Apple Tree Yard (34 page)

‘Could you give us a concrete example of how this works?’

‘Well, the police staff patrol, do crime reports, but for instance, if a crime was being committed in the House of Commons, in theory, no officer would have no right to enter the chamber unless he or she was asked to do so by either the Sergeant at Arms or one of her representatives.’

Mrs Price affects surprise. ‘So let’s say, one Member of Parliament turned and began to strangle another…’ She turns to the jury with a wry look, ‘… something we all hope would never happen, I am sure, but let’s say it did. In theory, the officers on duty would have no right to intervene unless they were summoned to do so by the Estate staff?’

‘That is correct.’

‘And the Estate staff, what sort of people are they?’

She pauses. ‘Well a lot of them are ex-army, there’s quite a variety in fact.’

‘Any ex-police officers?’

‘Yes, a few.’

Mrs Price pauses. ‘And the man we have in the dock here, Mr Costley. He was one such member of the Estate staff, wasn’t he?’

Something odd happens to DS Johns’ face. It closes. The small smile she has been giving, what one would imagine to be her natural demeanour, vanishes. Her features are more arranged, as it were – I feel, even before she speaks, that her answers are about to become more careful. ‘Yes, he was a member of the Estate Security Staff.’

‘He had been a police officer for eleven years, a Detective Sergeant such as yourself, then he left the Metropolitan Police and was employed by the Estate.’

‘I’m not aware of exactly how long Mark was a police officer for.’

‘Very well, of course, but would you explain to me what his role within the Estate was?’

‘He was a security advisor.’

‘In what capacity did he work?’

I am watching DS Johns very carefully, her neat, guarded face, and I feel certain that something occurred between you and her when you worked at the Houses of Parliament. She has not looked over at you or me, not once.

‘Mr Costley was employed by the Estate as an advisor. I mean, to the police officer in charge of events planning…’ She pauses, as if this practical information is for some reason difficult to recall. ‘It was his job to, well, ensure compliance … Health & Safety regulations, about events, to checking up on the duty log, supervising the shifts of the CCTV monitoring crews … and so on.’ I wonder how much she knows about what you really do.

‘So, he was a sort of bureaucrat, then? Or someone important?’

A minute pause. ‘Well all those jobs are important for the proper running of the Estate. Behind everything the public sees there is a huge amount of bureaucracy.’

‘What I’m getting at is, if something went wrong, say, an incident, would he be the man running down a corridor or the man filling in the form about it afterwards?’

‘He would be the man filling in a form.’

Mrs Price has stopped speaking. She folds her arms and looks down at her table for what, to me, seems an inordinate amount of time. During this long moment, I notice, out of the corner of my eye, that you have leaned forward in your seat and dropped your head a little.

Eventually, Mrs Price looks up. ‘Detective Sergeant, I would now like you to tell the jury about what occurred between you and Mr Costley just before you applied to transfer to your current post in the drugs and firearms unit at Barking & Dagenham.’ She looks at the DS and gently prompts, ‘Please, if you would.’

‘Yes, of course,’ says DS Johns. ‘I made a complaint to the Estate about behaviour by a group of men but in particular Mr Costley, a complaint to the Estate’s Human Resources Department.’

‘Would you please explain to the court what that complaint was.’

‘Inappropriate behaviour, I mean, on several occasions. I had been in the Monitoring Office, that’s the set of suites where we monitor all the CCTV cameras on the Estate, divided into areas. They would watch the cameras and award marks to females according to their sexual attractiveness.’

Mrs Price has her back to me but I can imagine her expression being one of mock surprise. Then she says, somewhat cautiously, ‘Of course, reprehensible as this behaviour is, some might say it is no more than what happens in many men in male-dominated environments – security guards in shopping centres, let’s say.’

‘Mr Costley’s behaviour went a little further than that.’

‘Really, would you care to explain?’

‘One of the Estate staff, a young woman, complained to me that he would watch the CCTV cameras monitoring the visitors’ entrance to Portcullis House, and that if he found a female visitor attractive, he would go down to the entrance and follow her.’

At this, several members of the jury glance over at you. I am careful to look straight ahead.

