by Jo Kessel
“Right,” I’d said. “Would you mind stepping out from the stand for a second?”
I’d walked the eyewitness, guiding her with a gentle hand on her back, towards a spot which I reckoned was about 30 yards away from where I’d sat Anthony.
“Would you agree you’re now about 30 yards away from my colleague,” I’d asked, pointing towards my handsome, debonair co-counsel.
She’d narrowed her eyes into slits.
“Yes, I guess so.”
“Right,” I’d said to the eyewitness, “if you wouldn’t mind staying where you are for a moment and tell me what you see happening between myself and my colleague.”
I walked slowly towards Anthony, whispered some stage directions in his ear. He pretended to be stuck in the front driver’s seat, I pretended to be struggling to set him free. Our arms were flailing, linking, trying to grab onto each other, until finally I managed to yank him out from behind the imaginary wheel, into safety away from the vehicle. By this time I was, quite frankly, panting from the exertion of it all. Heavily pregnant women aren’t designed to get into fights. I inhaled deeply.
“So,” I’d turned back to the eyewitness. “Can you tell me what you saw?”
“Well,” she’d said. “You were quite clearly laying into him.”
“Could you explain to the court,” I’d asked, still trying to catch my breath, “what your definition of ‘laying into him’ actually is?”
“Well, you were punching him, right in the face, time after time,” she’d said.
“Thank you very much,” I’d nodded towards the judge. “No further questions.”
I’d taken my seat with head bowed, to hide my smug smirk from the Prosecution, who did not look amused by my antics. Anyway, it’s Cameron Matthews in the box now. I take a breath, about to launch into my cross-examination, to keep the momentum going, when Anthony clears his throat, holds up his hand, gets to his feet, avoiding any eye contact with me, fighting to keep a straight face.
“Sorry to interrupt My Lord, but ‘Sven’ do you think would be a good time to recess for lunch?”
***
Mr. Justice Smiley, it so happened, thought that now would be an excellent time to break and had called an end to the morning’s proceedings. We’d all risen, watched him take his leave before doing the very same. Anthony holds out a palm expectantly as we leave the Old Bailey.
“I believe that’s ten pounds you owe me,” he says.
I laugh out loud, fumbling in my bag for my purse. All’s fair in love and bets. He’s earned his ten quid. Yesterday morning, sat in the outdoor corridor, waiting for our courtroom to open, he’d picked up a copy of the Daily Mail from the chair next door, closed his eyes, opened the paper randomly and landed his right index finger onto the recipe of the day, mince pies. He’d bet me five pounds I wouldn’t be able to get that into my cross-examination. I’d risen, or so I’d thought, admirably to the challenge, asking the blind as a bat eyewitness, pre the finishing coup de grace, didn’t she agree that men, or indeed women, might spy the same thing very differently. Men spy – mince pie. Anyway, Anthony disallowed it, saying because I didn’t run the words consecutively it didn’t count. So today I upped the ante, doubling the odds, closed my eyes, randomly opened the paper, landing my finger on the sports pages and the word ‘Sven’. Cue Anthony to interrupt the Judge, asking ‘Sven’ would be a good time to stop for lunch.
“That was very funny,” I say, handing over a ten-pound note. “Well done.”
Anthony doesn’t take the money.
“How about we use it for lunch. Fancy the Magpie?”
Across the road from the Old Bailey is this old pub, the Magpie and Stumps, where execution breakfasts were served until 1868, when mass public hangings outside the prison were finally stopped. They now dish up a mean steak and kidney pie. I stop and falter. It’s not that I don’t fancy a plate of stodgy meat and pastry. It’s not that I don’t feel like whiling away a couple of hours with Anthony. It’s that I do. I really do. It’s not enough that we’re sat side by side every day at the moment, but since Adam’s proposal, and especially since our lunch on Saturday, he’s started haunting me even when we’re not together. He’s in my dreams every night, in my thoughts every day. Wherever I am, I can’t shake him off. I’m sure it’s just pre-wedding and pre-baby jitters. I’m also sure that lunch, just the two of us, won’t help. “Sorry,” I say. “I think I’ll take a sandwich to chambers.”
