The Baker Street Jurors (11 page)

“Thank you. Nothing further.”

The prosecutor went to sit down and the defense barrister moved in so quickly that they almost collided.

“Who was Mrs. McSweeney's counterpart in this correspondence?” said Langdon.

“I'm sorry … what?”

“Who was she exchanging letters with?”

“Dearest. I mean, I know that wasn't his name. But that's how she addressed the letters that I saw.”

“You saw no actual name?”

“No.”

“Did she tell you with whom she was having this alleged affair?”

“No.”

“Did she say that she had told Mr. McSweeney of it?”

“No.”

“Did she say that she had told anyone else of it?”

“No.”

“Did you yourself tell Mr. McSweeney of it?”

“No, of course not.”

“So you don't know the who or when or how of this alleged affair, or whether anyone else at all saw the letters that you claim you saw, and yet the prosecution expects us to believe that the defendant knew of it!”

“Objection!”

“I'm sorry, was that a question for me?” said the witness.

“No,” said the judge. “Everyone remain calm.”

“My lord,” said Slattery, “we take exception to the admission of the testimony from this witness. It is all hearsay.”

“Exception noted. The witness may step down.”

But before she could do so, the bailiff nudged the judge and pointed toward the jury section.

“Oh,” said the judge. “Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Walker. Are there any questions from the jury for this witness?”

No one among the main twelve raised hand.

But in the alternates section, Siger was waving his arms like a signal man at a dangerous train crossing. He had a folded paper note in one hand.

“I see we have one question,” said the judge, with just a hint of trepidation.

The judge sent Mr. Walker to retrieve the note. The barristers both came forward and conferenced with the judge at his bench.

They all looked at the note, pressed their fingers to their temples, rubbed the wrinkles in their foreheads, stroked their chins—and shook their heads.

The judge looked toward the alternate jury box and said, “Sorry. Interesting observations, but not relevant. Better luck next time.”

Siger seemed stunned at the rejection. He sat down quietly.

The judge prepared to file the juror note, and the two lawyers walked back toward their tables. Then Langdon stopped. A revelation. He turned on his heel, went directly back to the judge and asked to see the note again. This time when he read it, he understood—and was so enthused about it that he forgot to ask permission and just immediately approached the witness.

“Ms. Stoddard,” he said, reading from the note. “Have you very recently spent several days at a full-body waxing and tanning salon, highlighted your hair for the first time in years, removed your wedding ring, and booked a flight to Ibiza?”

The witness sat back in her chair, astonished, and the prosecutor jumped to his feet.

“Objection! My lord, the witness cannot be subjected to such irrelevant and deeply personal inquiries!”

“I think we did all agree just a moment ago that there was no relevance to this particular set of jury questions,” said the judge.

“Yes, my lord,” said Langdon. “But I just realized what the note is getting at.”

The judge sighed. He cast a very quick, annoyed glance at Siger, and then turned back to the barristers. “These questions don't seem to me relevant to the credibility of the witness. But this is a murder trial, after all. The court will allow the witness to answer.”

Everyone now looked toward the witness. And, flustered as she was, the witness answered. “Yes,” she said. “I did get waxed and highlighted, and removed my wedding ring, and booked a flight to Ibiza.”

“And in your conversation with Mrs. McSweeney about personal relationships, did you mention to her that you were planning to do all those things?”

“Yes, naturally.”

“And did you tell her why?”

“Yes, I told her. I'm having a bit of a fling. I'm not embarrassed about it. I am divorced, after all.”

“And it was only at that point that Mrs. McSweeney mentioned something regarding a fling … an affair of her own?”

“Yes.”

“And she told you no specific details about this affair at all, is that correct?”

“That's correct.”

“Has it occurred to you that since you had told her of all the things you were doing in connection with the affair you were having, that she might have been just making one up to keep up with you?”

“I'm not sure I understand…”

“In some circles, there are some people who are proud of their dalliances, are there not?”

“I suppose some people…”

“Are you one of those types of people?”

“No. I don't brag.”

“But yet you told Mrs. McSweeney about your affair and everything it involved, did you not? So wouldn't you agree that there is a natural human tendency nowadays to boast about such things and perhaps even pretend to one's best friend that they are real when they are not?”

“Objection!” said Slattery. “This question not only calls for speculation, it suggests a slur on the character of the English people!”

“In what way?” said Langdon. “That an English woman would have an affair? Or that she would make one up to tell her friend about?”

“Both! We are not the French, after all!”

“As you wish. I withdraw the question. But it does seem to me that if the affair is a fantasy, then the notion of my client having a motive is fantasy also. My lord, I'm done with this witness.”

The judge turned to the prosecutor.

“Redirect, Mr. Slattery?”

Slattery stood in the center of the courtroom, all eyes on him, and he hesitated. He pushed a lock of gray hair back under his wig. He looked down at the floor—actually to check his fly, but not in such a way that he thought anyone could notice. He sighed. And then he turned half toward the witness and half toward the jury.

He's figured it out, thought Nigel. He knows what to do. It's obvious.

“My lord, we have no further questions,” said Slattery. “For not only does the identity of Marlie McSweeney's lover not matter—it also does not matter whether he was even real. Indeed, if he was not, as the defense is suggesting, that merely increases the great tragedy of it all. For if the lover that Mrs. McSweeney spoke of to Carole Stoddard was a mere fantasy—if the letters that Mrs. McSweeney wrote were to someone that she made up from her own imagination, someone to fill the void and the emptiness to which her husband's lifestyle subjected her, someone who would understand her, and sympathize with her, and above all, value her—as she deserved to be valued—and if Liam McSweeney heard the rumors, and believed them, without ever knowing that the lover his wife described in her letters was never anything more or less than the person she had hoped he himself would be—why, that increases the great tragedy of it all—but it does not reduce his motive one whit!”

