by Mark Dryden
When the trial resumed Brian filled up the afternoon by calling the four character witnesses to give evidence. They all steadfastly asserted it was inconceivable that Rex killed Alice. Mahoney only cross-examined two and got nowhere. The wind had clearly gone from his sails.
The last character witness was Tim Nolan. As he left the courtroom, Robyn realized how foolish she had been to suspect he murdered Alice.
At four o’clock, the judge adjourned for the day.
The three lawyers returned to Brian’s chambers and waited for half-an-hour until Danielle Tucker arrived. Brian’s secretary showed her into the room.
She was a petite, attractive woman in her late thirties who obviously had a vivacious personality when she wasn't scared to death.
Everyone shook hands and introduced themselves. Then Brian sat behind his desk and the others sat facing him.
Danielle shivered and exhaled loudly. "This is frightening."
"We fully understand."
"But I'll do anything to help Rex. So what do you want to know?"
"For a start, is it true you had an affair with Rex?"
She looked down. "Umm, yes. In fact, we’re still seeing each other."
"How long’s it been going on?"
"About three years."
"And when Alice Markham was alive, how often did you see each other?"
"Oh, once or twice a week, usually in the afternoon; and sometimes, when he was at the beach-house, he drove up to my place and stayed the night."
"And he visited you on the night his wife was murdered?"
"Yes."
"And stayed with you?"
"Yes. Stayed the whole evening and whole night, then drove back early the next morning."
"Didn’t go out?"
"Correct."
"Then why didn’t you come forward, initially?"
"Brian said he didn’t want to get me involved; he said people would just think we conspired to kill Alice. He said Hugh Grimble would give him a better alibi."
"And you went along with that?"
"I trusted him."
"But now you’re prepared to get into the witness box and say Rex was with you on the night his wife was murdered?"
Her lips quivered. "Do I have to?"
"Yes."
She twisted her hands. "OK then, if I have to. I’ll do anything to help Rex."
"Good. Tomorrow, we’ll call you to give evidence."
Bernie led her out, and Brian looked at Robyn. "She seems rather nice."
"She is."
"And, I suppose, you can’t really blame Rex for having an affair."
"Why not?"
"His marriage was obviously a shambles, so it’s not surprising he strayed."
She frowned. "Really? Maybe he should have waited until his marriage was over before he shacked up with someone else."
Brian looked slightly amused. "Goodness, you’re a real hardliner aren’t you?"
If he was still trying to entice her into a relationship, he was doing a lousy job. "Yep, I sure am."
He nodded. "Nothing wrong with that, of course. I'm pretty traditional myself."
Only a desperate effort stopped her punching out a laugh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The next morning, in the absence of the jury, Brian asked Justice Dobell for leave to recall Rex Markham to the witness stand.
The judge usually wore a seen-it-all expression. Now he looked like Brian had grown another head. "Really, Mr Davis. The accused doesn’t usually get two bites of the cherry. Why should I grant that indulgence?"
"Because, your Honour, he wants to say where he really was on the night his wife was murdered."
The judge frowned. "He’s already done that."
"Yes, but he didn’t tell the truth."
"Really?"
"I’m afraid so."
"Then where was he?"
"He spent the night with his mistress."
The judge's gaze rose and studied the delicate tracery in the decorative ceiling. He blew out his cheeks. "Really? And this mist … this woman is going to give evidence?"
"Yes, your Honour. I intend to call her."
The judge turned towards the prosecutor and asked if he opposed the application.
Mahoney angrily protested that it was much too late for the accused to produce a new alibi. "We have not been given the required notification and, in any event, would need time to investigate it your Honour."
"True, Mr Mahoney. Normally, I would not grant this indulgence. However, there is some evidence that Mr Grimble cooked up the false alibi. Further, if the accused wants to retract some of his evidence and set the record straight, I suppose I should give him that chance. Then the jury can sort out what to believe. So, in the interests of justice, I’m inclined to grant leave."
