by Peter Murphy
‘I would think so, Judge. I don’t have much more for him – just the event itself on 28 April, which won’t take long. I don’t know how long Pilkington will need with him.’
‘I won’t have all that much, Judge,’ Andrew said. ‘It’s a straightforward issue. I don’t see why we can’t finish with him by lunch.’
Conrad nodded.
‘Good. Then we have your point of evidence, and if I agree to let it in, that will take how long?’
‘It will be very short,’ Ben replied. ‘Half an hour at most, I would have thought.’
‘I’m anxious to conclude this trial tomorrow,’ the judge said. He paused. ‘I have other matters to attend to next week. Pilkington, I would like to get your closing speech in this afternoon, then defence speech and summing-up tomorrow. Any problem with that?’
Andrew looked at Ben. Even with his considerable experience, he was nervous. In the past, while he had sometimes found it necessary to speak directly to a judge in court about the way in which he was conducting a trial, he had never confronted a judge in chambers about whether he was in a fit state to conduct a trial. But there was no turning back now. The Director of Public Prosecutions had given him his support, but Andrew would have to take it from there. The moment had come.
‘I don’t see any problem with the timetable,’ he replied. ‘But, Judge, the reason we’re here is because Schroeder and I are concerned about the way the trial is going.’
Conrad raised his eyebrows.
‘Oh? It seems to be going smoothly enough to me. Of course, I don’t have your experience in criminal cases, so I may be missing something.’
‘Judge, both Schroeder and I have had problems getting your attention in court, when something arises that we need your guidance on. We’ve both had to repeat ourselves. You give the impression of being far away, and not concentrating on the case, and we have noticed that you haven’t been taking notes of the evidence. Frankly, we’re worried. We don’t want to pry, but it has occurred to us that you may still not be feeling well. You did mention before that you weren’t feeling 100 per cent, and from the Bar it does seem that it may be affecting you. If you would like us to apply for a short adjournment, or if we should apply to discharge the jury, we would be grateful if you let us know.’
Andrew glanced quickly at Ben.
‘I agree, Judge,’ he added. ‘Obviously, my man is charged with a very serious offence, and I am anxious that the summing-up should be as complete as possible. Provocation is not the easiest of things to sum up.’
Conrad nodded thoughtfully.
‘I’m not feeling particularly well,’ he replied. ‘I’m not sleeping as well as I should. I’ve… I’ve suffered a… well, a bereavement, you see, and…’
‘Oh God,’ Andrew said at once. ‘Judge, we had no idea. Our condolences, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Ben added. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Judge.’
‘There was no way you could have known,’ Conrad said, ‘and I wasn’t going to mention it in open court, for obvious reasons. But you’re quite right to raise it with me. I know I’ve been somewhat preoccupied. But I’m going to finish the trial, and I don’t want to adjourn it.’
There was a silence. Eventually, Conrad smiled.
‘You’re worried that I may not be taking in the evidence?’
‘It is the practice in these courts to take notes,’ Ben replied. ‘No judge can remember all the evidence in a case, especially in circumstances like this, and sometimes the small details turn out to be the most important.’
‘Name me a witness,’ the judge said suddenly.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Name me a witness.’
Ben looked inquiringly at Andrew.
‘Mrs Pettifer,’ Andrew replied.
Still smiling, Conrad nodded.
‘Right. How’s this? Mrs Pettifer is 67. She lives with her husband Fred, 69, at 36A Alwyne Street N1. They bought the house years ago, it was too big for them once the children were gone, so they divided it into two flats. Having been in the building trade all his life, Fred did the work himself, except for the electricity, because you can’t take chances with that, can you? They live downstairs in 36A. A year or so ago, they leased 36B, the upstairs flat, to Henry and Susan Lang. Mrs Pettifer didn’t really know Henry because he was at work the whole time, but she did get to know Susan because of their chats in the garden with the laundry, and over coffee in her kitchen. She heard some things about their marriage, but very properly, she was not asked what she heard. She babysat for the two girls on Fridays sometimes when the Langs went out to the pub and the Indian. Then Susan started getting dressed up rather smartly, and going out at night by herself two or three times a week, returning home after midnight. Mrs Pettifer heard her high heels on the stairs. Sometimes, she heard the Langs arguing. He would shout at her, and she thought she sometimes heard him hitting her. In February, Susan left without warning, taking the children with her.
‘In a very nicely judged cross-examination, Miss Farrar got her to say that she really couldn’t be sure who hit whom, and that she did smell a pungent odour coming from upstairs, which at the time she thought to be Turkish coffee – not that she has ever tasted Turkish coffee, but still – and which Miss Farrar almost got her to agree might have been the smell of someone smoking cannabis.
‘I could go on…’
Andrew and Ben looked at each other. In his corner, Lewis was chuckling out loud.
‘Not necessary, Judge,’ Andrew replied.
‘I may well need your help with the law on provocation,’ Conrad said. ‘I’ll let you know if I do. Now, shall we get on with it?’
