Lover in Law (34 page)

My cross-examination, quite frankly, has been crap. It’s the end of the day and I’ve got nowhere. He’s coming across as well-spoken, affable and credible. The evidence against Scott Richardson is so weak that many cases wouldn’t even come to trial on the strength of it, but this buffoon has made it stand up, he’s winning the crowd. My client’s going to have to give an Oscar winning performance to get one over Cameron Matthews.  The whole thing’s ridiculous. The Prosecution’s set to laugh all the way to victory. The jury seems engaged by the show, or at least by Cameron’s antics. Anthony appears bewildered. The only person in the courtroom giving nothing away is Mr. Justice Smiley and that’s because he’s close to nodding off. This is all Anthony’s fault. We’d discussed tactics. He’d felt Cameron would be more threatened by a woman than by a man, which is why he chose me to do the questioning. In hindsight, I reckon I’d been seen as a soft touch. Anthony would have had a much better edge. Damn him.

***

Anthony has a meeting to go to after court, so I head back to chambers alone. I bump into Maxwell Hood QC in Fleet Street, outside the Wig and Pen. I’m feeling glum and demoralized. It obviously shows.

“It can’t be that bad, Ms Kirk,” he says. “It can’t be that bad.”

I don’t usually let myself come across as defeated. If word seeps back to the opposition it doesn’t look good and believe you me, Barristers gossip with the best of them. This time, though, it’s got to me. I had such high hopes. This was going to be such a coup. I was going to bounce back from a shortened maternity leave because a gaggle of celebrities were clamouring for my services.            

“It’s not good Maxwell.”

I’ve always reacted to fear of losing in the same way. The heart rate soars, the throat constricts to the size of a pea, the mouth dries, the hands go clammy. It feels like the pit of my stomach has pins and needles. The baby’s feeding off my adrenaline, more active than normal, more agitated than normal. There’s no space left to turn so it’s kicking out with its hands and feet.

“What’s happened?” he asks.

Where do I start?

“I did a lousy cross-examination of the chief witness. Anthony would have done a much better job.”

“Things are never as bad as you think they are Ali.”

I nod, but inwardly I’m thinking that this time they really are.

“Maybe,” I mumble.

Whilst it’s not raining now, it bucketed down this morning. The pavement’s strewn with a lily pad effect of small pools of water. Maxwell catches the corner of his black leather bag with a splash as he lays it down at his feet, clasps my two hands between his, smiling as he always does when he switches from boss to kindly mentor.

“You should know better, especially a woman in your condition,” he casts his gaze down to my bump then straight back up, “that it ain’t over till the fat lady sings. Where’s the old Ali Kirk fighting spirit gone, hey?”

I look him straight in the eye and nod. He’s right, I know he’s right. I just don’t know what else to do and we’ve near enough run out of time.

***

They had a Becky, a Candy and a Jodie. They even had an Ali, a casual, short number with a soft curl. It wasn’t what I wanted though, as I explained to the woman in the shop. I was after a wig. Not a Barrister’s wig, a fancy-dress one, a disguise. I can’t think of anything else. Somehow, as a last resort, I have to get into Cameron Matthew’s home. Perhaps there I’ll find the missing link, a key piece of information to get Scott Richardson off. It’s a high risk, highly unorthodox strategy. All evidence must be obtained lawfully. I can’t trespass my way into his flat. Hence the wig. Not that Cameron will definitely recognize me without my legal tresses, but should he do so, it will never work. He needs to be duped into letting me in. I told Neeta what I was going to do. She told me I was mad, could get struck off for pulling a stunt like this, that it wasn’t worth it, but I think it is. We won’t win otherwise. The Sugar was outrageous, a high fashion bob in luminous pink. I’d been tempted by Charley, a soft chin length style with a backward flick. In the end, however, Goldie was the most natural of the lot. A long layered look with choppy tapering in glazed Mocha.

