A Game of Proof (33 page)

The question seemed to pose more difficulties than Harry had expected. The child’s face - a surprisingly strong, determined face for a seven-year-old - puckered with a frown. ‘She’s upstairs, working,’ he repeated, surprised he hadn’t been understood. ‘Come back later.’

‘No, wait.’ Harry put his foot in the door just in time. ‘I’m a policeman, son, all right? You just go upstairs and tell your mum I’m here. I’ll wait inside, OK?’

‘You can’t ...’ But Harry already had come in. There was an awkward confrontation in the hall, when he actually thought the small boy was going to try to push him out, but Harry sidestepped him and went into the front room, where a four-year-old girl was playing with dolls.

‘Hello. What’s your name then?’

‘Katie.’ The child favoured him with a brief glance and returned to wrapping sellotape round a doll’s forearm.

‘And your brother?’

‘Wayne.’

‘I see.’ Wayne glowered at him from the doorway.  He showed no inclination to go upstairs. Harry was about to try again when he noticed a sound. It was rhythmic, repetitive, and came from the ceiling overhead. The nature of their mother’s work suddenly became clear.

‘I’ll just wait here then, till your mum’s finished,’ he said, sitting on the sofa. ‘OK?’

The rhythm of the bedsprings began to be accompanied by cries and groans. ‘Does your mum do a lot of work?’ Harry asked.

The little girl ignored him. Wayne frowned, still apparently wanting to throw this stranger out. ‘You should ring up before you come,’ he said accusingly.

‘I will next time. What’s the number?’

‘479386.’ Harry wrote it down.

This having exhausted the conversation, they sat in uneasy silence. After a while a man came downstairs and went out of the front door. A moment later a woman in a purple satin nightdress walked into the room. She stopped when she saw Harry Easby.

‘Did you make an appointment?’

‘No.’ Harry grinned. ‘I will next time. How much?’

‘Not in front of the kids.’ She ruffled Wayne’s hair and smiled at little Katie. ‘You OK, you two?’ Seeing they were in no urgent need of anything she looked at Harry again, weighing him up. ‘Well, I’m not busy. You can come upstairs if you like. I can tell you the prices there.’

In her bedroom Harry listened with interest to her prices and the range of services she offered. She was a tall, slender woman with elaborately curled peroxide-blonde hair. When she had recited her menu she smiled at him provocatively, one hand on her hip, the other brushing a lock of hair along her cheek. ‘Anything you fancy, cowboy?’

‘Another time, perhaps,’ said Harry. He showed her his warrant card.

‘Bloody hellfire!’ She turned away angrily. ‘I’ve done nowt wrong!’

‘Oh no? Social services might see it differently.’

‘My kids are happy, aren’t they?’ A shadow of fear flickered across her face. ‘Do they look neglected to you?’

‘They might, if I wanted something,’ said Harry nastily. ‘But as it happens I don’t - not for the moment anyway. You
are
Sharon Gilbert, I presume?’

‘No, I’m Dr Livingstone. ‘Course I am, you knew that before you came in.’

‘All right.’ He began to take things out of his plastic bag, and lay them on the double bed. ‘There, Ms Gilbert. I need to know if you recognize any of these.’

‘Interview resumed at 2.37 p.m. Present in the room, Gary Harker, his solicitor Mrs Lucy Sampson, DC Harry Easby and myself, DI Terry Bateson.’ Terry checked the tapes were spinning smoothly in the recorder, then leaned both elbows on the table and stared at his suspect.

‘Now then, Gary, I want to check a few details of your story. You said you were in this shed for about five minutes before Mrs Newby arrived. Is that right?’

‘Yeah. More or less. I wasn’t exactly counting the time.’

‘I understand. You didn’t, er, look at your watch before you went in?’

‘No. Why should I?’

This question, Terry was pleased to see, brought out signs of anxiety on Gary’s face. Skin a trifle paler than before, tiny beads of sweat around the temples. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps you wondered if Mrs Newby was late?’

‘I didn’t say I had an appointment.’

‘Didn’t you? I thought you went there to meet her. Or was it her son?’

Gary said nothing. He glanced briefly at Lucy, his solicitor, who refused to meet his eyes. Lucy hated being there. If she had not already been Gary’s solicitor she would have refused to come. She was prepared to see that the police behaved within the law, and no more. Apart from that, Gary could drown in his own lies.

Terry noted the exchange of looks with satisfaction.

