False Witness (43 page)

“And if the drugs don’t work? What then?”

“Then, Mr. Fawley, I’ll have to section her. Under the Mental Health Act,” Stone said. “There’s only so much we can do. She’s
retreated into herself. And if she doesn’t want to be found, there’s nothing we can do.”

“Is there anything you want?” Traynor asked me.

“Yes,” I said. “I want to see my wife.”

P
ENNY SAT IN THE POLICE CANTEEN, SIPPING A PLAS
tic cup of steaming black coffee. She seemed unruffled and hardly bothered to glance up as I joined her.

“You don’t look so good,” she said.

“I’ll live.”

“I know. I spoke to the police surgeon, such a nice man. He said it was just a superficial wound.”

“It might be superficial to him. He wasn’t stabbed with a Neolithic knife.”

“Only a replica one, I understand,” she said, putting down the cup and brushing a few strands of hair from her forehead. “I’ve
come to a decision.”

“Not in here, Pen.”

“Why not? Aren’t you meant to… come clean in these places?”

They had given me back my tie and I wrapped it round and round my hand. Slowly, my head began to clear. Things began to recover
their proper proportions. I missed our house in Chiswick. I longed to see our daughter. But most of all, I hated myself for
what I had done to Penny.

“So what have you decided?” I asked. “Can I come back—”

“Home?” she said.

“You know, I really—”

“Fancy a coffee?”

“No. It looks like tar. I’ve never understood how you can drink it so… look, Pen. What I meant to say was—”

Penny grabbed my wrist. “Never—not for one second in your feeble little mind—imagine that I will forget. I won’t. Never. And
don’t think I forgive you. Because I don’t.”

“I see.”

“Do you? Do you really see, Tom? It’s always so easy for you Catholics. You think if I say, “OK, Tom, I forgive you,” it’ll
be all right. Well, it won’t. It’s not like a church confession, Tom. You can’t just say three Hail Marys, dip your thumb
in some Holy Water and walk out with a clean conscience.”

“I’m beginning to see that.”

“You wanted it all. You wanted me. Then you wanted Justine. Now you want me again.” She put her other hand on mine and stopped
me winding the tie. “Have you ever thought—even for a moment—what I wanted?”

“Of course I—”

“Don’t
lie
.” Her nails cut into my skin. “No more lies. Please, Tom. No more lies.” She sat up straight. “Well, did you ever think how
I felt?” When I couldn’t reply, she said, “I thought not.”

“What do you want then?”

“It’s what I don’t want. I don’t want to be alone. The shame of it. Failure. People talking, you know, warm tea and cold sympathy.
We have a daughter and nothing you did with—”

“With Justine?”

“—with that woman, can destroy that fact. You see, Tom, it’s no longer about you. It’s about me now. I’ve invested too much
to let you ruin it.”

I saw Roach walk into the canteen with a pair of handcuffs and it concentrated my mind wonderfully. “I’ll try, Pen. Really
I will. What can I say to make you believe that?”

“For God’s sake, don’t
say
anything. That’s the problem. You’re always saying things. You say you’ll do this and you say you’ll do that. But you never
actually
do
anything. Well, the time for talking is over. Just
do
something, if you really… well, you know.”

Traynor came over with a cup of tea for me. “I see they gave you back your…” He indicated toward my tie. “Just thought I’d
tell you. Templeman’s not going to die. Well, he will eventually. We all will, I suppose. What I meant was, he’s not going
to die just yet.” Traynor sensed the tension between Penny and me. “Well, Mr. Fawley, if there’s anything you need,” he said
as he walked over to Roach.

I turned back to Penny, having remembered something Traynor said. “How did you end up at the police station, Pen?”

“Emma phoned Chiswick. Reversed the charges.”

“But I thought you were at your parents?”

“Wanted to start cleaning up. You know after I…” She again waved her hand as she had when she was on the kitchen floor with
the knife. “Emma wanted to speak to you again. And we both realized that if you weren’t with me… well, we guessed you’d be
with Justine. You’re so bloody predictable.”

