TR01 - Trial And Retribution Page 13

  Mallory spoke deliberately, in his usual pompous manner.

  "On the matter of the material recovered from the dustbin of the suspect in the Harris case."

  "Accused."

  "I'm sorry?"

  "The accused, sir. He's been charged. He's on remand."

  "I see. Well, I hope that's not solely on the basis of what I have in front of me."

  Walker sat up in his chair, his eyes wary.

  "What have you in front of you, sir?"

  "I have in front of me, Walker, one blue and red washing line. And yes, it is the same type of rope or washing line as was tied around the little lady's neck. But it is not the rope. I think you'd better come and see me."

  Walker all but slumped forward across the budgetary calculations on his desk. Not the rope?

  PC Barridge was in the Incident Room when Walker burst from his office and shouted to DI North.

  "Pat! I've just been talking to Mallory. It's not the rope! Come on, let's go!"

  Not the rope? Barridge walked across to the pin-board, where a picture of the ligature used on Julie was displayed. Looking at it always hurt but he forced himself to do it.

  At the lab, Mallory showed both lengths of line to Walker and North.

  They looked identical and Walker said so.

  "Yes," said Mallory, taking the cut end of the murder rope in one hand and the end of the sample found in Dunn's bin in the other.

  "As I said, they're the same type of rope but--' Slowly and theatrically, he brought his two hands together until the cut ends of the lengths of line met.

  "These ends don't match."

  Walker tried hard to control himself.

  "So what have you got from the flat?"

  "We're working on Dunn's clothes. But so far, I regret, there's nothing for you. We've taken up almost all the carpet but the problem here is, it's hard to find an area without stains. There's more than three hundred of them."

  "You're going to test them all?"

  "We've done most of them already."

  He consulted the file, which lay open on his desk.

  "Semen, blood, soup, alcohol, chocolate, tea, coffee you want one?"

  The police officers looked blank.

  Mallory said, "A coffee?"

  Walker shook his head.

  "No, thanks. What about the bottles I sent in?

  Foster said she might have been penetrated by .. "

  "We've got numerous prints from the bottles, mostly Dunn's, which is not surprising. Nothing to connect them to the victim, though. Now, what else? Oh, yes ..."

  He went to the door and called out, "Jimmy1. Shoe casts!"

  Haggard joined them, dressed in a lab coat, wearing a mask and latex gloves and carrying a muddy, down-at-heel shoe. He looked from Walker to North.

  "Oh, ah! Hello, Superintendent, Inspector. You heard about the rope, that it's not " Yes, we heard," said Walker crisply.

  Haggard removed his mask.

  "Right, well. Shoe casts. We've cleared the backlog on the shoe casts. Eliminated twenty-four as officers' footwear but this ..." He held up the `;,6,' shabby shoe.

  "This was taken off the suspect, right?"

  Walker nodded.

  "Well, a good selection of ground deposits similar to the terrain we are interested in brick dust, soil, cement dust turned up on it.

  Plus, the ground near where the victim was hidden in the sewage pipes contained a high percent age of clay, so any footwear with all four samples matching means we can be pretty certain he was by those pipes.

  It's just that we have no shoe print in that ground for this particular shoe. "

  Walker nudged North and put on his coat. They turned to leave but Mallory called after them.

  "Hang on. Walker, it's your lucky day after all."

  Walker turned round, his lip curled. He looked as if he might say something he would later find regrettable, but he curbed the impulse.

  Mallory was holding up the rope used in the murder.

  "You haven't let me finish," he said, mock-wounded.

  "The section of line around the little girl's neck can be matched to something after all. In fact, I know exactly where it came from from a Miss Taylor's back garden or, to be more specific, the post she used to hang her washing line from.

  Is that any help to you? "

  It wasn't until they were in the car and on the way to Miss Taylor's that he remembered he'd forgotten to ask Mallory about the cost of tests on the refuse sack.

