The Witness: A Novel

by Naomi Kryske

  “Jenny, I’m so sorry.”

  The ground beneath her feet seemed to be shaking. She wanted to run—somewhere, anywhere—but she was afraid that if she stood, she’d lose her balance. And her lunch. “How long have you known this?”

  “The window was discovered the day we found the crime scene.”

  September. Months and months ago. “Colin, I thought this next trial would be easier.” She shook her head bitterly. “That’s a contradiction, isn’t it? An easy ‘trial.’ How much time do I have to deal with this before the meeting with Mr. Personality?”

  He smiled at her ironic term for Halladay. “Three days.”

  She asked Casey for a Coke. When he stepped into the kitchen, Colin reached out to touch her hand. “Jenny, I wish I could give you more reassurance, but I’ve got to be a policeman today. You understand, I hope.” He called for Davies and Hunt to lock the door after him.

  When Casey returned with the Coke, she barely sipped it. She felt rooted to the spot, as if the information had paralyzed her, preventing any forward movement. Her relief at not having to testify against Stark was overshadowed by Colin’s revelations. Now she dreaded the Michalopolous trial. “That’s it,” she said. “I’ve had it. I’ve done enough. I quit.”

  “You can’t do that, Little Bit,” Hunt objected. “You have to come up to the plate again. Think of it as a sacrifice play, like you taught me in baseball. Not good for your stats but it helps someone else. Justice is a team sport.”

  “When I’m in the witness-box, I don’t feel like I’m on a team.”

  “Not on a team?” he thundered. “Open your eyes! Who the bloody hell do you think we are? And we’re just the team you can see. What about all the coppers who’ve investigated this case and the ones who’ve taken turns minding you?”

  “No, I won’t do it. I feel sick just thinking about it.”

  “Dinner soon, JJ,” Brian announced. “Something mild for you? Bit of potato?”

  Oh, that’ll really do it. Potato. “Their behavior was so obscene! It makes me feel dirty.”

  “No, JJ. It was their action. You had nothing to do with it.”

  Hunt’s face brightened, his anger defused. “Strip off, Little Bit! I’ll help you wash.”

  Even Hunt trying to help. Outrageous, inappropriate Hunt.

  Casey sat down next to her. Despite her outburst, he knew she’d not quit. “There’s something it might help you to know,” he said. “After the window was discovered—and forensic finished their tests—Sinclair broke it. He was so angered by its purpose that he put his fist through it. Andrews saw him, and I later treated the lacerations on his hand.”

  She looked up at him. “I remember—he had a bandage. The night I was moved from the first hospital to this flat.” She sipped a little of the Coke. “Those men were voyeurs, and the lawyers will be talking about it in court. How will I get through it?”

  “I’ll bandage your hand when the time comes,” he said. “As a reminder to be angry.”

  CHAPTER 25

  For the first time Sinclair was thankful for a workload so heavy that it required a Saturday appearance at the Yard. Several parcels were waiting for him in his office, all from Texas. Boxes for her arrived frequently, evidence of her conversations with her mother, but never had so many appeared at the same time. End-of-testimony felicitations? Congratulations on the sentences Judge Thomas had handed down? He didn’t think so—the timing wasn’t right for either of those events.

  He slit the cardboard and lifted the flaps. Whatever the boxes contained had been wrapped with brightly-coloured paper—damn, with birthday paper! He pulled her file from the cabinet and checked her date of birth: May 8. Jenny was twenty-four years old today. If this date had slipped by, he might have lost his campaign for her affections even before he’d truly begun it.

  It was too late for a carefully-selected gift. Too late for a traditional cake. He rang the flat and spoke to Davies. JJ wanted to learn how to cook fish, he reported, so Hunt had been sent out to buy salmon. Davies planned to teach her to season and serve it with a lemon butter sauce. They’d have asparagus and wild rice as well.

  “Excellent,” Sinclair said. “Set a place for me. It’s her birthday. I’ll provide everything else.”