“I suppose it has its advantages.”

“I phoned that dive bar. Emma gave me the number. Your drinking buddy, Jamie said you’d headed for the Temple.”

“He’s not my drinking buddy. Not anymore—”

“Don’t ruin my story. This is the best bit, Tom. So I phoned the porter’s lodge in the Temple. Asked them if they had seen
my so-called husband. Oh, yes, they said. Saw him being carted off by the police, Mrs. Fawley.”

“I suppose it wasn’t difficult to track me down to the local nick after that.”

Penny took another sip of the tarry liquid and winced. “You know, Chapple once tried to grope me at school.”

“Did it traumatize you, Pen?”

“Not really. I just kneed him in the goolies.”

“So how do we sort ourselves out?” I asked.

“Well, you’ve got to sort yourself out first. I don’t think you want a wife, Tom. What you need is a woman who’s a cross between
a mistress and your mother.”

“How do you mean?”

“You want someone to screw your brains out and then wash the sheets. See if you can work out what you really want, Tom.”

“So you’ll have me back?”

“You never
really
left. You just took a sabbatical from your senses for a while. Only—”

“Only what?”

“Only don’t do it again, Tom. Or—”

“Yes?”

“Or I’ll cut your balls off with that Neolithic knife.”

“Don’t you mean, the replica?”

“Yes, Tom,” Penny said, “I mean the replica.” She smiled for the first time that I could remember for weeks. Then she sipped
the dregs from the plastic cup. “My two vices, I suppose. Strong coffee and weak men.”

“I don’t deserve you,” I said.

“No, you deserve a good horsewhipping. But—”

“But?”

“But I still… well, sort of love you, you adulterous bastard,” Penny said.

“Despite what I’ve done?”

“Despite what you’ve done. Look, if men were supposed to be faithful, do you think they would have dicks?”

“So you don’t hate me, Pen?”

“Of course I hate you.”

“But I thought you said—”

“You
can
love and hate someone, Tom. It’s called being married. I’m your wife and you’re my husband. So we’ll just have to stop whingeing
and get on with each other.” She stood up as the psychiatrist, Jennifer Stone, walked over to Roach on the far side of the
canteen. “You know, Tom,” Penny said, “I think it’s me they should be putting in that loony bin.”

The clock on the canteen wall, unlike the one in the interview room, worked. It was 8
A.M.
The police shifts were swapping over and there was a flurry of uniforms. If I was quick, I could go home, change and perhaps—for
once—I would not be late for court.

Hilary Hardcastle looked miserable. She sat on the Bench and scowled and moped and frowned, trying to think of some way around
it, but knowing there was none. Norman was perched on his chair in the corner of the court, still struggling with the crossword,
and the shorthand writer started to record proceedings.

Leonard, the clerk, had begun to speak. “Will the foreman of the jury please stand?”

The taxi-driver stood up.

“Mr. Foreman,” Leonard said, “do you find the defendant, Richard Kingsley, not guilty of murdering Molly Summers?”

There was silence until Leonard added, “Do you find him not guilty of murder on the direction of Her Honor, the judge?”

Hardcastle nodded.

The taxi-driver took a deep breath and said, “We find him not guilty.”

“And that is the verdict of you all?”

“I suppose so,” said the foreman.

“Just say yes,” Hardcastle said.

“Er, yes, then,” answered the taxi-driver.

It was my turn. “Your Honor, may Mr. Kingsley be discharged?”

“On
these
matters only, Mr. Fawley.” Hilary had not forgotten the sex offenses to which Kingsley had pleaded guilty. All she said to
the jury was that extraordinary events had overtaken the case and then dismissed them without thanks.

The social worker smiled at me as she left the box. I felt rather light-headed and very tired, but I didn’t want to miss the
last curtain call for anything.

When the jury finally left, Davenport stumbled to his feet. He was still rather bilious after a bout of food poisoning. It
wasn’t influenza or gout. He tried to outline the facts of the sex offenses, the ages of the girls, and what Kingsley had
paid them to do. But he was not on top of the case.

