Free The Veteran by Frederick Forsyth Page B

he sticks to it, we both know the prosecution cannot disprove it.
    At the back of the court Jack Burns swore inwardly. Why could not Melrose simply have insisted the injury could not possibly have occurred more than four hours before he tended it? No-one would ever have known. Damn scrupulously honest doctors.
    Mr. Paul Finch was the head of forensics. He was not a police officer, for the Met has for years used civilian scientists on contract for its forensic work.
    “You received into your possession a large quantity of items of clothing taken from the flat shared by the accused?” Vansittart asked.
    “Yes, I did.”
    “And every stitch of clothing worn by the victim during the attack?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you examined everything with the latest state-of-the-art technology to see if any fibres from the one set could be found on the other set?”
    “Yes.”
    “Were there any such traces?”
    “No.”
    “You also received a tee shirt soaked in dried blood?”
    “Yes.”
    “And a sample of blood from my client, Mr. Price?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did they match?”
    “They did.”
    “Was there anyone else’s blood on that tee shirt?”
    “No.”
    “Did you receive samples of blood taken from the pavement in the area of Paradise Way or the streets of the Meadowdene Grove estate?”
    “No.”
    “Did you receive samples of blood taken from beneath and around a builder’s truck in Farrow Road?”
    Mr. Finch was totally bewildered. He glanced at the bench, but received no help. D I Burns had his head in his hands. Miss. Sundaran was looking out of her depth.
    “Farrow Road? No.”
    “Precisely. No further questions.”
    Mr. Hamilton presented his post-mortem report with cheerful self-confidence. Cause of death, he pronounced, was due to severe axonal damage to the brain stem caused by repeated and heavy blows to the skull, compatible with blows administered by boots.
    “Did you,” asked James Vansittart, “examine every inch of the body during postmortem?”
    “Of course.”
    “Including the right hand?”
    Mr. Hamilton referred to his notes.
    “I have no reference to the right hand.”
    “Because there was no damage to it?”
    “That would be the only reason.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Hamilton.”
    Unlike the professionals, Mr. Whittaker, the elderly dog-walker, was slightly nervous and had taken some trouble with his dress. He wore his blazer with the Royal Artillery badge; he was entitled: in his National Service he had been a gunner.
    There had already been a pleasing stir at the Over Sixties Club when it was learned he would be a witness in a murder trial, and a grateful but bewildered Mitch had received a lot of petting.
    He described to the bench, led by Miss. Sundaran, how he had taken Mitch for his daily walk just after dawn, but how, fearing rain was coming, he entered the walled-off waste ground via a missing panel and headed for home by a short cut.
    He explained how Mitch, running free, had come back to him with something in his mouth. It was a wallet; so, recalling the appeal in the Friday paper, he had taken it to Dover Street police station.
    When he had finished, the other man rose, the one in the West End suit. Mr. Whittaker knew he represented those bastards in the dock. They would have been hanged in the witness’s younger days, and good riddance. So this man was the enemy. But he smiled in a most friendly fashion.
    “Best hour of the day on a summer’s morning? Cool, quiet, no-one about?”
    “Yes. That’s why I like it.”
    “So do I. Often take my Jack Russell for a walk about then.”
    He smiled again, real friendly. Not such a bad cove after all. Though Mitch was a lurcher cross, Mr. Whittaker had had a Jack Russell when he was on the buses. The blond man could not be all bad.
    “So you are walking across the waste ground and Mitch is running free?”
    “Yes.”
    “And there he is, suddenly back beside you, with something in his mouth?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you see exactly where