False Witness (27 page)

“Penny?”

“Possibly,” Justine said. “Well, that was it.”

“What happened to him?”

“No one wanted a scandal. So nothing really happened. He was sent away. Life went on. I hardly ever think about it now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about it before?” I asked.

“It just never came up. What was I supposed to have said? Oh, Tom, did I tell you? I was bonked by my teacher over the
Oxford Book of English Verse
, Quiller-Couch edition. Who’s your next witness, by the way? You see, it’s just never come up, Tom.”

“Justine,” I replied, “why are you telling me all this now?” When she did not answer, I added, “Justine, what has this to
do… well, with me?”

“It’s just that I’m—” She appeared to struggle to find the right word. “Well, I’m just bad luck.”

“I’ll take my chances,” I said.

Justine kissed me as a child kisses its father and I could taste little salty droplets running slowly down her cheeks. And
I began to see that her thin, scarcely developed body was just a reflection of a childhood that had been starved of proper
affection.

Then I heard the wind rising and falling outside. Soon the bedstead was creaking. And then I was both ashamed and unaccountably
excited to be making love to this lost creature, and I thought of Richard Kingsley and his crimes, and I wondered whether
I was really very different to him after all.

A
T THE HUNT, WE HAD ARRANGED TO MEET
D
AVEN
port for a lunchtime drink the next day. We waited in a pub on the outskirts of Stonebury near to the Devon county border.
But Davenport did not appear. Justine entered one of her darker moods as she contemplated a suitable punishment. I sat next
to her at a table in the corner of the bar drinking both the gin and tonics that we had ordered. The room was dark even though
it was barely past midday. An open fire provided some flickering light.

Justine asked, “What do you want to do today?”

“Well, I haven’t seen any turnips yet.”

“No, seriously. What do you want to do?”

“What I most want to do in the whole world,” I replied. “Which is nothing.”

“I always admired your energy, Tom.”

“I mean, why do people always have to do
something
. I’m sick and tired of it. I just want to be left alone,” I said. And then seeing a scowl beginning to contort her face,
I added, “Well, with you as well, of course.”

Justine was wearing an immaculate white blouse made of Italian silk, a neatly fitting skirt and black stockings peppered with
little cats. Her blond hair was pulled back from her face and was in a single pony-tail, her makeup was perfect, her fragrance
refined. I had forgotten to shave.

“So you don’t want to see that witness?” she said.

“Which witness?” I wasn’t really listening. I thought about what I had dreamt the night before. For the first time I dreamt
that I was within the circle of stones. The blocks of stone seemed to crowd in on me. Figures were becoming more distinct,
like the images on a photograph when the developer is applied.

“You know the woman I’m talking about,” Justine said.

“Oh, the hermit. Well, she isn’t a witness. Not really. You just gave me her details.”

“She lives round here,” Justine said. “Used to come into the pub to buy a bucket of the local brew.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a rough type of the mead wine. They call it Red-eye or something. Poisonous stuff.”

“Right. I’ll have a double,” I said.

“We could skip the drinks and try to find that woman.”

“Why bother? Kingsley’s going down.”

“You’ve got to put up a fight, Tom.”

“For him?” I replied.

“No. Not for Kingsley.” She put her hand on my fingers. “For yourself.” She looked at the empty glasses. “Look, I know it’s
none of my business—”

“How very perceptive of you.”

“I couldn’t help noticing.” She lowered her voice. “You know, the drink. I’m a little worried. Should I be?”

“You’re certainly right about one thing.”

“Am I?”

“Yes,” I said and lowered my voice. “It’s none of your business.” I rather childishly turned the glass upside down to demonstrate
its emptiness. “Besides, a man needs a hobby and the only poor defenseless animal it’ll kill is me.”

“All right. Subject closed.” She took her hand away and folded her arms. “So what are we going to do?”

“I might just take a wander round,” I said.

“You won’t find him, the police—”

“Him? I didn’t mention a him.”

Justine looked quickly away. She played with the grip that secured her hair. Then she said. “The police have looked everywhere
for Templeman. He’s not even on the electoral roll.”

“Doesn’t that worry you?” I asked.

“Why should it? He’s supposed to be your witness.”

“Look, I know you don’t need to be able to vote for the Blood Sports and Monarchy Party to be an alibi witness, but—”

“Have you finished?” Justine said, looking back at me. When I did not respond, she added, “So what are we going to do, Tom?”

“Actually,” I said, “I would like to go up to the residential home. You know, West Albion. It’s about time that I saw it.”

“You’ve already seen it,” Justine replied.

“No, I mean the place Molly Summers—”

“You’ve already seen it,” Justine insisted.

“Where?” I asked, and then I began to understand. “The main house? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“Well, I did try, Justine. But every time I did, you climbed on top and rode me like a wild stallion.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said. “Anyway, I can’t remember you complaining.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?”

“How it comes to pass that the Wright country residence has more destitute children than the orphanage in
Oliver
. That might be the point, Justine.”