  His paperwork postponed, he decided to call this birthday her international anniversary. He chose the most decorative cake he could find, rejecting the ones with glazed fruit on the top and ladyfingers and ribbons on the sides in favour of a three-layer chocolate cake. The rosette of chocolate icing on the top was so large that it covered the entire layer, and it had been dusted with confectioners sugar. After considerable shuffling from shop to shop, he arrived at the witness protection flat with his purchases.

  “Don’t sing,” she begged.

  “Don’t worry,” Hunt said.

  They ate first, enjoying the meal she had helped prepare and the chocolate extravaganza he had provided, then watched as she opened the gifts from her family. All clothes—including a pristine white sweater and a black silk jacket splashed with lavender and ivory flowers and a pink lining as soft as Jenny’s blush.

  Sinclair gestured to the arrangement on the dining room table. “English flowers.” He then presented her with French perfume, an Italian liqueur, and earrings with tiny German crystals suspended on gold threads. “All for an American, in Britain.” He uncorked the limoncello liqueur and poured a bit for each of them. “Good for your digestion,” he smiled.

  “I need an extra dose for the next time Little Bit cooks,” Hunt teased.

  His comment didn’t upset her. “I love everything,” she said, opening the Chanel fragrance and dabbing a little behind each ear. “Something to taste, something to smell, something to see—Colin, you have covered the territory.”

  The other men finished their limoncello and drifted away, Hunt to help Davies wash up and Casey to make himself a strong cup of coffee before the night watch.

  Sinclair had tested the perfume at Selfridge’s, but he found himself wishing he could determine how it smelled on her skin. He watched her sip the liqueur.

  “This is a new flavor for me,” she confessed. “Crème de menthe on ice cream is the sum total of my experience with liqueurs until tonight. Thanks for making me feel so grown up.”

  Her mobile phone rang before he could respond, but she didn’t hurry into the bedroom to answer it. “My family, I bet,” she said. “I’ll call them right back. Colin—I didn’t feel very festive, with the other trial coming up so soon. This was just right. Thanks so much.”

  He accepted a demure kiss. “I hope I’ll have a chance to do better next year.”

  “Next year? Alive at twenty-five will be good enough for me.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Colin didn’t expect Jenny’s testimony against Anthony Michalopolous to be protracted, so her protection detail planned to take her to the courthouse in the morning and return her the same day. She was concealed in a borrowed foodservice van and waited in a small conference room until her turn to testify.

  Colin was in the courtroom, but Judge Leyton would not allow her protection officers to be present. Stephen Eliott—not Q.C.—led the prosecution. Judge Leyton’s manner was brisk, and he did not allow Mr. Eliott to “dawdle,” as he put it, between her response and his next enquiry. The police had provided the most logical reconstruction of events they could, based on the evidence they had been able to collect, but she felt that every amorphous response she made diminished their efforts. When Mr. Eliott asked if she’d felt—at any time during Mr. Scott’s physical attack and rape—that anyone was watching her, she deeply regretted having to say no.

  After lunch the defence barrister rose. “Henry Whitaker, Your Honour,” he said. He looked placid enough to her, with his thin, pale cheeks and lips, but as his strategy unfolded, she realized that he was still capable of a robust cross-examination and the session with Mr. Halladay had prepared her only for what the prosecution would do. Various legal people bowed
and left the room and then bowed upon reentry, making it difficult for her to concentrate on his questions. At one point Mr. Eliott, at the prosecution table, took off his wig, rubbed his bald head, and replaced his wig. In another context it might have been funny, but Mr. Whitaker was engaged in an effort to knock her off her feet, legally speaking.

  He skipped over her identification of his client, evidently not intending to dispute the false imprisonment charge, and focused almost exclusively on the rape scenario described by the prosecution. She was frustrated by her inability to make a stronger statement and humiliated by the nature of the questions. From time to time she glanced down at the gauze Sergeant Casey had wrapped around her hand and felt a surge of resentment against a system that required witnesses, not defendants, to be subjected to examination and cross-examination.

  Finally Mr. Whitaker stopped and addressed Judge Leyton, requesting that the rape charges be set aside. “Another individual has already been convicted of this crime.”

