Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) Read online

  ‘Yeah.’ The girl looked up. Her face was sullen, defiant, and streaked with tears. ‘It’s not his fault, though. He’s just stupid. And this other one’s a brute.’

  ‘Did someone attack you?’

  She nodded. ‘Yeah, he did. The young one.’

  ‘All right, love, come with me.’ As she took the girl’s arm a second car arrived with two young constables. She sent them inside to interview the older man, then sat in her car with the girl.

  Her story was simple and, from Jane’s point of view, quite damning. She had already noticed how similar the young man looked to the photofits. Now this girl, Julie Willis, told a story entirely consistent with the women who’d made them. She was seventeen, she said, a student at the sixth form college. She lived in Bishopthorpe and had been walking home as she did most days. When she was halfway home a cyclist had come up behind her. She had seen the young man on the bike before; he was a kitchen porter in her college, and sometimes wheeled away the trolleys with the dirty plates on them. She’d never spoken to him though, so she was surprised when he got off his bike to walk beside her. But they were only a couple of hundred yards from the village and she wasn’t alarmed at first.

  ‘He was trying to chat you up, was he, love?’

  ‘I suppose that was what it was, yeah. He wasn’t very good at it, though.’ Julie rolled her eyes and grinned, then dabbed at her tears with a tissue.

  ‘What sort of things did he talk about?’

  ‘Just boring crap. The weather, I think, and his bike. It had a lot of gears or something - as if I care! He’s proud of it, I suppose - he needs something to be proud of, with a job like that. But then, well, then he changed ...’

  ‘Changed how?’

  ‘Well, he went all weird, you know, talking about things ... you know ...’

  ‘What things, Julie?’

  ‘Well, he asked if I was wearing a thong, for a start, and what colour it was. I mean hello? I’ve just met this guy! And then he says he’s worn a thong himself once and it felt great. So I’m like, no way, I’m out of here. Only then ...’

  ‘Yes, what happened then?’

  ‘Well, we’ve almost reached the houses, in that narrow bit back there. So I’m like, stay cool, Jule, keep walking, just a few more yards and you’re safe. Then it happened, just like that. I mean, he drops his bike and grabs me. I tried to get away but he shoves me up against the wall by the shoulders, so I couldn’t. And he’s saying he loves me and he’s loved me for ages and trying to kiss me, you know, it was horrible.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Told him to piss off and let me go, what do you think? But he wouldn’t. He’s got his hands down my bra, so I scream, and that’s when this other brute turns up.’

  ‘The older man, you mean, with the bald head? The one in the house?’

  ‘Yeah, him. He must have heard me, I suppose. I mean I know he saved me and that but he’s a pig too, isn’t he? He was really rough the way he grabbed him - knocked me over too. But I should be grateful, I guess.’

  ‘Do you know the name of this young man?’

  ‘No. I told you, I’ve never spoken to him before.’

  ‘All right. Wait here a minute, will you, love?’ Jane got out and went to the police car, where the uniformed constable was talking to the young man.

  ‘Have you arrested him yet?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet, sarge. I was just taking a state ...’

  ‘All right. What’s your name, son?’ She turned abruptly to the young man.

  ‘Who, me? Peter,’ he said, surprised by the interruption. ‘Peter Barton.’

  ‘Right, Peter Barton, I’m arresting you on suspicion of indecent assault. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you fail to say anything that you later rely on in court. Put the cuffs on him, constable. It seems the man in the house was quite right. I’ll fetch one of the others to help you take him in.’

  An hour later, she sat opposite Peter Barton and the duty solicitor in an interview room. To her annoyance, the Detective Inspector, Terry Bateson, sat with her. She’d made the mistake of boasting to him about her arrest and he’d insisted on taking part in the interview. ‘Give me an idea of how you handle things in Beverley,’ he’d said, smiling pleasantly enough. But it felt like another put down all the same. A trivial matter like this, she could handle it perfectly well on her own. But there was no point in making a protest. She was the new girl and he was her senior officer. She repeated the caution and set the tape rolling.

  ‘Right, Peter, you know why you’re here, don’t you?’

