Tim Vicary - A Game of Proof

To her surprise it didn’t come. Gary gripped the edge of the dock in those huge, cruel hands, flushed, and said — nothing.

Lloyd-Davies began again. ‘Do you have an unusually bad memory, Mr Harker?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘Well, tell me then. What’s your friend Sean’s second name?’

‘I’m not right sure. I always called him Sean.’

‘Do you remember where he works, perhaps?’

‘He worked wi’ me. At MacFarlane’s. In Acomb.’

‘At MacFarlane’s, in Acomb.’ Lloyd-Davies sighed elaborately. ‘You see, that’s all lies too, Mr Harker. The police have checked. There was no one called Sean working for MacFarlane’s at that time.’

This time Gary shouted back. ‘It’s not bloody lies. He were there and he worked wi’ me. You heard Graham Dewar!’

‘Do you take this jury for complete fools, Mr Harker? To believe that you have a friend who simply doesn’t exist?’

‘I’m not a bloody fool! You may be!’

It was going as Sarah had predicted now. A contented smile played around Lloyd-Davies’ smooth, rather prominent lips. He phrased his next question with deliberate enjoyment.

‘Well, tell the jury this, then. Do you often ‘shag’ girls, as you put it, without even learning their names?’

‘Sometimes, yes. It happens. Mebbe not to you.’

There was a stir of muffled laughter in court, and Sarah saw to her surprise that two of the younger male jurors were grinning broadly. Irritation crept into Lloyd-Davies’ voice as he sensed the exchange had not gone his way.

‘Well, it’s not a very good story, is it, because none of the people you say were with you that night actually exist, do they? It’s all a tissue of lies, isn’t it?’

‘No, it bloody isn’t.’

‘Oh yes it is, Mr Harker. The truth is, that when you met Ms Gilbert that night you were angry with her, and you wanted to get your revenge. So after you left the hotel you waited in Thorpe Street until she was home, and then you broke into her house with a hood over your face, and brutally raped her in front of her children. That’s what really happened, isn’t it?’

‘No.’

‘Oh yes it is, Mr Harker. We know it’s true because she recognised you.’

‘No she didn’t! She couldn’t bloody recognise me because …’

Just for a second Gary hesitated, staring straight ahead of him, apparently at nothing. Sarah thought, this is it. The silly burk is actually going to admit it. Good thing too — for justice if not for me.

‘Yes, Mr Harker? Why couldn’t she recognise you?’ Lloyd-Davies goaded him, gloating. His voice snapped Gary out of his trance.

‘Because I wasn’t bloody there, that’s why! Because the feller who raped her wasn’t bloody me! And if the police weren’t wasting time with all this load of crap here, they’d be out trying to catch the beggar who did do it, wouldn’t they?’

And so it went on, inconclusively, for a few more minutes, Lloyd-Davies needling sarcastically, Gary bludgeoning his attacks away. Neither complete triumph nor utter disaster, Sarah thought, when he sat down at last.

Lucy, however, was more upbeat. Dressed in a particularly vast and unflattering blue peasant smock, she confronted Julian Lloyd-Davies during the fifteen minute recess the judge granted before speeches.

‘Do you play cricket, by any chance, Mr Lloyd-Davies?’ she asked.

‘Why yes, as a matter of fact I do.’ Lloyd-Davies smiled, acknowledging her existence for the first time in the entire trial. ‘Most weekends, actually.’

‘I could tell from your style of cross-examination. Like England held to a draw by the Soweto second XI, I thought.’

‘Lucy, that was wicked,’ Sarah said, as the great man stalked away. ‘Do you always talk to opposition barristers like that?’

‘Only when they really get up my nose, like he does.’

‘But how did you know he played cricket? An inspired guess?’

‘Oh no. He boasts about it in Who’s Who . Played for Eton and Oxford. Got a blue.’

A faint smile, brief as winter sunshine, lit Sarah’s face and was gone.

‘I doubt Gary’s ever played cricket. Unless he could kill someone with the bat.’

Julian Lloyd-Davies stood to face the jury. One hand clutched the edge of his gown, the other was behind his back somewhere. The pose looked odd and pompous to Sarah. She hoped the jury felt the same.

It was his duty, he said, to prove Gary’s guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. Confidently, he set about doing so. ‘Let us remind ourselves exactly what Gary Harker has done. We say that on the night of 14th October last year, he deliberately entered the house of Sharon Gilbert … ’

Seamlessly, he progressed into a precise, detailed description of the horrors of the assault. For nearly an hour he painstakingly constructed Gary’s guilt from the evidence. He tore up Sarah’s arguments and cast them aside like rubbish. How was it possible for any woman to be mistaken about the identity of a rapist, hooded or not, when she had lived with him for over a year? Lloyd-Davies invited the jury to consider their own partners — would they fail to recognise them, just because of a balaclava hood? Surely not.

Do QCs wear hoods in their wives’ bedrooms, Sarah wondered flippantly. We should be told. But then ordinary barrister’s daughters can go missing, can’t they? her mind screamed back. Lost alone in some pervert’s bedroom . Oh shut up, please. Concentrate.

Sharon, Lloyd-Davies reminded the jury, had heard the rapist’s voice. She had seen his body, he had even used her son’s name. How could she be mistaken? And Gary had two clear motives — to gain revenge after their quarrel that evening, and to recover his watch. He knew exactly where she lived, alone and defenceless with her children. He knew where she kept the watch; she had seen him take it. The police couldn’t find it because he had hidden it, that was all.

And what about his so-called alibi? Well, it relied on three people who could not be proved to exist at all. But a witness who did exist had seen him in the adjacent street just a few minutes after the rape took place.

Finally there was the question of character. Someone was lying in this case, clearly. Well, the jury had seen Sharon Gilbert in the witness box; and they had seen the police inspector. All those people believed Gary was guilty. Then the jury had seen Gary himself. So who did they believe? Sharon, her son and the police? Or Gary Harker?

Quite, Sarah thought. A man with a criminal record three pages long, including violence against women. My charming client.

‘We know who is telling the truth, don’t we, members of the jury?’ Lloyd-Davies concluded. ‘We know who broke into Sharon Gilbert’s house and raped her in front of her two small children. It was that man there. Gary Harker.’

So far Lloyd-Davies had been dry, calm, understated, allowing the horror of the facts to make his points for him. Now, he raised his right arm, and pointed at Gary. Then he sat down.

The judge eyed the clock. 11.30. Too early to adjourn for lunch. ‘Mrs Newby?’

The phone box was in Blossom Street — near the Odeon cinema, a bus stop, a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, and a few streets of Victorian tenements. Inside it an advert offered French lessons for naughty boys. Harry Easby examined it curiously.

‘All right,’ Terry said, to Harry and two young uniformed constables. ‘We’ve got the girl’s photo. Let’s see if anyone’s seen her. Or knows who rang from here at 10.27 yesterday.’

It was the only clue he had, so far. His visit to Sarah’s son Simon had yielded nothing. The door of the terraced house in Bramham Street had been opened by a truculent, muscular young man in a teeshirt and shorts. He had short reddish-gold hair, a round face with a broad nose, and a ring in one ear. He had led Terry into a cramped, untidy front room and answered his questions while putting on pair of old socks and ancient, mud-stained trainers. Yes, his stepfather had rung at two a.m. last night; no, he had no idea where Emily had gone. He had last seen her a month ago in Tesco with their mother. He and his sister weren’t particularly close but he could readily understand that the pressure from their highly academic parents had become too much for her. Probably she would come back in a day or two. Terry was welcome to search his house if he wanted but if not, he was going for a run.