David Dickinson - Death of a wine merchant

‘So I presume the gun in this case was despatched down to the Met’s fingerprint people?’

‘I’m afraid it was not,’ said Weir, almost whispering now.

‘So what happened to it then?’ Pugh was now holding the gun up for the jury to see.

‘It went to Fakenham,’ Weir muttered as if the mere mention of the word Fakenham was enough to explain everything.

‘Speak up, man, speak up for the court. They can scarcely hear you in the back row of the jury.’ Pugh was booming now, the initiative with him for the first time in the case so far.

‘It went to Fakenham,’ said the policeman again in a slightly louder voice.

‘Fakenham?’ said Pugh. ‘Fakenham? What is so important about Fakenham? Does the place have magic powers, a well that heals the sick perhaps? An East Anglian Lourdes?’

‘There was an accident in the police station at Fakenham.’ Detective Chief Inspector Weir was whispering again.

‘What sort of accident?’ barked Pugh. ‘I do not recall seeing any reports in the newspapers of accidents in the Fakenham police station at this time.’

‘The cleaning woman was new.’ Weir had grown almost inaudible again.

‘And?’ said Pugh, leaning forward to catch the words.

‘Speak up, man, I can hardly hear you.’ The judge too was leaning forward to pick up what Weir was saying.

The policeman looked at Sir Jasper with desperation in his eyes, as if Sir Jasper could save him from this ordeal.

‘She wiped the gun clean, the new cleaning lady,’ Weir said at last. ‘She said later that the gun looked very dirty with all those smudges on it. She said the police deserved a nice clean station when they came to work.’

‘That’s as may be, Detective Chief Inspector, Norfolk policemen going to work in a tidy station.’ Pugh’s junior knew by now that his master had a number of different modes of operation in court: charming, ironic, sarcastic, we’re all men of the world together in this, angry, indignant, on his high horse. Now, here in Court Number Two of the Old Bailey, Richard Napier was certain his master was definitely mounted on his high horse, and pawing the ground.

‘What about the defendant? The man in the dock opposite you, Chief Inspector? Does he not have rights too? More important rights maybe than the absence of dust and the removal of a few smudges in the Fakenham police station? A fingerprint test on that gun could have cleared his name. There could have been other prints from other hands which had also held the weapon and might have pointed it at the defendant’s brother and pulled the trigger. I suggest the Norfolk Constabulary and their auxiliaries have done my client a most serious disservice. He has been deprived of his rights as a citizen and a taxpayer. Do you have anything you wish to say, Detective Chief Inspector?’

‘I’m truly sorry about the cleaning lady,’ said Weir.

Pugh knew that he had to keep hold of the advantage if he could. He suspected that a different tone might work better, for he thought the jury would be with Weir by instinct. The jury did not come from the criminal classes. They did not come from the middle classes. They came from that vast segment of the population in between who worked hard, went to church and hoped their children would have a better life than they had. Such people were predisposed to trust policemen.

‘Gentlemen of the jury, Detective Chief Inspector, I want to put a little hypothesis before you about the conduct of this case.’ Pugh was sounding conciliatory, a friend to all the world. Richard Napier thought his master was definitely up to something. He, Napier, would not have trusted a conciliatory Pugh as far as he could throw him.

‘I put it to you, Detective Chief Inspector, that in these last months of your long career you were more interested in your retirement than in seeing justice done in this case. “It’s amazing how much of my time it takes.” That’s how you described your retirement a few moments ago. Is that not so?’

‘I have always done my duty,’ said the Detective Chief Inspector, falling back on a saying that had served him well in the past.

‘Do you agree, Detective Chief Inspector, that in your younger days you would not have brought this case to court, because there was not sufficient certainty about the evidence? That is a fact, is it not?’

Weir might not have been the brightest boy in the school but he could see very clearly that if he went along with this proposition the whole case would collapse around him.

‘That’s all very interesting, sir. I’m not sure I can keep up with all your clever theories. I repeat what I said just now, sir. I have always done my duty.’

‘No further questions,’ said Pugh.

In the room reserved for witnesses a Mrs Bertha Wilcox was going over her evidence for the twentieth time. She felt she was more nervous than she had been at any time since her wedding day. But she was not called into the witness box that day or the next. Charles Augustus Pugh had snatched a quick look at her during a recess and decided not to call her, even though he had subpoenaed her to come to the Old Bailey in the first place. He thought her demeanour and her occupation were such that the jury would automatically be on her side. On this occasion that did not suit Charles Augustus Pugh. Mrs Wilcox was the cleaning lady from the police station in Fakenham.

Charles Augustus Pugh had been looking directly at the jury during most of his encounter with Detective Chief Inspector Weir. He thought he might have won on points, that one or maybe two members of the jury could have been added to the few he thought might vote for an acquittal. His junior, not as experienced at reading juries as Pugh, but no slouch nonetheless, reckoned that three or possibly four were in the acquittal camp. They might, mind you, he told Pugh later that day, be lured back into the conviction team fairly easily.

Pugh was surprised to see Inspector Albert Cooper in the witness box. There was his youth and his youthful appearance for a start. Then there was the fact, as Powerscourt had briefed Pugh before, that Cooper did not think there should have been an arrest at all. He did not think the evidence was strong enough for a conviction. Powerscourt had approached the matter with extreme cynicism.

‘If he doesn’t appear,’ he had told Pugh over lunch at his club in Pall Mall, ‘then it means he’s an honest man. They have failed to nobble him.’

‘They being?’ asked Pugh.

‘His immediate superiors, their immediate superiors, their immediate superiors, the Superintendents and the Commanders and the Chief Constable in person. Not necessarily in that order.’

‘And if he does appear?’ asked Pugh.

‘Some or maybe all those superiors will have got to him. Maybe not to him, maybe to that girl he’s going to marry. His parents, her parents perhaps. Why should Albert throw up such a promising career for a few doubts about an arrest? If every police officer followed his doubts about arresting people then the prisons would be empty and the courthouses all boarded up. God knows how the senior officers in the Norfolk police will do it, but they’ll certainly try.’

Sir Jasper Bentinck found Detective Inspector Cooper a much better witness than his immediate superior. There weren’t the pauses for a start. Cooper brought an air of freshness into the courtroom, of youth and hope. He told the story of the aftermath of the murder very well, not omitting the complaints about his age. Sir Jasper did not bother to ask about any doubts Cooper might have had about an arrest. Pugh was wondering right up to the point where the examination in chief came to an end about whether to cross-examine or not. Of all the witnesses so far, Cooper was making the best impression on the jury. Georgina Nash came from a different world. The Detective Chief Inspector was too old and too slow. This young man, so quick and so bright, was the one for them. Pugh thought one or two of his recent converts to an acquittal vote might have defected back to the other side. Napier had sent him a note suggesting no cross-examination at all.