paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. ’OK. Five, Hawkin shared the blood group of the person who deposited semen on Alison’s underwear. There was also blood on that clothing that is the same group as Alison’s and the blood found on the tree in the copse. We know from the presence of Barr bodies that this blood was female in origin. So it’s reasonable to assume that Alison was at least injured if not killed at the hands of a sexual predator. And we know from the photographs that Hawkin fits that category. Six, the supposed identification of Alison from a newspaper photograph of a football crowd. It mirrors exactly a newspaper story about the missing Manchester girl, Pauline Reade. I believe he used this as a means of making himself look like a worried and caring father. Something he’d completely failed to do up to that point, I have to say.
’Seven, two bullets were found in the lead mine. One was sufficiently unmarked to be identified as having been fired from a Webley .38 revolver. A similar gun was stolen from a house where Hawkin was a regular visitor a couple of years ago. A similar gun was found hidden in his darkroom, with the serial number filed off. We don’t know yet if the man whose gun was stolen can identify this as the same weapon. And we don’t know yet if this is the gun that fired the bullets we found in the mine. But we will.
‘And finally, we have the bloodstained shirt. It’s identical to the ones he has made to measure in London, right down to the tailor’s label on the collar. It’s been soaked with blood. If that blood corresponds to the other blood we’ve circumstantially identified with Alison, it ties Hawkin into an attack on her.’ George raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you think?’
‘If we had a body, I’d say charge him. But we haven’t got a body. We’ve got no direct evidence that Alison Carter isn’t alive and well. The DPP will never wear a murder charge without a body.’
‘There’s precedent,’ George protested. ‘Haigh, the acid-bath murderer. There was no corpse there.’
‘There was evidence that someone’s body had been disposed of and forensic traces that pointed to his victim, if I remember rightly,’ Martin said.
‘There’s another precedent with even less evidence. In 1955. A Polish ex-serviceman who was convicted of the murder of his business partner. The prosecution claimed he’d fed the body to the pigs on their farm. All the prosecution had to go on was that friends and neighbours said the two men had been quarrelling. There were some bloodstains in the farmhouse kitchen and the business partner had vanished without trace, leaving behind his Post Office savings account. We’ve got a lot more than that. There’s been no confirmed sighting of Alison Carter since she disappeared. We’ve got evidence that she was sexually assaulted and that she lost a considerable amount of blood. It’s not likely that she’s still alive, is it?’
Martin leaned back and let his cigar smoke dribble towards the ceiling. ‘There’s a lot of difference between “not likely” and “beyond reasonable doubt”. Even with the gun. If he killed her close up, why are there two bullets in the wall?’
‘Maybe she got away from him initially and he shot at her to scare her. Maybe she was struggling and he threatened her with the other two shots. To subdue her?’
Martin considered. ‘Possible. But the defence will use those two bullets to spread confusion with the jury. And if he killed the girl in the mine workings, why move the body?’
George pushed his hair back from his forehead. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he knew an even better place to hide the body. He must have done, mustn’t he? Or else we’d have found it by now.’
‘So if he knew a better place to dispose of the body, why leave evidence of the sexual assault in the mine?’
George sighed. Frustrated as he was by Martin’s questions, he knew the defence lawyers would be a hundred times worse. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he just didn’t have the chance. He had to put in an appearance at the dinner table. He couldn’t afford to be late that night of all nights. And by the time he’d had his dinner, the word had gone out about Alison and he couldn’t chance going back?’
‘It’s thin, George.’ Martin sat up straight and looked George in the eye. ‘It’s not enough. You’re going to have to find her body.’
It was over in minutes. Looking around the courtroom, George was struck by the astonishment on the faces of the Scardale villagers who had turned up in force. They had come to satisfy some primeval urge, to see the man they cast as villain in the dock. They required ceremony to assuage that urge, but there in a modern courtroom that looked more like a school hall than the Old Bailey of film and television, there was nothing that could satisfy that need.
All the facial variants of Scardale were there in the seven men and eight women who had come along, from Ma Lomas’s hooked nose to Brian Carter’s slab features. The notable absentee was Ruth Carter herself.
The press, of course, were there, though in nothing like the numbers there would be at the committal and trial. There was so little they were allowed to report at that stage, it was scarcely worth turning up. Because of the rules governing the presumption of innocence, now Hawkin had been charged with something, editors had to tread warily. Any suggestion that Hawkin was being considered for a further charge of murder was taboo.
The prisoner was brought into the courtroom where two men and a woman Justices of the Peace sat on the bench. Alfie Naden was there, ready and waiting. So was the duty court inspector. Hawkin looked more at ease than any of them, his freshly shaved face the picture of clean innocence, his black hair gleaming under the lights. There was a low muttering from the public benches that was silenced by a sharp word from the court usher.
The court clerk stood up and outlined the charge against Hawkin. Almost before he had finished, Naden was on his feet. ‘Your Worships, I have a submission to put before the court. As Your Worships are aware, it is the duty of the court under Section thirty-nine of the Children and Young Persons Act to protect the identity of minors who are victims of offences of indecency. With that in mind, it is normal for the court to bar the members of the press from reporting the name of the accused, since that would be an indirect way of identifying the victim where there is a family relationship such as we find in these allegations. I would therefore ask Your Worships to make such an order in this case.’
As Naden sat down, the inspector got to his feet again. He had already discussed this with George and Superintendent Martin. ‘I would oppose such a ruling,’ he said ponderously. ‘Firstly, because of the extreme gravity of the circumstances in this case. We believe this is not the first time the defendant has sexually assaulted children. Publicizing his name may lead to other victims making themselves known to us.’ That part of the argument was little more than kite-flying; Cragg’s attempts at getting gossip out of St Albans officers had been a signal failure. George planned to send Clough down for a second attempt, but for now, they were only guessing.
‘Secondly,’ the inspector continued, ‘it is the prosecution’s view that the victim of this assault is no longer alive and therefore does not merit the protection of the court.’
People gasped. One of the Scardale women made a sound like a small groan. Reporters looked at each other in bafflement. Could they report this statement because it had been made in open court? Would it still be contempt? Would it depend on what the magistrates ruled?
Naden
