Silks (29 page)

‘Right,’ he said. ‘I will. Anything else you need?’

‘A cast-iron alibi for the defendant would be nice.’

‘See what I can do,’ he said, laughing, and hung up. Arthur would have to really work a miracle, I thought, to get Mr Mitchell out of this hole.

The afternoon proved to be as frustrating as the morning had been, with the investigating police officer in the witness box for the whole two and a half hours. Only once did the judge briefly adjourn things for a few minutes for us all to stretch our legs and visit the lavatories, and to give me some relief from the damn body shell cutting into my groin. How I wished I could have had my recliner chair from my room in chambers, instead of the upright seats of the court.

The policeman, having consulted his notebooks, went through the whole affair in chronological order, from the moment that the police had first arrived at Barlow’s house to discover the body until they had arrested Steve Mitchell at eight fifty-three that evening. He also went on to describe the investigation after the arrest, including the interviewing of the suspect and the forensic tests that the police had performed on Mitchell’s boots and car together with his understanding of the results, but, as he said, he was no expert on DNA testing.

We were assured by the prosecution that they would be calling their DNA expert witness in due course, together with
a member of the police forensic team that had carried out the tests.

‘Inspector,’ said the prosecution QC. ‘What model of car did the defendant own at the time of the murder?’

‘An Audi A4,’ he said. ‘Silver.’

‘Yes,’ went on the QC, ‘and in the course of your enquiries did you determine if this car was fitted with a security alarm and immobilizer system?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was.’

‘And was the system found to be functioning correctly when the car was examined after the defendant’s arrest?’

‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘It was.’

‘So would it be accurate to say that the car could only be unlocked and then driven if the correct key had been used for the purpose?’

‘That is my understanding, yes,’ said the inspector.

‘Did you find any keys for the vehicle?’ the QC asked him.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘There were two such keys found in Mr Mitchell’s premises when he was arrested. One was on the defendant, in his trouser pocket on a ring with other keys, and the other one,’ he consulted his notebook, ‘was in the top drawer of Mr Mitchell’s desk in his study.’

‘And did you approach an Audi dealer and ask them about keys for their cars?’

‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘They informed me that it was normal for two keys to be issued with a new car and also that replacement or additional keys are only provided after strict security checks.’

‘And had any additional keys been requested for Mr Mitchell’s car?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘They had not.’

‘One last thing, Inspector,’ the QC said with a flourish.
‘Was Mr Mitchell’s car locked when you went to his home to arrest him?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was.’

‘Your witness,’ the prosecution QC said, turning to me.

I looked at the clock on the courtroom wall. It read twenty past four.

‘Would you like to start your cross-examination in the morning, Mr Mason?’ asked the judge expectantly.

‘If it pleases My Lord,’ I said, ‘I would like to ask a few questions now.’

The judge looked at the clock.

‘Ten minutes, then,’ he said.

‘Thank you, My Lord.’ I turned to the witness and consulted my papers. ‘Inspector McNeile, can you please tell the court how it was that the police first became aware that Mr Barlow had been murdered?’

He had left that bit out of his evidence.

‘I can’t remember how I first heard of it,’ he said.

‘I asked, Inspector, not how you personally found out, but how the police force in general was informed.’

‘I believe it was a call to the police station reporting an intruder at Mr Barlow’s residence,’ he said.

‘Who was this call from?’ I asked him.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t have that information.’

‘But surely, Inspector, all emergency calls to the police are logged with the time they are made, and who they are from?’

‘That is the usual practice, yes,’ he said.

‘So how is it that you have no record of who it was that called the police to tell you that an intruder had been seen at Barlow’s house?’

He looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘The call was taken by the
telephone on the desk of a civilian worker in the front office of the police station.’

‘Was that not unusual?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he replied.

‘And was the number of that telephone widely available to the public?’ I asked him.

‘Not that I’m aware of,’ he said.

‘Do you not think it is strange that the call was taken on a telephone where the number was not widely known, a telephone where no log was taken of incoming calls, and a telephone on which no recording equipment was attached so that the caller and his number would be unknown?’

