Skinner's Rules (9 page)

‘Never. I knew him by sight, but I knew about him an’ all, that he was dangerous.’

Rachel’s tone hardened as she moved quickly on to wipe that last remark from the memory of the jury. ‘Did you not invite him into your mother’s home while she was out?’

‘No ah did not. Ah telt that other fella, ah went across tae the Paki’s for a video, and when ah got back he was in the hoose!’

‘Miss X, we have heard your account of the alleged sexual attack. I won’t ask you to repeat it. However you did give a remarkably detailed description of the part of my client’s anatomy on which this case hinges. Do you always notice things like that?’

Miss X looked at her grimly, and said without humour: ‘Only when they’re forced on me.’

And so it went on, Rachel pressing, hammering away at the witness, weakening her resolve, going over and over the account of the attack. Finally she turned to the wounding.

‘Miss X, I put it to you that your injuries were self-inflicted.’

‘No.’ The woman was quieter now, her voice smaller.

‘Is it not the case that McCann made fun of your sexual offerings?’

‘No, that’s no’ true.’

‘... and that when he did, you attempted to stab him with a kitchen knife...’ She picked up the weapon, and held it up for the jury to see. ‘This knife, which, it has been admitted, belonged to your household?’

Miss X shook her head. Rachel’s voice was firm, but she did not shout.

‘Is it not the case that McCann disarmed you, that your face was cut in the struggle, and that he threw the knife away as he panicked and ran from your house?’

The woman was shaking. All of her abrasive chemical confidence was gone. ‘No, it’s no’ true. He raped me, then he cut me, now he’s trying to lie his way out.’

‘Miss X, there is a liar in this courtroom. I suggest that your whole demeanour indicates that you have concocted a story out of a desire to revenge yourself on my client for your own failure to satisfy him sexually.’

Rachel sat down. McCann’s alternative version of the attack was the only card in her hand. But she knew that she could not counter medical evidence still to come of bruising on the woman’s throat and of vaginal damage. All that she could do was try to win a concession that this could have been the result of normal, if rough, intercourse. Still, the woman’s initial cockiness under cross-examination might just have given the jury - which Rachel had ensured had men in an eleven-to-four majority — the inclination to look for a reasonable doubt acquittal. She had no intention of putting McCann in the witness-box. It was up to the Crown to prove its case. To allow the jury to see the arrogant, psychopathic accused crossing swords with the Advocate Depute could only help it do so.

 

On the 5.30 p.m. train from Queen Street to Edinburgh Waverley, and during her evening bath, she went over the day in her mind. The rest of the Crown case had been clear cut. Her major success had been in winning a concession from one or two expert medical witnesses that the sexual injuries were indicative of violent activity by one or both partners, but were not, of themselves, conclusive proof of rape.

‘Tomorrow’s the day, McCann,’ she thought aloud, draining the last of her gin-and-tonic as the bath foam dispersed, ‘and you’re in with a chance, you bastard. A slim one, but a chance.’

Summing up in the trial of Patrick McCann took only ninety minutes in total. The jury retired at 11.32 a.m.

The Court waited in readiness for a verdict, until 1.00 p.m., when the jury was given lunch.

Rachel ate in the Court restaurant with the Advocate Depute and with Sam Burns, the instructing solicitor.

The AD had looked sure of his success when the jury retired, but Rachel noticed him grow more and more edgy as time wore on. Anything longer than forty minutes normally meant disagreement. In a case like this, anything more than an hour could be ominous for the prosecution.

Rachel was nervous too. Suddenly, success looked like a real possibility. Soon, the evil McCann might walk free through the front door of the Court, instead of being hustled through the side exit, handcuffed to prison officers. She began to experience, truly, for the first time in her career, that terrible divide between elation and guilt. This was not the same as the Chinese trial. Her client then, Shun Lee, had been a simpleton, who, she still believed, had played no part in the girl’s murder.

Lunch over, the jury remained closeted in its room.

Finally, at 3.52 p.m., a bell rang, summoning participants and public to the Court. The jury was on its way back.

McCann was brought up from the cells. And the eleven men and four women, unanimously, declared him guilty of both charges.

