A murmur of excitement swept the courtyard. Bodies surged. Two of the snappers were jolted from their ladders and tumbled into the crowd below.
A robust woman entered the courtyard through an arched walkway. Dressed in an ensemble that oozed new-season Paris with shoes entirely unsuitable for cobblestones, she waddled towards the wooden doors. She was halfway there when a spindly heel lodged between two stones and stuck fast. She stopped midstride and tugged on her foot. It wouldn’t budge. She hitched her skirt above her knees and bent down to grab at her ankle when a volley of cries burst from the photographers.
‘Vi! Vi Wilkins! This way, darlin’! Over here!’
Shutters snapped and whirred. The woman’s head shot up, a look of horror on her face. She redoubled her efforts to free the trapped heel—pausing to straighten and wave to the cameras—before finally abandoning her shoes and completing the walk in her stockings.
As she disappeared through the doorway, three people emerged from the cloisters: a man dressed in a business suit, and his son and daughter. The boy and girl, both fair-haired and tanned, were clearly twins. The boy nudged his sister and nodded towards the crowd. She looked up and a gasp of recognition shot out from the onlookers.
‘Ruby! Over here, sweetheart!’ The snappers wound themselves into a frenzy. ‘Over HERE!’
The girl buried her head into her father’s side and they hurried through the doors. A second later, the crowd got what it had been waiting for. A barrage of camera flashes whitewashed the courtyard as a thirteen-year-old boy stepped onto the cobbles. His untidy hair fell over his ears and he looked uncomfortable in a grey suit and tie. He dragged on the arm of his father, who was lagging behind him. The man stopped to collect his wife’s shoes.
‘Come on, Dad,’ Gerald Wilkins said. ‘Let’s get inside.’
‘GERALD!’
The crowd was hyped to explode.
The posters declaring undying love were consigned to the muck on the footpath, trampled beneath a herd of hormonal teenagers, reared on a diet of celebrity and gossip magazines. The photographers, who had held their line by the barriers, were pushed aside. Stepladders toppled and lenses smashed under foot. Screams of ‘GERALD!’—and just plain screams—filled the courtyard. For a second the boy glanced up. He gave a half-hearted wave. It was enough to ratchet the hysteria to another level. A police horse reared at the shrill cries that burst from the mob. But the moment the boy crossed the threshold, and a police constable stepped out to pull the wooden doors shut, disappointment fell over the crowd.
The show was over.
The photographers, reporters and hyperventilating teens drifted away until all that remained were two girls. One nudged the other.
They leaned glum-faced against the metal railings amid a mush of crumpled cardboard and flowers.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get something to eat.’
The other girl nodded. A tear rolled down her cheek. She didn’t bother to wipe it away.
A long wooden table ran down the centre of the waiting room. A dozen mismatched chairs were arranged around its sides. The fug of furniture polish hung stagnant in the air.
Gerald claimed a spot near the door. Ruby and her brother Sam pulled out a chair each and sat either side of him. Gerald’s mother headed straight to the far end of the room, to a battered urn.
She wrenched off the lid and peered inside. ‘This water’s none too hot,’ she said with a sniff. ‘And I don’t fancy it’s been cleaned anytime recently. I can’t see why they wouldn’t let Mr Fry come with us—he’d get a decent cup of tea out of this thing.’ She dropped the lid back into place and wiped her fingers on a paper napkin.
‘You can’t have a butler with you all the time, dear.’ Gerald’s father squeezed past his wife and pulled down a packet of Archer-brand teabags from a shelf. ‘You managed well enough without him for most of your life.’
Vi looked down at the chair at the head of the table and let out a sharp ahem. Ruby and Sam’s father rushed across to pull it out.
‘Thank you, Mr Valentine,’ she said. ‘Most gentlemanly of you.’ She squeezed her bottom into place as if taking up residence in Windsor Castle. Then she raised a stockinged foot onto the tabletop and put her shoes back on. ‘The point is, Eddie,’ Vi said to her husband, ‘we have a butler now, and it seems a shameful waste not to be able to use him. Especially in frightful circumstances such as these.’
Eddie ignored his wife and dangled two teabags into a pot. ‘Cuppa for you?’ he asked Mr Valentine. ‘Milk? Sugar?’
