The Waxwork Corpse: A legal thriller with a chilling twist (Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers Book 5)

by Simon Michael

  So sharp is this double-edged sword that Charles eventually decided against calling any of those he privately calls the “village witnesses”. Instead he told Jones to hand over their statements to the Defence; let Beaverbrook decide whether or not to use them. That at least freed Charles to cross-examine any called for the Defence if he saw any profit in it.

  Commander Ferguson RN was the exception. Formerly a colleague of Anthony Steele’s during the war, it didn’t appear that he and Steele had actually been friends or even liked one another very much when they served together. After the war, Steele returned to his legal practice and Ferguson remained in the Navy, doing reasonably well. The two men maintained a desultory correspondence over the years and, according to Ferguson, during one shore leave in 1953 he was invited to spend a weekend at the Steeles’ home. There he was able to observe them over the space of three days, and his evidence had a different flavour. His evidence, untainted by sympathy or friendship, was accordingly more dispassionate. Having read Ferguson’s preliminary statement, Charles asked to see him in conference to make a final decision.

  He found Ferguson odd. He presented as a fussy, precise man who spoke quickly and never smiled, and Charles wondered if it was anything more than politeness that persuaded Anthony Steele to continue writing to this strange man over the years. Nonetheless, he gave his account clearly and with authority, and of course he was well turned out in his naval uniform, something that always appeals to juries. Charles expected the jury to trust him. He therefore concluded that it was worth taking the risk in his case.

  At Charles’s request, Ferguson gives his name and rank to the judge. Charles deals swiftly with his wartime and post-war relationship with Anthony Steele and then moves directly to the weekend Ferguson spent in the Steeles’ home.

  ‘Do you remember a particular night when you and Mr and Mrs Steele were preparing to go to a party?’

  ‘Yes I do. It was at a neighbour’s house in the village. Because I was staying at the Steeles’, I was invited too.’

  ‘Do you remember any of the events that occurred before you left for the party?’

  ‘Yes, very clearly, because they were so extraordinary.’

  ‘Please tell us what happened.’

  ‘Mrs Steele had finished dressing and was downstairs. I was the last down. I arrived in what they called the “morning room”, a sort of family room. Mrs Steele was pouring herself a drink.’

  ‘Did you see what sort of drink?’

  ‘Rum. She drank a tumbler-full of neat rum. I watched her pour it.’

  ‘What was her mood?’

  ‘She was already drunk.’

  ‘How could you tell?’

  ‘From the way she moved and from her speech, which was slightly slurred. She was also acting peculiarly.’

  ‘Peculiarly?’ asks Charles.

  ‘She was very uninhibited. It was quite shocking.’

  ‘Can you expand on that?’

  Ferguson frowns, framing his answer carefully. ‘Lise Steele was a very attractive woman, and she knew it. She always dressed provocatively, but on this occasion … well… I was shocked, like I said. She was in high heeled shoes and a backless cream cocktail dress, cut so low at the back that it exposed her skin from the nape of her neck to the cleft of her buttocks. It was obvious she was wearing nothing underneath.’

  ‘Was Mr Steele present?’

  ‘Yes, he was in the room when I arrived. He was remonstrating with her, asking if she hadn’t already drunk enough. She said “Not nearly enough”. He also wanted her to change into something more suitable for an English garden party. I remember it very clearly. He said, “This is Kent, not Guadeloupe.” She came from there, or somewhere close by, perhaps Martinique.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Lise carried on drinking. She put the gramophone on and started dancing on her own. She was singing, to a Josephine Baker song. She said something about seducing Anthony with it when she first met him.’

  ‘Seducing him?’

  ‘Yes. I was there when Anthony first met her in 1940. We were both serving on HMS Moreton Bay when we intercepted a ship full of prisoners being transported to Casablanca, which was then occupied by Vichy. We commandeered the ship and returned to Martinique. Lise and her father were amongst the prisoners we freed. They’d have been in a concentration camp otherwise, and she was very grateful. We met her and a few of the others later in a bar, the Café de Paris, and she sang for us all. She looked dangerous then, but in a playful way. She’s what in those days we called a “man-eater”. I never understood what she saw in Anthony.’