Lord Orlach wasted no time. After McCann’s previous convictions had been read out by the Clerk, the old judge told the prisoner that it was clear that he had to be removed from society once again, and for a long time. He sentenced him to life imprisonment for rape, with the recommendation ‘to those whose task it will be to consider your eventual release’ that he should serve at least fourteen years. He also sentenced him to six years’ imprisonment on the wounding charge, to be served concurrently.

Rachel Jameson’s last duty after the trial was to visit McCann in the cells, as he awaited transfer back to Barlinnie, this time as a convicted prisoner, a sex offender, a prison pariah.

The man who had sat so calmly through trial and sentence was now in a rage. He sat at a plain table, a burly prison officer at his side, and swore savagely at Rachel. ‘So you were clever, eh. You said ah’d get life and you were fuckin’ right. If you hadna held back on that hoor in the witness box, ah’d be out now! Ah tell you somethin’, hen. Fourteen years won’t be long enough for you. As soon as ah’m oot, you’re finished. In fact you’re fuckin’ finished now!’

Rachel screamed as McCann lunged across the table. The big prison officer thumped him on the side of the head. McCann swayed to the side, then suddenly swung back toward the guard, who had been thrown off balance by his own blow, and butted him savagely between the eyes.

The man went down poleaxed, just as his colleague threw the door open. The newcomer had no time to react as he was seized and shoved backwards. His head cracked loudly against the wall.

Smiling now, McCann released the unconscious man, and turned towards Rachel. She had backed into a corner of the white-tiled room, cowering and mute with fear, unable to scream or even speak. Her handbag lay open on the table. McCann saw the wallet inside. He snatched it up, clawed £55 from the notes section, and emptied the change pocket, then threw it into the far corner of the room. He looked back towards her. His face was calm, the eyes shining, the familiar arrogance back. He smiled. ‘I’ll see you again, Miss Jameson.’ He looked out of the room, left and right, and then he was gone.

Rachel stood frozen in her corner. She heard, but she could not react to the sudden commotion as McCann crashed through the exit door. She did not move for almost two minutes, until the prison officer nearer to her on the floor began to come round. She crossed the room towards the man. His nose was pouring blood and there was a deep vertical cut between his eyes.

A young police constable appeared in the doorway. ‘Oh Christ,’ he gasped, then turned and ran. Seconds later an alarm blared. Rachel looked along the corridor. The exit door lay ajar. The feet and legs of a third uniformed man were visible, sprawled like his colleagues. McCann was free and clear.

Policemen filled the corridor, and the room. A man in plain clothes led Rachel back into the interview room, where first aid was being administered to the two stricken prison officers. The big guard was on his feet, but the other showed no response. He was grey-faced.

‘Get an ambulance, quick.’The plain-clothes man snapped out the order ‘What happened Miss Jameson?’ At last Rachel recognised Detective Inspector Strang, the arresting officer in the McCann case. She told him the whole story of the escape. The first prison officer, still bleeding, added his account.

‘He made a dive for the lady, sir. I was sure he was going to do her in. I whacked him, then next thing I knew my lights were out.’

‘Sounds like he put on a show for you, you big clown. What the f..., sorry miss; what were you thinking about, staying in here alone with that man?’

Strang turned back to Rachel. ‘McCann’s a clever bastard. Don’t read too much into that threat, Miss Jameson. He’ll be heading away from you as fast as he can. How much money did he take?’

Rachel looked at her wallet. ‘I’m not sure exactly; around sixty pounds, I think. No more, certainly. At least he’s left me my rail ticket.’

‘Better use it, then. Formal statements can wait; for now, just you get straight home. As I said, I’m sure you’ll be okay, but I won’t take any risks. I’ll have two of our lads run you to Queen Street and put you on the train. Then, just to be sure, I’ll get on to Edinburgh and make sure that they keep a watch on your house. They’ll love me for that, with all the bother they’ve got, but let’s just play safe.’

Two young, courteous, uniformed policemen drove Rachel to Queen Street rail station, off George Square. They parked the police car at the taxi rank and made to get out, but she stopped them.

