False Witness (11 page)

“Honest then.”

That was the reply I wanted. An elderly juror wearing a scarf from Fortnum and Mason smiled at the girl.

I asked, “And when you shoplifted a skirt from M and S, was that honest or dishonest?”

She did not reply. The juror still smiled at her, though not quite as much. I could see what she was thinking—I would have
probably thought the same—spot of youthful crime, nothing too bad, what was the harm?

I continued, “And when you committed burglary were you honest then, too?”

The girl liked this even less. “Yeah, but I never stole nothin’,” she said.

“Remind us. Where were you caught?”

“Er… can’t remember. Too long ago.”

“Let’s see if I can jog your memory.”

“Well you can’t.”

“Let’s try, shall we?” I looked quite deliberately at the elderly juror. “Didn’t you burgle an old people’s home?”

“I denied it.”

“But you were convicted. You don’t disagree with that?”

The girl was clearly annoyed. So, too, was the elderly juror, but I felt that her anger was no longer directed at me.

“Do you have any other convictions?”

“Can’t remember.”

“Well, is that because you have too many convictions or too little memory?” That was one of my favorite lines.

“You tell me.”

“What were you doing in January last year?”

“I can’t think that far back.”

The atmosphere was beginning to change in court, shifting slowly, almost imperceptibly, like the sands along a beach.

I paused until the girl was forced to look at me. “Weren’t you in Stonebury on the night of 10th January?”

“Dunno.” She gave a careless wave of her hand.

“Well, I do. You visited some friends of yours.”

“They were still in the home.”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “The home. West Albion. Do you smoke?”

Manly, who had been watching this exchange with mounting irritation, asked, “What possible relevance can that have, Mr. Fawley?”

“I’ll let the witness answer that,” I replied impertinently, “if Your Lordship pleases.”

He huffed, but let me continue.

“So do you smoke?”

“No.”

“Where did you get the matches then?”

The girl was beside herself. “I never dun that. I never dun it.”

“Done what? Perhaps you’d care to tell us—if you can remember that far back.”

“What they said was lies,” she protested.

“You were convicted of setting fire to the home. Was that another mistake?”

“I was innocent.”

“But you confessed to the police.”

“They fitted me up.”

“And you pleaded guilty?”

“My brief made me do that.”

“Well, you must be the unluckiest young lady in the West Country.”

“Mr. Fawley,” said Manly, “please don’t comment.”

“Poor you,” I continued. “You were caught with some matches when you don’t even smoke, the police say you confessed when you
didn’t say a word? You were forced to plead guilty when you really were innocent? Come, come. That’s not the truth.”

“I hated that home. Molly did, too,” blurted out the girl. “They used to make us—”

“I’m not concerned with that,” I tried to interrupt.

“They beat us and put us in—”

“Please. We’re not interested.”

“They put us in that room,” she cried. She turned to the judge. “Don’t let them put me back in the Hole. I’ll tell you what
you want.”

I had to try to stem the flow of such damaging information. I appealed to Manly.

“I’m afraid you rather opened the door of the West Albion, Mr. Fawley.” The judge clearly enjoyed my discomfort.

Emma had her arms tightly folded and looked at the floor. No notes, no help, just stern disapproval. I could now see why no
one wanted to grapple with the issue of the home. It cut both ways and was extremely dangerous.

“Let me move on to… another topic,” I said. No one was fooled—I couldn’t even fool myself. I was losing the battle.

“Mr. Fawley, have you finished with this witness?” Manly wanted to press on. “Or do you want to know anything else about her
childhood?” He flourished his pencil in a taunting fashion.

At first I did not realize what I had found. My hands nervously fingered the papers in front of me, and I toyed with a sheet
somewhere near the top. It was crisply folded and quite neatly typed.

Manly asked Davenport if he wished to re-examine. Davenport declined.

“You’re free to leave, young lady,” said Manly.

Doctor Jennifer Stone tightened her belt and started to usher the young girl from the court with that cold compassion that
used to be shown by workhouse governesses. Norman rose reluctantly and looked at Davenport to see who the next witness would
be. Davenport conferred with Justine and they agreed on the second girl, the other “filly” as he had called her. And all the
time I was looking at the sheet of paper and thinking, what can it mean? I had not read the whole brief properly as Emma had
urged me to do. So when I looked at the sheet, I could not truly say whether the note had been there all the time or whether
it was new.

The Past is a River of Many Streams

The court door was opened and the first girl slipped out. Jenny Stone cast a venomous glance in my direction, tightened her
belt still further, and also departed.

When I looked back at Kingsley, I realized that I was still on my feet. He seemed—as did everyone—miles and miles away from
me. A vast distance below me, Emma refused to look up.

There comes a time in any trial where all is at stake. The balance is perfect. At such times, do you have a choice? Or is
it all ordained? I instinctively felt that the note had a bearing on the truth of the case. But if I had been asked at that
precise moment what that was, I could not have said.

“M’Lord,” I said, “I have not finished my cross-examination of the last witness.”

Emma was speechless. She gawped at me, her mouth wide enough to accommodate a sheaf of her notes.

“Do I understand that you want the young lady recalled?” The color seeped out of Manly’s face. “Do you object, Mr. Davenport?”