‘I just hope it doesn’t take all day,’ Vi declared, drumming her fingers on the table. ‘I have several important appointments this afternoon. And there’s Walter to consider.’
Eddie placed a mug in front of his wife. ‘I’m sure the hairdresser won’t mind if you’re late. And as for Walter—’
Vi held up her index finger in warning.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she said. ‘I have had enough of your negative energy. You are having a serious impact on my emotional scaffolding. You know how important Walter is to my blueprint of enhanced health.’
Eddie poured tea into another mug. ‘Pfft,’ he muttered. ‘Blueprint of wasted wealth, more like.’
At the other end of the table Gerald sucked in a deep breath. His parents had only returned from their holiday the week before and already he was wishing they’d leave for their next one.
Ruby leaned across and whispered, ‘Who’s Walter?’
‘Please—don’t ask about Walter,’ Gerald said. He gazed down the length of the room as his mother continued to scold Eddie. ‘You don’t want to know.’
Sam reached over, took a ginger nut biscuit from a plate in front of Gerald and took a bite. ‘You’ve had a fun week then?’ he said.
Gerald cupped his chin in his hands. ‘You have no idea.’
Just then the door to the waiting room opened. A small man dressed in a suit a size too large stepped inside.
‘Ah, Mr Prisk!’ Vi boomed, startling the man. ‘How much longer are we to wait? I don’t fancy paying your fees by the hour if it’s going to take all day.’ She turned to Mr Valentine and gave him a wink. ‘Lawyers, Mr Valentine. A pox on them all, I say.’
Mr Prisk fiddled with his cufflinks. ‘They’ve just started,’ he said. ‘You’d better come through.’
Vi pushed back on her chair and stood up. ‘About time,’ she said. ‘Walter will be anxious if I’m late.’
They followed Mr Prisk along a dimly lit hallway and gathered in a foyer before a large set of double doors. Vi ignored Gerald’s protests as she straightened his tie and patted down a tuft of hair.
‘Best behaviour,’ she said to him. ‘Right?’
Gerald made a point of ruffling the back of his head as they went through the doors and into courtroom number one of the Old Bailey.
The trial was already underway.
Gerald followed Mr Prisk’s directions and joined the others in the front row of the public gallery. The scene before him was straight from an old courtroom movie. A judge in red robes and a white wig sat at the bench, peering down at the prosecution counsel to one side and the defence counsel to the other. A jury of seven men and five women watched on as a barrister in a black gown stood up at the prosecution table.
‘The Crown calls the defendant to the stand.’
Every eye in the court moved to the dock. A silver-haired man, dressed in a navy blue suit and regimental tie, rose to his feet and stepped down from the raised wooden enclosure, then crossed the short distance to the witness box. He turned and fixed a firm gaze to the barrister.
The prosecutor straightened a pile of papers on his desk. ‘For the record,’ he said, ‘please state your full name.’
The man in the witness box stared out at the court, as if searching for a friend in a crowd. His eyes passed across the jury, journeyed beyond the table of lawyers, cleared the packed press gallery and came to rest on the face of Gerald Wilkins. Then the man smiled.
>
‘My name,’ he said in a voice of clear authority, ‘is Sir Mason Hercules Green.’
Chapter 2
Prosecuting counsel Garfield Callaghan QC was fast losing his patience. He had spent the previous hour questioning Sir Mason Green about his movements on the night Geraldine Archer was murdered. But he was getting no closer to the answer that he wanted.
‘Sir Mason,’ Mr Callaghan said with exasperation, ‘may I remind you of the gravity of the charges before you? Murder. Attempted murder. Conspiracy to murder. These are not trifling matters.’
He was interrupted by the sound of a chair scraping across the floor, followed by the clipped tones of the defence counsel. ‘My Lord, my learned colleague is surely aware that Sir Mason is attending these proceedings voluntarily. He surrendered himself to the authorities and is here to clear his name of these baseless accusations. There is not a scrap of evidence to tie him to these crimes other than the overactive imaginations of three juveniles—and there is considerable doubt as to whether their evidence will be admissible. It hardly seems in order that the Crown be badgering my client in this way.’
