From: Maggie Rose
To: Hamish Wolfe
Date: 28.12.2015
OK, I’ve had a look at Annabelle Weston. I found her on Facebook. Her privacy settings are tight but there is a publicly available photograph. She’s a little overweight, I grant you, but really?
I don’t see it, to be honest, but we can keep it in the armoury. I’m going to be on the road for the next few days, looking up a few of your old college friends. I’ll keep you posted, of course. Take care of yourself.
M
Chapter 72
Email
From: Avon and Somerset Police, Detective Sergeant Peter Weston
To: Maggie Rose
Date: 29.12.2015
Dear Maggie,
Sorry about Xmas Day. Probably is a good idea if we give each other some space. Just until you stop flogging the dead horse that is Hamish Wolfe, then I’d love to take you out to dinner. LOL as the youngsters say!?
I’m going to be out of circulation for a few days. DCI Latimer is on at me to ‘tie up every loophole in the Wolfe case’. The poor lamb is seriously rattled (be flattered). I don’t share his anxiety, obvs, but I’m going to have to do something to keep his blood pressure at manageable levels.
So – wait for it – I’m going to track down Daisy Baron, Wolfe’s girlfriend from college. I’m banking on her not giving up on her medical degree completely, so I’ve been checking medical school admissions in 1997 and 1998. Got a couple of possibles, both up north.
I’m sure it goes without saying I’m not exactly expecting to find a shallow grave with a bag of old bones in it, but it would open up a whole new dimension on the case if I did, don’t you think?
Speaking of dead horses, Latimer has agreed to put some resources into finding that computer you and Wolfe are fixated on. If you send over that list you drew up, with an update on where you got with it, we might be able to help out. I still think it’s a very long shot, but you never know.
A couple of other things. I’ve spoken to Sarah Smith, aka Sirocco Silverwood. Talk about mad as a box of frogs! She denies going anywhere near your house and declined to submit fingerprints. She could have been the one to leak your personal details to Facebook but, without good reason, we can’t haul her computer off for examination. Tricky one, but we’ll keep an eye on her.
Oh, and I found the flowers by your bin. Daisies? What’s going on, Maggie? When and how did they arrive? They’re currently rotting slowly in the back of my car, just in case you go looking for them.
I’ll be in touch. Dare I say, Happy New Year?
Pete
Chapter 73
Guardian, Saturday, 13 September 2014
HAMISH WOLFE TRIAL: DAY 5
A dramatic development in the Hamish Wolfe trial yesterday saw the judge ruling the evidence of a key prosecution witness as inadmissible and instructing the jury to disregard his entire testimony. Legal experts described it as a severe blow to the prosecution’s case, as the witness had been expected to testify that Wolfe’s dangerous, predatory tendencies could be traced back over two decades.
James Laurence, 39, a GP in Rawtenstall in Lancashire, and a university contemporary of Wolfe, had been giving evidence for nearly an hour when the judge, Mr Justice Peters, intervened and called into question the relevance and reliability of everything Laurence had told the court. Under UK law, he reminded the jury, evidence presented in criminal cases must be ‘relevant, without being prejudicial, and reliable’.
‘Your testimony is based on half-remembered anecdotes and groundless rumours,’ the judge said to Laurence. ‘Your memory of the facts, by your own admission and the testimony of others, is vague and unsubstantiated. The defence has been right to call your evidence repeatedly into question. It adds nothing to the prosecution’s case, it would be dangerous to rely upon it further and I hereby instruct the jury to disregard it.’
Like Wolfe, Laurence studied medicine at Oxford and was a member, albeit on the periphery, of Wolfe’s social circle. He’d been called as a prosecution witness to give the court an insight into the character of his former friend and, in particular, Wolfe’s predilection for a certain type of female.
During questioning by the Crown prosecution barrister, Miles Richardson QC, Laurence spoke of an inner circle of five of the brightest medical students, all of them white men from professional or upper-class backgrounds, with Wolfe as their acknowledged leader. The five men, three of whom we are not permitted to name for legal reasons, studied together, socialized and, crucially, formed a secret club that was to lead, in the opinion of the police investigating team, to the death of at least one young woman.