The Pinocchio Brief

by Silver Abi

  “First of all, tell me I’m brilliant,” she began.

  Judith clucked once with her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

  “You’re beginning to sound like me,” she chirruped.

  “Well?”

  “Yes, of course you’re brilliant. Now tell me what it is you’ve discovered. We have to go back in five.”

  Constance sneaked a glance at her phone before placing it in her pocket. “I’ve found the woman who called Roger Davis on the day he died,” she said.

  Judith leaned back against the wood panelling, suddenly replete with admiration for her teammate. “How on earth…”

  “There isn’t time now to explain but it was fairly easy in the end; getting the phone log took the time as some person had gone on holiday and no one else knew where it was. Her number wasn’t withheld and Davis had called her too, quite often in fact. She’s a journalist called Christine Wilson and she is coming to see us at court. She’ll be here within the hour. I said we would talk to her in the lunch break.”

  “Do you know what she’s going to say?”

  “No. Just that she was keen to speak to us. She said she had spoken to the police but they weren’t interested. And, also, she’s the woman in the photos. The one I mentioned, with Roger Davis. So they were friends, close friends.”

  “Oh, Connie. Let’s not get too excited yet. But well done. All your hard work has finally paid off.”

  25

  MR BAILEY was the prosecution’s next witness and he took the stand with a distracted air. He was jittery whilst being sworn in and, before Mr Arkwright even began, he waved his hand to the judge to indicate he wanted to speak first.

  “Yes, Mr Bailey. What is it?” The judge, now suitably composed after an avocado smoothie had restored his equilibrium during the break, was keen to remove any impression of bad temperedness caused by Mr Arkwright’s antics and asked the question gently.

  “Thank you, sir,” Mr Bailey began. “I just felt I had to say one thing at the beginning, to get it off my chest as it’s been bothering me ever since, well, ever since this terrible thing happened.”

  Judith’s heart sank. This wasn’t good. Bailey had struck her as straightforward, which could be good, but also as indifferent towards Ray, which could be bad.

  “I would never have left Lorraine, Mrs Taylor, or anyone for that matter, in that room, if I’d known that Mr Davis was in there with a knife sticking in him,” he explained. Judith sighed inwardly. She had had a feeling that whatever he was about to say might have been prompted by his path crossing with Mrs Taylor, which she had witnessed earlier in the day.

  “Mr Bailey, that’s helpful, thank you,” the judge responded. “No one is accusing you of any kind of failure and whilst I have had the benefit of reading your statement, the rest of the people here need to hear your evidence first, in order to put those comments into context. But your concern regarding how we should view your conduct is noted by all. Mr Arkwright, please carry on.”

  But Mr Bailey was not yet to be cowed. He continued unabated.

  “Thank you, sir. I wanted to make that clear. Because that young lad over there…” Judith was taking no chances second time around and rose to her feet smartly.

  “Your Honour, excuse the interruption.” She flashed a warm smile at Mr Bailey, a smile that thanked him for the chocolate digestive biscuits he had produced in his lodgings, one more time. In return, his left hand which was twitching its allegiance, remained obediently at his side.

  “But Your Honour did entreat Mr Arkwright and myself to make it clear to you if any matters were agreed between us, in order to, well, allow matters to proceed more efficiently.”

  “Yes, thank you Miss Burton. So what have you and Mr Arkwright agreed upon in relation to this witness?”

  “Well, I wanted to make it clear that there is nothing I dispute in Mr Bailey’s statement.”

  “Thank you, Miss Burton,” the judge spoke tetchily. He had not noticed any evidence of real cooperation between counsel so far and was wary of Judith’s motives, particularly given the timing of her intrusion, but he had to accept that he had asked them both to do precisely what she was proposing. And if this was accepted by Mr Arkwright, they might have two witnesses out of the way in one morning. The Lord Chancellor may even commend him on a trial ending within its time estimate, for once.

  Mr Arkwright rose slowly. He was put out by Judith’s disturbance but only mildly. Whatever the man had been going to volunteer he could prise it out of him later on, drop it into the conversation and she had given him this huge concession, massive. What was the saying? “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”? Perhaps he should just accept the gesture. Maybe it was her way of apologising for her spoiler with Mrs Taylor.

