Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) (45 page)

Jason Barnes.

She looked more closely. The cutting she was looking at was quite recent - a report of Jason’s appeal last autumn. She saw her own name mentioned several times, once highlighted in yellow. She pulled it out of its plastic pocket and stared at it in wonder. There was a photo of Jason coming out of court, with Lucy at his shoulder and herself in the background. What was this doing here? Michael hadn’t collected cuttings of her trials, had he? Surely not - they hadn’t even met when she won this appeal.

She leafed through the rest of the cuttings. The latest - those at the front of the file - were reports of the discovery of a female body found buried beside the ring road near Copmanthorpe. The first reports described it as curious, a mystery. One report focussed on the sensation of a child’s discovery of a skeleton hand, which had led the police to the body. More recent cuttings described how the police were now convinced that the body was that of Brenda Stokes, the girl Jason Barnes had been convicted of murdering, before his successful appeal last autumn. Next to the report was a full page feature about that original trial, complete with pictures of Brenda - an attractive, lively looking teenager - and a scowling Jason Barnes, 18 years younger. Another column reported a police statement. They had no plans to re-arrest Jason Barnes, a senior detective said. But the case file remained open.

Sarah turned to the back of the folder. The cuttings here were brittle and yellow with age. Several, to her astonishment, dated back to the original trial. Michael wouldn’t have needed to read the recent retelling of the case - it was all here, in much greater detail. There were cuttings from the
Yorkshire Post,
the national press, and magazines. Here and there, phrases were underlined or were marked with stars in the margin, suggesting they had been read carefully before they were filed away.

Sarah put the file down on the desk, wondering. It was very thorough, everything arranged in chronological order. Why was it here? Michael had done a postgraduate degree in York, of course - there was a framed certificate on the wall. She remembered discussing the case with him a couple of times; almost arguing about it once. She tried to remember what the potential argument had been about. Michael had thought Jason was guilty, that was it. She remembered changing the subject, to avoid a row. But it had all seemed quite casual, nothing to suggest the level of interest displayed in this file. What did it mean?

Whatever it meant, she decided, it was best discussed on a full stomach. She put the file back on the shelf and returned to the kitchen, the cookbook open at the recipe for coq au vin.

Sarah’s cooking was a success. She followed the recipe slavishly and, for once, everything worked out as it should. Perhaps it was the Aga, which magically seemed to cook everything well without burning; perhaps it was because she had more time than usual; or perhaps the ingredients felt sorry for her and decided to co-operate - she didn’t know. But when Michael came in the kitchen was full of a rich, enticing smell, with the chicken bubbling in its pot, a bottle of wine open on the table, and some hot rolls coming fresh and crisp from the oven. She smiled triumphantly.

‘Voila, monsieur! French country cooking at its best.’

‘Tremendous. You’re an angel. Just what I need after a day like this.’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘Let me just wash my hands and I’ll tell you.’

For a while, as they enjoyed the food, he told her: how the joiners in his farm development had put up a ceiling with the wrong insulation, and the drains to the septic tank didn’t have enough fall and would have to be relaid. ‘And then, to top it all, the planner is saying we may not get a certificate because the window frames aren’t traditional enough. I ask you! It was a
barn
before, for heaven’s sake! With a tradition of no glass and fresh air!’

‘So what will you do?’

‘I’ll get around it somehow. Sweet talk him if I can, go and see his boss if I can’t. There’s always a way, if you’re patient. That’s one thing I learned long ago. Don’t lose your rag or you’re lost. They hold it against you for years. Especially in Yorkshire.’

‘Why? Were planners different in Cambridge?’

‘A bit, yes. Less pig-headed and stubborn.’

‘More civilized in the south, then?’

‘You could say that.’ Michael smiled. ‘Present company excepted, of course.’

She studied him quizzically over her wineglass. ‘One thing you never told me, Michael. Why did you move up here?’

‘To York, you mean?’

‘Yes. I mean, you weren’t born here, were you?’

‘No. I was born in a place called Six Mile Bottom, if you must know. A village just outside Cambridge. You can imagine the ribbing we used to get. Kids finding the name in the phone book and ringing up from all over, just for a laugh. “Hi, there. We’re a company in Kansas, and we sell giant toilet seats. We thought you guys might be interested.”’

Sarah laughed. ‘Sounds grim.’

