Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) (21 page)

‘Yes, what’s that?’

‘It’ll be in the report, but I may as well tell you now. Those injuries to the skull. They would have left an awful lot of blood - head injuries do. There would have been blood all over the place.’

25. Riverbank

‘S
O THIS is where it was found?’

‘According to the records, yes.’

They’d reached the end of Fulford Main Street, the southern edge of the city. Terry Bateson and his new assistant, Jane Carter, had spent the last few days reading the file on the case of the murder of Brenda Stokes. A key piece of evidence against Jason Barnes had been the bloodstained torch, which had originally been believed to be the murder weapon. Now they had come to see where it had been found. The place, according to Jason, where he had last seen Brenda alive.

Terry turned the car right across the traffic onto an unmade track. There was a metal bar overhead to prevent access by lorries or gypsy caravans. A sign on the right read Landing Lane. The track wound right and left under overhanging trees, and in twenty yards they were in a different world, away from the buzz of people and traffic and housing, in sudden rural solitude. The car bounced in a pothole, a rabbit scurried into the undergrowth.

‘Just the place for a spot of nookie,’ Jane Carter murmured. ‘Or murder, if that’s your preference.’

‘You’re all right with me, love,’ Terry said, regretting it instantly, as her plain, earnest gaze met his. ‘Anyway, there’s a copper on duty, just in case,’ he added. Poor girl, she thinks I’m insulting her, he thought desperately. Probably no-one’s ever flirted with her in her life.

As they came round a corner they saw a parking place with an old red hatchback in it. Beside the car was a burly man in an old tweed jacket; Detective Superintendent Bob Baxter, retired. As they pulled up beside him, he glanced pointedly at his watch.

‘Fifteen minutes I’ve stood here, young man,’ he said, as Terry got out. ‘Trying to waste my time, are you?’

Terry sighed. He found it hard to be polite to the old man. Maybe this was why Will Churchill was glad to be away. ‘No. Just trying to find the truth, that’s all.’

‘The truth is that Jason Barnes murdered that young girl,’ Baxter growled. ‘Just as I always said he did.’ He scowled at Terry’s blank, non-committal face, then glanced at Jane, hoping for more support. ‘And this, in my view, is where he killed her.’

They looked around. It was certainly an appropriate spot. Even now, in the middle of the day, it was quiet here. Just a couple of bluetits peeping to each other in the trees, and the distant swoosh of traffic, like the sound of the sea, from the A64. This major road, Jane worked out, was a short distance away to the south, over a field that rose like a low hill to their left. She saw a horse grazing under some large parkland trees. Straight ahead of them, the track diverged, with a white gate marked Private on the left, and an old rusty one across the track beside it. Both appeared to lead into further wooded seclusion. On the right of the track where they stood was an overgrown hedge, with what looked like a marshy meadow behind it, overgrown with willowherb and nettles. If it was quiet like this now, Jane thought, what must it have been like at three o’clock in the morning, 18 years ago?

‘So where did you find it?’ Terry asked.

‘The torch? Just down here. I’ll show you.’

Baxter led them a few yards down the track, through the rusty gate. There was marshy untended ground on either side, and to their left, Jane realised, a glimpse of the river Ouse.

‘Just in there.’ Baxter pointed to a patch of grass with docks and nettles, the far side of a small ditch on the right hand side. ‘Didn’t find it straight away, of course. Took three days before he admitted he’d been here, the little shite.’

‘And this torch was covered with blood?’ Jane asked, peering at the ditch.

‘That’s right.
Her
blood,’ Baxter emphasized firmly. ‘We didn’t have the benefit of DNA then, of course, just matching blood groups, but that definitely matched hers. Today we know the DNA closely matches her mother’s, even if we can’t check it against Brenda herself.’

‘We’ll need to check it against this body,’ Terry said. ‘Then we’ll be absolutely certain.’

‘Sure, go ahead.’ Baxter shook his head, like a bull bothered by flies. ‘But it’ll be hers, all right. So as far as I was concerned we had the murder weapon, years ago. A torch covered with
her
blood and
his
fingerprint in it. What more did we want?’

‘Hairs, bits of skin,’ Terry said quietly. ‘To prove he’d hit her with it. Did you look for those?’

‘Of course we did,’ Baxter said grimly. ‘I went to the lab myself. But you’ve got to remember, that torch had been lying in long wet grass for three days before we found it. And it had rained. So what do you expect?’

‘They’d probably have found some trace today, on the torch or in the grass where it was lying,’ Terry said. ‘But things have changed.’

