False Witness Read online

  Emma pulled at my gown again. “Tom, it’s important.”

  As I looked at the juror’s eyes, I wondered whether she would ever realize how similar they were to the gray eyes of the murdered girl.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THROUGH CLOUDS OF STALE SMOKE AND THE PLEASant haze of a five-year-old Meursault, I saw Justine and Davenport enter the wine bar. It was inevitable. Everyone came to Johnson’s after a day in the legal salt-mines. It was the communal Jacuzzi of the criminal Bar. No one really remembered if it was ever officially called Johnson’s. New owners came and went, the name on the sign outside changed. One year it said Smithfield’s, the next it said Taylor’s. Very often we didn’t know what its proper name was. But we just called it Johnson’s, as we always had. It was the only place to be seen. Above the door, there was even a quote from old Dr. Johnson himself:

  Sir, I have found you an argument,

  but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

  When I saw the prosecution team, I was in a quiet corner with Emma Sharpe. There was a general mood of despondency around the wine bar that well matched my own.

  “What’s everyone else got to be so glum about?” I asked her.

  “Crime figures are out.”

  “Bad?”

  “Awful,” she said.

  “Up by much?”

  “Five per cent down.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I said. “Now even crime’s in recession.”

  “Look at them all,” Emma replied, pointing at the dark-suited hordes of criminal practitioners, “crying into their South African chardonnay.”

  I knew that some legal hacks were reputed to follow the rape and robbery statistics with the same fervor that shareholders follow the fluctuations of the stock market. Any fall was unexpected. For Crime PLC had a stock that seemed to have increased ever since Eve pinched an apple and Cain took a bit of a dislike to his brother.

  “I mean,” Emma continued, “what are the poor loves going to do?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, think of all those private school fees to pay. Think of all the Tuscan villas to maintain. And what happens? Their ungrateful clients decide to go straight. It really is too criminal.”

  I couldn’t share Emma’s frivolity. In my mind, I kept seeing the strange shape of the knife and I wondered what could motivate someone to puncture a young body forty-three times. Emma continued to outline the impact of the falling crime rate on the Bar. When she saw that I was not listening, she stopped.

  “Tom, what’s the matter?”

  I did not answer.

  “This media circus has really freaked you, hasn’t it?” she said.

  “What did you want to tell me? You said in court—”

  “Tom, what has happened to you?”

  “I thought everyone knew. Worst kept secret at the Bar.”

  “God, they really got to you. Didn’t they, Tom?”

  “I don’t want to hear this speech again.”

  “Well, you’re going to hear it. Again and—”

  “What? From you? What have you defended? A punch-up in Romford and a couple of naff burglaries?”

  “I’ve defended in drugs trials.”

  “Trendy friends of yours. Pushing cannabis at student raves. Well, that’s really the big time, Emma.”

  By the time I had said that, my voice was hard and the words were pointed. I knew they cut into Emma and she said nothing for a while as she slowly sipped her wine.

  “I wanted to be your pupil,” she finally said. “You know, everyone said it was a mistake, that you were—well, sliding. But I knew, Tom.” She looked at me and her eyes were wide. “I knew.”

  I sank into my seat as she spoke about a barrister I hardly recognized.

  “All of us were reluctant to have a man defending Sarah Morrow. I mean, the campaign was run by pretty strict feminists and all that, but you had a reputation of being a fighter and that’s what we needed.”

  It was a big issue for the women’s movement. Sarah Morrow lived in the general Stonebury area. She had killed her husband after years of abuse and wanted to say that over a period of time she was provoked into the stabbing. It wasn’t a defense known to law, but we fought it.

  Court 8 seemed a lot bigger in those days. I suppose I was just not used to it back then. I had tried really hard to forget the case.

  “I never saw such… well, I guess, such passion in a courtroom,” said Emma. She was sitting beside me gabbling her words. “You tore the policeman to shreds, you destroyed those shrinks; you couldn’t have done any more—”

  “I could have won,” I said.

