by John Fairfax
‘Mr Winchley, can I turn off one of the radiators?’
‘Of course. Sorry. I don’t feel heat. Unlike the wife. When we drive anywhere, I’ve got the fan on and she’s got her window open. There we go. How’s that?’
‘Much better thank you.’ Tess waited until he was back at his desk. ‘This ruthlessness. Did Andy ever go too far . . . push anyone to the wall? Bankrupt them?’
‘No, not that I’m aware of.’
‘Upset anyone?’
‘Well, in this business you’re upsetting someone, somewhere all the time. Either you’re late delivering or you’re not delivering at all or—’
‘I mean did he upset someone so much that they might want to hurt him.’
‘Well, he wasn’t the most careful operator.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I wouldn’t like to say . . . seeing as I don’t know what I’m talking about.’
Winchley reached for a tooth pick and cleared an obstruction towards the back of his mouth. ‘Sorry. I had a heart-attack sandwich this morning and a bit of bacon got—’
‘Mr Winchley, do me a favour, let’s speak ill of the dead. Was there anything about Andy Bealing’s private life or working life that might have led someone to stick a broken bottle into his neck?’
‘Well . . . somebody did, didn’t they?’
‘I mean someone else. Not the woman who’s standing trial.’
‘Ah. Right. Sorry, I was a bit slow there. You’re not too cold?’
‘No, thank you, Mr Winchley. But I am getting hot under the collar because you’re avoiding my question.’
‘That’s why I’m still in haulage after forty-six years. I keep my nose out of other people’s business and only look after my own.’
‘You said Andy Bealing wasn’t the most careful operator. Was he careless enough to make an enemy of someone capable of serious violence?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘But you knew he was ruthless; and you knew he wasn’t careful. And I know people who work for HM Customs and Excise who investigate VAT fraud and when they get up someone’s backside they generally wish—’
‘Look, I’ll break the rule of a lifetime. I’ll tell you the little I know. But I don’t understand it because I didn’t want to understand it, you follow? I didn’t ask any questions. Because questions give you answers and answers get you involved in other people’s business. And I’m only in haulage after forty-six years because I keep—’
‘Break the rule, please, Mr Winchley. Tell me the little you know.’
‘Andy Bealing came here last July. Sat where you’re sat. He wasn’t looking too good. Said he was a truck down and could he borrow one. I said no. Because I’m a ruthless bastard, too. But I wasn’t too sure that was the reason for him coming round. He wanted advice, too.’
‘About?’
‘A dodgy client. Said he’d got himself tied up with some hard-nosed outfit who wouldn’t take no for an answer. He didn’t want to work with them.’
‘Did he say where they were from?’
‘Abroad.’
‘Anything more specific?’
‘No. He just jerked his head back and said, “Abroad”.’
‘Why come to you?’
‘Because after forty-six years in haulage you’ve seen it all.’
‘So what was your advice?’
‘I didn’t give him any.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I didn’t ask any questions about the hard-nosed outfit or how he’d got tied up with them in the first place. Why not? Because people like that can be indiscriminate when they turn bolshy, especially if they think you’re a mate of the guy they’re screwing to the floor. You see, questions give you answers and answers—’
‘Get you involved, yes, I’m aware of that. But how did the conversation end?’
‘Right there. Just like that. I said everything would come out in the wash. Told him not to worry. He went back to Hopton’s Yard as if he hadn’t come, and I was none the wiser.’
Tess didn’t know what to make of the ‘little’ Mr Winchley knew. Like the ramblings of Debbie Bealing, he may well have described the expected problems of any transport business. Only there seemed to be something more here.
‘I’d like to help more but I can’t,’ said Winchley, rubbing at one of the coffee stains with a wet thumb. ‘But I’ll give you some advice. If you want to know what was going on in a haulage business, ask one of the crew, not the management. Hopton’s Yard was a big operation. There’ll have been a warehouse manager. That’s the sort of guy I mean. They know everything – what they should know, and a lot of what they shouldn’t. Do you get my meaning? They’re like butlers in the royal family. They see everything and say nothing.’
