Sara Carter followed Dan into his office.
She slumped on to the knackered old brown sofa that he used when he was between jobs on an all-night duty solicitor roster, the arms worn and shiny, the cushions sagging.
‘I saw you at the trial, watching,’ Dan said. ‘And now you’re hanging around, looking for me.’
‘You saw me?’
‘Outside here, not long after Jayne had been to see you. I recognised you when I saw you in court. You looked like you wanted to tell me something, but were stopping yourself. Now you’re here.’ He held out his hands. ‘So what is it?’
‘Robbie looks awful. I’ve never seen him like that before. When the trial started, I wanted to see him suffering, because of what he did to me. No, not just to me. To us. Our daughter. How could he? But now I’ve seen it.’ She blew out a breath. ‘I can’t stand it.’
‘What about what he did to Mary?’
‘Did he do that?’
‘That’s what the prosecution say.’
‘I need to know. It’s important.’
‘He says not. It’s the best I can do.’
‘They’ve got it wrong.’
‘Got what wrong?’
‘He’s not some mad stalker. Not Robbie. Deep down, he’s a decent guy.’
‘Perhaps you’re the last one to see what he’s really like? He’s been warned off before.’
‘Yes, and he learned his lesson, said he’d never do it again. I believed him.’
Dan wanted to reach out and take her hands, look her in the eyes and tell her to take a look at what he did. Dan had represented countless men who’d said they’d never do it again, but they always did. Instead, he said, ‘And here we are again, Robbie accused of stalking someone else.’
‘No, that’s wrong.’ Her voice became strident. ‘This Mary, the girl who was murdered. He wasn’t stalking her. I know that.’
‘How do you know?’
She bent forward and reached into the small rucksack she was carrying. She pulled out an envelope. She hesitated for a moment before pursing her lips and holding out the envelope. ‘I found this.’
Dan took it from her. ‘What is it?’
‘Love notes from Mary. Photographs of Robbie and Mary together.’
Dan spilled the contents on to his desk. There were three photographs, along with other scraps of paper, some of which bore handwritten scrawls. His thoughts scrambled to make sense of what he was seeing. It changed everything. It gave him something more than the unreliable testimony of a local drunk.
He picked up some of the pieces of paper. Look gorgeous babe was written on the back of a beer mat with one side torn off, something spontaneous fashioned out of whatever Mary had to hand. On a small piece of paper torn from a notebook were the words I want you later.
‘I didn’t think people did this anymore,’ Dan said, almost to himself, and then to Sara, ‘I thought it was all messaging apps or social networking sites.’
‘It must have been when they were in the same pub together, because she didn’t want to be caught texting him. Or perhaps Robbie didn’t want anything on his phone. She probably slipped them to him when she was passing. Their little secret.’ She pulled a face. ‘It makes me feel sick.’
Dan picked up the photographs. There were three, all taken with Mary holding the camera at arms length. One taken in the bedroom in which she died; Dan recognised it from the crime scene photographs. Their bare shoulders and the flush to their cheeks left no doubt that they’d just had sex, with Mary’s broad grin providing evidence that she’d enjoyed it. Another showed them both in the country somewhere, Mary’s bright smile, all too familiar from the press stories, dominating the picture. In the last one, they were huddled together, both in woolly hats, Carter holding a sparkler in front of the camera, Mary with her head back, laughing.
‘Bonfire Night,’ Sara said, her jaw clenching. ‘Two weeks before she died. I wanted us to go to the bonfire in the park, because there were small fairground rides for Tammy to go on and she was old enough to find it exciting, maybe not too scary. But he didn’t come home. Said he’d got too busy at work, had to do some overtime, and got angry when I questioned him, accused me of getting on his back all the time. Yeah, I know now, all bullshit. He was with her. She knew he had a daughter, and had me, and still she did that. How could she?’
‘He was in love with her,’ Dan said, almost to himself, but regretted it as soon as he had, when he saw the tears in Sara’s eyes.
‘No, he wasn’t.’ She wiped her eye with the back of her hand. ‘He was in love with the excitement of it, just like the woman from before. Someone new. Someone without a child to spoil his nights. Someone who didn’t bear the scars of having his baby. The stretchmarks. The tiredness. But he’s supposed to love those things, because those come from having Tammy, and we had her because we loved each other. Or so I thought. The difference between Mary and the one before is that she didn’t tell him to get lost. Instead, she invited him into her bed, and away from mine.’
‘Where did you find this?’ Dan lifted the envelope.
‘In the small bedroom. He’s got it kitted out as his gaming room, with a TV and a beer fridge, and he escapes there sometimes.’ She wiped her eye again. ‘I thought it would stop him feeling trapped. He could hide away and do his own thing, but it didn’t work. When he got locked up and I heard what he’d done, I cleared out the room. He’s probably never coming back. The envelope was at the back of a drawer in the computer desk.’ She curled her lip in disgust. ‘Perhaps he got it out sometimes, to think about her while I was in bed, alone again.’
