by Anne Perry
The first witness Hillyer called was a quiet, nervous-appearing young man with soft, fair hair that kept flopping over his brow. He identified several pieces of paper, which were solemnly passed around the jury for them to look at. They were letters of authorization to pay small sums of money to certain tradesmen, restaurants, hotels, and so forth. The total amount was approximately one hundred pounds.
“And do these letters of authorization to pay all carry the same signature, sir?” Hillyer asked with interest.
“Yes, sir, they do.” He sounded very certain. “Mr. Philip Sidney’s.”
This looked as if it were going to be a solid and tedious presentation of the case against Sidney. Surely Hillyer, whose reputation was high, was going to do something more than this? Daniel began to feel far less comfortable. He had no idea what to expect. Of course, he had studied several of Hillyer’s recent cases. And what they had in common were surprises, sudden and unforeseen turns in the line of evidence, entirely different conclusions suggested, and then supported. It made it impossible to know what to expect or prepare for.
He looked at Sidney in the dock and saw the same intense concentration on his face, as if he were not aware of what to expect. If he really did not know, how frightening for him! No wonder he looked so white. Would the jury take that for guilt?
The next witness was a clerk from the Foreign Office in London who had once held the office that Sidney held in Washington.
“Mr. Partington,” Hillyer began pleasantly, “please describe, briefly, the position you held in our embassy in Washington, just sufficiently for us to understand Mr. Sidney’s duties, his responsibilities. Especially, we would like to know what trust he enjoyed from his superiors.”
“Yes, sir.” Partington relished his importance in explaining the workings of the office to the jury. He was simple, lucid, and just short of being an utter bore. It was exactly what anyone who had ever worked in an office would have expected.
Hillyer held up his hand and stopped him at the perfect moment. He turned to Daniel. “Your witness, sir,” he invited. He sat down with a pleasant, slightly satisfied smile. He knew the jury had heard everything they wished from this witness. Anything more would be lost in confusion and boredom.
Clever bastard, Daniel thought. If the jury heard much more of this, they would fall asleep. He stood up and spoke to both Hillyer and the judge. And then turned to the court. “Thank you, but I think that is as clear as anyone could be.” And then he turned to the witness. “Just one thing, Mr. Partington. Did you know Mr. Sidney? Personally, I mean?”
“No, sir, I have never met him.”
“I thought not. You are merely telling us what his job was. I think the gentlemen of the jury will already understand that, insofar as it is necessary at all. I assume that you never wrote a letter of authorization for payment that was…erroneous?”
“No, sir!” Partington said stiffly. “I never took anything that was not mine!”
“We have not yet established that anyone has,” Daniel said, and then before Hillyer could object, he sat down.
Hillyer called his next witness, another clerk, who kept similar ledgers in some British embassy somewhere else.
Daniel sat silent, only half listening. It was difficult to concentrate on anything so infinitely tedious. But he knew that the one thing that might matter, if he caught it, could change the course of the trial, and he could miss it through a slip in attention.
Suddenly he became aware of someone standing in the aisle beside him. For one bright moment, he thought it might be Kitteridge. But it was not. It was someone darker, and more naturally coordinated.
The judge was staring at them.
The man kneeled down in the aisle, next to Daniel, to appear at the same level as if he were sitting. It was Patrick.
Daniel tried to look as if he had been expecting him. “What are you doing here?” he whispered sharply. “What’s happened?” He was terrified there had been some disaster that would be far worse than anything that could happen here.
Patrick looked at his face. “We need to talk…now…about the case.”
“Can you be brief? Or shall I ask for an adjournment? For how long?”
“Fifteen minutes? I don’t know how much it matters, but you ought to judge.”
Patrick was intensely serious.
“Mr. Pitt?” the judge inquired patiently. “Is this interruption relevant?”
“Yes, Your Honor. If I could ask you for a fifteen-minute adjournment?” Daniel requested.
“Very well, fifteen minutes,” the judge agreed wearily, but there was a flicker of amusement in his face, as if he could use a break from the tedium of the evidence so far.
Daniel left the courtroom as quickly as possible, with Patrick on his heels. He had no office here, and nowhere in the building was private enough for whatever this might be. He stopped on the steps outside.
Patrick stood in front of him. He knew time was short. “I’ve been in touch with the police department back home in Washington by wire. Actually, it works pretty well if you can be brief.”
“What did they tell you?” Daniel had no patience to wait until Patrick worked around to it.
“That Morley Cross, the young man who worked at the British Embassy and who we believe found the false expenses papers, went missing, and now his body has turned up in the Potomac. That’s a river in Washington.”
“You mean he has drowned?” said Daniel, thinking he must have misunderstood.
“He was murdered,” Patrick said.
“Not…an accident? You said in the river?”
“Yes. But he didn’t drown. He was shot.” Patrick looked at Daniel steadily. “It’s probably connected. He worked in the same department in the embassy as Sidney. He handled the same accounts and money. I’m sorry. It looks much worse than we thought—than I thought anyway.”
Daniel was stunned. His mind raced to accommodate this new information and fit it into any story that made sense.
“When did he die?” he asked Patrick.