‘We looked all round here for the body,’ Baxter said. ‘Never found it, of course.’

‘It’s a fair bit to search.’

‘It is that.’ Baxter strode on, as though to illustrate the point. In ten or twenty yards they were on the riverbank. The wide slow-moving Ouse flowed quietly in front of them. Willow trees wept over the bank in spots favoured by fishermen. There was a metal picnic table and chairs, and sheep grazing on the far side. A footpath ran north and south along the riverbank; a jogger loped past as they watched.

‘Where does this go?’ Jane asked.

‘North into the city, south under the A64 to the meadows opposite the archbishop’s palace,’ Terry answered. ‘It will have taken some time, to search all this,’ he said to Baxter.

‘Forty men for a week,’ Baxter said. ‘Plus divers, of course. We searched the river for five miles downstream; it took ages. And then the little bastard came up with his tale about the slurry pits. We even checked Naburn sewage works.’

‘You did that because of what Jason Barnes said when he was arrested?’ Jane asked, reminding herself of the details she’d read in the files.

‘That’s right.’ Baxter lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply, watching a brightly painted canal narrow boat chug slowly past on the water. ‘We took it seriously at the time, but now we know he was just taking the piss. Buried her under the ring road instead.’

‘So the question is, how did she get from here to Copmanthorpe?’ Terry said thoughtfully. ‘What is it, about four miles?’

‘Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it?’ Baxter said irritably. ‘He left the party at the uni, drove her down here to get his leg over, and when she turned him down he lost his rag and smacked her over the head with the torch. Then he flung the torch away, dragged her into the car, drove along the A64 to Copmanthorpe where they were building the ring road, and buried her in a ditch hoping she’d be concreted over next day. Which she was. All but her hand, that is.’

‘Which didn’t turn up for eighteen years,’ Jane said. ‘Almost the perfect crime.’

‘Except,’ Baxter pointed out, ‘that he boasted about it in jail to Brian Winnick.’ He fixed Terry with a grim stare. ‘And the jury, who unlike the sodding court of appeal actually saw Winnick cross-examined in front of them, believed him. Just as they
dis
believed Jason Barnes. So why that verdict isn’t allowed to stand, I’m at a loss to say.’

Because you bribed Winnick to lie in court,
Terry thought.
You dropped the drug-dealing charges against him in return for an invented story that sent a man to prison for 18 years. You didn’t have enough evidence to prove your case, so you manufactured some. And now you’ve been found out.

But he didn’t bother to say it. There was no point. Over the past few days he and Jane Carter had read through the files of the original investigation and the transcript of the appeal in London. He’d seen, with pain and admiration, how Sarah Newby had shredded Baxter’s reputation, and left him with a retirement full of bitterness and shame instead of pride and contentment. The conviction of Jason Barnes, in a case where the body had never been found, had quite probably been the highlight of this man’s career. Now Barnes walked free, while his captor was reviled.

It was harsh, Terry thought. Thirty years service in protection of the community, trashed in a moment. But Baxter deserved it. If he’d bullied, cut corners and cheated in this case, he’d probably done it before, many times. It was people like him who got the police a bad name.

And Sarah Newby, of all people, had exposed him. But that’s what she’s like, Terry told himself grimly. Turns people’s lives upside down. All well and good, if they deserve it, like Baxter. But what if they don’t?

And what if the man’s right after all?

‘I still think he’s guilty,’ Bob Baxter said firmly. ‘Whatever those judges say, sitting on their arses in court. I knew the lad, I interviewed him, stared into his eyes. Believe me, he’s a killer, he did it. And now we’ve found the body, at last, it’s your job to prove it.’

Later that week, Terry had a conference with his boss, DCI Will Churchill. Churchill had just returned from his management training course, brimfull of new ideas. ‘We’re way behind the times here, Terence, way behind the times,’ he announced, bustling into Terry’s office and using the version of his name that he knew Terry hated. ‘New technology, slicker management, mini systems and micro peer review. That’s the way forward!’

One of the advances, Terry noted wryly, appeared to be sartorial. Churchill was wearing a soft new woollen suit, exquisitely tailored to flatter his short, slightly pudgy physique. Underneath it was an expensive shirt with cufflinks and a gaudy silk tie. He noticed Terry looking at it and smoothed it with his fingers proudly.

