‘And then you told the police that you had saved the money in your possession. True or false?’
This time the judge did speak, quietly, as Tony remained silent. His tone was kind, but the words brought no comfort.
‘Just answer the question.
‘I’ve already explained–’ he began desperately, but now the judge’s voice was hard as a headmaster’s.
‘Answer the question.’
‘I didn’t tell the truth.’
‘False,’ Hardy said, triumphant as a man who has filled in the last clue of a crossword puzzle. ‘You lied again and again. And now do you ask us to accept you as a truthful witness?’
Mr Hussick leaned back just a little, as nearly as it was possible to lean back in his hard chair. The boy was standing up for himself quite reasonably, but how long would he be able to do it when he was stuck with this hopeless story? And for the next hour Hardy, rarely raising his voice above his usual monotone, showed how hopeless that story was, going through it detail by detail, demonstrating that everything the accused man said depended on his unsupported word. He was particularly scathing about the hammer and the cuff links.
‘When as you say Mrs Foster asked you to use the hammer to knock in a nail, didn’t you think it odd?’
‘No. She’d told me that her husband was useless about the house.’
‘Did you regard knocking in nails as part of your duties as secretary?’
‘Of course not.’
‘So it would have been possible for you to have refused?’
There was something hateful about Hardy. The thin long-nosed patrician face, the wearily contemptuous manner, the voice enunciating its syllables with perfect clarity and style, all of them represented an attitude to life which Tony would have liked to think of as his own. He had to restrain himself from shouting his reply, but he said calmly, ‘I couldn’t have refused without being rude.’
‘And I’m sure you are never rude.’ Newton stirred uneasily at this comment, but Hardy continued swiftly. ‘Supposing you had refused, one of the strongest points in the case against you would not have existed?’
With a sense of self-congratulation at his own calmness he said: ‘I can only tell you what happened.’
‘If you had refused Mrs Foster would have had to find some other – lethal implement – and asked you to handle that. Is that what you are asking us to believe?’
Doggedly he repeated ‘I can only say what happened.’
‘Just follow me for a moment. Since she was determined to incriminate you, if you had refused to handle the hammer she might have tried to get your prints on to a sharp knife – or a revolver – or a tin of weedkiller, which she would then have used as the murder instrument.’ Without raising his voice Hardy managed to infuse into it a note of scorn as he said, ‘Is that what you are asking the jury to believe?’
He made some kind of answer, but as he looked round the Court and found no help anywhere, in judge or jury, in his counsel or his solicitor, and as he finally found himself staring across into the pale unmoved face and the eyes that considered him indifferently, his grasp of what was being said to him vanished in a surge of hatred. He had lost the battle of wills with Hardy and his breaking point was only a question of time. The time came a quarter of an hour later when Hardy, showing the distaste of a man handling excreta with tongs, was questioning him about the sexual relations he claimed to have had with Mrs Foster.
‘You have heard Mrs Foster say that hers was a happy marriage. Nobody has come here to say otherwise. But you maintain that this woman of good reputation, against whom there is no breath of suspicion, seduced you?’
‘I thought she was in love with me.’
‘Within a few days of your entering the house she took you to her bed, that is what you are saying?’
The sneering voice insisted, the questions came at him in endless waves, what had she said to him, when had they first done it, how many times, what precisely had she said to him about killing her husband? It seemed to him that there were now only two faces in the Court, that of his tormentor and the white beautiful face that remained like a mask while the questions were asked that destroyed his self-respect and made him seem less than a man, so that at last he shook the witness box with the thump of his fist and cried out in a high woman’s voice that she had done it, she was the bitch who had got him into this, and went on to use filthy words about her, words that had hardly been in his mouth for years.
When it was over he felt spent, as he did after the sexual act. He did not hear the reproving words of the judge or take in what it was that Mr Hussick was saying to him so earnestly. Instead he looked at the jury, saw the expressions on their faces, and knew that he was lost.
