Стивен Бут: Dead in the Dark

From a police officer’s point of view, some jurors seemed to experience doubt at the slightest prompting from the defence. Sometimes twelve ordinary members of the public turned into a roomful of Doubting Thomases, unconvinced by even the most powerful evidence, refusing to accept anything they were told, dismissing statements made by the police, disregarding the opinions of forensic experts. In this case, the CPS had probably made the right decision. A consistent and convincing witness was hard to ignore.

‘This witness,’ said Cooper. ‘Remind me who it was.’

‘Oh, a very reliable person in the eyes of the CPS. The person who claims to have seen Annette Bower alive was Mr Evan Slaney. Annette’s father.’

It wasn’t quite five p.m. on a Monday, yet the shutters were down on almost all the shops in the centre of Shirebrook. Diane Fry had parked her Audi in the deserted marketplace, where acres of free parking stood empty and unused. Apart from hers, just two cars occupied the whole area. This would never happen in Edendale, let alone in Nottingham, where parking spaces were at a premium, a privilege you had to pay through the nose for.

A group of children ran past her. Their chatter was in a language she couldn’t understand. She could see the only shops doing business were Maxi Foods polski sklep , the Polo Market, and Zabka European supermarket. She turned to look the other way. Oh, and Bargain Booze.

First-floor flats over every shop were occupied, and above them the attic rooms had been converted to living space, with curtains in tiny dormer windows. Men yelled to each other across the square from one betting shop to another, from William Hill to Betfred. In the alley by the Co-op the paving was littered with cigarette ends. A few people stood smoking outside the working men’s club.

And a few yards away, Krystian Zalewski’s blood was still soaking into the carpet and dripping through to the ceiling of the shop below.

Fry watched a group of press photographers clustering at the corner of the square with their camera bags slung over their shoulders. Reporters had been in town earlier, stopping people at random in the street to get their instant reactions to the murder. Shirebrook would be on the news tonight.

She found DCI Alistair Mackenzie at the crime scene in the alley, talking to a very tall uniformed constable from the Shirebrook Safer Neighbourhood Team who was acting as scene guard.

The entire alley had been taped off, with a guard posted at each end. A forensic tent had been erected at the spot where the attack appeared to have taken place. A pool of blood was drying on the brick paving, and the crime scene examiners had lifted shoe marks from prints left in the blood. A clear trail of blood spatters led away from the marketplace to the street entrance, highlighted by a zigzag series of yellow evidence markers. From there, it was only a short distance to the yard at the back of the shop.

Mackenzie nodded at Fry as she arrived.

‘The crime scene guys say it’s difficult to know how many people were here at the time of the attack,’ he said. ‘There seem to be at least three distinct shoe types, one of which is a match to the trainers Zalewski was wearing. But there could be other individuals who stayed clear of the blood. We have no way of telling.’

‘I don’t suppose there’s any sign of Mr Zalewski’s phone, sir?’ asked Fry.

‘Yes, in a way. Not a sign of its presence, but its absence.’

‘I’m sorry, sir?’

Mackenzie pointed into the opening of the tent. ‘In the middle of the patch of blood there. A clear spot the size and shape of a mobile phone. Perhaps a Samsung Galaxy, or something similar.’

‘So he dropped his phone when he was attacked,’ said Fry.

‘And someone picked it up, yes. If we find the phone, it will have traces of Mr Zalewski’s blood on it.’

‘Any other traces that would help us, sir?’

‘We’ve had officers doing a fingertip search the length of the alley.’ Mackenzie screwed his face in disgust. ‘I don’t need to tell you everything they found. There was nothing useful, except this.’

He held up a sealed evidence bag. Fry had to look closely to see what was glinting inside.

‘An earring?’ she said.

‘Exactly. And Krystian Zalewski doesn’t look the sort of man who would wear them.’

‘The earring is significant, then.’

‘It may help an identification,’ said Mackenzie. ‘It’s covered in latent prints and possibly DNA. But we’ll have to send it to the lab at Hucknall.’

‘It might mean one of his attackers was a woman. If there was a fight, she could have lost that earring in the struggle.’

‘You’ll see that there’s no lighting in the alley,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Nothing along this whole stretch between the market square and the street that runs at the back there.’

‘A perfect place for someone to lie in wait.’

‘It seems Zalewski was on his way back from the shops when he was attacked.’

‘The polski sklep ?’ said Fry.

‘Of course.’

‘He took his shopping with him after the attack. We found it in his flat. Bread and milk, nothing of interest. Zalewski seems to have been a perfectly ordinary, law-abiding citizen.’

‘Do you know,’ said Mackenzie, ‘one of the residents here has kept a file of offences that migrant workers have been charged with. A sort of diary or scrapbook. His file goes back years, from when the first East Europeans started arriving in Shirebrook, just after Poland and a bunch of other countries joined the EU in 2004. The information has been gleaned from court records and various items published in local newspapers.’

‘What sort of offences?’

Mackenzie shrugged. ‘Run of the mill, most of them. One man was convicted of driving without a licence or insurance, taking a vehicle without consent and being over the breath alcohol limit. Another stole a beard trimmer from a pharmacy in Mansfield. A third admitted affray and actual bodily harm after a fight in the street here in Shirebrook. It’s pretty much what you’d expect in the courts every week.’

‘Anything serious?’

‘No serious convictions. There was a sexual assault on a woman a few weeks ago. Everyone seems to believe the perpetrator must have been a migrant worker, but there’s absolutely no evidence of it. A suspect has never been identified.’

‘So it could have been anybody.’

‘Absolutely. But that fact doesn’t convince anybody.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

Mackenzie looked at her closely and lowered his voice.

‘You’ve read all the intelligence reports on the shopkeeper, Geoffrey Pollitt?’ he said.

‘Yes, I’m up to date.’

‘It may not be relevant to the present inquiry, but keep it in mind. Mr Pollitt has been flagged up on multiple occasions for his right-wing extremist connections. But don’t alert him yet to the fact we know about his activities.’

‘I’ll treat him like any other witness, sir.’

Mackenzie smiled. ‘I suppose that will have to do.’

At the side of the market square, the bus shelters were plastered with posters printed in English and Polish. And another language in Cyrillic script. Russian? Bulgarian? Fry wasn’t sure. But they all set out the conditions of a three-year Public Spaces Protection Order, the geographical version of an ASBO.

Some of the corners of the posters were torn off. They spelled out the warning of a one hundred pound fixed penalty or a fine of up to a thousand pounds on conviction. The order covered the whole of Shirebrook and neighbouring Langwith Junction, including the huge distribution centre on the former pit site.

No person shall consume alcohol. No person shall have an unsealed vessel containing alcohol in their possession. No person shall urinate other than in a public toilet. No person shall dispose of any litter other than in the bins provided. No persons shall congregate in groups of two or more within the alleyways which lead to Shirebrook Marketplace .