The Visitor (#3 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) (21 page)

He was. Sitting with him was Augustus, and Laura Warwick’s best friend. All of them due to give testimony about the hell that Laura Warwick had lived and died in.

All of a sudden the court’s side door opened, and a swarm of black-gowned barristers entered, like a murder of crows. The court stood and an elderly Judge appeared at the front, beckoning them all to sit, as the barristers took up their opposing positions.

Amanda Graham, the prosecutor, smiled out at Craig just before the door closed. She was all right - he’d known her since Uni. He just hoped that she was tough enough to cope with Roger Doyle. Annette and Nicky had given him the ‘stay calm’ lecture just before he’d left the squad. But they needn’t have worried. He’d stay calm. He had to. Letting Doyle rile him wouldn’t help the Warwicks, or the conviction that they’d worked for months to achieve. He wouldn’t let anyone goad him into blowing it now.

The witnesses stood up and sat down, entering and exiting in turn to give their evidence, while Craig sat waiting on the bench outside like a team reserve. Finally he heard his name being called, cutting through his thoughts. Lucia said it was called the ‘Cocktail Party Effect’. Where you always heard your name being said, regardless of other distractions. Just like at a party. Some party.

Craig stood up and entered the court, taking his indicated seat on the front row. The courtroom was modern and bright, with pale wooden benches and a high bright ceiling. But the gravitas that hung over it made it feel like a tomb.

Roger Doyle was sitting in front of him, so close that Craig could have hit him. And he would have done if he’d had less self-control. John sat in the front row, listening intently. He nodded at Craig reassuringly then shot Doyle a look that said ‘pompous wanker’. Craig hoped that the jury agreed.

The defendant, Kenny Ewing, was sitting in his accused position, staring into space. He was a tall, muscular man with swarthy skin and coarse black hair, and hands that looked like slabs of ham at the ends of his arms. Even without a knife, any of the blows he’d landed on Laura Warwick would have killed her easily.

He had the dull look of a man whose mind had left him long before, aided and abetted by his ‘little helpers’. First skunk, then Ecstasy, and finally Heroin. By the time he’d met the Warwick’s lovely daughter, all thought and conscience had already left him. Replaced by need and addiction, and every selfish human urge.

Craig could see Laura’s parents sitting across the atrium, ashen and tired, with their heads down. Saying nothing to each other, afraid to break the silence. He glanced again and her mother was gazing straight at him now, with a desperate look that said, “Help us...help Laura.”

He thought of how his parents would feel if Lucia was the victim, and it made him despise Doyle even more than Kenny Ewing. Which one should you hate more? The wild animal? Or the person who sets them free to kill again?

Craig heard his name called and walked to the witness box. He was sworn in taking a seat, and Amanda Graham took her position close in front of him. She questioned him well on the evidence, so that it came out focusing the jury on the certainties. The signed confession, the witness statements, and the enhanced, clear images shown on the CCTV. He could see the jurors nodding, gazing at Ewing’s dull stare and lack of emotion, and then back at him as he described their findings. He hoped they would look past his professional front and see how much the case moved him.

He stopped for a drink of water, swallowing hard, and the Judge smiled encouragingly at him, knowing that even the most senior officers found his world daunting. Craig appreciated the smile, but it wasn’t that he found the place or proceedings too much. It was fear. The fear that giving Doyle any small gap to widen, would lead to the Warwicks never receiving justice. And that was all anyone could give them now.

After twenty minutes Amanda Graham nodded and sat and Roger Doyle stood up. He leaned over to his sycophantic junior to whisper something, with a sarcastic smile. And then, with a swish of his gown, he walked over and stood directly in front of Craig.

“Good afternoon, Detective Chief Inspector Craig. I am, as you know, Roger Doyle, Queen’s Counsel. I am now going to ask you some questions. Most particularly regarding the
lack
of forensic evidence linking the alleged weapon to the defendant, Mr Kenneth Ewing. Please answer them succinctly.”

