MURDER BRIEF (3 page)

Her sudden appearance made him
take stock of his life. Strange fears infected his brain. What if
he ended up childless and alone? Died without issue? Would his
whole life have been wasted? Would all of his great accomplishments
be rendered naught? Jesus. Maybe he should settle down and have
kids? He even fantasized about reading bed-time stories to his
incredibly good-looking and well-behaved children.

Because his previous
relationships had been so sterile, his love for Robyn hit him like
a freight train. He’d vowed not to have a mid-life crisis, but was
obviously now in the middle of one, ahead of schedule.

He usually pursued women
aggressively, but sensed she would react badly to pressure. Better
to stay cool and let his charm soften her defences. So, during the
trial, he was quite formal. Only after it finished did he ask her
out to dinner.

And she refused!

Shit. Women rarely did that. He
was perplexed and upset.

On the few occasions he’d been
rebuffed, he shrugged his shoulders and moved on. Plenty more fish
in the sea, especially for a fine angler like him. But this time,
defeat was not an option. He wanted Robyn and intended to have her.
The hunt was on.

He wasn’t sure what he’d done to
displease her, but suspected she was just confused and nervous. She
found him intimidating and feared he wasn’t serious. Somehow, he
had to put her mind at ease and show his bona fides.

However, first he had to get
close to her again.

His chance came sooner than he
expected. He was briefed to appear for Rex Markham and told he
could pick his own junior. He immediately chose Robyn.

It was easy to justify that
decision to himself, because she was bright, enthusiastic and
hardworking. With the right opportunities, she’d go far. She
deserved the brief on merit alone.

Having a woman on the defence
team might also soften Markham’s image with the jury. Certainly, in
a murder trial, he fought for every possible advantage he could
get.

But his main motive was to curry
her favour and win her over. He wouldn’t be pushy. She obviously
needed gentle coaxing. Indeed, he’d impress her with his
professionalism and courtliness until she finally succumbed.

For once, while chasing a woman,
he’d actually have to suffer a little. That prospect gave him a
strange erotic charge.

And when he won her over he’d
disband the panel - or, at least, most of it - and become a
one-woman man. But, of course, until then, the panel would continue
as presently constituted. Indeed, he might need their support in
the lonely weeks ahead while he chased the woman of his dreams.

That afternoon the solicitor,
Bernie Roberts, had called Robyn and said that Brian Davis wanted
her as his junior in the Markham case. "You interested?"

She tried to sound calm. "Of
course."

"OK. What’s your hourly?"

Better to shoot high and
compromise if necessary. "$300 an hour, plus GST."

He giggled. "Really? That all?
I’d be embarrassed to tell the client that; $400 an hour, plus GST,
and you’re onboard."

"You’ve twisted my arm."

"Good, I’ll send you the
brief."

"Thanks."

An hour later, a courier
delivered three lever-arch folders from his office. She immediately
dropped the first onto her desk and opened it.

Clipped inside the front cover
was a publicity still of Rex Markham which she studied closely.

Her clients were usually young
male recidivists from the Western Suburbs with scars, tattoos,
missing teeth, long criminal records and limited vocabularies. They
started their lives at the bottom of the pile and finished there.
In between, they popped in and out of prison.

But Markham was in his late
forties, with strawberry blond hair, sharp features and alert blue
eyes. Hard to believe he would murder anyone: too normal with too
much to lose.

Robyn had read several of his
thrillers. The main characters were usually ordinary people
struggling to survive sinister forces while a hot-button
geo-political issue - like terrorism, the clash of civilizations,
religious extremism, ethnic warfare or famine - throbbed away in
the background.

In the latest,
Jihad,
an
Australian doctor doing humanitarian work in Afghanistan falls in
love with an Afghan woman. Taliban insurgents kidnap them and force
him to save the life of a brutal Taliban leader. After the doctor
discovers the Taliban leader is really working for the CIA, the
couple must flee to Pakistan. The pace was quick and the dialogue
snappy, but the book had enough keen insights into politics and
human nature to give it some weight.

