TR01 - Trial And Retribution Read online

  Entering the lounge a couple of minutes later, Anita gasped and put a hand to her mouth. The tall man standing by the sideboard, with his short hair and impeccable turn-out, was Thomas Harris, her ex-husband. He turned round and she saw in his hand one of the framed photographs of his daughter the one in which she was wearing a spotted dress and sat astride a blue playground cow.

  She looked directly into his eyes, saw their icy clarity. His voice was low, subdued.

  "They let me have compassionate leave. Flew in last night. All right, are you?"

  Anita remembered Thomas's rages. The worst had been when she'd told him she could no longer bear the bitchy life in army married quarters and was leaving. The anger had always started with Thomas speaking very low, quiet, controlled, before building up to an intensity that was terrifying. He never hit or even touched her. He would simply turn into a different person. It scared her then and, she realized, it still did.

  "I swear to God, Thomas," she said, her voice trembly, 'she was only out playing ten minutes. Jason was with her. "

  Thomas returned the photograph to the sideboard.

  "I don't know what to say. I can't take it in. She was my baby."

  He bowed his head. At this moment, Peter came in from the kitchen. He looked at Thomas in a way that was at the same time aggressive and guarded. He said, "They got someone, you know. That pervert, the one from the estate"

  Thomas shook his head from side to side.

  "Well, I'd like to have ten minutes with him, that's all."

  Pushing past Peter, Helen appeared. As soon as she realized that Thomas had come, she started to weep. Thomas went to her, wrapping his arms around her.

  "Hello, Mum. I couldn't get here sooner. Eventually they gave me compassionate leave."

  Finally, Jason came hurtling in and threw himself at his father.

  "Dad! Dad!" Jason was so excited to see him; his body trembled and he was close to tears.

  Thomas stooped and gathered his son up. Jason clung to him as if afraid to let him go, showing in that moment more affection to his real father than he ever had for Peter James.

  Helen watched them hugging and said to Peter, "Maybe you should leave them alone."

  It was her way of pointing up the difference between Thomas and Peter.

  Helen had never wavered in believing that Anita and the kids belonged with Thomas. If only they'd stayed with him, how different things might have been!

  Peter swung towards her, snarling.

  "And maybe you should shut up! Just keep your nose out!"

  "Eh!" said Thomas, putting Jason down.

  "Don't you speak to Mum like that. You hear me?"

  "Oh, this is your house, is it? You pay the bills, do you?"

  Thomas raised a finger, real menace in his eyes.

  "Julie was my daughter. So leave it out."

  Peter's lip curled.

  "Prick!"

  Standing aside, as if accidentally detached, Jason watched the adults.

  He didn't understand exactly what was going on, but he appreciated his dad telling Peter to get knotted. Peter slunk out of the room then, and his gran and his mum both started crying. His dad wrapped his arms around his mum and hugged her, swinging her from side to side. She pushed her face into his dad's shoulder and just sobbed and sobbed.

  Jason wanted to be a part of that embrace. He was jealous of her. He wanted to still be held by his dad. He knew that Julie was gone, which wasn't his fault.

  But having his beloved dad back was all right.

  Belinda Sinclair and Michael Dunn made quite a contrast he, in his white paper overall, unshaven for several days, filthy fingernails, matted hair; she, in a dove-grey designer suit and apricot silk shirt, her lips glistening with perfectly applied scarlet lipstick, her blonde hair catching the light from the mundane strip light and turning it to pure gold. She sat upright in her chair with a legal pad on the table in front of her and an expensive ballpoint in her hand.

  "You must concentrate, Michael. This is very serious," she was saying.

  She could see he had not taken very much of his situation in. He wasn't frightened, but listless, detached.

  "You have given two different versions of how you got the doll. An inference can be drawn from that in court, you know."

  Dunn, already sitting bent forward on his chair, slumped against the table, covering his face with his hands.

  "I want to get out of here. I want to go home. I need a drink."

  "Michael." Belinda's voice was coaxing, almost seductive.

  "You do realize I am your solicitor. I am not a police officer."

