Page 19 of The Veteran

‘No, sir.’

‘Yet, by noon the next day you were actively looking for Mr Price and Mr Cornish with a view to arresting them. Why was that?’

‘Because between eleven and twelve the next day I had established two positive identifications.’

‘From the CRO photographs, the so-called mug book?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And made by a local shopkeeper, Mr Veejay Patel?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Tell me, Inspector, how many photographs did Mr Patel examine?’

Jack Burns consulted his notes.

‘Seventy-seven.’

‘And why seventy-seven?’

‘Because the twenty-eighth photograph he positively identified as Mark Price and the seventy-seventh as Harry Cornish.’

‘Is seventy-seven the total of youngish white males who have ever come to the attention of the police in the north-east quadrant of London?’

‘No, sir.’

‘The figure would be higher?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘How many photographs did you have at your disposal that morning, Mr Burns?’

‘About four hundred.’

‘Four hundred. And yet you stopped at seventy-seven.’

‘The identifications were absolutely positive.’

‘And yet Mr Patel never had the opportunity to look at the remaining three hundred and twenty-three?’

There was a long silence.

‘No, sir.’

‘Detective Inspector Burns, my client, Mr Price, seen from the neck up, is a beefy, mid-twenties white male with a shorn head. Are you telling this court there are no others like that among your four hundred photos?’

‘I cannot say that.’

‘I suggest there must be a score. Nowadays, beefy young men who choose to shave their skulls are two a penny. Yet, Mr Patel never had the opportunity to compare Mr Price’s photograph with any similar face further down the list of four hundred?’

Silence.

‘You must answer, Mr Burns,’ said the stipendiary, gently.

‘No, sir, he did not.’

‘Then there might have been another face, further on, remarkably similar to Mr Price, but Mr Patel had no chance to make a comparison, go back and forth, stare at both of them, before making his choice?’

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