Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) (50 page)

Jane ignored her. Her eyes stayed focussed on Peter, who was sweating quite noticeably now. His right thumb was trembling, as if detached somehow from his body.

‘You don’t like that idea, do you, Peter? Don’t like the idea of being hurt in your sexual parts. But that’s what you meant to do to that woman, wasn’t it? Hurt her sexual parts. Drag her onto her bed and rape her!’

‘I didn’t want ...’ The words burst from his mouth involuntarily. He looked shocked, as if he hadn’t known he was speaking.

‘Didn’t want what, Peter?’ Jane’s voice was quiet, cool, controlled.

‘Didn’t want ... nothing. I weren’t there.’ He glanced at the solicitor on his right, recalling where he was.

‘You weren’t there?’

‘No. No, it weren’t me. She couldn’t see. It were ... it were a man in a mask. You said that.’

‘You’re quite right, I did.’ Jane smiled, and reached below the table for another evidence bag. ‘This mask.’ She held the transparent bag above the table, with the mask - the tortured copy of Edvard Munch’s painting
Scream!
- facing Peter and his solicitor. Peter looked scared, his solicitor shocked. ‘I’m showing the defendant a facemask found near the scene of the crime. Do you recognise this, Peter?’

The boy’s face was paler now, the droplets of sweat more pronounced. ‘No. It’s not mine.’

‘Who said it was yours? Did I say that?’

He shook his head, wordless. Terrified now.

‘No.’

‘So you don’t recognise it? Really? That’s surprising. You see, this mask was found in a ditch in the little wood just behind Ms Bolan’s house. We believe her assailant threw it there in his hurry to make his escape. You see, her neighbour brought her little boy home from nursery school in the middle of this assault. When he heard them, the intruder ran downstairs past them, got on his bike and rode away. Why did you do that, Peter? Were you scared of a little boy?’

‘No. I never saw him.’

‘Never saw him? He was on the stairs!’

A look of deep cunning spread across Peter Barton’s pale, sweating face. ‘I never saw him, because I weren’t there.’

‘So it wasn’t that you was scared of being cut with those scissors?’

‘No.’ A quick shudder. ‘I weren’t there.’

‘I think you were, Peter.’

‘I weren’t.’

Jane paused, watching him coolly. Terry Bateson could see she was enjoying this. But the silence tempted Rachel Horsefall to try to earn her fee.

‘Sergeant Carter, I must ask you again not to browbeat my client. He’s answered your questions fairly; he says he wasn’t there. So unless you have any evidence to prove that he was, I must ask you to drop this charge.’

‘Well, there are a couple of things,’ Jane said, with a mocking smile. ‘In the first place, we’ve tested this mask for traces of DNA. You know what that means, Peter, don’t you? You’ve heard of DNA?’

He nodded, slowly, dumbly. His eyes fixed on hers. Like a rabbit watching a stoat.

‘What is it, then? Tell me.’

‘Stuff from your body. To tell if it’s you.’

Jane laughed. ‘Good enough, Peter, yes. Stuff from your body. I took a swab from the inside of your cheek last time you were arrested, remember? So if this was your mask there’d be more stuff from your body in it, wouldn’t there? And the two would be the same.’

Jane watched him silently for a moment, allowing the tension to build. ‘Remember breathing in this mask, do you, Peter? Deep breaths - you were excited when you attacked that woman, weren’t you?’

Peter mumbled something inaudible - something like ‘nnmi.’

‘What? Speak up, I can’t hear you.’

‘Not me. I said it weren’t me.’

‘Not you wearing this mask. Is that what you say?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Really? Well, let me explain something, Peter. You see, Peter, the chances of your DNA matching someone else’s are - I don’t know - something like sixty million to one. Virtually impossible, in other words. And I have a report here, from the forensic science laboratory, that says that the DNA found in this mask was identical to the sample I took when you were arrested before. You understand identical, Peter? It means it was exactly the same.’

She paused again, giving him time for her words to sink in. ‘You wore this mask, didn’t you, Peter?’

Another dumb shake of the head. Jane persisted.

‘Oh come on, Peter - we’ve got proof. So if you want to save time, you can admit it right now. That might help you in court with the judge. Get you time off in prison. You assaulted that woman, didn’t you?’

He tried to hold her gaze, but she was too intense, her face just inches away, her eyes boring into his own. He looked down at his hands, then at his solicitor, then back at Jane again. A trickle of sweat ran down his forehead.