Robyn slowly read through the
ten pages of "observations" her instructing solicitor had prepared
and the "prosecution brief" which included police witness
statements, forensic reports, crime scene photographs and police
notebooks.

She pieced together that Rex and
Alice Markham were married for six years - no kids - and Alice
worked at a literary agency. They lived in a large terrace in
Paddington and owned a beach-house near Nowra, a few hours south of
Sydney, where Rex often retreated to write his novels.

Six days before the murder, he
drove down to the beach-house to finishing off his latest one.
Alice stayed in Sydney.

They never saw each other again.
On Saturday night, at around nine o’clock, someone broke into their
terrace and stabbed Alice to death in the kitchen. The terrace was
ransacked and some jewelry stolen.

When Homicide detectives visited
Rex, at the beach-house, he claimed he spent the whole weekend
there, except for a short shopping trip to Nowra. He went nowhere
near Sydney. The detectives started to suspect that a burglar
committed the crime: a druggie whose conscience was erased by
addiction.

Then Rex’s story unravelled.

First, the detectives discovered
the Markhams had a rocky marriage. Indeed, about six weeks before
the murder, they quarrelled so loudly a neighbour called the
police. Two patrol officers arrived and found Alice with a large
cut on her head. They took her to a hospital. But she claimed she
tripped and fell. No charges were laid.

Soon afterwards, she confided to
some girlfriends that she and Rex had agreed to divorce and just
had to sort out the financial details.

But Rex’s credibility took a
real hammer blow when the detectives checked his credit card
transactions and discovered that, a couple of hours before his wife
died, he purchased petrol at a service station in Redfern, a few
suburbs from Paddington. His claim that, on that weekend, he went
nowhere near Sydney was obviously a total lie.

Markham was now the prime
suspect. The detectives confronted him with the credit card
evidence and, not surprisingly, he changed his story. Yes, he drove
up to Sydney that evening. But he went nowhere near his terrace.
Instead, he visited his literary agent, Hugh Grimble, at Watson’s
Bay. After dining with Grimble, he drove back to Nowra.

Asked why he’d previously lied
to the detectives, he said he was afraid that, if he mentioned he
was in Sydney, they’d suspect him of murder.

The cops interviewed Grimble,
who supported his client’s alibi. But to no avail. The cops were
now sure Rex’s plan was to slip quietly up to Sydney, kill his
wife, fake a burglary and head back to Nowra. But he messed up
because he ran out of petrol and used his credit card to buy some
more. When confronted about that, he cooked up a false alibi that
Grimble supported. The cops charged him with murder.

If the cops were right, it was a
pretty tawdry tale, hardly worthy of a novelist. Where was the
fantasy and imagination? Surely, there had to be a twist.

Brian Davis had arranged to meet
Markham tomorrow morning, in his chambers, and Robyn was invited.
Supposedly, it was never a good idea to meet a favourite author in
the flesh. But she had no choice.

The next morning, just before
nine, Robyn caught a lift down to Lord Mansfield Chambers and
strolled past the vacant reception desk to Brian Davis’ room.

The door was open. Brian sat
behind a huge boomerang-shaped desk, talking to a chubby man with a
shiny pate, red cheeks and mutton-chop whiskers.

Robyn coughed politely.

Brian said: "Ah, Robyn. Come in.
This is our instructing solicitor, Bernie Roberts."

The solicitor stood and looked
at her with twinkling eyes. She immediately liked him.

She said: "Hello. Thank you for
the brief."

They shook hands.

"Don’t mention it. Brian was
very complimentary."

She wondered if the solicitor
thought Brian recommended her because Brian was sleeping with her.
She prayed not.

She also wondered if Brian also
suggested that Rex Markham, charged with murdering his wife, needed
a woman in his corner to improve his image. The sneaky bastard
probably said something like that.

Bernie said: "So you got the
brief?"

"Yes. And I’ve read through it.
Very interesting. Our client here yet?"

"No, but he will be soon."

She sat next to the solicitor
and they all chatted about the case for a few minutes, sharing
their pessimism.

The phone rang. Brian picked it
up, listened briefly, put it down and glanced at Bernie. "He’s
here."