Chapter 37
“Sahara’s got the best pair of tits on the planet. I’d like her to dangle them over my cock, come down on me, sucking it big and hard, then I’ll roll her over and have a good feed on her hairy mud pie. She’s top of the class, with that arse. Not like Scott Richardson, who’s no class, all arse. She can do better.”
The first thing I had Cameron Matthews do, when I started his cross-examination, was to read out, from the witness box, for all the court to hear, the message he’d posted on Sahara.com, way back when, when Scott and Sahara were still a couple. He recited it smoothly and without any hint of embarrassment, like his fantasy was the most natural thing in the world, despite Sahara sitting a mere fifty feet away. I was sideways on to him at this point, just about able to make out Sahara’s mask of blank indifference, even when he mentioned he’d like to have a good feed on her hairy mud pie. She clearly excels in front of an audience. Anyway, when I asked if he could confirm, at the end, that these were his very own words, he said yes. When I asked if he’d been responsible for sending it, he said yes.
Cameron Matthews is exactly as I’d imagined, despite his best efforts to look like a black and white film star. Medium height, paunchy, bald save for a few strands on top, brown hair on the sides. The kind of man you wouldn’t look twice at in the street. The kind of man who’s two a penny. They’re all around, all equally as indistinguishable. There’s nothing about him that stands out, until now. His sexual frankness is to be applauded, as is the way he's taking this whole thing. The whole point of this message was to discredit him, to make him look like an idiot, to make him look like the kind of person the jury couldn’t possibly believe. Only the whole thing seems to have backfired. He hasn’t squirmed. He doesn’t appear in the slightest bit phased. His sexual appetite has ended up endearing him to the jury no less. When he’d finished his recitation, he turned to them, shrugged and said, “what can I do? I’ve a fertile imagination.” Half of them bloody laughed. This is not what I’d intended. The courtroom’s no place for jocular hilarity. This man is reading off the wrong script. Besides, what this witness does or doesn’t want to do to Sahara isn’t what matters to this case. What’s much more important is his comment on Scott Richardson. I’m trying to paint a picture of Cameron as a social misfit, of someone who’s been obsessed with my client since they were at school together, of someone who’s become so irrationally jealous that he’d resort to framing my client for the murder of Rupert Simons. Only it’s not going too well. For every question I’ve posed, he’s laughed his way out of trouble.
“You attended Wellington College School with Scott Richardson for ten years. Is that right?” I asked.
I’d approached the witness box, hoping to put him off-guard.
“Yes,” he’d replied.
“And you were friends?”
He’d shrugged.
“As friendly as two people that didn’t really know each other could be,” he’d replied.
He appeared nonplussed by my proximity.
“What wasn’t to like?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like him, it’s just we had nothing in common.” He’d turned to the jury at this point. “He got all the chicks and I didn’t, what can I say?”
He’d chuckled and a couple of the jury chuckled with him. I’d paced a little, back and forth.
“I put it to you that you didn’t like him then and you still don’t like him now. You were jealous of his popularity. I put it to you that that’s why you wrote on Sahara.com, ‘he’s no clas
s, all arse, she can do better’.”
I’d talked casually, as if we were two strangers who just happened to be having a chat.
“The reason why I wrote ‘he’s no class, all arse’, is because I believe that to be true. And I think she can do better. I mean, just look at her.”
