Authors: Nick Stone
The weekend.
Rain. Constant solid downpour. Rain so hard and fast it was almost white outside, the buildings shrouded in a mobile mist that made the estate look even more miserable than usual.
I sat on my hands and watched the TV news as I’d been doing all week. Things had gone dark about the Strand shootings. Really dark. As in pitch black and no matches or a cheap lighter. There was no mention of the Israelis in custody, nor the man the police were looking for instead of me. Nothing whatsoever. It was as if the whole thing had never happened.
I washed my five shirts and ironed flawless creases in my two suit trousers.
I spit-polished my shoes and got them gleaming like every cop bright.
I ate ready-meal macaroni cheese and stared at the digital photoframe on the mantelpiece. My kids got older and a little taller. Amy didn’t stop laughing. Ray got more knowing and wary. Karen gained a little weight, lost much of the glow she’d had at the start of our relationship, and her smiles grew more wan. Or maybe I just didn’t know how to take a good picture of her.
What I
didn’t
do was dwell on Scott Nagle and Sid Kopf and why they’d set VJ up. I didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to think about it. I’d almost died the way others had: Evelyn Bates, Fabia Masson, David Stratten and Andy Swayne.
The thought of that was just too much to cope with right now.
And I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was at least partly responsible for two of those deaths.
I wanted to see my kids again. I wanted to watch them become adults and be there to guide them through their young lives, so that when they’d have kids of their own they’d have something positive to pass on to them.
Mostly, I wanted to leave this all behind, bury it somewhere and forget where I’d put it.
And here was the thing that was bothering me the most. VJ may have been innocent of Evelyn Bates’s murder, but he was a danger to women all the same.
I couldn’t get Rachel Hudson’s testimony out of my mind, no matter how conniving she’d been. I kept on juxtaposing her with Fabia.
Why was VJ hurting women the same way he’d seen his father hurt his mother?
Karen called on Sunday.
‘How’s things going with the trial?’ she asked.
‘See the news?’
‘Yeah. And I’ve been following it online too. It’s not looking too good for him, is it?’
‘So they’d have you believe,’ I said.
According to most of the papers and the TV stations, it looked like we were losing the trial. They’d only reported on the sensational stuff – that VJ was into S&M, and beating up prostitutes (the distinction didn’t bother them).
I wasn’t supposed to talk about the trial, but I told Karen about it from my perspective.
All things considered, Sihl had been the biggest surprise. He’d thrown all of us, except for Janet. Talking to her afterwards, reading between the lines, I strongly suspected she’d secretly prepped him for the cross-examination, told him exactly what Carnavale was going to ask and how to reply. If true, it was a gross violation of ethics.
We were winning this.
Sid Kopf’s plan had backfired.
Christine had been brilliant so far. She hadn’t destroyed the case against VJ, but she’d seriously damaged it.
‘When’s it over?’
‘Thursday, Friday at the latest. Then the jury’s out and we wait on the verdict.’
‘Is it safe for us to come home now?’
‘Give it till Friday,’ I said.
‘See you on Saturday, then?’
‘I can’t wait,’ I said.
The jury spent the morning at the Blenheim-Strand, touring Suite 18.
Redpath went as an observer.
Christine and I waited in the Bailey canteen.
She looked about as well as I’d ever seen her, practically healthy. Her eyes were sparkling, the whites actually white instead of a shade of cheap rosé. The puffiness had gone from her face, and her breathing didn’t sound ventilator-assisted. I was guessing the trial going a lot better than expected had something to do with it. Or perhaps being back in court, in her element, was keeping her illness at bay.
She popped one of her pills and chased it with distilled water.
‘Nineteen eighty-four,’ she said. ‘That was the year I tried my first case here.’
‘What was it?’
‘A rape. Those were the only cases I used to get back then.’
‘How come?’
‘The law was a very different institution. It was a man’s world – a gentle
man
’s club. All boys together. Women had to fight three times as hard and be five times as good as their male counterparts. And even then it wasn’t enough.’
‘The old glass ceiling?’
‘More like concrete lined with titanium. You can break
glass
.’ She smiled. ‘The chambers I was working for at the time gave me cases that weren’t just unwinnable but always involved defending men who hurt women. It wasn’t even a test. Those you can pass. They wanted to get me to quit. I knew this, of course. So I looked at those cases as challenges – not just within themselves, but to the system itself. Chauvinistic, backward, elitist. It was a paradox of the most twisted kind: there I was trying to beat a male-dominated institution by representing men who’d committed atrocities to women.’
‘Did you win the trials?’
‘More often than not, yes.’
‘Knowing they were guilty?’
‘They’re almost always guilty, Terry,’ she said. ‘But that was never the point. And it still isn’t. It was, is, and always will be about the law. Do you know what a legal defence really is? It’s highlighting the mistakes the police and prosecution have made on their way to trial. The shortcuts, the illegal moves, the witnesses they didn’t fully vet, the confessions they coerced.’