  ‘No. I didn’t do owt. That feller grabbed me, twisted me arm. It’s him you should arrest, not me!’

  Jane studied him. His face was quite red, indignant. Dark shoulder length hair, quite greasy, looked as if it needed a wash, several acne spots on his cheek and chin, dark eyebrows which almost met together as he frowned. He was a big lad, six feet tall, with a powerful physique, but puppyish in the way he moved, as though he had not quite grown into his strength. His first response did not suggest a high powered computer humming behind the dark, sunken eyes. If he really believed he was the victim in this incident, he had a lot to learn.

  ‘You’ve been arrested on a serious charge of indecent assault. Do you understand what that means, Peter?’

  ‘I never touched her! She was asking for it!’

  Jane sighed. The blatant contradiction between the two phrases lay at the root of most male problems, she thought. Denial and projection, the textbooks called it.

  ‘You’re talking about Julie Willis, are you? The girl you met on her way home?’

  Peter nodded defensively. ‘Julie, yeah.’ He said the name slowly, almost tasting it, as though it were new to him.

  ‘Know her well, do you?’

  ‘I’ve seen her about.’

  ‘Where would that be, Peter?’

  ‘At the college, where I work.’ The next few questions confirmed that Peter was a kitchen porter at the sixth form college. He’d seen Julie there, while he was clearing away dishes.

  ‘Have you talked to her - before today?’

  ‘Not talked. She smiled at me though. I knew she were watching.’

  ‘She smiled, so you thought she liked you?’

  ‘Yeah, I knew it. You can tell.’ A foolish grin lit up his face, like a flash of sunlight through clouds. Jane almost felt sorry for him.

  ‘And so today you decided to talk to her. Tell me about that, Peter, will you? In your own words, from the beginning.’

  ‘Well, I knew she fancied me, like, and so I’d been waiting, you know, for the right time. So then, I was on me way home, and I saw her in front of me, like. So I thought, this is it, go for it now. I rode up to her, got off me bike, and we were chatting like - it were going right well. She were up for it, I could see she were. Only then he came, that bald bugger, and stuck his nose in. You should arrest him, the shite - he hurt me arm!’

  ‘Why do you think he attacked you, Peter?’ To Jane’s annoyance, Terry Bateson intervened.

  ‘How should I know? Ask him. He were jealous, like as not!’

  ‘What were you doing exactly, when he attacked you?’

  Peter flushed. ‘We were, you know - snogging, like.’

  ‘You and Julie were kissing, is that what you mean?’

  ‘Like that, yeah. What’s it to do with you, any road?’

  ‘Nothing, if Julie was happy about it,’ said Jane, resuming the questioning. ‘But she says she wasn’t, you see.’

  ‘Well, she’s lying, in’t she? She were up for it, she were!’

  ‘That’s not what she says, Peter. She says you grabbed her, and put your hands inside her bra. Did you do that?’

  Peter Barton stared down, his face flushed. His big fleshy hands gripped the sides of the table, his knuckles white, as if he would like to rip it from the bolts holding it to the floor.

  ‘She was afraid, Peter. She screamed for help.’


  ‘They all do at first. It means nowt, though.’ He lifted his head to stare straight at Jane, the small dark eyes hot with accusation. ‘You know that well enough, don’t you?’

  As if, Jane thought. Thank God. ‘So there’ve been others, Peter, have there?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’ve been other women apart from Julie. Other girls who’ve fancied you?’

  ‘May have been. What’s it to you?’

  ‘Peter Barton, I have to tell you we’ve been investigating a series of nuisance incidents reported by women in the Bishopthorpe area over the past few weeks. A woman in Naburn, for example, reported a man stealing underwear from her washing line. Could that be you, perhaps?’

  ‘Me? No.’

  ‘Really? I wonder, Peter. You see, when you were booked in, the custody sergeant went through the pockets of your clothes and wrote down what he found. Do you remember that?’

  Silence. Peter looked around the room, as if seeking a way out. Slowly, Jane lifted an evidence bag and put it on the table. ‘For the benefit of the tape, I’m showing the witness a pair of female underpants, found in the pocket of his jacket when he was arrested. Do you recognise these, Peter?’