I haven’t worked out a game plan yet. I’m planning to wing it. Seeing as it’s a Friday, seeing as he finished giving evidence yesterday, I’m counting on Cameron Matthews having taken the day off work, on being at home. If he’s not, quite frankly, we’re stuffed. I’d rung up Anthony first thing, begged him not to ask any questions, but could I have the morning off. He said no problem, which is not what he’d have said if I’d told him the truth. He’d have lectured me on professional ethics, dragged me kicking and screaming back to chambers. As it is, the Prosecution’s due to make its closing speech, so I won’t miss much, he can hold the fort. This afternoon though is another matter. It’s our turn to sum up. Our case must be stated, the jury convinced for once and for all that if there’s any element of doubt, they must return a verdict of not guilty. So it’s now or never that I need to find the missing link, that elusive piece of jigsaw.

The address is posh, but the road is a busy, noisy, congested thoroughfare just south of the river in Vauxhall. It’s a flagrant abuse of privileged information, my knowing where Cameron Matthews lives, but that need not be dwelled on as I climb up the dozen or so steps to 4B Acacia Road. What does hit home as I stop mid-flight for a breather, is that I’m eight months pregnant.  Whilst I’ve dressed down in a pair of maternity jeans and baseball boots, the bump might well be my giveaway. If I’d thought of that last night when I dreamt up this idiot plan, I probably wouldn’t be here now. Seeing as I am, there’s no point turning back. I push the buzzer.

I decide on a persona as I wait. I can do a passable French accent. Perhaps I’m newly arrived, just moved in a couple of doors down, wanted to introduce myself, in this scary big city where nobody speaks my language. Let’s just pray Cameron isn’t fluent. 

There’s no answer.

 I buzz again.  

There’s still no answer.

There are several buttons, with a choice of the first five letters of the alphabet. I check my piece of paper, to make sure that it is indeed 4B. I ring again, third time lucky.

Silence.

I turn my back to the door, defeated. Cameron’s obviously not there. A greasy bloke leans out from the passenger window of a heavy goods vehicle, wolf whistles. I’m about to stick up a finger, shout ‘fuck off’, when a short, fat, old lady with a wizened face starts to climb the stairs. She doesn’t deserve to be sworn in front of.

“Excuse me,” I say, when she reaches the top. “I’m dying for the toilet and my friend’s not in. I don’t suppose you live here?”

This would have been an excellent ploy to gain access had Cameron been in, but it’s not actually a lie. At the moment I tend to get a desperate urge to pee every half an hour or so, what with increased baby pressure on a squashed, reduced bladder.

She smiles kindly, pats my bump with a wrinkled, dark, well-toiled hand.

“No senoras, I just work here, but of course you can use toilet. Come.”

She’s either Spanish or Portuguese, whichever, she’s a darling. She puts a key in the lock, turns it and opens the front door. I follow her up a flight of uncarpeted stairs till she reaches her boss’s apartment. Number 4B.

***

Cameron’s toilet isn’t as modernly limestone as Scott Richardson’s is. It’s a dated avocado relic. The splash back around the small wall-mounted sink is peppered with dots of black mould in between the tiles. In all other respects though, his WC bears a remarkable similarity to my client’s. It’s not just that he too has a picture gallery in this room, a series of framed snaps that speak volumes. It’s that his photos are, quite literally, almost the same as Scott’s, only there’s one crucial difference. In all the pictures Cameron has super-imposed his own face onto Scott’s body.  He’s got three shots of a cutout of his head with Sahara. He’s got a couple of photos of his cutout head with other beautiful women that Scott once dated, the same women that my client had had on his wall. Crucially though, he’s got a couple of pictures that Scott didn’t have. They’re paparazzi, long lens images, of cutout head on a boat with a stunning older woman.  She’s the untouchable beauty, a woman that I wouldn’t have recognized had she not taken the stand, had she not been sitting in the front row of court every day since. She’s Elizabeth Simons. The woman with whom Scott was having an affair, the now widow of Rupert Simons, the man Scott’s accused of murdering.     

Chapter 38

“Cameron Matthews, did you at any point try to set-up the Defendant?” I ask.

The chief Prosecution witness is back in the stand, at long last. It’s been hectic of late, to say the least. As soon as I’d finished peeing in Cameron’s avocado suite, I’d whipped my I-phone out my bag, photographed the evidence, the bizarre exhibition of Cameron’s mug super-imposed over Scott’s face. It gave the spooky veneer that it was he who was arm in arm, cheek to cheek and side by side a bevy of beautiful women, instead of my client. Cameron, it appeared, wanted, quite literally, to be Scott Richardson.