Seated in her Austin Cooper in Winchley’s car park, Tess flicked through a file of unused material until she found the name of Andrew Bealing’s former warehouse manager: Kingsley Obiora. He’d been sick at the time of the murder, but had still been interviewed as a matter of routine. The statement was only a few lines long, because the investigating officer hadn’t asked about Chinese ninjas or hard-nosed outfits from abroad. Feeling faintly ridiculous, she drove over to Mitcham, parked and knocked on the door of Mr Obiora’s flat on Thornbury Road. The chances were, he wouldn’t be there, it being a Monday. But she was in luck.
‘I’d like to talk to you about Andrew Bealing,’ she said, after introducing herself.
‘Oh yeah. Why?’
Obiora was in his late thirties, heavily built and wary. Unlike Winchley’s generation, Obiora’s wasn’t frightened of uniforms, or solicitors who worked with people who wore them. They were confrontational.
‘I understand that you were once employed by Hopton Transport Limited. I’ve been informed that you were—’
‘Hold it. Stop right there. I’ve got nothing to say.’
The door slammed shut and Tess went back to her car. This sort of thing hadn’t happened in Strasbourg. And so far it hadn’t happened in London. Working with Benson had introduced her to a whole new world. Pulling out of Thornbury Road on to a roundabout, she nearly struck a motorcyclist. She hadn’t been looking where she was going. Her eyes had latched on to Kingsley Obiora running pretty damn fast across Mitcham Common.
16
‘Murder is always tragic, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Glencoyne. The crisp voice had been softened. Her smooth forehead was lined with compassion. ‘And among the tragic cases that come before these courts, there are some where the stamp of tragedy marks not only the end of someone’s life, but the very life of the person in the dock. This is one such case. And I tell you this right at the outset because you will be moved by pity. You will feel sorry for Sarah Collingstone. But you must examine the evidence dispassionately. You must not forget that a tragic past is not a defence to murder. Andrew Bealing and his family look to you for justice, not pity. Justice for Andrew, and justice for this defendant.’
Glencoyne turned to Bealing’s quite extraordinary background. His parents were now dead. The father a merchant seaman, in and out of prison, the mother an alcoholic who drank herself into a hospice. Andrew (as Glencoyne called him) was in and out of care and foster placements throughout the Portsmouth area. He came to London aged seventeen in 1997. Initially homeless he’d stumbled upon the Alington Trust. Partnered with social services, they not only provided accommodation, they offered him a career – if he was prepared to knuckle down and make a future for himself. And he did. At twenty-one Andrew became an HGV driver. He did a bit of work for various haulage companies before in 2002 meeting Joe Hopton, the founder of Hopton Transport Ltd, who gave him a full-time job. He subsequently married Debbie, Joe’s daughter, in 2003.
‘Andrew moved from driving to management,’ said Glencoyne, leaning on her silk’s desk. ‘Joe taught him everything he knew. But the benefit was mutual, because this son-in-law had a flair for business. He founded Hopton Imports Limited in the year of his marriage, taking
advantage of the influx of EU nationals into Britain. He imported foodstuffs from different countries, selling them through Hopton’s own outlets located in areas where national groups had been settling. By 2007, he’d opened three supermarkets: one Polish, one Russian and one Portuguese. Each was managed by a native speaker. The business model was a resounding success. Mr Bealing became a wealthy man very quickly indeed. So much so that his wife, Debbie, was able to stop work in 2008.’
Benson underlined that last assertion in red.
The success, said Glencoyne, was intimately linked to philanthropy, for the people who managed these shops, and the drivers who drove the curtain-siders across Europe, were, for the most part, individuals who’d been referred to him by the Alington Trust. He’d received a great deal himself; and now he was giving back. In 2008 he’d set up Hopton Residential Holdings Ltd, an impressive-sounding name that was nothing more than a corporate umbrella for several domestic dwellings purchased by Mr Bealing and then rented out to employees at a fair rent.
