A Fatal Verdict by Tim Vicary

Prosecution Service to undertake a murder trial was a compliment, a step up. The CPS, after all, had its own barristers - juniors employed on a salary to prosecute the mound of cases that clogged up the courts every day of the year. Sarah saw these people in court all the time, clutching heaps of files which they had only received the night before; it was because of their enforced lack of preparation that she was so often able to run rings round them. Any of them would have given their eye teeth for a case like this; but their very lack of experience in prosecuting major cases made them less likely to be entrusted with one, and more likely for the CPS management to go outside to a self-employed barrister like Sarah.
    And Sarah, being only two rungs up the slippery ladder of success, was equally eager to take it. Even if it meant prosecuting for a change, instead of defending, as she was used to.
    ‘As I see it,’ she said now, ‘our first problem is with the forensic evidence. It’s not clear exactly what this poor girl died of. According to your pathologist it was “heart failure caused either by major haemorrhage or partial drowning, or a combination of both”. Hardly a model of clarity that, is it?’
    For half an hour they went through the details – the pathologist’s report, the forensic evidence that showed three of David Kidd’s fingerprints – and none of Shelley’s – on the knife, and the background to the fatal relationship. Terry explained it clearly, with occasional interruptions from his boss.
    ‘What we know for certain is that this young couple, David Kidd and Shelley Walters, were having an affair of some kind - well, the obvious kind, really. She was a first year student at the uni and her parents didn’t like him - thought he was a conman and a cradlesnatcher - you’ve all read their statements. It’s also clear that the affair wasn’t going well - we’ve got statements from her student friends saying that she meant to dump him, in fact they thought she had dumped him the week before ...’
    ‘Why was that, exactly?’ Churchill asked, unable to resist filling the silence left by Terry’s pause. Does he think I don’t know? Terry wondered. Churchill, to Terry’s annoyance, had stepped in to supervise the investigation for ten days while Esther was ill in hospital, which was the reason for his presence now.
    ‘Because she found him in bed with another girl,’ Sarah answered smoothly.
    ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Terry nodded, approvingly. At least she had done her homework. ‘A girl called Lindsay. She’s the mother of his three year old kid - though he’s no loving father. Takes her to bed every now and then and bungs her a few quid to keep her quiet, that seems to be his style. Anyway, when the dead girl, Shelley, found this girl in his bed it was the last straw, according to her friend Sandy. Shelley saw the light, and brought it to an end.’
    ‘So why did she got back to his flat?’ Sarah asked thoughtfully. ‘The defence are bound to ask that. Did she want to see him again?’
    ‘According to him, yes, according to her friend Sandy, no. She’d left a few clothes and books in the flat and wanted them back, that’s all. But David now claims she’d forgiven him: she came in, they talked for a while, then made love, he says. That’s the big change to his story. He didn’t mention it in the first interview.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘He was shy, he says. He was respecting her privacy.’ Terry shrugged dismissively.
    ‘No sign of rape, though?’
    ‘Not according to the pathologist, no.’
    ‘So that, presumably, is an avenue the defence will want to explore. Who is representing him, by the way?’
    Mark Wrass’s large hands blundered earnestly through his papers. ‘Savendra Bhose.’
    ‘There you are then.’ Sarah smiled. ‘Savvy knows his job all right. He’ll claim the girl thought up an excuse to see her lover one last time, hoping he’d forgive her. I know it