Mahoney protested for a few more minutes, but the judge rarely listened to the arguments of counsel. He turned to Brian and granted the leave sought.
The jury was summonsed and Brian recalled Rex to the witness box, where Rex explained how, on the night his wife died, he was not with Hugh Grimble, but with a woman called Danielle Tucker.
Brian said: "You'd been having an affair with her?"
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"Oh, about three years."
Gasps and titters floated to the ceiling. In the press box, reporters scribbled furiously.
"Right. And why didn’t you tell the court about this alibi earlier?"
Rex said he was afraid that, if he did, he wouldn’t be believed. In fact, if his affair became known, he would look even more guilty. "I also wanted to keep Danielle out of the spotlight, if possible."
"So, when Hugh Grimble offered to be your alibi witness, you accepted?"
Rex blushed and croaked, "Yes, I was very stupid." He looked at the judge. "I’m sorry, your Honour, it was a very dumb thing to do."
The judge frowned so hard his eyebrows almost touched his wig.
Brian said: "No further questions, your Honour."
Mahoney rose and cross-examined Brian once more. However, though he scowled and half-shouted his questions, his heart obvious wasn’t in it. Even he seemed to sense that Rex was foolish, but innocent.
Next, Brian called Danielle Tucker to give evidence. Her body and voice quivering, she corroborated Rex’s new alibi and endured Mahoney’s verbal assault without breaking. Indeed, his tirade increased the jury’s sympathy for her.
After she left the box, Brian closed the defence case.
The next day, both counsel made their final addresses to the jury. Mahoney went first and told the jurors to ignore the evidence that Alice Markham tried to blackmail Hugh Grimble. That was a red herring. Rather, they should focus on what Rex Markham did on the night of the murder. "And in relation to that, members of the jury, he’s told you one lie after another. You can’t believe a word he says." He huffed and puffed, in a similar vein, for almost two hours.
When it was Brian’s turn, he admitted that Rex Markham told some untruths to the police and the court. "But, members of the jury, consider his situation: he was wrongly accused of murdering his wife; it’s hardly surprising he acted irrationally and lied. But he's not on trial for lying: he’s on trial for murder - a murder he didn't commit."
Brian spent the next hour explaining how Hugh Grimble, who had been stealing royalties, had an excellent motive to kill Alice Markham and no alibi. "If anyone should be sitting in the dock right now, it is him. Certainly, you could not be satisfied, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Rex Markham killed his wife. Indeed, the evidence clearly shows he is innocent."
Next, the judge summed up the law and evidence, and dropped some big hints that he thought there was a reasonable doubt. Then he sent out the jury to consider its verdict.
Half-an-hour later, the jury returned and the forewoman pronounced Rex not guilty. Robyn turned and saw he was in tears.
Amid the hubbub, Brian leaned over to the prosecutor. "You’re welcome to join our
celebration, if you want."
"Fuck you."
"Tut, tut. You should have accepted a manslaughter plea – really, you should."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Out of the courthouse, into the sunshine.
As Brian led his little party down the front steps, a bristling cordon of sound-booms, microphones and cameras folded around them. Questions created white noise.
A shrill female voice sliced through it. "Rex, Rex, how do you feel?"
The hubbub abated. Rex Markham turned and grinned. "Happy. Relieved. Ecstatic. This has been an incredible ordeal. Thankfully, it’s turned out well. For that, I’m profoundly grateful to my legal team and the jury."
The same voice climbed an octave. "Did you ever suspect Hugh Grimble was the killer?"
He shook his head. "No. That came as a great shock to me. A terrible shock."
A burly and bearded radio reporter interjected. "How do you feel about him now?"
"Angry - angry and disappointed. I feel horribly betrayed."
"Are you going to marry Ms Tucker?"
"No comment."
"Are you going to write a book about this?"
Rex half-smiled. "Probably a whole series of books, when I have enough distance."