‘Thanks, boys, but I’d rather not be escorted on to the platform. The train should be in by now anyway.’

The policemen looked doubtful, but after a few seconds’ discussion the driver smiled at her.

‘Okay, miss. But don’t tell anyone. We were given strict orders, see.

It was 5.20 p.m. The Queen Street to Waverley service runs on the half-hour at peak times. On occasion it falls behind time. There was no train waiting on platform six.

Rachel crossed the forecourt to the newsstand, and bought an
Evening Times.

‘JURY OUT IN RAPE TRIAL,’ the front page banner headline blared at her She saw her own face staring out from the page. Scottish law forbids the publication, until after the verdict, of a photograph of any accused person. The
Times
picture editor had obviously chosen the stock shot of the attractive little advocate as an alternative.

In the distance, Rachel could see the lights of an approaching train, gliding in slowly and quietly. She walked towards platform six.

She stopped after only a few yards, just past the big hydraulic buffers. As she glanced again at her
Times
and at the stop press, which, badly out of date, proclaimed, ‘McCann jury still out’, most of her fellow passengers rushed past her. No one noticed the little lady in the dark overcoat, from which a high, white-ruffled collar peeked.

It was the flash of that white collar, as much as anything, that caught the driver’s eye. As he said later, it was winter, it was after dark and the station lighting was patchy. People were rushing, and he was concentrating on applying the final touch to the brakes, to stop the train just short of the buffers.

And in any event, even if he had seen Rachel earlier, falling in front of his train, he could have done nothing but try not to listen to the thump as the body went under the wheels.

Detective Sergeant Brian Mackie, Andy Martin’s provisional replacement as Skinner’s personal assistant, his arm still in a sling after his mishap two nights before, received the request from Inspector Strang of Strathclyde CID, that officers be assigned to protect Rachel Jameson.

Skinner grumbled, but ordered Mackie to arrange for two plainclothes officers, one of them a woman, to meet Miss Jameson from the 5.30 Glasgow train on its arrival at Waverley, and to take her home. He instructed also that a uniformed officer should be stationed at her front door until further notice.

‘And make sure that she’s advised to take a taxi whenever she goes out.’

Forty-five minutes later Mackie was back to tell him of Rachel’s death.

Skinner had a perfectionist’s hatred of shoddy work. ‘They’ve had a great day in Glasgow, Brian, have they not. First they let a newly convicted man do a runner from the High Court itself. Then they ask us to protect a threatened woman and allow her to go under a train before they can hand her over!

‘What the hell happened?’

Mackie looked at his note of Strang’s second telephone call.

‘Nobody seems to have seen very much, sir, not even the engine driver. There were a lot of people milling about at the time. But,’ he paused, ‘the Transport Police have a report of someone answering McCann’s description running from the station just after the incident. And, according to Inspector Strang, McCann could have seen the rail ticket in her wallet when he stole that cash from her.

‘Mind you, sir, Strang said they think it was probably suicide. With this threat coming on top of Mortimer’s death, they think she probably jumped.’

Skinner shook his head. ‘Brian, this is Strathclyde we’re talking about. Strathclyde CID could find a man nailed to a cross in the middle of Glasgow Green, with a crown of thorns on his head, and they’d still not rule out suicide. As for the Transport Polis, show them a picture of a dog and they’ll start barking themselves. They heard that McCann was on the run; they’ll have seen a dozen McCanns in that station before the day’s out.

‘Think about it; there’s McCann, sent down for fourteen long years, then, thanks to the biggest stroke of luck he’s ever had in his life, he finds himself on the street half an hour later, still in his civvy clothes, with sixty quid in his hand. The last place he’s going to head for is a bloody railway tation. He’s stowed away on a cargo boat by now, or hidden himself in a container lorry heading south, probably one with Continental plates, trusting his luck to hold out so that they don’t find him at sea and chuck him over the side, or that he isn’t picked up by the customs at Hull or the Channel.’

But even while he scoffed at Strathclyde’s suicide theory for Mackie’s benefit, he admitted grudgingly to himself that there might be something in it.