‘You didn’t really go there to meet Mrs Newby at all, did you, Gary?’

‘I did. I told yer.’

‘What for?’

‘To thank her. She was my barrister, remember? Chewed
you
up in court, didn’t she?’

‘She did.’ Last night Terry might have lost his temper. Today he felt in control. ‘So why did you need a torch, Gary?’

‘What torch?’

‘This one.’ Terry put it on the table. It was a pencil torch which would throw a strong, narrow beam. ‘It was in your pocket when you were arrested last night.’

‘So? I often carry a torch.’

‘Sure. Useful tool for a burglar.’

‘I told you ...’

‘Yeah, yeah, we know. You were waiting for your mistress. Find anything interesting in the shed while you were waiting, Gary, did you? A quick flash around with the torch maybe?’

‘No.’

‘Well, that’s a pity, because we did. We searched that shed quite thoroughly, in fact. D’you want to know what we found?’

Gary shook his head, but Terry was delighted to note that the sweat was still there. The bastard knows what’s coming all right, Terry thought. He put a small plastic evidence bag on the table. ‘For starters, there was this ring.’ He held it up a few inches from Gary’s nose. ‘For the tape, I’m showing Mr Harker a woman’s ring, decorated with precious stones in the shape of the letter
S
. Ever seen that before, Gary?’

Gary shook his head. Terry smiled, and put another bag on the table. This one contained a black balaclava hood, with slits cut for eyes. Gary shook his head again.

‘Or these?’ He showed Gary a pair of dark trousers and a black pullover.

‘I never seen ‘em before.’

‘Sure.’ Terry sat back, and Harry Easby took over.

‘Well that’s strange, Gary, isn’t it? Because I showed all these things to Sharon Gilbert this morning. What do you think she said?’

Gary said nothing. But the person who was really staring at the things on the table, Terry noted, was Lucy Sampson. She looked as though she were about to be sick.

‘She said that this ring ...’ Harry dangled it in front of Gary’s face. ‘... was
her
ring, stolen from her house by the man who raped her. The letter
S
stands for Sharon, she says. And the hood, the trousers and jumper look exactly like the ones the rapist was wearing, too.’

‘Don’t prove nowt,’ said Gary truculently. ‘I never seen them before.’

‘Did you touch them?’ asked Terry swiftly.

‘No. ‘Course not.’

‘Are you sure about that, Gary?  Think carefully, now. Because if we get these things examined by forensic, and they find your hairs or your fingerprints, that’s going to prove you’re lying, isn’t it? Are you sure you didn’t touch them?’ As he had expected, Gary hesitated. He glanced at his solicitor, who ignored him.

‘Well, not unless it were an accident, like. It were dark in that shed.’

‘I see. But you didn’t put the balaclava on your head, for example, or step into these trousers and jumper because it was cold, did you?’ Terry asked mockingly. ‘Just for five minutes, maybe, while you were waiting for Mrs Newby?’

‘No, ‘course not.’

‘And they’re definitely not your clothes?’

‘No.’

‘So if the forensic scientists happen to find your hairs, or your skin or whatever - your
stink
, Gary - inside this balaclava hood or these trousers or this jumper, then it will be a fair assumption that you wore them, won’t it?’

‘You won’t find that.’

‘No, Gary? Well for your sake, I hope not, because these forensic scientists, they’re devilish clever these days, you know. They might find hairs from Sharon’s body or fibres from her clothes. And then where would you be, Gary old son? Eh? Tell me that?’

‘You’ll find nowt,’ said Gary defiantly. ‘Anyhow, how did they get there, in that shed?’

‘True, that’s the problem,’ Terry said. ‘Good question, Gary, I’ll grant you that. But you know, I’ve got an answer now. Do you know what I think happened - are you listening to this, too, Mrs Sampson? You who defended this man and told me he was innocent? Listen now. I think you raped Sharon just like she said, Gary, I’ve always thought that. But afterwards you didn’t go straight home, you went back to this shed. It’s only a couple of streets away, and you know it because your mate Simon lives there. Why did you go there? Because Sharon had recognized you, and you knew that if she reported this rape to us we’d come looking for you. Then we’d take your clothes and get them examined by forensics.

‘So what did you do? You changed into some of Simon’s clothes - either you got them from his house or his shed. You dumped your own clothes in his shed, with this hood and ring, too. That’s what happened, isn’t it, Gary? That’s why we found no forensics on the clothes from your flat. Because they weren’t the ones you did the rape in. You left your clothes in the shed, until yesterday when you went back to get them. Clever scheme, Gary. Not bad at all. And it would have worked, too, if you hadn’t been unlucky enough to be found there by Simon’s mum.

