‘Just one last thing, Mrs Marsh. I notice you are wearing glasses. Would you mind telling us if you always wear them?’

  ‘Oh no, I only need them to read. I can see as well as anyone over a long distance. It’s got better over the years.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Marsh. Would you please wait there so that my learned friend can ask you a few questions?’

  In the gap between Fletcher’s examination of Mrs Marsh and Rylands’s cross-examination, DI North and DS Satchell left the court. The door was still swinging as Rylands rose majestically to his feet and began to speak.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Marsh.’

  She smiled uncertainly. ‘Good morning.’

  ‘It’s very nice to see you again.’

  She looked at him in his wig and black silk gown, a large and handsome but undeniably forceful figure. She frowned. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Rylands propped a hand in the small of his back, looked down at his feet and up again at Enid.

  ‘Don’t you remember seeing me before?’

  Enid hesitated again. Then shook her head. ‘No. No, I don’t.’

  ‘Would this help?’

  Rylands flipped his wig and his glasses from his head and got an instant reaction from the judge.

  ‘Really, Mr Rylands,’ expostulated Winfield.

  ‘Please, M’lord—’

  ‘I hope this is taking us somewhere.’

  Pat North had crept back into court and was whispering to Walker. Winfield waved Rylands on.

  ‘You were at your flat on Friday of last week at twelve fifty p.m., were you not? And you were looking out of the window, at the playground.’

  Enid did not reply. She scented some trap.

  ‘Mrs Marsh, counsel often do go to the scene of a crime, as part of their preparation.’

  ‘I saw a man in a blue suit,’ said Enid hotly. ‘He was carrying a briefcase and he was looking up at my flat. Was that you?’

  ‘So you saw this man, carrying a briefcase? You noticed him and he was looking directly at you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mrs Marsh,’ said Rylands softly now. ‘There will be evidence in due course that that man was myself. You saw me, you noticed me, you were able to describe my clothes and my superficial appearance. But, even though I was looking straight at you, you were unable to remember my face.’

  ‘Oh, well, I . . . I mean, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right, Mrs Marsh, I am not offended in the least. Now, you identified a man at an identification parade as being the one you saw with Julie, am I right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was another waft of air through the court and the sigh of the door as Walker and North left hurriedly. The judge frowned but said nothing, letting Rylands continue.

  ‘Would you be so sure of your identification, if I told you that there was another man with long dark hair on the Howarth Estate around lunchtime on that day? Not the man you picked out but another of similar build?’

  Winfield butted in firmly. ‘I trust there is going to be an evidential basis for this.’

  ‘There will indeed, M’lord. Would you like me to repeat my question, Mrs Marsh?’

  He was as sweet as sugar to her now. He knew when not to crow over a witness’s discomfort.

  ‘Oh, no. I-I don’t know . . .’

  ‘You don’t know if you would be sure?’

  Enid shook her head despairingly. ‘I don’t know.’

  Rylands hesitated, letting the import of the witness’s confusion sink in. Then he swept back to his place.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Marsh.’

  Winfield looked at Fletcher. Did he want a re-examination? Fletcher shook his head and the judge said to Enid, ‘You may leave the witness box now, Mrs Marsh.’

  Meg Richards came forward to help Enid down. All the fight had gone out of her, she seemed crumpled suddenly and, worst of all, disbelieved.

  Winfield surveyed the court, looked at his watch and cleared his throat. He was hungry.

  ‘I think this might be a convenient moment . . . er, if we come back at five past two.’

  He rose and left the bench, scuttling through his private door into his chambers, where rather a fine boeuf bourgignon awaited him in the judges’ dining room.

  *

  During lunch, Belinda visited her client, who was brought up from the cells to one of the conference rooms. He seemed troubled.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked.

  ‘Been better.’

  She saw the quiet confidence he’d had first thing in the morning was lost. Now he looked hunted; not yet scared but anxious and suspicious.

  ‘Mr Rylands says to tell you that the beginning’s always the hardest part, Michael. We’ve done well with the judge, too. He’s the best we could have got.’

