‘Don’t keep calling me the victim.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Look, you might not be sure about this until you re-read your own statement. That’s often what we find. A woman has tried to forget the incident, put the trauma behind her — of course. But then she goes back and reads the statement she made at the time, and she changes her mind. She agrees to go ahead and give evidence in court.’
Blake was starting to look a bit flustered at her lack of reaction. He glanced at Superintendent Branagh, as if appealing for support. But Branagh’s face was impassive. For once, she wasn’t weighing in to put pressure on Fry.
And there must be a reason for that. Fry knew that everything Branagh did had a reason. There might be even more going on in this room than it seemed.
Fry wiped her palms on the edge of her jacket, then tried to disguise the gesture. Too much of a giveaway.
‘In court, you can have a screen, if you want,’ said Blake, leaning forward earnestly. ‘So that the accused can’t see you and you can’t see him. We often take victims into court to show them where they’ll give evidence from, and where everyone sits. We might not need to do that for you, obviously. But you understand what I’m saying? We bend over backwards to make it easier.’
‘Easier?’
‘Less difficult, then.’
Rachel Murchison would be from a sexual assault referral centre. Fry knew the police would already have examined the stored exhibits for blood, saliva or semen traces, with the help of the Forensic Science Service. They might have found the tiniest speck of sperm on a tape lift from her clothing. Without statements from independent eye witnesses, the police were reliant on forensic science.
But in rape cases, juries were the problem. They were notoriously sceptical of a rape victim’s behaviour if she didn’t put up a struggle, didn’t make her refusal absolutely clear, didn’t rush straight to the police, didn’t tell the full story straight away.
The research said that rape trauma syndrome could make a victim seem unmoved by the experience as she gave evidence in the witness box. But the general public had never read the research. They had expectations of a rape victim — that she should resist physically, make non-consent very plain, that she should rush off to the police station, give a full and consistent account of everything that happened. Without expert witnesses, juries sometimes weren’t deciding cases on the facts, but on preconceived notions.
‘In every case I’ve dealt with since joining the unit,’ said Blake, ‘victims have been delighted to be approached. They say that a conviction brings closure, often after many years of torment.’
‘But you do need consent to go ahead.’
He hesitated. ‘In almost one hundred per cent of cases.’
Fry nodded. DNA techniques had advanced significantly over the last twenty years in terms of sensitivity, reliability, and speed of results. They had become really important in revisiting old cases, reviewing the evidence recovered at the time. Preservation must have been good in Birmingham, because DNA deteriorated over time if it wasn’t kept cold and dry.
‘We had the element of luck,’ said Blake. ‘Our suspect had a DNA sample taken when he was arrested for robbery and possession of a firearm. Criminals don’t just commit sexual offences, but other offences too.
‘We firmly believe that murderers and rapists who think they’ve got away with it should no longer sleep easily, but should be looking over their shoulder.’
Out of the corner of her eye, Fry could see that Superintendent Branagh was nodding. It was a sentiment that no one with any sense could disagree with.
‘How was he arrested?’ asked Fry. It hardly mattered, but she felt a need to know every little detail, to make the picture come together in her mind. Perhaps it was just that the more detail she asked for, the longer it put off the moment when she would have to make a decision.
‘We had intelligence,’ said Blake.
‘Intelligence?’
‘Information from a member of the public.’
‘You mean one of the gang?’
‘No.’
Fry stared at him. She couldn’t imagine what other member of the public he could mean. There had been no witnesses to the assault, at least none that she could remember, and certainly none had come forward at the time. There had been plenty of appeals, of course. Lots of trawling from house to house in the area, hours spent stopping cars that used the nearby roads, and talking to motorists, lots of effort put into leaning on informants who might have heard a murmur on the streets. All to no avail. It was an offence with no witnesses other than the perpetrators and the victim.
Apart from her own statement, the only evidence she had of the attack were bruises and abrasions. And those faded with time, leaving only the crime-scene photographer’s prints to pass around a jury. As for the psychological scars… well, they didn’t show up too well in court.
‘Do I get to find out who the member of the public is?’
Blake pursed his lips. ‘Sorry. They’re on witness protection. You know how this works, Diane.’
‘Yes. They’re putting themselves at serious risk to testify. You must have done some pretty smooth talking, sir.’
‘You know, I don’t like to hear you call me “sir”, Diane. It was always “Gareth”, wasn’t it?’
‘It was, but…’
Fry stopped, realizing that she didn’t quite know how to put into words what she was feeling at this moment. Blake was trying to be friendly, of course. But his insistence on his first name was the way he would talk to a nervous defendant he wanted to put at ease.
It was a clear signal that their relationship wasn’t going to be a professional one. They weren’t to be considered a DS and a DI working together, no longer colleagues who could safely share information fully with each other. From this moment, from the second she called him ‘Gareth’, she wouldn’t be a police officer any more. She’d be the victim.
Now Blake changed tack, thinking that she was on side. Hit her with the bad news.
‘I’m afraid the conviction rate in rape cases is still very low in this country.’
‘Yes, I know that.’
Blake tilted his head in acknowledgement. ‘Of course you do. And I’m sure you’re aware, too, that there’s a lot of pressure to improve conviction rates.’
‘Absolutely. The inference from the poor figures being that the police don’t take rape allegations seriously enough.’
‘Well, that’s a perception the public might take away from the statistics. We know it isn’t true, though, don’t we? Generally speaking. There are lots of other factors that make convictions difficult to achieve, especially in cases where the defendant is known to the victim.’
‘Like the fact that it’s impossible to provide objective evidence on whether consent was given.’
‘Exactly. It always comes down to one person’s word against another. And juries don’t like that. They want to be presented with evidence. We’re handicapped by those old-fashioned notions of people being innocent until proven guilty, and having to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. When it’s just a question of “ he says, she says ”, there’s always going to be room for reasonable doubt. It would take a piss-poor barrister not to ram that point firmly into the heads of a jury.’
‘Or a defendant who’s not very convincing on the stand?’
Blake smiled. ‘Ah, yes. There are some people who just look so guilty that jurors will convict them whatever the evidence. But that’s the chance you take in a jury system, isn’t it?’
‘Have you lost many convictions turned over as unsound?’
‘Through prejudiced juries?’
‘Yes.’
‘One or two. The information age is a killer.’
The information age. Fry knew what he meant. For many decades, newspapers had been subject to restrictions on what they could publish during a trial without being guilty of contempt of court and prejudicing a jury.