  “Sarah knew the risks.”

  “Did she?”

  Emma didn’t seem to hear that or didn’t want to hear it. “The law doesn’t like women standing up for themselves. It was always going to be tough. The point is you fought it.”

  “And lost.”

  “But we can win Kingsley’s case,” she said.

  “You just don’t get it, do you? People get hurt.”

  “That’s life, Tom.”

  “No, Emma. That’s the law. And one day pretty soon you’re going to learn the cost of defeat.”

  Again we were silent. Eventually, I was fortified by the workings of the Côte d’Or sun, and broached what I knew to be a sensitive question. “What is it with you and Justine?”

  “With me and Miss Whiter-than-White?”

  “Yes, you and Justine.”

  “Too pure to get her hands dirty defending the bad guys?”

  “She used to defend.”

  “Exactly,” said Emma. “Pass me the wine.”

  When I had poured out a little more Burgundy, I said, “Justine’s just doing a job, you know.”

  Emma laughed at that. “It’s not a job to her,” she said.

  “What is it then?”

  “Really want to know?” I looked at her impatiently and she continued. “I know this is going to sound weird”—she looked around to see there was no one near—“but it’s like… it’s like some sort of mission to her.”

  “What nonsense,” I said.

  “You haven’t twigged, have you?”

  “What?”

  Emma took a large gulp of wine and then spoke very fast. “She thinks she’s the Angel of sodding Vengeance.” Before I could protest she added, “And let me tell you something else”—again she looked round—“she’s going to make Kingsley pay for Molly Summers.” She wolfed down the rest of the glass and slammed it on the table. She was a little manic which was rare to see.

  “Does Justine know Kingsley or something?” I asked. “I mean, isn’t there a professional conflict?”

  “I don’t think so. Stonebury’s small, but people tend to keep to themselves. Or so Sarah Morrow told us during the campaign. Apparently, no one really knew Kingsley—except, of course, the Stonebury Girl Guides. Still, the locals hate him now. That’s why it’s been moved to the Bailey. Local prejudice and all that.”

  We sat in silence for a while trying to think of things to say. Generally I trusted Emma’s instincts, but I thought she was wrong about Justine. Justine had become rather depressed after Sarah Morrow’s suicide. The gloom would not lift. Depression became illness and Justine left the Bar for two years. When she returned, she gave up defending.

  “Another bottle?” I said.

  “Look, I like partying. But not during a trial. We’ve got a murder tomorrow. Or have you forgotten your appointment with Mr. Justice Manly?”

  “Half a bottle?”

  “Work, Tom.”

  “A glass?”

  “All right then, you old soak. But we’ve got to discuss the case.”

  Emma took out a bundle of photographs. They were of the dead body. I knew the prosecution would introduce them the next day.

  “So,” she said, “what are we going to do about these, Tom?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Brilliant, Tom, you’re just so full of enthusi
asm for this case. I mean, can’t we object or something? They’re so prejudicial.”

  “The jury has a right to see—”

  “What? A pre-pubescent girl mutilated on a stone with a muslin dress over her head?”

  “She was sixteen, Emma.”

  “I know, but have you noticed how all those Stonebury women look the same?”

  “No,” I replied.

  “Well, take Sarah Morrow. She was the same. Thin as a rake and no breasts. I mean, haven’t these people heard of puberty? They’re just like the landscape around there.”

  “Why?”

  “Even the hills are flat. And all the women have got that same countryside sort of look.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, like Twiggy on horseback. Inbreeding, perhaps?”

  “No,” I said. “Too little pollution and too many turnips. Can’t be healthy.”

  “Talking of vegetable matter,” Emma replied, “have you seen? Davenport is over there with—”

  “No.”

  “Liar,” she said. “Are you going to get some more wine or what?”