  Ferguson’s delivery is calm and measured. He gives his evidence looking throughout at Charles, and speaks almost in a monotone. He reminds Charles of a tickertape. The contrast between his lack of expression and the content of his evidence is striking, and somehow makes the evidence all the more powerful.

  ‘Please explain.’

  ‘Well, he was rather buttoned up, shy, maybe a bit repressed. His nickname on board the Moreton was “Virgin”. He used to blush when she flirted with him, which made her do it all the more. He fell completely in love with her. Irrationally so, some thought. Some of us tried to talk him out of it, point out the obvious difficulties.’

  ‘Difficulties?’

  ‘Well, she was black for a start. From a very poor family, and not well educated. We told him to have a fling with her by all means, but she wasn’t wife material.’

  Charles cringes at this description but reminds himself of the period. ‘This was in 1940?’ he asks, making sure the jury are reminded too.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bring us back to 1953 then, please. Was Lise Steele still a “man-eater”?’

  ‘God, yes. She’d had three children by then, but she still looked amazing.’

  ‘Describe her for us, if you please?’

  Ferguson answers immediately, without having to think. ‘Coffee coloured skin, very good figure, voluptuous; regular features, wide lips, flashing dark eyes and thick brown hair falling over one eye.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘You see, she was taunting him. That song of Josephine Baker’s was called “I Found a New Baby”. She was talking about her lover, and I found the whole scene extremely embarrassing. I could see him getting more and more angry, but he controlled himself and walked away. He was just reaching for the door handle to leave when he ducked. I don’t know if he heard something or it was just instinct from years of marriage to her, but she’d thrown her glass at him. It was a heavy tumbler, and it only missed his ear by an inch or two. It shattered on the wall by his head. He paused for a second, and just carried on walking out of the door. That was when she launched herself at him. She was going to kick him in the back I think, but her foot skidded on the broken glass and liquid, and she fell over. That’s when the nanny came in.’

  ‘Do you mean Miss Sullivan?’

  ‘Yes. She’d been getting the children ready for bed. She had the youngest wrapped in a towel in her arms. Then the other two appeared in the doorway in their pyjamas.’

  ‘How old were they then?’

  ‘The oldest, Stephen, would have been about ten or eleven I suppose. He was an absolute spit for his father. The girl, Charlotte, was four or five years younger, darker-skinned and with the same black eyes as her mother. The baby was probably about two. I’m not good with children’s ages I’m afraid. Anyway, Anthony always tried to make things look normal in front of the children. He reached down to help Lise up, but she slapped his hand away and screamed at him in French. Anthony nodded at the children and asked her to stop shouting, but it had no effect. The girl started crying and the son, Stephen, tried to protect her.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘He put his arm round her and told his mother to stop shouting at her. He had a bad stammer, worse when speaking to his mother. She taunted him about it, mimicked him. I thought it was cruel, to a little boy. Anthony told him to take Charlot
te upstairs because Lise was not feeling well. So they went, with the nanny.’

  ‘Did you all go to the party, after this?’

  ‘Oh yes. Anthony tried to persuade her to stay at home but she refused. He said her behaviour was intolerable, and she said something like “Well if you don’t like it, divorce me.” But then she threatened him that if he tried, she’d tell everyone he was a child molester, which would ruin his career. Stop him becoming a QC.’

  ‘What was his reaction?’

  ‘He took a step towards her with his fists clenched and she stepped back. For a second I wondered if he was going to hit her and I was about to intervene, but he controlled himself again. He said something like he couldn’t believe she’d threatened that. He said he’d never laid a finger on the children, and she knew it. She wasn’t cowed, though. She said something like “Just so you know where we stand, OK.” She said she liked things as they were, and wouldn’t let him divorce her. So we all went to the party. It was very odd. As we got into the car, Anthony apologised to me for the scene.’

