Silently, George placed an open packet of Gold Leaf between them. Hawkin snatched one greedily and George lit it for him. Hawkin drew in the smoke and his whole body relaxed. He ran a hand over his hair and said, ‘I’ll be out of here in a few days. You know that, don’t you? My brief is going to tell the world just how bent you bastards are. You know I never killed Alison, and I’m going to make you eat your words, one by one.’
George shook his head, almost admiring the man’s defiance. ‘You’re whistling in the dark, Hawkin,’ he said, deliberately condescending. ‘However hard you try to make the world believe otherwise, I’m an honest copper. You know and I know that nobody’s fitted you up. Nobody had to, because you killed Alison and we caught you.’
‘I never killed her,’ he said, his voice intense as his eyes. ‘You’ve got me locked up in here, and whoever took Alison is walking around laughing at you.’
George shook his head. ‘It’s not going to work, Hawkin. It’s a good act, but all the evidence stacks up against you.’ He took a cigarette from the pack and lit it nonchalantly. ‘Mind you,’ he continued, ‘you still have a choice.’
Hawkin said nothing, but cocked his head to one side, his lips a thin, unsmiling line.
‘You can choose whether you do life, with a chance of seeing the outside world again in twenty years or so. Or whether you hang. It’s up to you. It’s not too late to change your plea. You go guilty and you live. You make us work for it, and you hang. By the neck. Till you are well and truly dead.’
Hawkin sneered. ‘They’re not going to hang me. Even if they find me guilty, there’s not a judge in the land would have the nerve to send me to the gallows. Not on evidence like you’ve got.’
George leaned back in his seat, his eyebrows raised. ‘You think not? If it’s good enough for a jury to convict you, it’s good enough for a judge to hang you. Especially a hard nut like Fletcher Sampson. He’s not scared of the bleeding heart liberals.’ He suddenly jerked forward, forearms on the table, gaze locked on Hawkin’s. ‘Look, do yourself a favour. Tell us where to find her. Put her mother’s mind at rest. It’ll go down well with the judge. You get a good mitigation from your barrister and you could be out in ten years.’
Hawkin shook his head in frustration. ‘You’re not hearing properly, George,’ he said, turning the name into an insult. ‘I don’t know where she is.’
George got to his feet, sweeping his packet of cigarettes into his pocket. ‘Please yourself, Hawkin. No skin off my nose. I’ll get the promotion whether you cough or not. Because we are going to win out there.’
Now, as he watched the people in the street below about their business, oblivious to the drama unfolding inside the courtroom, he wished he felt as confident as he hoped he had sounded. He turned away from the window and slumped into a chair. By now, the charges would have been read and Hawkin would no doubt have answered, ‘Not guilty,’ twice.
Stanley would wait until the jury were settled, then make the opening statement for the prosecution. It was, George thought, the most crucial moment of any trial. He believed people were most impressed by what they heard at the start of a trial, when they were fresh and their minds most open to persuasion. If the prosecuting barrister delivered an opening address full of conviction and stated what he intended to prove as if it were already demonstrably incontrovertible fact, it left the defence with a steep mountain to climb. George had every confidence that Stanley could do just that. George didn’t expect to give his own evidence until the second day of the trial, but he couldn’t stay away.
He just wished Clough would turn up. Then at least he’d have someone to share his restlessness with.
Desmond Stanley rose. ‘Your Lordship, I appear for the Director of Public Prosecutions in this matter. Philip Hawkin is accused of the rape of Alison Carter, aged thirteen. He is further accused that on a separate occasion, on or about the eleventh of December, nineteen sixty-three, he did murder the said Alison Carter.’
He paused to let the gravity of the charges sink in. The courtroom was silent; it was as if everyone had stopped breathing the better to hear Stanley’s sonorous voice.
’Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Philip Hawkin moved to Scardale in the summer of nineteen sixty-two, following the death of his uncle. He inherited a substantial estate – the entire dale, consisting of fertile farmland, extensive stock in the shape of sheep and cattle, Scardale Manor itself and eight cottages comprising the hamlet of Scardale. Everyone who lives and works in Scardale does so solely with his blessing, which you should bear in mind when you listen to the evidence of those who are his tenants. It shows commendable courage and lack of self-interest that those people are prepared to appear as witnesses for the prosecution.
’Not long after he arrived in Scardale, Philip Hawkin began to take an interest in one of the women in the village, Ruth Carter. Mrs Carter had been widowed six years previously and had a daughter, Alison, from that marriage. Alison was then twelve years old. You must consider, as our evidence unfolds, whether Hawkin’s primary interest was in the mother or the daughter. It may have been that he sought to divert suspicion from his perverted interest in Alison by marrying her mother. If Alison had accused her tormentor, who would have believed such a tale from the daughter of his new bride? Doubtless she would have been accused of acting out of dislike of her stepfather, or jealousy of the attention he had won from her mother. Whatever his motive, the accused pursued Mrs Carter ruthlessly until eventually she agreed to marry him.
’It is our contention that at some point after the marriage took place, Hawkin began to molest sexually his stepdaughter. You will see photographic evidence of a particularly loathsome kind that demonstrates not only the debauch of his stepdaughter but also proves beyond a scintilla of doubt that Philip Hawkin is guilty of the rape of Alison Carter in the most calculated and disgusting manner.
’The Crown intends to show that Alison was further victimized by a man who owed her the duty of care of a father. We may never know the reason why Philip Hawkin decided to silence her for ever. She may have threatened to reveal his bestial practices to her mother or to someone in authority; she may have refused to cooperate further with his vile demands; he may simply have ceased to find her attractive and wished to dispose of her to leave him free to debauch another child. As I said, we may never know. But what we do intend to prove is that, whichever was his motive, Philip Hawkin abducted Alison Carter at gunpoint, abused her sexually for one last time and then murdered her.
’On the afternoon of the eleventh of December last year, Alison Carter left the family home to take a walk after school with her dog, Shep. It is our contention that Philip Hawkin followed her into a nearby wood, where he forced her to accompany him. Her dog was later found there tied to a tree, its muzzle taped shut with elastoplast identical to that purchased by Hawkin the previous week in a local shop.
’He then took her to a secluded spot, a cave in some disused mine workings whose very existence was unknown to all the other inhabitants of the dale save one. On the way, while passing through another piece of woodland, Alison somehow managed to break free and a struggle took place. She struck her head against a tree in the course of this struggle and Hawkin was then able to transport her to the cave. We will present forensic evidence to support this.
’Once her stepfather had managed to bring her to this isolated spot, safe from prying eyes and ears, he brutally raped her yet again. Then he killed her. Afterwards, he moved the body to another site. Although it has not been found, that is not entirely surprising, for the limestone around Scardale is riddled with underground cave systems and potholes. But he had no time to return to clear away the rest of the evidence, for by the time he returned home in time for tea, the hunt was already afoot for his stepdaughter.
’We know for a fact that shots were fired in that cave by a gun that was later found on Philip Hawkin’s property, in a locked outhouse which he used as a photographic darkroom. We know that a shirt belonging to Philip Hawkin was heavily stained with blood which is not his. There is no forensic evidence to contradict the convincing conclusion that Hawkin murdered Alison Carter.