  Dunn continued to appear doubtful.

  ‘I don’t know whether he likes our barrister,’ he mumbled.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Well, confusing that poor old woman like he did.’

  ‘That poor old woman, as you put it, Michael, is one of the two principal planks of the prosecution case.’

  Dunn brooded for a moment and then suddenly laughed hysterically.

  ‘Planks!’ he said. ‘That’s good!’

  *

  By the time Walker and Satchell had driven from the court to Southampton Street, the tyres of the car were all but smouldering. Walker swept into the Incident Room baying for Barridge. All the way Walker had kept up a flow of invective.

  ‘Wait till I see that bloody little pillock! I’ll croak him. I’ll have his nuts. Planting evidence. It’ll probably stop the fucking case in its tracks. Don’t these turniptops get any education at all? But I tell you what really turns me over – the stupid shitbag put his hands up. Don’t they know rule number one about bent behaviour – never, ever own up? Jesus! It’s unbelievable.’

  Now he was sitting in his office with Barridge. The PC was sitting on a wheeled office chair, pushing himself backwards and staring at the floor. With every shuttle of his chair the wheels squeaked. Walker ripped a cigarette from its filter and rammed it in his mouth.

  ‘What the fuck have you got to say for yourself, Barridge?’

  The constable was sobbing unconsolably.

  ‘I did it, sir, I did it! I’m so sorry.’

  Walker lit up with exaggerated deliberation. He had regained control of himself after the fury he’d unleashed in the car.

  ‘I have to tell you that I am suspending you from duty. You will have to surrender your warrant card. There is also the possibility that the defence may ask for you to be tendered as a witness.’

  Barridge said nothing. He couldn’t meet the superintendent’s eyes. He simply pushed his chair backwards and forwards in a kind of rocking motion.

  ‘Do you understand, Barridge?’

  Barridge nodded, streaming tears. When he spoke his voice was hoarse. ‘If they want me to give evidence I’ll have to tell the truth. I understand that – I’ve got to tell them the truth. I knew Dunn was the one. I wanted him caught.’

  Walker sucked on his cigarette. Suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness he couldn’t look at Barridge anymore. He shut his eyes.

  ‘So you planted the rope that was discovered at Michael Dunn’s flat?’

  ‘Yes! Anybody that hurts a little girl . . .’

  He was choking on each word now, choking and shouting. ‘Anybody who does that should hang. And if they ask me I’ll say that too. I’ll say it in court. They should hang.’

  The surge of anger subsided as quickly as it had come and Barridge ran out of words. He shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. Walker watched the storm blow itself out then touched Barridge on the shoulder.

  ‘You’ll be all right, son.’ He turned sharply to Satchell. ‘We’ll have to stop the trial,’ he said. ‘Come on – back to court!’

  On the way in the car, Walker was talking into his mobile to the court.

  ‘This is Detective Superintendent Walker speaking . . . Yes. I’m officer in charge of the case against Michael Dunn . . . no, no. Delta, Uniform, November, November. Dunn. Yes . . . It’s started today in court one. Something very urgent indeed’s come up and I need . . . No, no. I’m asking you: can you get Fletcher to wait for me before he goes into the afternoon session? What? What was that? No, Willis Fletcher, prosecuting counsel. I need to speak to him. Oh. Oh, I see. OK then.’

  He disconnected as Satchell looked at his watch.

  ‘It’s after two.’

  ‘I know. They’ve gone back in. Mrs Harris is giving evidence.’

  CHAPTER 25

  TUESDAY 19 NOVEMBER. 2.10 P.M.

  ANITA WORE black in the end. The skirt was maybe a little short, but it wasn’t sexy or anything. And she’d been to the hairdresser yesterday for a trim. Helen thought her daughter looked much younger than she really was. A teenager, so you’d think. But she looked sensible, anyway.

  Recently Helen had been having flashbacks of Anita as a little girl. It must have been because of Julie, and thinking about how her life had been snuffed out so easily and suddenly at five years old. Anita, too, had been five years old once, not so long ago actually. And now look at her, a grown woman even if she did look as young as she did. She was also, Helen knew, a good woman, a loving woman.