Chapter Fifteen
Mortimer Lands insisted that he must get out of London for an hour or two. He drove Jenny out to a dinner and dance place on the Great West Road. He had been drinking whisky before he picked her up and went on drinking it throughout dinner. He talked incoherently about the trial.
‘That poor bastard,’ he said. ‘From what I read they crucified him today, really crucified him.’
‘I was there.’ He looked at her almost with terror.
‘He loved you, the poor bastard.’
She had drunk a good deal herself and was less patient than usual. ‘What are you trying to say to me?’
‘We’re going to get caught. I know we are.’ She ate a green bean and looked at him inquiringly. ‘Somebody’s certain to have seen the car.’
‘Nobody saw it. I told you I was careful. And I smeared mud all over the number plates.’
‘Somebody will–’
‘I still don’t know what you’re trying to say.’
‘I must get out of London. I hate London.’
‘Then get out. Go back tomorrow. I don’t know why you stayed in town anyway.’
‘I thought you wanted me to.’
‘It made no difference to me.’
He leaned across the table. ‘Jenny, we can’t do it, he’ll go to prison for life.’
The waiter came to take their plates and she did not speak until he had gone. ‘He was prepared to help in killing you, that’s what he thought he was doing.’
‘I know. But he hasn’t done anything.’
‘And you did help, Mortimer. You wanted to help.’ Before the intensity of her gaze he lowered his eye, mumbled something. ‘Tomorrow there’ll be the verdict, in a week it will all be forgotten, in three months we can be together.’
‘Three months!’
‘That’s what we agreed.’
He looked up at her, then down again at the tablecloth.
‘Are you saying you want to call it off?’
‘That’s what you’d like, isn’t it? You’ve got what you wanted, now you–’ She told him to lower his voice, hushing him as if he were a dog, and he finished the sentence in a ludicrous murmur. ‘–don’t love me at all.’
‘I’m trying to find out what you want. But I’ll tell you this. If you come up with some different story now nobody will believe it. And if they did, then it would be as bad for you as for me. I’m ready to go.’ She picked up her bag.
He stared at her drunkenly. ‘I want to dance. And I want another drink.’ She paused, for once uncertain. ‘I want to hold you in my arms once more. The last time, I know that.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Mortimer.’
‘It’s my car. Shan’t go home unless you dance with me.’
She thought, not for the first time, that she would have been better off with Jones. She was a reasonable, logical woman and total lack of logic was something she found it hard to deal with or understand. It was obviously not safe to leave him alone. She said that she would dance with him. He immediately called the waiter.
‘A bottle of champagne. A celebration.’
They did not leave until two in the morning, and by then Jenny herself was slightly drunk.
Chapter Sixteen
At first
Mr Hussick was sceptical about the telephone call from an inquiry agency he had never heard of, and one with a ridiculous name at that, but the excitement at the other end of the line communicated itself to him during the conversation, and when he had finished talking he picked up the receiver again and rang Magnus Newton who turned out to be attending a legal dinner in London. Newton was not pleased to be called away to the telephone, but when he heard what Hussick had to say he agreed to leave after the loyal toast and before the speech. He was in fact not altogether sorry to miss the speech, which was to be given by a retired Lord of Appeal renowned for his prolixity. The four of them met at eleven o’clock that night in Newton’s chambers.
Clarence Newhouse was a blustering red-faced man who wore a Guards tie. Newton listened to him for a couple of minutes and then said, ‘This is the man who got the information? Then I’d like to have the story from him.’
Dimmock had been sitting in a corner, overwhelmed by the occasion. The visit to a barrister’s chambers late at night, the pat on the back from the Chief and his warm words about good work, and now this request that he should take the centre of the stage – what a tale he would have to tell the wife tomorrow. He moved forward from his corner seat into the circle of light cast by Newton’s desk lamp. As he did so he sneezed.
‘You’ve got a cold,’ Newton said accusingly. He produced a little inhaler from his jacket and sniffed noisily up each nostril. ‘Well?’
