Walker blinked. He couldn’t quite believe his luck. ‘Did you report this?’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Mrs Gillingham looked pathetic now, guilt leaking out of her like battery acid.

  ‘I – we – didn’t want to subject the girls to any further distress. We just had him taken away – the social workers agreed at the time that nobody’s interest would be served by a prosecution or anything like that.’

  Richards leaned forward and said, quietly, ‘Did he sexually abuse them?’

  The woman had controlled herself now. Her voice was a little shaky, the emotions discernible but contained. She would make a good witness.

  ‘He didn’t actually have sex with either of them. But he . . . touched them, you know. Fondled them. According to the presumption of the doctor, and the counsellors we spoke to subsequently, his own sexual abuse could have made him impotent.’

  Richards had brought her visitor a glass of water and now she gulped three quick mouthfuls before placing the cup carefully on the desk.

  ‘I wanted to tell you this because I was feeling guilty. Perhaps if we had taken this matter further, not simply returned him to care, then this tragedy – this murder – would never have happened.’

  ‘Mrs Gillingham,’ asked Walker, ‘would you be prepared to make a statement?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I would.’

  ‘And would your daughters?’

  ‘Superintendent, I can’t speak for my daughters. They are now eighteen and twenty years old. You must ask them.’

  ‘I shall have to do that, Mrs Gillingham. I hope you understand. Do they both still live at home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then may I make an appointment to come and see them?’

  *

  Michael Dunn’s head had not stopped pounding all day. Now it felt cold as well, because those bastards had shaved off his hair. Said he was lousy, the pillocks. They’d spent ages taking his particulars, giving him bedding and suchlike. Now he was being marched through the prison and it was unbelievable how the inmates already knew about him – who he was, why he was here.

  As he walked past the locked doors of cells, he could hear catcalls and wolf howls and the snarling of imaginary animals. He was called nonce and child killer and he was threatened at every step with the particular names of the bits of him these men wanted to cut off and make him eat. Michael Dunn was terrified.

  The screws marched him into an empty cell, where there was a bed with the mattress folded.

  ‘Make up that bed, Dunn. Wing governor’ll be along to see you shortly. Behave yourself.’

  The steel door closed with a horrible finality and the prisoner looked at the door with its spyhole. He sat down on the bare bedsprings.

  ‘I’m innocent.’

  His voice was a whimper in this bare box, where there was no one to hear him. He covered his face with his hands.

  ‘I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it!’

  CHAPTER 14

  MONDAY 7 OCTOBER. 10 A.M.

  WITH HIS decision to prefer a charge of murder against Michael Dunn, Walker kissed goodbye to his control of the case. From now on the special casework lawyer of the Crown Prosecution Service, and not Detective Superintendent Walker, would call the shots.

  But Walker’s team couldn’t pack up and go home just yet. The job of collecting evidence and processing paperwork went on uninterrupted, but now more sedately. The first few days had been a race against time, Walker driving his team like the devil in pursuit of the damned. Now, under this new driver, the wheels of investigation slowed to walking pace.

  A murder trial is a demanding taskmaster. Everything taken from Dunn’s flat had to be processed by Mallory’s staff. The doll was followed up – its manufacturer in China established, its importer traced, the shops that stocked it itemised. Dunn’s past was raked over with archaeological thoroughness and the key witnesses in the case were reinterviewed, their remarks double-and triple-checked against the statements they’d already made. For the Crown there must be no unnecessary weakness in the chain of proof. And, above all, there must be no surprises at the trial.

  The man who now controlled the case was Clive Griffith – the special casework lawyer. His word actually was the law in relation to the prosecution of Michael Dunn. He was a bureaucrat lawyer, always with one eye on the bottom line. It made him, in a joke he liked to make to his golfing chums, a conviction lawyer: to him, every acquittal was a threat; the only word he wanted to hear was ‘guilty’.

  Griffith’s obsession with convictions made his weekly casework conference a form of Chinese water torture for Walker, as the details of his case were examined drip by pessimistic drip.

