Capital Offence

Chapter 18

Wednesday 5th June

21 days left

Jamieson Maclean was in his office by a quarter to seven the next morning. He looked through the assorted newspapers which were laid out ready for him on his desk. A quick glance at the Scotsman crossword, where one of the clues caught his eye.

Restraint upsets Prime Minister. 7 letters.

Hmmm, he thought, leaving it aside to look at later.

After Lionel Hamilton had left the previous day Jamie’s time had been taken up by preparations for his Education Committee meeting, briefings on the consequences of EC rulings on his party’s published transport policy, and endless face-to-face meetings with his Ministers and advisors on current parliamentary business. It seemed that there wasn’t a damn thing which would run without him. The moment he stepped back and tried to delegate everything seemed to grind to a halt. Was this really the pick of the country’s political managers? God Almighty!

However. He’d worked on at the office till one in the morning, and had taken a couple of boxes of papers home to read in bed. Now he was going to make time to look at the Cassidy case papers. He told his PA that he wasn’t to be disturbed short of nuclear war.

His heart felt heavy indeed as he started to identify the papers relating to Hamilton’s account the day before. First, he read the transcript of his brother’s testimony under cross examination. In front of the court he had told how he had spent the afternoon of the murders with a woman called Patsy. She was a dancer, and he didn’t know her second name. They had met so that she could pass on to him details of his task for the evening. There were no witnesses to corroborate his account that she’d later accompanied him back to a hotel for sex.  He described how that evening he had gained access to the house by climbing up a drainpipe on to a flat roof outside an upstairs bedroom window. The roof had been created by the construction of a dining extension, and had provided an easy, unlit position from which to open the unlocked bedroom window. On stepping into the room he claimed he’d been hit by a strong toilet smell - human waste, he thought. He said he’d stumbled immediately upon the bodies of the two children and tried without success to revive them. Moving through to the next room he maintained he had discovered the body of an adult woman, visible on the floor by the sodium light from a street lamp outside. Again he’d tried to detect a pulse, before being hit over the head from behind. He had rolled over and away from the woman, then leapt to his feet in time to slam the door shut to prevent a dark figure from leaving. He grappled with the figure for a few moments - he was sure from its strength it was a man - before being struck again and passing out. After a while - he wasn’t sure how long, but it might only have been a few seconds - he tried to make his way downstairs to escape from the house. Counsel for the Prosecution had interrupted at this point to ask if he was going to seek help. The accused said that he didn’t have a clear plan in his mind other than to flee the house, but it was possible that he might have called for help after putting himself out of immediate danger. You felt you were in danger? - the prosecution had prompted. I put it to you, Counsel had continued, that, having committed three particularly callous and brutal murders, you were concerned only with saving your own skin. The accused had been allowed to continue his account. He said that the lights in the hallway were on, but that on running down the stair, he had been confronted by an elderly man, who struck him on the face with a walking stick.

Counsel for the Prosecution had taken the immediate opportunity to heap further scorn on Stuart/Davie’s testimony. You are asking the court to believe that an elderly man could have wrestled you to the ground. You a relatively fit man, in the prime of his life! And that this same elderly gentleman rendered you unconscious, before leaving the room and lurking at the foot of the stairs, presumably in anticipation of further sport? And that this same elderly man - a man who I might remind you is still in a coma to this day - that this same elderly man then struck you once more with a stick as you ran towards him? This seems like a very forceful old gentleman indeed! A veritable superman among senior citizens!