  In those days, of course, that was precisely the type of question that I found far easier to answer.

  Pushing through the crush in Johnson’s was a delicate art-form, one they should have taught in Bar school. There were so many legal toes to avoid treading upon, so many professional backs to scratch. I pushed past barristers deploring the vices of alcohol, past others propounding the virtues of oral sex.

  There was dark wood everywhere and some prints from Vanity Fair. The rest of the wall-space was taken up with mirrors. The clientele was predominantly legal and male. The bar staff was female. The air buzzed with extraordinary forensic triumph and tragic, but courageous, defeat. No one believed what anyone else said, but that didn’t matter. The telling was all.

  As I approached the bar, I saw Justine. She very pointedly ignored me, still smarting, no doubt, from our confrontation in court. She talked to the officer in charge of the case, Inspector Stanley Payne. Next to them, Davenport was puffing at his cheap cigarette between telling everybody about his brilliant opening speech and lining up a young pupil for the taxi ride home.

  Justine looked so small compared to Davenport. I suppose the effect was exaggerated because she still had girlishly blond hair. She looked younger than her thirty-five years. I remembered what Emma had said about Molly Summers, and I suppose Justine also had that same Stonebury look. She was very slender. I could never work out whether that meant that she was fragile or resilient. Was she more like a piece of cane or a dry twig? If I pressed her, would she bend or would she break?

  I returned to Emma with another full bottle and she didn’t seem to remember the terms of our compromise. She finished jotting down some notes for the next day, and put them in her wicker bag.

  “Who was to blame?” she asked me without blinking.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Rubbish. Who was to blame, Tom?”

  “To blame for what?”

  “For Sarah Morrow’s case. Five years ago.”

  “Look, Emma. I don’t think I can—”

  “Oh, do cut the Sir Galahad routine, Tom.” She paused so that I looked directly at her. “Now, you and Justine. Who was to blame?”

  “If we’re going to discuss this, I want my lawyer present,” I said.

  “You have got your lawyer present,” Emma replied. “Who was to blame?”

  “I don’t understand you lot. It was your women’s group that instructed Justine as junior counsel. Or have you forgotten that little detail?”

  “It wasn’t my group. I had no say in it.”

  “Well, the sisters then. Collectively. They must have wanted Justine to defend.”

  “I think it came from the family. Sarah Morrow once went to the same school as Justine or something.”

  I then remembered being told something similar a few years previously. “So it was the Stonebury connection?” I asked.

  “I suppose so,” Emma replied. “Anyway, the point is Justine simply didn’t have her heart in it. Didn’t care. Only in it for the publicity.” Emma sipped some more wine. “Justine’s a bit like… well, rather like one of those birds. You know, the ones that go after shiny objects.”

  “Jays? Or magpies?”

  “I’m not a bloody ornithologist, Tom. The point is, they’re just attracted to the glitter.”

  “Perhaps she was misunderstood.”

  “And perhaps you just wanted to get into her knickers.” We both knew that was a cheap shot. “You’re so pathetically weak with women. A toss of the hair, quick whiff of perfume and you’re putty, Tom.”

  She emptied my glass. “God, this wine is rough,” she said and tried to smile, but it was not very convincing. “You see, Tom, I sometimes worry about you.”

  “About what?”

  “About… well, about your disgusting little soul. Christ, now I’m sounding like your priest.”

  “I haven’t got one.”

  “Perhaps you should.” She picked up her bag and brushed herself down. “I’m just worried about what you’re doing to yourself. Justine Wright is trouble, Tom.”

  “Emma,” I said, “let me just say—”

  But she put her fingers to my lips a little like Justine had done at Manly’s party years ago. For the first time in her life, Emma Sharpe pressed her cheek against mine. She immediately recoiled in embarrassment, not wanting me to take it the wrong way. But I could not, not with Emma.

