the track and, for a reason at which they could only guess, had killed her and deposited her body in the ditch?

  The judge’s summing up was brief and concise. ‘You have heard the evidence,’ he told the jury, ‘and it is on that evidence that you must decide whether or not the defendant, James Connor, killed Rebecca Main. If you consider there is insufficient evidence to say that he did you must acquit him. However, if you are satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that he did, you must then ask yourselves, was the homicide murder or manslaughter? Murder implies malice aforethought, the infliction of an injury with a definite desire that death shall result or with the knowledge that death is a foreseeable consequence. On the other hand, if you consider that the woman provoked the defendant into killing her, then the homicide may be manslaughter rather than murder. Mr. Justice Devlin has defined provocation as ‘some act or acts done by the deceased which would cause in any reasonable person, and causes in the accused, a sudden temporary loss of self-control rendering him so subject to passion as to make him for the moment not master of his own mind.’ The onus was on the prosecution to show that there was no such provocation. If you consider that they have not done so it is for you to decide whether there was sufficient provocation to justify a verdict of manslaughter.’

  The jury were out for just under two hours. They returned a verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

  He was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment.

  Part Two — 1974

  Chapter 1

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kessler said. ‘I didn’t recognise you. The whiskers fooled me. Besides, I wasn’t expecting to see you. I mean, I didn’t know you were out.’

  ‘The end isn’t as well publicised as the beginning,’ Connor said. ‘I’d have been out sooner if I’d earned full remission. Which I didn’t. It’s not easy to suffer injustice. Bitterness makes one rebel.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ Kessler said.

  ‘Like hell you can!’ So far Connor had been calm. Now bitterness returned. ‘Nobody rough-rode you as Brummit rough-rode me. You haven’t spent nearly six years in gaol for a crime you didn’t commit. Understand? Christ! You can’t even begin to understand.’

  Kessler looked guiltily embarrassed. Eyeing him morosely across the office desk, Connor knew why. Kessler had visited him twice before the Appeal Court had upheld the verdict and sentence; after that his visits had become less frequent and had finally ceased. Since then Connor’s only visitors had been his father and, rather surprisingly, Henry Woolmer, who came first as his solicitor and later as a friend. But not Kessler. For Kessler he had become the forgotten man. Now, recalling his forgetfulness, Kessler felt guilty.

  Kessler took time over lighting his pipe. ‘I guess you’re right, Jim,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It must have been grim.’

  ‘It was.’ Connor managed a conciliatory smile. He might need Kessler. ‘And I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have blown my top. That’s no way to start a reunion.’

  ‘Reunion?’

  ‘We used to be friends.’

  ‘I hope we still are.’ Kessler hesitated. ‘Are you looking for a job?’

  ‘Not right away. I’ve things to do first. But I’ll need one later. Who’s running sales here? Docherty?’

  ‘Yes. He hasn’t your flair, of course, but he copes.’

  ‘So what are my chances?’

  ‘Here?’ Kessler shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Jim. I mean, I’d like to have you back, you know that. But I can’t give Docherty the push; not just like that. And then there’s the customers. You may not have killed that girl, but the public in general believe you did. They accept the verdict of the court.’

  ‘So what? I’ve done my bird.’

  ‘That’s not the point, Jim. They might be — well, reluctant to do business with you. Unfair, perhaps. But then that’s life, isn’t it?’

  ‘It sounds more like death,’ Connor said. ‘However, I take it I’m out.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘No? I thought you just did.’

  From under bushy eyebrows Kessler considered him. He said slowly, ‘The beard’s quite an effective disguise, of course. If you were to change your name a few of your old customers would recognise you, I suppose, but others might not. Tell you what, Jim. You say you’re in no hurry for a job, that you have things to do first. Right, then — go ahead and do them. Take a holiday; you must need one after what you’ve been through. Then come and see me again. Maybe we can work something out, eh? How are you placed financially?’

  ‘I’ll manage,’ Connor said.

  ‘Well, let me know if you’re stuck.’

  In the old days, Connor thought, you’d have asked me home to dinner or taken me to your club. Now you don’t want to know. And it will be the same if I come back later. There’ll be sympathy and apologies, but nothing will work out. There’ll be no job.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ he said.

  ‘Good man. You look fit enough, I’ll say that. Lost a bit of weight, perhaps; but then you could afford to, couldn’t you?’ Kessler levered himself up from the chair. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me now. We keep busy, I’m happy to say. But stay in touch. Something may crop up.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Connor said.

  Kessler came round the desk and put a hand on his shoulder as he escorted him to the door.

  ‘I haven’t mentioned it before, Jim — didn’t want to press on a sore spot — but I’m sorry about Anne.’ The grip on Connor’s shoulder tightened and then relaxed. ‘Very sorry. You know that, eh?’

  Connor nodded. ‘I’m sorry too,’ he said.

  *

  She had visited him regularly at first. Sometimes he wondered why. Because she loved him and believed in him? Or was it merely from a sense of loyalty? Despite her immaculate appearance she always looked tired; the long journey, perhaps, and the strain of their meeting, although she never admitted to tiredness. And they found conversation difficult. Nothing unusual in that; they had never been a talkative couple; their affinity had expressed itself on the bed. She gave him snatches of news about her job, and although he tried to show interest he seldom felt it. In a way she had become as distant as life outside was distant, and her presence tended to increase his general bitterness. It made him even more acutely aware of the long years ahead before he could do more than look at her across a table. She was his wife in name only. And what pleasure could a man in his circumstances derive from sharing a name?

  Before the first year was out her visits had become more irregular. He did not blame her. Despite his innocence he felt humiliated that she should see him only in such obscene surroundings, and he had no doubt that his humiliation communicated itself to her. Or perhaps his increasing bitterness frightened her. Numbed by the rejection of his appeal, bitterness had at first been less evident. Not until prison life had become a loathsome routine, a routine that was to be his for as long as a man could afford to look ahead, had bitterness become complete.

  It was after an unusually prolonged gap between visits that Anne first referred to the future. How did he feel about selling the house? she asked
. It was becoming something of a burden, physically as well as financially.

  ‘Sell it?’ Connor was shocked. ‘Good God, no! Why would we want to do that? It can only appreciate in value.’

  ‘Perhaps. But — well, while both of us were earning we could cope. On my salary alone it’s damned hard. Did you know mortgage rates have gone up?’

  He did not know. ‘But you’re managing, aren’t you?’

  ‘Only just. I don’t know how long I can continue. It’s not only the increased mortgage; there’s the constant repairs and general upkeep and — oh, everything. It’s getting me down, Jim. And it’s too big for one person. I’m lonely there. To be honest, I’m beginning to loathe the place.’

  ‘I loathe it here,’ Connor said.

  ‘That’s different. You haven’t a choice. I have.’

  He refused to be persuaded. If anything could enable him to survive his sentence it was the knowledge that when it was over he would have a wife and a home awaiting him. But Anne was not so easily defeated. On her next visit she informed him that she had moved out of the house and was sharing a flat in Hammersmith. ‘If you still won’t agree to selling the damned place I suppose we could let it,’ she said. ‘That’s up to you. But count me out, Jim. I’ve had it.’

  ‘You’re being bloody minded,’ he accused.

  ‘I’m being practical. I can’t afford to run it and I don’t want to be bothered with letting it.’