A Game of Proof Read Online Free PDF

Whitaker assault. Despite the similarities between the cases, the evidence was simply not there to prosecute Gary for anything except the rape of Sharon Gilbert.
    ‘I hope you haven’t been harassing my client, Terry,’ Sarah said, half seriously.
    ‘I never touched him, Sarah,’ Terry protested, dryly. ‘Personally, I think someone should cut off the man’s dick and float it away on a weather balloon, though I’ll deny it if you ask me in court. But tell me - how can you ladies bring yourselves to defend a bastard like that? He’s a menace to every woman in Yorkshire. You do realise that, don’t you? Next time it could be someone like you. He’s killed already, you know.’
    ‘If you’re still trying to link him to the Clayton murder, Terry, he’s not charged with that here today,’ Sarah said firmly. ‘As you well know.’
    ‘Well he damn well should be!’ Terry snapped. ‘So the jury could see the similarities. Same cut in the neck, same method of bondage ...’
    ‘Different women, different places, Terry. And no evidence that my client was even there.’
    ‘A client with a record three pages long, including four assaults on women ...’
    ‘None particularly serious ...’
    ‘Oh, sure? Until it’s your face on the end of his fist!’ Terry stopped, aware that he was losing his temper. Again. It was happening too often these days. This was not the impression he wanted to convey, of some emotional, out-of-control bully. Not to this woman of all people. But he did care, strongly, about convicting Gary Harker. He took a deep breath and began again.
    ‘Look, I hear you tried to get the case thrown out this morning. How can you, as a woman, square a trick like that with the search for justice? Tell me that.’
    Sarah touched his arm softly. ‘I’m not a woman, Terry, I’m a barrister. My job’s to play the game in defence of my client. The game of proof. And when I play, I play to win.’
    Terry shivered. Perhaps it was her hand, the delicate fingers gently touching his arm; but it was also the cynical, lightly spoken words, the opposite of all he believed the law should be about, that frightened him. The three attacks on women had been his main investigation over the past six months, and the single positive result so far was Gary’s appearance in court today.
    Now Sarah Newby, of all people, was defending him.
    He scowled. ‘Well, I wish you the worst of luck. The sooner the vile pillock’s banged up for life the better. You can tell him that from me.’
    ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Sarah smiled, and took her hand from his arm. ‘I might hurt his feelings. And that would never do, would it?’
    Terry Bateson watched her go. It annoyed him intensely to see Sarah defending this case. He hated defence lawyers; he regarded them as a sort of parasite growing fat on the wounds of society. They worked in the courts of law but the one thing that seemed to concern them least was justice. If they could get a man released on a technicality they would, with no concern for the hard, sometimes dangerous detective work that had led to the arrest in the first place, or for the effect on the public of a smirking villain released to rape, rob or burgle once again. How would those two women feel, he wondered, if Harker broke into their homes and did to them what he had done to Sharon Gilbert?
    Serve them bloody well right. But even as he thought it the idea made him ill. Not Sarah Newby, please God not her.
    He had first met her when she had prosecuted two of his cases a year ago. The case against the first man had been thin, and the defendant and his expensive London barrister had come into court laughing, convinced he would get off. Terry’s heart had sunk, certain he was about to see two months of police work trashed.  His first sight of the pretty, dark-haired prosecution barrister had discouraged him further. In her late thirties, and only recently qualified, he’d heard. Nice legs, but probably no