False Witness (32 page)

Justine put her head in her hands and once again her soft hair covered her face. “I was scared of them.”

“Them?”

“All of them. I think…”

“What?”

“Oh, I can’t tell you.” She sounded terrified.

“You must tell me everything, Justine.”

“I think… that heroin was meant for me.”

“For
you
?”

“As a sort of reminder. You know, Remember which side you’re on. That sort of thing. Tom, you just don’t understand half of
what is going on.”

“No, Justine. I don’t understand why a young girl should kill herself. I mean, where did she get the heroin?”

“Where do you think?”

“The home? But—”

“Kingsley was a trustee of the home.”

“
What
?”

“We can’t use that fact. There’s so much that we can’t use,” Justine said.

My mind began to race. Just when I thought that things were beginning to make sense, there was something else. There was always
something else. “You’ve got to pull out of the case,” I said.

“I can’t.”

“Don’t be crazy. If you don’t—”

“I’m frightened, Tom.”

But that was something I already knew. She began sobbing as though a heart would break and I was determined it should not
be mine.

“Davenport can get another junior,” I said.

“Aubrey won’t let me go.”

“Say you’re ill. Say… anything.”

“Tom, if Kingsley goes down, that will be the end of it.”

“And you believe that?”

“I think so.”

“And you’re willing to go along with it?”

“What choice do I have?”

“I don’t know. But I do know one thing. If you do go along with it, you’re no better than they are. No better than Kingsley.
You’re just—”

“Oh, please. Don’t go all righteous on me, Tom. There’s nothing more sickening.” There was suddenly a different tone in her
voice; her helpless retreat had turned again into counterattack. “You’re the one who said we’re part of this now. Well, you
were right. Congratulations. Go to the top of the class. But for Christ sake don’t get on your damn high horse at the same
time.”

“I’m going,” I said.

“That’s right. Run away, Tom. Like you ran away from Penny. Like you ran away from your daughter.” She looked at me coldly.
“Like you’ve run away from everything in your life.”

“You can be a cruel person, Justine.”

“Kingsley has got to be punished, Tom. This thing has got to be done.”

“I’ll see you in court,” I said.

I knew I couldn’t stay another moment. Justine was clearly set on what she intended to do. The more I thought about what had
been going on with the notes, the angrier I became. If I were to be honest, I would have to admit that a large part of that
anger was because they were stupid. Stupid enough to give Kingsley an opportunity to make people feel as though he were the
victim.

But there was something else. The plotting and scheming seemed to have a certain logic in Stonebury. Like the circles. Something
everyone understood, but no one could properly explain. And my head had become so full of lore and legend that I wondered
whether I would still recognize the truth if I was unfortunate enough to meet it.

So even though I would be leaving one day early, I sensed that it was the right thing to do. As I looked from the window,
a light wind moved silently through the trees. Beyond the woods lay the stones and the village, and beyond that lay the long
road from Stonebury to London.

As I drove toward the London Road, it had started to rain again. I passed St. Stephen’s. The churchyard was made to look even
bleaker with the weeds and nettles washed to the ground. I was about to drive past the outer gate when a bedraggled magpie
perched upon a gravestone opposite the newly dug grave of Diane Morrow.

It looked at me and I looked back. The bird did not move until I got out of my car and started to walk to the mound of soil
that was all that remained of the disappearing witness. Then the magpie flew off.

Rising from behind the gravestone opposite was a girl who shivered and stared and wept and hugged her chattering body with
two bony arms, as if the very vibrations would shake her apart.

It was the girl from the fox-hunt.

“What were you thinking of?” I said. “Scaring my horse like that.”

“I wasn’t there,” she said, momentarily arresting the chattering of her teeth.

“Rubbish. I saw you.”

“I wasn’t there.”

“Do you know how dangerous it is? Look, I don’t agree with fox-hunting either but—”

“I wasn’t there,” she insisted.

“So you say. Take a professional’s advice: alibi isn’t your best defense. Say the horses charged you. Run self-defense.”

She was silent.

“What if I was injured?” I said. “Would that stop Aubrey Davenport waddling off to pester Charley the Fox? No. All it would
do is land you in jail.”

“I don’t want to go to no jail, mister. They made me say it.” She grasped the top of the gravestone with two nail-bitten hands.

“So what are you doing here?”

“You know.”

“Do I?”

“Yes,” she said and pointed to the mound of earth above Diane Morrow.

“Your friend?”

“My sister,” she said miserably.

“Why did she kill herself?”

“She didn’t.”

“Then who killed her?”

“The heroin.”

“So she didn’t want to die?” I asked.

“She didn’t want to live neither… not there.” The girl shivered again and tried to chew at nails that no longer remained.
I noticed a tattoo on the back of her hand. “You wouldn’t want to live there,” she said.

“West Albion?”

“No one would. It’s like…”

“Yes?”

“It’s like hell, mister. It’s like bloody hell and Diane reckoned heroin’s the way out.” She looked again at the wet soil
above her sister. “But they can’t do her no harm now.”