‘Mr Mason,’ the judge interjected. ‘That’s three questions in one.’

‘I’m sorry, My Lord,’ I said. ‘Inspector McNeile, would you agree with me that, until the police arrived at Mr Barlow’s house to discover his body, it is likely that the only person or persons who knew that Mr Barlow was dead would be those responsible for his murder?’

‘I suppose so, yes,’ he said.

‘Inspector, how many years in total have you been a detective?’ I asked him.

‘Fifteen,’ he said.

‘And how often in those fifteen years,’ I said to him, ‘have you been telephoned anonymously, on an unrecorded line, to report an intruder in a property so that the police would turn up there and discover a murder victim surrounded by a mass of incriminating evidence?’

‘That’s enough, Mr Mason,’ said the judge.

‘My Lord,’ I said respectfully, and sat down. It had been a minor victory only, in a day of unremitting bad news.

‘Court adjourned until ten o’clock tomorrow morning,’ said the judge.

‘All rise.’

Eleanor didn’t come to Oxford on Monday night. In one way I was relieved, in another, disappointed. When I arrived back at the hotel from court I lay down on the bed, my head aching slightly from all the concentration. This slight headache soon developed into a full-on head-banger.

It was the first such headache I had suffered for some time and I had begun to forget the ferocity of the pain behind my eyes. During the first three weeks immediately after the fall at Cheltenham, I had suffered these on most days and I knew that relaxing horizontally on a bed for a couple of hours was the best and only remedy. A couple of paracetamol tablets took the edge off it, but I had carelessly left my stronger codeine pills at home. They were somewhere in the shambles that had once been my bathroom.

At some point I drifted off to sleep because I was awakened by the phone ringing beside the bed.

‘Yes?’ I said into it, struggling to sit up because of the shell.

‘Mr Mason?’ a female voice said.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘This is Nikki Payne here,’ she said. ‘I’ve been to the Home Office and the South African embassy as you asked and neither of them had any record of a Jacques Rensburg. But they did of someone called Jacques van Rensburg. In fact there are three of them who live in England. Apparently van Rensburg is quite a common name in South Africa.’

It would be.

‘Two of the South African Jacques van Rensburgs living here are at university, here on student visas. One is at Durham and the other is a post-graduate at Cambridge and both have been here for the past two years.’

I suppose it was possible that the Jacques we wanted had given up working with horses for a life of academia, but somehow I doubted it.

‘What about the third one?’ I asked.

‘His visa has expired, but it seems he’s still here although his right to work has expired too. But, apparently, that’s not unusual. That’s all I have for the moment.’

‘Well done,’ I said to her.

‘I’m not done yet,’ she said. ‘Anice chap at the embassy is searching for the third Jacques back in South Africa just in case he went home without telling the Home Office. There aren’t any proper records kept when people leave the UK, only when they arrive.’

It was true, I thought. No one from the immigration department checks your passport on the way out, only on the way in. The airlines only check their passengers’ passports to ensure they have the same names as on their boarding passes.

‘But you did show them the photo?’ I asked her.

‘Of course I did,’ she said. ‘My friend at the embassy is trying to get me a copy of this Jacques van Rensburg’s passport snap sent from the South African Department of Home Affairs in Pretoria so I can see if it is actually him.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Call me tomorrow if you get anywhere.’

She hung up and I rested my head back onto the pillow. My headache was only slightly better, so I lay there for a while longer, reclosed my eyes and drifted back off to sleep.

The phone on the bedside cabinet rang once more, waking me again. Damn it, I thought, can’t a man have any peace?

‘Hello,’ I said, irritated.

‘Just make sure you lose the case,’ said a whispering voice.

I was suddenly wide awake.

‘Who are you?’ I demanded loudly down the line.

‘Never mind who,’ said the whisperer. ‘Just do it.’

The line went dead.

Detective Inspector McNeile was back in the witness box on Tuesday morning for further cross-examination.

