Donaldson from England.
The sun was climbing up through the sky. It was going to be another hot day. Soon Kovaks would be going home — how he had almost come to hate going home! — and he would take Chrissy to hospital where she would undergo treatment for most of the day, some medical, mostly psychiatric. He would go back to the apartment and sleep while she was there, collecting her later in the day.
Kovaks yawned and reviewed the night’s work.
Another fucking total waste of time. He’d combed the city for what seemed the millionth time, but he couldn’t find her, the woman who was going to bring Corelli to justice…
He and Tommo had hassled countless prostitutes, pimps and drug dealers, because he was sure that it was amongst these people she would be found: selling her body, what was left of it, and that once gorgeous mouth so that she could get pumped-up with enough drugs to see her through the next day.
But he couldn’t fucking find her.
Kovaks was teetering towards the edge now.
Tommo opened his eyes and squinted sideways at Kovaks. ‘You gonna answer that fuckin’ radio or not?’ he croaked.
‘ Eh?’ Kovaks had been so deep in his thoughts that he did not hear the radio operator shouting his call sign. He fumbled the handset. ‘Yeah, receivin’. Go ahead.’
‘ Yeah, Joe,’ began the weary operator. ‘Can you be making your way to the Jackson Memorial Hospital, Emergency Room?’
Puzzled, Kovaks said, ‘Sure, but I’m off-duty at seven.’
‘ Well,’ she drawled, ‘it’s up to you, Joe, but that little lady you been seeking for the past few days has just turned up there in the back of an ambulance — drugs OD.’
‘ On my way,’ shouted Kovaks, throwing the handset down, the wheels of the car spinning almost before he’d finished speaking.
They were back on Henry’s side following his graphic and emotional account of the M6 bombing and its aftermath in the river and on its banks. It was the first time Henry had related the whole story in full to anyone. He found it to be a cathartic, cleansing experience. Suddenly he felt as though a great burden had been lifted from his soul. He’d tried his best, but the situation had been against him. And now he could accept that. Stood in that courtroom, the eyes of the world on him, he had bared his soul — and it felt great.
He looked at the jury. Two women were actually crying.
Then he looked at Hinksman.
Again their eyes locked. But this time Henry felt in no way intimidated by him. I am a brave man, he told Hinksman silently. You are a violent man, but at heart you must be a coward. I am better than you.
Graham coughed. He desperately wanted to get the whole thing back on course.
‘ Now if I may bring you back to the night in question,’ he said, not wasting time, not allowing the jury to reflect. He went straight for the jugular. ‘We’ve established that you were in a dark alley, being assaulted by a number of people. You were on your back, having passed out briefly. What happened next?’
Henry’s ordeal was by no means over.
‘ One of them had a gun to my face — my own gun, actually — and he was weighing up whether or not he should 'pop' me.’
‘ “ Pop” you, officer?’
‘ Pull the trigger, kill me,’ explained Henry. ‘Before he could make a decision he himself was dead with his brains blown out, mostly all over me.’
‘ Who shot him?’
‘ A man who came down the alley.’
‘ Do you see that man in court today?’
‘ Yes,’ said Henry. He pointed. ‘Him. Your client.’
‘ Now, come come,’ tutted Graham disapprovingly. ‘How can you possibly make that assumption? A dark alley. No lighting. A beating. You cannot say for sure that it was my client in the alley, can you? You cannot say for sure that he killed those people, can you?’
Henry hesitated. Then he said, ‘I am sure it was.’ No way was he going to be swayed.
‘ Did you see his face?’
‘ To a degree,’ said Henry. ‘Enough to identify him.’
‘ What happened after “this man” shot those people in the alley?’ ‘He turned and walked away.’
‘ Did he speak to you?’
‘ No, but he spoke to one of the men before he shot him. He said a few words in an American accent.’
Graham chose to ignore that. ‘Did he turn back at all?’
‘ Briefly, at the end of the alley. He glanced back and I saw his face again — this time under street lighting. It was definitely your client.’
‘ And how long did you see his face for? One second? Two? Three?’
‘ About a second,’ admitted Henry.
‘ About a second… and that gave you enough time to make a positive identification of Mr Hinksman?’
‘ Yes.’
‘ How far away was he from you?’
‘ About fifty feet.’
‘ And you were still laid on your back, is that correct?’
‘ Yes,’ said Henry.
Graham shook his head. ‘What happened next?’
‘ Hinksman turned and walked away towards the Tower. I decided to go after him.’
‘ So you lost sight of him.’
‘ Yes.’
‘ For how long?’
‘ Until I caught up with him on the promenade.’
‘ Which was how long?’
‘ A minute, ninety seconds.’
‘ Is it not just possible that the man you caught up with was not the same man who killed all those people in the alley?’
‘ It was the same man — Hinksman,’ said Henry firmly.
‘ But you lost sight of that man. How could you possibly say it was the same man?’
‘ I recognised him, and apart from anything else, he was wearing the same clothing.’
Graham did not pursue Henry’s encounter on the promenade with Hinksman. Too many people could back him up. Instead he concentrated on discrediting the identification of Hinksman in the alley. He knew that much of the evidence against Hinksman was good and that he would probably get convicted of most of the murders of which he was accused. Graham saw it as his job to do two things; get some of them reduced to manslaughter and get him off some of the charges. He had a strong case against Henry’s testimony, as the sergeant well knew. There was no one to back up Henry’s story because Ralphie’s girlfriend had disappeared without trace (probably dressed in concrete, Henry believed), and therefore everything rested on Henry’s eyewitness account, backed up by forensic and ballistic evidence which proved that the gun in Hinksman’s possession at the time of his arrest was the one which killed Ralphie and his pals. The difficulty for the prosecution was in proving that Hinksman had actually pulled the trigger. If Henry couldn’t convince the jury, then Hinksman would be cleared of four murder charges. Henry did not want this to happen.
Henry spent a further thirty minutes in the witness-box under cross-examination by Graham.
In the end Graham said huffily, ‘It is obvious, officer, that you have decided to stick to your story no matter what, so I have no further questions for you.’ Angrily he sat down, unhappy that he could not get Henry to budge — and not terribly pleased that he had been unable to carry out Hinksman’s instructions and drag Henry’s character through the mud.
Three hours after stepping into the box, Henry stepped out, feeling weak and hungry. The court had adjourned for lunch.