There was something I had to ask her, something that had been bugging me ever since the trial started.
‘Why am I not impressed with Carnavale?’ I asked.
‘I thought about that very thing this morning,’ she said. ‘The Franco I know has barely turned up here. Do you know he’s booked up all the way to March? That’s seven trials to prepare for. That could be the reason. I also think he took this too lightly. He saw the case as cut and dried. An easy win. There’s the body in the room, no sign of forced entry, a suspect who flees, a suspect who seems to confess to the crime, eyewitnesses who place the suspect with the victim at the right time, DNA…’
She gave me a complicit look.
‘And he probably thought I was past it too.’
‘How wrong he was,’ I said.
And I didn’t just mean Carnavale.
The defence started in the afternoon.
Christine asked for VJ’s bill and the keycard data to be introduced into evidence. She also recalled Albert Torena.
Carnavale had no objection.
Our first witness was Dr Pam Wong, the pathologist who’d compiled the toxicology reports on both VJ and Evelyn Bates.
This was an unusual move, using a witness from the prosecution’s side. Defence teams habitually fight fire with fire, bring in their own expert witness to argue the evidence.
Pam Wong was in her thirties, with black hair, cut in a bob.
‘Dr Wong, are you familiar with the chemical properties of Rohypnol?’
‘I am,’ she said, in a loud, clear voice.
‘In very basic layman’s terms, can you please tell the court how you identified the presence of Rohypnol in both Mr James – the man before you in the dock – and in the victim, Evelyn Bates.’
‘May I start with the victim?’
‘Please.’
‘There are three tests for Rohypnol. If a person has taken it, there will be traces of the drug in the blood, hair and also, for up to seventy-two hours post-ingestion, it’ll be found in urine.
‘As the victim was less than twelve hours dead, whatever substances she’d taken had not metabolised. We tested her blood and found Rohypnol present.’
‘Did you test her urine?’
‘Yes. Her bladder was empty, post-mortem, but we managed to test urine found on the carpet from Area A, where it’s believed the strangulation took place. This also tested positive for Rohypnol.’
‘Can you specify roughly what the dose might have been?’
‘From our samples there was a high enough quantity of Rohypnol in both her urine and blood. I’d assume it was quite a high dose.’
‘Am I right in saying that Rohypnol tablets come in two strengths, 1 and 2 milligrams?’
‘Correct,’ Dr Wong said. ‘But the only tablets legally available in the UK are the 1-milligram variety. I should say that Rohypnol is also available in clear liquid form, sold as ampoules. But those are only available for licensed scientific purposes, not public consumption.’
Christine paused.
The jury were following all this without a problem.
‘You also tested Mr James’s blood and urine?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you found Rohypnol there too?’
‘Yes, in both samples.’
‘So, in your opinion, Mr James was still under the influence of the drug during his arrest and up to the time he gave the samples?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The levels found in his blood and urine were consistent with those of someone who’d taken the drug within the last twelve hours.’
Another pause. Christine asked for Dr Wong to be given the box of Rohypnol tablets found in his study.
‘Dr Wong. You’ll see that one tray of tablets has been removed from the box for ease of inspection. What colour are the tablets?’
‘Green.’
‘Why are the tablets green?’
‘They contain a blue food dye, which is automatically released if the pills are mixed with drink.’
‘In your experience of testing urine samples for Rohypnol, is the dye usually present?’
‘Yes, depending on the time of consumption. The drug is at its most potent in the first six hours, and then gradually the effects taper off as the body eliminates it. In those early stages, the urine is stained blue.’
‘Was that the colour of Mr James’s urine?’
‘No. It was a normal colour.’
‘Was there any blue food dye in his urine?’
‘No.’
‘But you tested for it?’
‘Yes, as soon as we found the presence of Rohypnol.’
‘Was any blue food dye found in Evelyn Bates’s urine?’
‘No.’
‘Would it therefore be fair to conclude that the Rohypnol consumed by both Mr James and Evelyn Bates did not come from that box?’
‘Yes. The dye would have shown up.’
‘Would it be therefore equally fair to say that both the victim and the accused consumed a non-prescribed, illegal variety of Rohypnol?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you, Dr Wong.’
Carnavale had no questions.
The witness was excused.
Next, DCI Reid was called.
‘When you took statements from witnesses at the Blenheim-Strand, who were the primary interviewers?’
‘Myself and DS Fordham.’
‘When did you conduct your first witness interview?’
‘March 17th.’
‘The day of Mr James’s arrest?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who did you interview first?’
‘The hotel receptionist.’
Christine jotted a few things down. DCI Reid was composed, looking straight at her interrogator. She knew the drill, that the questions were going to get progressively trickier from now on.
‘Moving on to your interview technique, generally. Do you have pre-prepared questions when you interview, or do you play it by ear?’