‘This man had come to London with nothing. He’d been sleeping on the street. Within ten years he was a multi-millionaire residing in one of the more desirable parts of Wimbledon.’
But all had not been well at home. Debbie may have stopped work but her mental health was fragile. She’d long suffered from depression. She’d made herself isolated. She’d required hospitalisation on two occasions. A private nurse attended upon her three times a week. Whether Andrew Bealing was able to comfort her on the day-to-day, the court would never know. This much was sure: her former work colleagues certainly couldn’t.
Once again, Benson’s red pencil flashed across the page.
‘So this, then, is the man whom Sarah Collingstone met in June of 2014. He was thirty-four, wealthy but unhappy. And as for Sarah Collingstone . . .’
Benson watched the jurors. His eyes settled on one in particular, a redheaded woman with bold freckles. Glencoyne was right. She did pity her; and so did the others:
‘Aged eleven her parents separated. Aged fifteen, the year of her GCSEs, her mother died of breast cancer. Aged sixteen she was the sole survivor of a car crash that killed two of her friends, one of whom, Anthony Greene, was the father of the child she was expecting. That child, Daniel, was born five weeks premature, possibly because of the trauma of the accident. Ten days later Daniel was admitted to hospital after he suddenly stopped breathing. He suffered acute oxygen deprivation, causing significant brain damage.’
Benson had been half listening, cross-referring Archie’s scribbled notes on the witness list with Sarah’s answers to Benson’s questions (the Tuesday Club had done Archie proud). But now he sat back, living out what happened next to the Collingstone family, because much the same had happened to his own, after Eddie’s accident.
At first Sarah was inundated with support. But friends soon dropped off. Relatives became busy at the weekend. Anthony Greene’s inconsolable parents – who’d looked forward to Daniel’s birth as if, somehow, they’d get their own son back – took the radical step of moving house, far enough away to make it difficult to share in Daniel’s upbringing. Because, come the day, while they’d cried at the sight of Anthony’s smile and Anthony’s nose and Anthony’s eyes, he wasn’t the boy they’d expected and hoped for. Because Daniel had a disability. (Benson’s aunt – Eddie’s godmother – had stopped answering her phone. It was a small change, but it had worked; the Bensons had eventually left her alone.) In those circumstances, said Glencoyne, it was hardly surprising that the defendant and her father followed suit. If no one close to home would help them, then why stay at home? Seeking a fresh start, they’d moved to London.
‘Sixteen years later, Sarah Collingstone, aged thirty-two, still dependent on her father, still a single parent, heard about the Alington Trust. She went to them seeking support. And if there is a moment when the lives of both the defendant and Mr Bealing changed dramatically, it is now. Because Mr Bealing was looking for an assistant manager and the Alington Trust told the defendant about the post. She got the job.’
Glencoyne was convincing. A rich and lonely man had met a poor and lonely woman. A sympathetic man had reached out to an abandoned woman. They started a secret affair and for nine months they lived out an escape from their circumstances. Only, as with all affairs, there comes a time when they end or endure. And that last option was something Mr Bealing couldn’t contemplate. He was bound to Debbie. And he wouldn’t abandon her, any more than the defendant would abandon her son. The difference was that the person who stood to lose most was the defendant. Money could not be ignored in this case. Because Mr Bealing’s wealth would have transformed the defendant’s life and that of her son. Her attachment to Mr Bealing was bound up with the future he represented: affection and security.
‘We can’t be sure what Mr Bealing was thinking,’ said Glencoyne. ‘We don’t know if the challenge of parenting a young man with special needs proved too daunting; or whether he simply couldn’t abandon Debbie, his wife. But this much is sure. In the week leading up to his death, Mr Bealing tried to distance himself from the defendant. On the night of the 14th of February the defendant went to see him at his Hopton Yard premises. Mr Bealing either told the defendant the relationship was over, or he said something else that snapped a cord in this woman’s self-control. It doesn’t really matter. Either way, the defendant seized a bottle, smashed it, and chased Mr Bealing down a narrow corridor, stabbing him as he tried to escape. He bled to death, ladies and gentlemen.’
