“You weren’t in court to-day,” she said almost severely, as she took off her coat and stood warming her hands by the electric fire.
“I was ill. Not ill. Last night I got drunk.”
“Drunk,” she said indignantly. “Whatever for?”
“Giving evidence got me down, I suppose. And then going to the office afterwards got me down too. Thank you for the note.”
“Oh, I see. That’s all right. I’m sorry I was so—”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I’ve been out on a job. How did it go to-day?”
“It was that hateful Garney. He’s been the trouble with Leslie all along. Leslie’s a good boy.”
“You mean he tried to involve Leslie when he gave evidence?”
“Oh no. It’s just the way he goes on, Garney, I mean, and the way he looks, as though he doesn’t care about anything. I hate him. Hardy just tore him to pieces, and now everyone says how bad it is for Leslie. Why are you shivering?”
“I’m cold.”
“Go and lie down. I’ll make a hot drink.” He put on pyjamas and got into bed, still shivering. She went on talking from the kitchenette. “I don’t know what’s happened to Dad, he’s so queer. Do you think it’s just breaking his plate that’s upset him?”
“Perhaps. When will it be done?”
“About ten days, they say. But the whole thing seems to have changed him. We shall have to leave.”
“What?”
“I said we shall have to leave. All of us. We can’t stay here.” She appeared at the door, steaming cup in hand. “As soon as Leslie’s out we must go.”
“Yes.”
Her lips were trembling. She no longer looked pretty. “You think he did it, don’t you? You think they’ll find him guilty.”
“No.”
“You do. Oh, Hugh, I’m so miserable.” She put the cup down carefully on the chipped brown chest of drawers and flung herself beside him on the bed. Her lips as they met his were warm and yielding, she answered his embraces not with passion exactly but with a desperate need for solace, so that she could not be quick enough to unzip her dress and get into bed with him. Afterwards they did not talk much. She cried a little, and he sipped the drink, which was no longer hot. But by this time he had stopped shivering.
40
Leslie Gardner took the witness stand on the following morning. His slightness, and his immature good looks, gave an impression of extreme youth that was in his favour, but that carried also the unfortunate implication that he might easily be persuaded to follow a boy of stronger will than his own. It would be part of Newton’s job to exploit Gardner’s youth and innocence, yet to eradicate any feeling that he was one of nature’s cat’s-paws. Gardner’s manner did not help him. He wore his narrow-shouldered suit and his bright strip of tie in a way that was almost a parody of Garney’s, and every so often his fingers would go up to the knot of this tie and self-consciously straighten it. At first so nearly inarticulate that he was asked by the Judge to speak up, he gathered self-confidence and became objectionably pert in his answers. For much of this Newton had been prepared. The boy must be given time to settle down, and his own early questions were intentionally bumbling and slow.
“On this night, Guy Fawkes night, then, you bought fireworks and went out to Far Wether?”
“Yes.”
“What did you mean to do out there?”
“We were going to give this chap, Corby, a bit of a scare. Let the fireworks off at him, like.”
Newton puffed anxiously, leaned forward. “Tell me this. Was there any thought of making a violent attack on Corby in your mind?”
Fingers to tie. “Course not.”
“You are quite sure that nothing of the sort was ever mentioned?”
“Quite sure.”
“Did you have a knife in your pocket?”
“Yes.” Gardner said it reluctantly. He had admitted this only after considerable pressure at another prison interview. Newton felt sure that in this case an admission of everything that seemed probable would strengthen his hand in relation to the two or three points of real importance.
“Where did you carry it?”
“In my hip pocket.”
“Were you intending to use this knife?”
The court was still. Gardner seemed almost visibly to compose himself to seriousness. “No, sir.”
“Then why did you carry it?”
“It was a sort of a badge. We all carried them.”
“You all carried them. You are sure of that?”
“We all carried them sometime or other.”
“Can you be sure that you were all carrying them that night?”
