Verdict Unsafe

“Verdict Unsafe
has suspense and plot surprises throughout…. The characters are passionate—and McGown uses their passion to make them real.”

—
Associated Press

“In this extraordinarily well crafted mystery, McGown, a careful and knowledgable writer, expands her scope to embrace many of the problems that daily confront law enforcement.”

—
The Arizona Daily Star

“Recommended … Reminiscent of PBS’s
Prime Suspect.”

—
Library Journal

“A solid British procedural.”

—
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

“A complex, satisfying solution.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“THAT ON THE SEVENTH OF SEPTEMBER OF THAT year you unlawfully and with intent inflicted grievous bodily harm on Rachel Olivia Selina Ashman contrary to Section Eighteen of the Offenses against the Person Act eighteen sixty-one. Are you guilty or not guilty?”

“Not guilty.”

“Count eight. You are charged that on the seventh of September of that year you raped Rachel Olivia …”

Harper sighed, and wished he was defending anyone but Colin Arthur Drummond, as the charges rolled on and on.

“Count eleven. You are charged that on the tenth of September of that year you raped Lucy Mary Rogerson, contrary to …”

On the day of his arrest, Drummond had made a full confession to four sexual assaults on women; now that he was on trial, facing eleven charges under the Sexual Offenses Act and three under the Offenses against the Person Act, he was pleading not guilty to them all.

The fourteenth and final plea was entered and, out of the hearing of the jury, Harper tried to have that confession declared inadmissible, as the interviewing officer had failed to fulfil the conditions demanded by the Police and Criminal
Evidence Act; the attempt, as he had expected, failed. But Drummond had also made a statement to Detective Inspector Hill of Stansfield CID concerning another, unreported rape; this time Harper’s application that this evidence should not be admitted met with success, since it concerned an incident which had never been the subject of a complaint to the police, and did not therefore concern the court.

The jury filed back, and the prosecuting counsel outlined the case which would be presented to the jury. Next, the sworn statements of those who were not being compelled to give evidence were read, and it was well into the morning before the first witness was sworn in.

In the well of the court, the prosecution barrister—tall, stout, silver-haired beneath his wig and almost as imposing as the wood-panelled courtroom itself—was on his feet, and in the witness box stood the dark-haired, dark-eyed, childlike teenage prostitute who had been the alleged victim of the fourth assault. She was the basket in which Harper was carrying all of Drummond’s eggs; it looked to him even more fragile than its cargo.

Harper’s adversary was waiting patiently for the slightly shocked buzz of reaction to the witness’s profession to die down; the girl herself was edgy, nervous, waiting for her ordeal to begin. Just how much of an ordeal it would be had been brought home to the jury by the fact that Rachel Ashman, the second victim, had taken her own life rather than be forced to give evidence, something which in her acutely depressed state she had felt quite unable to do. Only then had Drummond agreed that the victims of the other assaults could make sworn statements, since the defense was not contesting the facts, but simply the identity of the assailant.

Mrs. Ashman’s suicide was being regarded as a direct result of the assault; the charge of grievous bodily harm referred to the mental anguish which had led to it. And to cap it all, thought Harper, Brian Ashman had turned up for the trial. There he sat in the public gallery, a widower at twenty-five, with a two-year-old child to look after, still walking with
two
sticks after an accident at work a few weeks before the assault. And every
time the jury looked at him, Colin Drummond’s chances would take a further nosedive; with its usual lack of judicial awareness, the public held the defendant responsible for Mrs. Ashman’s suicide and all the other human tragedies that had resulted from the assaults before even one witness had been heard.

And twelve members of that public were sitting on the jury. Harper looked around the courtroom, trying to exude a confidence that he most assuredly did not feel, and saw DI Hill slip into court and make for a seat in the public gallery. He’d seen her around the courts from time to time, but he had never met her. She was more than good in the witness box, from what he’d heard. Juries took to her, they said, and Harper could believe it. She was attractive, well dressed, well groomed, her soft, unfussy, dark hair denoting common sense, her brown eyes honesty. Her word was rarely questioned, and he had been advised that he would have grave difficulty in casting doubt on her integrity. And since that was what he would have had to do, it was just as well he had managed to scupper her evidence.

Judy Hill was officially on leave; she had broken it to give evidence, and now that that evidence was not to be heard, she took a seat in the public gallery.

“Miss Benson, can you tell the court where you were at one-thirty
A.M
. on Monday, the twenty-eighth of October last year?” Robert Whitehouse asked, his voice gentle, as though he were speaking to a child. She was seventeen now; she looked thirteen.

The girl took a breath, and glanced around the courtroom before she replied, a batsman weighing up the field. “I was …” she began, and faltered. She licked her lips, cleared her throat, and carried on in a firm, defiant, voice. “I was in Hosier’s Alley.”