The burly reporter turned to Brian. "When did you realize Grimble was the killer?"
Brian said: "Well, as you saw, only after the trial started. The credit for unmasking him must go entirely to my junior, Ms Parker. She dug up the incriminating evidence and, as you saw, conducted a brilliant re-examination of Grimble."
Every lens now pointed at Robyn. Microphones danced under her nose. A sound-boom almost clubbed her on the head.
A female reporter said: "Ms Parker, is that right?"
Robyn’s moment of glory had arrived and she was desperate to embrace it. But the best strategy was to back into the limelight. "Oh, no. I was just part of a team. We all worked together. I’m just glad I played a part."
"Who found the new evidence?"
"We all did."
Brian shook his head. "Robyn’s being too generous. As I said, she found it." On that note, Brian held up his hands. "Now, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I think Mr Markham deserves some peace and quiet. He has been under enormous pressure. Thank you very much."
A beefy male reporter yelled: "Will there be a press conference later?"
Ignoring him, Brian broke through the media phalanx with the others in tow.
A dozen cameramen and photographers pursued them along the pavement, jostling for good angles. They only fell away when the party entered the building that housed the barristers' chambers.
Everybody got into a lift and Brian turned to Rex. "How do you feel?"
Rex had the bug-eyed look of a combat survivor. "Stunned, mostly. Christ, I need a drink."
Bernie said: "So do I."
In his room, Brian opened a small bar fridge and handed everyone a can of beer.
Rex ripped his open and raised it high. "Thank you all for saving my scrawny neck. I know I threw a few - several - stumbling blocks in your way. But you managed to push them aside, and for that I’ll be eternally grateful."
Brian said: "Like I said, you should really thank Robyn. If she hadn’t got the receptionist to talk, you’d now be sitting in the back of a prison van with some very smelly career criminals."
Rex looked at Robyn: "Thank you Robyn - thank you very much."
She blushed deeply. "It was a team effort."
Brian said: "Did you ever suspect that Hugh Grimble was ripping you off?"
Rex smiled. "I started to. A few months before Alice died, I noticed my royalty stream had dipped and couldn't understand why. So I told Hugh I wanted my accountant to go over his books."
"What did he say?"
"Didn't object. Said I was well within my rights. But, of course, he kept finding reasons to delay the whole thing. And then Alice got murdered and I had bigger things to worry about."
"Ironic, isn’t it, that she found out you were getting screwed?"
"Yeah. But, why'd she suddenly discover Grimble was stealing my royalties? Why’d she start snooping?"
"Isn’t that obvious?"
"No."
"You two were getting divorced and she wanted to make sure you weren’t hiding any assets or income. So she looked through Grimble’s records and discovered he had two sets of accounts and was ripping you off."
"So she confronted him?"
"Yep, and demanded a slice of the action. You see, she didn’t care that Grimble was stealing your money - in fact, she was probably pleased - but she wanted her cut."
"And Hugh agreed to that?"
"Of course. But instead of honouring their bargain, he killed her instead."
"Pretty extreme."
Robyn shrugged and interjected. "True. But maybe he didn’t have enough money to pay her off; or maybe he didn’t trust her; or maybe he was just a greedy pig. I don’t know. One thing is certain: he couldn’t let her talk."
Brian said: "So, when Grimble heard you’d been charged with murder, he must have been ecstatic. If you ended up behind bars, he’d get away with murder and fraud and, as a bonus, could keep stealing your money. You know, his plan was fiendishly clever."
Rex shook his head. "I still can’t believe he killed Alice and betrayed me. I mean, we were close as brothers."
Robyn rolled her eyes. "Now you’re being naïve: he was just a bullshit artist who, in the end, outsmarted himself."
Rex sighed. "I’m so lucky you unmasked him."
"Well, I wasn’t always on the right track."
"What do you mean?"
"At one stage, I thought Richard Olsen might be the killer." No point mentioning she also suspected Rex’s mate, Tim Nolan.