“Not sure, exactly.” Patrick looked grim. “The body has been in the water. There’s not a lot to go on. But it looks like a while. Lucky they could identify him. It seems to be long enough ago that it could have been before Sidney left Washington.”
“You’re saying Sidney killed him?” Daniel’s stomach sank as he asked. This was worse than anything he had imagined. Then another thought occurred to him. Could Hillyer possibly know this, and be waiting for some further detail before he called witnesses, who would drop it on Daniel? He would be taken totally by surprise and have no possible answer for it.
“I’m saying he could have,” Patrick answered. “I’m sorry. But you have to be prepared for this coming up now. Somebody did it. He was shot in the back of the head. He couldn’t have done it himself. Not at that angle.” He hesitated. “Can I do anything at all to help? Find out anything? I…I didn’t mean to lumber you with this. I didn’t know Morley Cross was even missing.”
“But you keep up…?”
“I care about this. I want it to come out right. I think Sidney’s arrogant, takes things that are not his, regardless of who gets hurt. He terrified Rebecca. She’s still scared stiff to sleep at night. She has nightmares.”
“I understand,” Daniel said quietly. “If he’s guilty, then he is mean-spirited, cruel…” He forced himself to go on. “And if he’s not guilty, this could mean the complete destruction of the man’s character, of his whole life and future.”
“I know. I wish to hell I knew what the truth was!”
“So do I,” Daniel said with profound feeling. “Tell me anything else you hear, please. Now I’ve got to go back and sit through this tedium, because Hillyer could be hiding something important in all of it!”
Patrick smiled. “Good luck.”
* * *<
br />
—
DEATH BY BOREDOM, Daniel thought to himself as the court resumed. Why was Hillyer stringing this out? Was he playing for time? The answer was painful and clear. Daniel was almost certain Patrick was right: Hillyer was delaying until he had enough proof of Morley Cross’s murder to introduce it, and charge Sidney with that as well.
That’s why Daniel had to listen. Hillyer could go on like this for days! Even weeks!
Daniel felt every muscle in his body tighten as the thought struck him: Was there another witness who knew something about the murder of Morley Cross? An old enemy? Rival? Sidney’s job in the embassy was hardly worth all this effort, was it? Was there something about it he didn’t know? Someone had murdered Morley Cross. That was undeniable. It would be absurd to hope it was nothing to do with Sidney and the embassy. But what? No witness Hillyer called made it any plainer.
* * *
—
DANIEL LEFT THE court at the end of the day without speaking again to Sidney. He had no idea what to ask him. He needed to speak to Kitteridge.
He found him in chambers, having just come back from a different court.
“Hell, Pitt! You look awful! What happened? And sit down, before you fall over.”
Daniel obeyed. “Most of the actual evidence was just time wasting,” he answered. “Hillyer called one character witness after another. I had to listen, in case he was burying something.”
“Was he?” Kitteridge interrupted.
“Not that I could see. But…”
“Well, what is it, for heaven’s sake?”
Daniel took a long breath. “Morley Cross, the man who handed over the financial papers? His body was found floating in the Potomac River. He’d been shot.” He saw Kitteridge’s face turn pale, his eyes widen, but he did not speak. “And it might have happened before Sidney left the States,” Daniel added.
Again, Kitteridge remained silent.
“Hillyer has said nothing,” Daniel went on. “Perhaps he doesn’t know…yet. So, witnesses are giving details. But after what we’ve learned, it’s all waffle. He’s taking up time, and boring the jury half to death.”
“Then he’s hiding something,” Kitteridge concluded. “But what? News of Morley Cross? Why?”
“Not enough information? So, he’ll move on to focus on the assault on Rebecca? Unless…” He stopped, the words choking him.
“Unless…what?”
There was no point in biting it back. “Unless one of the character witnesses is going to announce the murder.”
“And if not?”
Daniel thought for a moment. “That he assaulted some other young woman, which ties into the Rebecca story.” Then another thought occurred to him, worse than the first. For a moment, it robbed him of speech. The jeopardy to Sidney had suddenly doubled, tripled, in size and threatened everything. His mind was racing ahead.
“What is it?” Kitteridge demanded. “Pitt! I’m not a mind reader. What are you thinking? That Sidney is guilty? What if he is? I know you quite like him, or at least have a sympathy for him. But if he’s guilty, then he is. I’d far rather Hillyer proved it on his own than we had to engineer some way of introducing the whole beastly business.” He hesitated a moment.
Daniel said nothing. His mouth was as dry as sawdust.
“Pitt! Don’t look like that. We’ve had guilty clients before. And if this is a pattern, then he has to be put away. We have to bite the bullet, and admit he’s charming, and rotten!”
“That isn’t what I was thinking,” Daniel answered at last. “If Thorwood were to be called as a witness, his identification of Sidney would be very easily believable. And give him a painful motive for wanting to take Sidney down. Everyone would understand he’d want him to pay for assaulting Rebecca.” He stared at Kitteridge. “But…the murder?”
Slowly, Kitteridge turned pale. “You mean if Thorwood got it wrong, and somehow framed Sidney for the embezzlement, to get revenge?”
