Calling Down the Storm

by Peter Murphy

  His brain froze.

  ‘Conrad?’

  ‘Yes, yes… no, don’t bother with the trust fund. Give him a cheque. Yes, that’s the best thing. There’s no need to go to the fund. Give him a cheque and I’ll make sure we can cover it.’

  ‘All right, if you’re sure.’

  ‘Yes, that’s fine. Call me later, after court, and tell me if you like the plans.’

  ‘I’ll call this evening. I have a meeting with Pastor Brogan this afternoon to talk about the outreach programme.’

  ‘Call me when you can,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back from court by 6 o’clock at the latest.’

  He replaced the receiver and walked back to the rug.

  62

  They had brought Henry Lang up to court from the cells, and Barratt was standing by the dock talking to him. Ben and Jess were going over their notes. Andrew Pilkington walked hurriedly into court. He seemed rather out of breath.

  ‘Morning Ben, Jess. I’ve had a message saying that the Pettifers are going to be late, something to do with the buses. I’ve asked DI Webb to send a police car to pick them up, so hopefully they won’t delay us too long.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry, Andrew,’ Ben replied. ‘The clerk just came in to tell us that the judge isn’t here yet. He called in to say he wouldn’t get to court until 11 or 11.30 at the earliest.’

  Andrew looked concerned.

  ‘Is he still feeling unwell?’

  ‘No one knows. Apparently he didn’t explain.’

  Andrew nodded. ‘Both the Pettifers are coming,’ he said, ‘to give each other moral support, but she’s the one you really need, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jess replied. ‘He didn’t hear anything, did he?’

  ‘No. He’s stone deaf, apparently. She says he wouldn’t wake up at night if they dropped a bomb on the building; and he didn’t really get to know either Henry or Susan.’

  ‘In that case, no, I don’t need him.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Andrew said. ‘I’ll tell him when he arrives, and he can either sit in court and not hear a word of what’s going on, or he can take himself off to the cafeteria.’

  ‘And you’ll be closing your case when we’ve finished with her?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Yes, subject to one or two odds and ends, formal stuff, proving one or two exhibits. I take it you’ll be calling Henry to give evidence? Are you going to raise this mysterious point of law of yours before or after?’

  ‘After. The judge needs to hear his evidence before we argue it; and there’s nothing mysterious about it. I have evidence that Susan Lang arranged for Daniel Cleary to threaten Henry with violence if he didn’t drop his claim for custody.’

  ‘What evidence?’

  ‘Susan told her counsel, Harriet Fisk, and her solicitor, Val Turner, what she had done.’

  Andrew thought for some time.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Well, it sounds like hearsay, but I’m sure you will say it goes to Henry’s state of mind, so I probably won’t waste the judge’s time with that. But I’m not sure that Harriet or her solicitor can give evidence about it. Whatever Susan told them must be privileged, mustn’t it?’

  ‘We say not, in the circumstances,’ Ben replied. ‘If you look at Cross, you’ll see where we’re coming from.’

  ‘I’ll take a look at it later,’ Andrew said. He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m going to grab a cup of coffee. I’ll let you know when the Pettifers arrive.’

  ‘Mrs Pettifer,’ Andrew began, ‘would you please give the court your full name?’

  ‘Violet Pettifer, sir.’

  She was a short, plump woman with grey hair, wearing a brown coat with a grey scarf around her neck, and heavy-looking brown shoes. She was holding a pair of gloves in her hand, together with her handbag.

  ‘Thank you. And if you don’t kind my being a bit impertinent, what age are you?’

  She smiled. ‘I don’t mind at all, sir. I’m not embarrassed about my age. I’m 67. My husband, Fred, is 69, and I’m 67. We’re retired now, of course.’

  ‘Do you live with your husband Fred in a flat at 36A Alwyne Road, London N1?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘How long have you lived there?’

