Final Witness

by Simon Tolkien

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that you’ve been prepared to tell this jury something today that you weren’t prepared to tell Sir Peter Robinson nine months ago.”

  “I was scared nine months ago. He was really upset. I thought he was going to hit Tom. He’d done it before.”

  “You said earlier that you weren’t surprised he was upset, Matthew?”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Because you’d gone into his house without his permission and been through private files and papers?”

  “I didn’t. Tom did.”

  “He went through all Greta’s clothes too, didn’t he? You were watching from the bedroom doorway, I think you said.”

  “Yes. I wanted to go.”

  “Did he go through her underwear, Matthew?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “I see. It wasn’t the first time you and Thomas Robinson had done something like this, was it, Matthew?”

  “I’d never been there before. I swear it.”

  “That’s not what I mean, Matthew, and you know it isn’t. It wasn’t just your day out in London that made you think you might be expelled, was it? You were both already in trouble at Carstow. Isn’t that right, Matthew?”

  The boy’s pale blue eyes remained fixed on Miles Lambert, but he didn’t reply. The movement of his Adam’s apple as he repeatedly swallowed showed the extent of his anxiety.

  “All right, Matthew, let me help you. You’ve already told us that Thomas Robinson and you started at Carstow at the same time in September of last year, when you were both fifteen. Yes?”

  Matthew Barne nodded.

  “And everyone else in your class had already been there two years so that you and Thomas were like outsiders. Was that difficult, Matthew?”

  “A bit.”

  “Did the other boys let you join in with their activities?”

  “Not at first. No.”

  “No. They said you had to prove yourselves first, earn their respect. Isn’t that right, Matthew?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Do a dare. Is that the right word for it?”

  The boy nodded.

  “What was the dare, Matthew?”

  “Going into the headmaster’s room and taking something. Showing it to the rest of them and putting it back.”

  “And that something was a paperweight, wasn’t it, Matthew? Quite a distinctive one.”

  “Don’t answer that for the moment, Matthew,” interrupted the judge. “What is your source of information for all this, Mr. Lambert?”

  “A letter sent by the headmaster to Thomas Robinson’s father after the event, my Lord. I can prove the evidence later if the witness disagrees with it.”

  “What’s its relevance?”

  “It’s relevant to the witness’s credibility, my Lord.”

  “Very well, but let’s not stray too far, Mr. Lambert, and please make sure that you remember the witness’s age. I will not allow him to be bullied.”

  “That is not my intention, my Lord.”

  “All right, but keep it in mind. Don’t get carried away. Now Matthew, Mr. Lambert was asking you about a paperweight.”

  “Yes, it was a paperweight,” said the boy.

  “Did you take it, Matthew?” asked Miles.

  “No, I didn’t. Tom did.”

  “I see. The same setup as in London. What did you do?”

  “I stood outside while he went in, and then the headmaster’s secretary came by and asked me what I was doing.”

  “That would be Mrs. Bradshaw?”

  Matthew nodded. He’d stopped swallowing and started to speak quickly again as if he wanted to make a clean breast of what had happened and get it over with as fast as possible.

  “She wanted to know what I was doing, and I told her I was waiting to see Old Lofty.”

  “Who’s Old Lofty?”

  “Sorry. The headmaster. It’s just a nickname.”

  “His real name is Mr. Lofthouse. Is that right?”

  “Yes. And he’s tall too so…” Matthew laughed nervously without finishing his sentence.

  “You were lying when you told Mrs. Bradshaw that you were waiting to see the headmaster. You accept that, don’t you?”

  The boy nodded.

  “That’s a yes, is it, Matthew? For the record. The tape won’t pick it up if you just nod.”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you. Now what did Mrs. Bradshaw do when you told her this lie?”

  “She didn’t believe me. I don’t know why.”

  “Perhaps because you’re not a good liar, Matthew.”

  “Mr. Lambert,” said the judge crossly. “I’ve warned you about this. Let the witness say what happened without interrupting him. Go on, Matthew. Tell us what Mrs. Bradshaw did.”

  “She went in the study and found Tom in there and then she called the headmaster and he made us empty our pockets and that’s when he found the paperweight. Tom had it in his pocket.”

  “He’d stolen it. Yes?” asked Miles.

  “We were going to put it back afterward. I already told you that,” replied Matthew defensively. “Lofty believed us. That’s why he only wrote to our parents and didn’t expel us or do anything like that. He was quite decent, really.”

  “Yes, he certainly was,” said Miles. “Now, I’ve only got a few more questions, Matthew, and the first one is this: have you talked to Thomas Robinson about your evidence?”

  “We’ve talked about the case at school. Everyone has.”

  “Have you talked about what everyone said in the drawing room? Greta and Thomas and Sir Peter?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Word for word.”

  “Not word for word. No.”

  “What about what you say Greta said: ‘Give that to me. It’s mine.’ Have you talked about that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Maybe,” repeated Miles musingly, and then he suddenly opened up at Matthew Barne with all guns blazing. “Not maybe, Matthew. Definitely. Greta never said that. Thomas Robinson has told you to give that evidence, and you’ve done so even though you know it’s untrue. You’re lying, Matthew. That’s what I’m putting to you. You’re lying to this jury.”