  Dunn raised his head. The red-rimmed eyes looked feverish and hunted.

  "Why am I here?"

  In frustration, Belinda dropped the pen onto the pad. There was a tap on the door and Dunn, startled, shambled to his feet. It was Satchell.

  "You ready yet, ma'am?"

  Belinda Sinclair's response was frosty.

  "No, but I will inform you when I am."

  Satchell hung for a moment in the doorway, made as if to speak and then changed his mind. He raised his hand and left.

  "Now, Michael, please sit down. We need to talk about this doll. And then there is a small matter of an identification parade ..."

  PCs Phelps and Brown had been detailed to pay a visit to the Scrubbery and pick up any winos in sight and in particular the one known as Midge. They found her sitting in her customary place, singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow'. She said she'd be delighted to accompany Phelps to Southampton Street nick, or to any other destination he might care to name.

  "I'd go anywhere with you, darling," she told him as he assisted her towards the squad car.

  "Lovely looking boy like you. Who's a lovely boy then?"

  She leaned into Phelps's shoulder and slid her cheek along until her forehead clashed with the line of his jaw.

  "Oops!

  "Scuse me. Give us a kiss, then- go on. Give us a kiss, handsome."

  Meanwhile Brown had got hold of Bert O'Farrell, who was proving less cooperative.

  "I'll bloody kill you! Cart me off in your meat wagon, would you, you bastards!"

  "Please, Mr. O'Farrell," said Brown, as his cap flew off. He gestured to Phelps for assistance.

  "Look, we only want to talk to you."

  "Slaughter me? I'll bloody slaughter the pair of you. Come on, then, come on. Try me. Put up your fists, you pair of fairies."

  Midge Parker-Brown sat in the back seat of the car, watching the tussling men benignly. A fragment of distant memory had entered her brain a Parker-Brown limousine standing on a gravel drive with her, aged ten, sitting demurely in the back. The engine was purring, ready to whisk her off for a birthday visit to the cinema.

  At last Phelps and Brown bundled Bert O'Farrell into the car beside her. As they drove away Midge began to sing.

  ' We're off to see the Wizard" the wunnerful Wizard of Oz, because, because, because, becauuuuuse..."

  At the station, Phelps got Midge sitting down in the waiting area as a WPC walked past. She took one look at Midge and stopped.

  "Hello, Midge. What they bringing you in for this time?"

  "You know her?" said Phelps. He guided his colleague out of Midge's earshot.

  "That AMI? Sergeant Satchell's going to question her about the Harris suspect. Dunn's named her for his alibi. Trouble is she's pissed as a fart."

  "Nothing new there. Same story on Thursday when I last saw the old bat."

  Phelps did a double take.

  "Thursday? Where'd you see her?"

  "St. John's hospital casualty. Took her there in the morning, about ten, ten-thirty."

  "What happened?"

  "She fell down some steps. Suspected concussion."

  "How long did they keep her?"

  "Don't know. I left her there. I'll look in my notes and give you a firm time. And you can always phone St. John's."

  Twenty minutes later Phelps gave Sergeant Satchell the good ne
ws.

  "Dunn's alibi just blew away, Sarge. Hospital says the Triage Nurse assessed Midge Parker-Brown at ten-thirty and they didn't release her until six at night. Apparently they thought she might have brain damage. That's a laugh. Anyway, she can't have been with Dunn at all on Thursday, can she? Unless they had a liquid breakfast together."

  "No," said Satchell.

  "Dunn didn't leave his house till eleven, as far as we can tell. What about the other bloke you pulled what's his name, O'Farrell?"

  Phelps made a face and shook his head.

  "Got a bad case of uniformitis.

  Thinks he's Mike Tyson at the moment but I doubt we'll ever get anything out of him. "

  Satchell smiled.

  "Good. About Midge, put it in writing for me, will you, Phelps? And let her go. I'll give the glad tidings to Mr. Walker."

  Walker sat at his desk, thinking through the chain of evidence he was constructing against Michael Dunn, link by link. Dunn had been suspected by the residents on the estate. He'd given an alibi, of course, but even though it hadn't stuck, the residents' suspicions would be dismissed by a jury as pure prejudice, except for one thing.

