A Game of Proof

the riverbank the following day. Terry had meant to invite her to his office, but the atmosphere there was so poisonous after Churchill’s humiliation that fresh air was a relief.

‘Well, this first of all,’ said Terry passing her a photograph in a plastic cover. It was of Jasmine — a living, healthy Jasmine running along the track by the river, her hair blown back lightly from her face. ‘You see the clothes are very different from the ones she was wearing on the day of her death.’

‘Well, yes, exactly.’ Sarah handed it back to him, surprised. ‘It doesn’t prove he killed her, Terry, the judge would never have stopped the trial for that.’

‘He would have for this, though.’ Terry passed her a second photograph, also of Jasmine. But this time a dead Jasmine, lying with her throat cut in the undergrowth. It was like the police photographs, except that this one had been taken at night, by flash.

Sarah studied it, transfixed. ‘What did he want with a photo like this?’

‘Gruesome, isn’t it? But it’s the context that explains it. Those photos were found with other things — newspaper clippings, several locks of hair, a pair of stained panties — and he was carrying a knife.’

‘A complete sicko, then?’ Sarah handed the photo back.

‘Yes, and one like a magpie too. There weren’t just things to do with Jasmine; there were trophies from all the other women he’d attacked as well.’

‘You think he did them all, do you?’ Sarah asked. ‘Karen Whitaker, that girl Steersby, and Maria Clayton as well?’

‘It looks like it. Karen Whitaker’s boyfriend has already identified the camera as the one that was stolen from him when they were attacked. There were photos of Karen in this scrapbook too — probably the ones the boyfriend took. There were no photos of Maria but the rest of it fits, if we believe what he told Sharon, poor woman, before she died. Anyway we’re testing the hair, and a little dog collar to see if belongs to Maria’s dog, and the panties to see if they’re Jasmine’s. Hers were never found, were they?’

‘No.’ Sarah grimaced. ‘And he raped Sharon too, you say. Not Gary after all?’

‘So it seems. Though what I don’t understand is, how Gary’s hairs were in that hood, as well as Sean’s.’

‘No. Unless …’ A sudden memory came to Sarah. ‘When Gary attacked me in that shed, I pushed the hood into his face, to blind him, and he had to drag it off. Maybe then …’

‘Maybe.’ Terry frowned. ‘I wish you’d told me before.’

‘I never thought of it before.’

‘No. Well, we’re all human.’ He picked up a stone and skimmed it across the water, where it bounced twice and sent a startled duck clattering into the air. ‘It’s not just Churchill who got things wrong. I had Gary down for them all — now it seems he’s pure as the driven snow.’

‘Week-old slush, more like,’ said Sarah grimly. ‘You’re forgetting what he did to me. But what I don’t understand is, how things worked out between those two, Sean and Gary. Why were they in that van together?’

‘That’s what I’ve been trying to understand, over the past two days,’ Terry said. ‘Sean says nothing much, but Gary’s positively voluble. He thinks he’s been deceived.’

‘Sad. My heart bleeds for him, poor lamb.’

‘Yes. Well, according to him, he thought Sean was just an ordinary decent thief, like himself. That’s how they met, in prison, after all. He didn’t think Sean was particularly interested in sex, and when I started trying to trace him Gary thought I was out to pin all these crimes on Sean in the same way as I’d tried to do with him. So he thought he’d help this innocent mate of his to get away — go back to Ireland, perhaps. Only he had the bright idea of asking Sean to visit Sharon on his behalf first, to make her admit that she’d got everything wrong. Fatal mistake — for Sharon, anyway.’

Briefly, Terry explained about the unsigned note they had found in Sharon’s bedroom. ‘Gary thought he could show it to the TV people. Like Sharon, he trusts TV more than he does the legal system.’

‘Well, he has a point.’ Sarah moved aside for a cyclist who passed between them. ‘But why did Sean rape her, anyway?’

‘Same reason he did everything. He hates women. No wonder, with a problem like his.’

