‘I saw her then, and no one knew, after he’d been booked and they’d had her in the first time. I’d go to her late, the back way. She was sort of resigned, you know, not giving up, not hopeful. It was odd the way she didn’t seem to care. I knew what she’d promised Dad, and they’ve even got most of the half she paid him. It’s not fair, they should pay it back, he earned it. Why should it matter how he earned it? I said I was sorry. I was embarrassed: She said, “Don’t be, I did what I wanted, don’t mind me. Try and stop your father if you can,” was what she told me to do, but if I couldn’t, which I can’t, not to worry, just play a joke on a man called Bernard, put this glove outside his house, and she’d think of something to look after herself. Bloody worth it for her, she said: life didn’t matter, but she told me she wanted me to do all the things she’d never done, and she’d give me money …’
Ed faded into silence, swallowed bitter saliva, summoning strength for the worst which was yet to come, remembering the mesmerising face in the firelight, fanning the flames of his own ambition with her hot hatred, making him shiver with a strange heat, the thought of her, the only one who began to know him. In the same moment, he was aware of the utter futility of telling Pete. Poor Pete, who was stranger to all her lessons of trusting no one, telling no one. Poor Pete, but it was too late: he had begun, could not stop himself from slithering further.
‘She said, she said to me, “Your Dad will probably have me, but not you, and you can have what he won’t get.” The other money, was what she meant. You know, what Dad was supposed to have got after he done the job.’
Peter did not know, but he was sitting up now, arms around knees, eyes on Ed’s face, his own face as pale as death in the light through the thin curtains.
‘“Money,” she said. “Your Dad’s share first, and more.” But first you see, I had to prove I was worth it, worth the effort of being given a chance, by showing that there was nothing I wouldn’t do. A proper test, she said, and she told me how, and told me who, just before they arrested her the second time. Ain’t seen her since. “No need to kill her,” she said, “not unless you need to. But you have to hurt her, hurt her so it shows. You have to take a risk. You have to show me,” she said very loud again, “that you can do anything. Or what,” she said, “have I ever achieved?”’
Peter shook his head, mouthing confusion. Ed was unconcerned. He could not go back for explanations of what was so entirely obvious to himself, and it was only for himself he was talking at all.
‘“They’ll put me up for trial, I know they will,” she told me. “They’re only waiting, and at the end of it, I’ll get the money to you, once you’ve done as I said, and I know that you have.” I pretended to laugh. “Ahh,” I said, “but I’ve learned from you, it was you warned me not to trust anyone, so how would I know you would pay when you can’t do nothing in prison?” “Oh, yes you can,” she said, “that’s what lawyers are for, and I’ll know you’ve done it. You just be sure you understand. No job, no money, just like your father.” Then she showed me her safe, gave me some things, and said, “Goodbye, Ed. You are like the son I never had, a real man, you’ll do well,” but it wasn’t soapy, or crying, just saying it, telling me. “You can prove you can do anything, then go on and be the best, and this’ll have started you on the right track. You’ll win, Edward, as long as you never get a conscience, and you haven’t much of one now. If you do like we’ve discussed, I shall know I helped to train you.” “Is that all you want?” I asked her. She said, “Yes, and that’s enough for someone who’s wasted their life trying to be good. Plenty enough, raising a bad one who wins. You can have all my revenge for me. I’ll know I’ve made them pay … the bitches, all of them!” I wasn’t sure what she meant … What do you think she meant, Pete?’
‘Mad.’ Peter forced out one, hoarse word, then a grimace or two, followed by phrases difficult to decipher.
‘Don’t Ed, please … Help Dad … Don’t Ed, please …’ and the slurring of the wandering words, the concentration Ed needed to translate, brought an end to his catharsis. He fell back against his pillows exhausted.
‘I don’t know if she’ll do it,’ he muttered for his own benefit.
‘Do … what?’
‘Pay me.’
‘Good.’
He was outraged.
‘What do you mean, good? Five thousand pounds for the asking, and you say, Good, if I lose it?’