“No. I mean to say, we didn’t show them, or anything like that. We just carried them for fun.”
“Was it a knife like this one?” Newton produced a thin sheath, pressed a button, and a blade flicked out. Gardner nodded. Newton was about to continue his examination when the Judge spoke.
“Ah—just a moment, Mr. Newton. Do I understand you to say that these knives were simply a kind of badge, and that you never used them?”
Gardner was obviously uneasy at this intervention. “That’s right.”
“And you are saying that you never used the blade of your knife? Never used it at all.”
“Oh well, I don’t know. Cut wood and that.” This was a mutter.
“What did you say?”
“Said I might have used it to cut wood, carve my name or something.”
“And did you do so?”
Gardner looked both baffled and frightened. “Do what?”
Mr. Justice Beckles looked at the jury. His voice achieved a notable squeak, but he hastily brought it back into range. “You originally said that you never used the knife. If that is literally true, you never used the blade at all. If what you mean is that you used it only very occasionally, you would be likely to remember carving wood or doing other things with it. Do you understand?” Gardner nodded, staring in a mesmerised way at the Judge. “I am now going to ask—remember that you are upon your oath—whether you ever threatened any other person with it?”
Gardner was shaking his head almost before the Judge had finished. “No. Oh no. I never did that.”
“Did you ever see any of your friends use their knives to threaten anybody?”
“No. Never.”
“I want to be quite clear about this. What you are telling us is that you all had these knives but that, to the best of your knowledge, none of you ever used them to threaten anybody at all.”
“That’s right.” Gardner touched his tie and repeated hopefully, “It was sort of a badge.”
The Judge, his brief flare of energy gone, sank back. Newton got up again, writhing inwardly. You had only to look at the jury to see what they thought of the replies. Why did the boy have to be such a fool? But the boy must not be frightened. With his rich, melodious croak subdued to gentleness he said, “Now then, I want you to tell the jury in your own words exactly what happened when you got to Far Wether.”
“We cut off our engines after putting the spots on first to make sure this was the right show. Then we went across the grass. King—that’s Garney—was in front, I think, but it was pretty dark and you couldn’t see much. Somebody said, ‘Let him have it’ and I could see Corby standing near the fire and I threw my fireworks.”
“Who said ‘Let him have it’?”
“I don’t know. There was too much noise, with the fireworks and everything.”
“And where were you standing at this time?”
“Sort of in the middle, we’d all spread out, see. Then I heard a lot of shouting going on, and there was a kind of a cry, and someone shouted ‘Let’s go’ and we ran for our bikes and went.”
This in effect was Gardner’s wh
ole story of his actions out at Far Wether. He had not pushed over Maureen Dyer, he had not tangled with Hugh Bennett, he had not shouted “Get him, King,” and, although he agreed with the boys who had turned Queen’s Evidence about King’s remark on the way home that “We did that bastard,” he insisted that King had never referred to him, and had not meant to do so. As Newton, a ponderous spider, spun his verbal web, as Gardner gathered strength and fluency of expression, it could be seen that Leslie Gardner was no more linked than any of Garney’s other satellites to the death of Corby. What was there against him beyond a few dubious identifications made in the light of a bonfire? So, with the ground laid at careful length, Newton came to the following day.
“On leaving your work that day, Friday, what happened?”
“The police met us outside the gates and took us down to the station.”
“Did they tell you the reason?”
“Not then, no. At the station they did. But we guessed it already.”
“You guessed that it was to do with the attack on Corby?”
“Yes.”
“How long were you at the station?”
“It was just after twelve o’clock when they let us go.”
“After midnight. So that you were there six hours. Were you given any food during that time?”
“Cup of tea and a sandwich. After I’d made a statement, that was.”
“During these six hours were you subjected to lengthy questioning?”
“About half the time, I suppose, maybe a bit more.”
Eustace Hardy got up. He looked as though he had smelled something unpleasant. “My lord, I don’t see the force of this line of questioning, unless my learned friend is suggesting that the witness was coerced into making his statement.”