  “That is very helpful of Miss Burton. I will take Mr Bailey through his statement, then, at some speed.”

  Judith felt a nudge in her ribs and Constance was passing her a note. “Are you sure about this?” it read. Judith nodded once reassuringly and then allowed Mr Bailey’s statement to be read to the court, uninterrupted from beginning to end.

  The clock was showing only 12.25 when Mr Arkwright finished and turned to address Mr Bailey.

  “Mr Bailey. That is your statement.”

  “Yes, but I do have something I want to add to it.” A murmur rippled around the court. Judge Blake peered over the top of his pince-nez and Constance dug Judith in the back.

  “Yes?” the judge muttered with a modicum of impatience, tempered only by the presence of so many journalists. In the good old days he would have told the man to await the questions of counsel. Although, now he thought about it, in the good old days, they would still have been on the opening speeches.

  “The part I wanted to add,” Mr Bailey began, “well, it’s this. It was after Miss Burton, there, asked me to think about whether I had seen anything significant, anything at all in my travels around the school.”

  Surprisingly, Mr Arkwright appeared relaxed at the prospect of something new being introduced by his witness, although Mr Bailey’s manner did not suggest he had taken Arkwright into his confidence. Perhaps Arkwright assumed anything Mr Bailey could say could only be helpful.

  “Yes. Do tell us.”

  Arkwright positively licked his lips at the prospect.

  “You see, I was focussing on the day of the murder. But there was something which came to me afterwards.”

  This suggestion of a “lightbulb moment” on the part of Mr Bailey was not quite truthful. In fact, what he was about to impart had come to him only a week earlier, when one of his drinking partners had suggested to Mr Bailey that he might be a suspect, that he should never have spoken to Judith or the police without a lawyer present and that he should do all he could now to ensure he was in the clear.

  “A few days before Mr Davis was murdered, I heard him and one of the boys, a boy called Andrew Partram, having a big row in Mr Davis’ rooms,” Mr Bailey began.

  Mr Arkwright leapt to his feet as if a viper had sunk its teeth into his abundant behind. Judith clasped her hands together and permitted herself a quick, excited glance over her shoulder at Constance.

  “Your Honour. This is ‘new evidence’ and if Miss Burton knew then she should have made me aware it was to be led by the witness,” Arkwright asserted.

  Judith hastily scribbled the word “clarification” on her pad in front of her and left it open to the elements so that Arkwright spied it as he charged against Mr Bailey. She knew it was childish and would enrage him but she could not resist it nevertheless. And then her eye was caught by the Richmond boys, nudging each other and shuffling uncomfortably in row two, right at the far end. She passed a note back to Constance. “Find out which is Andrew Partram”, it read.

  The judge sighed. Perhaps he had been too hasty to have already planned an afternoon run around the London parks, followed by whites-only scrambled eggs on granary toast, no butter. He could almost taste it in his mouth.

  “Mr Arkw
right. You asked Mr Bailey to confirm this was his entire statement and now he wishes to add something you wish to shut him up. He is your witness, after all.”

  Mr Arkwright stood silently seething, searching for a clever but respectful response. However, Judge Blake beat him to it.

  “Should we hear first what Mr Bailey has to say, as it may be relevant, and any conduct matters can be dealt with afterwards? Mr Bailey, do go on.”

  “Thank you, sir. I don’t want to mess things up, but I do think it’s important. Partram is a big lad, a rugby player, he plays at prop.” Judith looked from Mr Bailey to the Richmond boys as she was surprised that the voluble man had not pointed over to identify this boy, so certain she was that he was amongst the group who had come to watch. Then she saw that because of the configuration of the courtroom and the elevation of the gallery, he couldn’t easily see them.

  “And Mr Davis was saying to him that he couldn’t play in the big match on Friday, that he had to do detention because he wasn’t working hard enough. Said that he had to make an example of him to the other boys or they would all think they could come late and do no work. Partram said he had to play, that he would do the detention another night. And he said the team needed him. Said there were people coming to watch him from a famous team. He’d waited months and now they were coming. By the end they were really shouting at each other and Partram came slamming out of the door right in front of me.”