But the boy was crying. ‘Not true, Ed,’ he blubbed. ‘Not true, not true, Ed’s silly,’ speaking like a backward child, until Ed, purged of his own knowledge, felt the familiar, restless return of the old intense irritation. With it, as he lit another cigarette, a guilty relief in the realisation that Pete had not begun to comprehend what it was he had been saying. Thank God for Pete being so simple: the tale had been beyond him after all.
‘All right, all right, not true, made it up, a story, to make you talk to me,’ he soothed, giggling at Peter’s face.
‘Not true, Ed … You couldn’t make Dad … do that …’
‘No, no, no. It’s OK, I didn’t. Only a story. But don’t tell.’
‘Oh, no. Not ever. For always.’ Promises of sheer relief.
‘All right. That’s right. Tomorrow we’ll go to the shops. I made it all up. Only a story. Go to sleep. Nothing. Only a story. Go to sleep, Pete, good boy.’
The crying had stopped.
CHAPTER NINE
Ryan was the carrier of bags, again, and it seemed to him that in the months since they were first assembled, they had reproduced themselves into twice their own size, a pregnant volume. Depositions tied and indexed running away to four hundred pages, copy exhibits, three bundles, none of them light, all those as well as sets of photographs for the jury, six copies each, what a mess, and he’d probably done them wrong. Three sets for the defence, three for the other side, one for the judge, one for the witness-box. Why hadn’t they decided to distribute them free to the public gallery, hand-outs to the crowd like give-away magazines at Tube stations? Ryan was not objecting to his lot in life as he loaded the car and flexed his arms. ‘Mustn’t grumble,’ he’d been advised early on, and copied his father now only because it was too warm a day for any other sentiments. No chance of parking inside the Temple, and Mr Carey’s room was up three flights of stairs, full of uncomfortable chairs when you reached it. Even if he secured a seat by the window, and watched the river gleaming, imagining himself outside with Annie, time could not pass soon enough. Already he was missing a chance of seeing her and two hours hence he would have to turn home-wards to a houseful of relatives, not a prospect designed to improve his mood. The wife was suspicious, putting strictures on his time, school holidays giving ample excuses for expecting him sooner rather than later. Perhaps the conference was not such a bad way of hiding when he came to think of it, better than being in the dock at home or fending Annie’s increasing questions. Cross-examined by two at once with answers for neither. Bitter, even on a day as glorious as this.
Bailey, launched on another murder enquiry, albeit as short-lived as the life involved and needing little detection, arrived at the conference from a different direction, leaving his sergeant with all the weight, for which he had the grace to apologise as Ryan remembered, slotting his car into a semi-legal space on the Embankment. Stepping from the Tube station, Ryan saw Miss West as heavily laden and unaided, and that cheered him. Nice, Miss West, nicer as she put down her bags and waved at him, all the better for carrying her own kit. The guvnor was sweet on her; you could tell, he was sort of over-respectful, suddenly pausing at the mention of her name in the last week. Ryan smiled to himself: he wasn’t the only one with a weakness and the knowledge of Bailey’s raised him in his estimation. Wonder if they did …? No, they wouldn’t: they’d just talk about it. Not like Annie. There was no one like Annie.
Carey, wearing his size well, laconic, expansively good humoured, less condescension than usual to the group which had somehow welded itself into a team, seated them
less tidily than a tea party, and as Ryan noticed, provided tea, or rather his clerk provided tea. Conferences with counsel, always scheduled for four-thirty after court, inevitably beginning later, when the Temple became alive with scurrying gowns and the buzz of voices in summer from open windows: footsteps through cool archways into hot paving stones, black, ant-like traffic past the Fountain, through Pump Court, skirting Temple Church, and on to the fine façade of King’s Bench Walk, Paper Buildings, Hare Court, old descriptions on walls, a warren of tiny streets and courtyards hidden from the world, enclosed at night. Inner Temple, Middle Temple, retreat and centre of the Criminal Bar, a thousand barristers’ syndicates where privilege jostled along-side struggling rank and file, a crowd of discreet fighting sparrows clinging to an overcrowded tree in cramped but tasteful chambers. Mr Carey, Queen’s Counsel, had ceased to cling, if not to crow: there was no need, but he would never cease to work like a well trained hound.