Newton had not given way. “If I may be permitted to continue, my lord, the relevance of these questions will quickly be apparent.”
The Judge looked at them both over his half-lenses. “Very well, Mr. Newton.”
Newton raised his voice. “Are you making any complaint at all about being coerced during the questioning?”
There was a painfully long pause. Surely, Newton thought, the young fool’s not going to say anything out of line about the police. Then Gardner said in a low voice, “I’ve got no complaints.”
“There is no suggestion that the questioning was anything but perfectly proper. But the point is this, it was a severe and lengthy examination.”
“It certainly was.”
“How many people questioned you?”
“Sometimes one, mostly two. They changed about.”
“Quite so. And how did you feel at the end of it?”
“I was pretty well done for. Just wanted to get to bed.”
“You wanted to get to bed,” Newton drawled. “And I’m not surprised. Did you have anything to eat when you got home?”
Gardner shook his head. “I went straight to bed. I was out on my feet, ready to drop.”
“Did you go out again to Jones’s house, and leave a note there?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Did you at some time in the small hours go to this place, Platt’s Flats, and there take part in an attack on Jones?”
“No.” The boy was emphatic. “I was in bed and asleep.”
“Right.” Newton suddenly became very brisk. “Exhibit 31, please.” Exhibit 31 was the pair of grey trousers with the mixture of coal and sand in the turn-ups, upon which so much reliance had been placed. “I want you to look at these trousers.” Gardner looked at them, and nodded. “You have heard it suggested that you wore these trousers on Friday night. Is that correct?”
“No. I never went out.”
“Very good. Now, it is also suggested that these were the trousers that came back from the Kwick-N-Clean laundry on that Friday afternoon. Is that correct?”
“No, it’s not.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I took these trousers to the cleaners myself, and collected them.”
“What was the name of the cleaners?”
“Coburg Cleaning. In the High Street.”
“And on what date did you collect them?”
The pale figure in the box replied, with no apparent awareness of the shock his words brought, “On Wednesday, the fourteenth of October.”
Newton pressed forward, now relentlessly. “How can you be sure of the date?”
“I kept the receipt.”
Newton fumbled in front of him, and produced a slip of white paper. “This is the receipt, my lord. I ask that it may be labelled and admitted as an exhibit.”
Mr. Justice Beckles looked at the slip of paper. “Very well.”
There was a good deal of bustling about at the table where the exhibits lay. Then the usher said, “This is Exhibit No. 39.”
“Thank you. Perhaps the jury would like to look at it.”
The piece of paper was passed solemnly round the jury box. It went to Eustace Hardy who glanced at it, his face expressionless, then back to Newton.
“How can you be certain that these are the trousers you took to Coburg Cleaning?”
“They are gaberdine trousers.”
“Ah yes. It says so on the receipt, does it not?” He held the receipt at arm’s length almost, and read in a loud voice, “‘One pair of gaberdine trousers, cleaned and pressed.’ Is there any special reason why you should remember this pair of gaberdine trousers?”
“Yes. Coburg Cleaning have got a special process they use for gaberdine trousers, supposed to preserve them or something. They told me about it when I took them in. They’d been to Kwick-N-Clean before, and they didn’t do them well.” Gardner’s voice had in it the finicky tone of the smart dresser. He was now almost objectionably at ease.
“You got these trousers back on October the fourteenth. Between that time and November the fifth, did you visit Platt’s Flats?”
“Oh yes. It was our meeting-place.”
“Did you wear these trousers when you went there?”
“Three or four times, yes.”
“Did you go in by the back entrance?”
“Yes, I always did. And a couple of times I stumbled over the old sandpit.”