“They?”

The girl did not respond.

“They?” I repeated. “Who are
they
?”

The girl waved her frail arm equally in the direction of the village and the circles. And I could not say whether she indicated
man or stone. But then I realized something of far greater significance. I
had
seen her before the fox-hunt. I noticed the hair, the nails, the vacant look and at last understood what she meant.

“So you really weren’t
there
?” I said.

“No. Not at them stones.”

Another knot was undone. Perhaps the tightest yet.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing her tiny hands. I
had
seen the girl before. At the trial. She was the first witness.

RETRIAL

“A
ND THE DEFENDANT, MEMBERS OF THE JURY, IS
represented by m’learned friend, Mr. Thomas Fawley who sits next to me in counsel’s row.” Justine waved a delicate hand in
my direction but did not look at me. I could see the gash I had made with the axe. “And Richard Kingsley is also represented
by Miss Emma Sharpe who sits behind Mr. Fawley.” No gesture. Not her learned friend. Justine never liked Emma.

“Mr. Aubrey Davenport who leads me for the Crown will, we hope, join us this afternoon—or, at least, tomorrow. Until then,
I’m afraid”—she smiled and tilted her head to one side—“you are going to have to put up with me.” Justine had already begun
her girlish flirtations with the men on the jury. That was to be expected.

Davenport was ill—but not very. Influenza, we were told. I suspected gout.

Justine continued in her gentle way and it was all very pleasant, the professional courtesies at the start of a case, the
civilized preludes to battle. We will try to tear each other’s eyes out, but we must remain learned friends, bowing respectfully
like contestants before the Saturday matinee in Nero’s Coliseum.

“So what is this case about?” Justine asked. “I can answer in one word. Murder.” She didn’t stress the word, said it like
any other, like you would say, thank you or please. It was a nice touch. I taught her that.

She talked to the jury as if she were reading a story to a class of children about dungeons and nasty dragons, but where good
would triumph, as it must.

“I can tell you that this case will be rather short. Why? Because the most important witness, the one who could tell you blow
by blow what happened, is not here. She is dead. Buried in a grave in the village of Stonebury. Her name is Molly Summers.”

Justine glanced at Hilary Hardcastle, who was looking particularly reptilian even by her gruesome standards, and then fixed
upon Kingsley.

She continued, “So what is it to murder someone? Which of us who has not killed can really understand? Who can really say
what drives one man to take the life of another? I suppose only one person in this court will ever really know why Molly Summers
was murdered.” Justine paused. “And that person, says the prosecution, is sitting in the dock.”

All eyes moved toward Kingsley, who sat there attentive but unmoved.

“Members of the jury, you might like to remember one thing: the prosecution does not have to prove motive. Or, to put it another
way, we don’t have to prove
why
Richard Kingsley chose to kill this sixteen-year-old girl in cold blood. We only have to prove that he did murder her. And
when we call the evidence”—her voice lowered, she spoke more slowly—“that is precisely… precisely what we shall prove.”

I looked round the scene in Court 4 at the Old Bailey. It being a retrial, the court staff had followed the case from Court
8. Leonard sulked at the front of the court. Norman sucked on his biro. And then I remembered what Justine had told me.

Kingsley must be punished. This thing must be done
.

I had spent a week in London and a week in Stonebury and was still very far from the truth about the murder of Molly Summers.
Every now and then I even thought the unthinkable and imagined that Kingsley might be innocent. But a look at his face, a
minute in his company disabused me of such fantasies immediately.

People had crammed into the rows of the public gallery, squeezing themselves against complete strangers, sketch artists from
the tabloids hung over the railings to get a better view. Court 4 was full. Full as it had been during the trials of Victorian
poisoners, and when Edwardian arsonists were in the dock.

The gallery was high above the well of the court, like the upper circle of some seedy flea-pit, high above the drama, up amongst
the gods.

The defendant just sat in the dock, oblivious to everyone, to everything except the soft tones of Justine Wright, his prosecutor,
who was trying to send him to prison for life.

When Justine began to talk about the evidence, Emma and I began to make notes. Justine very fairly admitted that although
there was a partially smudged print on the knife, this could not, and should not, be attributed to Kingsley.

It was when Justine began to mention the confession to the police that Emma began to tug furiously at my gown.

“Object, Tom,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“So we can try to get it excluded.”

“By whom?”

“By the judge, of course.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Emma. For a nightmarish moment I thought we were in Hilary Hardcastle’s court.”

“Don’t be facetious. Even she has a discretion to exclude it.”

“Yes, but she can never decide which way to rule: in favor of the prosecution or against the defense. Tough choice that. Besides,”
I said as Emma sank back into her seat, “I think we can have some fun with our boys in blue.”

Justine outlined the rest of the evidence with commendable brevity. But she did not mention the notice of alibi. Nor did she
mention Philip Templeman. Had she forgotten? Was the omission deliberate? Or perhaps there was another reason?