“You’ve no idea how much this means to me,” I’d thanked the old Portuguese woman, bidding farewell with a bear hug and kiss, as if she were my best friend, and rushed out the flat. When I’d got back to court, found Anthony, he couldn’t quite believe it. First he’d reprimanded my unethical behaviour, before moving onto flattery. He was especially impressed at my photography prowess. “Nice work,” he’d praised, kissing me on the forehead. It was a touching moment, intimate yet distant, but it wasn’t to be dwelled on. What mattered was our next move. We wouldn’t be summing up. We’d be calling Cameron Matthews back to the stand. Only problem was, nobody could find him. He wasn’t at home, he wasn’t at work and his mobile was switched off. All weekend the Prosecution couldn’t work out his whereabouts. It’s taken till today, Tuesday, to make him swear again to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help him God.

He’d started off his usual cocky, smarmy self. Then I’d circulated copies of the super-imposed photos round the jury, holding the originals up close to him, for confirmation that these were indeed images of the one and same photos hanging on his toilet wall. He’d proudly said yes, they were, but that pride had turned to nervous confusion when I’d next circulated the real, not tampered with same images hanging on Scott Richardson’s wall, with Scott Richardson’s face. Cameron had acted sheepish at this point, turning to the jury with a humble, self-deprecating smile, trying to get them back on side. When they’d failed to respond, he’d cleared his throat nervously, shifted about in his seat, no longer so confident. Slowly, before me, before the court, before the jury, he’d started to waver, to crumble. With every question I’d asked, as he stood there in the stand, he’d sunk a couple of millimeters or so into the floor. With every answer he’d given, a few more beads of sweat broke on his moony, shiny face.

“Why would you super-impose images of yourself onto Scott Richardson’s photos?” I’d asked.

“Uh-hum,” he’d cleared his throat, irises dancing madly, almost crossing, in his eyes. “I’ve, err, been practicing graphics on my computer, wanted to try out something new. They’re, err, quite good, err, don’t you think?”

I hadn’t answered. In fact, the power of my questioning had lain in what I hadn’t, rather than what I had said. The jury, I knew, would all now be wondering what kind of a person would super-impose their image onto the face of another man with his girlfriends. A strange person, an obsessive person, a person without a life of their own, perhaps. A person not to be trusted, a person with a hidden agenda. This was a person capable of falsifying evidence and of embellishing the truth.  

“Was a small part of you jealous, perhaps, of Scott Richardson and his conquests? I mean,” I’d said, “the women are all pretty stunning, don’t you think? Any man, surely, would want a piece of that action?”

The court had laughed with me. Cameron had visibly squirmed, like a fat slug on a wet leaf.

“Uh-hum,” he’d cleared his throat again. “I’ve had plenty of pretty girls in my time too.”

“Well, why then,” I’d suggested, “did you not put any photos of them on your toilet wall?”

 His hands were hidden from view, but his arms were fidgeting, making me wonder if his pudgy fingers were nervously clasped, fiddling overtime.  

“You’ve had a grudge against Scott Richardson since you were at school together,” I’d said, “and that’s part of the reason why you did this, isn’t it?”

Cameron, looking blank, baffled and extremely unsettled, didn’t answer. As, too, he hasn’t answered my next and most recent question. 

“Cameron Matthews,” I repeat, “did you by any chance try to set-up the Defendant?”

Senior counsel for the Prosecution, a woman in her late forties called Margaret, jumps up, with a start, sending her chair crashing back onto the floor with a thud.

“Ms Kirk, you shouldn’t be asking questions like that,” she reprimands in a loud aside. 

She picks up her chair, smoothes her skirt and sits back down, throwing a stern glare in my direction. I couldn’t care less. Neither Margaret, nor the Old Bailey, nor the magnitude of what’s going on here can throw me now. I’m starting to relax into my role, enjoy myself, to find my feet as an orator again. I hadn’t wanted to do this cross-examination originally. I’d made such a pig’s ear of it first time that I’d lost my nerve, thought Anthony should close the deal. Only he was having none of it. Despite it being unorthodox, senior counsel letting his junior cross-examine the chief witness, this one was for me, he’d said. This was my victory, not his, and he’d encouraged me to get back on that horse. I’m pleased I did, because I’m finally sensing that Cameron’s resolve is weakening.