  “Want to know the truth?” she asked as I nodded. “I’m a little frightened about what we might find in this case, Tom. I don’t give a damn about Richard Kingsley; as far as I’m concerned, he can burn in hell for ever. He’s pure evil.”

  “To you, he’s evil,” I said. “To me, he’s just another client suffering from a dodgy alibi and an acute lack of innocence.”

  “That’s what you always do,” Emma said. “Try to joke it away.”

  “Well, innocence is a much overrated commodity. Don’t you think?”

  Emma paused but did not smile. “You see, Tom, no matter what you might say, there’s something at the heart of all this. Something rotten. You know, a bit terrible. I’m not sure what it is, but I think you might just stumble your way into it.”

  She started to walk away, but stopped after a couple of paces and added, “That’s why I’m worried about you, Tom.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE BEDROOM AT HOME WAS AS COLD AS EVER. Penny, my wife, insisted on sleeping with the window ajar whatever the season. There was a slender shaft of moonlight on the bed and I could see her baggy white tee-shirt—she never wore negligees or anything like that. Too prissy, she used to say.

  And then I felt a movement somewhere below my belt-line. In Kingsley’s novels, such a scene would result in the hero’s “manhood” becoming engorged and throbbing. But the only thing that throbbed was my forehead. And all that I felt further down was a faint tingling. I knew that it would happen. It occurred disconcertingly often in those days. I got drunk and wanted to make love. The irony was that I probably couldn’t, but that wasn’t the point.

  Surveying the target area, I tried to decide upon my best strategy. Penny always complained that my hands were cold when I came to bed after her. That was Step One: I put my cupped hands to my mouth and blew into them several times. Penny stirred and rolled on to her back, while I began to undress, balancing precariously on the bottom of the bed.

  “Tom, is that you?” she asked. I just told her to go back to sleep. Penny reached out with one arm, but I was too far away. When the hand fell limply back to the sheets, I put my head next to her on the pillow. Penny smelled of sleep.

  “What time is it?”she asked.

  I did not answer. That would have been certain disaster. Instead I moved closer and tried to kiss her forehead. Penny rapidly pulled away.

  “You’ve been drinking,” she said.

  I had made a huge mistake. Usually
I would brush my teeth and gargle with that sickly tasting mouthwash, but she could smell alcohol and my task had become doubly difficult. As I crawled under the duvet, I thought that there was still hope. It required tact, timing and just a little luck. I giggled foolishly.

  Her body was curled tightly and she started as if shocked when I moved against her. There were obviously parts of my anatomy that I couldn’t warm up—the pulsing blood inside didn’t seem to reach the outer skin.

  “Pen,” I whispered.

  There was no response.

  “Pen, are you asleep?”

  It was, of course, a ridiculous question. She mumbled something.

  “Penny,” I started to stroke her hair. Mousy, she called it and seemed to wash it less and less as she grew older and it grew darker. My fingers got caught in the knots.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  She knew. We’d been through the routine on so many occasions. I felt humiliated. Although I believed that a husband has no right to expect anything from his wife, deep down I still felt ludicrous having to plot and scheme just to sleep with Penny. The longer we were together, the more difficult it became to make love.

  “I’m asleep,” she said.

  “Penny,” I whispered. It was my last chance. I slowly moved my hand across her body and started to caress her left breast. That was Step Two. Slowly the nipple grew harder.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “That’s obvious isn’t it?”

  “Well, don’t,” she snapped with a crashing finality.

  The bedside light went on and Penny looked at the clock. She stared at me but said nothing. As I tried to keep my eyes fixed on the ceiling, I could feel her feet passing against mine.

  “Thought so,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You want to screw. You’re so bloody predictable. Lights off, socks on. So romantic.”

  I knew it annoyed her, but my toes got cold when the window was open. There was no point replying—all was lost.

  “Been boozing, have you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Don’t lie. You stink of alcohol. It’s revolting.” Then there was a much gentler inflection in her voice. “Darling, come here.”