  At the Harris's place, Jason was playing. He lay on the floor, as near as he could to the action he was creating with the small plastic-moulded figures. His mouth made the explosive noises he imagined would come from their weapons as they fired. It was a dangerous ambush, led by his dad's platoon against an attacking enemy force, riding in on their tank. Jason was so absorbed he never noticed Peter coming in.

  "Jason! How many times have you been told not to mess around with Tony?"

  Jason exploded the attackers' battle tank. The enemy assault party went flying in every direction. It was satisfying.

  "You hearing me

  Jason pulled himself up on his elbow and scowled at Peter.

  "You're not my dad. And you're not Julie's dad either."

  Peter was standing with one hand behind his back. He kicked at the plastic tank, which skidded over the carpet and smacked the wall.

  "I know I'm not. Because I'd never produce a snotty little bastard like you."

  He produced his concealed hand. It held the smashed photograph.

  "Did you break this? Did you ?

  Jason cowered. He knew what was coming next.

  "Getupr " No! I bloody won't. You can't make me. "

  Quickly he began to wriggle under his bed. Peter tossed the broken picture on to the bed, grabbed and missed. He crouched, trying to fish the child out from the narrow space. His hand cast around but he couldn't reach far enough in to get a fistful.

  "I know you did it. I know!"

  "Stay away from me! You bastard!"

  Jason was crying now, snivelling and crooning, like a trapped animal.

  "I hate you. Julie hates you too!"

  Peter got up. He stood for a moment over the bed. His voice suddenly became calm and cold.

  "You got this room all to yourself now, Jason.

  And you're going to stay in it today, all day. And all night, too. You hear me?

  Jason crammed back into the furthest, darkest corner. He felt something digging into his back but so long as Peter didn't start pulling out the heavy bunk bed he reckoned he was safe. Then he knew he was, at least for the moment, because he heard Peter slam out of the room. He twisted round and got a hand to whatever it was he had felt. He pulled it out and put it in front of his eyes Julie's bloody Barbie doll. Yeuch!

  He pushed the doll back into the darkest corner under the bed, slid carefully out into the room and began reassembling the enemy force.

  There was be a renewed assault and no mercy on either side.

  chapter 13

  MONDAY 9 SEPTEMBER. 11. 30 A. M.

  Ann Taylor was a surprise to Pat North. The disabled parking space outside her house on the new brick-built housing development next to the estate, the spinsterish "Miss' on Barridge's visit report, the prissy, fanatically neat interior of the house all seemed to indicate someone in her sixties. But the woman who opened the door was only a little older than herself.

  "Yes?"

  Walker showed his warrant card.

  "We're police officers, Miss Taylor.

  We are following up the house-to-house inquiries made by our constable yesterday. May we come in? "

  North and Walker were escorted into the lounge with a ritual apology.

  "Sorry about the mess. If I'd known you were coming ... You'll have some coffee?"

  Walker looked around with raised eyebrows at the incredibly tidy room, cheaply but carefully furnished.

  "It's about this washing line. May we see your garden?"
>
  Ann Taylor was surprised.

  "The washing line? Oh, yes. I'll show you."

  She took them through the kitchen and out the back door. Walker inspected the posts from which her washing line had once hung. He walked around the perimeter of

  the lawn and peered in at the windows of the garden shed. A small padlock secured the door.

  Back in the lounge, she brought in coffee.

  "I thought you were investigating the murder of that poor child."

  "That's right."

  "But I don't see how that's connected to my washing line?"

  Walker took a token sip of his coffee and put the cup down.

  "We're trying to establish one. Now, Miss Taylor, when you mentioned to our constable that your washing line had been stolen, was that the first time you reported it missing?"

  "Yes."

  "So you never reported it stolen officially I mean?"

  "No. I didn't think it was worth it. I'm sorry should I have?"

  "No, no. Don't worry, it's just that there'd be a record if you had, you see. So, when exactly was it stolen?"

  "One night, just after the fence had been painted. About two weeks ago. Only there wasn't anything on it washing I mean. Or they would have stolen that as well, wouldn't they? Biscuit?" She offered a plate of custard creams.