Benson felt a light tug from Archie. He passed a note forward. Benson opened it. ‘A genie that comes out of a can. 6 letters.’ While in prison, Archie had killed time doing puzzles and crosswords, only he could never find the answers. His endless questions had driven Benson mad. He turned the note face down. Glencoyne was dealing with a weakness in her case as if it was a strength.
‘Debbie Bealing has lost the man she married twelve years ago. She cannot accept that Andrew had an affair. But we cannot shrink from telling this court about it, even though it grieves Debbie all the more. The media reports will wound her deeply. They will humiliate her. We wish we could spare her the pain, but we can’t. Because we owe it to the one person who isn’t here to tell Debbie the truth . . . her murdered husband.’
‘Thank you, Miss Glencoyne,’ said Mr Justice Oakshott. ‘I take it your first witness is ready?’
‘Yes, my lord. I call Kym Hamilton.’
17
Kym Hamilton, aged forty-seven, had been with Hopton’s since she was sixteen. She’d been handling phone calls and faxes before Andrew Bealing had even come to London. She later moved to accounts. She’d had a desk right by the large window that brought natural light into Andrew Bealing’s office. Her mouth dipped at the corners and her voice had the colour of cheap tobacco. Benson listened with growing distaste. She’d started crying even before she took the oath.
‘Well, Andrew had been unhappy for a while.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘I do, yes. You see Andrew had always been easy-going. Full of confidence and smiles. Chirpy. But he lost it very gradually. And that was because of poor Debbie’s condition. The more Debbie went downhill, the more Andrew sort of followed her. His mood was tied to hers. I felt so sorry for him . . . and her.’
‘Did you know Debbie?’
‘Of course. She worked in the office with me for something like seventeen years. She began young like me, and she carried on after her marriage to Andrew. She’d always fret about the haulage work and she was anxious about Andrew’s ventures, even though they were successful. She was cautious, you see, while Andrew didn’t mind a risk. He liked a risk.’
‘What do you mean by “Debbie’s condition”?’
‘Depression. She’d go under and couldn’t work. And things got a lot worse after her dad died. She’d adored him.’
‘When was that?’
‘Sixth of April, 2013. That’s when dear Joe left us. His heart just gave out.’
&n
bsp; Benson circled the name with his red pencil.
‘Which would be a year before the defendant came to work for Mr Bealing?’ said Glencoyne.
‘That’s right.’
‘A year in which Debbie struggled?’
‘Oh yes. She was hospitalised. Twice. Andrew would talk about it when he was in the office. Said he couldn’t keep an eye on her all the time so he’d employed a nurse to come round three times a week. He still does, I think.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Darren Weaver.’
‘How would you describe Mr Bealing’s relationship with his wife?’
‘Well, it was strained. It had to be. You couldn’t help but feel sorry for the two of them.’
Glencoyne turned a page.
‘Were you present when the defendant came to the Hopton Yard premises for an interview?’
‘I was.’
‘And?’
Benson frowned as he wrote. Hamilton hadn’t read Brontë. Her description of that first meeting came straight from Mills and Boon. There’d been a quiver of tension in the air. She’d felt the jolt herself. Even Glencoyne blenched. But this is what the witness had seen and remembered. These were her words. She’d told her story to the police and the police had written it down.
From that first meeting, Andrew had changed. He’d become secretive. He’d go out not saying where he was going. Sarah Collingstone would arrive at the Hopton Yard premises when Kym was leaving. When she’d come during office hours, Kym had seen them speaking earnestly in Andrew’s office. And Andrew was always reaching out and Sarah was always stepping back, as if to say no, not here. And then, at the Christmas party, they crossed a line in public. Glencoyne tied down the detail:
‘This was December 2014, a Friday night, two months before the murder?’