‘And did this member of staff report to you what he would do after that?’

Ms Bonnard is on her feet but before she can say anything the judge gives a weary sigh and raises his hand from where it has been resting on the table, saying, ‘Ms Bonnard, in anticipation of your objections I believe we had a whole day of debate last week…’

‘My Lord, I believe the question just asked this witness goes beyond…’

‘As Mrs Price is about to explain the necessity for the question, I trust, I will allow it. You will have your turn during cross-examination.’

‘My Lord,’ Ms Bonnard gives a short, peremptory bow, and sits.

Mrs Price bows to My Lord and then turns back to DS Johns. ‘As we were saying, DS Johns, could you please explain what you were told happened after Mr Costley had spotted a female visitor on the security cameras that he found attractive and had followed her around the Estate?’

‘He would return to the CCTV Monitoring Centre and say that he had followed her, he would comment on her figure, what she was doing and so on.’

‘And did you yourself observe him saying this?’

‘No, it was reported to me, but I once came across him going through the visitor log and cross-referencing it with the security clearance files.’

‘This would be quite a normal activity for a man in his job, would it not?’

‘He had Google-imaged the woman concerned. On his computer screen, there were about twenty or thirty small pictures of her. He closed the screen as I came into the room but his desk was opposite the door and I saw it quite clearly. He left the room and I saw the log with her name on it on his desk.’

I think of the pictures of me that come up on Google – when you’re in academia, you end up with quite a few, most of them very unflattering. Sometimes students take pictures during talks or lectures; they post them, they Tweet, sometimes there is video. There is no such thing as privacy the minute you stand up in front of other people. It might only be two people, but before you know it, the whole world will be able to see how you didn’t brush your hair properly that day.

‘And when was this incident?’

‘About three months before Mr Costley was arrested for the offence he is currently on trial for.’

I stare at DS Johns.

‘And without wishing to identify her, can you say anything about the woman concerned?’

‘She was an Immigration Officer who was visiting to discuss staff vetting.’

It goes through me like a kind of sad shock. Of course. It wasn’t me you were Google-imaging that day DS Johns is discussing. It was my potential replacement. I was in bits at the time. You were doing your best to be supportive but you were already looking around elsewhere.

The questioning of DS Johns continues but I have the picture. You have been established as a predator, as some whose behaviour is worryingly underhand.

*

When Ms Bonnard gets to her feet for the cross-examination, she does so very slowly, with narrowed eyes. Am I imagining it, or does a shiver of anticipation go through the court, as if it was feeding time at the zoo?

‘DS Johns…’ Ms Bonnard begins, softly. ‘Thank you for coming here today, for taking time out of your duties.’

DS Johns looks slightly disconcerted. Was that a question or not?

‘I won’t be detaining you long, I promise…’ Ms Bonnard smiles at her. ‘Perhaps you can explain something to me. I understand that the young woman who made this complaint to you – about Mr Costley watching female visitors on the CCTV, that is – I understand that the reason she is not in court herself today is because she is travelling abroad. Vietnam, I believe?’

‘I think it’s Thailand.’

‘Oh,’ Ms Bonnard affects surprise. ‘Thailand, I’ve got that wrong then. Are you in touch with her?’

‘No, no… we weren’t friends, it’s just, it’s just I heard she was going to Thailand. Before, I mean, before the trial.’

‘Well, we shall make do just fine with you I’m sure. Why did this young woman come to you when she was concerned about Mr Costley’s behaviour? Why not make the complaint herself, directly to Human Resources I mean?’

‘She was new in her job, she felt a bit intimidated by the men in the office. She came to me because…’

‘That isn’t the real reason, is it DS Johns?’ Ms Bonnard is looking down as she makes this incendiary statement, and even though I later have cause to hate this young woman, I cannot help but admire her style, the way she lobs that contradiction over in such a casual manner, as if she is so confident of her ground she hardly needs to bother to put DS Johns in her place.

DS Johns only falters for a fraction of a second but it is unmistakable. ‘No, I, yes it was, I believe it was.’