  Walker shook his head.

  "No, thank you. Now, do you know Michael Dunn?"

  Ann Taylor's eyes were fixed on the carpet.

  "I know who he is, yes. It was in the papers that he'd been arrested." She twisted her hands together in her lap, the fingers of one gripping those of the other.

  "Er, he used to come round knocking on doors to do odd jobs."

  Walker seemed indifferent to this information. He simply asked, "When did you last see him?"

  "Oh, a long time ago. More than nine months, maybe a year. He looked terrible. Unwashed, filthy dirty. I didn't open my door. Just told him to go away."

  "And?"

  "He just walked off." She looked nervously to Walker then clasped her hands.

  "They've been to take tests on the fence. Will they be coming back? I mean it was only a rope."

  Walker got up suddenly, slightly knocking the table on which stood his barely touched coffee. The cup rattled.

  "Thank you for your time. Miss Taylor."

  North took a hurried gulp of coffee as Walker moved towards the hall.

  She got up to follow him.

  "Lovely house, you have. You live here alone, Miss Taylor?"

  "Yes since Mummy died."

  The woman hesitated, flicking a glance at North's face, then looking down at her hands. There was something more to this. North was sure of it. But Walker was impatient to be on his way. He was already standing by the front door, his hand groping in his coat pocket for cigarettes.

  Miss Taylor smiled wanly.

  "I'll show you out."

  On the way to the car. North spoke her mind.

  "Bit abrupt, if you don't mind my saying so, sir."

  But Walker was having none of it.

  "In case you've forgotten, Inspector North, we have a meeting with the Crown Prosecution Service tomorrow.

  And I can tell you exactly what they're going to say we don't have a case. So I don't have time for small talk, OK? "

  North decided not to push her luck.

  Within five minutes of their arrival back at Southampton Street, Arnold Mallory was on the line. His voice was

  triumphant.

  "We've got what I believe you would call a result from the shoes."

  "I know," said Walker.

  "You said four matching samples. But, as you also pointed out, as Dunn lived there he was likely to walk across the building site."

  "Four matching samples would be good. Walker. But five is very hard indeed to get out of " Five? You're talking about Dunn's shoes? " Walker was taking the call in the Incident Room. As members of the team picked up on the conversation, the area fell into an expectant silence.

  "Dunn's shoes yes. I said we had soil, clay, brick dust and cement, right? All from the area around the pipes. But now I'm also talking about the victim's shoes too."

  "Yes?"

  "And your suspect and the little lady walked in the same dog shit. Do you understand what I am saying to you. Walker? Traces of the same turd are on both shoes!" Mallory guffawed, "You found the post for the washing line, all you've got to do now is find the dog that dropped the load!"

  Walker attempted to join in with Mallory's frivolity, and to everyone gathered in the room it sounded like a bark, but no one laughed.

  Walker's eyes were like chipped ice. Deliberately Walker replaced the receiver. He remained still for a moment, then started walking jerkily around the room in a kind of muted dance of celebration. He was clicking his fingers.

  "Yes! Yes-yes-yes! We've got him. We've bloody got him!"

  There was a low cheer from members of the team. It died away as Meg Richards, of Family Liaison, came hurrying in looking for Walker.

  "Sir, I've got a Mrs. Gillingham in my office. I think you'd better come and see her. She says she fostered Michael Dunn."

  Walker was enjoying the moment. His eyes were shining, the crows' feet laughter-lines etched into his temples. He rubbed his hands together.

  "

  " Better and better. Lead me to her! "

  Mrs. Gillingham was dressed in sweater and jeans under a brown car coat. Walker immediately had her down as a middle class liberal, a teenager in the sixties who now got by on charitable work and reading the Guardian. She also happened to be very tense, sitting bolt upright in the chair with her hands laced so tightly there was no blood in the knuckles.

  Walker positioned himself on the edge of Richards' desk.