I didn’t just look at her. Instead, I’d straightened my wig at this point, not because it had slipped, but because I’d hoped, in resetting it, to reset my command, to strengthen my line of questioning. There had to be a chink in this man’s armour. I had to penetrate it. Only I haven’t. For the entire afternoon, he’s either matched my performance or upped it. The Prosecution case has rested largely on the testimony of two people. The first is the eyewitness I exposed to be blind as a bat with much aplomb. The second is Cameron Matthews, who, however many times I squish him splat like a cartoon, comes bouncing right back, sprightly. To recap, he’s an Accountant, at the same television network as Scott Richardson. He said, in his statement to the police and when questioned by the other side, that he took Scott Richardson for lunch at the Oxo Tower, a restaurant on the South Bank, to discuss expenses at the beginning of the year. He’d been outside the cloakrooms just before they hooked up and overheard Scott speaking to someone on his mobile. Scott had said, according to him, ‘it’s going to be you and me, I promise, very soon. He won’t be around to interfere much longer. I’ll take care of it’. His tone of voice, said Cameron, had been spookily malicious. I’d shot up, shouted ‘objection’ at this point, because the witness had stated his opinion not a fact, but nevertheless, that’s what the jury heard, that’s what they took on board and that’s what counts. Anyway, when Scott later left his phone on the table, having been summoned to say an impromptu hello to a group of fans also dining in the restaurant, Cameron took the opportunity to check the call history. Apparently, the name of the last person Scott had been speaking to was Lizzy. Cameron, who’d heard through the grapevine that Scott and Elizabeth Simons (Rupert’s wife and Deputy Head at the network) had been having an affair, went to the police with his suspicions, that the two of them wanted Rupert dead. The police had later checked up on Scott’s mobile call log to confirm that he had, indeed, been talking to Elizabeth at the time.
My cross-examination, quite frankly, has been crap. It’s the end of the day and I’ve got nowhere. He’s coming across as well-spoken, affable and credible. The evidence against Scott Richardson is so weak that many cases wouldn’t even come to trial on the strength of it, but this buffoon has made it stand up, he’s winning the crowd. My client’s going to have to give an Oscar winning performance to get one over Cameron Matthews. The whole thing’s ridiculous. The Prosecution’s set to laugh all the way to victory. The jury seems engaged by the show, or at least by Cameron’s antics. Anthony appears bewildered. The only person in the courtroom giving nothing away is Mr. Justice Smiley and that’s because he’s close to nodding off. This is all Anthony’s fault. We’d discussed tactics. He’d felt Cameron would be more threatened by a woman than by a man, which is why he chose me to do the questioning. In hindsight, I reckon I’d been seen as a soft touch. Anthony would have had a much better edge. Damn him.
***
Anthony has a meeting to go to after court, so I head back to chambers alone. I bump into Maxwell Hood QC in Fleet Street, outside the Wig and Pen. I’m feeling glum and demoralized. It obviously shows.
“It can’t be that bad, Ms Kirk,” he says. “It can’t be that bad.”
I don’t usually let myself come across as defeated. If word seeps back to the opposition it doesn’t look good and believe you me, Barristers gossip with the best of them. This time, though, it’s got to me. I had such high hopes. This was going to be such a coup. I was going to bounce back from a shortened maternity leave because a gaggle of celebrities were clamouring for my services.
“It’s not good Maxwell.”
I’ve always reacted to fear of losing in the same way. The heart rate soars, the throat constricts to the size of a pea, the mouth dries, the hands go clammy. It feels like the pit of my stomach has pins and needles. The baby’s feeding off my adrenaline, more active than normal, more agitated than normal. There’s no space left to turn so it’s kicking out with its hands and feet.
“What’s happened?” he asks.
Where do I start?
“I did a lousy cross-examination of the chief witness. Anthony would have done a much better job.”
“Things are never as bad as you think they are Ali.”
I nod, but inwardly I’m thinking that this time they really are.
“Maybe,” I mumble.
Whilst it’s not raining now, it bucketed down this morning. The pavement’s strewn with a lily pad effect of small pools of water. Maxwell catches the corner of his black leather bag with a splash as he lays it down at his feet, clasps my two hands between his, smiling as he always does when he switches from boss to kindly mentor.