The Chambers clerk treated Helen and all solicitors who provided work, and thus his commission, with sedulous courtesy. Nice day, Miss West, how nice to see you: Uriah Heep incarnate, better dressed. She could feel the smile as she saw Geoffrey; Ryan saw it too; harassed junior counsel, late from Acton Crown Court, missed it; and Carey was indifferent, anxious to begin, but not to end.
Case conferences, the bane of life, accelerating in number as a major trial drew close, a few weeks to D-day, and the team in harness to ensure nothing had been left out, to see Carey QC was as fully equipped as possible, the prosecution machine well oiled in the best sense, and the truth dressed in her best clothes. Sorting out distortions and clangers which tended to linger through innumerable revisions and ruin the whole aspect. How to use the order of witnesses for the maximum impact, which witnesses were unpredictable, how much should a jury be asked to take for granted, methods of avoiding confusion or over-simplicity. Had they crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s? Each had a contribution; some needed to speak more than others, and it was mandatory that Carey QC should speak most of all.
As Helen had promised, he was thorough. Not exactly pleasant, but efficient. An hour passed deciding which witnesses, although there were less of these than there might have been since no one denied the death or the perpetrator of it, half the evidence to be read to the jury like a complex story with slides, omitting the nastier pictures. ‘Photos of the inside of Mrs Cartwright’s place – can they be colour?’ Peering at the black and white version. ‘Christ, what a gloomy room: like a funeral parlour,’ his remark a lighter moment for brief laughter, but not enough to hinder progress, and so it went on.
‘How much proof should we adduce of Mrs C’s obsession with Bernard?’ Carey had asked, genuinely fishing for ideas. ‘All of it,’ said Helen. Including the neighbour who had seen her sitting outside the house; the waiter who saw her outside restaurants waiting for a glimpse of the beloved; the receptionist at Bernard’s office, who knew just how often she had called, left notes, waited in vain, but hadn’t liked to say; the incomplete, embarrassingly passionate letters found in her house, but never sent; all the photographs taken by the first detective, stored and labelled, Michael and his wife, from every angle. Poor Bernard, he hadn’t known the half of it, hadn’t known the fire he handled, still didn’t know. Should he remain in ignorance? Yes, he should, let him appear as disingenuous as he could, don’t frighten him more.
Carey had paused. ‘Any more on the green glove, Mr Bailey? Miss West told me,’ he looked at her large sheets of instructions, ‘you were concerned about it. Thought our friend had acquired a practical joker, perhaps a revengeful Jaskowski? You had them watched, I believe? I must confess, I applaud your caution, but I don’t quite follow your reasoning.’
‘Not so much caution; precaution, I think,’ said Bailey. ‘DC Ryan did the watching.’
All eyes on Ryan.
‘That’s right, sir.’ He swallowed. ‘But nothing odd, sir, absolutely nothing. All very quiet, all the time I’ve been observing.’
‘How often, Mr Ryan?’
‘Oh, three nights a week, over five weeks.’
‘How tedious for you, Mr Ryan …’
Another passage of polite sympathetic smiles from counsel for the worker, poor victim of an over-fussy government. Ryan gripped his pen, and made a scribble on the corner of his paper. Bailey shifted, watched, and shifted again, brittle with a sudden suspicion, almost dismissed at the sight of Ryan’s sturdy, conscientious face with its hidden expression. Surely not; even though Ryan would always have been the first to join in with a joke at Sir’s expense, and he was not smiling now. Bailey had not asked him for written reports as proof of duty; he trusted the man, but nothing to report? No household, not even solid households, remained as lifeless or free of normal movement. Bailey volunteered no more and the conference moved on.