‘The reason she made the complaint directly to you was because she knew you had had a short-lived relationship with Mr Costley and that it had ended acrimoniously and as such you would be more than ready to hear ill of him, wouldn’t you?’

‘That’s completely untrue.’ DS Johns glares at the jury.

‘Which bit, that you had been in a relationship or that it was over?’

‘A relationship. We weren’t, that’s not how I would describe it at all. He had propositioned me.’

‘You went for drinks after work with him on, I believe, three – or was it four – occasions?’

‘It was a few times, once or twice.’

‘Was it once, or twice?’

‘Twice maybe.’

‘Oh really, my information is, it was three times. Would you like me to furnish you with the dates? On the last of these occasions, April of last year, you and he had intimate contact in a well-known Westminster drinking hole, a pub called The Bull & Keg.’

DS Johns’ pale face is set hard. ‘Firstly, the first occasion was with a group of people. So I would call it twice. Secondly, that contact you are referring to was initiated by him and I told him to stop.’

‘Immediately?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Immediately. Did you ask Mr Costley to stop immediately?’

‘No, not immediately.’

Ms Bonnard’s voice becomes soft. ‘After around an hour, DS Johns, you and he left the pub together and walked to the Tube where you parted amicably enough for a brief embrace.’

DS Johns draws breath. ‘It, it made me uncomfortable. We had had a few drinks together, and on our third drink, he had his hand on my knee beneath the table for some time.’

‘It didn’t stay there, though, did it?’

‘No…’

‘DS Johns…’ Ms Bonnard affects a slightly weary air. ‘I have no wish to embarrass you in the courtroom so I suggest you allow me to explain to the jury. On that occasion you and Mr Costley had been drinking together since around 6 p.m. He had his hand on your knee beneath the table – you were being surreptitious because a group of other colleagues were also in the pub – and at some point, he moved his hand upwards beneath your skirt, pushed his fingers through your tights and into your knickers where he proceeded to, I believe the appropriate colloquialism is, finger you. You did not prevent him from doing so, or object in any way. In other words, you and he had intimate sexual contact, did you not? Which in many people’s eyes constitutes a relationship?’

And something happens at this point. Detective Sergeant Johns changes in front of our eyes. She stops being a professional, a police officer giving evidence in court, and becomes a person whose sex life we are all speculating about, seen through the prism of our own views on these matters. I am quite certain that the men in the court, her fellow officers seated at the back, the male jury members, perhaps even the judge, are now imagining her in her skirt, her legs parted. They are imagining what sort of knickers she was wearing at the time. I, of course, am doing the dates in my head and feeling slightly nauseated by the realisation that you were fingering DS Johns two or three weeks after we met. At least two of the women jury members are looking openly shocked. They would never let a man do that, therefore DS Johns must be someone completely unlike them. Another woman, an older woman, has narrowed her eyes sympathetically. I am sure that what she is sympathising with is DS Johns’ public humiliation. Either way, each of us, according to our own prejudices, is reducing DS Johns to some kind of symbol of how we feel about that kind of thing. She has now become defined by that act, or the fact that she failed to prevent that act.

‘I told him later that I didn’t like it, the next day at work.’

‘You told him later, not at the time?’

‘Yes, that’s right…’ DS Johns is breathing slowly and carefully and appears to have recovered a little of her composure. ‘I told him the next day at work that I wasn’t interested. After that, he became unfriendly and hostile. He made it clear he was giving me the cold shoulder. In meetings he would address other people and not me. He would get tea for other staff members and not me.’

‘And so, when your junior colleague came to you and complained about Mr Costley, you were only too happy to take her complaint to Human Resources?’

‘Yes,’ DS Johns replies firmly.

Ms Bonnard pauses to let the firmness of her answer ring in the air before saying quietly. ‘No further questions for this witness, My Lord.’

Yet again, Robert gets to his feet, gives his slight bow and says, ‘I have no questions for this witness, My Lord.’

The judge looks at Mrs Price and she stands. Her voice is gentle, maternal.

‘DS Johns, I won’t detain you long. Can I just say, after Mr Costley began this programme of giving you the cold shoulder following your rejection of his advances, did you upbraid him, or raise it with him at all?’