Bleed for Me (44 page)

‘He acted like a rock star and they treated him like a scumbag. That’s how life balances itself out.’

‘You briefed the reporters.’

‘I couldn’t possibly comment.’

49

There are three unmarked cars and two motorcycles fol owing Gordon El is. Neither too old nor too new, the vehicles blend in with the traffic and constantly change positions.

Safari Roy is two-up in the lead vehicle, dressed like a businessman on his way home from work. Car two is a Land Rover Discovery, half a block behind, driven by a woman officer who looks like a typical mother on a school run. There is also a tradesman’s van, a motorcycle courier and a minibus.

Gordon El is wil expect the police to fol ow him, but this fact won’t ease his anxiety. He’l stil look over his shoulder and study the vehicles and faces of the drivers. Each time he’l see a different car and a different face. Nobody familiar. Nothing out of place.

‘It’s costing a fortune,’ says Cray, as she watches coloured dots on a computer screen - each one representing a different surveil ance team. I have to swap vehicles and personnel every twelve hours.’

‘How long have you been given?’

‘Forty-eight hours. He has to make a move by then.’

‘He wil .’

We’re being driven down Newgate Street past Castle Park. The narrow harbour slides by, sluggish and brown. A handful of boats are tied up along a dock, most of them moored permanently and painted with advertising.

Sienna is next to me, wearing a basebal cap pul ed low over her eyes. Leaning her head against the window, she watches joggers dressed in Lycra circling the paths and mothers pushing children on tricycles with handles. Most are wrapped in waterproof jackets and look tired of waiting for the warmer weather to arrive. That’s the way it is with Bristol. In winter it’s ful of weary, pinch-faced urbanites, but come the summer they grow a smile.

The car pauses at a police checkpoint and we wait for the plastic barricade to be pul ed aside. The Crown Court precinct is quiet. Most of the protesters have dispersed but a token few are sitting on the steps of the Guildhal , outnumbered by police officers.

We walk Sienna through the main entrance and the security screening. The clock in the foyer has just gone two. Court One is due back in session.

Taking Sienna upstairs, we push through the doors. She slides on to a bench seat in the public gal ery. Her basebal cap is pul ed even lower. Rita Brennan is two rows in front of us.

Ruiz is off to the side. He glances at me and barely nods.

In the main body of the courtroom, Novak Brennan, Gary Dobson and Tony Scott are sitting in silence in the dock. Julianne waits at her microphone and Judge Spencer has his head down, tapping the keys of a laptop. His silver horsehair wig gleams under the hanging lights.

A door opens at the side of the court. The jury enters in single-file, moving to their usual seats. The foreman sits nearest the judge.

Cray whispers to Sienna. ‘Tel me if you recognise any of them.’

Sienna raises her eyes, looking from face to face. She shakes her head.

‘What about the guy in the front row, far left?’

She leans forward. Studies him. Shakes her head again.

‘Are you sure?’

A nod.

Cray looks at me.

Marco Kostin is being recal ed to the witness box. He shuffles this time, less confident than I remember. Diminished. The light has washed out of his eyes and his skin is blotchy and damp.

Novak Brennan’s barrister, Mr Hurst, QC, has a narrow, choleric face with smal busy eyes. Pacing back and forth in front of the jury box, he makes eye contact with individual jurors who seem to look down or away. He turns to the witness box.

‘Before the break, Mr Kostin, you were describing the house. You said you were sleeping when you heard the sound of glass breaking. Is that correct?’

Julianne translates the question.

Marco nods and answers in a hoarse voice.

‘If you were sleeping, how are you certain it was glass breaking that woke you?’

‘I heard it more than once.’

‘How many times did you hear it?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘You’re not sure. I see.’ Mr Hurst exchanges a look with the jury. ‘Are you sure you went to the window?’

‘Yes.’

‘From the second floor you claim to have seen my client sitting behind the wheel of a van. How far do you think that was?’

Marco looks from Julianne to Mr Hurst. He doesn’t understand the question.

‘What was the distance between you and the van? Fifty feet . . . a hundred feet . . . more?’

Marco blinks and his mouth flexes uncertainly.

Mr Hurst: ‘Perhaps you’d prefer to use metres?’

‘From the second floors,’ says Marco. ‘I don’t know how far this is - maybe ninety feets.’