  Mr. Eliott rose rapidly to object, but Judge Leyton ruled immediately. “Mr. Whitaker, your motion is premature. This case is closer to its inception than its conclusion.”

  Defending counsel used the rest of his questions to try to suggest that the protection the police had provided for her had biased her judgement against his client and rendered her entire testimony suspect. Finally he said he had no further questions for her and sat down.

  Colin turned her over to the protection team. Casey explained that they’d leave as soon as the decoy had exited the courthouse. Since someone could have been planted in the gallery to give the alert when she left the witness-box, they had planned a very visible departure—a small plainclothes policewoman with a large escort. They took Jenny out through the back door.

  CHAPTER 27

  The men were confident as they planned for her transport for the next trial, to be held at Middlesex Crown Court. She didn’t see the need for the continued protection. “This case is small potatoes compared to the others,” she said.

  “We follow through,” Casey answered. “Plan for the worst case. A different courthouse and different conditions mean a different risk, not no risk.”

  When guilty verdicts were given against Michalopolous, the Bates trial really seemed anticlimactic to her. Again the men took her to the courthouse early in the morning, grumbling over the delays on the crowded streets and vigilant when they pulled up to the rear entrance. She left her jacket in the conference room when she was called into court, stepping into the witness-box in a simple long-sleeved white blouse and dark slacks. Not every seat was filled in this court, either with legal personnel or curious onlookers. The barristers were younger than any of her previous questioners, and one had long sideburns that sharply illustrated the contrast between the traditional wig and contemporary hair styles.

  The barrister for the prosecution, Eric Foxcroft, asked her to identify the defendant, Marcus Alvin Bates, as the man who had claimed to be a psychiatrist and attacked her in hospital. He consulted his notes and added the date of the attack. As his examination of her progressed, it became evident that he hadn’t the attention to detail as the solicitor who had instructed her. Several times the judge, William Rye, asked him to rephrase, stating that if the question were unclear to him, he was certain that it was unclear for the witness. Since Foxcroft did not always have his next question prepared, the judge had to prompt him from time to time. Defending counsel were silent, making no objections of any kind.

  She hadn’t been in the witness-box very long when a security officer entered the courtroom and interrupted the proceedings with the announcement that a bomb threat had been made. He requested that all present leave the courthouse in a calm and orderly manner until the matter had been resolved.

  Casey and the others were not in the courtroom, so Colin came forward to escort her. The nail bomber had been arrested, but they were taking the threat very seriously. In the corridor, however, Casey intercepted her and turned away from the entrance, leading Jenny and the team to the conference room they had occupied prior to her testimony. Sinclair followed him, frowning but not speaking until they were inside. “Casey, what the bloody hell! The order is to evacuate!”

  “Sir, with respect, it’s a ruse,” Casey replied.

  Brian had remained outside the door, but Hunt’s full attention was on the altercation between Sinclair and Casey.

  Casey ticked off the reasons. “One, the threat came after she entered the witness-box. Two, evacuation would make her an easy target for a sniper. Three, it’s unlikely any explosive has been planted in the building. Have the bomb squad search Rye’s court and the conference rooms first.”

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  Sinclair took the stairs down instead of the lift, hoping to intercept the bomb squad upon their arrival. The uniformed officers on site had directed the occupants of the courthouse away from the building and into the grassy area in the centre of Parliament Square. They were restricting traffic around the building also, a daunting feat in this popular tourist site. He heard screams and saw persons scattering toward the trees. Sniper attack. A silenced weapon. There were not enough trees to shield all of them. He ran toward a PC kneeling next to a prone figure. A dark-haired woman in a white blouse had been hit. No one else was down. People were huddled together, all their festive, nonchalant attitudes gone. The officer was giving first aid.

  “We’ve got it covered, sir,” Sinclair was told. “Ambulance and backup on the way.” He scanned the buildings around the square but could see no sign of a shooter or a weapon. He saw the bomb squad van disgorge its personnel, their dark blue uniforms appropriate, because if Casey were wrong, it would be a very dark day indeed.

