Better. The adrenalin was beginning to flow. If only that juror would stop playing with his watch. This is important, damn you!
‘Of course Ms Gilbert was angry and upset. Something terrible had happened to her and she wanted to blame someone for it. So she blamed the first man who came into her mind — the man she’d had an argument with that night. But she didn’t know it was him, she couldn’t possibly know. Nor could her little son. He was brave, wasn’t he? Heroically brave. But he was only a child, he believed what his mother told him.’
So what about the rest of the evidence, she asked. The prosecution claimed Gary had gone there to steal a watch — well, where was the watch then? Why wasn’t it in Gary’s house? Where was the hood? That wasn’t there either. There was no semen, no fingerprints, no forensic evidence to show he had ever been in Sharon’s house. True, he’d been seen in a street not far away, but he had an explanation for that. The police claimed his friend Sean didn’t exist — well, a witness had come to court who’d met him, after all. Gary’s alibi didn’t show him as a very pleasant character, but that wasn’t the point. They didn’t have to like him to believe him. And if they believed him, he was not guilty. Simple as that.
‘The prosecution have failed to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt, members of the jury. There are many doubts in this case, very reasonable doubts indeed. Their case is as full of holes as a colander. They can’t prove that Gary entered Ms Gilbert’s house; they have failed to prove that he raped her. And so the only verdict you can possibly reach, is not guilty.’
She sat down. It sounded lame to her, not the sharp, incisive performance she had planned. But she had done her job. It was as much — more — than a lying thug like Gary was entitled to. Now she could think of Emily.
The judge adjourned the court for lunch and Sarah immediately phoned home.
‘Hello?’ Bob’s voice sounded hopeful, desperate.
‘Bob? It’s me. Any news?’
‘No.’ The hope in his voice faded to a flat, bitter, resentment as he recognised hers. ‘Did you get your rapist off?’
‘Don’t know yet. Have the police been in touch?’
‘Yes. They’re all over the village, they’ve seen Simon, they’re trying to trace this phone call but it won’t be any good, how can it be? She’s just gone, Sarah — vanished!’
‘Have you been by the phone all morning?’
‘What the hell do you think I’ve been doing? You should be here, Sarah, so I could go out and look!’
‘As soon as we have a verdict I will be. But there’s not much we can do, Bob, is there? If she’s gone of her own accord she’ll come back when she wants to.’
‘And if she hasn’t gone of her own accord?’
‘Don’t say that, Bob, please. Of course she has.’
‘What’re all these policemen doing here then?’
‘Bob, don’t let’s quarrel, please. I’ll be home as soon as I can and you can page me any time if something happens. I’ll talk to her when she comes back. That’s when I can really help. When she’s actually there.’
‘And you’re actually here too. That’s the point, isn’t it?’
‘All right, yes, when we’re both there. And you. All three of us.’
‘Right,’ Bob said quietly. And put the phone down.
There was a bicycle in the hallway, and Terry caught his foot twice in the stair carpet. As he knocked he could hear the sound of the TV inside. No one answered. He knocked again, louder this time, and the door jerked suddenly open.
‘Not now, for Chrissake! It’s two thirty five!’
The door slammed shut and the volume of the TV inside reached a crescendo. An angry voice yelled something like ‘nitwit dettori.’ Then the door opened.
‘Well, what is it?’
‘Police.’ Terry showed his warrant card. ‘Can we come in?’
‘Christ, it never rains but it pours! I ain’t done nothing.’
‘We’re investigating a missing girl …’
Inside there was an armchair, and a bed with The Racing Post on it. The man, about forty, balding, in a shiny grey suit, glared at them defensively. Terry explained why he had come.
‘Yeah, all right, so I did phone from there yesterday morning. It don’t make me a child snatcher, does it?’
‘No sir, of course not, but we have to investigate, that’s all. Would you mind telling us who you were telephoning?’
‘Who I always phone, o’course.’ The man jerked his thumb at the TV. The sound was off but Terry could see a racehorse loping nonchalantly into the winner’s enclosure, surrounded by an ecstatic crowd of owners, trainer, jockey and stable lad, all delighted at their good luck.
‘Blasted 33-1 rag gets up to the favourite on the line. I had twenty quid on at 4–1. Sounds pathetic, don’t it, but that’s a big bet for me nowadays. Sodding Dettori got in front too soon!’
‘You were ringing your bookie, you mean?’
‘Got it in one, my son. I used to make money at it. And will again, I promise you. OK?’
A dejected Terry was already leaving when Harry Easby asked: ‘You didn’t happen to notice anyone in the phone box before you, did you, sir?’
The man frowned. ‘Dunno. Yeah, wait a mo, I think there was, matter of fact. Student, probably — lots of ‘em round here. Music on all bloody night, sometimes. Thump, thump, thump.’
‘You couldn’t describe him, could you?’
‘Long hair, pony tail, ring in one ear. I think I’ve seen him before, in that house over there.’ He pointed out of the window. ‘I could be wrong, though.’
Outside, Terry looked at the list from this morning’s search. The house the man had indicated contained eight bedsits. There had been no one at home in three of them that morning.
Sarah tried, but failed, to find anything unfair in the judge’s summing up. He gave reasonable weight to all aspects of the evidence, asking the jury to focus their minds particularly on the question of identification, and the impressions they had formed of the truthfulness of the two key witnesses, Sharon Gilbert and Gary Harker.
Which if they have any sense will send Gary down, Sarah thought.
He repeated that they should ignore anything they had read in the press, and disregard the remarks Sharon had made about Gary having attacked other women.
‘He is charged with one crime only before this court, and that is the only matter you are to consider, members of the jury. And in view of what Ms Gilbert alleged, I must emphasize that the defendant is charged with no other crimes against women at all, apart from this one. It is fair that you should know that.’
It is indeed, Sarah thought, surprised. He must be very confident of a conviction to say that. It probably dishes my chance of an appeal, too. My presentation must have been awful.
But she cared less than she once had. As soon as the jury were out she phoned home again.
‘Bob? Any news?’
‘They rang to ask if she knows any students living off Blossom Street. Does she?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘That’s what I said too. Where would she meet students? She’s only a kid.’
‘Clubs. Parties. She’s been to a few, you know.’
‘She’s not old enough, Sarah!’
‘She’s fifteen. I was her age when I met Kevin.’
‘Christ! Don’t remind me!’
But you weren’t there, Bob, Sarah thought. You don’t know what it was like. When I first met Kevin it was magic, for a while. As though the world had been black and white and then someone switched the colour on. Maybe it’s like that for Emily now.
‘When are you coming home?’ Bob asked.
‘After the verdict. I’ve got to stay for that.’
‘Oh yes, of course. Mustn’t let your rapist down, must you?’
I don’t think I’ve ever really hated Bob before now, Sarah thought as she put the phone down. Why does he keep slipping this needle under my nails? To make me feel guilty for going to work? Or because he knows there’s a part of me that doesn’t think Emily’s in danger at all, but is having the time of her life with some boy just as I did with Kevin? And he can’t stand that because he’s not half the lover Kevin was. Never could be.