  Enid Marsh had seen a man with the missing child and he fitted Dunn's description. She was a dotty old lady, which wasn't exactly to her credit as a witness. But it helped in another way because Enid was a recluse and not exactly

  tuned in to the prejudices of the estate. So she probably didn't know Dunn for the 'pervert' that the residents had tagged him as.

  It all hinged on identification: would old Enid recognize Dunn as the long-haired man in the long dark coat who she'd seen in the playground. You never knew with old people. One minute they could name every Grand National winner since 1936 and the next they'd forgotten how to make toast.

  But one thing was for certain. Either he'd have to let Dunn go or put Enid's colander mind to the test, and soon. That meant lashing together an identification parade before the end of the day and that wasn't even half as easy as it looked in cop films. They'd have to assemble eight men, each with a superficial resemblance to Michael Dunn, and keep them in one place while the old dear was trundled from the Howarth Estate all the way to the Met's ID Suite at Kilburn.

  Walker dared not think what was going to happen to his budget by the time this investigation was over. It was already in shreds. He sighed, flipped open the notebook he used to keep track of costs and began rummaging in a drawer for his calculator.

  By three o'clock, eight men who were like, but not too like, Michael Dunn had been found at Kilburn and kit ted out in various styles of long coat. The lights in the Identification Suite were down and they stood in semi-darkness, talking in low tones as they awaited the star of the show.

  Michael Dunn, now in prison-issue clothes and a long dark coat similar to his own, sauntered in between two officers. He seemed unconcerned.

  "Which position do you want?" asked the escorting officer.

  Dunn looked at him in foggy puzzlement.

  "Eh?"

  "In the parade." He jerked his thumb at the dark-glass window on the wall opposite the line of men.

  "This is an Identification Suite.

  You'll be eyeballed from in there. So where do you want to stand? "

  Dunn glanced up and down, scratching his head, then stepped into a place, the other men shuffling to make room. Cards with printed numbers were fixed above their heads. Struck by solemnity in the presence of a possible murderer, they listened to their instructions.

  They were to remember their numbers and keep their expressions neutral. Dunn's was number three.

  "Any questions?"

  Nobody had any questions.

  The ID Suite at Kilburn is, in the correct marketing jargon, a state of the art facility, with a viewing room behind one-way glass, remote control lighting and talk- back. Enid Marsh entered the viewing room in a wheelchair, followed by a small retinue of officers, one of them pushing, another carrying her walking frame and handbag. Belinda Sinclair was the last to enter. She stood quietly by the door watching Enid closely. The old woman was fidgeting impatiently.

  "You can stay in your chair, Mrs. Marsh, if you like," said the Identification Officer.

  "No, no. I can stand, you know. I don't even have a chair of my own at home. It's just this arthritis."

  She gripped the arms of the chair and heaved herself on to her feet. She stood for a moment with knees and back braced and slightly bent. Then she straightened, almost triumphantly.

  "See?"

  Looking from face to face, as if expecting a round of applause, she was smiling broadly.

  The officer touched a button and the room behind the glass burst into light. The halogen brightness made the men look uniformly pale and unhealthy. Enid scanned them eagerly. She felt rejuvenated, important.

  "You want me to pick him out now?"

  The Identification Officer cleared his throat and raised a clipboard.

  He frowned at the witness.

  "On September the fifth, at about one p.m." you saw a man take a little girl by the hand in the playground beneath your window. That man may--' He looked severely at Enid. She was nodding at him like someone keeping time to music.

  ' - or may not be on this identification parade today, but I would ask you not to make any decision as to whether you can identify him before you have looked twice at each member of the parade. "

  Enid swallowed. She mustn't rush, that's what he was saying to her, though why he had to read it out like that she didn't know.

  "Could they stand up?" she asked.

  She examined the man on the end of the line, position number nine.

  Never seen him before. Number eight, same. And number seven. Where did they get these chaps from? Number six, number five, number four never clapped eyes on them, though five looked like that nice lad in the fish shop. Number three ..