‘It was. We became quite thick skinned. There’s another joke there, if you’re looking for it.’

‘So why York?’

‘To get away from Kate, I suppose. I’d done a postgraduate course here, as you know, and I liked the place then. So when our marriage went pear shaped, I thought, why not?’ He shrugged. ‘I needed a fresh start. You can understand that, can’t you?’

‘Of course.’ Sarah ran her finger round the rim of her wine glass. ‘But most of your youth was in Cambridge, then?’

‘In and around, yes.’

‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘I’ve always wondered. What’s it like, being a student in a place like that? I mean, I’ve seen Emily there, but what was it like for you?’

He grimaced. ‘A bit different, I should think. For a start, there weren’t many girls, not like today. Your Emily would have had to have been very brilliant, or very lucky, to get in then. The girls’ colleges were Newnham, New Hall, or Girton. All the rest were male. And so of course for us lads ... well, the hunt was on.’

‘What, for girls, you mean?’

‘Yes. There weren’t many around. So ...’ he smiled wryly. ‘If you’d been there, you’d have had the time of your life.’

‘I had that in another way,’ Sarah said ruefully, thinking of her late teens spent wheeling baby Simon round the slums of Seacroft in Leeds, from social worker to supermarket, doctor to dentist, playgroup to infant school, and all the time desperately taking evening classes to catch up with her GCSEs. ‘So how about you? Did you have a lot of girlfriends, before you met Kate? If you were anything like my son, that was the main focus of your life. Far more important than studies.’

‘There were a few girls, yes. But as I told you, they were thin on the ground. And I was quite shy, you know. Pretty naive. The girls used to run rings round me.’

‘So when did you meet Kate?’

‘Oh, that was later. After I’d left York, and I had my first job in Lincoln. I used to go back to Cambridge sometimes. I met her there.’

‘So, when you were a postgrad here in York, did you have a girlfriend, then?’

‘I had one or two. But they didn’t last.’ Michael looked at her warily. ‘Why all these questions suddenly?’

‘I’m just curious, that’s all.’ Sarah paused, then brought out her bombshell. ‘This Brenda Stokes - the girl Jason Barnes was supposed to have murdered - she wasn’t one of your girlfriends, was she?’

This question, as she had expected, hit him hard. Michael’s face paled slightly, his body tensed. His voice changed from the relaxed, bantering tone of a few moments ago.

‘Why on earth do you ask that?’

She smiled, affecting not to notice his change of mood. ‘Oh, nothing. It was only that you seemed so concerned about the appeal when we talked about it before. And the day her body was dug up, when we saw it on the TV news in the restaurant. You told me you’d met her, remember? I thought perhaps she meant something to you, that’s all.’

Sarah’s senses were fully awake, as they were during cross-examination in court. Michael looked away from her for a moment, before answering.

‘I ... I met her a few times, like I said. And yes, I did fancy her, as it happens. But she wasn’t interested in me. So that’s as far as it went.’

Sarah affected gentle feminine concern. ‘It must have been dreadful for you when she was killed. What was she like?’

‘Oh, very pretty, very vivacious.’ Michael relaxed slightly, responding to the gentle, feminine concern in Sarah’s tone. ‘Promiscuous, too, as a matter of fact. Into sex, drugs and rock and roll. Not my type at all, really.’

‘You were fairly straight, were you?’

‘Yes. Even wore a tie to tutorials, at first.’

‘So how come the attraction to Brenda?’

‘Oh, well, opposites attract, they say. She was that sort of girl, wasn’t she? She had all sorts of men flocking round her, she was used to it. Including that lowlife Jason.’

‘Jason Barnes? You knew him, too, did you?’

‘I met him once or twice, yes. Unfortunately.’

‘Why unfortunately?’

‘Well, he was a slob, wasn’t he? A thug. And he killed her, too, for heaven’s sake. Or at least that’s what everyone thought. The police, the court, everyone. Until you won his appeal for him and let him out. It’s all very well for you, Sarah. You didn’t know what he was like.’

‘I
have
met him, Michael. He was my client, after all.’

‘Yes, well, he won’t have changed, I’ll bet, not even after 18 years.’

‘He’s not the most charming character, certainly,’ Sarah conceded. ‘Full of bitterness and anger. But then, if he was wrongly convicted, who can blame him?’

