Chapter 22 #2
‘OK. We’ll come back to that,’ Sarah said. ‘But first of all, is there anything else you want to tell me? Anything that might be unhelpful, I mean? We may as well get it out into the open.’
‘Not that I can think of.’ Joe coloured a little again and exchanged glances with Eve, who shook her head.
Sarah peered back down at her laptop. ‘OK, so let’s go over the information I already have. Do you remember what you said to the police when you were first interviewed?’
‘I said the same thing I said at the trial – that I didn’t do it.’
‘You said you were dating Christy, or in the early stages of a relationship, one that became physical on the day she died.’
‘Yes.’
‘And that’s why your DNA was on her T-shirt and bra.’
‘Yes.’
‘You said that on the day she died, you went round at four thirty, after you’d finished work?’
‘Yes.’
‘And this was a Thursday. Where was Bella?’
‘Asleep on the sofa. She’d been off school with a stomach bug.’
‘And did she see you come in?’
‘No. She was asleep when I got there. Christy saw me from the front-room window. She waved to me, signalling that I should come round the back way, so as not to wake Bella. She opened the back door for me and I came into the kitchen. She made me a cup of tea and we sat at the table and chatted quietly. We were almost whispering.’
‘But you didn’t actually see Bella?’
‘No. The door to the living room was shut the whole time.’
‘And then at around half past six or so, you stood up to leave. Christy got up too, you said, and she put her arms around you, and so you kissed her and then you got a bit carried away.’
‘Yes.’ Joe flushed. ‘I touched her …’
‘Underneath her clothing?’ Sarah asked.
‘Yes. I put my hand under her T-shirt and I touched her bra and I …’
‘Kissed her there?’
‘Yes.’
‘On her clothes? Under her clothes?’
‘Both.’ Joe’s cheeks were pink and Eve tried not to think about him having done this to her only a few days ago. ‘But it was me who stopped it from going any further. Bella was asleep in the next room, and we had only met a handful of times before and I didn’t want to rush things.’
‘And so you went home.’
‘Yes.’
‘And Bella didn’t see you leave?’
‘Not that I was aware of.’
‘So, this was at around seven o’clock, you said. You had a job you had to price up for the following morning, and then you ate dinner and went to bed.’
‘The job was a loft conversion, believe it or not,’ Joe said, sighing. ‘I was almost certainly going to get it.’
‘And can anyone corroborate this?’
‘That I was going to get the job?’
‘That you were at home, pricing it up.’
Joe shook his head. ‘My housemates were out. They always went to the pub after work on a Thursday. Most of us worked a week in hand and Thursday was usually pay day. I told the police that. They asked me why I didn’t go to the pub, and I said I had this job to price up and I wanted to get an early night.
They asked me what I watched on television that evening and I told them I didn’t, that I went to bed and read a book.
They didn’t believe me. They thought it was weird that everyone else except me went down the pub after work on pay day, and my solicitor said they didn’t find a book by my bed when they searched my room, and because I was so flustered and upset, I couldn’t remember the name of the book when they asked me. ’
‘Can you remember it now?’ Sarah asked.
‘I’ve remembered it every day for the past twenty years,’ Joe told her ruefully.
‘And I’ve kicked myself every day, too. It was Alain de Botton’s The Consolations of Philosophy, which is ironic because the title is a reference to the book of the same name by Boethius, a Roman senator who ended up in prison, on death row, for treason in AD 523.
Little did I know at the time that was where I was going to be heading.
Luckily, there were no plans to execute me.
’ He paused, then gave an awkward smile and asked, ‘Is that too much information?’
‘Nowhere near.’ Sarah smiled back. ‘So what happened to it? The book? Do you know?’
‘No idea,’ Joe said. ‘But I lived in a shared house at the time, which was a bit like living in Piccadilly Circus. By the time the police came round to search my room, anyone could have gone in and taken it. There were no locks on any of the doors and it’s the sort of thing my housemates would have found funny when they were drunk. ’
‘Who were your housemates?’