‘How did it go?’ Jess asked, as Ben and Andrew returned to the courtroom, Lewis, still chuckling, behind them. ‘Are we going ahead?’
‘He liked your cross of Mrs Pettifer,’ Ben replied.
71
‘Mr Lang, I want to ask you now about Wednesday 28 April. But before I get to the day itself, was there something that happened two days before, on Monday 26 April, which concerned you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Tell the jury about that, please.’
‘I was at work. It was about 10 o’clock, and this man came in and said he wanted to talk to me about getting his car serviced.’
‘Was this man someone you had met before?’
‘No, I’d never seen him before. He said he wanted a private chat, which usually means he wants to talk about how much it’s going to cost, and whether we take cheques or accept instalment payments, and all the rest of it, so I took him into the office. But it turned out he wasn’t interested in getting his car serviced.’
‘What was he interested in?’
‘He was interested in giving me a message. He said Danny Ice had sent him, and if I knew what was good for me, I would withdraw my custody application and let Susan keep the children.’
‘Did you recognise the name “Danny Ice”?’
‘Yeah, it was a name Louise had given me, as someone Susan had been associating with, someone involved in crime.’
‘What kind of crime?’
‘Well, we know that, don’t we?’ Mr Justice Rainer intervened.
‘We know now, my Lord,’ Ben agreed. ‘But Mr Lang, my question is what you knew about Danny Ice when this man came to see you?’
‘I only knew what Louise had told me, but she told me enough for me to believe that he was a serious bloke and he was up to no good. I didn’t need any more convincing about that.’
‘You took him seriously?’
‘Yeah, I did.’
‘Did the man who came to see you explain what he meant by if you “knew what was good for you”?’
‘He didn’t need to, did he? He opened his jacket, and I could see he was carrying a big knife – it looked like a hunting knife of so
me kind – and once he mentioned the name “Danny Ice”, I knew exactly what he meant.’
‘Yes, but we need to make sure that the jury are in no doubt about it. What did you think might happen to you if you didn’t withdraw your custody application?’
‘I believed that serious violence would be used against me.’
‘Did this man give you his name?’
‘No. He just said that Danny Ice had sent him.’
‘Did you say anything to the man?’
‘Yeah. I told him to get the hell out of my garage before I got my lads to throw him out.’
‘How did he respond to that?’
‘He just smiled – but he did get out.’
‘Did you think about withdrawing your custody application?’
‘What, and leave my children with Susan, when she was running around with people like that, and doing drugs? No, I didn’t think about it; not even for a minute.’
‘Let’s come, then, to 28 April,’ Ben said. ‘Mr Justice Wesley had asked Mrs Cameron to report on the case, and she had asked you both to come to her house for a meeting at 12.30: is that right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘All right. I want to take things slightly out of chronological order. First of all, the jury have heard the medical evidence, which was that immediately after stabbing Susan, you experienced a form of shock, which lasted for two days. Is that right?’
‘It is, yeah.’
‘What effect, if any, did that shock have on your subsequent memory of the events of 28 April?’
Henry shook his head.
‘I lost all memory of the events from leaving home in the morning to being in a cell at the police station when they brought me back from hospital two days later.’
‘You remembered nothing at all?’
‘It was a total blank.’
‘Did there come a time when your memory of 28 April returned?’
‘Yeah. Last Thursday evening, at about 8 o’clock.’
Ben paused.
‘Mr Lang, you understand, I’m sure, that the prosecution will say it’s just a bit too convenient that your memory comes back a few days before your trial begins, when you’ve been asked about it repeatedly, not only by the police, but also by Miss Farrar, Mr Davis and myself. What do you say about that?’
Henry nodded.
‘Honestly? If it happened to somebody else, I would probably be saying the same thing as Mr Pilkington. All I can say is, that’s what happened to me. It’s not something you have any control over.’
‘And you told us about it when we saw you the following afternoon?’
‘I did, yeah.’
‘How did it feel when it all came back to you?’
The tears were welling up again.
‘It was horrible. I was physically sick. I didn’t sleep. I lay awake all night, reliving it. If you want to know the truth, I wish it hadn’t come back. If I could wipe the memory out forever, I would.’
‘Even though you wouldn’t be able to tell the jury what happened?’
‘Despite that. Yeah.’
72
‘At what time did you leave your flat on the morning of 28 April?’ Ben asked.
‘About 11.30.’
‘How did you get to Mrs Cameron’s house?’
‘I walked.’
‘Why didn’t you drive? It’s quite a walk, isn’t it?’
‘I just wanted to walk. You can’t always park round there, and I didn’t want to be worried about it. And I wanted to think about things. I wasn’t sure what to do about the threat I’d received, whether to tell Mrs Cameron, you know, and I thought the walk might give me the chance to clear my head.’
‘Let me ask you about that. The jury may want to know why you didn’t tell someone about the threat immediately, either Mrs Cameron or the police.’
