Never Apologise, Never Explain - James Craig [34]
Eric stood there, the background hum of the late-night traffic in his ears, trying to work out how his mate had done such a cool trick.
‘Wow!’ said a voice behind him. ‘Did you get all that?’
ELEVEN
The number 25 bus travelled west along Oxford Street, bouncing past the clothes stores, mobile-phone booths, cafés and sex shops at an average speed of about three miles an hour. It would probably have been quicker just to walk all the way, but he couldn’t be bothered. The top deck provided a dirty and depressing vista, an unappealing mix of third-world squalor and first-world weather. It was one of the few parts of his home city that made Carlyle feel ashamed, so he always did his best to ignore it.
This morning, on his way to his breakfast meeting with Rosanna Snowdon, he sat at the very front of the bus, with his head stuck firmly in The Times. On page three, he contemplated a story about a man in Wales who had spent thirty years in prison after having been wrongly convicted of the murder of a young woman. New DNA tests had shown that he could not have been the killer. The Criminal Cases Review Commission was rushing to have the guy freed.
Reading the article, Carlyle began to feel a physical pain in his chest. The whole thing was so depressingly familiar. The ‘murderer’ was described as being mentally ill. That was no big surprise – doubtless he had been an easy way of getting a serious case off someone’s desk and a grieving family off someone’s back. At the trial, the jury had returned a unanimous guilty verdict in double-quick time. The trial judge had thrown in his tuppenceworth as well, proclaiming: ‘I have no doubt whatsoever that you were guilty of this appalling, horrible crime.’
No doubt whatsoever. They just couldn’t wait to throw away the key. How very satisfying. An appeal was refused. Only years later, when a new solicitor pushed for another look, did the Forensic Science Service test the bodily fluids collected from the crime scene.
In short, the case had been a total fucking mess, a serving policeman’s worst nightmare. It also raised serious concerns about the integrity of dozens of other murder convictions which would now have to be similarly reviewed. The man’s solicitor spelled it out for hopeful lags up and down the country: ‘Anyone who believes that they’ve been wrongly convicted, and thinks DNA tests would help, should contact a lawyer immediately.’
Carlyle wondered morosely how many of his own past cases could be undone by modern technology. It didn’t bear thinking about. There but for the grace of God . . .
Slowly, slowly, slowly, the bus struggled another fifty yards up the road to stop at a red light. Carlyle closed the paper and stumbled out of his seat towards the stairs. The five-minute wait while the bus crawled to the next stop and the driver condescended to open the doors, did nothing to improve his mood. Not for the first time, he pined for one of the old Routemaster-style buses, where you could just jump on and off the open back platform whenever you liked. Finally back on the pavement, he got off Oxford Street as quickly as possible and headed north.
Ten minutes later, he was walking up Marylebone High Street. Still burdened by thoughts of what it must be like to be wrongly banged up for thirty years, he didn’t pause to think about the purpose of his rendezvous with the alluring BBC journalist. Arriving at Patisserie Valerie, he found the place surprisingly empty for a weekday breakfast time. Deciding that he deserved a treat, Carlyle took a moment to inspect the cakes and pastries on offer, so that they could help lift his mood. Having paid for a large pain au raisin and a double macchiato, he repaired to a table by the window