  But some of the press had not been too kind to Anita. There’d been plenty of tabloid tears, of course, but Helen always thought they were much the same thing as crocodile tears. There had also been a lot of snide stuff about kids on rough estates being left to play out on their own, a prey to evil paedophiles. Well, what did they know?

  Fletcher had given Anita a chance to settle comfortably in the witness stand after she’d been sworn in. His voice was gentle and supportive.

  ‘Mrs Harris, are you Julie Ann Harris’s mother?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Anita frowned and added, ‘Well, I was.’

  Fletcher looked down at his notes. ‘Mrs Harris, there is only one matter I want to ask you about. Did Julie have any toy, or favoured object, to which she was particularly attached?’

  ‘Yes, she had her doll.’

  ‘Can you describe her doll for us?’

  ‘Yes, well it looked like a Barbie, but it wasn’t a real one. I bought it in the market for her. She always . . .’ Anita took a deep breath to blow away the huskiness in her voice. ‘She always carried it with her.’

  ‘And did she have this doll with her on the day she went missing?’

  There was a moment’s hesitation, then, ‘Yes, she did.’ Anita’s eyes filled.

  ‘I am sorry, Mrs Harris,’ said Fletcher caressingly. ‘I realise this recalls a very distressing time. But did you see the doll again, after Julie’s disappearance?’

  ‘Yes. The day after . . . the police . . .’ She dabbed at her tears. It was hard to speak. ‘I told them it was hers,’ she managed finally.

  The judge stopped writing on his pad, looking over his glasses at the witness. ‘Mrs Harris, would you like a short adjournment?’

  ‘No, no. I’m all right.’

  She sniffed, then blew her nose as Fletcher said, ‘Thank you, Mrs Harris. No further questions.’

  Now it was Rylands’s turn. Anita had not even considered him but, from the public gallery, Helen had. He was dangerous, that one. He was more powerful than Fletcher. Helen sent mental messages over to her distressed daughter. Don’t let him trip you up, my darling. Keep cool.

  The first thing Rylands did was signal to the usher to lay out the dolls which Sampara had brought in the carrier bag with two dolls found in Dunn’s flat. Slowly and meticulously this was done on a table near the witness stand. Rylands waited patiently and then addressed the witness.

  ‘Mrs Harris,’ he said in a voice which, by comparison to Fletcher’s, seemed dangerous and calculated, ‘you last saw this doll that you have mentioned – the one the police found in Mr Dunn’s flat, M’lord – first thing on the Sunday morning, which was the day after you learned of your daughter’s death. The police came round and woke you up, is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a minor disturbance at the back of court, where Dunn was muttering to himself, ‘I found that doll. Found it.’

  Belinda swivelled round and frowned at him. He shrugged.

  ‘And do you feel certain,’ continued Rylands, ‘that you did not make a mistake in confusing one mass-produced doll manufactured by the thousand with another?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Anita, positively. Yet she had seen the array of dolls on the table waiting for her and she was dreading Rylands’s next move.

  ‘Could you perhaps help us, Mrs Harris, by picking out Julie’s doll for us now?’ He glanced at the bench. ‘If the witness could perhaps step down for a moment, M’lord?’

  Winfield assented and Anita stepped down to stand in front of the dolls. She remembered that the one the police showed her had one arm – but was it the right or the left? She looked at these dolls and they were all one-armed. Looking closely at them it was obvious they were not identical, yet it was impossible to pick out any distinguishing characteristics in any of them because, unlike people, these were bland, generalised figures, with their frozen smiles and dazzled eyes.

  Why had Anita told the police the Dunn doll was Julie’s? Not because she’d particularly wanted it to be the doll. She really thought it was the doll. But it was too late to go back now. She looked among the dolls again, each of them with a paper tag tied around its ankle. She would have to make a choice.

  ‘Oh, it’s . . . it was such a long time ago, I . . .’ she said, and then cursed herself for speaking. She sounded an idiot.

  ‘I appreciate that, Mrs Harris, please take your time.’