It was time for the finishing stroke. Newton established that Leslie Gardner had only one pair of gaberdine trousers, and then produced and offered as an exhibit a pair of grey worsted trousers, cleaned and pressed and obviously unworn, and suggested that these were the trousers that had gone to the Kwick-N-Clean laundry. Later he was to put into the box a girl from Coburg Cleaning who remembered a conversation with Gardner about the special process for gaberdine trousers, but that merely emphasised the rout of a defeated enemy.
Of the defeat there could be no question. Even those least sensitive to the temper of a court could feel the change in atmosphere, the jauntiness of Newton, and the confidence almost visibly pumped into Leslie Gardner, so that one expected to see his pale cheeks colour and fill out. Little of this was new to Hugh Bennett. He and Fairfield had followed the trail carefully from the moment that they realised the significance of the two pairs of trousers mentioned by Jill, they had presented the evidence to the defence solicitor, Charles Earl, they had waited for Newton to spring his trap. Now, sitting in court two rows behind and to the side of Jill, Hugh watched her profile, snub-nosed, short-lipped, as she bent forward to take in every nuance of what was happening. Her father, in the next seat, sat with his head slightly bowed, almost as though he were sleeping. Occasionally the head jerked up, the lips moved soundlessly. At times it seemed that he might burst out into laughter.
On the reporters’ bench Michael Baker listened, absorbed. “So that was it,” he whispered to Fairfield. “Two pairs of trousers.”
“Two pairs of trousers.”
“And they didn’t bother to check.”
“They were too sure of themselves. And they didn’t want to approach the Gardners, afraid they’d queer the pitch somehow.”
“My word.” Michael breathed it with awe. “Somebody’s going to get a rocket.”
When the full extent of the catastrophe was realised there was a flurry of agitated movement on the prosecution side. This flurry might have been imperceptible to the untrained eye. It was a matter of papers being turned over in search of something that was not there, wigs brushing together, eyebrows being raised as words were urgently whispered. All this, the wigs in their brushing suggested, was something that they might just possibly, if they had been really intensely curious, have thought of questioning, but at the same time it was not their parts to check those lowly details about this pair and that pair of trousers. That was, or at least should be, the work of the police. And Twicker, certainly, was not one to deny this responsibility. The superintendent sat during this evidence with his arms folded, staring straight in front of him. Just once he turned and looked at Norman, and the sick feeling the sergeant had in his stomach was accentuated by the despair and the defeated pride that he saw in Twicker’s eyes. It was not fair, Norman wanted to say, it was utterly unfair that the defence should be allowed to work a fiddle like this, and if he had been asked to specify in what exactly the fiddle consisted he would have said that it was quite wrong for the defence to have a chance of springing a surprise like this when the prosecution had had to reveal its own case in advance. As for his part in it, Norman was unrepentant. You didn’t get this sort of information by asking an accused man’s relatives for it. They had just been unlucky, or a fiddle had been worked on them, that was all.
The person who seemed least moved by this evidence was Eustace Hardy. It was one of Hardy’s gifts that he was able to accept such a reverse as this one with extraordinary resilience. To build one’s case quite deliberately upon a particular point of strength, and then to find the props utterly sheared away from the attack so carefully mounted, would have demoralised many a lesser man. But Hardy listened to the evidence as Newton took it forward step by step; acknowledged, in his almost impartial way, the cleverness with which the bomb had been timed, and Newton’s ingenuity in refraining from embarrassing Twicker or Norman by questions which might have precipitated his surprise too soon; satisfied himself that it was really useless to pursue this aspect of the case any further; and then set himself to find some other chinks in the armour that Newton had put round the frail figure in the dock. When he rose to face an over-confident Leslie Gardner, Hardy’s manner had lost nothing of its usual supercilious assurance, his silver voice had a delicacy as tangible as the ring of good glass. Yet the four words of his first question, asked with careless ease, brought Leslie Gardner up with a jolt, the sort of jolt experienced by somebody who, making his way in darkness about the known contours of a room, finds himself stopped by a table or chair in an unaccustomed place.
The Progress of a Crime Page 18