‘A mix of both. Set text and improv. We’re determined to get as much pertinent information as possible out of a witness – information that’ll help us build a picture of what happened. I think of a crime as a jigsaw puzzle. Half the pieces are right in front of you – the victim, the physical evidence. The rest of the pieces are in the hands of other people – the witnesses, the suspect. It’s our job to get as many pieces as possible, so we can finish the puzzle as best we can.’
‘Why didn’t you ask the receptionist if Mr James was drunk when he checked out of the hotel?’
‘It didn’t occur to me to ask that question,’ DCI Reid said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because he wasn’t as drunk as you’d like to think he was. He was lucid enough to lie.’
No comeback from Christine. She wasn’t going to get drawn into a firefight.
‘Who interviewed Gary Murphy, the barman?’
‘That was DS Fordham.’
‘Were you present?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you recall the interview?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did Mr Murphy positively identify Evelyn Bates as the woman he saw Mr James with?’
‘Positively enough,’ Reid said. ‘He was shown a picture of the victim and said, “Yes, it could’ve been her.”’
‘He didn’t say it
was
her, though, did he? He said it
might’ve
been her.
He
wasn’t positive. But you accepted that anyway?’
‘At the time of the interview he seemed more certain than uncertain. This was a day after the murder, so we assumed his memory was fairly fresh,’ she said.
‘You asked him to identify the woman he saw from a post-mortem photograph of Evelyn Bates, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘When our investigator showed the barman a picture of Evelyn Bates – alive – wearing the same dress she had on at the hotel he said it wasn’t her at all.’
‘We could only use the material we had to hand at the time.’
‘We found the picture of Evelyn alive on her Facebook page,’ Christine said.
‘When you have a suspect in custody, you only have a limited amount of time to get the evidence to charge them with. You’re going to use what you have.’
A few jurors nodded along in agreement.
‘In his testimony to this court, Gary Murphy described the woman he saw with Mr James as six feet tall, with long straight blonde hair and wearing a green dress that only had a passing similarity to the one Evelyn wore. That similarity was their colour, but the shades were different – as were the styles. He told us he informed DS Fordham of this, yet his statement makes no mention of it at all.’
‘That’s because he never told us that. He described the woman he saw as blonde and wearing a green dress. That was it.’
‘Are you suggesting the witness lied to the court?’
‘No,’ DCI Reid said. ‘I think his memory’s on the blink.’
‘Did you ask him to describe the dress to you?’
‘Not beyond the colour.’
‘Why not?’
‘We were investigating a murder not a dress style.’
Laughter.
Christine scribbled and underlined something in her pad, and then turned a page.
‘Were you in court on Friday, DCI Reid?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you recall Rachel Hudson’s testimony?’
‘I won’t forget that in a hurry.’
Laughter from the press.
‘
Mizz
Hudson told us Mr James has a type of woman he likes. Tall, long blonde hair. That describes the woman Mr James insists he took up to his room, does it not – the one called “Fabia”?’
‘In broad strokes it does, yes,’ DCI Reid said.
I saw what Christine was doing. The question wasn’t aimed at DCI Reid. In fact it wasn’t a question at all. She was making a statement camouflaged as a question. The point being that VJ wouldn’t have fancied Evelyn Bates.
‘Who interviewed Rudy Saks?’
‘DS Fordham was the primary.’
‘Were you present?’
‘Yes.’
‘There are two glaring inconsistencies with Saks’s evidence —’
Carnavale was up at the lectern.
‘My Lord, I must object here. Mr Saks’s evidence has not yet been heard.’
The judge nodded. ‘Mrs Devereaux, please refrain from that line of questioning.’
‘My Lord, with all due respect, I’m trying to establish whether certain points of procedure were followed in the gathering of evidence.’
‘I’ll allow it, as long as you do not make any reference to Mr Saks’s statement.’
‘Of course, My Lord. I apologise to the court,’ Christine said with due humility. ‘DCI Reid. One of the items entered into evidence was a bottle of Cristal champagne in an ice bucket, and two glasses. These were found on the coffee table in the lounge in Suite 18. To your knowledge, were any of these items tested for fingerprints?’
‘Yes. All of them.’
‘Were any fingerprints found?’
‘No.’
‘None whatsoever?’
‘The bottle and bucket were both wet when delivered, so fingerprints wouldn’t necessarily have formed on the surfaces.’
‘But the glasses were dry.’
‘I believe so.’
‘Yet they didn’t have any fingerprints on them either.’
DCI Reid said nothing.
‘Didn’t you find that odd?’
‘No. Maybe the waiter who brought them up was wearing gloves.’
‘Did you ask him?’
‘I don’t recall.’
‘Did you fingerprint him?’
‘Yes, we did.’
‘Why?’
‘He’d been in the suite. It was so we could eliminate him if his prints turned up. We did that with everyone who entered the room after Mr James had left, including all police and medical personnel.’
Christine paused.
‘DCI Reid, was Evelyn Bates strangled by hand?’
‘Yes.’
‘There were no fingerprints found on her neck either.’
‘Maybe her killer wore gloves,’ DCI Reid said.
‘Just like Mr Saks,’ Christine replied.