  ‘Ah, Superintendent Walker, Inspector North,’ said Griffith, hurrying in to the conference room. He was followed by the marvellous figure of his caseworker, a tall, black stunner called Jennifer Abantu, who carried two thick files. Whenever the atmosphere became too rancid, Walker would secretly refresh his eyes by glancing at Miss Abantu’s fabulous body and flawless, sphinx-like face.

  ‘I’m sorry to be a little late. Now, where are we? Ah, thank you, Jennifer.’

  Miss Abantu had dumped her files on the table. She slid one of them towards her boss. Griffith reached for the file.

  ‘Look, Superintendent Walker, I have to tell you I’m really afraid the Dunn case is running out of petrol. I’m seriously thinking about pulling the plug, before we get in too deep.’

  Walker was staggered. All that bloody work down the toilet! The plug had been pulled on him before, of course – several times, in fact. And every time he had been staggered.

  ‘We’re in deep already, aren’t we? And we haven’t had the final forensic report yet. I’m due over there later. So you’re not telling me we won’t go to trial?’

  ‘Well, I am under a statutory duty to enter a discontinuance if there is no reasonable prospect of securing a conviction. I do feel these circumstance come close to falling into that category.’

  ‘Are you serious? Are you really saying—?’

  ‘The fact is, you haven’t established he harmed her in any way. The rope to, er, coin a phrase, is pretty ropy.’

  Walker shot a glance at North and deliberately drew his chair nearer to the conference table. He cleared his throat. ‘Mr Griffith, Michael Dunn is a known drunk. He hadn’t washed either himself or his clothes for months. Do you think any jury is going to believe that he went to the trouble of stealing a washing line because he had a lot of laundry to hang up?’

  ‘You can’t prove he stole the rope. And there is no mechanical fit between the end of the two bits you’re offering in evidence.’

  DI North interrupted. She had never thought much of Mallory’s dismissal of the rope found in Dunn’s rubbish bin. ‘Mr Griffith, what if he cut the rope twice?’ she said. ‘That would explain why the ends don’t fit.’

  Griffith licked his thumb and finger and began leafing through the file. Walker watched him for a moment, then said, ‘I wouldn’t be pushing this so much if the type of rope wasn’t the same. Not similar – identical!’

  Griffith was perusing a page. He got out his pen and jotted a note in the margin. ‘Hmm. Tell you what – we’ll solicit an opinion on the rope from Treasury counsel.’

  ‘It’s not just the rope. There’s Mrs Gillingham’s statement.’

  ‘What page is that on?’

  Walker’s own file was tagged with Post-it notes. He found the right place. ‘Twenty-four.’

  ‘Ah, yes – the foster carer.’ Griffith scanned the statement, tapping his teeth with the biro. ‘Well, it’s hearsay from the mother, this. You’ll have to get statements from the Gillingham girls that Dunn molested them.’

  Walker and North exchanged another glance. They’d been trying to get statements from the two Gillingham daughters for the past month. At last it looked as if this might happen tomorrow, but there was no way Walker was going to tell Griffith that now. He’d be told when those statements were in the can.

  Griffith had finished reading Mrs Gillingham’s statement.

  ‘The only way we’ll get this allegation into evidence is under the similar facts rule. It’s going to have to be very close to what was done to Julie – same age bracket and the use of some sort of instrument.’

  North smiled soothingly. ‘Well, we don’t know what they’re going to say until they say it, do we, sir?’

  ‘No, Detective Inspector, we do not. So let’s not waste any more time, shall we?’ Griffith turned another few pages. ‘Now, another matter that is concerning me is your identifying witness. Mrs Enid Marsh.’

  Walker’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why? She picked him out first time. She was in no doubt.’

  ‘Yes, but number one, she says she’d never previously met Dunn. That weakens her position, though I admit it doesn’t demolish her. Number two, and worse, she’s old, her sighting of Dunn was brief and it was from high above his head. The judge will have to give the Turnbull Direction, no question.’

  Walker scowled. The Turnbull Direction – the warning that judges issue to juries whenever they think a particular piece of identification evidence is not absolutely straightforward – is detested by the police. Defence counsel, of course, adore it.