Bernie rose. "Alright. I’ll get
him."

The solicitor left the room and,
thirty seconds later, returned with Rex Markham.

The publicity photograph was a
little misleading. Markham was taller than she expected, and his
face more worn and lined. Maybe being charged with murder had
expunged his last traces of youth.

She searched his face for some
sign he was capable of murder, but saw none: no demonic glint in
his eyes; no pent-up aggression; no furtiveness. But clients like
Mrs Vandervelt had taught her to distrust appearances and Markham
obviously had plenty of rage in his breast. His punch-up with his
wife proved that.

Seeing him in the flesh made
Robyn realize, for the first time, they were playing for high
stakes. Her guts squirmed a little. As a colleague once commented,
being a barrister is all fun and games until someone loses an
eye.

Bernie said: "Rex, let me
introduce you to Brian Davis and Robyn Parker, who’ll be
representing you."

Markham studied them carefully,
smiled quickly and shook their hands. "Hello. Pleased to meet
you."

Robyn interjected. "No, it’s my
pleasure. In fact, I’ve read some of your books."

Markham relaxed slightly.
"Really?"

"Yes. My favourite’s
Edge of
the Abyss
."

Markham’s smile widened.
"Funnily enough, it’s mine too. I admire your taste."

"Thanks."

Brian said: "Anyway, let’s sit
down." He retreated behind his desk and dropped into his
high-backed swivel-chair. The others sat facing him, Markham in the
middle.

Brian looked at Markham.
"Alright then. Robyn and I have read through our briefs. But we
want
you
to tell us what happened. Start by telling us about
your wife. How did you meet?"

Markham wrung his hands. "Oh,
through my literary agent, Hugh Grimble. Have you heard of
him?"

"He’s mentioned in our
briefs."

"Hugh’s one of the biggest
agents in Australia. Acts for lots of successful writers. Alice was
one of his assistants. That’s how I first met her, about ten years
ago. Hugh asked her to edit one of my novels and one thing led to
another. We married about six years ago."

"After you married, she kept
working for Grimble?"

"Yes."

"On your novels?"

"No. We wanted to keep our
personal and professional lives separate, so Hugh handled all of my
affairs."

"OK. And what was your marriage
like?"

He shrugged. "Well, like
everybody, we had our ups and downs. But towards the end, it got
pretty difficult."

"Why?"

Markham shrugged. "It’s hard to
say. Boredom? Fatigue? Latent incompatibility? Take your pick. We
stopped communicating and got on each other’s nerves. I even
suspected she was cheating on me."

Brian leaned forward. "Really?
Why?"

"Oh, lots of little things.
Sometimes she disappeared for a few hours and I couldn’t contact
her, or she got dressed up when there was no point and so on. Maybe
I was jumping at shadows. I don’t know. But I just had this
feeling."

"Who do you think she was
seeing?"

"I’ve got no idea."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t even
sure she was cheating. So it was pretty hard to draw up a list of
suspects."

"Did you ever confront her with
your suspicions?"

"Yes. About six weeks before she
died, we were at home and we’d both been drinking. I accused her of
cheating. She denied it. We started screaming at each other. She
hit me a couple of times. I pushed her off and she fell and hit her
head on a table."

"Then a neighbour called the
police?"

"Yes. An ambulance also turned
up."

"Who called it?"

"I did." Markham dropped his
head. "I know the whole episode sounds bad. I’m ashamed of it. But
believe me, I was just trying to protect myself."

"Your wife had a temper?"

Markham half-smiled. "She looked
like a pussy-cat, but had claws of steel."

"I understand you two were going
to get divorced?"

"Yes. Soon after our big fight
we agreed to split up. In fact, that’s why I kept going down to the
beach-house: to get away from her and write in peace and
quiet."

"And you went down there about a
week before she died?"

"Yes, to finish my latest novel,
Summer Storm.
"

"Finished it yet?"

"No, I’ve been, umm, distracted.
In fact, for the first time in my life, I’ve got writer’s block.
Getting charged with murder sort of stifles the creative
juices."