‘
If
he was.’ Michael had regained his composure now. He looked at her coolly. ‘Did you really prove his innocence, Sarah, or just get him off on a technicality?’

You
know
the answer to this, Michael, Sarah thought. You’ve got all the details of his appeal in your file. ‘The judges decided his conviction was unsafe,’ she said. ‘Technically, that’s the same as not guilty. It means the evidence was too flawed to sustain a guilty verdict.’

‘But it doesn’t prove he didn’t do it?’

‘No. As with all not guilty verdicts, it means the prosecution are unable to prove that he did.’

‘So it’s like the Scottish verdict of not proven, is it?’

‘You could look at it like that if you want to. But that’s not how Jason looks at it, of course. He thinks he’s not guilty - he’s always maintained that, apparently. And as far as I know, even though Brenda’s body has been recovered, there’s still no move from the police to prosecute him again. Which they could, if they’d found significant new evidence.’

‘I hope they do,’ Michael said bitterly. ‘I’m sorry, Sarah, but I still think he did it. And if he could do that sort of thing once, he could do it again. Now he’s out, no woman he meets is safe.’

‘Well, let’s hope you’re wrong.’ Sarah looked at him carefully, wondering whether to mention the file she’d found in his study. She decided against it, for the present anyway. She seemed to have strayed onto sensitive ground. ‘Let’s talk about something different, shall we? I dropped in at an estate agent’s this morning before court. There’s a flat for sale in one of those warehouse developments by the river. Quite pricey, but I might be able to afford it. I’ve got the brochure, for you to give me an expert opinion.’

49. Intruder

T
HE HOUSE in Crockey Hill remained empty. The SOCO teams had finished their work and returned the keys to the office in Stonegate, but the landlord seemed in no hurry to find a new tenant. Scraps of black and white chequered police tape fluttered from bushes it had snagged when the SOCOS ripped it down. The wind tore its ends into ragged shreds, so that only fragments of the words ‘Police Crime Scene. Keep out. Authorized Personnel only’ could be read. But anyway there was no one to read it. Every day or so a police car stopped by to check the locks and see no windows were broken. Apart from that it was deserted.

The grass, uncut since last autumn, sprouted molehills and snowdrops in odd corners. Rabbits crept cautiously through the hedge at dusk, noses twitching, eyes and ears alert for the danger of dogs, cats or humans. Finding none, they ventured further, nibbling down the grass, stripping the flowerbeds of anything edible. It seemed a new paradise, fortunately discovered at the end of winter. More rabbits appeared. Then the stoat came. He ripped out the throat of a young doe. Her fur, blood and bones defaced the lawn.

It was the house’s second murder. The killer slunk satisfied away.

The rabbits were more cautious after that. They stayed alert, close to their escape routes. Thumped the ground and fled at the least hint of danger. So the fox, sniffing round the doors, marking his territory like a dog, seldom saw them. He heard the rustle of a vole in the grass, the squeak of rats in the dustbins which they’d long stripped bare. The rats climbed through the toilet window which the cat had once used, but the fox didn’t follow, as a man might have done. The rats began to explore and colonize.

The cars at the end of the track swished by, fifty yards from the house. One or two each minute, in the mornings as people drove to work, or returned in the evening. Fewer at night. Even before midnight the road could be silent for five minutes at a time. Even longer, after twelve. Hedgehogs crossed, stopping halfway to scratch. Owls cruised soundlessly between trees, watching for the sudden scurry of a vole on the tarmac. A car droned in the distance, humming gradually nearer. The wildlife tensed, waiting. The car approached, rushed into view and was gone. A pulse of music in a cone of light, hurrying away through a hole in the dark. The silence slowly returned.

The rabbits heard the man long before he was near. There was the bark, first of all, of the dog in the farmhouse. It barked twice, short and sharp, then the farmer swore and it stopped. But even at that distance, a third of a mile, the rabbits heard. Ears pricked, they rose on hind legs, and waited. Sure enough, there was more. The crack of a twig, the rustle of leaves. Distant at first, but approaching. When the man was a hundred yards away they began to move. When he was fifty yards from the house they were all gone. Passing the man on either side, unseen. Scampering away to their warrens at the edge of the wood. While he, emerging from that same wood, filled the night air with his human stench, the rasp of his breath, the squelch of his shoes, the rustle of his clothes. Even before he briefly flashed his torch, he shone bright as a lighthouse to their senses.