Death of an Expert Witness (11 page)

The library at Hoggatt’s was at the rear of the ground floor. Its three tall windows gave a view of the stone terrace and the double flight of steps going down to what had once been a lawn and formal gardens, but which was now a half-acre of neglected grass, bounded to the west by the brick annex of the Vehicle Examination Department, and to the east by the old stable block, now converted into garages. The room was one of the few in the house spared its former owner’s transforming zeal. The original bookcases of carved oak still lined the walls, although they now housed the Laboratory’s not inconsiderable scientific library, while extra shelf-room for bound copies of national and international journals had been provided by two steel movable units which divided the room into three bays. Under each of the three windows was a working table with four chairs; one table was almost completely covered by a model of the new Laboratory.

It was in this somewhat inadequate space that the staff were congregated. A detective sergeant from the local CID sat impassively near the door, a reminder of why they were so
inconveniently incarcerated. They were allowed out to the ground-floor cloakroom under tactful escort, and had been told they could telephone home from the library. But the rest of the Laboratory was at present out of bounds.

They had all, on arrival, been asked to write a brief account of where they had been, and with whom, the previous evening and night. Patiently, they waited their turn at one of the three tables. The statements had been collected by the sergeant and handed out to his colleague on the reception desk, presumably so that the preliminary checking could begin. Those of the junior staff who could provide a satisfactory alibi were allowed home as soon as it had been checked; one by one and with some reluctance at missing the excitements to come they went their way. The less fortunate, together with those who had arrived first at the Laboratory that morning and all the senior scientists, had been told they must await the arrival of the team from Scotland Yard. The Director had put in only one brief appearance in the library. Earlier he had gone with Angela Foley to break the news of Lorrimer’s death to his father. Since his return he had stayed in his own office with Detective Superintendent Mercer of the local CID. It was rumoured that Dr. Kerrison was with them.

The minutes dragged while they listened for the first hum of the approaching helicopter. Inhibited by the presence of the police, by prudence, delicacy or embarrassment from talking about the subject foremost in their minds, they spoke to each other with the wary politeness of uncongenial strangers stranded in an airport lounge. The women were, on the whole, better equipped for the tedium of the wait. Mrs. Mallett, the typist from the general office, had brought her knitting to work and, fortified by an unshakeable alibi—she had sat between the postmistress and Mr. Mason from the general store at the
village concert—and with something to occupy her hands, sat clicking away with understandable if irritating complacency until given the order of release. Mrs. Bidwell, the Laboratory cleaner, had insisted on visiting her broom cupboard, under escort, and had provided herself with a feather duster and a couple of rags with which she made a vigorous onslaught on the bookshelves. She was unusually silent, but the group of scientists at the tables could hear her muttering to herself as she punished the books at the end of one of the bays.

Brenda Pridmore had been allowed to collect the exhibits-received book from the counter and, white-faced but outwardly composed, was checking the previous month’s figures. The book took more than its share of the available table space; but at least she had a legitimate job. Claire Easterbrook, Senior Scientific Officer in the Biology Department and, with Lorrimer’s death, the Senior Biologist, had taken from her briefcase a scientific paper she had prepared on recent advances in blood grouping and settled down to revise it with as little apparent concern as if murder at Hoggatt’s were a routine inconvenience for which, prudently, she was always provided.

The rest of the staff passed the time each in his own way. Those who preferred the pretence of business immersed themselves in a book and, from time to time, made an ostentatious note. The two Vehicle Examiners, who were reputed to have no conversation except about cars, squatted side by side, their backs against the steel book-racks, and talked cars together with desperate eagerness. Middlemass had finished the
Times
crossword by quarter to ten and had made the rest of the paper last as long as possible. But now even the deaths column was exhausted. He folded the paper and tossed it across the table to eagerly awaiting hands.