‘Problem? What’s that?’

Briefly, Terry explained Sean’s sexual disability. Sarah stopped dead, forcing two women pushing babies to move around her while she gawped in wonder. ‘But … that’s astonishing! Is it possible?’

‘So the medicos tell me. Luckily, it only affects something like one man in a hundred thousand. Poor buggers.’

‘But don’t you understand what it means?’ The two young mothers turned at the excitement in her voice, but Sarah didn’t care. ‘He could have raped Jasmine after all, and it wouldn’t have left any semen. That would account for the bruising!’

The young mothers were rapt now, dawdling deliberately to hear what came next.

Terry smiled. ‘So not only is your son not a murderer, he’s not a rapist either.’

‘No.’ As Sarah shook her head, the emotion finally began to hit home. She felt dizzy, and Terry grasped her shoulders to steady her. ‘Just a great, lumbering, clumsy ignorant fool. Even last night when he was acquitted, I couldn’t quite forgive him those bruises. Oh, Terry, you’ve made my day.’

‘Glad to be of service.’ He scowled at the rubber-necking mothers until they moved reluctantly away. ‘Anyway, that’s why Sean killed Maria and raped Sharon, as far as I can make out. They were both prostitutes and he’d hoped they might solve his problem, and when they didn’t, he turned nasty and came back with revenge in mind instead. In Sharon’s case, my guess is he probably did meet Gary that night. Gary told him how he’d quarrelled with Sharon over his watch, and Sean thought he’d get his mate’s watch back and take his revenge at the same time.’

‘But … why were the watch and hood found in Simon’s shed?’

Terry shrugged. ‘Well, I’m guessing, but we know both Gary and Sean used that shed for stolen goods. And it was just round the corner. Perhaps he changed his clothes there, so no one could trace them to him. And he left the watch because he knew Gary would come back there some time and find it, and start to think … which isn’t Gary’s strong point, as you know. Perhaps the idea of Gary gawping at this watch in the shed amused him.’

‘Until I turned up to distract him.’ Sarah shuddered, remembering. ‘In his alibi, Gary said Sean went off with a prostitute, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, I know. I should have taken that more seriously. But at the time …’ Terry shook his head. ‘Perhaps Sean did go with one, and things went wrong as they always did, which would have enraged him even more. So he decided to revenge himself on Sharon.’

‘Poor woman.’ Sarah sighed, remembering the sense of triumph she had felt after cross-examining Sharon in the witness box. And yet she had been right, after all — Sharon hadn’t been able to identify her rapist, had she? Not that it seemed like much of a triumph, now. ‘So what about Jasmine? How did this Sean get involved with her?’

‘Well, according to Gary, he’d been to Simon’s house a few times — they both had, hiding stolen goods. So he must have met her there. Something about her must have attracted him.’

‘Everything, probably, poor girl,’ Sarah murmured sadly. ‘After all, she looked like a film star, and she loved leading men on. But why didn’t Simon notice? Or Gary, or anyone?’

‘If you’d met him you’d see why,’ said Terry, thinking of cold, distant eyes that had faced him across the interview table earlier this morning. ‘He gives nothing away, this lad. That’s why he’s survived so long. I doubt if he talks about women with anyone at all.’

‘Just stalks them on his own, you mean?’ Sarah shuddered, remembering the first photo of Jasmine Terry had shown her — the one taken days, weeks perhaps before her death, a young healthy girl running alone on the river path, unaware of the hidden maniac watching with his stolen camera. ‘That would explain what she said to Mandy Kite.’

‘Who?’

‘A witness I wasn’t allowed to use — one of the eco-warriors. Jasmine had told her she often felt she was being followed. The prosecution thought it was Simon and I suggested it was David Brodie, God forgive me! Bob was right, it wasn’t him … but what could I do?’

She stared away from him across the river, embarrassed by sudden tears. He hovered, wanting to put a comforting arm round her shoulders but uncertain how it would be received.