CH 29

Jim Cumming’s entire body stiffened. He felt a chill run from his scalp to his toes.

He was like a goose with its neck caught, his mouth agape and wheezing, yet for a long time remaining unable to get a word out. Even his hair, which had been waxed, drooped down with a tacky, greasy sheen. 

The prosecutor seated at the plaintiff table also looked completely blank. He stared at Gu Yan for a long moment before turning his gaze back towards the witness stand.

He suddenly, very much regretted not having carefully vetted all the details with the witness in advance. Or, put another way, when he spoke to the witnesses before the court went into session about all the things they had to take note of, why hadn’t he thought of this?

The dead silence lasted for about four or five seconds, then the courtroom abruptly roared.

The people in the gallery finally snapped out of it, staring at the witness stand as they broke into fierce discussion. The hubbub of noise drilled into Jim Cumming’s ears, yet he couldn’t make out any words. 

His entire face flushed dramatically. Due to his excessive drinking all year round, his cheeks were even tinged purple.

“I…” he opened his mouth, his eyes darting around everywhere, his position clearly unsalvageable. “But… I…”

Gu Yan waited for a moment but never received any further explanation. He was completely unsurprised in the face of such a situation. He simply tossed the papers back to the table, and the electronic pages instantly returned to their original positions.

“Regrettably, I wasn’t able to hear a reasonable explanation. In that case, can I doubt your intentions?”

He said this sentence very calmly.

As a matter of fact, he was very calm throughout the court proceedings, never impassioned, never deliberately raising or lowering his voice, nor did his voice hold any provocation whatsoever. From beginning to end, he maintained an ice-cold manner, well-matched with his slightly frosty tone.

He could make every kind of analysis regarding Jim Cumming’s intentions, any of which would be sufficient to cause the man on the witness stand to completely collapse.

But there was no need to waste his breath. 

Just as someone once said, for juries or anyone with pre-existing bias, throwing out a lead and letting them draw the conclusion on their own would be more effective than any other method.

People in the gallery already made various speculations. For example, that Jim Cumming was the true perpetrator, and he gave this false testimony to cover up the truth and pin the crime on someone else.

And, for example, that this was the case of a chronic drunkard who no one took seriously and always assumed only spewed the boastful ramblings of a drunk. Then one day, his words suddenly had a presence, becoming so important that they could even determine his life. When he stood on the witness stand, everyone would quieten down, set their gazes on him, and carefully listen to every word he said. The difference in treatment from this salted fish revival gave him an ego boost and a sense of satisfaction.

What the spectators could think of, the jury could, too. 

Prosecutor Lu couldn’t help but turn his head to look up at the jury seated in the jury box. Those men and women were also having brief discussions with sombre or disgusted faces.

Silently, Lu turned back, feeling this trial had the word ‘ENDING’ boldly stamped above it in caps.

Amidst a myriad of suspicious and contemptuous stares, Jim Cumming had fallen from heaven into hell, the dropfall so overwhelming that he felt dizzy, barely able to stand.

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Normally, in court sessions held in De Carma or suchlike, when defects appeared in the testimony of key witnesses, if the defence represented by Gu Yan moved for a directed verdict, they would in the vast majority of times be granted, leading to a more satisfactory conclusion.

However, Judge Murray Liu’s ass was still very crooked, so the motion was dismissed.

He only asked the bailiff to take Jim Cumming out for follow-up questioning, and the trial went on unimpeded. 

When this old codger knocked the gavel, Yan Suizhi, seated behind Gu Yan, was unwilling to be left out. His pen moved again.

The esteemed former law school dean, former First-Class Lawyer, sat with his leg crossed, arched his brows, and on the paper, drew a turtle…

His strokes were very abstract, free, and confident.

Whereas the one who suffered the most was no more than the one in the bulletproof glass booth, Joshua Dale. 

He felt like a pheasant boy being held by the neck. Ten minutes ago he was even being held down on the chopping board with someone gesturing with the knife where to chop his head off, a hairbreadth away from death; but now he was saved by another who had snatched the knife away, escaping by the skin of his teeth.

Yet, after touching the ground, he wasn’t even able to flee more than two steps and take more than two breaths before being caught again.

Once again, his head rested on the chopping board. Life was really a goddamn motherfucker. If it wouldn’t even spare him at this point, then he was basically shit out of luck.

This time, he felt as though everything beneath his neck was already in jail, leaving only his head that was putting up a last-ditch struggle. 

On the other hand, Gu Yan and Yan Suizhi had both long expected this to happen.

After the motion for directed verdict was dismissed, the trial would enter the stage where the defence presented their evidence. Unfazed, Gu Yan stood at the defence table and reached out, swiping the playback control. The huge holographic screen in the courtroom instantly changed to switched content, showing the footwear impression record from the crime scene submitted by the forensic department of the police.