And on, until at last before the thirsty meeting shuffled once more in surreptitious consulting of its watches, there came the chapter of inspired guesswork on the tactic of the defence. By and large, they were pleased with progress, could afford to indulge themselves with ideas. What if … what if …? If Jaskowski came up to proof, like a good wine matured, if he kept his promise to tell the truth, and did not fade away, scream, cry, deny, retreat in the face of ruthless questions; did not explode on being called a liar so often. They had to rely on him for an Oscar performance of memory, but after Jaskowski, and his dreadful damnation what would the defence say? Would she more wisely concede the sad devotion to the wicked married man, admit its madness and shameful purity, confess the employing of Jaskowski to follow the beloved, but add that she never intended more; while he deliberately exceeded all his relatively innocent instructions, chancing his arm on reward or blackmail for a killing she could never have ordered or devised? Most likely of defences, more plausible to admit one madness, but point to Stanislaus as the maddest, bent on a murderous frolic of his own, tempted by nothing more specific than the prospect of riches from her hands, or Bernard’s? Not more than that, no real joint enterprise.
‘I just don’t see how she can defend it at all,’ Ryan announced, firm in his optimism and aware that his opinion had never been asked.
‘We’re relying on the evidence of a convicted murderer, don’t forget,’ said Carey drily, wanting no one to downgrade the nature of his task, ‘so it’s certainly worth a try. And Mr Quinn, QC, is not without certain skills.’ The last was snapped, before the wide mouth closed into a narrow line. No love lost there, Helen guessed. Silks so aptly named, prima donnas of the Bar, ruffling their feathers towards one another before judge and jury, settling old scores with new virtuoso displays: better that way. Greeting as friends, each feeling his weapons, sizing the other for strength, pretending the last crossing of paths was forgotten, although Carey for one, never had, remembered every triumph or disaster with a perfect recall for humiliation. Last time with Quinn, Carey had been defending, and Quinn, little whipper-snapper, ten years younger, two stones slimmer, had won.
He opened the straight line mouth. ‘Another conference in three weeks, if you please. Miss West, you’ll arrange it with my clerk?’
His Cheshire-cat grin appeared, a sign of approval of Helen West. A good instructing solicitor, collating, organising, tolerating anything but nonsense, she was a lynchpin of the case, and he could not resist the hope that Quinn was less well equipped. As she left the room, he felt lonely.
‘I wonder,’ he said to his junior as the door closed behind the last of his departing troops, ‘what they can say, Clive? What might they have we don’t know? It worries me.’
Clive Barrow was rearranging his papers, appreciated a cry for reassurance and able to provide it.
‘Oddly enough, I doubt they’ve been able to arrange much yet. You know Quinn’s been in Hong Kong, only returned last week, I understand. Saw the client once before he went, but that’s all. Very good junior, but still …’
‘Good God, leaving it a bit late isn’t he?’ Carey was delighted with the news, while t
he junior failed to point out how in the general run of things, especially with the razor-sharp Quinn, there was probably as much time as they needed.
‘Well, well; we’ll see, we’ll see.’ Carey’s chuckle caught the edges of cigar-coated lungs. ‘Come on Clive, let’s have a drink.’
The junior sighed, and like a good junior, obeyed.
In another public house, free from all the distinctions of Fleet Street legal gossip, free from any advantages at all apart from its position as the last island in the traffic mid-way from office to home, Lawrence sat later than usual in his regular six-thirty refuge between the pressures of the one and the eternal hysteria of the other. He hated conferences, threw back one half-pint in the time it took him to order a whole, worried by heat, prisons, particularly upset by Quinn, supercilious bastard. How was a man as awful so popular with the establishment? Quinn’s nonchalant composure, his genuine, enquiring charm and his over-abundant skill was in itself the source of the irritation, together with Lawrence’s own failure to respond with anything other than his normal prickly lack of grace. Faced with truculence, Quinn had been … nice, consistently, politely, patiently nice, all day, and every minute of the day, effortlessly agreeable, until Lawrence could have screamed at him to be the opposite.
They had begun their meeting in the grim ante-room to Mrs Cartwright’s prison quarters, which Quinn graced like a lord, ended it in counsel’s chambers, Lawrence jotting Quinn’s suggestions, discussing the mountains to be moved before trial, wilting with heat and anxiety with Quinn still smiling, fresh as a spring daisy, skin healthy brown, apologetically telephoning his wife to enquire who was coming to dinner, whilst Lawrence sat in the spotlight of sun from the window, too awkward to move, surveying the enviable elegance of the room, scratching a prominent spot on his pale skin.
A Question of Guilt Page 17