  Walker made a fist of his right hand and hammered it into the palm of his left. ‘She picked him out in the parade!’ he cried. ‘She was alpha-bloody-positive it was him!’

  Griffith smiled in that superior way of his. ‘What? A forgetful old lady who lives alone and doesn’t get enough attention from the big wide world? Dunn’s counsel won’t just make mincemeat of her – he’ll be going for the whole mince pie, Superintendent.’

  For some reason North thought Griffith’s smile made him look like a duck as Griffith added, ‘Look, we’re on course for the committal hearing next week, yes? We won’t make a final decision until we cross that hurdle.’

  Walker stood up and tucked the file under his arm. He tapped the file. ‘And bear in mind, please, we still have more forensic to come, with any luck. I’ll be in touch about that – oh, and the Gillingham girls also.’

  *

  Defending a client doesn’t have to be a crusade. Belinda Sinclair may have been a rookie, but she had her task in proportion. It shouldn’t really matter to her if Michael Dunn was innocent or guilty – under the so-called adversarial system of British justice there could be no trial without a defence and, win or lose, Belinda knew she could do herself a lot of good if she didn’t mess things up.

  Filthy, lousy and with his faculties corroded by drink, Dunn had certainly not been a pretty prospect when she’d met him at Southampton Street. But later, at Wormwood Scrubs, Belinda was pleasantly surprised by his changed appearance and now, making her third call, she’d grown used to the new Michael. His hair was cropped short. He was polite, more or less alert and, above all, clean. He had a winning smile when he felt like showing it and Belinda was even beginning to believe that her young man was incapable of doing this dreadful crime. If only he could be persuaded to make more use of that shy Welsh charm, the jury would surely be brought round to the same way of thinking.

  The purpose of today’s visit was to go through his proof of evidence.

  ‘Mrs Enid Marsh says she doesn’t know you, Michael. Is that true?’

  Dunn didn’t answer. He was standing casually, half turned away from Belinda, his hands sunk in his overall pockets. Although he’d come through alcoholic withdrawal after three days, he still found it hard to concentrate for long. Belinda tapped her notepad.

  ‘Michael, you must pay attention. I am trying to take your proof of evidence.’

  Dunn collected himself. He spoke quietly. ‘She saw me when I did the paper round.’

  ‘When exactly did you do the paper round, Michael?’

  ‘Can’t remember. Summer, I think. Not last year, the one before.’

  ‘And how many times did she see you?’

  ‘Well, a good few times – just on her doorstep, you know. In the mornings.’

  ‘Did you talk to her at all? Did you say good morning?’

  Dunn screwed up his face, trying to visualise the scene on Mrs Marsh’s doorstep. He shook his head. ‘No.’

  Belinda Sinclair scribbled a note and murmured to herself, ‘Good.’

  ‘Oh, and I remembered something else!’

  ‘Yes?’

  Dunn pulled out a chair and sat down.

  ‘Terry Smith, the bloke, you know, that was with me? Well, he may have gone home.’

  ‘Home, Michael?’

  ‘Yeah, Wales. Where I come from.’

  The lawyer was writing in rapid shorthand. ‘Seems to be all coming back to you today, Michael.’

  And then that smile broke on his face. Belinda thought, bit of a heart-throb this boy could have been, if the breaks had been different. It was a cold and purely analytical thought – not what she herself felt, but what a jury could be made to feel.

  She said, ‘It makes it so much easier for me to do the absolutely best job I can.’

  Dunn opened his eyes wide. ‘Doing all right, then, am I?’

  She nodded, looking at her watch. ‘Yes. Yes, you are. But I have to leave it there, I’m afraid. Got to go. But I’ll see you again on Wednesday.’

  He watched her as she gathered her papers, making no movement. Then she stood up and extended her hand for him to shake.

  ‘Goodbye for now, Michael.’

  The hold he took on her hand was light, shy and – well, she thought, the only word for it was innocent. Then he said, out of nowhere, ‘You’ve got lovely eyes. You’re a very pretty woman.’

  Belinda gave a tiny lift of her head. ‘Well, thank you, Michael. Is there anything you need?’

  ‘No, thank you very much. I’m fine here. Like to get out, but really I’m fine.’

