The traffic police spotted the van on the A64. When they stopped it two men got out and sprinted away across the fields, but one of the traffic policemen, a rugby back, brought down Gary with a fine tackle as he paused to cross a ditch. A second squad car arrived in time to rescue Sean from a farmer with a shotgun who had found him, covered in mud and cow pats, fiddling with wires under the dashboard of his Range Rover.
Terry watched as the pair of them were booked in at the police station by the custody sergeant. The knife, wrapped in a plastic bag, had already been checked in. In the back of the van the arresting officers had also found a rucksack, packed with clothes and other items.
‘Is that yours, son?’ Sergeant Chisholm asked Gary.
‘No, it’s his,’ said Gary sullenly. ‘All of it’s his.’
‘Yours, then,’ said Sergeant Chisholm placidly, turning to Sean.
‘Never seen it before in me life.’
Terry studied the man he had been hunting for so long. He was filthy after his attempted escape. Apart from that he was big, powerfully built like Gary, with the red-gold hair and boxer’s nose they’d seen in the photofit. But it was the eyes that interested Terry mostly — the eyes that he was going to look into during the interrogation to come. As far as he could see they were flat, devoid of any obvious emotion — no fear, no panic, no resentment or anger at his predicament. Just emptiness, and a sense of sullen, reserved control. This was not over yet, clearly.
He turned his attention to the rucksack, which Sergeant Chisholm was unpacking methodically. Clothes mostly, and a few items of toiletry, as though for a journey. And then, at the bottom, a crumpled brown envelope. Sean shifted uneasily as the sergeant emptied it.
‘A pair of female panties, white, stained — these yours, son?’
‘None of it’s mine.’
‘No? And yet it’s your rucksack, Gary says. And what’s this — dog collar? And a scrapbook?’ He opened it. ‘Oh my God! Sir — I think you’d better have a look at this.’
Terry and Sergeant Chisholm leafed through the book together. Newspaper cuttings, locks of hair, and photographs. Large, black and white pictures. The sort of quality any scenes of crime officer would die for. The sort of subject two women had died for.
Terry’s phone trembled in his pocket. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he answered.
‘Sir? It’s Harry. I’m at the court now.’
‘Oh yes, Harry. Good. Did you get the trial stopped?’
‘No, sir. That’s what I’m ringing about. The judge won’t listen. Says Sharon’s words are hearsay. Not real evidence.’
‘What?’ The graphic pictures in front of Terry’s eyes were branding themselves on his brain. ‘Why the hell not?’
‘Usual lawyer crap, sir. Anyway the point is that the jury’s still out but they may come back any time. I did my best, sir, but …’
‘OK, Harry, just wait there. Tell them I’m on my way.’
Shoving his phone into his pocket, Terry slipped the scrapbook into an evidence bag. ‘Book this out sergeant. I need it for evidence.’
Sergeant Chisholm protested. ‘Sir, you can’t! I need to list each item separately.’
‘Later, sergeant, later. This is more important now. I’ll take full responsibility.’
As he ran down the stairs, two at a time, the phone in his pocket said: ‘DCI Churchill’s here too, sir. He’s not very happy …’
‘This is it, then,’ Lucy said. ‘Chin up, Simon. Hope for the best.’
‘Yeah, OK. Now or never, eh?’
Handcuffed to the security guards, Simon made his way up the grim concrete stairs, into the wood-panelled courtroom with its stucco pillars and elaborate domed ceiling. The court was full. Above him the public gallery creaked and hummed, fifty mouths muttering, a hundred eyes staring down. Lucy smiling encouragingly back at him as she took her seat.
In front of Lucy, he could see his mother’s slim gown and the back of her horsehair wig. He wondered why she didn’t turn and smile too when he came in, and if it might be a bad omen. Neither he nor Lucy had seen Sarah since she left them half an hour ago, and Lucy didn’t know why she had gone.
The judge in his red robes entered, bowed, and sat down. The clerk intoned the ancient formula: ‘All those having to do with the case of the Crown versus Simon Newby draw nigh and give your attendance. Her Majesty’s Crown Court at York with his Lordship S. Mookerjee presiding is now in session.’ The judge nodded to the usher to fetch the jury.
For a minute, perhaps longer, there was silence. Simon stared at his mother’s neck, slender under the ribbons of the wig. Why doesn’t she turn and smile, he wondered desperately. He crossed his fingers like a child. If only she turns and looks at me it’ll be all right. Come on, Mum, turn. Turn now!
But she didn’t.
Simon watched anxiously as the jurors filed back into court, willing them to meet his eyes. He had read somewhere that if they looked at you it was all right; if they avoided your eyes you were done for. Six of them glanced at him. Three of those looked away quickly when they met his eyes. None of them smiled.
When they had all taken their places the clerk of the court rose.
‘Members of the jury, would your foreman please stand.’
Simon closed his eyes. When he opened them it was still true. The elderly woman at the back, the one with the grey hair and the string of pearls, was standing up. She wasn’t looking at him. None of them were.
Terry drove with one hand on the wheel and the other holding the phone to his ear. Twice on the busy Fulford Road he had pulled out to overtake, once causing a car to hoot at him directly outside the police station. He was talking to Harry Easby.
‘Look, Harry, I’ve got new evidence which proves it was him beyond a shadow of a doubt. You’ve got to get back in there and stop it, son, before it’s to late.’
Harry was on the steps outside the court. ‘I can’t, sir, you don’t understand. The lawyers have told DCI Churchill what I tried to do, and he’s hopping mad, sir, I daren’t go back in …’
‘If you don’t, Harry, there’ll be a miscarriage of justice!’
‘If I do there’ll be murder, sir. You haven’t seen him. Anyway I haven’t got the evidence to show. You’ll just have to bring it yourself before the jury come back.’
‘That’s what I’m trying to do, Harry — Christ!’ Terry swerved to avoid a cyclist. ‘I’m in Fishergate now, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Just stall them till then, Harry, will you?’
‘Just get here, sir, will you?’ But Terry’s phone had already switched off. Cautiously, Harry made his way back into court, hoping he would not run into DCI Churchill on the way.
Sarah couldn’t face Simon. It was all she could do to sit here, facing the judge and the assembling jury. She was conscious of Phil Turner a few feet away, but couldn’t meet his eyes. He had beaten her, persuaded the judge to disallow evidence that strongly suggested Simon’s innocence. There was no justice in it but what did that matter? He had won the game of proof.
As the elderly woman identified herself as the jury foreman Sarah shuddered, as Simon had done. My worst enemy on the jury, the one who had fiddled in her handbag when I was making my strongest points.
‘Madam foreman, have you reached a verdict?’
‘We have, yes.’ A thin clear voice, slightly more educated than Sarah had expected, but cold, too, without emotion. The old cow would probably vote for hanging if she could. Oh well, I’ll win on appeal, but that could take years.
‘And is …’
A hand was tugging on Sarah’s sleeve. Turning, she saw it was Harry Easby, the detective who’d brought the news of Sharon’s death and Sean’s confession. He was crouched, whispering something to her earnestly. ‘Sorry, what?’
‘DCI Bateson’s on his way. He’s got more evidence. He says it proves Sean did it.’
‘Yes, but it’s too late now — look!’
The court clerk, irritated by their whispered conversation, frowned at them in reproof, before continuing, in a slightly louder voice. ‘… and is that the verdict of you all?’