‘You weren’t expecting her at all, Gary, were you? All that about her coming to see you is just a load of shite, son, a story to wipe your bum with! You went there to get back your clothes and this ring you took from Sharon Gilbert! That’s why you were there.’

There was silence in the room when he had finished. The droplets of sweat on Gary’s forehead had increased, Terry noted with satisfaction. Lucy was staring with intense disgust at her hands, as though she had touched something foul.

‘You can’t prove none of this!’ Gary said defiantly. ‘Anyhow I never took owt!’

‘No, Gary?’ Terry smiled as he produced his final piece of evidence. A plastic bag with a man’s watch inside. An expensive looking watch like a Rolex. ‘Recognize this, Gary?’

Gary’s face went a shade paler than before. Terry guessed that he’d been hoping the watch had been overlooked. He made a pretence of examining it closely.

‘Beautiful watch, this. Waterproof to fifty metres, date, international time zones - do a lot of world travel, do you, Gary? And the initials G.H. engraved on the back, too. Nice piece of kit. It was in your pocket last night, Gary, when you were arrested.  I thought that was funny, too. I mean, a watch like this, I’d expect a man to be proud - flaunt it on his wrist for the world to see. Not stuff it in his pocket as though he’d just, well ... picked it up in a shed somewhere.’

He turned to Harry. ‘Did you show this to Sharon, too?’

Harry nodded. ‘I did, yes. She recognized it at once. She said it was the watch she quarrelled about with Gary Harker in the pub on the night before the rape. The man who raped her took that watch, she said. She was positive about that, too.’

‘It was found in your pocket, Gary,’ Terry continued. ‘After you’d been in that shed. So would you like to tell us how it got there?’

The sweat on Gary’s face was quite impressive now. Again he looked to Lucy Sampson for support, again she ignored him. Desperately he said: ‘I found it.’

‘Where?’

‘In the shed. It was just there, in this bag in the corner, so I picked it up and put it in my pocket. I didn’t have time to check it were mine for sure, I just thought it looked the same. I don’t know how it got there, ask Simon about it.  Maybe he raped Sharon as well.’

‘Oh, sure. And you still say you didn’t? After all this?’ Terry gestured at the pile of evidence bags on the table.

‘I were found not guilty, copper. In court. Think on that.’

Reluctantly, Lucy Sampson bestirred herself. Looking deeply uncomfortable with the whole business, she said: ‘I’m afraid that
is
unfortunately the point, Detective Inspector, as you must surely know. Whatever evidence you may have found now, it’s simply too late. My client has already been tried and acquitted of this crime. He cannot in law be tried for it again. Even if he were to admit to you now that he did it, that principle still applies. Unfortunately.’ She looked at Gary for the first time. ‘You don’t have to lie any more, Gary, it doesn’t matter. You can tell them the truth if you like.’

‘And they can’t do owt?’

‘No. Not on this charge.’

Terry sighed. It was a bitter triumph. ‘Unfortunately she’s right, Gary. You’ve been found not guilty and that’s it. But just for the record, tell us. You did rape Sharon, didn’t you?’

A devious, cunning smile twisted Gary’s face. He looked at the three of them, relishing his moment of victory. He waited.

‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I didn’t.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

‘Y
OU’RE GOING to do what?’ Churchill asked.

‘Release him, sir. We have to. We’ve got no choice.’

‘But we caught him in the act! I saw it - so did Tracy, didn’t you? Tracy?’

‘I saw it, yes sir.’

‘Then what ... Terry, can’t I leave you here for a single afternoon without some monumental cock-up? What the bloody hell have you done this time?’

‘It’s not me, sir, it’s Mrs Newby ...’ Grimly, Terry described their interview with Sarah. It had not ended when Sarah had wanted it to: for a good half hour afterwards Terry had pressed her to change her mind. But she had not changed. It had been like arguing with a computer hologram that looked and moved like a human but was programmed beyond the reach of persuasion. And she
was
, after all, the victim; whether Terry liked it or not her feelings were neither illogical nor unclear. If that meant letting Gary go free, then tough. Let him go.

‘So that’s it?’ Churchill asked incredulously. ‘After what we all saw,
and
the fact that you’re now certain he raped Sharon Gilbert?’