  ‘Oh, a long time, sir, more than 20 years. We used to live over in Hackney years ago. Fred and I are both from Hackney originally, but we’ve lived in Alwyne Road, at number 36, for years now.’

  ‘I see. Tell us a little bit about the house, Mrs Pettifer. For example, your address is 36A, isn’t it, rather than just 36? How did that come about?’

  ‘Ah, well, when we moved from Hackney, we bought the whole house, didn’t we? £350 it cost us.’ She laughed. ‘We thought it was a fortune at the time, but it’s worth a lot more than that now. Prices just seem to go up and up. It never stops, does it?’

  She was looking at the jury, who were smiling and nodding sympathetically.

  ‘I don’t know where young people find the money to buy a house these days.’

  ‘No, quite,’ Andrew said. ‘But did there come a time when you changed the house?’

  ‘Yes, sir. After the children had left home, it was more space than we needed, really. So Fred converted the house into two flats, one upstairs and one downstairs. He’s ever so good with his hands. Well, he was in the building trade all his life, wasn’t he? He did it all himself – except for the electricity, of course. You can’t take a chance with that, can you? It’s too dangerous. So he got one of his mates from work, who was an electrician, to help him with that. But everything else he did himself. We thought if we lived in one flat ourselves and let the other one out, it would be a bit of extra money on top of our pensions.’

  ‘Yes, I see. And you called one flat 36A and the other 36B. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The downstairs is 36A. That’s where we live. We thought it was more sensible to live on the ground floor, so we didn’t have to worry about the stairs as we got older. The upstairs is 36B.’

  ‘Is it quite a large house?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘Oh, yes, sir. Even when we divided it, it made two big flats. There was plenty of room.’

  ‘Dealing with upstairs, 36B, how many rooms does it have?’

  ‘There’s a living room and dining room combined, three bedrooms, bathroom and toilet, and a loft where you can store things. There’s a nice garden at the back, too. We left part of it for whoever was upstairs, in case they wanted to grow vegetables, or flowers, or something.’

  ‘And did there come a time,’ Andrew asked, ‘when you let the upstairs flat, 36B, to Henry and Susan Lang?’

  Mrs Pettifer’s smile disappeared and she stared down for a moment or two into the dock. Henry, as he had throughout the trial, was also looking down at the floor, and he gave no sign of recognition.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘When was that, do you remember?’

  ‘I can’t remember the exact date,’ she replied. ‘It was about a year ago, between a year and 18 months.’

  ‘So, the girls, Marianne and Stephanie, would have been what, about seven and four when they moved in: would that be right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Tears formed in her eyes, and she rummaged in her handbag for a handkerchief. ‘Those poor little girls. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.’

  ‘Yes. Mrs Pettifer, after the Langs moved in, did you get to know them well? I assume you must have had dealings with them as your tenants, but were you able to get to know them, or did they keep themselves to themselves?’

  Mrs Pettifer considered for some time.

  ‘I hardly ever saw Henry, to be honest. I saw him if he came down to pay the rent, or take the milk in, or leave the bins out. But even then he didn’t talk very much, and most of the time he was at work. A mechanic he was, and he was gone from early in the morning until the evening. So I never saw
him enough to get to know him.’

  ‘And what about Susan?’

  ‘I saw a lot more of her. The older girl was at school, and the younger one was either in a nursery or just starting primary school, so Susan was at home for a lot of the day. We used to talk if she came down to hang washing out to dry in the garden, and she would come into my kitchen for a cup of coffee as often as not. So I did see her quite a bit.’

  ‘How did you get on with her?’

  ‘Very well. She struck me as a nice young woman, friendly, and the children were lovely, poor dears.’

  ‘Did she ever talk to you about her life?’

  Jess stood.

  ‘My Lord, I would ask my learned friend to be careful. As he well knows, whatever Mrs Lang may have told this witness about her marriage is not evidence.’

  ‘I am aware of that, my Lord,’ Andrew replied, ‘and I wasn’t proposing to ask the witness about the marriage…’

  He paused because Mr Justice Rainer seemed to be staring down at the top of his bench. He had not reacted at all to what had been said.