Rex smiled. "You did?"
"Yes, and I still don’t know his real name."
"I’m afraid I don’t know either."
"You mean, you’re not him?"
"Correct."
"Really?"
"Yes. I know I’ve told you a lot of porkies. But this time I’m telling the truth."
Robyn crossed her arms and frowned. "Mmm. Looks like I’ll have to do a bit more snooping."
"Good luck."
They spent the next hour drinking beer while recalling the highs and lows of the trial. Grimble and Sam Mahoney were the main targets of ridicule.
But their celebration grew sombre as it slowly dawned on each that the trial could have easily ended in disaster.
Just after seven o’clock, Rex stood up, looking incredibly tired. "Well folks, I’d love to keep drinking, because I owe you so much. But there’s someone I’ve got to see and thank."
Robyn said: "What’re you two going to do? Get married?"
Rex shrugged. "I don’t know. Recent events have done a lot of damage. I’ve got a lot of repair work to do." He dropped his beer can in a bin. "Do you think the journos are still downstairs?"
Brian peered out the window. "Yeah. There’s quite a few across the road."
"Damn. Is there a back way out of here?"
"Yep. Go down the fire-escape. It leads to a side-lane."
"Thanks."
Bernie stood up. "I’ll go with you."
"OK. Let’s go."
Rex thanked the two barristers again and left with Bernie.
Brian turned and half-smiled at Robyn. "Congratulations. You’ve covered yourself with glory - you really have."
Robyn wondered if her efforts really won the trial. Or would the jury, irrationally, have acquitted Rex anyway? She’d never know. But she was happy to take the plaudits, deserved or not. "Thanks. And thanks for giving me the credit when you talked to the press."
Brian’s grin widened. "Hey, I may be a bastard, but I’m not a fucking bastard."
Her tone softened. "I know that."
He shuffled slightly and looked down. "Well, umm, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Want to join me for dinner? It’s up to you."
Should
she accept? She had to be very careful that her triumphant mood and the boozed she'd drunk didn’t artificially boost his appeal. But he had risen dramatically in her estimation. During the trial he showed plenty of grace under pressure and, afterwards, generously praised her efforts. Most silk would have elbowed her aside and grabbed all the bouquets. Maybe she could knock off his rough edges and create a good finished product.
She stood on the edge of a precipice. Should she jump or not? Oh hell, why not? She took some huge risks during the Markham trial and triumphed. Why not take some more? She was on a roll.
The last time he took her out to dinner, she only just escaped his clutches. Tonight, she wouldn't even try to run. "I’ve got a better idea."
He frowned. "What?"
"Come over to my place and I’ll cook you something."
A broad smile. "You’re kidding?"
She slowly shook her head. "No."
He drove them over to her terrace in his Audi and parked outside. Fortunately, Veronica had gone out for the night.
In the hallway, Robyn said that, on reflection, she wasn’t in the mood to cook.
He raised his eyebrows, knowing where events were heading. "Then what do you want to do?"
A smile. "Come upstairs and I’ll show you."
Now that she had committed herself, her inhibitions disappeared. When they reached her bedroom, she clawed off his clothes and almost fucked him to death.
Afterwards, he lay on his back, sweating and breathing hard. "That was great. You know, I’ve been crazy about you for months. Like I said before, I’ve never met anyone like you. I know I’m rushing things and I know I sound stupid, but I want to get old and senile with you. I really do."
She lay next to him. "You think that now. But that won’t last."
"Yes it will."
For the first time since she’d met him, he sounded sincere.
She said: "Well, I want to see a lot more of you. I really do. But let’s not go overboard just yet? One step at a time."
He nodded. "OK. But I won’t let you down. I promise."
"Let’s see how we go. Just remember this: I’m not a forgiving girl - your first chance is your last chance."
He grinned. "Don’t worry, I’ve worked that out."
Soon afterwards, he fell asleep and snored gently.