Tim Vicary - A Game of Proof

‘All right, then. Well, for what my opinion is worth …. No, Sarah, I don’t think your son did commit all these crimes.’

‘You don’t?’

‘No. I still think most of them were committed by one person. I just don’t agree that it was your son.’

‘Despite these hairs?’

‘They may prove me wrong. I’ve been wrong before. I thought Gary attacked Karen Whitaker but he can’t have done. Nor Helen Steersby. But for the rest — Maria Clayton, Sharon Gilbert … I still think he may be responsible for those. And they’re more serious. More like the death of Jasmine Hurst.’ Now I’ve said it , he thought. Trouble will come of this. But it’s what I believe and if it’s true then this woman is a victim as surely as anyone else.

Hope can be as painful as despair. The cold distrustful anger evaporated from Sarah’s voice. ‘You’re saying you think Gary may have killed Jasmine?’

‘I’ve no evidence for it, you understand. None. But his record of petty crimes, theft, violence against women — it fits the profile of someone building up to serious crimes like this. I’m sure he raped Sharon, despite the hairs in the hood — and we know he attacked you.’

‘That doesn’t prove he murdered Jasmine, though, does it? What proof is there of that?’

Terry swallowed, aware of how unprofessional this conversation had become.

‘None, I told you. Just a suspicion; the knowledge of what he’s like. The fact that he knew Jasmine through Simon, that he fancied her — he admitted that — and that when he fancied a woman he thought he could do what he liked. And he was free that night: he’d been released for several hours. He was watching football in a pub until ten — that part checks out. After that, he says he stayed on, drinking in a private room. It’s not clear when he left. His route home from the pub doesn’t exactly take him near the river, but it’s not far out of his way, either. He could have walked up there, for whatever reason, met Jasmine going home, talked to her — because he knew her, after all — and then …’ Terry shrugged. ‘It could have gone on from there.’

‘He asked her for sex, she refused, so he pulled out a knife, raped her, and then cut her throat,’ said Sarah softly.

‘Exactly. It could have happened like that …’

‘But there’s no evidence to support it.’

‘None.’ Terry shook his head. ‘And a lot to suggest it was your son.’

Silence fell between them again. Terry thought how little surprised she had seemed at what he was saying. Almost as though he were voicing her own thoughts.

A cocktail of emotions — relief, joy, terror, foreboding and guilt — effervesced inside Sarah. She smiled. ‘If you think like that no wonder you’re in the doghouse with your colleagues.’

‘They don’t listen; they’ve got their case.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe they’re right; I’ve lost the plot. I shouldn’t be talking to you like this; it’s not professional.’

‘It’s a comfort, though.’ Sarah tried to smile again, and failed. ‘I appreciate that. You must be the first …’ She felt her voice falter, paused, took control of it. ‘You are the first person except for Lucy — you know, his solicitor — who has actually, in all these weeks, said anything to suggest Simon might not have done it. And you don’t even know him!’

‘I’ve met him once, but it’s not because of that,’ Terry admitted. ‘But I do know Gary, and I’ve got this obsession about these other cases. The only judgement I have about your son is that he wouldn’t have done all these things. He has no record and he didn’t strike me like that.’

‘Thank you, Terry.’

Terry met her eyes, wondering. Her tone was passionately sincere and ironic at the same time; sincere because he had expressed belief in Simon, ironic because he had felt it necessary to reassure her that her own son was not a serial murderer. He felt embarrassed, conscious that he had gone too far. But he was tired — tired of professional discretion, tired of the rules, tired of Churchill and being treated like a rookie cop. It would bring a little comfort after all, and do no harm that he could see.

She shuddered, looked up at him again. ‘There is another possibility, Terry.’

‘What’s that?’

For a while she didn’t answer. She looked down at her hands, fiddling with her ring.

‘Sarah?’

‘I’m sorry, Terry, I can’t say. There’s probably nothing in it anyway.’ She looked up. ‘You’ve been very honest with me and I appreciate it. Really. You’re the first person …’

‘What is this other possibility, Sarah?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry.’

‘You do understand why I’ve told you all these things? To help you and Simon, if I can. I’m taking a risk for you, but if you’re going to hold out on me …’

‘It’s my son’s life we’re talking about here, Terry.’ She got up from her chair, walked distractedly up and down the room a couple of times. She stopped in the corner furthest away from the single lamp, looking across at him from the shadows.

‘All right, let me put it like this. Simon says he had nothing to do with Jasmine’s death and I …’ She hesitated, then continued firmly. ‘I believe him. That will be his defence in court, if necessary. As for these other offences, no one’s even asked him about them yet, but I can’t believe he’s a serial rapist. That has to be absurd. But there’s a problem about these hairs, which may or not be his, and the fact that the hood and the other things were found in his shed. That’s what your boss Churchill is focussing on. Now all I can say is that if — if — those hairs are his, and there’s more to his relationship with this thug Harker than either of us know about, then, well …’

She paused again, a catch in her voice, and for while he thought she wasn’t going to go on. But the voice from the semi-darkness resumed, cool, very controlled really for a woman under such monumental stress. But then that’s what she’s like, Terry thought. If someone ever presses the nuclear button this is the lady to have in the dugout with you.

‘… then what you have to realize is that he’s only a kid really, just nineteen, while Gary Harker is ten years older and as you say, steeped in violent crime up to his eyeballs. So if Simon did try on this hood — for a laugh maybe or to try and impress his new friend — it was only that and no more. He’ll have been following where the older man led.’

‘Not if he attacked Karen Whitaker,’ said Terry softly. ‘That was just one man on his own.’

‘I’m sure he didn’t, Terry. But if — just for the sake of the argument, if those hairs in the hood are not only his, but match those found in the Whitaker case, which they won’t do, then … then it could only be that he was put up to it by someone like Gary. Simon may be stupid but he’s not cruel or misogynistic — he couldn’t even think of doing a thing like that on his own.’

When she finished Terry didn’t speak for a while. He let her words fall gently into his mind, wondering how they would settle on the suspicions already there. Hers was hardly an objective assessment — the words of a mother, spoken with the persuasive fluency of a barrister used to pleading in mitigation. But then how else could she speak, about her own son?

‘Have you asked him?’ he said at last. ‘About his relationship with Gary?’

‘Not yet. But I will.’

‘If you could tell me what he says, it might help.’

She considered this. ‘If it helps to convict Gary, then of course I will.’

I could hardly expect more, he thought. He stood up. ‘I think we’ve said all we can, for now. I should go.’