  ‘What about your treatment? Prison officers, other inmates?’

  Dunn suddenly, and for the first time today, became tense and wary. But he shook his head. ‘Fine, nothing. Really, I’m OK. It’s no problem.’

  Like hell it is, thought Belinda. But she didn’t pursue it.

  *

  Outside the CPS, Walker and North separated. She returned to Southampton Street, from where she would telephone to confirm tomorrow’s appointment with the Gillingham sisters. He went on to Lambeth and the forensic laboratory. He knew that Mallory’s team had come to the end of their tests but Arnold Mallory had kept him in the dark as to their progress and given not a hint about what he might have found.

  The scientist was sitting at his desk and contemplating, with evident satisfaction, a sizeable patisserie carton which sat on his blotter.

  ‘I’ve got excellent news for you, Walker,’ he said without looking up. ‘Excellent epithelial news.’

  He picked up a laboratory scalpel and, after a moment’s further thought, sliced delicately through the tape which secured the lid of the box. He then heaved his bulk backwards to allow space for the drawer of his desk to open.

  ‘Shall I spell that for you? E-P-I-T—’

  Walker cut him short. ‘I’ve seen the word, yes. Epithelial.’

  Mallory’s habit of treating all policemen like they were missing a chunk of their brains was infuriating and Walker’s nerves were in knots already after spending half an hour with Griffith. He didn’t know exactly what epithelial meant, but sure as hell he’d rather look it up in Black’s Medical Dictionary than be patronised by Mallory.

  The scientist gestured at a sheaf of stapled A4. The top sheet had Walker’s name highlighted on a circulation list.

  ‘It’s written in the report. Epithelial cells from the little lady’s mouth, found in samples taken from the lolly sticks.’ He was rummaging through his desk drawer.

  Walker said, ‘Are those the lolly sticks found in Dunn’s flat?’

  ‘Exactly. That’s just bullet point number one. Point number two: one of her hairs recovered from suspect’s carpet.’

  ‘Just one?’

  ‘Just the one. It’s enough. And no question it’s hers. Point number three: fibres. Blue and red cotton/polyester mix, recovered from the couch. These are consistent with the child’s anorak.’

  ‘No better than consistent?’

  ‘No – they’re common as muck.’

  Mallory shut his drawer and stood up. Going across to a four-drawer filing cabinet, he started delving into it, coming out at last with a plastic spoon. ‘Some bugger’s always pinching the forks. But we also have bottle-green acrylic, consistent with the skirt. This is also a common type – but the combination of the two fibres, that’s your evidence.’

  Mallory shut the drawer, returned to his desk, tipping open the lid of the cake box. Walker, on the other side of the desk, couldn’t see what it contained until Mallory had plunged his spoon in and come out with an overbalancing hunk of chocolate ganache. He hurriedly plugged his mouth before the cake could plop on to the desktop.

  ‘No blood transfers?’ asked Walker.

  Mallory shook his head. ‘Nnnh.’

  ‘What about Dunn’s clothes? Anything on them at all?’

  Mallory’s jaws worked over the mouthful of cake for another ten seconds and then, with a convulsion of his throat, he swallowed. ‘His own blood. That’s all. Now, what else?’ He fingered the report, flipping over three of four pages. ‘Ah, yes, the doll. Sorry, but the fingerprint boys have found nothing on it that belongs to the kiddie. A few smudges only – so it could have been wiped.’

  ‘And the bottles? Nothing on them?’

  ‘His prints, that’s all. If he did use a bottle to abuse our girl, we don’t have the item.’

  ‘Well, that was a waste of money!’ Walker lit his cigarette and sucked the smoke in hard.

  ‘You’ll have to learn to be more selective. Do you want some cake? Home-made – at least, local-bakery made. No charge to you.’

  Walker exhaled, shaking his head impatiently.

  ‘But to get back to Dunn’s clothes,’ said Mallory, spooning another dollop of cake between his teeth. He didn’t so much chew as pump with his mouth on the food. ‘No fibres,’ he said at last. ‘But if there had been, you’d have lost them. He’d been shedding for over twenty-four hours when you finally collared him.’