A Game of Proof

She laughed again. ‘I can get plenty of fellers who are useful like that.’

‘I’m sure you can. I meant, other sorts of protection.’ He nodded towards the sound of the children’s voices upstairs. ‘From the social services, for instance. Someone gives a bad word to them, they’ll be round here like a shot. Place of safety orders, child protection, foster homes — you don’t want that.’

‘You rotten bastard! Get out of here — now!’

Harry stood. ‘I don’t want that either, Sharon. I think they’re fantastic kids. You’re not so bad yourself.’ He put his hand on her arm. She shook it roughly away.

‘Piss off!’

‘You don’t mean that, Sharon. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that about the kids. It was just an example, that’s all. I could be useful to you, you could be useful to me …’

He touched her hair, very gently; ran a finger along the line of her jaw. There was still anger in her face, but also — resignation.

‘Just how could I be useful to you, you young bastard?’

He tilted her chin up towards him, savouring the thrill of power. ‘I think you know that well enough, darling. Don’t you?’

The work of a guy who’s been practising for some time. Churchill’s words echoed in Terry’s brain. He was shaking, not just with anger at his humiliation, but also at the awful possibility that Churchill might be right. Terry didn’t think he could bear that. If this wretched man could waltz in from outside, take a brief look at these cases and instantly see a truth which had eluded Terry for months — well, what did that say?

And his argument was quite persuasive. The evidence of the hairs and the DNA might implicate Simon in the Whitaker case and even, astonishingly, in Sharon Gilbert’s rape. Helen Steersby might pick him out in an identity parade too. Which would leave only the murder of Maria Clayton for Churchill to collect a full house. A glorious triumph for a newly appointed Detective Chief Inspector.

And yet, and yet. The boy was the wrong type, Terry thought. Every serial killer he knew of had begun with minor crimes — burglary, petty theft, minor violence — building up gradually to something more evil. Gary Harker had a long profile like this on the police computer. Simon Newby had none. He was a criminal innocent.

Unless we’ve missed something. Go through it carefully, piece by piece …

He felt an unexpected reluctance to touch the file on Maria Clayton. At first he couldn’t understand why; then it came to him. It brought the image of his wife, Mary, into his mind.

Mary, raising her face to kiss him as he left for work. That was the last time he’d seen her alive. Later that day two hooligan joyriders had mangled his wife and her hatchback into a screeching heap between their stolen Jaguar and a garden wall.

This was the first major crime he had worked on after Mary’s death. He’d forgotten how hard it had been to face. Several colleagues had suggested that he didn’t need to take on a murder enquiry so soon, but he’d been determined. He wanted to get revenge on Maria’s killer just as he hoped the courts would take revenge on the boys who had killed his wife.

But of course neither had happened. The boys got two years’ youth custody, and were out in less than a year. And Terry had failed to find Maria’s killer.

A few months later, he had been passed over for promotion, in favour of the outsider, Churchill. A man eight years younger than himself. A man with all the energy and ambition which he had lost. A man determined to humiliate him on the path to success.

He sighed, and opened the Clayton file. It doesn’t matter who catches the villains, he told himself, what matters is that they are caught. But he didn’t believe it.

He’s wrong, and you can prove it, a different voice inside him said. It was the voice of another, younger Terry; the man he had been before Mary died. The man who sometimes worked all night and weekends too, the man who, with only a couple of months’ practice, had run inside the first fifty in the Great North Run.

Begin at the beginning, the voice told him. Check everything. The answer’s in there somewhere. And if it isn’t, you’ve got to go out and find it.

As he read, it came back to him.

Maria Clayton had been found dead on Strensall Common in September last year. She had been bound, strangled, and raped. Her small dog, a Yorkshire terrier, was found with its throat cut a few yards away. She had been an up-market prostitute who lived in a pleasant detached house in Strensall. She was in her mid thirties, with a daughter at boarding school, which in itself proved how successful she was. Her business had been discreet and well organized. Her maid, Ann Slingsby, a widow in her fifites, had rung the police to report her missing.

One obvious group of suspects were Maria’s clients, who were recorded, with notes of their preferences, in Mrs Slingsby’s appointments book. Terry smiled wryly at the embarrassment he had caused to businessmen, social workers, airline pilots, even a headmaster and a sprightly old age pensioner, the customers of the service Maria advertised as ‘sexual therapy’. Many had appeared to be happily married; some, he feared, no longer were.

None, though, were as young as Simon Newby; all, unlike him, had good jobs which enabled them to afford her fees. Many had been with friends or family at the time of her death; none appeared to have any reason to wish to kill her.

So there we are, thought Terry. A woman leading a quiet life with no apparent enemies. There was no motive, nothing to explain why Maria had been murdered, rather than any other woman who had been walking alone at that time in that place. Which, of course, made the crime more frightening to the public and the press. And harder for the police to solve.

His team had interviewed everyone they could find who had been on Strensall Common that evening. Several people had seen Maria walking her dog, but she had been alone and seemed perfectly happy. No one had heard any screams or barks. One man had seen what might have been a masked figure running near where the body was found. But the figure had been 100 yards away, it might have been a black man rather than someone wearing a mask, it might even have been a woman.

With a sigh, Terry spread the photographs on his desk. They were horrific, as bad as those of Jasmine Hurst, as bad as those of any murder he had seen.

Maria had been bound, half-strangled, and raped before she was killed. The only puzzling thing was that there was no semen. Given her profession, Terry had expected to find some, but Ann Slingsby had told him that all her clients used condoms and indeed there were traces of lubricant in her vagina.

In addition to the bruising caused by strangulation, there was a small cut in her throat, to the left of the windpipe, possibly caused by someone seizing her from behind and threatening her with a knife. Jasmine’s throat had been cut, much deeper, in almost exactly the same place. But this woman had been strangled, and only her dog’s throat had been cut. Some black cotton fibres had been found in its mouth. Probably it had barked, and fought to protect its mistress. A brave animal, this tiny Yorkshire terrier, to attack a man twenty times its own size. But unfortunately, it had not drawn blood.

The other evidence was a footprint from a size 9 Nike trainer a yard from the body. Similar prints were found on a path fifty yards away, the pressure from toe and heel indicating that the wearer had been running.

And that was it. A man with a knife, wearing Nike running shoes and black cotton trousers. Probably a black top as well, and maybe a black hood. Did any of this point to Simon Newby? The shoes? Well, Simon had size 9 Nike trainers. So did Gary, and millions of other men. The hood? Well, it’s not certain there was a hood, so unless forensics find some trace of Maria on that balaclava from Simon’s shed, that’s out too. The tracksuit trousers from the shed, were they torn, bitten by a dog? That would make a difference. He made a note to ask forensics. Otherwise, there was nothing.

Reading all this, Terry remembered what Ann Slingsby had told him about the builders who extended the kitchen two months before Maria died. The five workmen had been amused to discover that Maria was a prostitute but most had been fine about it, accepting that she was a decent lady who was out of their class. One, however, had been awkward and boastful. Maria had told Ann she’d had sex with him, and regretted it. He was a yob, who didn’t know how to behave. His name was Gary Harker.

Terry had traced the other builders; all four remembered Gary’s boasts of having sex with Maria, and had seen her shut the door on him smartly when he asked for another session. Gary had been humiliated and angry, and they had avoided teasing him about it because that sort of joke could turn dangerous, with him.