‘On television when we are all shamed by the spectacle of foreign policemen trying to cope with English football hooligans?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mr Patel, the victim could not have punched his attacker with the force you describe. It would have grazed his right knuckles, probably bruised the bones of his hand. I suggest you saw him raise his right hand, probably to ward off a blow to his face he thought was coming. Could that be what you saw?’
‘Yes, I suppose it could.’
‘But if you could make a mistake like that, could you not also make a mistake about a human face at thirty yards?’
Burns held his head in his hands. Whoever had briefed the frightened shopkeeper had done a good job. Patel had not withdrawn all co-operation from the police, for then he could have been treated as a hostile witness. He had just changed ‘absolutely’ to ‘possibly’ and ‘definitely’ to ‘maybe’. Maybe is not enough; a jury cannot convict on maybe.
When the abject Mr Patel had left the witness box, Miss Sundaran said to Mr Stein, ‘That is the case for the prosecution, sir. We would ask for a committal to Crown Court on a charge of murder.’
The stipendiary raised an eyebrow to James Vansittart. Both knew what was coming. One could have heard a pin drop.
‘Mr Stipendiary, we both know the meaning and the significance of the Law’s Test. You have to have before you sufficient evidence upon which, if uncontradicted . . .’ Vansittart dragged the last word out slowly to stress how unlikely this was, ‘. . . a reasonable jury, properly directed, could safely convict.
‘It just is not there, sir. The Crown had three real pieces of evidence. Mr Patel, the broken nose and the wallet. Mr Patel, clearly a thoroughly honest man, has come to the view that he could, after all, have picked two men bearing a similarity, but no more, to the ones he saw that afternoon.
‘That leaves the matter of the broken nose of Mr Price and the fingerprints of Mr Cornish upon an empty and discarded wallet. Although you here today, sir, are not strictly concerned with what may, or may not, be said at another date in another court, or indeed with the obvious lines of defence which arise in this case, it must be clear to you from your considerable experience that in due course the allegations regarding both nose and wallet will be comprehensively and indeed compellingly refuted.
‘There is a perfectly logical explanation both to the broken nose and the wallet. I think we both know that a jury cannot safely convict. I must ask for a dismissal.’
Yes, thought Jonathan Stein, and a jury will see your clients looking spruce and clean, shirt, jacket and tie; the jury will never see the records of these two homicidal thugs. You will get your acquittal and waste a deal of public time and money.
‘It is with the most considerable r
eluctance that I must concur with Mr Vansittart. The case is dismissed. Let the accused be discharged,’ he said. Thoroughly disgusted by what he had had to do, he left the bench.
‘All rise,’ shouted the clerk, a bit late, but most of those present were rushing for the doors. Cornish and Price, uncuffed, tried to reach from the dock to shake Vansittart’s hand, but he stalked past them towards the corridor.
It takes time to get from the second to the ground floor: the several lifts are usually busy. By chance, Jack Burns made it first and was staring gloomily and angrily.
Price and Cornish, free citizens, swaggering, swearing and snarling, came out of a lift and walked towards the doors. Burns turned. They faced each other across twenty feet.
In unison, both thugs raised rigid middle fingers and jerked them up and down at the detective.
‘So much for you, filth,’ screamed Price. Together they swaggered out into Highbury Road to head back to their squat.
‘Unpleasant,’ said a quiet voice at his elbow. Burns took in the smooth blond hair, the lazy blue eyes and languid, self-confident manner and felt a wave of loathing for Vansittart and all his type.
‘I hope you are proud of yourself, Mr Vansittart. They killed that harmless old man as surely as we are standing here. And thanks to you they are out there again. Until the next time.’ His anger boiled over and he did not even make an attempt at courtesy. ‘Christ, don’t you make enough taking cases for the mega-rich down in the Strand? Why do you have to come up here for Legal Aid peanuts to set those animals free?’
There was no mockery in Vansittart’s blue eyes, but something very like compassion. Then he did something strange. He leaned forward and whispered into Burns’s ear. The detective caught a whiff of an expensive but discreet Penhaligon essence.
‘This may surprise you, Mr Burns,’ the voice murmured, ‘but it has to do with the triumph of justice.’
Then he was gone, out through the revolving doors. A Bentley with a driver at the wheel swept up as if on cue. Vansittart threw his attaché case onto the rear seat and climbed in after it. The Bentley eased away and out of sight.
‘Triumph of my arse,’ snarled Burns.
It was the lunch hour. He decided to walk the two miles back to the nick. He was halfway there when his pager sounded. It was the station. He used his mobile. His colleague on the front desk came on.
‘There’s an old boy here wants to see you. Says he knows the deceased.’
He turned out to be an old-age pensioner and a Londoner to his boot heels. Burns found him in one of the interview rooms, quietly enjoying a cigarette beneath the ‘No Smoking’ notice. He took to him at once. His name was Albert Clarke, ‘but everyone calls me Nobby.’
Burns and Nobby Clarke sat facing each other at the table. The DI flicked open his notebook.