Trial of Passion (18 page)

I note the men in the room take this too seriously, but I smile, and Kimberley sends a quick and almost appreciative look my way.

“What did you do with your dress?” Patricia asks.

“I put it on the hanger where the suit had been. I mean, I had my bra on and underpants. But I found a white shirt of his, and — I guess I have to say I poked around — I found this absurd tie in a drawer.” She glances at the ceiling, as if seeking help from above, then makes a rueful face.

Pickles is looking hard at me, perhaps wondering what I make of this. If I were to respond, I would say I'm not sure.

“And I came down, and — I don't think the others knew exactly what kind of statement I was making, and maybe I wasn't sure myself — but Professor O'Donnell said something like, ‘Ah, the maid of Orleans in her male livery,' and I knew he understood. He obviously knew the play. And I did a kind of funny, I hope, imitation of him giving one of his lectures, and we went back to the play — Professor
O'Donnell was the inquisitor — and we were getting very dramatic. . . . I'm sorry, I'm just rambling here. Somebody help me out.”

I am having difficulty not liking her. It will be painful when her words turn false. And I must assume they will, or I am in serious doubt about my role in this courtroom.

“Okay,” says Patricia, “after you carried on in this manner for some time, what happened?”

“Well, I don't know. The drinks, the lateness of the hour, whatever, I just kind of went to sleep.”

“Where?”

“On a big easy chair. I remember I was making a speech from the play . . . and then, pow, I was gone. Just like that. It was really strange. I remember hearing voices, and . . . that was it.”

“Had you felt dizzy?”

“Not really”

“Did you sense there might have been something put in your

drink?”

Gowan slaps his hand on the table in remonstrance, and looks pleadingly at me. “Are you going to let this go on?” he says.

“You are fussing like a child, Gowan,” I whisper, quite sharply. “Stop it.”

“No, I can't say if I did. If he . . . well, never mind.”

“And what's the next thing you remember?”

Kimberley Martin bites her lip. She closes her eyes as if to shut out memory, then reopens them and, after an intake of breath, says, “I was being physically attacked.”

She is playing to an utterly silent house.

“I know it may be hard,” says Patricia, but her question ends with that preface as the dam bursts for Kimberley Martin, and words start flowing, then rushing.

“He was on top of me, and I was lying on my stomach, I was naked, completely naked on a bed, and my hands were tied together, and my ankles were tied to some brass bedposts, sort of spread-eagled

. . . oh, God, am I going to get through this? And he —”

“Just a minute —”

“And he kind of raised my bottom up and I felt him inside —”

“Inside what?”

“Inside … this is awful, I feel like I'm on exhibition here, it feels absolutely obscene to be standing in front of everybody talking so stupidly about . . . about the mechanics of getting raped, it —”

“Miss Martin,” Pickles admonishes, “just answer the questions”

“I'm sorry, it just feels
wrong.
I've been over this and over this, and I know I'm supposed to say he put his penis in my vagina, and make it sound all dry and clinical, like something out of a high-school sex manual, but I was screaming, and no one could hear me. I was helpless. Have you any idea of the feeling? It was utterly degrading, and you don't know and you'll never know because you weren't
there”

“She's losing it,” Gowan whispers.

“Absolutely not,” I respond. But I cannot decide whether these emotions are genuine or if this is a skilled performance of the illegitimate theatre.

Pickles's voice softens. “This is very stressful, I'm sure, Miss Martin, but it has to be done.”

“I know. I'm sorry, I'm very tense.”

“Okay, let's calm down and regroup a little here,” says Patricia. “Now let us get this clear. When you awoke you were on a bed?”

“Yes.”

“In a bedroom.”

“You know, I didn't even notice what kind of room at first. It was dark, there was just some kind of night light on, or maybe from another room. But obviously it was a bedroom.”

“And you were not on your back but in a prone position.”

“Yes.”

“Were your hands tied to any object?”

“No, just my feet. My hands were tied together.”

“With what?”

“I believe it was a bathrobe cord. It was knotted around my wrists.”