‘Three other lads, I think. Or was it four? They were doing similar kind of work to me. I didn’t know any of them before I moved in. I just rented a room. It was that kind of place.’
‘Full of transients?’
‘Exactly. Builders, mostly. There was a fair bit of work around there at the time. I remember one was an Irish lad and the others were Eastern Europeans – one Pole, I think, and two Latvians.’
‘What were they like?’
‘Big. Burly. Noisy. They drank a lot of beer and ate a lot of meat, I remember that. There were lots of barbecues.’
‘And were they often drunk?’
Joe gave a half smile. ‘More often than not, I’d say.’
‘Were you close to any of them?’
Joe looked thoughtful. ‘You mean, like …’
‘Did you tell any of them about Christy?’
Joe looked at her steadily. ‘I can see where you’re going with this, and I didn’t know them well, but they weren’t the kind of men to rape and kill a woman.’
‘Were they the kind of men to commit a burglary?’
Joe paused. ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘They earned good money. They would have no need.’
‘Which pub did they go to?’
Joe hesitated, then said, ‘The one on Chadwick Road. On the corner. I can’t remember the name of it. Oh. Yes, I can. It was The Chadwick.’
‘And where was your house?’
‘Harberton Street. Towards Balham.’
‘And where was the building site they were working on?’
‘Cavendish Road. Next door to The Chadwick. That’s why they went there.’
Sarah typed quickly and Joe waited for her to catch up.
‘Blenheim Road would have been on their way home from The Chadwick,’ Joe said.
‘If that’s what you’re looking up. And yes, I did tell one of them about Christy.
They all started teasing me, making jokes about her wanting a bit of rough, and I refused to tell them any more after that, so I suppose, if they were drunk, it’s possible that they could have decided to go round there, got the wrong house, done something stupid. ’
‘And did you tell your solicitor all this?’ Sarah asked.
‘Which one?’
‘The one you had at the police station.’
‘Not that I remember. I don’t think they asked.’
‘Did the police ask? Only, it’s not in the transcript of your police interview.’
‘It wasn’t my housemates,’ Joe said, shaking his head. ‘They were just out for a laugh.’
‘All the same,’ Sarah said, ‘I’m wondering why no one asked you these questions.’
Joe shrugged. ‘I guess they didn’t think it was important. They weren’t investigating the burglary.’
‘No. But maybe they should have been.’
‘They thought I’d done it,’ Joe said. ‘The burglary. That’s why they wanted me for Christy’s murder.’
‘I know.’
‘But it wasn’t me.’
Sarah held his gaze for a moment. ‘And I think that’s where I’m going to begin.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The victim of the burglary was one of the witnesses against you,’ Sarah said.
‘She didn’t come out and say you’d done it, but she might as well have done, and it helped to convict you.
I shouldn’t have to prove you didn’t commit the burglary – I shouldn’t have to prove anything, I should only need to cast doubt on the evidence and show that the conviction was unsafe.
But if I can show you didn’t commit the burglary, I think it’s our best chance. ’
Joe looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘There was a psychologist, too, who gave evidence about rapists starting out as burglars. That didn’t help me either.’
Sarah’s eyes held Joe’s for a moment, and then the room fell silent while she typed this up. When she’d finished, she looked up again, breathing in deeply.
‘OK, so most people would think from what they see on TV that it’s like America, where someone appeals their conviction and the lawyer asks for the original file and gets it – trial transcript, statements, exhibits, the lot.
But in this country, there’s no transcript of the trial unless you ask for the recording and get it transcribed – which costs thousands of pounds – and everything else is scattered between former solicitors or family members, or the court or the police or CPS, who often don’t want to hand it over, or it hasn’t been kept, so after twenty years, it becomes almost impossible for me to get everything I need, or even to know if I’ve got everything.
The judge’s summing-up is designed to present the case fairly to the jury, but not to pick out any unfairness.
I know it was a long time ago, but I’m heavily reliant on you being able to remember what happened, and this is exactly the kind of thing I need you to tell me. ’
Joe nodded.
‘So, everything’s important, Joe,’ Sarah said. ‘Have we established that now?’