  The young man shrugged. ‘A girlfriend gave them to me.’

  ‘Really? Why did she do that?’

  No answer.

  ‘You didn’t steal them from a washing line in Naburn then?’

  ‘You think I’m some sort of pervie, do you? I’m saying nowt.’

  ‘Perhaps you could give us the name of this girlfriend who gave you these, Peter, then we can check it out. If your story’s true, she’ll say so, won’t she?’

  ‘I’m not telling.’

  Jane persisted, asking Peter about the jogger, Melanie Thorpe, and the housewife, Sally McFee. But he denied a connection with either of them. The solicitor, in a belated attempt to earn his fee, suggested that his client had had enough. Frustrated, Jane sent Peter back to the cells, and told Terry what she planned to do next.

  ‘I’ll apply for a warrant to search his home. If he carries one set of trophy knickers round in his pocket he may have others in his bedroom. We’ll show these to Mrs Whitley in Naburn, see if she recognises them. And I’ll arrange an identity parade as well, see if Melanie Thorpe or Sally McFee can pick him out. If they do, that’s it, we’ve got him.’

  ‘Even if they don’t, you’ve still got him for assault on young Julie. Do you think her story’ll stand up in court?’

  ‘Should do, with the witness who made the citizen’s arrest.’ Jane allowed herself a brief smile, flushed with success. This was what she enjoyed about police work - action, progress, a result. ‘I think you’ll find Bishopthorpe’s a bit safer for women after tonight.’

  ‘Let’s hope so, detective sergeant. You’re off the mark, in less than a week. Well done.’

  Jane supposed he meant it well, but she couldn’t help feeling patronised. You wait, you idle bugger, she thought, as he strode away with that easy, athletic lope. Back to his children, no doubt. While she’d be here until midnight, with all the details left to tie up.

  Just you wait, Bateson. I haven’t even started here yet.

  20. Whose Hand?

  WHEN WILL Churchill had first learned about the hand that had been found in the fox’s jaws on the slip road, he was intrigued. The initial search by the ring road found nothing, but Churchill wasn’t satisfied. He sent the hand to the best forensic pathologist in the area. When the report came back, he read it eagerly. Then he phoned Robert Baxter.

  ‘If you can spare the time, Bob, I’ve got something here that might interest you. Unless you’re too busy gardening, that is.’

  At 4.15 that afternoon Will Churchill stood in front of a dozen CID officers in an incident room. Robert Baxter sat at the back, receiving several curious glances from younger officers. On the table in front of Will Churchill was a laptop and a plastic evidence bag containing the hand; his own hand held the forensic report.

  Briefly, he explained how the discovery had been made. He pressed a key on the laptop and a photo of the skeletal hand appeared on the screen behind him. He had recently been on a PowerPoint course and learned how to do this. He felt sure this skill would advance his career. He smiled smugly at his assembled team. Bob Baxter scowled at the computer distrustfully.

  ‘A preliminary search failed to find any body parts in the area ...’ DCI Churchill paused for a moment, his eyes seeking out two of the younger officers in front of him - not the most diligent pair, in his opinion. ‘... but the hand was sent for forensic examination and now we have a full report. The findings, in brief, are as follows.’

  He pressed another key. The hand disappeared from the screen, to be replaced by the words Time since death: 10-30 years approx. DCI Churchill beamed at the words approvingly; it had taken him half an hour to get them exactly the right size, colour, typeface and background. ‘This means two things: the hand was not severed as the result of a recent accident, but neither are we dealing with some kind of archaeological remains. As you see, we are investigating an incident which occurred before the majority of us were in our present posts, which is why I have invited Detective Superintendent Robert Baxter, retired, to attend this briefing. You’re very welcome, Bob.’

  Baxter acknowledged this with a curt nod. DCI Churchill had an uncomfortable feeling that, proud as he was of the language and technological expertise displayed in this presentation, Bob Baxter would have done things more simply.

