False Witness (31 page)

“All right. I know I’m going to regret this, but what do you want me to do?”

“Find out when and where Molly Summers was born.”

“What on earth’s the point?”

“A car came around the sharp bend in the London Road which sheltered the village from most of the noise of the traffic.

I then said, “It may be that the murdered girl wasn’t who we thought she was.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Perhaps it wasn’t Molly Summers who was killed.”

“Who was it then?”

I read out the baptism entry from the parish register and Emma conceded that it was slightly, but only slightly, odd.

“I had to get a new birth certificate for a second passport,” she said. “You have to apply to St. Catherine’s House. I’ll
go first thing Monday. And, Tom?”

“I owe you one, Emma.”

“Can I suggest you don’t share this information with the… opposition?”

“You can suggest it.”

“Perhaps the”—she dropped her voice—“perhaps the other side shouldn’t know what we’re up to.”

“There are no sides on this one, Emma.”

“I don’t think Kingsley sees it that way.”

“Kingsley’s the least of my problems.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“Tell you when I see you.”

“Which will be?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“But Tom, it’s Saturday now and the trial starts Monday. Can’t you—”

“Tomorrow’s my last day with Justine. I’ll call you when I get home.”

The rain had eased and I walked back to the cottage wondering what I should tell Justine.

* * *

When I entered the lounge, it was early evening. Justine looked particularly alluring, sitting cross-legged in front of the
fire, her hair framing her face like a soft yellow mop, sucking her pen as she considered the papers.

“I’ve tossed a few things together,” she said. “Some sort of stew. One of old Annie’s specials. Daddy used to love it. Loads
of carrots, potatoes… don’t worry, Tom. No turnips.”

I stared back at her with crossed arms, my wet shoes suddenly feeling particularly uncomfortable. My ankle again began to
throb.

Justine continued writing away. “Fancy a drink, Tom? Gin’s on the sideboard, tonic should be—”

“We need to talk.”

“Oh, God. Not again. What more is there to say? I thought I told you everything.
Everything
.” She paused but my silence provoked her to continue. “What more can I tell you, Tom? What more do you want of me?”

“It’s nothing to do with—those things.”

“Then what?”

“The Sarah Morrow case.”

“Do we have to? I mean, now?”

“Yes, now.” Ever since Emma had accosted me in Johnson’s and told me to steer clear of Justine, I had wanted to give Justine
a chance. I suppose it was the incorrigible defense advocate in me.

Justine left the brief on the floor and turned toward the fireplace. “All right,” she said, “you start.”

I shook a soggy foot. “Why didn’t you tell Sarah Morrow that the judge had offered probation if she—”

“The fire’s dying,” Justine said. “Can you bring over a couple of logs?”

When I had done so, I repeated the question.

“It wasn’t that simple, Tom. Sarah didn’t want to plead guilty to manslaughter. Not after what that so-called husband did
to her. Can you imagine what it’s like to be abused?”

She tried to avoid eye contact with me. “These logs are too big. We’ll have to cut them.” With that she handed me a blunt
hand-axe covered in rust. “You do the honors.”

I had never cut a log, a branch, or anything with growth rings in my life and protested, “Why me?”

Her eye froze. “You’re supposed to be the man.”

The first blow bounced off the bark sending vibrations up my arm.

“You’ve got to make a small groove first,” she said.

I made a little nick and aimed another blow. “Did you forget? I mean, that case was a political circus,” I said.

“I didn’t forget. Harder.”

Another blow. A few splinters flew toward the embers.

“Then why? She trusted you, Justine and—”

“Come on. Harder.”

I raised the axe as far as I could, and Justine held the log with each hand only inches away from the cut. The blow was accurate
but the wood was tough. “For God’s sake, Justine. She could have got away with probation and she ended up—”

“Harder.”

The cut became a gash. A little pink sap sprayed from the wound. “Well, you know how she ended up.”

Justine moved her fingers closer together and tightened her grip. “So I screwed up. It happens. It won’t bring her back. Come
on, much harder.”

I raised the axe up to my face, Justine’s fingers looked tiny spread across the bark below. “Were you thinking of yourself?
Your career?” I asked.

“I thought—” She looked at me with a cold determination. “I thought we could win. Don’t you understand winning, Tom? Put your
back into it.”

The axe swung, and I thought about my fight with Templeman and how victory had felt. I imagined, for the first time, the jury
pronouncing Kingsley not guilty (was
that
winning?) and I became confused. I thought about the funeral entry about Diane Morrow, and when I swung again, I saw that
as the blade struck the wood, the log moved, the axe bounced to the left and gashed the side of Justine’s hand.

“Oh, God. I’m sorry.” I flung down the axe.

“It’s only a graze.” She got up and slowly put the open wound to her mouth.

“Is there anything I can do?” I said rather feebly.

“Haven’t you done enough?” Justine replied.

A
FTER WASHING THE WOUND
, J
USTINE WANTED TO
lie down. Consequently, I was left in the lounge by myself. I took out my case papers but could not concentrate. The recent
events in Stonebury had troubled me greatly, and I feared that the legal process we were about to embark upon was no more
than an artifice. I knew that the trial could be nothing but a shallow caricature of events, an imitation of the truth. For
this was not the type of truth to be uncovered in a brightly lit courtroom, but one that was secreted here, in the woods of
Stonebury.