  “No, I’m not. I swear I’m not,” stammered Matthew with tears in his eyes, but Miles Lambert had already sat down with a satisfied look on his red face.

  Chapter 19

  Police Constable Hughes arrived in court in full uniform other than his police cap, which he held in his hands while he gave evidence, periodically turning it over as if inspiration might be waiting for him under its brim.

  John Sparling had very little to ask, and it was soon his opponent’s turn. Miles Lambert tried to set the Carmouth policeman at ease with an anodyne first question: “Am I right in saying that you were the first officer to arrive at the House of the Four Winds on July fifth?”

  “Yes, sir. There was an emergency call from the occupant, Thomas Robinson. Police Constable Jones and I attended in response. We were the nearest mobile unit at the time.”

  “Do you have a note of the time of the emergency call?”

  “Yes. It’s down on the computer printout as being received at seven-oh-six P.M.”

  “Thank you. Now, which of you was driving?”

  “I was.”

  “It was a marked police car?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you have your siren turned on?”

  “Yes, sir. We were responding to an emergency call.”

  “I understand. Where did you park?”

  “Initially outside the front gate, sir. It was locked and so I got out and pressed the buzzer on the wall. Thomas Robinson answered and I identified myself as a police officer. He then buzzed the gate open. It works by remote control.”

  “What did Thomas say when he answered?”

  “He just asked who I was. That’s all, sir. Then he opened the gates.”

  “Without saying a
nything else?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Now, Officer, could you see the front door of the house when you were outside the gate?”

  “No, sir. I was able to see it once I drove in and parked the car but not before.”

  “Was the front door of the house open or closed when you first saw it?”

  “It was open. Thomas Robinson was at the top of the steps about four or five yards from the door when I first saw him. There are six quite distinctive trees in front of the house, and he was standing between the first two of them. He seemed quite distressed, sir.”

  “Was he crying?”

  “No. He was agitated though.”

  “What was said?”

  “Officer Jones and I got out of our car, and I asked him what had happened.”

  “How did Thomas respond to your question?”

  “He told us that two men had entered the house through the front door and that he recognized one of them from the night of his mother’s murder. He said that he had seen them approach the house from the direction of a lane, which he pointed to. It was across a wide lawn on the north side of the house.”

  “Yes, you will see that the lane and the house are shown on the plan that the usher is placing in front of you.”

  “Yes, sir. Thomas said that the intruders had left by the front door moments before.”

  “What did you do when you had obtained this information, Officer?”

  “I left Officer Jones with Thomas and drove round into the lane. I went up as far as the door in the north wall of the grounds, but there was no sign of the intruders.”

  “Did you try the door?”

  “Yes. It was locked, sir.”

  “Did you see any footprints?”

  “No. It had not been raining, and I would not have expected to find any footprints at this time of year.”

  “Did you see any other sign of intruders?”

  “No, but I didn’t make any close examination of the area, sir. I left that for the crime-scene officer. Detective Constable Butler arrived about one hour after Officer Jones and myself.”

  “I see. What did you do after you checked the door in the lane?”

  “I returned to Officer Jones. He had gone back inside the house and Thomas Robinson was showing him an old black bench in the hall where he said he had hidden from the intruders.”

  “You also located the key to the front door, did you not?”

  “Yes, sir. Thomas showed it to me.”

  “You asked him about it?”

  “Yes. It was hanging on a nail in the hall. Thomas said that the intruders had opened the door using a key and that they had run out the same way when they heard our siren.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hughes. I’ve got nothing else.”

  “Any reexamination, Mr. Sparling?” asked the judge.

  “Just one question, my Lord. Officer, you’ve said that you parked outside the front gate. Could you see the exit from the lane from where you were?”

  “No, sir. The gate is set back from the road a little way, and there’s a row of trees between the wall and the curb. We wouldn’t have had a view from where we were parked, sir.”

  “Thank you, Officer. That’s all.”

  Police Constable Hughes put on his cap and headed for the door on his way back to Carmouth and obscurity.

  The day wore on. At one o’clock everyone broke for lunch. John Sparling wasn’t hungry but made a concession to the time of day by picking at a green salad, which he washed down with a glass of mineral water in the barristers’ canteen upstairs.

  Miles Lambert, however, took his bulk round the corner to a little Italian restaurant where Dino kept him a table in the corner. A glass of thick red wine and a plate of Dino’s mother’s special lasagna fortified him for the afternoon. Afterward he ordered himself a cup of sweet Turkish coffee and sat back in his chair wearing an expression of heavy contentment.

  Miles felt well pleased with how the trial had gone so far. The prosecution’s case was not standing up to cross-examination, and he could hardly wait to get at their main witness. It was obvious that Thomas had gotten the old housekeeper and his schoolfriend to back up his story. And he’d also made up the Lonny and Rosie characters, for whom there was not a shred of evidence outside of his statement.

