A Game of Proof

‘I wish he didn’t, but yes, he does.’ She shook her head wearily, ventured a wry smile. ‘You wait until your kids are older, Terry, see if you like all the friends they bring home.’

‘He brought Gary to your house?’

‘Good God, no! Come on, Terry, what do you think I am? Mad?’

Terry shook his head. The suggestion came from Churchill’s suspicions, rather than his own. But how much of the truth was she really telling him? She seemed unusually defensive tonight, but perhaps that was natural, in the circumstances.

Once again silence fell between them, as each searched for a possible way forward.

‘This can’t be easy for you,’ Terry volunteered at last.

‘Tell me about it,’ she snapped; then relented slightly. ‘No, Terry, you’re right, it’s not easy. Every day someone like you accuses my son of murder, or rape, or some other barbarity, and I have to listen. None of it’s easy, and as far as I can see, it’s probably going to get worse.’

A lot of people think you deserve it, too, he thought. ‘I can understand that. And I’m afraid you may be right. Forensics have found hairs inside the balaclava.’

He paused, watching her reaction carefully. There was no obvious sign of worry.

‘Gary’s hairs, I suppose?’

‘Apparently not. They were a different colour.’

‘What colour?’ Her voice still sounded normal, but he thought an involuntary tremor passed through her, as indeed it did. Sarah was wondering they couldn’t be my hairs, could they? I didn’t try the hood on but I handled it, one of my hairs could have fallen onto it. Oh God.

‘Fair hairs. Like your son’s.’

Not mine then. Absurdly, she felt a second’s relief, followed by an even stronger burst of swiftly suppressed panic, as she realized what he’d said. Like your son’s. Sarah was dark; she remembered how delighted she had been by the colour of her baby son’s hair, red-gold like his shiftless father’s. When he was a baby she had loved to brush it; as a boy he had worn it long and wavy; as a teenager he had trimmed it brutally short; and now that he was an adult a detective had found traces of it inside a rapist’s balaclava. Or hair very like it, at least.

‘You can’t prove it’s Simon’s just from the colour.’ The old combative Sarah.

‘No, of course not. It’s been sent for DNA analysis.’

‘Oh.’ For a moment she was struck dumb. This whole conversation was going the wrong way. She tried to recover some sense of initiative. ‘Even if Simon did wear this hood, what could he have used it for? You’re not suggesting he raped Sharon, are you?’

‘Not me, no,’ said Terry awkwardly. ‘But …’

‘But someone is? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘There have been … discussions. They’re not particularly pleasant, I have to warn you.’

‘Go on.’ She glared at him grimly. ‘I’ve heard so much already, I may as well hear the rest.’

‘Well, if you insist. I didn’t come here to say this, that wasn’t my idea …’

‘Just say it, Terry. Get it over.’

‘All right.’ He stood up, and walked across the room, thinking. If Churchill found out he’d been here, having this conversation, there’d be one hell of a row. But right now he didn’t care about Churchill. His theories were wrong, they had to be. He sat on the arm of a chair.

‘Look, I’m running a risk telling you this, you know. I wouldn’t do it if … well, never mind. You asked if I thought your son raped Sharon and I said no. But that’s just my view, not everyone’s. You see, because of those hairs, there is now another, quite different theory about that rape. And it doesn’t just relate to Sharon, it relates to several other assaults as well.’

Briefly, Terry explained Churchill’s belief that Simon, not Gary, might have raped Sharon and assaulted Karen Whitaker and Helen Steersby. ‘… It’s not certain, of course, but that’s the way his enquiry is going. And the final possibility, for which we have no evidence so far, is that Simon may have murdered Maria Clayton as well.’

For the first few sentences Sarah tried to interrupt and argue, but as he went on she fell silent. She felt his words like repeated blows from a hammer, nailing her living body to a cross. She sat very still, on the edge of her seat, trembling slightly as each new detail was explained. When he had finished, silence fell. She sat like a woman of stone, her face lit by the single lamp to her right. He expected tears, but none came.

‘He thinks my son is a serial killer?’ Her voice was high, slightly strained.

‘It’s a theory. But he believes the evidence will support it. These hairs in particular.’

‘Hairs? My God.’ She lifted a hand to her face, then ran it slowly through her hair. She snapped one off, and held it before her eyes. ‘A hair, like this? Dear God in heaven, he thinks my son attacked all these women, because of this?’

She began to laugh, and he thought I should never have told her, what’ll I do if she breaks down in hysterics now? But she didn’t. The laughter choked in her throat as swiftly as it had come. ‘You said not much more. What other evidence has he got?’

‘Not a lot, so far. That’s why the DNA will be so crucial. If Simon’s sample matches the hair in the Whitaker case, then Churchill’s theory holds water. Especially if they both match the hairs he found in the hood. But if not, not.’

‘And how long do we have to wait to find this out?’

‘Three, four weeks at least. It depends on the backlog at the lab.’

‘A month?’ she said despairingly.

‘Yes, I’m sorry. But you know as well as I do, these results could prove him innocent as well as guilty. We just have to wait, that’s all.’

‘It’s like an exam result. For your life.’

‘I suppose so. I told you it wasn’t pleasant, but you had to know some time.’

He watched her in silence, as she sat sightlessly fiddling with her wedding ring. Then she looked up. ‘So this is Churchill’s theory, you say. What about you, Terry. Do you believe it, too?’

‘It’s not really a question of belief. The DNA evidence will prove it, one way or the other. And my opinion isn’t worth very much at the moment, in the service …’

‘Come on, Terry! You can at least have the guts to tell me what you think!’

‘In this job, it isn’t very wise to give an opinion …’

‘I thought you were more than just a job, Terry. You’re a man, too, aren’t you? A father, with kids?’

In her anguished, desperate face Terry recognized something of himself. I was like this, he thought, in those terrible days after Mary’s death. Everyone was fobbing me off with caution, procedures, platitudes, when all I wanted was to know. To make contact with what those people really felt, not what it was safe for them to say.

But all his training went against it, for good reasons. You could commit yourself and be so terribly wrong. He looked at her and thought the hell with it, maybe I want to commit myself.

‘All right, then. Well, for what my opinion is worth …. No, Sarah, I don’t think your son did commit all these crimes.’

‘You don’t?’

‘No. I still think most of them were committed by one person. I just don’t agree that it was your son.’

‘Despite these hairs?’

‘They may prove me wrong. I’ve been wrong before. I thought Gary attacked Karen Whitaker but he can’t have done. Nor Helen Steersby. But for the rest — Maria Clayton, Sharon Gilbert … I still think he may be responsible for those. And they’re more serious. More like the death of Jasmine Hurst.’ Now I’ve said it, he thought. Trouble will come of this. But it’s what I believe and if it’s true then this woman is a victim as surely as anyone else.

Hope can be as painful as despair. The cold distrustful anger evaporated from Sarah’s voice. ‘You’re saying you think Gary may have killed Jasmine?’

‘I’ve no evidence for it, you understand. None. But his record of petty crimes, theft, violence against women — it fits the profile of someone building up to serious crimes like this. I’m sure he raped Sharon, despite the hairs in the hood — and we know he attacked you.’

‘That doesn’t prove he murdered Jasmine, though, does it? What proof is there of that?’