Free Verdict Unsafe by Jill McGown

proxy the same control, the same power. He could frighten those who most frightened him.
    “And that was what he did. He watched women, followed them, made them run from him. But he made no contact with them; he is a voyeur, and voyeurs are by nature passive. He admits to fantasizing about these women, but his only physical outlet for those fantasies was increasingly frequent use of a prostitute. And that makes sense; that was his safety valve, thebridge between fantasy and reality. In my opinion, Colin Drummond never lost sight of which was which. He knows he is Colin Drummond; he just wishes he wasn’t. And to that end, he play-acted. He pretended to be the rapist, just as he has pretended to be a hundred different things, a hundred different people. Perhaps without even being aware of it, he did cause the police to believe that he was the rapist by his reactions, and his body language, but not, I wouldn’t think, by saying so openly. A mask, real or figurative, does not imply openness of any sort.”
    Harper started asking questions then, designed, of course, to make Drummond appear to be nothing more than a sad inadequate whose innocent fantasies had got him into hot water.
    When it was over, Whitehouse got to his feet. “Wouldn’t such a man as you describe—one who has a fear of women, one who is dominated by his mother, one who retreats into fantasy—be capable of rape?” he asked.
    The psychologist smiled. “There is a school of thought which says that all men are capable of rape,” he said.
    There was a muted cheer from the women who sat across from Judy.
    “Isn’t one who follows women in the street and watches them make love in parked cars just a touch more likely to put that capability to use?” Whitehouse asked.
    “Possibly. But in this case the safety valve was there in Rosa, the prostitute with whom Drummond could find release for these fantasies.”
    “But not for long,” said Whitehouse. “The safety valve seems to have left town after people started being raped.”
    “I think,” the psychologist said, “that the important part of that sentence is
‘after
people started being raped.’ Not before. Two people had been raped before Rosa left. So there is little reason to connect Mr. Drummond to the rapes on those grounds.”
    “No further questions,” said Whitehouse.
    Harper stood. “That is the case for the defense, my lord,” he said, almost apologetically.
    The judge looked at his watch, and disappointed the gallery, who had been hoping for a verdict, and Judy, whose leave was up. “I think this will be a convenient time to adjourn,” he said. “I will hear the closing speeches on Monday.”
    “All rise. Let all those having business…”
Barton Crown Court, Monday 13 July
    Colin was brought up for the last time. Whitehouse and Harper were going to make their closing addresses to the jury, and the judge would sum up, Harper had told him. They were almost bound to get a verdict today. Harper had said that it was his duty to warn him that he believed it would be a guilty verdict, at least on the first three.
    Colin looked around the courtroom, watching it fill up. Those dykes in the gallery would take the roof off the building if he got sent down. Detective Inspector Hill wasn’t there today; she’d been there all last week, sitting with that lot. But she wasn’t a dyke. She was Lloyd’s girlfriend.
    Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd had come to see him, come into the garage when he was working on the bike, walked in without so much as asking. The garage was his place, where he could work on the bike, and think. His dad parked his car there, but that was all. Even his mum didn’t come in when Colin was working on the bike. But Lloyd had walked in, calling him “Colin,” as if he owned the place. Next morning, Colin had taken the bike out, had seen Lloyd leave a flat with a woman. Detective Inspector Hill. Lloyd had trespassed on his property, and Colin had made up his mind