‘I know. I should have done, but you have to understand: she had my children, and if I told anybody, Danny Ice knew where my children lived, and I wasn’t sure any of us would be safe.’
‘So what did you decide to do?’
‘I decided not to tell anyone, and if Danny Ice tried anything, I would deal with it myself.’
‘What do you mean, exactly, deal with it yourself?’
‘Look after myself. My lads at the garage would deal with anything that happened there. They work with some pretty heavy duty tools, and it would be a stupid man that would try anything on at the garage. If it happened somewhere else, I would just have to look out for myself.’
‘But if –’
‘I know. Like I said, I should have told someone. But I didn’t.’
Ben nodded.
‘Did you take anything with you from the flat?’
Henry did not reply immediately.
‘Mr Lang?’
‘Yeah. I took a knife.’
‘I needn’t show it to you. Is that the knife the jury have seen, our Exhibit 2, one of the knives from the set in your kitchen?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How did you carry the knife?
‘I have a long jacket with a deep inside pocket.’
‘I’m sure it’s obvious to everyone,’ Ben said, ‘but was that a method of concealing the knife?’
‘Yeah, obviously.’
‘You didn’t want Mrs Cameron to see it?’
‘I didn’t want her to see it, and I didn’t want Susan to see it. We were having a meeting. I didn’t need them to know that I was carrying the knife. I hoped I wouldn’t need it.’
‘So that the jury are clear about this, Mr Lang, did you take the knife with you on 28 April because you had already decided to kill Susan?’
‘No. I would never have done that.’
‘In that case, why did you take the knife?’
‘Because I believed that Danny Ice was likely to use violence against me, and I needed the knife for self-defence.’
‘Looking back today –’
‘It was a stupid thing to do,’ Henry said. ‘I know that now, and if I could turn the clock back I would. But I can’t.’
‘How did the meeting go?’ Ben asked.
‘Just like I thought it would. It was a complete waste of time.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Mrs Cameron was trying her best to get us to come to some agreement, but Susan wasn’t interested in agreeing, and, to be honest, neither was I. Mrs Cameron wanted to know what kind of accommodation we had for the children, how we were going to look after them, that kind of thing. She wasn’t interested in the fact that they were being exposed to drugs and crime. She was more interested in whether I was working too hard, and who I was going to get to look after them when I worked late.’
‘What was the atmosphere like?’
‘It was all right. Susan and I were polite to each other, as much as we could be. She had the odd dig at me, but she could never resist that, and I didn’t react. Most of the time, I just wanted to get out of there, so I’m sure I didn’t make a great impression on Mrs Cameron, but I wanted to talk to her on her own, not with Susan there.’
‘I take it that no agreement was reached, then?’
Henry shook his head.
‘I would have been generous to her if she’d only agreed to let me keep my children. I would have let her see them whenever she wanted, and I would have offered her some money, maintenance, you know. But I didn’t want to say that in case Mrs Cameron got the wrong idea…’
‘You didn’t want her thinking you were trying to buy custody of the children?’
‘Yeah, and I wasn’t. That wasn’t my intention. It was just that I wanted Susan to see what she was doing to my children, and if she gave them back, that was all I would have asked of her. But that was the one thing she wouldn’t agree to.’
73
‘What happened when you left Mrs Cameron’s house?’ Ben asked.
Henry took a deep breath.
‘We left together. I looked around. There was no sign of any trouble, no sign of any of her friends, so I thought I was all right. We were about to go our different ways, but we were still talking. We crossed over the street for some reason, towards that little mews area – I’m not sure why – and we were still talking.’
‘Talking about what? What was said?’
‘It was the same old stuff: I’m telling her all I want is custody; she’s saying she will never give me custody; I’m saying her lifestyle is dangerous for the children; she’s laughing at me, telling me to grow up. It’s the same stuff we were saying to Mrs Cameron, except the gloves came off once we were on our own, and it developed into an argument.’
‘How heated was it?’
‘Very heated. We were both very angry, and we were both very loud. I remember thinking, someone’s going to call the police if we go on like this. So I thought, this is pointless, I’m wasting my time, and I decided to leave and make my way back to work. And we had one last exchange of words.’
‘I’ll ask you in a moment about what was said in that last exchange of words, Mr Lang. I want to ask you this, first. Just answer yes or no. Did you say something to her, and did she say something to you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘After that exchange of words, what happened?’
He was silent for some time. Ben did not press him.
‘I don’t know what came over me. I lost all control. I wasn’t aware of what I was doing. The next thing I was aware of was the knife in my hand, and there being blood everywhere, and her lying on the ground.’
‘And then what?’
He shook his head.
‘I slumped down to the ground and sat there, and I couldn’t make my mind work, and I couldn’t make my body work. I just sat there.’
‘Did you intend to kill Susan?’
‘I don’t know what I intended. I had no control over what I was doing. One moment, she said something to me, and the next I was watching her bleeding to death.’