‘I remind you that you are still under oath,’ the judge said to him.

‘Yes, My Lord,’ he replied.

I levered myself to my feet, pulling on the lectern on the bench in front of me.

‘Inspector McNeile,’ I said. ‘Yesterday afternoon you told us how the police came to find out about the murder of Mr Barlow from a phone call to a non-recorded, non-emergency number, is that right?’

‘Yes,’ he replied. There was no harm, I thought, in reminding the jury.

‘Yes, thank you,’ I said. ‘Now I believe that the police also discovered that Mr Barlow had received a text message on his mobile telephone on the day of his death. Is that correct?’

‘Yes,’ he said again.

‘And did this text message say, and I quote.’ I picked up a sheet of paper myself and read from it. ‘“I’m going to come round and sort you out properly you sneaking little bastard”?’
I paused for effect. ‘And then the message was signed off with Mr Mitchell’s name?’

‘I haven’t got access to the actual text,’ he said, turning to the judge as if for assistance.

‘No,’ I said. ‘But does that sound about right to you?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I believe it said something like that.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, putting down the paper. ‘And were the police able to establish that this text message had indeed been sent to Mr Barlow by Mr Mitchell?’

‘No,’ he said softly.

‘Sorry, Inspector,’ I said. ‘Could you please speak up, so the jury can hear you?’

‘No,’ he repeated more strongly.

‘And were the police able to establish who was, in fact, responsible for sending that text message to Mr Barlow?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he said. ‘We were not.’

‘Am I correct in saying that you discovered that the message had been sent anonymously by a free text messaging service available to anyone with access to any computer and the internet anywhere in the world?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That is correct.’

‘And is it correct that you were unable to establish which computer had been used to send the message?’

‘That is correct,’ he replied.

‘So, in addition to an anonymous, unrecorded telephone call to the police directing them to a murder scene to discover incriminating evidence against the defendant.’ I glanced at the judge who was looking back at me intently. ‘There was also an anonymous text message sent to Mr Barlow’s telephone that was made to appear as if it had come from the defendant?’

‘I didn’t say that it hadn’t come from the defendant,’ said the inspector. ‘I only said that we were unable to establish that it had.’

‘Are you claiming now that, in fact, it did come from the defendant?’ I asked him with mock astonishment.

‘We don’t know who it was from,’ he said, digging himself further into a hole.

‘Thank you,’ I said to him. ‘No further questions.’

I sat down feeling rather pleased with myself. Bruce Lygon patted me gently on the shoulder. ‘Well done,’ he whispered.

I turned round to thank him and caught sight of young Julian Trent sitting right next to Mr and Mrs Barlow in the seats reserved for the public. He was watching me. I went quite cold. Damn it, I thought, how much of that cross-examination had he been listening to?

The next witness for the prosecution had been called and there was a lull in proceedings as the court usher went outside the courtroom trying to find the right person. Julian Trent watched me watching him and he clearly decided it was time to leave. He stood up and pushed past the usher as he made his way to the exit. For a moment I thought about going after him, but good sense prevailed so I stayed put. I could hardly chase him on crutches and I am sure the judge wouldn’t have taken kindly to me leaving the court in the light of the continued, but unsurprising, absence of Sir James Horley QC.

My cross-examination of Detective Inspector McNeile proved to be the high point of the day for the defence. The three further witnesses called by the prosecution gave us little respite from the damning evidence that implied that the murder had been carried out by the man in the dock.

A specialist DNA witness was followed by a police forensic science expert. Both explained to the jury, in monotonous detail, the method of extracting DNA from blood and hair, and then went on to show beyond any doubt that drops of blood and two hairs from Scot Barlow had been found in the driver’s footwell of Steve Mitchell’s car and also that more of Barlow’s blood and four more of his hairs had been found adhering to the underside of both of Steve Mitchell’s wellington boots, subsequently discovered at the Mitchell premises.

They further were able to show that fresh bloody footprints at the scene matched both of Mr Mitchell’s wellingtons.