  ‘Secondly, as we see from this slide...’ he pressed the key again and a close-up of a bone appeared on the screen. ‘... the bones of the wrist are fractured. Detailed forensic examination of the edges of the fracture led the pathologist to conclude two things: firstly, that the original fracture occurred between ten and thirty years ago, but secondly, that one of the bones, the small ulnar here, was not fractured at that time, but was broken more recently, probably, as we see from these marks here ...’ he pressed another key. ‘ ... by the teeth of an animal such as the fox in whose jaws the hand was allegedly found. In other words, lads and lasses ...’ he gazed around the room significantly ‘... the fox didn’t just find a hand on its own, it found a hand attached to an arm, and it tore the hand off. In which case, if that arm was still attached to a body, it’s our job to find it. At the very least we’re looking at an unexplained death here; quite possibly at a murder.’

  He pressed the key again. A buzz of excitement spread around the room, leavened, to DCI Churchill’s embarrassment, with one or two stifled giggles. Glancing behind him at the words

  Unexplained Death

  or

  Murde

  ?

  tastefully displayed against a green background, he quickly pressed another key and moved on. This time the screen displayed a close-up of two fingernails from the hand.

  ‘As you will see, there are traces of red nail varnish on these fingernails, confirming the pathologist’s belief that this is the hand of a young woman. The nail varnish itself has been analysed, and shown to be of a type no longer in use today, but common in the 1980s and 1990s. So, to sum up ...’ More headings appeared against the green background, better spelt this time. ‘We have here the left hand of a young woman who in all probability died between ten and thirty years ago. Some time around the time of death she suffered a severe fracture of her left wrist. At a later period, probably in the past few weeks, an animal, probably a fox, found the body and gnawed the hand off. Now foxes, lads and lasses, are territorial. They only travel far when they are leaving home, looking for a mate, or being chased by men in red coats. This fox ...’ A groan of disgust went around the room as a photo of a flattened, dusty corpse appeared on the screen ‘... was less than a year old, so it may have picked up the hand on its travels. However, given the time of year, it’s also possible that the animal had already left home and established a territory in the rough ground next to the ring road where its body was found. It’s not the sort of place, after all, w
here it’s likely to be disturbed, so long as it stays off the tarmac. So ...’ At this point DCI Churchill would have liked to round off his presentation with a photograph of the road junction near Copmanthorpe, but he’d had no time to take one. He had, however, scanned in a section of the map. ‘... this is the area which we are going to search. And I mean a real search, girls and gents, inch by inch, every blade of grass. If that body’s out there, we need to find it.’

  He switched the computer off. ‘Any questions?’

  A hand went up. ‘Do we have any idea who the body might be, boss?’

  DCI Churchill preened himself. ‘That’s why I’ve invited Bob Baxter here. He was in charge during the time this female apparently died. And as you all know, there’s at least one murder of a young woman dating from that time, whose body has never been found.’

  Another hand went up. ‘Can’t you do a DNA analysis of the hand, boss?’

  ‘We’re getting one, of course. But it’s taking a little time. Don’t worry, if we do establish identity, you’ll be the first to know. Now, let’s get to it.’

  As he moved towards the door a voice murmured behind him softly: ‘Yeah. We’ll announce it on screen, won’t we? With bullet points.’

  21. Identity Parade

  ‘SO THERE wasn’t anything?’ Terry asked.

  ‘No. Porno mags a-plenty, two hunting knives, but no female underwear. And his mum swore she would have known if he had any. She does all his washing, she says. It’s true his clothes were quite clean.’

  ‘And she didn’t mind the porn mags?’

  ‘Apparently not, no. Seemed to think it was a normal interest for a young lad. Which it is, I suppose, up to a point. Wouldn’t surprise me if she’d been on the game herself. It was that sort of place.’

  Jane Carter sighed, remembering her futile search of Peter Barton’s bedroom. The room had been reasonably tidy, but disturbing nonetheless. The curtains were black, and the light bulb red, throwing the posters of big-breasted fantasy women on the walls into lurid relief. The hunting knives hung neatly beneath a poster of a woman being eaten alive by a monster, half-bird, half lizard. There was a pile of well-thumbed pornographic magazines under the bed, two with an explicit sado-masochistic content.