Dan gave her a look of regret. He liked her. She was a young woman trying to make the best of a life that wasn’t treating her too well, when all she’d done wrong was trust someone who wasn’t deserving of it. But his job wasn’t to look after her. Robert Carter was his client and he was the one who mattered right then.
He looked again at the photographs. What should he do with them?
He could show them to the prosecution, try to persuade them that the case had become weak and hope that they’d offer something, anything, to make it go away.
He discounted that idea. The prosecution wouldn’t cave in on a case where there had been so much media scrutiny, with the jury sworn in and hearing the evidence. He could just keep them back and use them later to rubbish the prosecution case, the surprise exhibit, the rabbit from the hat, hoping that it would make the prosecution look like a shambles. But what would the jury think? It would stop Carter being a stalker, but would it make his explanation any more credible? He could show that Carter loved Mary, but love creates passions that are sometimes hard to control. Like Jayne had said, it turns a murder no one understands into one that every one can understand: a crime of passion, lovers’ tiff, as old as human relationships, and expressed with hate and blood. It would muddy the prosecution case for a while, but it would soon become clear again, and then even clearer than before.
One thing bothered him though.
‘Why now?’ he asked.
Sara looked down. ‘Tammy.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I wasn’t going to say anything. Let the bastard suffer, that’s what I thought. I hated him, I was hurting, but it isn’t just about me. What about Tammy? It’s made her miserable. She misses her daddy, asks about him, and I don’t know what to say. But I know other people will fill in the gaps for her as she gets older. How her daddy’s a killer, a murderer, a beast. The other parents at the nursery gate avoid me, they don’t want their children to play with Tammy. I wanted to know the truth because I owed it to her, so I went to court. And not just that. I wanted him to see me and be reminded of how much he’s hurt me, and hope that he’ll think about Tammy too and tell the truth, whatever that is.’
‘And?’
‘He’s shrunk somehow. He looks broken, like there’s no life in him. Even when he looked over, it was as if he couldn’t see me any more. He’s lost weight too. I can’t believe he’s the same man. It sounds stupid, but I feel sorry for him. And then I heard what the prosecution were saying. That just isn’t right, all that about him being a stalker. I know it’s wrong.’
‘And you wanted to put it right?’
‘Yes. I mean no. It’s not as simple as that.’
Dan rubbed his eyes. It had been a long day. ‘You’re going have to explain.’
‘It’s about Tammy again. I listened to what that barrister was saying, and I saw the lady from the press writing it all down, so I knew it would be in the paper. All of Tammy’s friends’ parents will see it. And with the Internet, it never goes away. When Tammy’s older, she’ll want to find out about her father, and an Internet search will bring all of these articles up. Is that how I want Tammy to see her father? To see herself, as part of his bloodline? Something unhinged, dangerous? No, no way. I can do something to stop that.’
‘Why didn’t you just go to the papers and sell the pictures?’
‘Do I look that cheap?’ Anger flashed in her eyes. ‘I am doing this for Tammy, so that her father doesn’t go down in history as some oddball stalker who killed his victim.’
Dan glanced back towards the pieces of paper on his desk. One thing was troubling him.
‘You said you’ve come to me because of what you saw at the trial.’
Sara nodded.
‘So why have you been following me around? I saw you near the office. That was before you saw Robbie in court.’
‘I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know all the details of the case, but I hung on to the pictures because they were about Mary, so they had to be important. I didn’t want to take them to the police, because what if it made it worse for him? Tammy might blame me when she’s older. And there were those men who came. They were threatening. I was scared, I don’t mind admitting.’
‘And now?’
‘I’ve got to do it, for Robbie, and for Tammy. He’s a lot of bad things, but he’s not the man they say he is.’
‘Have the police ever asked you about Robbie and Mary?’
‘Yes. Right back when he was arrested.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘That I’d never heard of her, but that was before I found those,’ and she pointed to the contents of the envelope.
‘Will you give evidence?’
‘Do I have to?’
‘I don’t know yet, I need to decide what to do with what you’ve told me, but if I’m going to use these, I’ll need you.’
A pause, and then she nodded. ‘If I have to. He’s not a bad man. He’s a cheating pig, but he’s not a violent man.’
‘Is he capable of murder?’
‘He never loses his temper. Not properly.’ She pointed to the photographs. ‘And we were once like that too. Mary was nothing new.’
Dan thanked her. He saw his evening slip away, as he knew he needed Carter’s QC, Hannah Taberner, to see them, so she could decide how to play the new evidence. And Jayne too.
It was time to start planning the trial proper.