‘Thank you, Mr Elks,’ the judge said, leaning back to adjust his robes. ‘You have made that point several times. Perhaps we could allow the prosecution to continue. Proceed, Mr Callaghan.’
Mr Callaghan glared at Sir Mason.
‘I put it to you that you ordered the murder of Miss Geraldine Archer, that you attempted to murder her great nephew Gerald Wilkins and his friend Sam Valentine and that you indeed did murder one Sunil Khan, an itinerant vendor of Delhi, India.’
Before Sir Mason could open his mouth, his counsel was back on his feet. ‘My Lord, are we now to hear accusations regarding events that may have occurred in other countries? Is the Crown’s case that weak? I would argue that the charges before my client be dismissed at once.’
‘Thank you, Mr Elks,’ the judge said. ‘You have saved me the effort of reminding the prosecuting counsel to restrict himself to the matters that are before this court. The jury is to disregard the matter of Mr Khan.’
Mr Callaghan closed his eyes. He appeared to be counting to ten. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘As ever, your Lordship is quite right.’
‘He is also quite hungry. This might be an appropriate time to break. Members of the jury, we shall reconvene after luncheon at, let’s say, two thirty.’
The twelve jury members followed the usher from the court. Most of them stared at Gerald as they filed out, keen to get a good look at the richest thirteen-year-old on the planet. Sam tapped his friend on the shoulder. ‘Looks like you’re the centre of attention,’ he said. ‘Again.’
Gerald’s face burned. He hated it when people paid him any attention. He looked up to find that Sir Mason Green, still seated in the witness box, was staring at him with laser intensity. Their eyes locked. And Green’s lip curled in a malignant smile.
‘Come along, Gerald.’ It was Inspector Parrott from the London Metropolitan Police. He moved across to block the view of the man who had become Gerald’s waking nightmare. ‘Let’s get something to eat.’
Gerald prodded a fork at the reheated lasagna on his plate, failing to make any impression on it.
‘You going to finish that?’ Sam was eyeing off Gerald’s barely touched lunch.
Gerald slid the plate across the cafeteria table. ‘Help yourself.’ He took a sip on a straw that poked from the can of lemonade by his elbow. ‘I don’t get it,’ Gerald said. ‘Why is Green looking so pleased with himself? He’s guilty as all get out.’
‘Maybe,’ Ruby said. ‘But when you think about it, he didn’t actually kill your great aunt. The thin man did that.’
‘On Green’s orders though,’ Sam said, through a mouthful of mince and cheese.
‘The thin man’s dead,’ Ruby said. She flicked a sprig of parsley from her sleeve and sent a look of disgust to her brother. ‘He’s not giving any evidence.’
‘But Green tried to kill Sam and me in the cavern under Beaconsfield,’ Gerald said. ‘We’re all witnesses to that.’
‘The word of a thirteen-year-old against one of England’s most respected business leaders? Who do you think the jury is going to believe?’
‘Why wouldn’t they believe me?’ Gerald said.
Ruby let out a weary sigh. ‘Because, Gerald,’ she said, ‘everyone in Britain hates you.’
‘Hates me?’
‘Because of the money. It’s like you’re the biggest lottery winner in the history of all history. Everyone wants to be as rich as you. It’s envy.’
Gerald’s shoulders slumped. ‘But what about all those girls outside? They seemed to like me.’
Sam took a long sip of his drink. ‘And the number of times you were mobbed by screaming girls before you inherited all that money was how many?’
Gerald screwed up his face. Life as a junior billionaire was confusing.
‘What if the jury says Green’s not guilty?’ he said. ‘What happens then?’
Ruby paused for a second to stab a cherry tomato in her salad. ‘Then Green walks free.’
Gerald dropped his head to the tabletop. ‘No wonder he’s smiling.’
The courthouse cafeteria was crowded with lunchtime diners. Barristers in robes alongside freshly scrubbed defendants in suits smelling distinctly of mothballs.
Mr Prisk sipped his cup of tea. ‘I’m afraid, Gerald, Miss Valentine is correct,’ he said. ‘The case against Sir Mason Green relies on the evidence of you three children.’
‘So?’ Gerald said, his cheek flat to the table. ‘We’re hardly going to make up a story as weird as this.’