Davenport seemed lost without Justine and I knew how he felt.

“I thought five years’ imprisonment was a little vindictive of Hilary,” said Kingsley later in the cells. “We will appeal,
of course.”

I just stared at him. Compared to the dark cubicle in which I had spent the preceding night, the Old Bailey cells seemed palatial.

“What is it? What do you want to know?” he asked.

“The truth.”

“Have you become interested in that? You
have
come a long way. Wasn’t it you who told me that too much truth and the lawyers go out of business? Well, you’re still wearing
the old wig and gown.”

“Let’s cut the bull, shall we? You weren’t involved in the murder of Molly Summers, were you?”

“I never knew who killed her. But no one would have believed that. I mean, Mr. Fawley, you didn’t.”

I was silent for a moment. Then I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me you were innocent?”

“Everyone said I was guilty. So I thought—how does the saying go? ‘In an entirely corrupted age, the safest course is to follow
the others.’ “

“Who said that?”

“The Marquis de Sade,” Kingsley said.

“In
One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom
?”

“No, in his book,
Justine
. Are you familiar with the work, Mr. Fawley?”

I did not answer.

“Such a shame about Miss Wright,” he said. “Such a fine… person.”

“Don’t you
dare
talk about—”

“Philip Templeman said he’d give me an alibi. I suppose it was part of the plan to frame me. Templeman never intended to testify.”

“Making up a false alibi could have really damaged your case,” I said. “I never did understand why you put the first note
in my brief.”

“Well, you saw its effect on the girl. I never realized that you would have to make it an exhibit.”

“That was because the poor girl could not read,” I said.

Kingsley tutted. “The failings of modern education, I don’t know. Perhaps if she’d had an attentive teacher like Alex—”

“Don’t push your luck, Kingsley.”

“Well, when the
second
note appeared, I realized that I had to take other steps.”

“So that’s why—”

“Yes, that’s why I asked Miss Cavely to help me out.”

“You could have left it to me.”

“I couldn’t afford to take that chance. Accused men are desperate men. And such men, Mr. Fawley, sometimes do desperate things.”

“It was a nice touch,” I said. “Exposing yourself to cross-examination. Forcing the prosecution to call old Vera in rebuttal.”

“No one would have believed her if we called her.”

“That’s true, but—”

“Do you still think we’re so very different, Mr. Fawley?”

As Kingsley licked his lips and I felt his eyes wandering over me, I remembered what he had said about the mind being a receiver.
He had said it was all in there, the good, the bad, everything that you wanted, those desires you were too scared to admit.

“Aren’t we rather similar?” he asked.

“The difference is, my dial hasn’t got stuck,” I said.

As I stood up to go, he slowly rolled his wheelchair toward me. “Mr. Fawley… Tom, despite everything, I just wanted to say—”

“Don’t bother,” I told him as I walked out of the cell.

I never saw Richard Kingsley again.

Emma waited for me in the men’s robing room. “Don’t ever do that to me again,” she said, coughing. “Never keep me in the dark
like that.”

“Sorry,” I said. “But I didn’t know where to turn.”

“I hear the teacher, or whoever he was, lived.”

“I could never do anything properly.”

As I put my wig and gown away, I didn’t know for how long, she told me about what she had discovered in Stonebury.

“They were all connected with the home,” she said. She tried to scratch some sexist graffiti from one of the lockers. “Don’t
men ever grow up?” she said.

“Who was connected—”

“All of them. Kingsley, Payne, your friend the teacher, they had all been trustees of the home. The elders, like Danny said.
Magistri sapentiae
.”

“The most just of men?”

“No, Tom. Just like
most
men. That’s why no one would dare mention that Kingsley once was a trustee,” Emma said. “I guess Ignatius must have known
how everyone was linked. Perhaps he knew it would all be uncovered. Maybe he chose his own way out. Though I can’t believe
he was interested in the girls.”