It was a relief when Stephen Copley, the Senior Chemist, arrived just before ten, bustling in as usual, his rubicund face with its tonsure and fringe of black curly hair glistening as if he had come in from the sun. Nothing was known to disconcert him, certainly not the death of a man he had disliked. But he was secure in his alibi, having spent the whole of the previous day in the Crown Court and the evening and night with friends at Norwich, only getting back to Chevisham in time for a late start that morning. His colleagues, relieved to find something to talk about, began questioning him about the case. They spoke rather too loudly to be natural. The rest of the company listened with simulated interest as if the conversation were a dramatic dialogue provided for their entertainment.

“Who did they call for the defence?” asked Middlemass.

“Charlie Pollard. He hung his great belly over the box and explained confidentially to the jury that they needn’t be frightened of the so-called scientific expert witnesses because none of us, including himself of course, really know what we’re talking about. They were immensely reassured, I need hardly say.”

“Juries hate scientific evidence.”

“They think they won’t be able to understand it, so naturally they can’t understand it. As soon as you step into the box you see a curtain of obstinate incomprehension clanging down over their minds. What they want is certainty. Did this paint particle come from this car body? Answer Yes or No. None of those nasty mathematical probabilities we’re so fond of.”

“If they hate scientific evidence they certainly hate arithmetic more. Give them a scientific opinion which depends on the ability to divide a factor by two-thirds and what do you get from counsel? ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to explain yourself more simply, Mr. Middlemass. The jury and I haven’t got a
higher degree in mathematics, you know.’ Inference: you’re an arrogant bastard and the jury would be well advised not to believe a word you say.”

It was the old argument. Brenda had heard it all before when she ate her lunchtime sandwiches in the room, halfway between a kitchen and a sitting room, which was still called the Junior Mess. But now it seemed terrible that they should be able to talk so naturally while Dr. Lorrimer lay there dead upstairs. Suddenly she had a need to speak his name.

She looked up and made herself say: “Dr. Lorrimer thought that the Service would end up with about three immense laboratories doing the work for the whole country with exhibits coming in by air. He said that he thought all the scientific evidence ought to be agreed by both sides before the trial.”

Middlemass said easily: “That’s an old argument. The police want a local lab nice and handy, and who’s to blame them? Besides, three-quarters of forensic scientific work doesn’t require all this sophisticated instrumentation. There’s more of a case for highly equipped regional laboratories with local out-stations. But who’d want to work in the small labs if the more exciting stuff went elsewhere?”

Miss Easterbrook had apparently finished her revision. She said: “Lorrimer knew that this idea of the lab as a scientific arbiter wouldn’t work, not with the British accusatorial system. Anyway, scientific evidence ought to be tested like any other evidence.”

“But how?” asked Middlemass. “By an ordinary jury? Suppose you’re an expert document examiner outside the Service and they call you for the defence. You and I disagree. How can the jury judge between us? They’ll probably choose to believe you because you’re better looking.”

“Or you, more likely, because you’re a man.”

“Or one of them—the crucial one—will reject me because I remind him of Uncle Ben and all the family know that Ben was the world’s champion liar.”

“All right. All right.” Copley spread plump hands in a benediction of appeasement. “It’s the same as democracy. A fallible system but the best we’ve got.”

Middlemass said: “It’s extraordinary, though, how well it works. You look at the jury, sitting there politely attentive, like children on their best behaviour because they’re visitors in an alien country and don’t want to make fools of themselves or offend the natives. Yet how often do they come up with a verdict that’s manifestly perverse having regard to the evidence?”

Claire Easterbrook said drily: “Whether it’s manifestly perverse having regard to the truth is another matter.”

“A criminal trial isn’t a tribunal for eliciting the truth. At least we deal in facts. What about the emotion? Did you love your husband, Mrs. B.? How can the poor woman explain that, probably like the majority of wives, she loved him most of the time, when he didn’t snore in her ear all night or shout at the kids or keep her short of bingo money.”

Copley said: “She can’t. If she’s got any sense and if her counsel has briefed her properly, she’ll get out her hankerchief and sob, ‘Oh yes, sir. A better husband never lived, as God’s my witness.’ It’s a game, isn’t it? You win if you play by the rules.”

Claire Easterbrook shrugged. “If you know them. Too often it’s a game where the rules are known only to one side. Natural enough when that’s the side which makes them up.”