  ‘I think it’s that one.’

  She pointed to one of the dolls which, if truth be told, she’d picked out at random. Rylands stepped forward and seized it.

  ‘M’lord,’ he said, ‘could the doll which Mrs Harris has just identified become exhibit six?’

  He picked up a second doll in his other hand and held it up for Winfield and the court to see.

  ‘It’s not exhibit five, the doll found by police in Michael Dunn’s flat.’

  *

  Pat North was waiting at the entrance to the court when Walker and Satchell arrived.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Walker.

  ‘We’ve just lost our ID on the doll, guv.’

  Walker’s eyes bulged. ‘What? How come?’

  ‘He tripped her up, the usual Rylands theatricals. What’s the story on Barridge?’

  North was feeling flat. It had not been a good day so far and it didn’t promise to get any better.

  ‘He did it. We’ll have to try to get the trial stopped. The wheels are coming off one after the other. What’s happening in there now?’

  ‘Fletcher’s got the pathologist, Foster, on the stand.’

  *

  ‘There was evidence of sexual assault,’ Foster was saying in his carefully studied, neutral courtroom voice. ‘The hymen had been ruptured with some blunt instrument, the defect measuring three centimetres.’

  ‘And have you seen similar injuries in other cases, Dr Foster?’

  ‘Yes, I have. I have seen similar injuries which were established to have been caused by a bottle and I would say this could well have been the case here.’

  Fletcher nodded. ‘Thank you, Dr Foster.’

  Before Fletcher could hand over to Rylands, Walker and Pat North entered the court and, bowing to the judge, made for Fletcher. Griffith joined them in a huddle as they whispered together. After half a minute Fletcher, looking as if he’d just been mugged, spoke to Rylands and then addressed Winfield.

  ‘My Lord, could I ask My Lord to rise? A matter has arisen . . .’

  Winfield sighed wearily like a schoolteacher dealing with a recalcitrant pupil. ‘How long, Mr Fletcher?’

  ‘Twenty minutes, My Lord?’

  Winfield considered, glancing at the jury. Counsel always underestimated the length of time they needed. ‘Half an hour,’ he said crisply.

  *

  In the bar mess Fletcher and Rylands conferred over cups of coffee. The fascinating thing for Willis Fletcher was that his friend didn’t want the Crown to throw in the towel. Was he enjoying himself too much?

  ‘OK, I’ll tell you what. You’ll have to make a clean breast of your rope trick. And live with it, I’m afraid. The jury may take a dim view given that you—’

  ‘Opened with it?’

  And so would you have, Fletcher was thinking. But of course the point was that he had presented a circumstance in his opening that was based on tainted evidence. If the trial was to continue the jury would have to put it out of their mind, or else the trial would have to start all over again with twelve new good men and true.

  One step ahead of his opponent, Rylands smiled. Fletcher, furious with the police for putting him in this position, could hardly raise his head, let alone a smile.

  ‘You said practically nothing about it,’ said Rylands. ‘I’ll object if you try to get the jury discharged.’

  ‘Do you want me to tender the boy for cross-examination?’

  ‘The policeman? Poor bastard’s lost his marbles, hasn’t he? I’m happy to leave him out of it.’ He sipped his coffee, smirking mischievously. ‘I’ll draft a suitably damning admission which you will be happy to make – all right?’ He sniggered with laughter as Fletcher winced.

  ‘We’d better go and see Winfield,’ Fletcher said gruffly.

  But Rylands hadn’t quite finished. ‘And in the circumstances, I think we’ll have woman-with-rope – brackets, NOT manufactured by basket-weaving policeman – down here in the witness stand, don’t you?’

  Fletcher walked glumly towards the door. ‘If you mean, Miss Taylor, I’ll call her in the morning. Satisfied?’

  *

  As soon as the adjournment was called, Walker had sent Satchell over to occupational health to see Mrs Cheshire and get a report on Barridge’s mental health. At that stage there was still a chance Barridge might be called as a witness but, in any case, he was going to have to put in a disciplinary report. He might as well have all the facts.