Cheeky bastard - telling him how to give evidence.

“Now...” Doyle paused for so long that Craig thought he was waiting for a drum roll. He looked like some grotesque pantomime villain in his black cloak. All that was missing was a handlebar moustache.

“On the evening in question, the 20
^th
December 2012, my client does not deny that he was at his home, at 28 Morris Heights Belfast 4. A home that he shared with Ms Laura Warwick, and had done so happily for five years.”

Happily? Not judging by the number of old fractures she had.

“Nor does he deny that he returned home that evening, as confirmed by the extremely poor quality CCTV photographs.” He paused and stared at the jury, emphasising his next words. “Photographs so kindly ‘cleaned-up’ by your police laboratories.” Craig could see annoyance on some of the jurors’ faces. He hoped that it was directed at Doyle, not the evidence.

“He also does not deny that Ms Warwick received a fatal injury from a knife, shown and entered into evidence as Exhibit 15. No-one denies any of this. It was confirmed by your Forensic laboratory and by the post-mortem evidence given earlier by Dr Augustus.”

Wait for it...here it comes... the ‘however’...

“However...my client maintains that he was, in fact, merely sitting in the kitchen of the home he shared with Ms Laura Warwick. When she came into that kitchen behaving hysterically. That she was holding a knife. A knife with which she had in fact already been cutting herself in self-harm that evening, before he arrived home. Just as she had cut herself many times before. Facts which have been amply confirmed by her medical records.

Mr Ewing further asserts that he attempted to stop her from harming herself, by removing the knife from her. And that, after a struggle where she tried to stab him, he defended himself by pushing her away.” He paused again, contorting his face into a facsimile of sorrow and lowering his voice to suit. “She then fell upon the knife, sadly killing herself.”

Craig was starting to wonder if it was a question or a soliloquy. Get on with it.

“Can you therefore tell the court, D.C.I. Craig, why your
statement, that he was holding the knife, should be believed, when there is no forensic evidence to support that assertion in any way? Mr Ewing’s prints are not on the handle of the knife, nor indeed are they on the blade of the knife. In fact, there was nothing to show them on the knife at all! But Ms Warwick’s prints were on both the knife handle and blade. Please answer the question, Mr Craig.”

Oh, he was going to answer the question all right. Craig stood up.

“There is no need to stand, Mr Craig.”

Craig ignored Doyle’s protest and turned to the Judge. “I would prefer to, if the court has no objection. It helps me to think.”

Doyle’s objections became louder but the Judge nodded for him to go ahead. Craig thought he saw a smile in his eyes. John’s smile was much more obvious.

“As Mr Ewing entered their home, he was pictured on the estate’s CCTV weaving from side to side, in a manner consistent with alcohol intoxication. This was later confirmed by a blood test. High levels of opiates were also found. In his urine. It was a very cold evening - in fact it had been snowing earlier in the day. And in the CCTV it can clearly be seen that Mr Ewing was wearing a jacket, scarf and gloves. All of which he was seen still wearing exactly three minutes later when he re-emerged from his home.

When he re-emerged, his scarf was knotted in an identical way to when he entered. This was confirmed by laboratory measurement of the CCTV footage. Therefore it is highly unlikely that he had in fact removed his scarf in the house. And likely therefore that he had also not removed other items of clothing, including his gloves, during his brief three minutes indoors.” Each time he said three minutes, Craig made eye contact with a juror.

“The neighbours heard Mr Ewing enter his house and they heard him shouting almost immediately. The timing of this was later confirmed as the exact time that he entered. They then heard several loud bangs. These were consistent with noises that they had heard in the past. During the frequent domestic violence that Laura Warwick endured during their relationship. Violence that is confirmed by the medical records, from her frequent attendances at St Marys’ Trust. And by the many complaints made to the police, by Ms Warwick and neighbours between 2010 and 2012. Unfortunately Ms Warwick later withdrew her complaints.”