“And the bindings on your feet?”

“I . . . I honestly can't remember. I was in a frenzy. Some kind of cord or . . . actually, it felt silky.” “And what was happening?”

“I felt him behind me, lifting me up by the hips with both hands. And I felt his penis enter my vagina, and he began thrusting. This is so absolutely . . . I'll continue. As I said, I was screaming, and I was telling him to stop, and he wouldn't stop, and then I felt him trying to penetrate my, um, my anus —”

A gasp from somewhere in the gallery, the rustling of shifting bottoms.

“And I screamed louder, and he didn't say anything, just kept pushing at me, pushing and pushing, and I began twisting this way and that, he was hurting me, and . . . and he said something, I can't remember, and suddenly he was gone, and I was frantic, and, I don't know, I managed to free my hands, and then twisted around to release my ankles —”

“Ms. Martin,” says Patricia. “Please. Slow down.”

“Sorry.”

“Are you all right? Would you like some water?”

“Please.”

As the water is fetched, I see that Jonathan has his eyes tightly closed. The expression on the face ofJudge Pickles, as he regards the witness, has undergone a metamorphosis, a sagging, a softening. I have a sense he is no longer our steadfast ally.

“Would you like a break, Miss Martin?” he asks, his tone solicitous.

“I'd like to get this over and done, your honour.” Patricia Blueman shows a wetness of eye. Emotions here are riding uncomfortably high.

“Now exactly who was it who was on top of you?”

“Who? . . . Professor Jonathan O'Donnell.”

“You saw him.”

“I think so.”

“What do you mean?”

“I guess when I twisted around, I . . . well, I wasn't actually memorizing details for court or anything. It was
him.” “

The accused.”

“Well, it wasn't the Queen of Sheba.”

The remark is too flip, and Judge Pickles stiffens.

But Kimberley recovers from this
faux pas,
and says, “I'm sorry, that's a terrible way to put it. I shouldn't try to be funny. I'm just . . . very nervous.”

“Was he wearing any clothes?”

“Not that I could see. I mean, I was in . . . an hysterical state. I didn't know what was happening at first, I didn't even know where I was, or where I'd been, who I'd been with, I hardly even remembered my name. I was just being . . . well, I was being
raped.”

“Okay. Did he ejaculate?”

“I haven't the faintest idea. You'll have to ask him.”

“Well, Ms. Martin —”

“I wasn't . . . this is so awful. I wasn't wet. Okay? But I felt, what? . . . Greasy. It was the lipstick all over me, I guess, I don't know why he did that. I thought it was blood at first; I was terrified, I thought he'd . . . he . . . well, never mind.”

“All right, did you consent in any way to the sex or to being tied

up?”

“Are you being serious?”

“I'm asking you if you consented.”

“Of course not.”

“Very well. And so he left you alone for a while.” “He disappeared. I could hear water running, in the en suite bathroom, I guess. Sounded like a tub filling. I had this feeling — he
was going to drown me. And I was struggling to untie myself for, oh, I don't know, it seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes, and I could hear the tub filling and filling, and I . . . guess I just shot off the bed and ran out the door. And I still wasn't connecting very well, still wasn't sure where I was, but I found the stairs, and the front door, and I ran outside and to the house next door.”

“And can you remember what happened there?”

“All I know is I was screaming, and this older gentleman came to the door, and then a woman — I thought they were married, but he's a retired minister and she's his housekeeper — and I remember they were being very nice, and comforting me, and I was crying, and all I wanted was to have Remy with me, my fiancé. So I phoned him, and he came over. I don't remember very much after that until — well, he took me home, and later that morning a policeman came over.”

Patricia idly leafs through some notes, and I assume she is stalling a little, mulling over whether to leave matters as they sit or try to plug some of the leaky holes: How had she so easily freed herself? Why is it no neighbours heard the screams? How had her abdomen and her breasts been painted with lipstick as she lay prone on a bed? Why hadn't she called the police immediately?

Then Patricia sits. “Those are all the questions I have.”

Gowan leans towards me. “You have no other choice now, Arthur. Go for the throat.”