  Miles knew that he could rely on his client to put on an Oscar-winning performance in the witness box when her turn came. Every day he grew more confident of an acquittal, and he felt sure that that would be the right verdict in this case. Miles had decided long before the trial began that Lady Greta was the most beautiful client he had ever had. Now, having seen Sparling’s witnesses, he had no doubt of her innocence.

  Detective Sergeant Hearns had, of course, precisely the opposite view of the defendant, and he ruminated on her guilt in the police room as he chewed the big cheese-and-pickle sandwiches that he had brought down with him from Ipswich.

  At two o’clock he fastened his double-breasted jacket over a pickle stain in the center of his polyester shirt and went down to court to begin giving his evidence. It was a hot day and the jurors were sleepy. Sparling asked questions to which they felt they already knew the answers. It was only when Miles Lambert got to his feet and asked for them to be sent out of court that they really started paying attention.

  “Will this take long, Mr. Lambert?” asked the judge.

  “No, my Lord. Not long.”

  The jury filed out looking perplexed, and Miles waited to speak until the door had finally closed behind them.

  “It’s about my client’s character, my Lord,” said Miles. “You will see that she has one minor indiscretion recorded against her from nearly eleven years ago but nothing since.”

  “A conviction, Mr. Lambert. Not an indiscretion.”

  “Yes, my Lord, but it is only for possession of a very small amount of drugs.”

  “Cocaine, Mr. Lambert. A class-A drug.”

  “Yes, my Lord, but she was a juvenile at the time.”

  “What’s your application?”

  “For my client to be treated as a lady of good character. The conviction is old and not serious in nature.”

  “What do you say, Mr. Sparling?”

  “I’d say that possession of cocaine is not minor, my Lord. Mr. Lambert does not need to raise the issue of his client’s character, but if he does so, the jury should know all about her. Of course your Lordship has discretion.”

  “Yes, I do, and I shall exercise it in favor of the defendant on this occasion. The conviction is indeed old and it is not for violence or dishonesty. Lady Greta may be presented as a lady of good character, Mr. Lambert.”

  “Thank you, my Lord.”

  “Sergeant Hearns, I want to ask you about a conversation you had with my client outside the House of the Four Winds,” said Miles once the jury was back in place.

  “I’ve only ever had one conversation with her there, sir, and that was when Sir Peter drove down with her after I told him about the murder.”

  “That’s the one. Now you’d already spoken to Thomas Robinson.”

  “No, sir, I hadn’t. He was too upset. I spoke to Christopher Marsh, who spoke to Thomas. I did that because I needed to know where the perpetrators had gone in the house. And the grounds, sir,” the policeman added as if it were an afterthought.

  Sergeant Hearns’s lugubrious smile was set in place above the big tie and the bulging stomach. He was clearly determined not to let the lawyer set the pace of their exchanges.

  “All right, you’d spoken to Christopher Marsh and you had discovered that Thomas had found the study window open on his return to the House of the Four Winds.”

  “At about half past eight. Yes, sir.”

  “Now, you asked my client about whether she was responsible for leaving the window open, did you not, Sergeant?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No?”

  “No, I asked Sir Peter. He said that he had not been in the study, and then Sir Peter ask
ed your client and she said that she may have left the window open.”

  “She didn’t refuse to answer, did she, Sergeant Hearns? She didn’t say Thomas was lying. She freely admitted leaving the window open.”

  “She said she didn’t know but she may have done. She looked anxious at the time, sir. Very anxious.”

  “Like Sir Peter?”

  “No, he looked more determined than anxious. Your client had gone on ahead of us, sir.”

  “Perhaps she was anxious to see Thomas?”

  “Perhaps, sir.”

  “Did she not also say that she’d left the window open because it was a warm evening?”

  “Yes, she did say that, sir.”

  “Now, you didn’t arrest her that night, did you, Sergeant, even though you knew she’d left the window open?”

  “No, I did not, sir. I arrested your client after I had taken statements from Thomas Robinson and Jane Martin. It was only then that she became a suspect.”

  “You took the statements on Saturday, the fifth of June. Five days after the murder. Is that right?”

  “Yes, sir. That was the first occasion that Thomas felt able to talk to me about what had happened.”

  “And you arrested Greta Grahame, as she then was, the next day. The Sunday. The day of the funeral?”

  “Yes, sir. In the morning. We went to her apartment in Chelsea at seven twenty-five A.M.”

  “And you searched the premises.”

  “Yes, we had a warrant.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Did you find anything?”

  “Nothing relevant to the allegation. No, sir.”

  “Then you took Miss Grahame to Ipswich and interviewed her.”

  “Yes. She denied the allegation.”

  “And then you released her without charge, didn’t you?”

  “She was bailed to return. Pending advice from the Crown Prosecution Service.”

  “And they advised that she should not be charged because there was no realistic prospect of conviction. Isn’t that right, Sergeant Hearns?”

  “They advised that she should not be charged, sir.”

  “Yes. No charge even though you had the window that she’d admitted leaving open and the unlocked north gate. You had the arrangement for Thomas to go to the Balls and his identification of the man outside my client’s apartment with the killer. You had all that and the statement of Jane Martin, but you still didn’t have enough to charge. Because it didn’t amount to anything very much. Isn’t that right, Sergeant?”