If there was one thing that Dimmock knew he could do, it was to make a clear and succinct report, and afterwards he felt that on this evening he had really excelled himself. The great man lighted a cigar and offered the box to the rest of them (the Chief took one and lit up, but Dimmock felt that it would have been presumptuous in him to smoke at the same time as the Chief), but his keen piggy little eyes looked steadily at Dimmock even while the mouth puffed smoke from its fat tube. When he had finished Dimmock waited in awe to hear what the experts would say about it. The Chief began to expand on all the trouble that had been taken by the agency, but he was cut short by the solicitor, Mr Hussick, whose eyebrows seemed to be climbing up into his scalp.
The great man opened his mouth. What would he say?
‘Take anything for those colds, do you? Is it on your chest? Or just the nose?’
‘Nose. And throat.’
‘This may help.’ He wrote something on a piece of paper, pushed it across the desk. ‘Get it made up. Use it myself.’
For a moment Dimmock thought he must be light-headed, and that he was really in a doctor’s surgery. Then Newton continued. ‘This woman, Russell, she’ll give evidence in Court? And the boatyard man, what’s his name, Clegg?’
‘Clynes,’ said Mr Hussick.
‘I’ve got their signed statements.’ Dimmock drew the papers from his briefcase.
‘That was intelligent.’ Dimmock glowed. Newton’s words seemed to be a justification of his whole career.
‘All our operatives are intelligent,’ the Chief said with a jolly laugh. Newton swivelled to direct on him a gaze that was by no means wholly friendly.
‘Who’s paying you?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t reveal that.’ The jolly laugh was slightly uneasy. ‘Professional ethics.’
‘Never mind, doesn’t matter.’
‘I believe my employer is – ah – a friend of the accused.’
‘Didn’t know he had any friends.’ To Dimmock’s bewilderment Mr Hussick and the Chief laughed heartily as though this was a good joke. ‘We had a firm on to this and they turned up nothing, eh, Hussick.’ Mr Hussick nodded. He seemed to find this amusing too. ‘Must remember you next time. But insist that they put Mr Dimmock on to it, Hussick, insist on that.’
Newton’s hand fell like an accolade on to Dimmock’s shoulder as he said that they would need him also in Court. That was an exciting prospect, but Dimmock afterwards thought of the hour he had spent in those chambers, rather than the session in Court, as the crowning point of his career. He had the prescription made up, and although it had no effect upon his cold he treasured the piece of paper to the end of his life.
When they had gone Newton and Hussick got down to it. After Clynes and Sarah Russell had given evidence it would be necessary to recall Mrs Foster, and notification of this must be given to the prosecution. Then there was the matter of serving a subpoena on these two new witnesses. Hussick nodded and smiled, nodded and smiled. Newton’s cigar was out before they had finished.
‘About Mrs Foster,’ he said at the end. ‘She’s still going to be a tough nut. She was in Court today. I don’t want her there tomorrow.’
‘I’ll see to it.’
But there was no need for him to see to it.
Chapter Seventeen
‘I’ll drive.’ Jenny held out her hand for the keys.
‘The hell you will.’ Lands opened the car door and sat down heavily in the driver’s seat.
‘You shouldn’t drive. The breathalyser. If the police stop us–’
‘They won’t. Are you getting in or not?’
She got in and sat sideways on the seat with the door half open. She had begun a sentence saying that she was still sober and he was not when he started the car and it shot forward so that she had to slam the door to save herself from falling out. He went out of the drive into the road, ignoring a car which swerved and hooted.
‘Let me drive.’
He pushed down the accelerator. They were going at sixty. ‘You know what’s wrong with you? You don’t like men, you hate them, want to take everything away from them. You’re the boss, they dance when you tell them.’ He muttered something else.
‘What?’
