She hung up and I rested my head back onto the pillow. My headache was only slightly better, so I lay there for a while longer, reclosed my eyes and drifted back off to sleep.
The phone on the bedside cabinet rang once more, waking me again. Damn it, I thought, can’t a man have any peace?
‘Hello,’ I said, irritated.
‘Just make sure you lose the case,’ said a whispering voice.
I was suddenly wide awake.
‘Who are you?’ I demanded loudly down the line.
‘Never mind who,’ said the whisperer. ‘Just do it.’
The line went dead.
CHAPTER 16
Detective Inspector McNeile was back in the witness box on Tuesday morning for further cross-examination.
‘I remind you that you are still under oath,’ the judge said to him.
‘Yes, My Lord,’ he replied.
I levered myself to my feet, pulling on the lectern on the bench in front of me.
‘Inspector McNeile,’ I said. ‘Yesterday afternoon you told us how the police came to find out about the murder of Mr Barlow from a phone call to a non-recorded, non-emergency number, is that right?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. There was no harm, I thought, in reminding the jury.
‘Yes, thank you,’ I said. ‘Now I believe that the police also discovered that Mr Barlow had received a text message on his mobile telephone on the day of his death. Is that correct?’
‘Yes,’ he said again.
‘And did this text message say, and I quote.’ I picked up a sheet of paper myself and read from it. ‘“I’m going to come round and sort you out properly you sneaking little bastard”?’ I paused for effect. ‘And then the message was signed off with Mr Mitchell’s name?’
‘I haven’t got access to the actual text,’ he said, turning to the judge as if for assistance.
‘No,’ I said. ‘But does that sound about right to you?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I believe it said something like that.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, putting down the paper. ‘And were the police able to establish that this text message had indeed been sent to Mr Barlow by Mr Mitchell?’
‘No,’ he said softly.
‘Sorry, Inspector,’ I said. ‘Could you please speak up, so the jury can hear you?’
‘No,’ he repeated more strongly.
‘And were the police able to establish who was, in fact, responsible for sending that text message to Mr Barlow?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘We were not.’
‘Am I correct in saying that you discovered that the message had been sent anonymously by a free text messaging service available to anyone with access to any computer and the internet anywhere in the world?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That is correct.’
‘And is it correct that you were unable to establish which computer had been used to send the message?’
‘That is correct,’ he replied.
‘So, in addition to an anonymous, unrecorded telephone call to the police directing them to a murder scene to discover incriminating evidence against the defendant.’ I glanced at the judge who was looking back at me intently. ‘There was also an anonymous text message sent to Mr Barlow’s telephone that was made to appear as if it had come from the defendant?’
‘I didn’t say that it hadn’t come from the defendant,’ said the inspector. ‘I only said that we were unable to establish that it had.’
‘Are you claiming now that, in fact, it did come from the defendant?’ I asked him with mock astonishment.
‘We don’t know who it was from,’ he said, digging himself further into a hole.
‘Thank you,’ I said to him. ‘No further questions.’
I sat down feeling rather pleased with myself. Bruce Lygon patted me gently on the shoulder. ‘Well done,’ he whispered.
I turned round to thank him and caught sight of young Julian Trent sitting right next to Mr and Mrs Barlow in the seats reserved for the public. He was watching me. I went quite cold. Damn it, I thought, how much of that cross-examination had he been listening to?
The next witness for the prosecution had been called and there was a lull in proceedings as the court usher went outside the courtroom trying to find the right person. Julian Trent watched me watching him and he clearly decided it was time to leave. He stood up and pushed past the usher as he made his way to the exit. For a moment I thought about going after him, but good sense prevailed so I stayed put. I could hardly chase him on crutches and I am sure the judge wouldn’t have taken kindly to me leaving the court in the light of the continued, but unsurprising, absence of Sir James Horley QC.
My cross-examination of Detective Inspector McNeile proved to be the high point of the day for the defence. The three further witnesses called by the prosecution gave us little respite from the damning evidence that implied that the murder had been carried out by the man in the dock.
A specialist DNA witness was followed by a police forensic science expert. Both explained to the jury, in monotonous detail, the method of extracting DNA from blood and hair, and then went on to show beyond any doubt that drops of blood and two hairs from Scot Barlow had been found in the driver’s footwell of Steve Mitchell’s car and also that more of Barlow’s blood and four more of his hairs had been found adhering to the underside of both of Steve Mitchell’s wellington boots, subsequently discovered at the Mitchell premises.
They further were able to show that fresh bloody footprints at the scene matched both of Mr Mitchell’s wellingtons.
I did manage to extract a small victory for our side by getting the forensic expert to concede that none of Mr Mitchell’s DNA had been discovered in Barlow’s residence, on the murder weapon, or on the deceased’s body. Furthermore, I also got them both to agree that, even though Barlow’s DNA had been found on Mr Mitchell’s boots and in his car, this did not prove that Mr Mitchell had been wearing his boots at the time, nor driving his car at any point during that afternoon.
In re-examination by the prosecution, however, the first expert did state that traces of Mr Mitchell’s DNA had been found inside his own boots, as you might have expected, but that no other person’s DNA had also been found there. It didn’t exactly further our argument that someone else must have been wearing Mitchell’s wellies at the time of the murder, but it didn’t destroy it completely either. I managed partly to salvage the situation by getting the second expert to agree that someone could wear a pair of rubber boots without leaving any DNA trace in them, especially someone who was keen not to do so.
The final witness of the day was the pathologist who had done the post-mortem examination of Scot Barlow’s body, and his evidence wasn’t for the squeamish. The two curved metal prongs of the pitchfork had not, as I had imagined, passed through the rib cage and then into the heart, but had been thrust upwards underneath the ribs, through the diaphragm, one of them entering the heart from below. The five-feet-long double-pronged murder weapon was produced as an exhibit. It looked huge and menacing in the stillness of the courtroom with its ten-inch-long thin, curved, and very sharp metal prongs glinting in the light. The pathologist was invited by the prosecution counsel to demonstrate, on the floor of the court, the upward thrusting action that would have been needed to cause the injuries sustained by Barlow’s body. It was a moment of high drama and I noticed some members of the jury shuddering with revulsion. The pathologist explained that a single strike had been sufficient to cause death within just a few minutes with only moderate bleeding from the two wounds, and also a little from the victim’s mouth.
The bleeding had not been so moderate, I thought, that both of Mitchell’s wellington boots hadn’t been able to walk in it.
The pathologist conceded that considerable force would have been needed to cause the fatal injury but, as he said, probably less than that needed to go through the rib cage, where there would have been the risk of one of the fork’s prongs hitting and bouncing off a rib. The prosecution counsel then established without difficulty that a fit man of thirty-three, especially one who was a professional sportsman, would have easily had the strength required to deliver the fatal blow, even if he did only stand five foot six inches tall in his socks.