  Aware of the jury’s questioning eyes on him, Andrew quietly moved to within whispering range of Jess.

  ‘I’m not sure he heard any of that,’ he said.

  ‘There’s something wrong, Andrew,’ she replied. ‘He’s been like that ever since we started today, and he hasn’t taken a single note of the evidence.’

  Andrew nodded. He deliberately raised his voice.

  ‘My Lord.’

  This time it worked. The judge looked up.

  ‘Yes, Mr Pilkington?’

  Andrew took a deep breath.

  ‘My Lord, my learned friend had expressed a concern that I was venturing into hearsay territory, and I was reassuring your Lordship that I had no intention of going there.’

  The judge seemed to stare at him for some time.

  ‘So, nothing you need my ruling on?’

  ‘Not at this stage, my Lord.’

  ‘Anything you want to add, Mr Schroeder?’ the judge asked.

  ‘Miss Farrar, my Lord,’ Jess said.

  ‘What? Oh, yes. Yes, of course, Miss Farrar.’

  ‘I have nothing to add, my Lord.’

  ‘Mrs Pettifer,’ Andrew continued reassuringly, for the jury’s benefit as well as that of the witness, ‘just so that you will know what’s going on, we have a rule in these courts that witnesses can tell the jury what they saw or heard themselves, but they can’t tell the jury what someone else told them they saw or heard. Miss Farrar was just making sure that we keep to the rule. Do you understand?’

  ‘I suppose so, sir. Yes,’ she replied, in a tone of voice which suggested the opposite.

  ‘Well, don’t worry about it. It’s up to me to ask you the right questions. Just answer the questions I ask, and we will be fine.’

  ‘All right, sir.’

  ‘Did Susan tell you how she occupied her time from day to day, the kind of things she liked to do?’

  ‘Well, yes. She didn’t go out much during the day. She couldn’t, could she, not with the children? She’d go up to the shops, of course, and she always asked if there was anything I needed, and if there was, she would get it for me. She was very good that way. She would go up to the library to get books for the children, things like that. But she was at home most of the time.’

  ‘And what about during the evenings?’

  ‘Well, like I say, Henry was never home until the evening. It was often 7 o’clock or later before he got home from work, and I got the impression she wasn’t too happy about that, but I think he was making good money, so she wasn’t complaining too much.’

  ‘Did you ever see Susan going out in the evenings?’

  ‘Do you mean at weekends? They used to go out together sometimes on Friday night, the pair of them. They’d get a babysitter and go out for a drink and a curry. I looked after the children for them once or twice myself when she couldn’t find anyone else.’

  ‘I was thinking more about weeknights, after Henry got home from work. Did she ever go out then, on her own?’

  Mrs Pettifer took some time before answering, and frowned.

  ‘Well, yes, she did. But why shouldn’t she? The poor girl was stuck there all day in the flat, wasn’t she? And –’

  ‘I’m not being critical of her, Mrs Pettifer,’ Andrew said, aware that Jess was grinning at him. ‘I’m just asking whether she went out.’

  ‘Yes, sir. She did.’

  ‘At what time would she go out, and at what time would she get back?’

  ‘She would leave around 8 o’clock usually, and get back…well…’

  ‘Was it late?’

  ‘It would be after midnight.’

  ‘How many times would that happen in the average week?’

  ‘Twice, three times at most. There were weeks where she didn’t go out at all, or perhaps she only went once.’

  Andrew smiled. ‘Forgive my asking this, Mrs Pettifer,’ he said, ‘but so that the jury will understand, how did you know that she was going out?’

  ‘Well, I saw her, didn’t I? You could hear when someone came downstairs, and when she went out she would wear high heels. You could tell by the noise they made on the stairs. So I would look out of the window and I would see her.’

  Jess glanced in the direction of the jury, and saw that they were smiling. The judge had not reacted at all. He was still staring down.

