Read Online Yesterday's Papers by Martin Edwards - Free Book Online Page A

put considerable effort into detecting the man who committed this particular robbery?’
    â€˜You can say that again.’
    â€˜Yet no-one seems to have quizzed the real perpetrator, Denny Gurr, in any detail about the crime.’
    The sergeant shrugged. ‘I was only one of the team. I can’t answer for everyone.’
    â€˜So,’ said Vaulkhard. He paused for a moment before continuing and allowed himself the faintest of smiles. ‘The fact that you bullied Kevin Walter into his so-called confession had nothing to do with the fact that Denny Gurr was, at the time, going out with your only daughter, Tracey?’
    The silence seemed to last forever. Harry could see spots of sweat shining on the sergeant’s forehead and watched as the man’s hand moved to loosen his tie. It seemed as if his legs were starting to buckle beneath him and he stretched out an arm to steady himself.
    Vaulkhard’s face seemed more vulpine than ever. ‘Yes or no will suffice, sergeant.’
    The man turned to the judge. His naturally florid complexion seemed to have darkened. ‘My Lord ...,’ he began, but his voice was barely a whisper and it trailed away into nothingness.
    â€˜Are you feeling unwell, sergeant?’ asked the judge.
    For answer, the man clutched at his chest. He was gasping for breath. Then, as everyone looked on in frozen and fascinated horror, he slowly crumpled to the floor.
    The silence was broken by a cry of alarm from someone in the public gallery. Harry was immobile. So Dostoyevsky had it right , he thought. And from the row behind him, he could hear the voice of Jeannie Walter: ‘It’s fantastic, absolutely fantastic! Paddy’s killed the bugger!’
    â€˜I’ve heard of deadly cross-examinations,’ said a voice in Harry’s ear, ‘but this is ridiculous.’
    He was standing outside the court cafeteria. The sergeant had been whisked away to intensive care: the paramedics reckoned he had suffered a coronary. Kevin and Jeannie Walter had departed to give their media minders their exclusive reaction to the morning’s sensational development and the staircase and corridors of the courthouse were no longer buzzing with excitement. The rest of the cases on the list today were humdrum by comparison: the usual assortment of broken marriages and shattered lives. The judge had adjourned the case until the following Monday, although over a coffee Patrick Vaulkhard had expressed the view that that was due more to old Seagrave’s fondness for a four-day week than to any serious expectation that the sergeant would soon rise Lazarus-like from his sick bed to explain why he had never drawn his daughter’s brief fling with Denny Gurr to the attention of his superiors.
    He looked round and saw a lean woman in white shirt and black jacket and skirt. A Greenpeace badge was pinned to her lapel and an Amnesty International magazine peeped out of the briefcase at her feet. Kim Lawrence, partner in another small city-centre practice and specialist in civil liberties law.
    â€˜So you’ve heard about our little sensation in court?’
    â€˜You know what this place is like for gossip, and any new twist in the Jeannie Walter saga is hot news.’
    â€˜She’s become a legend in her own time, I agree. And after this case, what’s the betting but that she’ll make a career out of it?’
    â€˜Out of campaigning for justice?’
    â€˜No, out of being Jeannie Walter.’
    Kim Lawrence’s habitually watchful expression relaxed into a smile. Her blonde hair was brushed off her forehead and held in place by a slide; she shunned make-up and the only jewellery she wore was a pair of CND earrings. A career spent trying to bridge the gulf between truth and evidence had etched frown-lines into her forehead, and she wasn’t someone he had ever socialised with. But looking at her now, his interest was awakened, and not simply