  “I see. Is that all of the information you wish to add?” Judge Blake asked with mild interest.

  “Yes sir, it is.”

  “Mr Arkwright. Do you have any further questions for your witness?”

  “Your Honour, no, but unless Miss Burton is going to accuse this other boy, as yet unheard of, of being the murderer, rather than her client, who was found at the scene covered in the victim’s blood, then I am not sure Mr Bailey’s extra information is of any relevance and I request that the jury be advised of the same and the testimony be stricken from the record.”

  “Thank you, Mr Arkwright. I am not in favour of striking things out; people can’t unhear what they hear. Miss Burton, is this relevant to your client’s defence and, if so, how?”

  Judith had been listening to Mr Bailey with a mixture of anxiety, rapidly turning to pleasure, although it was tinged with chastisement of herself for not having inveigled this information from him all those weeks earlier. Now there was so little time to use what he had just told them. But she knew that she needed to remain calm and level headed.

  For a moment she allowed her eyes to flit upwards to where the Richmond boys were seated and to glide swiftly across the faces of each of them. When she reached the boy in the centre she found her target; a defiant retaliatory stare from the recipient of her attention confirmed what she had suspected. She did not need Constance to do any research now. This broad-shouldered lad with an insolent bearing was certainly Andrew Partram.

  “Your Honour, yes, absolutely.” She found herself speaking without fully concentrating. “But I must say as Mr Arkwright has raised the conduct point, that this court should note that I was unaware of the information provided until this moment. Now that this information has been provided I can only say that it may well form part of the defence’s case. So I ask no more for now than that Mr Bailey’s evidence stands as you have already directed.”

  “Yes, all right, Miss Burton. Mr Arkwright, Miss Burton was as much in the dark as you were regarding this quarrel with another boy so the point ends there as far as this court is concerned. Miss Burton, you will need to develop the point early on in your client’s defence, is that clear? Otherwise I will direct the jury when I sum up that it was of no importance to the matters in hand. Mr Arkwright, have you finished?”

  “Yes, Your Honour.”

  “Miss Burton any questions for Mr Bailey?”

  Judith averted her eyes from Partram. She had seen all she required for now of his audacious stare and ample physique and her energies must be directed towards an attempt to glean something else positive from Mr Bailey.

  “Yes, Your Honour, but not many.”

  “Well that’s a relief.”

  Judith rearranged her notes, took a sip of water and allowed herself a brief glance at Raymond. He remained pokerfaced and unmoving. She was about to take a risk with Mr Bailey, a risk she had considered in preparation, before his revelation about the heated dispute between Davis and Partram. The genesis of the idea had been Mr Bailey’s off-the-cuff disparaging “not him” when she had asked him in his lodging whether Mr Glover had rushed into Davis’ rooms, when Bailey did. She was certain that those words, and his following comment that Glover had been more interested in returning to the rugby, represented a fairly low opinion held by Bailey of his headmaster.

  But when Judith had resolved to take the risk, she had had no cards to play and so it had, on balance, seemed worthwhile. Now Bailey had handed her something significant, she was vacillating; “never ask a question without knowing the answer” repeating itself over and over in her mind.

  She turned to Constance for confirmation that she should do this, but of course she had not discussed every detail of her cross-examination with Constance and it was too late now to explain all the nuances. Constance was sitting, calm and tranquil, papers arranged next to her on the table, ready to pass information or prompts forward to Judith at the appropriate moment. Judith frowned and Constance nodded reassuringly. Judith turned back to the witness and began.

  “Mr Bailey. Hello. You said earlier in your statement that Mr Glover, the headmaster of Richmond Boys’, returned with you to Mr Davis’ rooms.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you went into the rooms, you saw Mr Davis’ body. I won’t dwell on that distressing part of your evidence as it is not in dispute and we will have the benefit of forensic evidence later, but when you accompanied Mrs Taylor outside and she told Mr Glover what had happened, can you tell us what Mr Glover’s reaction was?”