“My lord, I object!” said Langdon. “No testimony has been introduced to show that Liam McSweeney ever saw the alleged letters, and my learned friend is not asking a question, but merely giving his closing arguments!”

“Indeed he is, Mr. Langdon,” said the judge. “Everything after Mr. Slattery's statement of ‘no further questions' will be stricken from the record. Members of the jury, you will ignore everything that the prosecuting attorney said after that point. But don't feel that you are missing anything as you erase it from your memory. I'm sure Mr. Slattery is proud of his eloquence and will repeat it all for you when we actually get to the end. The witness may step down.”

Mrs. Peabody whispered to Siger.

“My, that was fun. I hope you ask more questions like that!”

 

10

The next morning at Bob's Newsstand, Nigel saw the headline in
The Daily Sun
: “Alternate Juror Devastates the Prosecution!”

Bob put a lid on Nigel's large coffee and said, “You're going to hurt your neck, the way you twist it in the other direction every time you see a newspaper. I don't want to tell you to get your coffee at the cafe instead, but I'd hate to have to call emergency services.”

“I'm that obvious?” said Nigel.

“Yes. Also, Hendricks told me. Also, Lois told me. Also, Rafferty from leasing—”

“I get it,” said Nigel. “Everyone knows I'm anonymously on a jury.”

“Yes,” said Bob. “Say, I didn't know that jurors were even allowed to ask questions the way that fellow did yesterday.”

“I can't talk about it,” said Nigel.

“Right. No need to apologize. We all know you'll do the right thing.”

“Uh-huh.”

Nigel took his coffee and got into a Crown Court sedan that pulled to the curb to pick him up.

Twenty minutes later, Nigel walked up the stairs into the corridor for Court 13.

Most of the jurors were already there. A certain natural grouping had begun to take place, as Nigel had expected it would. The twelve primary jurors were mostly gathered closest to the courtroom door, whether standing or seated on the hard benches. But the smaller alternate group had a center of gravity a bit farther down the corridor—although there were a couple of satellite jurors that seemed willing to cross over in conversation from one orbit into another. Lucy was standing a bit apart from both groups—on her mobile phone again.

As Nigel considered which group to attach himself to while waiting, Siger entered from the stairs and came walking quickly toward him. He motioned for Nigel to join him a few steps away at the opposite wall. “May I tell you something confidentially?” he said.

Nigel was surprised at the request, but nodded.

“I saw a newspaper headline before I came in today.”

“Yes,” said Nigel. “It's difficult not to.”

“Do you think the judge will disqualify me?”

“Over the headline? No. Perhaps the newspaper overstepped itself a bit, but you did not. I expect that when it comes time to deliberate, we'll be sequestered, to avoid such issues.”

“I didn't intend to cause a problem by asking a question,” said Siger. “I don't know at all how I will vote, and I'm not trying to sway anyone in any direction. I only wanted some information. After all, we can't make bricks without clay.”

“Interesting you should put it that way. That's a well-known phrase.”

“Basic legal principle, is it?”

“No,” said Nigel. “What I meant was—well, never mind. Now that I think about it, that is a very sound approach to what we are doing. So long as you keep it in the courtroom.”

“Yes. Yes. Of course.”

The courtroom door opened, and the jurors filed in. The lawyers and other court officers were already present and ready. The doors closed.

All the jurors took their seats, and after they had done so, Nigel noticed two empty chairs in the primary section.

That could not be good.

Mr. Walker told everyone to rise. The judge entered and immediately turned toward the jury. “You may have noticed two empty spaces among you,” he began.

And then he regretfully informed them: earlier that morning, primary jurors numbers eight and nine had become quite ill, and were very sorry, but were, in the words of one of them, “incapable of controlling projectiles of fluids from any of their orifices” and were on their way to hospital. Apparently they had not only partaken of the white cream sauce pasta in the canteen the day before, but had also taken some of it home for a late supper.

A supper they had taken together, the judge added. One more reason to avoid fraternizing.

The court had already sent flowers, and there was no need for the surviving jurors to send their sympathies—but this meant that two new vacancies had opened among the primary juror group, and so alternates would need to be moved over to complete the twelve.

The judge turned to Ms. Sreenivasan, and she read two numbers from the list.

The first was Lucy. She excused herself from her alternate seat next to Nigel and dutifully took a seat in the primary jury section.

The next number was for the insurance agent in the Lacoste polo shirt. He stood, sighed, and went to occupy the remaining empty primary chair.

“Thank you,” said the judge. “Fortunately, we started with five alternates. We still have two. That should more than suffice. But let me make this request of all jurors: don't eat cream sauces that have been left exposed on the counter overnight. Look both ways when you cross the street. Don't run with scissors. We value you, not just for the service you are providing here, but also as individuals—so the court wants you to take care of yourselves, every bit as much as your mum does.”

The judge sat back, took a breath, and looked at the lead defense barrister.

“Mr. Langdon, are you ready to call your first witness?”

“The defense is ready, my lord. We call Mr. Percy Pemberton.”

Percy Pemberton, in his midfifties, wearing a flannel shirt and khakis, got up from the interior gallery and came forward to the witness box without hesitation, head held high. He spoke clearly and loudly as he was sworn in.

He's on a mission, thought Nigel. Not the impression you want your witness to convey. What it tells the jury is that the witness has an agenda, and therefore he might lie.

The first-chair barrister for the defense, Langdon, Q.C., stood up and prepared to ask his questions. He made a show of staring for a moment at the notes in front of him—as if what he was seeing there was so momentous that he could hardly believe it. He approached the witness.

“Mr. Pemberton, for the last three years, have you been living in a home situated on the east side of Westbury-on-Sea?”