“You should know better, especially a woman in your condition,” he casts his gaze down to my bump then straight back up, “that it ain’t over till the fat lady sings. Where’s the old Ali Kirk fighting spirit gone, hey?”
I look him straight in the eye and nod. He’s right, I know he’s right. I just don’t know what else to do and we’ve near enough run out of time.
***
They had a Becky, a Candy and a Jodie. They even had an Ali, a casual, short number with a soft curl. It wasn’t what I wanted though, as I explained to the woman in the shop. I was after a wig. Not a Barrister’s wig, a fancy-dress one, a disguise. I can’t think of anything else. Somehow, as a last resort, I have to get into Cameron Matthew’s home. Perhaps there I’ll find the missing link, a key piece of information to get Scott Richardson off. It’s a high risk, highly unorthodox strategy. All evidence must be obtained lawfully. I can’t trespass my way into his flat. Hence the wig. Not that Cameron will definitely recognize me without my legal tresses, but should he do so, it will never work. He needs to be duped into letting me in. I told Neeta what I was going to do. She told me I was mad, could get struck off for pulling a stunt like this, that it wasn’t worth it, but I think it is. We won’t win otherwise. The Sugar was outrageous, a high fashion bob in luminous pink. I’d been tempted by Charley, a soft chin length style with a backward flick. In the end, however, Goldie was the most natural of the lot. A long layered look with choppy tapering in glazed Mocha.
I haven’t worked out a game plan yet. I’m planning to wing it. Seeing as it’s a Friday, seeing as he finished giving evidence yesterday, I’m counting on Cameron Matthews having taken the day off work, on being at home. If he’s not, quite frankly, we’re stuffed. I’d rung up Anthony first thing, begged him not to ask any questions, but could I have the morning off. He said no problem, which is not what he’d have said if I’d told him the truth. He’d have lectured me on professional ethics, dragged me kicking and screaming back to chambers. As it is, the Prosecution’s due to make its closing speech, so I won’t miss much, he can hold the fort. This afternoon though is another matter. It’s our turn to sum up. Our case must be stated, the jury convinced for once and for all that if there’s any element of doubt, they must return a verdict of not guilty. So it’s now or never that I need to find the missing link, that elusive piece of jigsaw.
The address is posh, but the road is a busy, noisy, congested thoroughfare just south of the river in Vauxhall. It’s a flagrant abuse of privileged information, my knowing where Cameron Matthews lives, but that need not be dwelled on as I climb up the dozen or so steps to 4B Acacia Road. What does hit home as I stop mid-flight for a breather, is that I’m eight months pregnant. Whilst I’ve dressed down in a pair of maternity jeans and baseball boots, the bump might well be my giveaway. If I’d thought of that last night when I dreamt up this idiot plan, I probably wouldn’t be here now. Seeing as I am, there’s no point turning back. I push the buzzer.
I decide on a persona as I wait. I can do a passable French accent. Perhaps I’m
newly arrived, just moved in a couple of doors down, wanted to introduce myself, in this scary big city where nobody speaks my language. Let’s just pray Cameron isn’t fluent.
There’s no answer.
I buzz again.
There’s still no answer.
There are several buttons, with a choice of the first five letters of the alphabet. I check my piece of paper, to make sure that it is indeed 4B. I ring again, third time lucky.
Silence.
I turn my back to the door, defeated. Cameron’s obviously not there. A greasy bloke leans out from the passenger window of a heavy goods vehicle, wolf whistles. I’m about to stick up a finger, shout ‘fuck off’, when a short, fat, old lady with a wizened face starts to climb the stairs. She doesn’t deserve to be sworn in front of.
“Excuse me,” I say, when she reaches the top. “I’m dying for the toilet and my friend’s not in. I don’t suppose you live here?”
This would have been an excellent ploy to gain access had Cameron been in, but it’s not actually a lie. At the moment I tend to get a desperate urge to pee every half an hour or so, what with increased baby pressure on a squashed, reduced bladder.