It is one of the inviolable taboos of the Bar that you do not look in your opponent’s brief. It is a little like being invited
to dinner and then rummaging through your host’s drawers, or going on a date and snooping in your partner’s handbag. But Justine
had left some of her papers strewn carelessly on the floor in front of the fire and as the flames began to rise, sparks started
to jump mischievously toward her brief.

I moved across the room and gathered up the jumbled mass of documents. I recognized the police report, but did not read it.
There were a couple of interview transcripts which both sides had agreed to exclude. They basically consisted of Kingsley
boasting about his tawdry novels. Then a copy of the indictment, the plea of guilty to manslaughter—the deal Kingsley reneged
on—crossed out in red. A copy of Kingsley’s handwritten note, the one found in his cell. I still could not believe his foolishness.
Two custody records, more interviews, a bundle of exhibits, letters from the Crown Prosecution Service. I turned these over
rapidly; I didn’t want to see a syllable of the correspondence. Statements, further statements. Why couldn’t Justine file
her papers neatly like a normal barrister?

It was a mess.

When I had sat down at the desk in the opposite corner of the room, as far from her brief as possible, I jotted down a few
ideas for the next week.

Then I crossed out lust. There was no evidence of sexual abuse. Bloodlust, then? Kingsley was sick but was he bloodthirsty?
He had no record for violence.

Stonebury. Thinking of Kingsley’s note and the stones and Blake, I knew Kingsley’s motive must still be in Stonebury, somewhere.

Then Mary flowed like a river of many streams
.

How distasteful a reference to the shedding of an innocent girl’s blood. But Kingsley did not quote it exactly in his notes
from the trial. He had changed the beginning. How had he phrased it? Something was that wretched river: the truth? life? death?
Before I knew what I was doing, I had found the copy of Kingsley’s note in Justine’s brief.

The past is a river of many streams
.

The past. Why that? I wondered whether the prosecution had formed the link between the note and Blake and Albion and Stonebury.
Perhaps they wouldn’t. Perhaps… what I saw then did not make sense.

I was not holding a copy of Kingsley’s handwritten note. I was holding
the
scribbled note itself. Why had Payne given the original exhibit to the prosecution lawyers? How then did my handwriting expert
examine it? Had they given him the wrong one? And someone had taken off the court’s exhibit label? What was Payne up to?

Justine stirred next door and faintly called my name.

“How are you?” I replied.

“Can you come in here, Tom?”

“Wait there. Just be a second.” I rushed back to the fireplace and flung Justine’s papers onto the floor again. They looked
too neat. I kicked some of them about with my foot.

“Tom? What are you up to?”

“Just coming.”

The flames were still spitting lively sparks from the fire.

“Tom, I’m waiting.”

The papers didn’t look suitably chaotic, so I continued to scuff them around while I said, “Want some tea?”

“Some what?”

“Tea. I’m making camomile tea.” Then I saw on the floor another copy of Kingsley’s note. And another. And another. All in
his intense spiderish handwriting. How many did he write?

“Can’t you just bring me a glass of water?”

I picked up the assorted notes one by one and was sure that our expert, old Mr. Dove, had not seen any of them.

“Tom? If you don’t come in here, then I’ll—”

Payne had not told the court that Kingsley had written so many notes. The question was, why?

The door opened and Justine caught me rifling through her papers. “I should have stopped them,” she said.

She was not angry. But I was.

For by the time we both sat down, it was absolutely clear to me that someone had been trying to imitate the handwriting of
Richard Kingsley.

“You know he’s a monster… and you know he’s guilty,” Justine told me. “I mean, are you going to say he’s not?”

The notes fluttered gently in my hand as warm currents floated up from the fire. Justine walked toward me in her nightshirt,
saw the astonishment in my eyes and sank back into her armchair. This was not a time for touching.

She gathered her knees under her chin as she began to speak. “It all happened so fast. You know what the confusion was like
what with the judge shouting at you and everything. But I swear—Tom, you’ve got to believe me—I knew nothing about it till
later.”

“Why should I believe anything you tell me?”

“Because you love me.”

“Is that what you think?”

“It’s what I believe. I mean, it’s what I want to believe… Oh, God, when we used the note in court to oppose bail, we thought
it was genuine. What else could we think, Aubrey and me? It was Richard Kingsley we were prosecuting. You know what the man
is capable of.”

Yes, I did know. Glancing down at the note, I remembered how Kingsley had gestured with his finger, like a knife cutting a
throat, when I was about to cross-examine the poor girl. Yes, I knew what he was capable of. I knew, too, that he had no respect
for youth or innocence or vulnerability—they were all there for him to violate. I knew he had to be stopped. But like this?

“Who did it?” I asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Who did it?”

“I think… I think it was Payne’s idea. I’m pretty sure of that. I went berserk when he told me later. He was so smug and self-satisfied.
But what was I supposed to do?”

“Withdraw from the case.”

“And have them pull even bigger strokes? At least this way I can… well, exercise some control.”

“Justine, think what you’re saying.”

“But I told them there was no way they were going to use this evidence against Kingsley at the retrial.”

That was something. I put the papers down and moved to the window. Small patches of yellow light from the village shone between
the trees.

I said, “And that’s why—”

“Why we never got the note tested. We were never going to use it.”

Another piece slotted into position.

“But where did you get a sample of his writing to copy?” I asked.

“Payne said that he seized piles of manuscripts of Kingsley’s sleazy novels. I wanted to tell you, Tom. But—”

“But you didn’t.”

“But I was scared.”

“Scared? Of what?”