False Witness (39 page)

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“What?”

“About them stones.”

“What about them?”

“What I saw
him
do.”

Suddenly I was cornered. Did I press on? Kingsley was sunk anyway, and if I left it, Justine would re-examine.

I had to take a risk. “Tell us very slowly what you saw.”

“I saw him going to the stones with a knife.”

Hardcastle could not contain her joy and repeated each damaging word aloud. She said, “Now, Miss Cavely. Let me be clear about
what you told Mr. Fawley. Was it, I—saw—
him
—going—to—the—stones?”

“Yes.”

“With a knife?” Hilary asked.

“Yes. With a knife. A right sharp one. And I says to him, What is you doing? And he says to me, Be quiet and mind your own
affairs.”

“Mind your own what?” the judge asked.

“Affairs. Business. Keep yer snout out, as we says down our way. And I says to him, Well you know, Mr. Chapple, that ain’t
no way to talk.”

Hardcastle’s face dropped. “Pardon? What did you say?”

“Keep yer snout out. It’s a saying we has.”

“No. Not that. Did you say Chapple?”

“Yes. That fellow what used to be a teacher.”

“And when did he used to be a teacher?”

“When I still had a carburetor in me car.”

Everyone was confused. The judge threw down her pencil and refused to commit the evidence to paper. In the jury box, the social
worker whispered frantically to the grandmother. The taxi-driver clearly could not believe it. Members of the press scribbled
away. For her part, Justine sat very still.

Was there, I wondered, any truth in any of this? Or had Vera finally blown her last gasket? It was all too bizarre. I decided
not to ask any more questions, having sabotaged the serenity of the court to some effect.

Of course, Vera was supposed to be Justine’s witness. Having blown up in her face once, Justine had clearly decided to cut
her losses and did not dare to ask any further questions in re-examination.

Vera Cavely was eventually led out of court. All that remained were the speeches. Justine was the first to address the jury.
She stood in front of the box and looked at the jurors in pairs, waiting for the bustle and the fidgeting in court to subside.

Finally, there was silence.

“Someone once wrote, members of the jury, that there are monsters in this world. They may look like us, they may talk like
us, but deep down they are not like us. You know, you can find the bones of dinosaurs in the museums, and I suppose dragons
have virtually disappeared from folklore, but certain creatures still move among us—creatures beyond our understanding. And
Richard Kingsley is one of them.”

She looked momentarily at the dock and the shriveled man in the wheelchair. “And which of you,” she said, “can understand,
I mean
really
understand why Mr. Kingsley took the life of that girl? What unimaginable urge did it satisfy? What sense does it make?”

Justine pulled her black gown around her thin shoulders and spoke very slowly. “When Richard Kingsley came to Stonebury, he
brought a kind of darkness with him. He cast a shadow over the village that took the life of an innocent girl with it before
it lifted. And that, members of the jury, was a truly monstrous thing to do.”

I thought of my daughter and how she had cried herself to sleep, and I thought of Emma, whom I had sent to Stonebury. And
I was worried, because Emma had not rung.

I
DIDN’T LISTEN TO THE REST OF
J
USTINE’S SPEECH
, though I sat next to her in court and saw her understated gestures and could feel the vibrations of her words. For I suspected
that whatever she said, whatever I would say the next day, the truth was still out there—somewhere. And it seemed to me that
the truth was like that fox on the Stonebury hunt, and the more you chased it, the more it ran. But if it wanted to, it would
find you, when the time was right.

After the court had risen, I tried to speak to Justine about what Vera had said. But Justine stormed off into the sanctuary
of the ladies’ robing room. By the time I had disrobed, Justine had disappeared. But Jamie had left a message for me to meet
him in Il Paradiso. So, leaving the bar’s number with the clerks in case Emma should ring, I set off along the Embankment.

Before long I arrived at Blackfriars Bridge. The mists were beginning to drift on the river toward the Tower of London and
anchored barges were rising and falling slowly with the gentle swell. The next day, the jury would go out and either Kingsley
would be free of the charge for ever or he would be sent to prison for the rest of his life.

I gazed into the silent waters, not really seeking inspiration, for I didn’t know what the night would bring, and I felt that
the right words would come when I had to speak. My speech was being written somewhere—but not by me. I finally saw myself
at the Sepulchre itself, at the very heart of Stonebury. And it was now me who was on the stone. And I wondered who would
wield the knife. But I was confused. And my confusion was provoked by the fact that I saw not two, but three people around
me at the stones. I wondered whether old Vera was right and whether one of the faces belonged to Chapple. But even if that
was so, who else was there? Who else?

Back Bridge Street and Butter Lane were deserted and no one else was on the door as I entered Il Paradiso. I asked Donald,
the barman, whether Jamie had arrived and he merely shrugged and handed me a malt, the best this side of Berwick. I chose
a circular table near the door, closed my eyes and waited.

I was unaware of being joined by a man to my right until he spoke. It was Whitey Innocent.

“You look pale. Mr. Thomas,” he said.

“Yep, Whitey. I really look like crap. That’s what everyone tells me.”

“You been sleeping with the enemy, Mr. Thomas?”

“When did you get out, Whitey?”

“Few days back.” His eyes seemed a little wider in the dreary gloom, like a pair of camera shutters opening to gather in more
light. “Hear you had some trouble, Mr. Thomas.”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle. Anyway, where did you hear that?”

He didn’t answer, but said, “You’re too late.”

“Too late?”

He smiled a little, revealing his protruding teeth in all their glory. They were browner than I remembered.

“What am I too late for, Whitey?”

“Not what. Who.”

“Who, then?”

“Your blood-clot detective.”