‘Smart, don’t you think? We had a few hours in town, and I thought why not? Appearances matter these days, and good clothes last a lifetime. Ought to try it yourself, Terence old lad,’ he said, with a pitying glance at Terry’s worn, double-breasted suit, which hung loosely on his lean body like an ancient tracksuit. Terry had an uncomfortable feeling that traces of scrambled egg, the result of a collision with Jessica in the kitchen this morning, might be visible on his sleeve. Maybe that’s why Sarah Newby’s not interested in me.

Churchill smiled. ‘Just say the word, and I’ll mention you to Nigel, my tailor. Only too delighted. Now, how far have you got with this case of the girl under the motorway, eh? Have we got enough evidence to put her killer back behind bars?’

‘Jason Barnes, you mean?’

‘That’s the man. Who else?’

Terry shook his head slowly. ‘Hardly. Given the evidence we have so far. Nothing much fits.’

Will Churchill’s face darkened. He strolled to the window moodily, lifting the blind to peer out a pair of young female constables crossing the car park. ‘Really? Why not?’

‘Well sir, you were at the appeal, so you probably know this. Barnes was originally convicted on the grounds that he drove her to Landing Lane by the river, attempted to rape her, bashed her head in with the torch, and then disposed of the body somewhere. Either in the river or a slurry pit.’

‘Yes, well we know it wasn’t a slurry pit now. It was under the ring road. In a trench just about to be concreted over.’

‘Which proves that the evidence of this informer - what was his name, Brian Winnick - was a lie, just as Barnes said it was,’ Terry said. ‘Robert Baxter suborned him.’

‘Yes, well, maybe.’ Churchill turned back from the window, frowning. ‘Doesn’t mean Barnes didn’t do it though, does it? Maybe he’s the one who buried her.’

‘There’s no real evidence that it was him, though, is there?’ Terry insisted. ‘No more than before anyway. I mean, we can’t even say for certain how she died. There are the crush injuries to her skull, which could possibly have been caused by this torch, I suppose. But they could have been caused by anything - a stone, a brick, whatever - and we don’t even know for certain it was those injuries that killed her. Maybe she was throttled by that silk scarf, and her skull was damaged later, when he buried her in the trench.’

‘Or maybe he throttled her with the scarf and then bashed her skull in with the torch to make sure. I don’t see that it matters all that much.’ Churchill began to count off points with the fingers of his left hand. ‘The real point, Terence, is that Barnes was the last person seen with her, right? He admits they had a quarrel and he tried to rape her. His fingerprint was found in blood on the torch. He set fire to the car afterwards to hide the evidence. He had ample opportunity to get rid of her body in the middle of the night. Copmanthorpe is on the way to Leeds. And he was a nasty little shite with a record of violence. So, he probably did it.’

‘Which is exactly what Bob Baxter thought,’ Terry said wearily. ‘So when he realised he hadn’t got quite enough evidence, he asked his tame informer to manufacture some.’

‘Maybe, maybe not.’ Will Churchill sighed. He didn’t like Bob Baxter, but the memory of the man’s humiliation in court by Sarah Newby needled him. He’d give a lot to put that bitch in her place. ‘But he didn’t have the body. We have.’

‘Yes, sir, but what does it tell us? We know she was throttled and her skull crushed, but not in which order. We also know her right wrist was broken - how did that happen?’ Terry shook his head. ‘Questions, but no answers. And to add to that, we have her in four separate locations that night, all quite different.’ He pointed to a map on the wall, which he had illustrated with pins. ‘Firstly, a student party at Goodricke College on campus, here. She’s seen driving away from there with Jason Barnes at about 1.45 a.m. Next thing, Landing Lane in Fulford where the torch was found. It’s about five minutes’ drive from the party so let’s say they arrive about 1.50. How long are they there? We don’t know. Anywhere between five minutes and half an hour for a row to develop when she refuses to have sex with him ...’

‘More like five minutes, I should think,’ Churchill said smartly. He met Terry’s eyes and grinned conspiratorially. ‘I mean, with kids that age.’

‘Maybe.’ Terry turned back to the map. ‘Anyway, sometime about 4 a.m. a nurse, Amanda Carr, sees a girl in school uniform walking down Naburn Lane, near the old Maternity Hospital. Just here.’ Terry pointed to a small flag on the map. ‘She only catches a fleeting glimpse of the girl, and when she tells the police later they take no notice.’ Terry sighed. ‘But what if
was
Brenda she saw? That would mean she was still alive nearly two hours
after
Jason Barnes claims she flounced off into the night. And Jason was in Leeds, torching the car he’d nicked.’