Elizabeth George - This Body of Death

She took it all in like a frozen tableau. Meredith Powell on the ground with a rusty crook sticking out of her neck. Frazer Chaplin sprawled not five feet from Gordon Jossie. Gina Dickens backed into the wire fence with her hand clasped over her mouth. Jossie himself with the pistol held stiffly, still in position from the second shot he’d fired straight into the air.

“Barker!” It was a roar, not a voice from Chief Superintendent Whiting. He was storming up the driveway. “Lay that God damn gun on the ground. Do it now. Now! You heard me. Now!”

And then, passing Whiting, the dog, of all things. Bounding forward. Howling. Running in circles.

“Drop it, Barker!”

“You’ve shot him! You’ve killed him!” Gina Dickens at last. Screaming, running to Frazer Chaplin, throwing herself on him.

“Backup’s coming, Mr. Jossie,” Barbara said. “Put the gun-”

“Stop him! He’ll kill me next!”

The dog barked and barked.

“See to Meredith,” Jossie said. “Someone God damn see to Meredith.”

“Drop the bloody gun first.”

“I told you-”

“Want her to die as well? Just like the boy? You get off on death, Ian?”

Jossie turned the gun then. He pointed it at Whiting. “Some deaths,” he said. “Some God damn deaths.”

The dog howled.

“Don’t shoot it!” Barbara cried. “Don’t do it, Mr. Jossie.” She dashed to the crumpled figure of Meredith. The crook was planted to its halfway point, but not into the jugular vein. She was conscious but overcome by shock. Time was crucial. Jossie needed to know it. She said, “She’s alive. Mr. Jossie, she’s alive. Put the gun down. Let us get her out of here. There’s nothing else you need to do at this point.”

“You’re wrong. There is,” Jossie said. He fired again.

Michael Spargo, Reggie Arnold, and Ian Barker went into “secure units” for the first part of their custodial sentences. For obvious reasons, they remained separated, and units in different parts of the country were used to house them. The purpose of the secure unit is education and-frequently but not always and generally “dependent upon the cooperation of the detainee”-therapy. Information as to how well the boys did in these units is unavailable to the public, but what is known is that at the age of fifteen, their time in these secure units ended, whereupon they were moved to a “youth facility,” which has always been a euphemism for prison for young offenders. At eighteen, they were moved from their separate youth facilities and sent on to different maximum-security prisons where they served the remainder of the term determined by the Luxembourg courts. Ten years.

That time has, of course, long since passed. All three of the boys-men now-were returned to the community. As was the case for such notorious child criminals as Mary Bell, Jon Venables, and Robert Thompson, the boys were given new identities. Where each was released remains a closely guarded secret, and whether they are contributing members of society is also unknown. Alan Dresser has vowed to hunt them down and “give them a taste of what they did to John,” but because they are protected by law from even having a photograph of them published, it’s unlikely Mr. Dresser or anyone else will ever be able to find them.

Was justice served? This is a question nearly impossible to answer. To do so requires one to see Michael Spargo, Reggie Arnold, and Ian Barker either as hardened criminals or as utter victims, but the truth lies somewhere in between.

Excerpted from “Psychopathology, Guilt, and Innocence in the Matter of John Dresser”

by Dorcas Galbraith, PhD

(Presented to the EU Convention on Juvenile Justice at the request of the Right Honourable Howard Jenkins-Thomas, MP)

JUDI MACINTOSH TOLD LYNLEY TO GO STRAIGHT IN. THE assistant commissioner was waiting for him, she said. Did he want a coffee? Tea? She sounded grave. As she would do, Lynley thought. Word, as always and especially when it had to do with death, had traveled quickly.

He demurred politely. He wouldn’t actually have minded a cup of tea but he hoped he wouldn’t be spending a long enough time in Hillier’s office to drink it down.

The assistant commissioner rose to meet him. He joined Lynley at the conference table. He dropped into a chair and said, “What a bloody cock-up. Do we at least know how the hell he got his hands on a gun?”

“Not yet,” Lynley said. “Barbara’s working on that.”

“And the woman?”

“Meredith Powell? She’s in hospital. The wound was very bad but not fatal. It came close to the spinal cord, so she could have been crippled. She was lucky.”

“And the other?”

“Georgina Francis? In custody. All in all, it wasn’t exactly textbook, sir, but it was a good result.”

Hillier shot him a look. “A woman murdered in a public park, another woman seriously injured, two men dead, a paranoid schizophrenic in hospital, a lawsuit hanging over our heads…What part of this is actually a good result, Inspector?”

“We’ve got the killer.”

“Who is himself a corpse.”

“We’ve got his accomplice.”

“Who may not ever go to trial for anything. What do we know about this Georgina Francis that we can take into court? She once lived in the same house as the killer. She once was at a National Portrait Gallery show for some reason. She was the killer’s lover. She was the killer’s killer’s lover. She may have done this, and she may have done that, and there’s an end to it. Give that information to the CPS and watch them roar.” Hillier raised his eyes heavenward in an uncharacteristic indication of seeking divine guidance. When he apparently had it, he said, “She’s finished. She had a decent opportunity to demonstrate her leadership abilities, and she failed to do so. She alienated members of the team she was working with, she assigned officers inappropriately and without regard for their expertise, she made judgement calls that put the Met into the worst possible position, she undermined confidence in here and out there…Be so good as to tell me, Tommy: Where’s the result?”

Lynley said, “I think we can agree that she was hobbled, sir.”

“Oh, can we? Hobbled by what?”

“By what the Home Office knew and couldn’t-or wouldn’t-tell her.” Lynley paused to let his point sink in. There was little enough to use in defence of both Isabelle Ardery and her performance as acting detective superintendent, but he believed he owed it to her to try. He said, “Did you know who he was, sir?”

“Jossie?” Hillier shook his head.

“Did you know he was being protected, then?”

Hillier’s eyes met his. He said nothing, and in that Lynley had his answer. At some point during the investigation, he reckoned, Hillier had been brought into the picture. He may not have been told that Gordon Jossie was one of the three boys responsible for little John Dresser’s terrible murder all those years ago, but he’d known he was someone into whose life no one else was supposed to delve.

Lynley said, “I think she should have been told. Not necessarily who he was but that he was being protected by the Home Office.”

“Do you.” Hillier looked away. He steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “And why is that?”

“It could have led to Jemima Hastings’ killer.”

“Could it indeed.”

“Sir. Yes.”

Hillier observed him. “I take it you’re arguing on her behalf, then. Is this noblesse oblige, Tommy, or have you, perhaps, another reason?”

Lynley didn’t look away. He’d certainly considered this point before coming up to the AC’s office, but he hadn’t been able to get to what felt like the whole truth of the matter as far as his intentions were concerned. He was going on instinct alone, and he had to hope that the instinct he was operating under was the lofty instinct for justice. It was, after all, so easy to lie to oneself when it came to sex.