“You mean, Payne?”

“Yes, star.”

“What do you know about a kilo of heroin, Whitey?”

Emmanuel Innocent was silent. He looked greedily at the glass of malt in front of me, which I pushed toward him. Then he ran
a dirty thumbnail over the rim where my lip marks had been left and finished the whisky in one gulp.

When the alcohol bit his throat, he let out a sigh. “Payne say that bitch screw it up. Screw it up good. And she screw it
up ‘cos she’s screwing…
you
.” He raised his head slightly, but I couldn’t see his pupils. “You been sleeping with the enemy, Mr. Thomas?”

Before I could answer, Donald held up the telephone receiver. Emma had called.

She immediately said, “Tom, I thought you’d given up drinking. It’ll do you no good, you know.”

“Look. Forget about my liver. What have you found out?”

“Can’t tell you everything. I’m phoning from a call box outside the village and I’m running out of change.”

“I understand. The main points then.”

“Tom, this is one strange place. It’s like walking through a Mary Shelley novel.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, every house in Stonebury has a thatched roof, a log-fire and a couple of skeletons buried in the garden. I mean, how
on earth did you manage to spend all that time—”

“Emma.”

“Sorry. I’m afraid you’re not going to believe some of this.” She then started sneezing uncontrollably and it sounded as if
she had dropped the receiver.

“Emma. You OK?”

“It just
never
stops raining down here. I’m soaked. The things I do for you. I don’t know.” She coughed a couple of times. “Question: where
is old man Summers buried?”

“Nethersmere Woods.”

“Right. And where did he die?”

“Don’t know,” I said.

“Nethersmere Woods. I checked the local
Chronicle
. Found the report from his inquest. He died the same year Molly was baptized.
What
a surprise.”

“You’ve lost me. Why?”

“Guess who represented the Summers family at the inquest?”

“I haven’t a clue, Emma.” Then I had a guess. “Was it Aubrey Davenport?”

“Close. But wrong. It was Ignatius Manly. It must have been before he got silk. I wondered whether the two facts were related—”

“Don’t be ludicrous.”

“Oh, really? Well, check this out. The rumor down here is that Ignatius committed suicide. Apparently, they’ve found a note
or—”

“Emma, what are you talking about?”

“Tom, I haven’t got time to explain. I’ve found out something else. Who was the officer in old Summers’s case?”

I was beginning to see. “Inspector Payne?”

“Wrong.” She started coughing again, coughing so roughly it sounded as if her throat-lining had worn through.

“Emma. Are you all right?”

“Am I all right? Do I sound all right? You owe me one, Tom. So help me, I’m not going to let you forget this.”

“Well, if it wasn’t Payne, who was it?”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t Payne.”

“But I thought you—”

“I said it wasn’t
Inspector
Payne. It was plain old PC Payne back then. Simply PC Plod. A coincidence?”

“What do you mean?”

“Tom, my money’s running out and you can’t reverse the charges. Hang on. Someone’s outside. I don’t like the look of—”

“Get out of there, Emma.”

“No. I’ve got to tell you this.” She took a big breath and talked very quickly. “The report said Summers was a poacher and
accidentally killed himself in the woods. Shotgun went off or something. Sounds a load of bull, if you ask me. But this is
the interesting part.” Her voice became muffled as she put her hand over the receiver. She spoke to someone outside. “Look.
I’m just about finished. You’ll have to wait.”

“Just leave, Emma,” I shouted.

“No. You better know this, Tom. About West Albion. The list of trustees, it included—”

Then the line went dead.

When I returned to my table Whitey Innocent had been replaced by Jamie.

“You look ill,” he said, grabbing my arm. “Not been skimping on the booze again? Better fill your stomach with malt before
you start wanting to top yourself like—what is the matter, Tommy?”

I did not reply but thought of that isolated phone box and Emma coughing inside it.

“Had a tiff with your beloved?” Jamie asked, gesturing to Donald with three fingers. “I just saw her. She looked like shit,
too.”

“Penny?”

“No. The Ice Maiden. What is it with those chambers? First, Manly does the death-scene from
Swan Lake
down his stairs at home, then—”

“What do you mean? Manly does the—”

“Haven’t you heard? They’ve found a note. Old Ignatius sent it to the Lord Chancellor’s Department, only some dozy clerk just
goes and files it away and—”

“Jamie, what did it say? You must tell me.”

“All in good time, Tommy. First let’s get another—”

I banged my hand so hard on the table that it hurt. “Tell me what the bloody note said, will you?”

“Said it was all getting too much. He couldn’t keep it all secret anymore. Christ only knows what he was on about.”

“Where did you see Justine?” I asked.

“Heading for chambers.”

Donald came over with two full glasses of whisky. Jamie swallowed his immediately, saw that I ignored mine, picked it up,
but only managed to drink half of it.

“Don’t want your drink, Tommy?”

“I don’t want to be a drunk, Jamie.”

“I’m getting a little old for this game, too,” he said, and loosened his tie. “Tommy, I know I’m
persona non
bloody
grata
in legal circles these days, but have the Ice Maiden’s chambers taken to defending down and outs?”

“What are you getting at, Jamie?”

“I saw this strange character walking into their chambers. Looked in a real state.”

I felt a chill. As though someone had walked over a grave, only I did not know to whom it belonged. Almost unaccountably,
I feared for Justine’s safety. And I saw an image in my mind. It was the Sanctuary Seat in Stonebury. And I kept seeing those
curious words from Deuteronomy written on it.

That the slayer might flee hither

And that he might live
.

Donald allowed me to make a call. The answerphone was on in Justine’s chambers. Her personal line was dead.