  “Yes, I can. I remember it clearly. He was very shocked when he heard Mr Davis was dead, well, naturally. He sort of staggered backwards and had to lean against the wall, but then he said something very strange.”

  “What did he say?” Judith enquired with feigned confidence, hoping she had been right to probe this area.

  “He said ‘this is my fault’.”

  “This is my fault,” Judith repeated his words slowly and methodically.

  Another wave of murmurings rippled through the public gallery. Arkwright gesticulated wildly to his instructing solicitor to come close and spent some time scribbling instructions in capital letters on his notepad.

  “What did you think he meant by that?” Judith asked.

  “Objection.” Arkwright had temporarily broken off his message-writing to mount his challenge, his ability to multi-task catching Judith off-guard.

  “Sustained.” Judge Blake frowned with exasperation. “Miss Burton, despite your extended holiday away from our shores, you know better than that.”

  “My apologies. Mr Bailey, I will rephrase the question. Did Mr Glover explain what he meant by his comment?”

  “Well I asked him, straight out. I knew he couldn’t have killed Davis, because I’d just found him at the game, the rugby game, so I said ‘what do you mean?’ And he just said something like ‘Oh, I am responsible because I am the head of this school’ but I wasn’t convinced that he’d meant that first time around.”

  Judith allowed herself a brief moment of preening and a quick look around the public gallery.

  “Your Honour, I have no further questions.”

  Judith was still congratulating herself mentally when Judge Blake leaned forward and waved a hand at Mr Bailey, who was already halfway out of the box.

  “Mr Bailey, just one more thing from me. At the beginning of your evidence you added that had you known Mr Davis had been stabbed you would never have left Mrs Taylor on her own in there. I am intrigued. What would you have done?”

  Arkwright stopped s
cribbling and sat back in his chair. He had forgotten to return to this point, given the disclosures which had followed, but good old Blake, razor sharp, didn’t miss a trick. Bailey turned to look at Raymond, who lifted his watery eyes towards the irascible man. He sniffed once, as if to reassert control over his original thoughts, and fixed his cool gaze on Judith.

  “I would’ve grabbed Maynard and called the police myself and waited till they came. Mr Glover couldn’t do anything to help once Mr Davis was dead, could he?”

  Judge Blake’s eyebrows knitted tight once more as he mused over Mr Bailey’s response.

  “Thank you, yes. You are excused.”

  26

  STILL WATCHING? I should think so. This is great stuff.

  Mrs Taylor? I’ve never heard her speak so much. And quite a lot of it made sense. Usually she just says, “Hello. Are you here to see Mr Glover then?” Which is such a silly question because she always knows the answer. Once she said, “I heard you did very well in your maths test.” Afterwards, Jamie asked me why I didn’t answer her. He said that would have been polite. But she didn’t ask me anything, that’s why. Why is it impolite, when someone tells you something you know, not to answer, especially if they are praising you? I thought that was called modesty.

  Another time I caught her eating Mr Glover’s biscuits. I was waiting in Mr Glover’s room and he was late. I sat in the chair in front of his desk and waited, like she told me, but after about 10 minutes, when he didn’t arrive, she came in and hovered around the place, fiddling with papers on the desk and then, she glanced up at the clock, tutted, collected his plate of biscuits and took it back through to her room. She closed the door behind her but I could hear her munching them. I’m not sure why she didn’t take his teacup too, maybe she doesn’t like tea.

  That was when I first saw something I shouldn’t, in a cupboard in the corner of the room. A walk-in cupboard with a lock, but the key was in the lock and the door was open. There was a cardboard box on the floor and its lid had been removed. I noticed it because there was writing in another language; it wasn’t Chinese, I know that ’cos I’m learning Chinese but it was similar, lots more circles and loops though. Anyway, I could see some plastic jars inside. I was trying to read the labels when I heard footsteps. But I managed to decipher some of the words and Jamie and I talked about it later and pretty much worked it out. It all fitted, with the noises in the night, you see. Maybe we should have told someone then, but we decided to keep it a secret.