‘What’s not to believe?’ Sam said, scooping the last of the lasagna into his mouth. ‘Three kids accuse one of England’s richest men of nicking the most valuable diamond in the world and then ordering his evil henchman to kill an old woman because she won’t reveal the location of a mysterious casket that contains an even more mysterious golden rod. And then he tries to kill Gerald and me in a Roman burial chamber that’s been hidden in a cavern for a thousand years. And we track him to a lost city in India, where he murders a fortune-teller and escapes with another golden rod that has the power to turn Gerald into a gibbering idiot.’ Sam took a sip of his drink. ‘I’d totally believe that.’
Gerald slid back into his chair and loosened his tie. The greasy surrounds of the cafeteria were a million miles from the adventures he and his friends had experienced in India. But now he was back in London, his parents had returned from their tour of Gerald’s freshly inherited luxury estates and he was the star witness in what threatened to be a long and torturous court case—sitting in the same room as Sir Mason Green, sharing the same space, feeling those eyes drilling into his forehead.
‘He’ll try to kill us again,’ Gerald said. ‘If he gets off. The way he was looking at me before. There’s something not right about him.’
‘Of course there’s something not right about him,’ Sam said. ‘He’s barking mad.’
‘It’s not that,’ Gerald said, taking another sip of his drink. ‘He just seems—I don’t know—too relaxed.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Ruby said. She placed a hand on Gerald’s forearm. He looked down at the fingers spread across his sleeve.
‘Uh, thanks,’ he mumbled, his voice catching in his throat. Ruby gave Gerald a gentle smile.
‘At least Green is banged up for now,’ Sam said.
‘That’s another thing,’ Gerald said. ‘Why would he give himself up to the police? You saw what he was like with the golden rod in the temple in India. It was like his life’s quest had been fulfilled.’
‘That was a surprise.’ Inspector Parrott joined them at the table, carrying a ham sandwich on a plate. ‘He turned up at the British Embassy in Madrid and said he wanted to clear his name. Not the actions of a guilty man, you might think. Still, if he is convicted, we can call off your police guard, Gerald.’
‘Good,’ Gerald said. ‘Not that I don’t appreciate it. Bu
t breakfast with Constable Lethbridge every morning isn’t my idea of the best way to start the day.’
‘How is the constable, by the way?’ Ruby asked. ‘Is he feeling better?’
Parrott shook his head. ‘He’s as good as he’ll ever be, I expect,’ he said. ‘How he gets himself into these situations is beyond me. Mugged on a blind date! Extraordinary.’
Sam stifled a giggle. ‘Sounded pretty painful the way he described it.’
The inspector winced. ‘I’d assign him to desk duties but he’s not too keen on sitting down at the moment.’
A dark-haired waitress in a tunic appeared and started stacking the lunch dishes and soft-drink cans onto a tray. Mr Prisk consulted his watch and pushed back his chair. ‘Time to move back in,’ he said.
There was a logjam of people in the foyer waiting to get into the public gallery. Gerald noticed three burly police constables standing outside the entrance to the men’s room, across to his left. Just then, Sir Mason Green emerged through the washroom door. He was wiping his hands on a paper towel. He handed the crumpled wad to one of the policemen, who took it with mild disbelief. Then Green set off—straight towards Gerald. Caught by surprise, the police pushed their way after him, but not fast enough. In the crush of bodies, Green managed to weave past Inspector Parrott and Mr Prisk, and the court security staff, straight by Sam and Ruby, until he was just inches from Gerald.
‘Mr Wilkins, what a pleasure to see you again.’ Green towered over Gerald, like an avalanche about to happen.
His voice was cool.
Calm.
And completely menacing.
‘We really must have a bite together after this is over. It seems to be going terribly well for me, don’t you think?’
Gerald stood frozen to the spot, unable to respond. The man who had tried to kill him was inviting him to lunch?
Gerald sensed that people were struggling to get to them. Mr Prisk was calling to the police for assistance; his mother was somewhere nearby, shouting.
But it was as if a glass dome had been lowered over Gerald and his tormentor. It was just the two of them. All the world could do was stand back and watch.
The Mask of Destiny Page 2