The prosecutor saluted his good fortune, smirked and shook his head. The girl was hauled back, her screams of protest pouring
into the well of the court and then rushing round and round. When I saw her, she was disorientated, her head flicked from
one corner of the ceiling to the other.

Jennifer Stone glared at me, no doubt trying to think of an appropriate psychiatric disorder for my behavior.

The sheet of paper in my hand was not the product of a word processor. It had been typed on an old-fashioned typewriter. The
underside was bumpy. The content was meaningless.

I read the note again.

The Past is a River of Many Streams

One night I had heard similar things. At least, I thought I had.

T
HE FIRST THING
I
EVER LEARNT ABOUT ADVOCACY
was from the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. A lawyer in the Deep South was defending a black man on a rape charge. The attorney’s
child said, “Never ask a question unless you know the answer.” It is sound advice, but there are two exceptions. Ask what
you like if you want to know the truth. And ask about anything if you don’t really care.

As I looked at the girl trembling again in the witness box, it became very clear to me that I didn’t give a damn.

“You know exactly what happened,” I said to her.

She did not answer me. Her nail-bitten fingers danced along the witness box.

“Don’t you?” I said under my breath so she could barely hear. It forced her to look up and strain to hear. “Don’t you?” I
shouted.

My right hand moved up to the edge of the sheet. “Look at this,” I said as she stared back at me defiantly. “If you wouldn’t
mind.”

Norman petulantly stamped across the court to deliver the sheet so noisily that I was able to ask Emma where the note came
from. She didn’t know. I half looked at Kingsley when I heard the rustle of paper in the witness box. He lightly fingered
his neck.

“Now, tell us,” I said. “What does it mean?”

The girl dropped her head vacantly, like a fast-wilting bloom. She waved the note and turned it over and over.

“Well, what does it mean?”

Emma hissed urgently to me. “Tom, just leave it. Leave it there.”

“Have you got something to hide?”

The girl became whiter. The spot of blood on her nose stood out strangely.

“I’m going to ask you for one last—”

Manly intervened. “Can you read? Young lady, are you able to read?”

She shook her head.

Manly turned sharply toward Norman. “Give me that,” he growled. The judge read the note and jotted something down. “Do I understand
you want to put
this
to the witness, Mr. Fawley?”

“No,” whispered Emma.

“Yes, M’Lord,” I said.

“Very well.” Manly turned toward the box. “Young lady, I’m going to read this note to you, do you understand?”

She seemed completely empty.

Manly cleared his throat and then did so again. He held the sheet of paper in front of his face and read slowly and clearly.

“The past is a river—” He broke off and looked at the witness. She was gazing at the ceiling, her eyes quite pale. He continued,
“A river of many streams… do you recognize that?”

She said nothing. Her mouth was open, and I could see that half her teeth were rotten little stubs. But still she said nothing.

Manly put down the paper and addressed me. “I really think that is as far as we can go.”

I was about to agree with the judge when the girl began to speak, and her voice was different, somehow older.

“When I met Molly we went to the woods,” she said. The strip lighting played on her horizontal face. “I says to Moll, we’re
sure to get caught. I’d never done it… not like that before.”

I didn’t know whether to get to my feet. Emma decided the issue by holding me down firmly by the wrist.

“It’s so cold,” said the girl, reaching for the shawl that was no longer there. She wrapped her frail arms desperately around
her chest. “The grass was so wet. There was twigs and acorns. On the ground, like. But Molly says, I will if you will.” She
looked at the judge and her eyes bulged with fear. “It was
her
idea. I swears it. She told me to do it.”

I could contain myself no longer. “She told you to do what?” Emma still held my sleeve so my shoulders sloped ludicrously.

“She told me to take—”

“Yes?”

“To take off our—well, you knows.”

I thought I did, and at that moment I imagined that I could actually feel the strange texture of muslin. “Was it just the
two of you?” I asked.

“At first it was.”

“And then?”

“Then there was more.”

And now I knew I must press on. “Who else was there?”

“Jesus, Tom,” called up Emma.

The girl looked at the public gallery.

“Who?” I asked.

“I’m a good girl. I never meant no harm to no one.” She wiped her nose violently. “They said they’d pay us if we did it.”

“Who else was there?” I asked.

“When I met Molly, we went to the woods and—”

“Who else?”

“They didn’t give us no money. They’s just took Molly.”

The strip light above her flickered and one bulb fizzled out.

I said, “We must know—who else was there?” I blinked hard and wondered whether what I saw was a trick of the light.

The noise the girl made started as a word and ended in the type of howl you hear when you want to wake up but cannot. “No…
No-ooh,” she screamed again and again.

There was now blood seeping from one of her nostrils.

“
Lies
,” shouted Kingsley from the bowels of the court. “Lies, it’s all lies.”

The girl was convulsing and that momentarily checked the sound. As Jenny Stone approached her, she lashed out again and again
as though a bird of prey were swooping from the ceiling and tearing at her face.

“No, Molly,” screamed the girl. “Don’t do it to me, Moll.”

The lights were flickering more violently now.

“Please, Molly. Leave me alone.” She tried to shield her face and then she imagined she was attacked from another direction.

The faltering light in court was in perfect contrast to the steady darkness that emanated from the wretched girl.