‘Let me tell you what else we know, shall I, while you think about it. We believe that the intruder approached the house on his bike. But he wasn’t wearing this mask when he rode through the streets; that would have drawn too much attention to himself. And it was a warm day - quite sunny in fact. Perhaps that was why Ms Bolan decided to go for a run. Anyway, the intruder didn’t wear gloves on his bike, when he was cycling. We know that for a fact too, you see, because of these.’

She reached below the desk for another evidence bag, and placed it on the table. This one contained a sheet of paper, with some swirls and smudges on it, arranged side by side. ‘See these, Peter? They are photocopies of fingerprints. The ones on the left - these here - are the ones we took from you when you were arrested before, when you assaulted a young girl near Bishopthorpe. Remember that? Now look at the fingerprints on the right. Do you know where we found them? On the garage window sill outside this lady’s house. The lady who was assaulted by the man wearing this mask. So how did they get there, do you think?’

‘Dunno,’ Peter muttered. His voice was faint, hoarse, scarcely audible. Jane smiled coolly.

‘Well, we think the man cycled up to the house, you see. That’s how he came. And he wasn’t wearing gloves, as I said, because it was so warm. But when he arrived, he propped his bike against the garage and rested his fingers on the window sill for a second. By accident possibly, he wasn’t thinking clearly. Or he was excited by what he was going to do next. Either way, he left these prints on the window sill, and
after that
he put on the gloves and the mask before going into the house. That’s what happened, isn’t it, Peter? Remember?’

Silence. Peter ground his teeth slowly, staring grimly at the paper.

‘And the thing is, Peter, the really interesting thing, is this. These fingerprints from the window sill match yours perfectly. Just like the DNA from the mask. They’re both yours, Peter, there’s no point in trying to deny it. You broke into this young mother’s house and assaulted her in her own bedroom, didn’t you? Wearing this mask which has DNA from your spit in it.’

She paused, letting the hammer blow sink in.

‘Do you want to tell us about it?’

Two hours later they had a full confession. Yes, Peter Barton admitted, the
Scream!
mask was his. He’d bought it at a Party Games shop in town. He’d liked it because it looked so scarey - and perhaps, though he didn’t admit this, because its portrayal of desperate loneliness spoke to something in his soul. But mainly it was the horror of the thing, and the thought of the panic it would induce in anyone who saw him wearing it. He had noticed the woman, Elizabeth Bolan, on one of his cycle rides to and from work. She’d been out running, and he’d followed her, without coming close. He often did that, he said, looking up appealingly. Nothing wrong with that, was there?

‘You mean you follow women without them noticing?’ Jane asked softly.

‘Yeah. It’s not a crime, is it?’

Well, yes, it is,
Jane thought grimly. But no need to emphasize that now. ‘Why do you follow them?’

‘To see where they live.’

‘And you saw where this woman lived, did you? Elizabeth Bolan?’

‘I didn’t know her name, like.’

‘But you guessed that she lived alone. Just her and her little boy?’

‘I went back to check, yeah. Looked through the windows.’

‘When was this?’

‘Late at night. If there’d been a man there like, I’d have seen.’

The sick nastiness of it filled Jane with fury. Here he was, this hulking, half-brained moron, skulking outside women’s homes at night. Probably tossing himself off in the bushes afterwards as well. And not just fantasizing about the women either, but planning to do something far worse. She glanced briefly at the young solicitor and saw her feelings were shared. Rachel Horsefall looked appalled, disgusted; she had unconsciously shifted her chair a couple of feet away from her client. No more interventions for a while from that source, then.

Peter admitted assaulting Elizabeth Bolan just as she had described. He hadn’t meant to hurt her with the cord, he claimed; just control her so she couldn’t fight back. But she
had
fought back. He hadn’t expected that, and had been shocked when she threatened him with the scissors. He’d pleaded with her to be reasonable, he claimed; but she’d taken no notice. He’d been wondering how to get the scissors out of her hands when he’d heard the neighbour returning with her child from the nursery. He had panicked, run downstairs, and cycled away through the little wood onto the Knavesmire. He had torn off the mask, meaning to stuff it inside his jacket, but it had fallen in the ditch. He had thought of picking it up, but had seen a man approaching with a dog, and so pedalled away into the distance instead.