  ‘Commander, the jury may wonder how it is you remember these events with such clarity. It was, after all, over ten years ago. Yet you remember almost the precise words.’

  ‘I agree, but it was such an extraordinary performance, I’ve never forgotten it.’

  ‘Thank you. Did everything calm down at the party?’

  ‘Initially, yes. We all went in the same car. No one said anything. But then when we arrived and the door was opened by our hostess — I forget her name … just a moment … it’ll come to me … yes, Marie, that’s it, William and Marie — Lise was all smiles and hugs, perfectly charming. She just walked in; sailed through the hall into the kitchen and then onto the patio at the back of the house. Everyone watched her, especially the men, but there was no trouble at all for a while.’

  ‘For a while?’

  ‘Yes. She went and helped the other women get the buffet food ready and we, that is Anthony and William — he was a barrister too, a colleague I think — we just chatted in the garden. It was a balmy evening and there were lots of children running around. Everyone was having a good time. But then Anthony looked round and couldn’t see Lise and went looking for her. I remained in the garden. The men I was with — I didn’t know any of them — were being very unkind about Anthony. They were suggesting that Lise was very … promiscuous … that he was a cuckold. Talking about her as if she was a prostitute.’

  ‘Did the accused find her?’

  ‘Yes, we watched through the French windows. She was in another room sitting at a bar chatting to another man.’

  ‘Chatting?’

  ‘Yes. But she’d taken off one of her shoes and as she was sitting on her bar stool, she was using her foot to stroke the leg of the man she was talking to.’

  ‘Do you think the accused saw that?’

  ‘It looked as if he did. He was about to go to her when the hostess, Marie, put her hand on his arm and stopped him. She handed Anthony the tray of drinks she was carrying and she went to speak to Lise. I didn’t hear what she said, but Lise got up and returned with Marie to the kitchen, so it all looked OK.’

  ‘What happened then?’ asks Charles.

  Ferguson looks uncomfortable and his gaze moves from Charles to the judge. ‘I’m afraid this isn’t the sort of thing I’d like to say in front of ladies,’ he says, looking pointedly at the female members of the jury.

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ replies the Recorder. ‘You might be surprised, Commander Ferguson, by the sort of evidence we hear every day in these courts. Please continue.’

  ‘Well, later that evening, towards midnight I guess, Lise went missing again. Anthony searched the house for her but couldn’t find her. He asked me to help. We looked again, in the house and in the gardens. I even walked up the road a little way but we still couldn’t find her. Then someone came to us and said we’d better come upstairs.’

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘We heard her voice first, calling a man’s name. “Mark” I think it was. When we got to the hallway, we could see her looking in one of the bedrooms. She was naked.’

  Ferguson pauses. The courtroom is utterly silent, everyone straining to hear his next words. ‘She was looking for this chap. When she saw Anthony ahead of me in the corridor, she accused him of spoiling everything, of frightening the man off.’

  ‘What did the accused do?’

  ‘He told her to get her clothes on because they were going home. She refused, said she was going to stay, and I think she would have, but then Marie came up the stairs with two or three of her friends and said they would deal with her. Marie was furious. She said something like she was tired of Lise spoiling her parties, and that she was a selfish cow. They got her dressed and half-carried her downstairs. She was almost asleep by then. We put her in the back seat of the car, and Anthony and I got into the front.’

  ‘Was that the end of the evening?’

  ‘Almost. As we pulled into the drive of their home, she was sick in the car. The nanny must have seen the car’s headlights because she arrived on the doorstep. When she saw what had happened, she went and got a bucket and some gloves. Lise was unconscious by then. We cleaned her up a bit and Anthony and I carried her up to the spare bedroom. She woke up as we were leaving the room. Started calling for “Roddy”.’