After the application, the forensic investigator took the witness stand, replying to the questions that Gu Yan raised.

“Forensic Officer Chen?” 

“That’s me.”

“Were you the one who submitted this footwear impression record?”

Chen nodded, “Yes.”

“The content is very clear,” Gu Yan said, “but in order to avoid unnecessary questions, I still have to confirm some details with you.” 

“Okay, no problem.”

“On page 2, line 3 of the record, the shoe print is 27.5cm in length; the forefoot shape is 14.5cm long, 9.3cm wide; the arch is 6.3cm long, 6cm wide; the heel is 6.6cm long, 6cm wide. Based on aforementioned wear condition and other on-site traces, the heel thickness is about 1.5cm.”

Gu Yan drew a line on the holographic screen with a light controller to make it easier for everyone to find this sentence.

“Could there be any errors in this part of the data?” 

Chen shook his head. “There shouldn’t be. The footwear traces provided to the forensic department were very clear, so there wouldn’t be any errors. The only possible error would be in the heel thickness.”

“What’s the error margin?”

“±0.05cm,” said Chen, adding, “this error margin isn’t enough to affect the results of the footwear analysis, it’s too insignificant.”

Gu Yan, “Are you sure that it’s only this margin of error?” 

“Very sure.”

Gu Yan nodded.

Prosecutor Lu, “…”

For some reason, he inexplicably started to panic when he saw Gu Yan nod his head. Most of the time when footwear were singled out and spoken about, the questioning would focus on the suspect’s height as deduced from the footwear. 

If this question was asked, Lu would have nothing much to worry about because height analysis had a significant margin of error. Both the jury and the judge already knew this, so raising issue on this point would not have any shock factor or hold much sway in court.

But it turned out that the defence lawyer was really only asking about the heel thickness?

What sort of ridiculous question is that?

Gu Yan swiped the playback controller again with a calm face, and this time the holographic screen finally showed the new evidence that he and Yan Suizhi had collected in the past few days. He picked the first of the many surveillance footage, the one from the lamb chop restaurant, and pulled the progress bar straight to the 7:55 p.m. mark on the 23rd. 

The whole courtroom tilted their heads, watching the top of a man’s head appear in the video due to Kitty Bell’s window being fogged up with condensation.

Gu Yan hit the pause button, then directly implanted this footage into the old city’s three-dimensional spatial map.

He turned the map to cross-sectional view. As he did so, there was a red dot in the lamb chop restaurant that represented the location of the camera, and a red dot in Kitty Bell’s house that represented the top of the suspect’s head exposed at the time of the crime.

“Thanks to modern technology,” Gu Yan’s expression was as composed as always. “All the distances have been marked on the map. Forensic Officer Chen, I believe that you can calculate using these figures exactly how tall this suspect needs to be to reveal his hair with these obstacles in the way.” 

Actually, there wasn’t any need to calculate it manually at all. He just had to pick that point on the map interface and tap a button, and it would automatically churn out that value.

Chen subconsciously reached out and tapped the playback controller on the witness stand. The red dot representing the suspect jumped on the screen, and an additional marked value appeared next to it. “182.3cm, with an error margin of ±0.2cm.”

Gu Yan dropped his gaze and picked up the information on Joshua Dale, as well as the registration information taken from the detention centre where he was held.

“My client, Joshua Dale, has a total height of 176cm. These are based on the measurements recorded at the detention centre.” Gu Yan gently waved the holographic paper, saying lightly, “Even if you add on the heel height inferred from the footwear impression record, it is still well under 182.3cm.” 

“May I ask, was the detention centre’s data falsified, or was the footwear impression record falsified?”

Chen, “………”

What else could he say? He couldn’t say anything; everything he could think of, errors and suchlike, were all blocked by Gu Yan in the previous line of questioning.

Once again, a hush descended upon the courtroom. 

After five seconds, a louder outcry than before broke out.

Joshua, enclosed within the cramped glass booth, abruptly sat up straight, looking blankly at Gu Yan, unable to believe his ears.

He drifted in this spell of bafflement for a very long time; by the time his trembling heart found its footing and his five senses returned, the judge had banged his gavel. Murray Liu had a pinched look on his face. Facing facts and pressure, he had no choice but to ask the jury to give a verdict.

“So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, do you have a verdict?” 

He looked at the jury and asked gravely.

Everyone’s eyes were on the tall jury box. Joshua felt that his entire body had frozen up; he had never been this nervous before, his whole life was riding on this answer.

The jury foreperson nodded amidst the silence. “Yes. We have a verdict.”

Murray Liu, “Guilty, or not guilty?” 

As everyone held their breaths, the jury foreman’s deep voice resonated through the courtroom, loud enough for everyone in court to hear—

“Not guilty.”

Case dismissed.