  "Just take your time," said the policeman.

  Enid's heart quickened. Number three! That was him.

  Since she knew about the murder she'd kept an image of what she'd seen from her window fresh in her mind. Same shape of head, same hair, same coat. It was him.

  She turned to the policeman.

  "Number three," she said, firmly.

  "That's the man."

  Belinda tore out of the ID Suite, keying the office number on her mobile. She had been trying to contain her excitement, but this was news she had to tell someone. She got Jeremy Oxiey, one of the solicitors she shared her office with.

  "Jeremy? Guess what! ... No, you berk. My client's just been picked out of a parade. I've got myself a murderer! What was that?" She giggled.

  "Of course, I meant an alleged murderer. He's called Michael Frederick Dunn."

  Walker was still juggling the overtime figures when Satch- ell came in with the news that another link in the chain had been forged.

  "We going to charge the bastard now, guy?" Walker sighed and shook his head.

  "This is identification, Dave. Too many cases that hinged on the dodgy memory of a witness have gone down the toilet. I need something more, or the GPS won't be playing ball."

  And, to satisfy the Crown Prosecution Service, he knew what he needed was forensic evidence. But did he have the money? He looked despairingly at the column of figures in front of him. If only this wasn't Sunday. On bloody Sunday everything cost double or was it triple? Oh well, the fuck to it.

  "Get on to Sergeant Polk," he said wearily.

  "I want forensics down at Dunn's flat yes, again! The whole team. I want the floors up. I want every piece of bedbug shit turned over. I want something that'll stick to Dunn like super glue and I want it today or, at the latest, tomorrow. We've got till ten a.m. or this investigation has gone to buggery."

  chapter 11

  SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER. 5 P. M.

  "HEY, Barridge What's this? Mine was ham and cheese."

  Barridge swivelled back to the Superintendent's desk, where he'd just deposited a coffee and a bagged sandwic
h.

  "Sorry, sir. I--' Walker held up the paper bag.

  "This is cheese and pickle."

  Barridge looked at the cardboard tray he carried. He picked up another sandwich and gave it to the Detective Superintendent.

  "Sorry, sir.

  Sorry. Got mixed up. "

  Walker softened. He'd seen the look of panic on the constable's face.

  "Look. It's no big deal, OK? Just I don't like pickle."

  He tossed the unwanted package back to Barridge and opened the second bag. Barridge hovered, waiting to be sent on his way.

  "You all right, son?" Walker asked in a low voice as he extracted the replacement sandwich.

  "I know it was you that found her. Living with you, is it?"

  Barridge tried to stand as upright as possible.

  "I'm all right, sir."

  "If ever you want to talk about it, you can go to occupational health.

  That's what they're there for. I've been there, son. "

  Barridge, who didn't think the Detective Superintendent had ever in his life so much as breathed the same air as an occupational health therapist, said, "Really, I'm--' " Don't bottle it up. Which reminds me Cranham! "

  "Yes, guy?"

  The Exhibits Officer came over and helped himself to a sandwich pack from Barridge's tray.

  "I want those empty bottles collected from Dunn's place and sent over to Mallory."

  Cranham nodded as he tore open the sandwich.

  "I'll sort it, guy. I'm on my way over now."

  "Take PC Barridge with you. Dunn had a bit of a problem with recycling so you'll need some extra muscle."

  An hour later, with Belinda Sinclair beside him, the suspect was back in the interview room facing Walker and Satchell across a table on which there were two brands of cigarette, a lighter, full ashtray, disposable cups. On the wall was a water cooler. The recording machine whirred.

  The police were like fishermen moving up and down a riverbank, casting for a rise, but so far the fish stayed locked to the bottom. After more than an hour of questioning, there had been no bites nothing to enable Walker to charge Dunn.

  "This doll: .." Walker held up the nude plastic doll in its polythene evidence bag.

  "Julie Ann had this with her when she left home. She was subsequently found dead. Now, I am asking you again Mr. Dunn: why was this doll found in your flat?"