Хилари Боннер - A Kind Of Wild Justice

Unfortunately, the family’s bad fortune continued and their timing was atrocious. They had embarked on this course of action only yesterday, thus having to do battle for space with the story of O’Donnell’s disappearance. The Mail , glorying in its exclusive, did not even give the Phillipses’ allegations a line. The other papers ran stories in their first editions — although not as big as might have been hoped because more or less the same claims had already been made in open court — but the ‘O’Donnell missing’ revelation virtually wiped them out of later editions altogether. Rather guiltily, Joanna had to acknowledge that while unlucky for the Phillipses, it was quite fortunate for her that the two stories had broken on the same day. Jimbo’s disappearance had so overshadowed the Phillipses’ story that Paul seemed barely to have even noticed it.

Joanna tried to put out of her mind everything about which she could do nothing, and concentrated on attempting to find a really sensational follow-up to the Mail exclusive. She did not succeed but, fortunately for her, neither did anyone else.

The Mail , predictably, remained ahead. After all, they had the O’Donnells tied up and they were famously good at this kind of story. The Comet ’s involvement with the private prosecution, however misguided it now seemed to have been, had until this latest development at least meant that the paper had been continuously ahead of the game. The Mail did not like to be beaten. Ever. Now it was firmly in front. The day after its initial exclusive the Mail carried a picture story of an old and frail-looking Sam O’Donnell, his walking stick to the forefront, outside the police station at which he had finally officially reported his son missing.

It was a brilliant image. However, the word was, in spite of official police protestation to the contrary, that Sam had been greeted with no great enthusiasm and there were few signs of any major police activity in looking for his son.

Joanna called Fielding again.

He had calmed down somewhat and seemed to be taking some pleasure at last from the prospect, however remote, that Jimbo O’Donnell might have come to harm. ‘You’re right, nobody’s rushing around on this one up at the Met,’ he told Jo. ‘But why should they? It’s not just that we all know the bugger’s a villain and of a particularly nasty kind, too. He’s also a grown man and, unfortunately, a free one. He’s not considered vulnerable — that would be a laugh. He could have gone anywhere off his own bat. There’s no evidence to show that he may have been taken against his will or harmed in any way — not like poor Angela.’ She had heard him sigh at the other end of the phone. ‘There’s no reason why there should be a major search on for him. He’ll go on the missing persons register, now that it’s been reported that he’s disappeared, and that will be about it. For a while, at any rate. Nobody could expect otherwise,’ he paused. ‘Except Sam the Man, of course,’ he reflected wryly.

Joanna’s discomfiture continued. Three days later Private Eye dropped with an uncannily accurate summary of Paul Potter’s public rollicking of his wife. In the notorious ‘Street of Shame’ section they referred to Potter as Smile in the Back and predictably dubbed Joanna his ‘pouting hackette spouse’.

Cracks are showing at last in the tabloid world’s dream marriage [pronounced the magazine with obvious satisfaction]. And Old Smile in the Back will be straight-faced indeed if any kind of scandal rocks his long-coveted desire for a knighthood — widely expected to be announced in the New Year’s honours list.

However, Potter needn’t worry. The Eye is assured that rumours of recent Ugandan discussions between the gorgeous pouting Lady Potter-to-be and DI Mike Fielding, her old flame now in deep water over the part he played in the revival of the O’Donnell case, are completely unfounded.

Joanna groaned inside when she, alone at her desk thankfully, encountered the barbed item in her early copy of the magazine. There was no telling how Paul would react. He too, of course, received the earliest possible edition of Private Eye , as did virtually everyone in newspapers. It was a bit like a house magazine, really. Paul would have scanned the rag already and read the piece. If he hadn’t, some kind soul would be sure to point it out to him.

She saw her husband several times during the day, including at morning and afternoon conference, but he made no mention of the Private Eye piece. She didn’t either, in spite of being well aware of occasional little giggling groups of staff falling into unnatural silence as soon as she approached. But she kept her own counsel, pretended not to notice, said nothing. Give nobody the satisfaction of seeing that you were hurt or in any way affected. That was one thing that had remained the same throughout all the changes she had witnessed within newspapers. If there was one thing worse than being the subject of a typically snide Private Eye piece, it would be to let the buggers know they had got to you — in particular the buggers who had been responsible for supplying the relevant information.

Though Paul did not mention the item to her that day, or even give any indication that he had read it, she knew him well enough to be quite sure that he had, and that this was the reason for him looking unusually tight-lipped. She dreaded the confrontation that was surely coming.

At home that evening, over a nowadays increasingly rare late supper together, Paul at last brought up the subject. ‘I’m absolutely fucking furious about that Private Eye piece, Jo,’ he told her, and she knew he really must be, because he so rarely swore.

‘I know. It is bollocks, though; I hope you realise that.’

‘What?’ He glanced at her with his eyebrows raised as if not quite following her train of thought. ‘Oh, you mean the Fielding stuff?’ Paul’s tone was very reasonable. ‘I don’t enjoy reading that sort of thing about my wife, but I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later after the court case. That damned picture everybody carried didn’t help. And you do insist on still remaining in contact with the man.’

‘He’s the best contact we’ve got on this; in fact, he’s about the only one left, Paul,’ she said.

‘Yes, I know,’ he countered. ‘You still have a fixation for him, though, I’m aware of that even if you’re not yourself. But I don’t really think there’s anything between you any more. And anyway, it’s not that which has made me so mad. It’s all that stuff from morning conference. If I knew which one of our guys had sold us down the river like that I’d sack whoever it was at once. Jesus!’

She couldn’t help a small smile. Paul’s reactions were rarely predictable. He never failed to surprise her and often to impress her.

The following day the law lords ruled that the appeal court which had overturned the murder conviction of Michael Weir had been wrong. This was the case which had been used as a precedent by the defence in the ill-fated private prosecution of Jimbo O’Donnell.

The appeal court’s judgement that DNA samples obtained during the investigation of one offence could not be used in an unrelated case had been crucial to the failure of the committal proceedings.

The law lords, however, were damning. ‘The austere interpretation which the court of appeal adopted is not only in conflict with the plain words of the statute but also produces results which are contrary to good sense,’ they said.

Too late, thought Joanna glumly. If only O’Donnell was in court now, that ruling could have made all the difference. But Jimbo had now faced every possible charge concerning the abduction and death of Angela Phillips. Double jeopardy was still the law. He couldn’t be tried again.