False Witness (6 page)

“He’s got backbone,” she said. I remember she looked at me with contempt. She put a slender finger to my lips as though she
was about to reveal the mysteries of the universe. She added, “I quite like that in a lover.”

She left me sipping my plastic cup of Liebfraumilch.

“So what is Richard Kingsley’s defense?” asked Davenport, his voice now thinner and higher with the strain. “Through his lawyers,
he has served a notice of alibi. This states that at the time of the murder he was not at the stone circle but was with someone
called…” Davenport leaned over toward me and whispered, “I can’t read your writing, Fawley.”

“It says Templeman,” I said. “Philip—”

“With someone called Philip Templeman,” Davenport announced in an ominous fashion to the jury. “The defense will say that
Mr. Kingsley was with this man. We say this is a lie. For who is this man? Is he flesh and blood? Or is he another of Richard
Kingsley’s fictional creations?”

Davenport glanced at me. And I was grateful that I was not required to give answers to these questions immediately.

“When you have heard the evidence,” Davenport continued, “you will have no doubt that Richard Kingsley was at the scene in
his wheelchair. But that is not the end of the matter. The notice of alibi was only served this morning.”

Davenport paused and left the words hanging in the air for the jury to consider. I looked at Justine, but she very pointedly
turned away.

“Why?” Davenport asked. “Why the delay in serving a notice that is required by law? Does the alibi represent the truth? Or
is it just the latest installment of Mr. Kingsley’s glittering literary career?”

There was a creak at the back of the court as the defendant wheeled himself a little nearer to the front of the dock.

Davenport, seeing the opportunity, improvised. “So the defense comes to this,” he said, “mistaken identity. You’ve identified
the wrong wheelchair. It’s preposterous, is it not?”

The Fleet Street hacks enjoyed that but the jury did not smile—they never smile on the first day of a murder.

Davenport then raised his voice, which trembled slightly. “Whoever is guilty in this case, never forget one thing. Molly Summers
is innocent. Innocent in law and innocent in life. Your verdict will not bring her back. But if Richard Kingsley murdered
her, he must be convicted by you and punished by law. It is all we can do.”

When he had finished, there was silence in court. As Davenport sat down, Emma tugged at my gown. “I’ve got to tell you something,
Tom.”

But I wasn’t interested. I stared at the young juror and she stared at me.

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.

T
HROUGH CLOUDS OF STALE SMOKE AND THE PLEAS
ant 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 enthusiasm 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.