“Isn’t that the obvious defense? That the identification was wrong? But Thorwood believes it, perhaps because he has to, for whatever reason. Perhaps Sidney and Rebecca were having an affair? Thorwood wants to get rid of Sidney. Disgrace is the obvious answer. Ruin him. Return him to England in disgrace. Then he can’t marry Rebecca, and the Thorwood money. But what if Thorwood knows nothing about Morley Cross? The murder must be part of the whole business, but if Thorwood framed Sidney, and he’s innocent of the assault and the embezzlement, how does the murder of Morley Cross fit in with that?”
“God! You’ve got a devious mind, and you want to understand everyone!” Kitteridge said, but it was awe he expressed, not denial. “I see why you’re going all shades of pale,” he went on. “What is Patrick Flannery’s part in this? Or what would Thorwood say it was, regardless?” He took a deep breath and was about to go on, when Daniel cut across him.
“Patrick came to the court today.”
“What? Why?” Kitteridge looked startled.
“He came to tell me about Cross.”
“Cross…” Kitteridge repeated, and then fell silent.
Daniel said nothing. Clearly, the man was formulating some idea.
“Could Morley Cross have attacked Rebecca?” Kitteridge said with disbelief. “Then he set up Sidney with the embezzlement charge?”
“I hadn’t even thought of that,” Daniel admitted, a wave of nausea coming over him. How had he not considered that?
“Oh, great heaven!” Kitteridge said slowly, the color draining out of his face. “And they are thinking Cross’s murder happened before Sidney left Washington?”
“That’s just it,” Daniel said wretchedly. “It’s too close to say…yet.”
CHAPTER
Twelve
THE TRIAL CONTINUED. On the second day Jemima sat in the gallery beside Patrick and watched Hillyer proceed to call his witnesses. It was all boringly predictable, but Jemima could not drag her attention from it because, surely the moment she did, something interesting would be said, something on which the whole case might turn.
Was it going to turn? Which way? She and Patrick had spoken about it little, and not at all since yesterday. He did not seem to want to, and she realized she was actually afraid. Why? Frightened that justice would not be done? That Sidney would escape? She felt confused about her feelings: a man was being tried for a crime he probably didn’t commit to expose one that he probably had, but which she wasn’t even sure she wanted to be made public.
She looked sideways to her right, across the aisle, where Bernadette Thorwood was sitting, pale-faced, next to Rebecca. Tobias was not present.
Bernadette had her hands folded in her lap. They looked relaxed, except that every now and then she would twist her ring. The large diamond would catch the light, and then disappear again.
Why had they brought Rebecca to this? Did they fear that perhaps this was all the justice she was going to see? Jemima had not spoken to Rebecca alone since their meeting in the park. Jemima had called again, but both times either Bernadette or Tobias had been present and the meetings had been awkward.
Jemima tried to think what it would be like to waken in the night and find a man in her bedroom, perhaps sifting through her belongings looking for money or, more likely, jewelry. Had she sat up? Called out to him, perhaps? Why had he not run while he still could? That seemed stupid to Jemima. Had the light caught the pendant at her throat, and he had gone after it, as a magpie after all that glitters? Regardless of losing his chance to escape?
Or had she herself been the object of his breaking in, theft not the motive at all? Was Rebecca telling the truth about how well she really knew Philip Sidney?
Jemima hated herself for that thought. She owed her friend more loyalty than that. How hurt she would be were it the other way around, and Rebecca had disbelieved her! And yet she did doubt. Something was mi
ssing from the account. It might be something perfectly innocent, just private, but left out of all this. She sensed that Patrick knew more than he was revealing, but had chosen to say nothing. Why? To protect her from knowing something bad about Rebecca?
She looked across at Philip Sidney. What was he guilty of? A series of errors? Or something darker? He was nice-looking, in a mild, semi-humorous sort of way. As if he could see the joke, even when it was so much against him. But he was frightened. She could see that after a moment or two. He was breathing too deeply. He kept looking at Daniel, as if aching to find reassurance, and then turning away again just as quickly, before he could see that there was none.
Daniel, of course, she knew much better. Although in the four years she had been in America, he had changed in so many indefinite ways. He was certainly far more sure of his opinions, and less compelled to defend them. That was part of growing up, and she admired it. The air of innocence he always had was still there. Maybe it always would be. But now she saw beneath it. He had known victory and defeat. Much less could take him by surprise.
Hillyer finished questioning the witness, someone who had known Sidney before he had gone to America, and disliked him. He had attempted to hide it, to seem so scrupulously fair that the whole account sounded artificial. Would Daniel pick that up? It wasn’t the facts, it was the emotions. Would he see that?
Daniel began to question the witness, a man by the name of Edgeley.
Jemima’s fingernails were digging into her palms. How could anything so boring also make her so tense? It was like a firing squad! Why wouldn’t someone just shoot and get it over with?
“You say that Sidney was careless at times, Mr. Edgeley. He made mistakes and allowed you to take the blame for them?” Daniel asked calmly, as if he were only checking the facts.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“A nasty habit.” Daniel pulled his mouth into an expression of distaste. “In fact, I would call it a mixture of cowardice and dishonesty.”