An uneasy silence followed and we sat a table’s width apart managing not to look at each other. I felt better, safer, back
on familiar ground. I had burst the bubble of unreal contentment before—as it must—it burst of its own accord. I knew I had
climbed back aboard that old favorite, the well-worn cycle of crisis and calm, the peaks and troughs that propel a relationship
and that make domestic bliss almost bearable.

Finally, Justine said, “It was in his will. Well, the codicil to the will.”

“What was?”

“The bequest of the house to the local authority.”

“But why, Justine?”

“He always was charitable. He granted them a very generous lease.”

“I’ve heard of charity beginning at home, but this is ridiculous. You see, some people just give fifty pence to Oxfam and
wear a red nose for Comic Relief. I mean, where were you supposed to live?”

“I had the cottage,” Justine said. “And the rents from the lease went into a trust fund for me.”

“But why on earth did he do it?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, Justine. Because it’s not a particularly normal thing to do.”

“Know your problem, Tom?”

“Which one in particular?”

“The one which prevents you seeing the good in what people do. You see, Tom, you defend so many evil people that you just
think that goodness is laughable. Somehow weak. Well, it’s not. But that’s not something that people like you and Richard
Kingsley will ever understand.”

I cannot remember how many glasses of the thick mead I drank after that. But it was sufficient to make my vision as cloudy
as the liquid. When I was drunk enough, I cursed Hilary Hardcastle and I cursed Richard Kingsley. I tried to forget about
Whitey Innocent and the London Bar. For once I was going to do something for myself—and that was nothing.

After an hour, Justine said that we could walk the few miles back to her cottage. And if we got tired or bored, she said,
we could phone for a cab from the village.

Stonebury was not particularly different to how I imagined it. What really struck me was the silence. You couldn’t hear the
sounds a town-dweller immediately associates with a pastoral scene: no bleating of sheep, no tractors, no carts running down
cobbled streets. Not even the birds sang. It felt like your were entering a closely confined vacuum, something had been preserved
there, but no one—I imagined—could tell you what.

There was a little parish church on the far side of the village, outside the circle of stones which completely surrounded
the houses. When we reached the corner of the graveyard, with its fluttering angels of marble and overgrown tombstones, Justine
stopped abruptly.

“Better get a cab,” she said.

“I’m all right, really.” I tried to put on a brave face. In truth, I was rather ashamed of my behavior in the pub. “We haven’t
far to go, have we?”

“That’s not the point,” she said.

A small group of people were coming out of the church. No one was smiling.

“I just don’t believe it,” said Justine.

“Who are they?”

“Just keep your head down and keep walking.” She put her coat collar up and cast down her eyes. “Just keep walking,” Justine
ordered.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed the odd handshake and several sympathetic embraces.

“Justine,” I said, “do you think it could be—”

“Shut up, will you?” She tightened her belt.

Before we got much further, a woman spoke and her voice quivered in the winter’s air. “You have no right,” she said. “How
dare you.”

Justine grabbed my arm and tried to usher me around the group.

The woman was covered in black lace. “You shouldn’t have brought
him
,” she said, meaning me. “You… whore.”

“Now hold on,” I said.

“Leave it, Tom.” Justine kept pushing me on.

“You have no right,” said the woman.

“Look, madam.” I straightened my back and probably sounded patronizing. “This is a public right of way. We have every right—”

“Don’t, Tom,” said Justine. “They all know who you are.”

The woman shouted again. “How can you be here? Not today. She was so young… and now—”

The still air was jolted by the ringing of the church bell. Justine put her hand in the small of my back and drove me forward.
We virtually ran past the far corner of the graveyard. The mead swilled around my stomach like one of those wave machines
in a theme park.

“You have no right,” cried the woman. “Not today.”

But we were fifty yards clear. We rushed through winding lanes, with high hedges on both sides, obscuring everything apart
from a miserable patch of dark sky above. I developed a stitch. And when it felt as though a black crow was pecking at my
abdomen, I had to stop.

“Tom,” gasped Justine. “Let me explain.”

My stomach heaved mightily. “I think I know.”

“You
do
?”

“It’s almost exactly a year since the Summers murder, isn’t it?” I said.

“So?”

“So this is some sort of memorial.”

Justine looked at me incredulously. “That was a funeral, you idiot.”

“A what? Do people usually get buried on a Thursday?”

“Kingsley’s going to walk,” said Justine. “That was our last real hope.”

I put my hand to my mouth as the pain from my stitch was overwhelmed by another urge.

“The disappearing witness was in the coffin,” Justine said. “She’s overdosed.”

“On what?”

“Oh, don’t be so obtuse.”

“On
what
, Justine?”

“On heroin, of course.”

“Who was she?”

Justine did not reply.

“What was her name, Justine?”

“Diane.”

“Diane what?” When she was silent, I grabbed her sleeve and I repeated, “Diane what?”

“Diane Morrow.”

“She’s never the daughter of—”

“What doe you think, Tom?” Justine said.

But I did not reply and I did not really think of Sarah Morrow, for then I was mightily sick.

I
T WAS MY FIFTH DAY IN
S
TONEBURY
. A
FEVER
struck Justine in the early hours and moved through her body quietly. She did not complain. It was as if it were something
she expected, something she felt she deserved.