  "Now, Mrs. Gillingham, I believe you know Michael Dunn."

  "Yes I read you had arrested him so I--' " I'd appreciate anything you can tell us about him. Anything at all.

  He doesn't communicate much with us, you understand? "

  "All right, well, let me see. Michael was an orphan, Superintendent.

  He was shuffled round various foster homes, adopted once but returned to an orphanage. He was too much of a handful apparently. But at the home he was subjected to, well, sexual and emotional abuse. Over a period of years. He made no less than three suicide attempts and ..

  Well, we didn't know all the facts about

  his past when we my husband and I - agreed to foster him. We only found out afterwards .. "

  She stopped, but she had a lot more to tell. Richards looked at Walker warningly and he took the point. This was a witness you didn't push too hard. He simply nodded encouragingly and waited for the woman to go on.

  "He was fourteen when he came to us, a very quiet, unassuming boy, and we felt he was really benefiting from being in a stable family environment." She paused and cleared her throat.

  Coming to the difficult bit, thought Walker.

  "My daughters were then aged five and seven ... We trusted him, you see. We did." She swallowed. Her voice had gone shaky.

  "And we left him to babysit one time and he, well, he abused both my daughters, you see."

  Walker blinked. He couldn't quite believe his luck.

  "Did you report this?"

  "No. No, I didn't."

  "Why not?"

  Mrs. Gillingham looked pathetic now. Guilt leaked out other like battery acid.

  "I - we didn't want to subject the girls to any further distress. We just had him taken away the social workers agreed at the time that nobody's interest would be served by a prosecution or anything like that."

  Richards leaned forward and said, quietly, "Did he sexually abuse them?"

  The woman had controlled herself now. Her voice was a little shaky, the emotions discernible but contained. She would make a good witness.

  "He did not actually have sex with either of them. But he ... touched them, you know. Fondled them. According to the presumption of the doctor, and
the counsellors we spoke to subsequently, his own sexual abuse could have made him impotent."

  Richards had brought her visitor a glass of water and now she gulped three quick mouthfuls before placing the cup carefully on the desk.

  "I wanted to tell you this because I was feeling guilty. Perhaps if we had taken this matter further, not simply returned him to care, then this tragedy this murder would never have happened."

  "Mrs. Gillingham," asked Walker, 'would you be prepared to make a statement? "

  "Yes. Yes, I would."

  "And would your daughters?"

  "Superintendent, I can't speak for my daughters. They are now eighteen and twenty years old. You must ask them."

  "I shall have to do that, Mrs. Gillingham. I hope you understand. Do they both still live at home?"

  "Yes."

  "Then may I make an appointment to come and see them?"

  Michael Dunn's head had not stopped pounding all day. Now it felt cold as well, because those bastards had shaved off his hair. Said he was lousy, the pillocks. They'd spent ages taking his particulars, giving him bedding and suchlike. Now he was being marched through the prison and it was unbelievable how the inmates already knew about him who he was, why he was here.

  As he walked past the locked doors of cells, he could hear catcalls and wolf howls and the snarling of imaginary animals. He was called nonce and child killer and he was

  threatened at every step with the particular names of the bits of him these men wanted to cut off and make him eat. Michael Dunn was terrified.

  The screws marched him into an empty cell, where there was a bed with the mattress folded.

  "Make up that bed, Dunn. Wing governor'll be along to see you shortly.

  Behave yourself. "

  The steel door closed with a horrible finality and the prisoner looked at the door with its spy hole He sat down on the bare bedsprings.

  "I'm innocent."

  His voice was a whimper in this bare box, where there was no one to hear him. He covered his face with his hands.

  "I didn't do it. I didn't do it."

  chapter 14

  MONDAY 7 OCTOBER. 10 A. M.

  With his decision to prefer a charge of murder against Michael Dunn, Walker kissed goodbye to his control of the case. From now on the Special Casework Lawyer of the Crown Prosecution Service, and not Det. Supt. Walker, would call the shots.