A Game of Proof

her talking quite intimately to Will Churchill outside the court; she must know how vital her evidence was to his case. What would she do? Prevaricate and attempt to spin the evidence to support the police? Or value her own reputation as an independent scientist? She was very young — it could be the first time she had been in a situation like this.

She fiddled with the plaits of her afro haircut, then looked directly at Sarah.

‘If the shoes had walked in that grass, yes, I would.’

Good girl, Sarah thought. ‘The only way to get the blood out of the soles would have been to wash them, wouldn’t it? I suppose you’d have to wash them quite thoroughly?’

‘Yes, you would. Blood is notoriously hard to get rid of.’

‘Did these shoes look as though they’d been washed?’

Laila Ferguson smiled — a flash of white teeth in her striking black face. ‘Not recently, no. They were filthy.’

Sarah smiled back. She was getting to like this girl. ‘All right. What about the upper surface of these shoes? Given the amount of blood we saw in those photographs, most of which came from the victim’s throat, wouldn’t you have expected to find some of that spray on top of the murderer’s shoes, too? Not just five tiny drops, but quite a lot of it?’

‘If the victim was standing up when her throat was cut, certainly. I suppose it’s possible she might have been lying down. Or the murderer stood behind her.’

There’s such a thing as being too clever, Sarah thought grimly. Or in my case, not clever enough. I should have thought of that first.

‘Even then, he would have to step carefully to avoid it, wouldn’t he? Given how much blood we can see.’

‘There’s a lot of blood in the photo, yes. It would probably get on the killer’s shoes.’

‘And yet there was no blood at all on one shoe you examined, isn’t that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘And on the other one, just two tiny stains on the sole and five drops, two of them the size of — what did you say? — a grain of dust on the upper surface. That’s all you found, isn’t it?’

‘That’s all the blood I found, yes.’

‘Very well.’ Again Sarah paused, looking at her notes, to let the impact of the last few questions sink in. She had a clear sense that the jury was interested, and intrigued. This had been her best morning so far. She looked at Laila Ferguson again.

‘Now, what about the blood on the breadknife. Were these stains any bigger?’

‘No. There were just a few small specks, trapped in between the blade and the handle. There isn’t much room in there.’

‘What about the rest of the knife? Were there any stains on the blade, or the handle?’

‘No. The knife was quite clean; it looked as though it had been washed recently.’

‘Very well. But that’s a normal thing to do with a breadknife, isn’t it?’

Laila Ferguson shrugged. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘What was the handle made of?’

‘Plastic.’

‘Did you find any blood on the handle? Anything to suggest that a person with a bloodstained hand had gripped it, for instance?’

‘No. But then blood wouldn’t stain plastic, if it was washed soon enough.’

‘I see. Now, what can you tell us about the age of this blood?’

‘I’m sorry?’ The question clearly came as a surprise to Miss Ferguson.

‘How old was it?’

‘I … it’s impossible to tell. It was dried blood, so obviously it was more than a few hours old, but beyond that there’s no way of saying.’

‘You can’t say if the samples were a week old, two weeks old, a month old even?’

‘I’m afraid not, no.’

‘If you can’t say how old it is, you can’t say when the blood got onto the knife, can you?’

‘No.’

‘Or onto the shoes?’

‘No.’

‘Very well. So you have no way of saying that this blood got onto the shoe or the knife at the time of Jasmine’s death, have you?’

‘Well, I can’t say that, no.’ Laila Ferguson looked surprised at where the questions had led her. ‘I can only tell you definitely that the blood came from Jasmine Hurst. That’s all.’

‘Yes, I understand that,’ said Sarah patiently. ‘But as far as you’re concerned it’s possible that all of these blood stains could have got there as the result of an incident that occurred several hours before Jasmine’s death? Days earlier, even?’

‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’ Whether Laila Ferguson had anticipated the direction these questions were leading or not, she seemed unable to resist it.

‘A quite different incident, nothing to do with murder at all.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Very well.’ Sarah paused, to gather her thoughts and ensure that the jury were waiting for her next question, when it came. She had got as far as she could with this witness. If she were to build the basis for Simon’s defence later, the next few moments were crucial.

‘So if Simon Newby says, as he does, that this blood got onto the shoe and the knife when Miss Hurst cut her thumb in the kitchen, that is scientifically quite possible, isn’t it?’

‘I can’t say what happened,’ Laila Ferguson answered. ‘I wasn’t there.’

‘No, of course not. But what I mean is, there’s nothing in your scientific examination of the shoe and the knife and the blood to say that it isn’t a reasonable explanation, is there?’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘Even if this accident happened some hours or even days beforehand?’

‘True. There’s nothing to say it couldn’t have been like that.’

‘Very well. And given the very small, almost insignificant amounts of blood we’re talking about here, compared to the massive carnage at the murder scene, don’t you think that’s a more likely explanation, Ms Ferguson? A minor accident in the kitchen, producing a few drops of blood on a shoe, and a tiny stain on a knife?’

Phil Turner coughed, looking meaningfully at the judge. Sarah knew she was perilously close to asking the witness to speculate about things beyond her competence. But the important thing was to plant the idea in the jury’s minds.

Before the judge could react, Laila Ferguson answered. ‘I suppose it’s a theoretical possibility, yes.’

‘Thank you,’ said Sarah, and sat down. Wondering, with a small part of her mind, whether Will Churchill would be quite so entranced with the lovely young scientist now.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Every time she saw Will Churchill in court, Sarah experienced a fierce rush of hatred. It was not normally like this. In the past there had been a few police officers — like Terry Bateson — whom she liked, a majority whom she tolerated, and a few whom she despised. She had never hated one before. But then, no policeman had ever charged her son with murder before.

Churchill appeared to be enjoying the trial, patting his officers on the back, cracking jokes with Phil Turner, and trying to chat up the forensic scientist, Laila Ferguson.

When he saw Sarah watching, his laugh grew louder.

On the witness stand he explained why he had searched Simon’s house and what he had found there, and