Jane Casey - Cruel Acts

‘There was a reason the CPS didn’t charge him with her kidnap and murder,’ Hollingwood said. He was watching me, his face open and friendly. I knew when I was being placated and it prickled along my nerves. ‘I didn’t want Rachel Healy on the indictment. The evidence that he was involved in her disappearance was circumstantial at best. The forensics were the weakest part of our case. I was of the opinion that including her and introducing the idea that a third woman had died in that room – whether it was Rachel Healy or not – could only damage us. It would have provided an opportunity to the defence to muddy the waters. We had no body. We were asking the jury to take too many leaps of faith – that she was dead, that Stone had been involved, that her body had been left somewhere other than the area where the other two women were found, for a reason we didn’t know. Too many questions there, don’t you think?’

‘Questions that deserve an answer,’ I said.

‘We did our best.’ Whitlock, bristling.

Derwent got there before I could. ‘No one’s saying you didn’t. There’s a reason she’s on this case.’

She being me. I opened my mouth to change the subject before he said anything else, but he steamed on.

‘Kerrigan can charm the birds from the trees and find things you never knew were missing. If there’s a way to trace Rachel Healy and tie her murder into this case, Kerrigan will find it. Once she’s decided she’s going to do something, she doesn’t give up.’ Derwent paused for a beat. ‘It makes her bloody irritating to work with, obviously, but she’s right about this one.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, and he grinned at me. A ripple of amusement ran around the table, a welcome break in the tension. I waited until they’d stopped laughing.

‘Anything on Rachel Healy will be new to the defence. If Stone killed her, he thinks he got away with it. At the moment we don’t even know where she was before she disappeared. It’s not going to be easy to make enquiries after so many years, but it’s surprising what people can remember when you ask.’

‘All this time and not a sign of her body. I really wanted to find her.’ Whitlock grimaced. ‘I dream about her sometimes. Gets under your skin, you know.’

I did know, all too well.

‘We’ll look after her,’ Derwent said to Whitlock. ‘We won’t let you down.’

The retired policeman nodded and attempted to smile. It flickered across his face uncertainly, like a lightbulb about to blow.

‘The rural dream. You can keep it,’ Derwent said. ‘Why would anyone want to live here?’

‘Grammar schools. Commutable distance from London. Local amenities. Decent lifestyle.’

‘Yeah, but apart from that.’

‘I don’t think we’re seeing it at its best.’

We were driving out of London towards Aylesbury, a medium-sized market town where Sara Grey had grown up. Her parents still lived there, outside the town. It was a cold day, the sky the colour of steel, and the fields were boggy from heavy rain the night before. Crows hunched in the branches of trees and along fences like witches’ familiars, their rasping call echoing across the countryside.

I went back to the opinion column I was reading out from my phone.

‘“In the era of social media, when everyone has access to the internet all the time, is it even possible to have a fair trial by jury? A case such as that of Leo Stone is the ideal test: a horrific series of headline-grabbing crimes, a suspect who seems to fit the image of a ruthless killer, grieving families and photogenic victims, and an unregulated internet full of rumours. If it’s a crime to be unattractive, then the prisons should be overflowing. Leo Stone was on trial for murder but he was judged on his past and his appearance. That’s not justice – it’s prejudice.”’

I paused expectantly, and was not disappointed.

‘What fucking horseshit.’ Derwent glowered at a driver who was failing to give way to him.

‘There’s more.’

‘Of course there is.’

‘“What must Leo Stone’s lawyers have thought when they read juror Stan Maxwell’s self-published account of the trial? They must have been pleased that they had grounds for an appeal, but I think they must have been horrified too. How easily a man can lose his freedom and his reputation. By his own account, Maxwell and his fellow jurors read the rumours that spread, unchecked, across the internet. They searched for the secrets of Leo Stone’s life: the missing pieces of the puzzle that they weren’t supposed to know. They cheated the system. They cheated Leo Stone. They cheated justice. This is how easy it is to lock up an innocent man: a few unflattering pictures, a few stories that float without attribution or evidence to tether them to the facts of the case, a few arrogant and prejudiced jurors with smartphones.”’

Derwent grunted. ‘Well, he’s not wrong there. Nice of him to mention the dead women too.’

I checked. ‘He didn’t.’

‘I know,’ he said patiently. ‘That was my point.’

‘Wait for the next bit.’

‘Go on.’

‘“But even if they had confined themselves to looking at the evidence, there’s no reason to believe the jury would have been able to make a fair decision. Two murder appeals have been successful already this year because of the revelation that the Home Office pathologist Dr Glen Hanshaw failed to uphold the highest standards of his profession in the months before his death, through ill health and arrogance. Hanshaw is dead and gone. His legacy is a black mark on the legal system that nothing can erase.”’

‘Fuck’s sake.’

‘Don’t crash the car.’ I put a hand on the dashboard to brace myself as Derwent swerved impatiently around a cyclist.

‘That makes it sound as if poor old Hanshaw was deliberately trying to trick people. He was doing his best.’

‘Which wasn’t good enough.’

Derwent shifted in his seat, irritated. ‘He could have done with more oversight but he wasn’t that sort of person. There was no one around to tell him he wasn’t coping. At least, no one he trusted. No one he’d listen to.’

‘If that ever happens to you, I promise I’ll tell you to quit.’

‘If I’m dying and I still want to go to work every day, you have my permission to shoot me.’ He glanced sideways at me. ‘This is why you need to start looking for a new bloke.’

‘Sorry, what?’

‘You’ll end up like Glen Hanshaw if you don’t. You have nothing in your life but work.’

‘Excuse me —’

Derwent held up a hand. ‘Save the outrage. Tell me, when was the last time you went out? Not on a date. Just out.’

I opened my mouth to tell him it was none of his business and shut it again.

‘Ages, is it? Months? Last year some time?’

‘I don’t remember.’

He whistled. ‘Worse than I thought.’

‘I’ve been busy. I’ve been working a lot.’

‘Pulling double shifts. You must be raking in the overtime.’

There it was: a door offering me a way out. I could explain myself by telling Derwent I was just saving up for a deposit so I could buy my own flat and stop paying him rent.

The trouble was, it was a lie.

Worse than that, it was a lie he would spot in a heartbeat.