‘Ninety. You don’t seem very sure.’

‘I did not measure it.’

There is a sprinkling of laughter in the courtroom. Mr Hurst al ows himself a brief smile.

‘It was dark - after midnight, in fact. You must have remarkable eyesight.’

‘I see OK.’

‘You told the police that you couldn’t see the number plate on the van because it was too dark.’

Marco hesitates. ‘I don’t understand?’

‘Did you tel police it was too dark to see the number plate?’

‘It was in shadow.’

‘It was too dark - yes or no?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yet you could see my client through a dirty second-floor window from ninety feet away in the dead of night?’

‘There was a light inside the van when the door opened.’

‘You told police there were three men?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why couldn’t you identify the others?’

‘I did not see them clearly.’

‘Because it was dark?’

‘Yes.’

Mr Hurst exchanges another look with the jury.

‘Had you seen Mr Brennan anywhere before?’

‘I had seen his picture.’

‘Where was that?’

‘In the newspaper.’

‘During the council elections. You probably saw his campaign posters and his leaflets.’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that why you picked him out of a police line-up?’

‘I recognised him, yes.’

‘You don’t agree with his politics or his policies, so you decided to punish him.’

‘No.’

‘Who told you to identify him?’

Marco looks at Julianne, not understanding. She explains the question. He shakes his head.

Mr Hurst braces both his hands on the bar table on either side of a legal pad. ‘You came to this country as an asylum seeker, is that correct?’

‘We applied for asylum.’

‘Yes, but when you first arrived you told immigration officers that you were tourists.’

‘Yes.’

‘And that was a lie.’

Marco looks at Julianne and then at the judge. Mr Hurst prompts him again.

‘You lied to immigration officers?’

‘I did as my father told me.’

‘Have you been promised anything for testifying at this trial?’

‘Promised?’

‘What is your immigration status now?’

‘I have been al owed to remain here for four years.’

‘So you can stay?’

‘Yes.’

‘Isn’t it also true that you’ve been approached by a newspaper and offered money for your story.’

‘Objection!’ says Miss Scriber, quick to her feet. ‘Mr Hurst has already suggested Mr Kostin’s immigration status has influenced his evidence. Now he’s suggesting that he’s seeking to profit from these circumstances.’

Mr Hurst looks affronted. ‘I’m simply trying to establish whether this witness has any ulterior motives that may influence his testimony.’

Marco’s eyes move back and forth, trying to fol ow their arguments.

Judge Spencer intervenes. ‘Unless you intend to introduce evidence of a conspiracy, Mr Hurst, you’re on very shaky ground. Perhaps you should choose another line of questioning.’

Sitting next to me, I feel Sienna suddenly stiffen. Her fists are clenched and the muscles in her jaw, shoulders and her arms have seized up, locking her into a statue-like pose. She’s not even blinking. Nothing moves except for the fingers of her right hand, which flutter up and down on her thigh. It’s our signal.

Slowly her head turns and her eyes meet mine. Wide. Scared. She turns back to the courtroom and I fol ow her gaze across the bar table to the lone bewigged figure sitting above everyone else, tapping at his laptop.

Ronnie Cray pul s Sienna outside and into a consulting room, almost kicking the door open and leaning hard against it, making sure it’s closed.

‘You’re sure?’

Sienna nods.

Cray’s lips peel back. ‘Shit!’

Sienna flinches.

‘It’s not you,’ I tel her. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’

The DCI wants to pace but the room isn’t big enough. She wants to smoke. She wants to dump this box of vipers on someone else.

Pul ing me aside, she whispers angrily. ‘What in glory’s name do I do? Who do I tel ? He’s a Crown Court judge!’

‘You have to stop the trial.’

‘Only
he
can do that!’ Cursing, she spins away and tries to pace again. ‘I need to think. I need to talk to some people. Take advice. A judge! A fucking judge!’

She looks at Sienna. ‘You
have
to be sure, one hundred per cent, do you understand?’

Sienna nods.

Cray opens her mobile and shuts it again. ‘Come on - I’ve got to get out of here.’

Too agitated to wait for the lift, she walks down the curving staircase. Ruiz intercepts me on the landing.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I can’t talk. Wait for me.’

Minutes later we’re outside. Monk is behind the wheel. Cray doesn’t say a word to him. She’s trying to work out what to do . . . where to go . . . what happens next.