Copley and Middlemass laughed. Clifford Bradley had half hidden himself from the rest of the company behind the table holding the model of the new Laboratory. He had taken a book from the shelves at random but, for the last ten minutes, hadn’t even bothered to turn the page.

They were laughing! They were actually laughing! Getting up from the table he groped his way down the furthest bay and replaced his book in the rack, leaning his forehead against the cold steel.

Unobtrusively Middlemass strolled up beside him and, back to the company, reached up to take a book from the shelf. He said: “Are you all right?”

“I wish to God they’d come.”

“So do we all. But the chopper should be here any minute now.”

“How can they laugh like that? Don’t they care?”

“Of course they care. Murder is beastly, embarrassing and inconvenient. But I doubt whether anyone is feeling a purely personal grief. And other people’s tragedies, other people’s danger, always provoke a certain euphoria as long as one is safe oneself.” He looked at Bradley and said softly: “There’s always manslaughter, you know. Or even justified homicide. Though, come to think of it, one could hardly plead that.”

“You think I killed him, don’t you?”

“I don’t think anything. Anyway, you’ve got an alibi. Wasn’t your mother-in-law with you yesterday evening?”

“Not all the evening. She caught the seven-forty-five bus.”

“Well, with luck, there’ll be evidence that he was dead by then.” And why, thought Middlemass, should Bradley assume that he wasn’t?

Bradley’s dark and anxious eyes narrowed with suspicion. “How did you know that Sue’s mother was with us last night?”

“Susan told me. Actually, she telephoned me at the Lab just before two. It was about Lorrimer.”

He thought and then said easily, “She was wondering whether there was a chance he might ask for a transfer now that Howarth has been in his post a year. She thought I might
have heard something. When you get home, tell her that I don’t propose to tell the police about the call unless she does first. Oh, and you’d better reassure her that I didn’t bash in his head for him. I’d do a lot for Sue, but a man has to draw the line somewhere.”

Bradley said with a note of resentment: “Why should you worry? There’s nothing wrong with your alibi. Weren’t you at the village concert?”

“Not all the evening. And there’s a certain slight embarrassment about my alibi even when I was ostensibly there.”

Bradley turned to him and said with sudden vehemence: “I didn’t do it! Oh God, I can’t stand this waiting!”

“You’ve got to stand it. Pull yourself together, Cliff! You won’t help yourself or Susan by going to pieces. They’re English policemen, remember. We’re not expecting the KGB.”

It was then that they heard the long-awaited sound, a distant grinding hum like that of an angry wasp. The desultory voices at the tables fell silent, heads were raised and, together, the company moved towards the windows. Mrs. Bidwell rushed for a place of vantage. The red and white helicopter rattled into sight over the top of the trees and hovered, a noisy gadfly, above the terraces. No one spoke.

Then Middlemass said: “The Yard’s wonder boy, appropriately, descends from the clouds. Well, let’s hope that he works quickly. I want to get into my lab. Someone should tell him that he’s not the only one with a murder on his hands.”

Detective Inspector the Honourable John Massingham disliked helicopters, which he regarded as noisy, cramped and frighteningly unsafe. Since his physical courage was beyond question either by himself or anyone else, he would normally have had no objection to saying so. But he knew his chief’s dislike of unnecessary chat, and strapped as they were side by side in uncomfortably close proximity in the Enstrom F28, he decided that the Chevisham case would get off to the most propitious start by a policy of disciplined silence. He noted with interest that the cockpit instrument panel was remarkably similar to a car dashboard; even the airspeed was shown in miles per hour instead of knots. He was only sorry that there the resemblance ended. He adjusted his earphones more comfortably and settled down to soothe his nerves by a concentrated study of his maps.

The red-brown tentacles of London’s suburbs had at last been shaken off, and the chequered autumn landscape, multi-textured as a cloth collage, unrolled before them in a changing pattern of brown, green and gold, leading them on to Cambridge. The fitful sunshine moved in broad swathes across the neat,
segmented villages, the trim municipal parks and open fields. Miniature tin cars, beetle-bright in the sun, pursued each other busily along the roads.