‘What would you have done, Peter, if you hadn’t been disturbed?’ Jane asked, as softly as she could. Her tone was gentle, but her aim was quite the opposite - she wanted to gain his trust, not to help him but to get him to admit to as much perversity and evil intent as she could. She wanted his statement read out in court, to get him locked away for as long possible. But Peter was too dim, or repressed, to help her. Or perhaps not so dim, after all.

‘I dunno,’ he said slowly. ‘I wouldn’t have hurt her.’

‘Wouldn’t have hurt her? You had a cord around her neck!’

Silence. Peter stared down at his hands.

‘You wanted to have sex with her, didn’t you? Against her will?’

He looked around the room - at the ceiling, at the floor, the table, his own hands. Everywhere except at the three people who were listening.

‘I wouldn’t have hurt her,’ he repeated at last, desperately. ‘Not really bad.’

‘She was in fear of her life, Peter. She thought you were going to kill her.’

‘No!’ He shook his head fiercely. ‘I wouldn’t do that. Never do that.’ He looked down again at his hands. ‘I’d have let her go. After.’

‘After what, Peter?’

Silence.

‘After you’d raped her. Is that what you mean?’

Slowly, Peter nodded his head. As Jane described this fact for the tape, she noticed tears -
tears!
- in his eyes. What kind of self-pity was this? She pressed on relentlessly.

‘You’re agreeing with me then, Peter, are you? You intended to rape this woman, and then let her go?’

‘I wouldn’t have hurt her. Not hurt her.’

‘I understand that, Peter, I hear you.’ Jane kept her voice calm, as unconfrontational as she could. She noticed the young solicitor shifting in her seat, as if screwing up her courage to intervene. But Jane needed this last admission. ‘You wanted to have sex with this woman, didn’t you? That’s what you intended to do?’

He nodded slowly. ‘Yes. But she wanted it.’

Jesus!
Jane drew a long, deep breath, counted to ten in her head. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four ... ‘She was in her own house, Peter, she was scared out of her wits, and you break in, wearing a mask and try to put a noose round her neck, and you say
she wanted it?
She was screaming, Peter, telling you to stop. Didn’t you notice that?’

‘Yeah, but ... you don’t understand.’

‘I don’t understand? Explain it to me.’

‘She ...’ There was a long silence. ‘She weren’t really frightened.’

‘Not frightened? Peter, I’ve interviewed this woman. Trust me, she was terrified.’

‘I didn’t notice.’

‘Didn’t notice? Not when she picked up the scissors?’

‘Mebbe then, yeah. Not before.’

‘Didn’t she say anything? When you threw her on the bed?’

‘She screamed a bit, like.
Go away. Let me alone.
It don’t mean owt, though.’

‘It doesn’t mean anything? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yeah.’ He looked straight into her face for the first time. ‘
You
know that, don’t yer?’

‘Right, that’s it.’ Jane sat back, then got to her feet. Without consulting Terry Bateson beside her, she said, ‘Interview suspended at 16.43. I think we need a break.
I
do, anyway.’ She walked straight out of the door.

55. Hut of Horrors

A
FTER TWO days of interviewing Peter Barton, Terry and Jane’s cup was half full. They had a detailed, believable confession to the assault on Elizabeth Bolan, and Peter had admitted, under pressure, that he had also burgled Sally McFee, and stolen her necklace and underwear. ‘So where is it?’ Jane asked, at the end of a long second day.

‘In my hut.’

‘Your hut,’ Jane asked. ‘Where’s that?’

‘Where you couldn’t find it, that’s where.’ A flicker of weary insolence crossed the boy’s face. It was the last thing, it seemed, he had over them. Or the last thing but one. ‘You’ve been searching for me for weeks, you lot. Never found nothing.’

‘We’ve found you, now, though, haven’t we?’ Jane said. ‘Look, Peter, you’ve admitted to this burglary. So the judge will probably look kindly on you for that, give you a shorter sentence for a guilty plea. But only if you do this last thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Give the necklace back, of course. If you’ve still got it. Have you?’

A short hesitation. Then a nod.

‘Well then, tell us where it is.’

After a few more minutes’ hesitation he agreed. A couple of hours later he directed their police car down a long country lane south of Heslington, then through a small coppice and across a field with a dyke along which Peter claimed he’d crawled to keep out of sight of the farmer. From there they progressed to another wood at the end of a disused airfield. Just inside this wood was a small brick shed with a tin roof. From the outside it looked disused and abandoned. The door was rotting and half off its hinges. There were bits of wire and broken branches strewn around, and tall weeds had grown through the concrete at the edge of the old runway.