I sit, musing, trying to work all of this through my mind. I tell myself:She must be lying. Surely she is the Cleopatra
splendide mendax
of whom Horace wrote — splendidly false. Yet a worm of doubt wiggles within the rational, cynical mind. But I am becoming soft. Too long on a placid island, too many weeks away from the courtroom.

“Mr. Beauchamp?” says the judge.

I scrape back my chair and rise, scanning the watchers in the gallery; eager, expectant faces. In the back a woman knits, and I think of Madame Defarge and the guillotine. I find myself agreeing with
the witness: the processes we are involved in seem wrong, obscene, a defilement.

Jonathan has his chin cupped in his hands, and he is staring at Kimberley Martin as if in a trance. What had Gowan told me last week? “O'Donnell says he doesn't want me to touch her.” Why? The client seems oddly protective of his tormentor. But he has witnessed Cleaver's rough handling of witnesses, and must feel a subtler touch is needed.

“Mr. Beauchamp, do you have any questions?”

I continue silently to study Kimberley, then sigh.

“No, I don't have any questions,” I say.

“No questions?” Pickles is taken aback.

“Ah, well, perhaps just one. You have some examinations to write next week, Miss Martin?”

“Yes.”

“May I wish you the best of luck. Hopefully you will prove yourself as fine a lawyer as you are an actor.”

What I seek is there: a rosiness tints her cheeks — the product of shame? Truth does not blush, a wise ancient once said.

“Thank you,” she says, smiling, and pretends to all she has heard a compliment.

I sit. Patricia seems flustered, but recovers. “That's the case for the Crown, your honour.”

I turn to Gowan Cleaver, who looks confused. Jonathan, if anything, seems quite relieved.

As Kimberley makes her way from the stand, she hesitates, looks once again at my client, and then tears begin to stream in torrents down her cheeks.

“Perfect,” says Gowan Cleaver. “A master stroke. Ask no questions and you don't give the defence away. Save it all for the trial, brilliant.”

Earlier, Gowan had been broadly hinting I was derelict in not
cross-examining the woman, that I was plotting a speedy escape to my island farm. But he has now become effusive as we wait in the prosecutor's office. Patricia Blueman is elsewhere giving comfort to her charge.

“Complimenting her on her acting — just the right touch. I would have spent half the day banging away at her about her stage training and got one-tenth the impact. Christ, you're smooth.”

Jonathan has been formally committed for trial by judge and jury upon a charge of sexual assault causing bodily harm. The proceedings of the day took no more than an hour. And truly there is no need for me to spend any more time in the city than politeness demands. Though in honesty that wasn't my plan. Let Gowan believe I was saving my ammunition for the trial — but, in fact, I couldn't bear the thought of going for Miss Martin's unguarded throat. She seemed too vulnerable. (Or do I guilelessly misread a splendid job of acting?) Am I losing my touch, the so-called killer instinct? Or has my hiatus from the courts made me more humane? Either way, I am the poorer lawyer.

“She collapsed, Arthur, she fell apart, what more can I say?”

“Probably just a release of tension.”

“I doubt it. Guilt was written all over her.
She
should be the accused. We should bloody charge her with perjury and public mischief.
Pubic
mischief is more like it.” He is grinning. “You want to grab a bite after?”

“Well, I think I shall be meeting Annabelle for lunch.”

I have called her; we will meet at Chez Forget, one of my former haunts. I expect she will be relieved to learn I am planning a flight back to Garibaldi this afternoon.

Patricia Blueman bustles in, purposeful but smiling.

“That was very good, Arthur. She's literally terrified of you. Of course, she's heard of your reputation”

“All those wasted hours preparing her for cross, eh, Pat?” says Gowan. “Arthur decided not to give her a free dress rehearsal.”

“Frankly, I thought she sounded very fresh and convincing,” Patricia says. “But I wanted to talk to you gentlemen about the trial date. Normally we'd be looking at mid-winter, right in the middle of her school year.”

“Oh, and you want to put it off until what, spring break?” says Gowan.