  ‘What was the accused’s response to that?’

  ‘He’d obviously been very angry earlier that evening but, now, he just seemed … sad. He said Roddy wasn’t there. She said she didn’t want him, she wanted Roddy. His response was that, if this was the alternative even he would prefer Roddy, but he’d gone back to his wife, so that was that. He also said that if she was going to drown her sorrows like this every time one of her lovers jilted her, she’d end up killing herself.’

  ‘Did she reply to that?’

  ‘Yes. She told him to fuck off.’

  ‘Did you see her again that weekend?’

  ‘No, I left after breakfast the following morning and she didn’t surface.’

  ‘Did you speak to the accused about the events of the night before, before you left?’

  ‘Briefly. He wasn’t keen to talk about it. I offered the opinion that it really couldn’t go on, not least because of the children. And he agreed.’

  ‘Did he explain what he meant when he agreed with you?’

  ‘No. But I had the definite impression that he had reached the end of his tether. He seemed determined. As if he’d made up his mind.’

  ‘Thank you, Commander. Please remain there.’

  Charles resumes his seat and Beaverbrook stands.

  ‘So what you are telling us, Commander, is that despite this appalling provocation, Mr Steele controlled his feelings.’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘He showed Mrs Steele no violence?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘According to your account, he didn’t even raise his voice.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘And although Mr Steele seemed determined the following morning, you can’t tell us what, if anything, lay behind that.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘He might have been determined to seek a divorce, for example?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose that’s possible.’

  ‘He might have been determined to separate from his wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He might merely have been determined to buy no further rum.’

  ‘Well, it seemed more … significant than that, but I suppose that is possible.’

  ‘Thank you. I have no further questions for this witness.’

  CHAPTER 26

  ‘Call Roderick Batchelor!’

  The door opens and Lise Steele’s former lover — her final lover — enters court.

  Charles has not met the man before, having seen no need to interview him, having read his statement. He knows that Batchelor still works for a large bank in the city of London and assumes he will see a
confident and imposing man striding towards the witness box, but if Roddy Batchelor was ever confident or imposing, his best days are clearly long behind him. Now in his early sixties, he is of average height, slightly paunchy and has a disappointed air. He walks hesitantly down the aisle, as if unsure where to go. His only feature of note is his nose, which is long and aquiline. It might once have been described as fine; now it just makes him look like an unhappy bird of prey.

  He makes his way to the witness box and reads the oath from the card handed to him, holding the New Testament in a hand that moves around slightly as he speaks, as if flapping away a troublesome insect.

  He hands the Bible and the card back to the usher and looks vacantly around the court. When Charles calls his name, he jumps slightly before turning to face the barristers’ benches.

  ‘Mr Roderick Batchelor?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Please give your full name, address and profession to the court,’ requests Charles. Batchelor does so.

  ‘Do you understand why you are here, Mr Batchelor?’

  ‘Yes. You want to ask about Lise.’

  As he answers, Batchelor’s eyes flick upwards, towards the public gallery, and Charles follows his gaze. Sitting in the front row is a woman in a floral dress and a hat. She is staring fixedly at the witness, her brow contracted into a frown. Charles looks back at Batchelor who casts his eyes down, embarrassed or ashamed. So, thinks Charles, that’s the long-suffering wife.

  Charles returns his attention to his notes. ‘What was your relationship with Lise Steele?’ he asks.

  ‘We were friends…’ His voice drops, but then he adds ‘…lovers.’

  Charles can see the man trying hard to avoid the gaze of Anthony Steele in the dock. Steele is staring at him dispassionately.

  ‘How long did your affair last?’ asks Charles.

  ‘Two or three years, on and off.’

  ‘On and off?’

  ‘Yes. We broke up repeatedly.’

  ‘At whose instance?’

  ‘Sometimes hers but, towards the end, mine. I was trying very hard to break off all contact with her. It was difficult.’