“Your Honour, I must object. These allegations were never prosecuted or proven. This is highly prejudicial to my client.”

“Objection over-ruled, Mr Doyle. D.C.I. Craig clearly stated that Ms Warwick had withdrawn these earlier charges. Continue, D.C.I. Craig.”

“Thank you, your Honour. Furthermore, on the tape we can see Mr Ewing shouting as he enters the house. Two independent lip-reading experts and our lip-reading software have since confirmed, that he was in fact repeatedly saying. ‘I’m going to kill you, bitch’.”

Doyle tried to interrupt again. But Craig drove on with his monologue, ignoring every attempt at objection or questioning. It was his turn now. The court was completely silent and the jurors remained still, listening intently. John leaned forward, urging Craig on and Amanda Graham smiled down at her notes, not daring to make eye contact in case it broke the spell.

“If Ms Warwick had been holding the knife when he approached her, as Mr Doyle would have us believe. Then he could not have got close enough to her to have inflicted all of the other fresh blunt injuries that were found on her body. She would surely have used the knife to defend herself, and stop him before she received them. Additionally, he would have displayed some signs of defensive wounds, which he did not.

Equally, had she been holding the knife by the handle as one normally does, and had he attempted to remove it from her, then he would have received cuts, either to his bare hands or to his gloves, from grasping the blade. Neither of these was found. The absence of his fingerprints on the knife handle can easily be explained by his wearing gloves.” Craig paused and took a sip of water and John knew he was about to start summing up. He restarted more forcefully.

“Mr Ewing freely confessed to the killing, in the presence of the duty solicitor. He admitted that he walked into his home that evening fully intending to kill Ms Warwick, falsely believing that she was having a relationship with another man. You heard other witnesses testifying that he had said as much earlier that evening, in the Reverie Bar. He also admitted on tape that he walked into their kitchen and hit her with his fists several times. He accurately described those fresh injuries and their positions. He admitted that he then, without removing his gloves, lifted the knife from the kitchen drawer and stabbed her several times with it. First, superficially on her face and arms, as she attempted to defend herself, effectively mimicking the injuries of self-harm. And then the deeper, fatal abdominal wound described earlier by Dr Augustus. She lay on the floor bleeding to death while he watched her. He did not call an ambulance. Instead he casually left their home, again captured on CCTV, having taken a total of three minutes to kill Laura Warwick. Mr Ewing’s signed confession gives us the only version of events which is entirely consistent with the post-mortem findings and forensic evidence that you have already heard.”

As he described the signed confession, Craig turned and made eye contact with the jury, underlining in graphic detail each of the wounds received by Laura Warwick. He couldn’t let himself look at her parents as he spoke, in case their hopeful pain distracted him. He only had one chance to make the jury hear the truth.

Doyle hadn’t managed to divert or stall him. And Craig really hoped that any questions he asked now, attempting to discredit the evidence, were going to fall on deaf ears. Finally he sat down in the witness box, exhausted, catching the Judge’s quick acknowledgement of a job well done.

Doyle blustered on for another thirty minutes, trying to find gaps in his testimony. Re-asking each question with different angles and cadences. But Craig had done his case serious damage and he knew it. And as Craig stepped out of the witness box, he finally allowed himself to look at Laura Warwick’s parents, hopeful that it would be enough.

Chapter Seventeen

Friday Evening.

The answer phone was flashing ‘one’ as Craig walked through the living-room, pulling open a cold beer. He knew who it was without listening - everyone but his Mother called his mobile, but she hated them. He rang her back, the phone in his right hand, holding his beer with his left.

“Buon giorno Mum, what do you want? I promise I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“Now Marco, don’t ask your Mama what she want. You know she only ever want what best for you.”

He laughed as the long running banter between himself and his vivacious mother ramped up.

“I’ll tell you what I want. I want you please to pick up some oregano for me on way. And no be long. You have not see your sister in weeks.”