  ‘I wasn’t spying on her, if that’s what you’re implying,’ the witness said. ‘I’m not a nosy parker. I just happened to see her.’

  ‘Of course,’ Andrew said soothingly. ‘I wasn’t suggesting otherwise, Mrs Pettifer. It’s just that it’s important for the jury to understand how you knew about her going out. Same question about her coming home.’

  ‘I would hear her high heels going upstairs when she came home,’ Mrs Pettifer replied. ‘I don’t sleep very well, you see; well, I haven’t for years. The doctor keeps prescribing pills for me, but they never do any good. I still don’t sleep, or if I do, I wake up at the slightest sound. I would wake up whenever I heard footsteps on the stairs, and I would look at the alarm clock, and it was always after midnight, usually 1 or 2 o’clock.’

  ‘And did you ever hear any noises from upstairs after Susan had got home?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Tell the jury about that, please.’

  Mrs Pettifer paused for some time. ‘I heard them having words, arguing, you might say.’

  ‘Could you ever hear exactly what they were saying?’

  ‘Not really. You could catch the odd word. He would start on her when she came in.’

  ‘When you say “start on her”, what do mean? Why do you say that?’

  ‘Well, I would hear her high heels on the stairs, I would hear her close the door when she went inside, and then I would hear his voice. He would be shouting at her, asking, “What time do you call this?” or “Where the hell have you been?”. That kind of thing. Once or twice I heard him say she was drunk.’

  ‘And you were able to hear that?’

  ‘Some of the words, yes; enough to know what was going on.’

  ‘How loudly was he speaking? Can you give us some idea? Was he talking normally, raising his voice, shouting? How would you describe it?’

  ‘He was shouting.’

  ‘Let me ask you this, Mrs Pettifer. Would your husband Fred be with you in bed on these occasions?’

  ‘Yes, of course he was; he was always there, in bed with me.’

  ‘Did Fred ever hear any of this, to your knowledge?’

  She smiled.

  ‘Oh, no, dear. Fred’s as deaf as a post, isn’t he? Once he’s asleep, he wouldn’t hear an air raid siren if it went off in the next room.’

  ‘On these occasions, when Henry was shouting,
did Susan respond?’

  ‘Well, yes, sir, I could hear her too. But she wasn’t anywhere near as loud as he was, so you could never hear what she was saying. Defending herself, I’m sure. But what she said, I couldn’t say.’

  ‘What else did you hear?’

  ‘I heard him hit her.’

  Jess saw the jury sit up in their seats.

  ‘How do you know he hit her, Mrs Pettifer?’

  ‘I heard him. It was like a slapping sound, two or three times usually, and she would cry out. And he was shouting when he did it, too.’

  ‘So, you’re describing the sound of a slap, is that it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘If you can tell us, Mrs Pettifer, how often did you hear him hit her?’

  ‘I can’t say how many times exactly, but it was at least once every two or three weeks. It wasn’t every time they argued, but it was fairly often.’

  ‘Is there anything else you heard that you haven’t told us about?’

  ‘No, sir. I don’t think so.’

  ‘All right. Do you remember the time when Susan Lang moved out of the flat, taking the girls with her?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I do.’

  ‘Did she move during the day, or over a weekend?’

  ‘She moved on a weekday, a Monday, I think it was. A van came one morning, just after Henry had gone to work, a removal van with “Highbury Removals” or some such thing on the side; and she piled in a few suitcases and bags, took the girls, and that was it. I never saw her again.’

  ‘Had she told you in advance that she was going to move out?’

  ‘No, sir. But I wasn’t really surprised. If you ask me –’

  ‘I can’t ask you about that, Mrs Pettifer. As I said before, we have rules of evidence.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I think that’s all I have. Wait there, please.’

  63

  ‘Mrs Pettifer,’ Jess began, ‘My name is Jess Farrar. I have a few questions for you on behalf of Henry. I won’t keep you very long.’