We were assured by the prosecution that they would be calling their DNA expert witness in due course, together with a member of the police forensic team that had carried out the tests.
‘Inspector,’ said the prosecution QC. ‘What model of car did the defendant own at the time of the murder?’
‘An Audi A4,’ he said. ‘Silver.’
‘Yes,’ went on the QC, ‘and in the course of your enquiries did you determine if this car was fitted with a security alarm and immobilizer system?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was.’
‘And was the system found to be functioning correctly when the car was examined after the defendant’s arrest?’
‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘It was.’
‘So would it be accurate to say that the car could only be unlocked and then driven if the correct key had been used for the purpose?’
‘That is my understanding, yes,’ said the inspector.
‘Did you find any keys for the vehicle?’ the QC asked him.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘There were two such keys found in Mr Mitchell’s premises when he was arrested. One was on the defendant, in his trouser pocket on a ring with other keys, and the other one,’ he consulted his notebook, ‘was in the top drawer of Mr Mitchell’s desk in his study.’
‘And did you approach an Audi dealer and ask them about keys for their cars?’
‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘They informed me that it was normal for two keys to be issued with a new car and also that replacement or additional keys are only provided after strict security checks.’
‘And had any additional keys been requested for Mr Mitchell’s car?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘They had not.’
‘One last thing, Inspector,’ the QC said with a flourish. ‘Was Mr Mitchell’s car locked when you went to his home to arrest him?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was.’
‘Your witness,’ the prosecution QC said, turning to me.
I looked at the clock on the courtroom wall. It read twenty past four.
‘Would you like to start your cross-examination in the morning, Mr Mason?’ asked the judge expectantly.
‘If it pleases My Lord,’ I said, ‘I would like to ask a few questions now.’
The judge looked at the clock.
‘Ten minutes, then,’ he said.
‘Thank you, My Lord.’ I turned to the witness and consulted my papers. ‘Inspector McNeile, can you please tell the court how it was that the police first became aware that Mr Barlow had been murdered?’
He had left that bit out of his evidence.
‘I can’t remember how I first heard of it,’ he said.
‘I asked, Inspector, not how you personally found out, but how the police force in general was informed.’
‘I believe it was a call to the police station reporting an intruder at Mr Barlow’s residence,’ he said.
‘Who was this call from?’ I asked him.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t have that information.’
‘But surely, Inspector, all emergency calls to the police are logged with the time they are made, and who they are from?’
‘That is the usual practice, yes,’ he said.
‘So how is it that you have no record of who it was that called the police to tell you that an intruder had been seen at Barlow’s house?’
He looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘The call was taken by the telephone on the desk of a civilian worker in the front office of the police station.’
‘Was that not unusual?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he replied.
‘And was the number of that telephone widely available to the public?’ I asked him.
‘Not that I’m aware of,’ he said.
‘Do you not think it is strange that the call was taken on a telephone where the number was not widely known, a telephone where no log was taken of incoming calls, and a telephone on which no recording equipment was attached so that the caller and his number would be unknown?’
‘Mr Mason,’ the judge interjected. ‘That’s three questions in one.’
‘I’m sorry, My Lord,’ I said. ‘Inspector McNeile, would you agree with me that, until the police arrived at Mr Barlow’s house to discover his body, it is likely that the only person or persons who knew that Mr Barlow was dead would be those responsible for his murder?’
‘I suppose so, yes,’ he said.
‘Inspector, how many years in total have you been a detective?’ I asked him.
‘Fifteen,’ he said.
‘And how often in those fifteen years,’ I said to him, ‘have you been telephoned anonymously, on an unrecorded line, to report an intruder in a property so that the police would turn up there and discover a murder victim surrounded by a mass of incriminating evidence?’
‘That’s enough, Mr Mason,’ said the judge.
‘My Lord,’ I said respectfully, and sat down. It had been a minor victory only, in a day of unremitting bad news.
‘Court adjourned until ten o’clock tomorrow morning,’ said the judge.
‘All rise.’
Eleanor didn’t come to Oxford on Monday night. In one way I was relieved, in another, disappointed. When I arrived back at the hotel from court I lay down on the bed, my head aching slightly from all the concentration. This slight headache soon developed into a full-on head-banger.
It was the first such headache I had suffered for some time and I had begun to forget the ferocity of the pain behind my eyes. During the first three weeks immediately after the fall at Cheltenham, I had suffered these on most days and I knew that relaxing horizontally on a bed for a couple of hours was the best and only remedy. A couple of paracetamol tablets took the edge off it, but I had carelessly left my stronger codeine pills at home. They were somewhere in the shambles that had once been my bathroom.
At some point I drifted off to sleep because I was awakened by the phone ringing beside the bed.
‘Yes?’ I said into it, struggling to sit up because of the shell.
‘Mr Mason?’ a female voice said.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘This is Nikki Payne here,’ she said. ‘I’ve been to the Home Office and the South African embassy as you asked and neither of them had any record of a Jacques Rensburg. But they did of someone called Jacques van Rensburg. In fact there are three of them who live in England. Apparently van Rensburg is quite a common name in South Africa.’
It would be.
‘Two of the South African Jacques van Rensburgs living here are at university, here on student visas. One is at Durham and the other is a post-graduate at Cambridge and both have been here for the past two years.’
I suppose it was possible that the Jacques we wanted had given up working with horses for a life of academia, but somehow I doubted it.
‘What about the third one?’ I asked.
‘His visa has expired, but it seems he’s still here although his right to work has expired too. But, apparently, that’s not unusual. That’s all I have for the moment.’
‘Well done,’ I said to her.
‘I’m not done yet,’ she said. ‘Anice chap at the embassy is searching for the third Jacques back in South Africa just in case he went home without telling the Home Office. There aren’t any proper records kept when people leave the UK, only when they arrive.’
It was true, I thought. No one from the immigration department checks your passport on the way out, only on the way in. The airlines only check their passengers’ passports to ensure they have the same names as on their boarding passes.
‘But you did show them the photo?’ I asked her.
‘Of course I did,’ she said. ‘My friend at the embassy is trying to get me a copy of this Jacques van Rensburg’s passport snap sent from the South African Department of Home Affairs in Pretoria so I can see if it is actually him.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Call me tomorrow if you get anywhere.’