The Perfect Girl

MONDAY MORNING
SAM

Zoe and I didn’t talk for long that first time we met at the police station in Barnstaple. I mostly wanted to introduce myself, to reassure her as much as I could, and explain to her that I was there to help her. I wanted to try to gain her trust before detailed questioning began. And I didn’t want to start that until I’d spoken to the officer on the case, to get disclosure.

I met him in the custody reception area. After a brief handshake, we took a seat in a room similar to the one that Zoe was waiting in. He had a broad, whiskery face and Punch and Judy red cheeks. His uniform was tight around the belly.

He handed me the charge sheet and told me that he was going to make an audio recording of the disclosure too. That’s sensible, it’s a record of what’s taken place so there’s nothing to argue over later, because that’s my job, to find holes in the evidence: procedural or actual, it doesn’t matter, either can serve my client.

He told me what they had, all of it. The police don’t have to do this, they can be slippery, and disclose in stages, drawing the process out if they’re inclined to. I’ve had disclosures that dribble out over hours, interspersed with exhausting client interviews where we’re forced to run a ‘No Comment’ defence because we don’t know what they’re going to pull out of the bag next.

Zoe’s disclosure was forthright, succinct and the content was as depressing as possible.

When you get a good, honest exchange with an officer in this situation, normally it restores your faith in your profession, gees you up for the daily grind of criminality, because that well-behaved, professional exchange between you both feels like an honourable thing; it pushes away the thoughts of the shysters and the ambulance-chasers, the doughnut-munchers and the baton-wielders. You become two men, in a room, upholding the law, and there’s a purity to that, a kind of distinction, which is a very rare thing on a day-to-day basis.

In Zoe’s case, it only made things slightly more bearable, because the facts of her arrest were so unremittingly grim.

‘She’d got herself out of the car when we got there,’ he said. ‘But she was definitely the driver. We breathalysed her at the scene, seventy-five mg.’

My heart sank because that reading was well over the limit. She must have consumed a great deal of alcohol to be that drunk, even given her small size.

‘Three passengers in the car,’ he continued, deadpan, though it was tough stuff to read out, even if you’re a professional. ‘Front passenger dead at the scene, rear left-side passenger dead at the scene, rear right-side passenger transferred to Barnstaple Hospital.’

He caught the question in my gaze but shook his head.

‘Died half an hour ago. Massive bleed to the brain. Family agreed to turn her off.’

‘Christ.’

‘I’ve seen some scenes, but this was really bad. And there was music pumping from the car, you could hear it on approach, made for a strange scene, spooky.’

I imagined the black night, starlight above, headlights parked at a crazy angle, a steaming engine, crumpled bodywork, shattered glass and the stereo still blasting out a loud driving tune to the broken bodies inside, only two out of the four of them producing wisps of misty breath in the cold darkness.

‘She consented to a blood test at the hospital,’ he continued. ‘Confirmed she was well over the limit.’

‘Zoe consented?’

‘And the doctor.’

I might have had something to work with if Zoe alone had consented to a blood test, because of her age. It was another situation where she had to have an ‘appropriate adult’ advising her. I was pretty sure the police had this one taped, but made a note that it was something to check.

‘Road traffic report?’

‘Ordered.’

‘How long for that?’

‘As quick as we can make it – end of the week probably.’

At this early stage in proceedings, part of my job was to be sure that the police had the evidence they needed to prove all the elements of the offence that the prosecution would present at court. We would need all the test results and paperwork in before I could make a proper judgement on that, but the heaviness in his voice and the apparently rigid adherence to protocol told me that as far as this area of the investigation was concerned, things weren’t looking good for Zoe. If I was going to find a defence for her, I suspected it was unlikely it would lie in the procedural detail, or the facts of the accident or the quality of her treatment afterwards, because, so far, the police appeared to have done everything by the book.

‘You’re going to have to bail her. You can’t keep her in, she’s too young.’

I wondered if he was going to argue this, because of the severity of what Zoe had done, but he didn’t.

‘We’re probably happy with that, subject to conditions of course.’

‘Good. We can discuss conditions. So you’re charging her with “Death by careless driving whilst under the influence”.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, but he meant ‘Yes.’

We stood. Our chairs didn’t move because they were bolted to the floor. A firm handshake and he said, ‘It’s a bad one this. It’s a shame. She’s just a kid.’

I nodded. I agreed with him, but I wondered whether the families of the children who died would feel that way.

Before I left the room, I said, ‘Does she know? About the fatalities?’

‘She knows about the first two, but not about the girl who died at the hospital. Sorry.’

That word again.