‘Not going to drive my car,’ he shouted. ‘Going to drive my own bloody car.’ He turned on the radio and the Beatles came shrieking out of it. He hooted a Jaguar in the fast lane, then cut inside it just as the Jaguar moved into the slower lane. Lands tugged at the steering wheel to get back into the fast lane and the car responded. Their tyres screeched, the Jaguar driver yelled something as they passed him. Almost for the first time in her life she was frightened and cried out some words that he did not hear above the sound of the radio. But anger was an emotion that came to her more easily than fear, and as she heard him begin to sing some drunken accompaniment to the music she felt an access of rage against this feeble sot who was unable to carry through the small part given to him in her plan. She cried out that he should stop the car and leaned over trying to wrench the steering wheel away from him.
Mortimer held on to it, and raising his left hand chopped it down hard on hers. The cry she gave was pleasant to him. Did she think that he was not a man? Yet at the same time he wanted to tell her that he was sorry. He turned his head to say so when he heard her cry out, saw that they had strayed into the second lane, and heard the blast of the Jaguar’s horn. Again he tugged at the steering, but this time the car over-responded. They went straight through the central barrier into the path of an oncoming lorry.
As they broke the barrier Jenny had time to feel one last quick surge of anger against the absurdity of what was happening. How was it possible to make plans when they were at the mercy of other people? The last thing she saw was Mortimer take his hands off the wheel and put them over his face.
The lorry struck the car head on, turning it over and over in the road. The driver was carrying a load of machine tools, and the lorry suffered nothing worse than a badly damaged radiator. The collision forced open the passenger door of the car and Jenny was thrown out into the road. It was said at the inquest that she had died instantly of a broken neck, but her body went directly in front of an oncoming car in the middle lane, and his wheels passed over it. The steering wheel went through Lands’ chest, and he was trapped in the crumpled car. He was still alive when the police arrived, and it seemed to the sergeant that he was trying to say something, but in fact he never spoke. Before they had cut through the pieces of the bodywork that were holding him, he was dead.
Chapter Eighte
en
Tony stared at Mr Hussick and repeated the word. ‘Dead.’
‘It creates, let’s be frank about it, an unusual situation.’ Mr Hussick was not a man easily overborne by events, but that late session with Newton and then the news about Mrs Foster had momentarily quelled even his exuberance.
Tony stared at the short paragraph headed: Mrs Foster Dies in Car Crash, and read it again.
‘We would of course have recalled her. And Lands. Now that won’t be possible.’ Mr Hussick gave a slight cough in deprecation at this statement of the obvious. ‘But the vital thing is the new evidence. I had a conference with Mr Newton last night long past the witching hour–’
‘What’s that?’ The young man looked quite dazed. Perhaps it was not surprising.
‘Long past midnight. A very late night, and a very early morning. I have somebody now talking to Miss Russell.’ Jones did not know the name, and he had to explain who she was. ‘I don’t mind telling you that Mr Newton is much more confident today than he was yesterday.’ He managed a little dance with the eyebrows. Jones nodded. ‘The firm involved is called the Second To None Agency. I’m bound to say that they discovered things which we had missed. I take it a friend of yours employed them?’ Jones said he didn’t know. Altogether, Mr Hussick was not sorry when the interview was over and he was able, as he said, to leave his client to digest the good news.
Those who were living are now dead. Those words – were they a line from a poem? – remained in Tony’s mind after the lawyer had left him. Yesterday he had looked across the Court at the pale face and had felt hatred. Now that he knew he would never see her again the hatred had gone, everything had gone except a series of pictures which ran through his mind like lantern slides, showing their first meeting, the interview at the Villa Majorca, the bedroom scenes when her abandonment to pleasure had appeared complete. When people die those closely linked to them reconstitute their personalities in terms of what they wish to remember, and with her death Jenny became again instantly the woman who had loved him and whose plans were all devised for the fulfilment of their love. The dream of their life together in Caracas was omnipresent, a dream all the sweeter because now it would never know fulfilment in reality. Nothing could take the perfection of the dream away from him.
The Man Whose Dream Came True Page 20