“This was a hundred-yard-long passageway winding between John Wesley Road and Andwell Street in Malworth, my lord,” said Whitehouse. “It was formed by the walls of a derelict shirt factory, an ex-warehouse, and two empty blocks of flats, in one of which the witness was living, with a number
of others, as a squatter. The area was awaiting demolition in order to build the bypass now under construction in that area. There was thick fog that night, and the alleyway was unlit.” He turned back to the girl. “And could you tell the court, in your own words, what happened to you?” he asked;

“He raped me,” she said, with a quick nod toward the dock.

Judy felt irrationally guilty about that; the girl had been a last-minute replacement for Judy herself, as Drummond had lost no time in pointing out to her.

“I know this is distressing for you,” Whitehouse said. “But we have to take it step by step. What happened first of all?”

“He grabbed me as I turned into the alley,” she said. “He had his hand over my mouth.”

“His bare hand?”

“No. He had big gloves on. And he had a knife up to my eye.” Her hand unconsciously went to her eye as she spoke. “He sort of pressed his elbows into me, and pulled me down the alley to where it was dark.”

“Could you see the knife?”

“Sort of.” She went pale when she was shown the knife found on the bank of the Andwell River, which ran parallel to the street bearing its name, and was asked if it was the one she had seen. “It could be,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “The blade looks the same. I couldn’t see the handle.” The knife was taken away.

“And what happened in the alley?” asked Whitehouse.

“He … he pushed me face, down and knelt over me,” she said. “Then he pulled me up so I was on my knees, and he was behind me. He told me to pull down my leggings and—” She broke off, tried to carry on, failed.

“Take your time,” said Whitehouse.

“He—” Her mouth trembled, and she tried to blink away the tears, but she couldn’t go on.

“Would the witness like a glass of water?” asked the judge.

Judy was never convinced of the magic properties of a glass of water. Would the witness like a stiff gin, then you’d be talking. The witness shook her head, and took a moment to gather herself.

“He touched me with the knife,” she said.

“Where did he touch you?”

She looked hunted, and Judy felt sad; the poor little girl didn’t know the socially acceptable word for any part of the anatomy below the waist. “My private parts,” she said eventually, her face burning. “He said if I didn’t do what he wanted he’d cut me. Down there. And he told me to undo my blouse. Then he pushed my head right down, and he—” She swallowed hard. “He raped me.”

“How did he rape you?” Whitehouse asked quietly.

More agony, until the girl thought of an acceptable alternative to the word she habitually used. “He used my back passage,” she said.

“Did he say anything to you while this was happening?”

She nodded miserably. “He kept saying something over and over, but I couldn’t understand him,” she said. “I was dead scared he’d cut me if I made a noise. I was just trying not to cry.” She was still trying not to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“That’s all right,” said Whitehouse. “Go on.”

“After a bit, these two men came down the alley, and he got off me and ran away. One of them went after him.”

When Whitehouse had finished getting as much detail of the assault as he could from the girl, he thanked her. “I know this is very difficult for you,” he said, “but you must stay there, please—my learned friend will have some questions to put to you.”

The judge looked at the clock, and advised Harper that he was going to wait until after lunch to begin his cross-examination, which didn’t, Judy fancied, go down too well with Whitehouse’s learned friend. And so it was that afternoon that she got her first proper look at the hotshot lawyer Drummond Senior had retained, as the judge reminded the little girl that she was still under oath, and Harper stood up to cross-examine her.

Slim, blond, early thirties, if that. Quite handsome, in a slim, blond sort of way, but it was a combination that Judy always felt looked better on women. Under his gown his dark court clothes were tailored and sharp. He obviously did well in his chosen profession.

“This morning we heard a very harrowing story,” he said. “But that isn’t quite how it happened, is it?”

“Yes, it is,” she said.

“I suggest that you were walking through the alleyway on your way to your squat, and came across Mr. Drummond as he was returning to his motorbike,” he said. “You propositioned him and he paid you for sex. It’s as simple as that, isn’t it?”

“No.” The girl shook her head. “He grabbed me and pulled me in there.”

“Did you shout for help when he grabbed you? After all, as it turned out, the police were remarkably close at hand, weren’t they? They would have heard a cry for help.”

“I couldn’t! He had his hand over my mouth!”

“I think you didn’t cry for help, not because he had his hand over your mouth, but because you didn’t need any help. You needed money, though, didn’t you? Had you had many customers that night?”

“Enough.”

“But you had spent most of the evening in the police station, hadn’t you?”

She lifted her chin a little, her natural defiance beginning to give her the confidence to assert herself. “So what?”

“You had been arrested in a public park for committing a breach of the peace?”