Opening her mobile, she stares at the screen. It can’t be in a phone cal . It’s not secure enough. She flips it closed.

‘I’m going to Portishead,’ she says. ‘I need to see the Chief Constable.’

She looks at Sienna. ‘You need to tel him everything.’ Then she addresses me. ‘Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Not a word.’

‘What about El is?’

‘He’s our problem now.’

50

Ruiz is sitting quietly, letting me talk. We’re sharing a wooden bench in Castle Park, overlooking the upper reaches of the floating harbour. Ducks and gul s dot the water, waiting to be fed by toddlers in strol ers and older siblings who wobble on training wheels.

The Old Brewery rises abruptly from the opposite bank. The weathered brick wal s are stained with bird shit and soot, yet are stil preferable to modern glass and concrete.

Somewhere nearer the cathedral a busker plucks the strings of a banjo and a flower sel er with a brightly coloured cabin is setting out buckets of blooms, tulips and daffodils.

Ruiz hasn’t said a word. The sun radiates through a thin mesh of clouds, highlighting the grey in his hair and making him squint when he raises his eyes. His hands are big and square, no longer cal oused. A boiled sweet rattles against his teeth.

‘What would you do?’ I ask.

‘Nothing.’

‘Why?’

‘You have a suicidal schoolgirl who has been sexual y abused claiming that she slept with a County Court judge. She doesn’t know his name. She can’t remember the address. She’s also facing a murder charge. You have no forensic evidence or corroboration.’

‘She recognised him.’

‘You can’t stop a trial and destroy a man’s career on that sort of evidence.’

‘So what’s Cray going to do?’

‘She’s going to commit professional suicide.’

A gust of wind ripples the water and topples the tulips and daffodils in their buckets.

Ruiz continues: ‘My guess is she’l go to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who’l shit himself and cal the Attorney General. There’l be a ful judicial inquiry, which is rare, and unless the investigation finds corroboration, Ronnie Cray can kiss her career goodbye.’

‘And the trial?’

‘They’re not going to stop an expensive, high-profile murder trial on the word of a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl.’

‘But the photographs in the suitcase . . . ?’

‘Someone took pictures of jurors - it’s not enough. You need evidence of a juror being approached or intimidated. Payments. Threats. Admissions . . .’

Ruiz stands and works the stiffness out of his back. His body looks too big for his clothes.

‘So there’s nothing we can do?’

‘Not without evidence.’

His eyes hold mine for a long time, blue-grey and uncomplicated. They seem to belong in the face of a younger man - a police constable who began his career more than thirty years ago, ful of expectation and civic pride. A lot of water has passed under that bridge - violence, corruption, scandal, banalities, mediocrities, absurdities, insanities, hawks, doves, cowards, traitors, sel -outs, hypocrites and screaming nut-jobs - but Ruiz has never lost his faith in humanity.

I’m tired. Dirty. Weary of talking. My mind is ful of fragments of broken lives - Ray Hegarty’s, Sienna’s, Annie Robinson’s . . . I want to go home. I want a shower. I want to sleep. I want to put my arms around my daughters. I want to feel normal for a few hours.

Ruiz drops me at the terrace and turns off the engine of the Merc, listening to the afternoon quiet and the ticking sound of the motor cooling. Ugly dark clouds are rol ing in from the west, moving too quickly to bring rain.

‘I thought maybe I’d head back to London,’ he says. ‘Water the plants.’

‘You don’t have any plants.’

‘Perhaps I’l take up gardening. Grow my own vegetables.’

‘You don’t like vegetables.’

‘I love a good Cornish pasty.’

Wrinkles are etched around his eyes and his slight jowls move with his jaw.

I ask him to hang around for another day - just to see what happens. Maybe I’m being selfish, but I like having him here. With Ruiz what you see is what you get. He’s a man of few contradictions except for his gruff exterior and gentle centre.

Ever since I was diagnosed and moved out of London, I seem to have lost touch with most of my long-time friends. They cal less often. Send fewer emails. Ruiz is different. He has only known me with Parkinson’s. He has seen me at my lowest, sobbing at my kitchen table after Charlie was abducted and Julianne walked out on me. And I have seen him shot up, lying in a hospital bed, unable to remember what happened yesterday.