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

  It was quiet in the conference room. The corridors which had been crowded when Jenny had been called to testify were now deserted. She had never experienced a bomb threat, and she paced back and forth, wanting to run but not knowing where safety lay. When they heard a loud crash not too far away, Hunt shoved her roughly to the floor behind him. He drew his weapon and sighted on the conference room door. “Stay down,” he hissed. She had already been on edge, and she was shocked by the suddenness of Hunt’s move.

  Casey’s pistol was drawn also. “Under the table with you.”

  She scooted across the rug. The table cast a shadow over her, but she was sure her white blouse stood out against the dark carpet.

  The door swung open, and Brian reported, “Stand down. The bomb squad made the racket.”

  Casey replaced his weapon, and Hunt relaxed his stance. She crawled out from under the table but stayed on the floor. “What’s happening? Where’s Colin?”

  “Probably playing detective,” Hunt snapped.

  When Sinclair returned, he had two members of the bomb squad with him. They had brought their dog, and even Jenny’s fear didn’t keep her from noticing how cute he looked in his official yellow coat. They worked quickly and moved on.

  Sinclair summoned Casey outside. “Sniper. Only one casualty—a young woman dressed like Jenny. No fatalities. The unoccupied building northeast of the square is the most likely site.”

  “He’s not ex-service, then,” Casey concluded. “At that range, we’d not have missed.”

  Sinclair opened his mouth to argue then reconsidered. Casey’s assessment was correct. The sniper had shot to kill. He had not been successful. The victim was on her way to St. Thomas’s. They went into the conference room. “You’re safe here, Jen. There are coppers all about.”

  “What’s going on? Did they find something? Please tell me it’s all over!”

  “Not yet. A shot was fired in the square. We’re looking for the shooter.”

  She paled, thinking of Danny and the last time shots had been fired near a courthouse.

  He brought sandwiches and sodas on his next visit. “The courthouse is clear. All the appropriate buildings are being searched.”
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  “Will the trial resume?” Casey asked Sinclair.

  “Yes. At this point people are safer inside the courthouse than out of it. Judge Rye has located the principals, and the jury was kept together, so after everyone’s had a chance to eat, Jenny will have to return to the box.”

  “No,” she begged. “I’m scared! I don’t want to go in there without Sergeant Casey and Brian. If you’re searching buildings, then the shooter’s still out there somewhere. I want some guns on my side.”

  “Jenny, it’s more likely he’s gone. The Westminster tube station is close by.”

  “Colin, please!”

  He looked at her pale face and rumpled clothing. “Casey, you and Hunt stand on the back wall. We’ll station Davies outside. If the judge objects, I’ll tell him it’s standard operating procedure following a bomb threat.”

  When she returned to the courtroom, Judge Rye thanked the officers for their presence. “We’re all a bit more reassured, aren’t we?”

  The young barrister for the prosecution completed his examination.

  Then the counsel for the defence, Clive Tillotson, began. He also received gentle guidance from the judge, and she was glad that the barrister’s somewhat tentative style allowed her more time to respond. Sergeant Casey was wearing his fierce look, and even Hunt looked a little menacing, but she still felt unnerved. It was sobering to realize that lives were still affected and the decisions made in this court just as binding, regardless of the quality of legal representation and the events that had nearly derailed them.

  When Tillotson finally bowed to the judge and sat down, the prosecutor stood. “Your Honour, may I request a short recess? I would like to reexamine this witness, but she is clearly still shaken by the events of the day.”

  The judge agreed to a thirty-minute recess, and Colin led her to the corridor outside. She was surprised when her protection detail headed for the rear of the building. They were in the van and pulling away before Casey told her that the prosecutor had no intention of recalling her. Their departure had been rescheduled to take advantage of the heavy police presence in the area and to give them a head start on anyone who wished to follow them and do her harm. As further opdec, Sinclair had returned to his seat in the courtroom as if expecting her to reappear. A decoy had been previously arranged, but when Jenny and the team arrived at the witness protection flat without incident, Casey rang Sinclair to tell him it was not necessary.