Tim Vicary - A Game of Proof

‘Let me think. She made some sort of joke about him. That’s all, really. I’m afraid we did that sometimes about the men, you understand. In a friendly way only.’

I’ll bet you did, Terry thought, wryly. ‘But what was the joke about?’

‘Well, he came back, didn’t he? After all the building work was done. And he had some sort of problem, maybe like it says there in her diary. I wasn’t here, it was in the evening, but she told me about it. She said a workman had brought her another extension but this time she couldn’t make use of it. Something like that.’ She smiled apologetically. ‘It was just a silly joke.’

So that’s it, Terry thought. He’d missed the delivery driver in his first investigation, but Tracy had missed the fact that there’d been a second one, a replacement when Simon Newby lost his job. This man, it seemed, had sex with Maria — and had a problem. Terry sat silent, thinking.

‘I’m sorry, dear, I’ve shocked you. But we were very discreet, most of the time. That was the key to the business.’

‘I’m sure it was, Ann.’ He folded his notebook and smiled, ready to go. ‘I’m glad I wasn’t one of your customers, though.’

‘Are you? Oh no, don’t say that, Mr Bateson, please.’ She escorted him to the door. ‘You’d have been welcome, any time at all.’ And to his complete, unmitigated astonishment, as he stepped over the threshold she patted his bottom gently.

‘So it can’t be him, sir,’ Terry said. ‘When he delivered the stuff, she was in Austria.’

‘You trust the old bird, do you?’ Churchill asked. ‘She knows what day it is, and so on?’

‘She’s as sharp as you or me, sir. Sharper, probably.’

He couldn’t prevent a silly grin from playing around the corners of his mouth. The day was starting out well. The pat on the bottom had been good; Churchill’s scowl of frustration was even better. It was a while since he’d felt so pleased about something at work.

The look on Tracy’s face was gratifying too. She had shown him up before; now the tables were reversed. She hadn’t checked the dates; he had.

A uniformed constable, PC Burrows, came in. ‘Fax for you, sir,’ he said to Churchill. ‘From the forensic lab. Sergeant Chisholm said you’d want to see it straight away.’

‘Yes, thank you.’ Churchill scanned the papers greedily. As he did so the expression on his face changed. The eager wolf-like grin faded. He frowned, flushed, and peered at the words more closely. Then he turned abruptly to the second page as though he wanted to rip the information out of it with his fingers. Offensive information which ought not be there at all.

The others watched him silently. Mike Candor spoke first.

‘Bad news, sir?’

Churchill looked up at the ceiling, ignoring them all.

‘Wonderful,’ he said at last. ‘Don’t these blasted scientists always let you down just when you need them most!’ He thrust the paper at Mike. ‘Here. Read it for yourself.’

Mike read the sheets carefully, and then passed them to Harry. ‘It’s the DNA analysis of those three hair samples — you know, the ones from inside the balaclava; the one left by Karen Whitaker’s attacker; and the ones we took from Simon Newby.’

‘Yes,’ Tracy prompted. ‘And?’

‘Well, the good news is that the hairs in the balaclava match the one left by Whitaker’s attacker with a certainty of several million to one. Which proves that whoever attacked Whitaker wore that hood. The bad news is that neither the Whitaker hair nor the ones in the hood match the sample we took from Simon.’

‘Simon didn’t attack Whitaker?’ Tracy’s voice reflected her surprise. ‘So who did?’

‘Well, there’s the mystery,’ said Harry. ‘We said it wasn’t Gary Harker because we checked that already, but get to this! There were two sets of hairs in the balaclava, not just one!’

‘Two?’

‘Yes. A lot of fair hairs and some brown ones. And the brown ones match the sample we sent them from Gary last year. They’re his! Only it was a fair hair we found on Whitaker’s tape, wasn’t it?’

Tracy nodded. ‘Which meant Gary couldn’t have done it. So we dropped the charges.’

Terry turned to Churchill, who was pacing up and down morosely, his hands in his packets. ‘You never told me there were any brown hairs in that hood, sir.’

‘No, well I didn’t know, did I? All I saw were fair hairs.’

‘So what this does prove,’ Terry continued belligerently. ‘Is that all this about Harker not raping Sharon is a load of cock. He did rape her, after all. Wearing that hood.’

‘Yes, well, it’s a pity you didn’t get a conviction then, isn’t it?’ Churchill scowled.

‘Let me see that,’ said Terry, taking the report from Harry. ‘It seems to me this, together with Mrs Slingsby’s evidence, puts Simon in the clear, doesn’t it? At least as far as Maria Clayton and Karen Whitaker are concerned. He had no connection with either of them.’

‘No,’ Churchill agreed gloomily. ‘There’s more than one villain after all, it seems.’ He thumped the wall, sending several sheets of paper fluttering from the noticeboard. ‘Shit!’

The day was starting well, Terry thought, enjoying his boss’s discomfiture. The mystery was no clearer than before, but his interest in it was beginning to revive.

In his office, Terry put his feet up and thought. Both he and Churchill, it seemed, had been wrong. They had both believed that all these crimes were committed by one person. He had believed that person was Gary, Churchill that it was Simon. But the evidence supported neither of them.

Gary must have raped Sharon — his hairs in the hood, added to all the other evidence, made that more certain than ever. But the reddish fair hairs in the hood suggested that someone else had attacked Karen Whitaker; someone who was neither Simon nor Gary. And the evidence for Gary murdering Maria Clayton was no better than it had ever been. And the idea that Gary had killed Jasmine seemed even more remote; he had no motive, there was no evidence that he’d been anywhere near her that night.

And it seemed neither Gary nor Simon had attacked Helen Steersby

On the other hand there was compelling evidence that Gary had raped Sharon and that Simon had murdered Jasmine. Both were, in a sense, crimes of passion — the assailants well known to their victims, the motive a form of violent vengeance.

Three facts still worried Terry. The fact that Gary and Simon knew each other. The fact that at least one, and possibly two assaults had been committed by neither of them. And the fact that the evidence which proved this had been found in a shed owned by one of them, inside a balaclava hood used by the other.

He puzzled over this for an hour without getting anywhere. Then he remembered his promise to tell Sarah when the DNA results came in. For her, clearly, it would be a kindness, but it was risky, all the same. It was Churchill’s case; for Terry to anticipate him might well be construed as a disciplinary offence.

But there was such a thing as compassion, too. He decided to ring her from home tonight.

‘So he’s out of the frame for all these other cases. You should be pleased.’

‘Because my son’s no longer suspected of being a serial killer? Oh, I am, Terry, I am.’

The ironic edge to Sarah’s voice couldn’t disguise her relief about the DNA results, and the result of his interview with Ann Slingsby. But as usual, her mind was on to the next thing.

‘So if you admit you were wrong about this, maybe you’re wrong about Jasmine, too?’

‘That’s not my case, Sarah.’

‘Well, your DCI Churchill, then. Is he having second thoughts?’