“An informer can put a big dealer behind bars for life, I suppose,” Cobb said.
“He can be very instrumental in that, yes.”
“So if a man is an informer, and is found out, his life is not worth very much.”
“Jim Fat’s life was not worth very much, that is for sure.”
“No. He was an informer, wasn’t he?”
“I am afraid that is so.”
“Instead of arresting him, you used him, is that so?” Cobb said.
“In our business we have to make certain decisions like that from time to time. We were looking for bigger game. He was bait.”
“And he was killed because he had informed on someone very big, is that right?”
“He was giving me information on Ming and Plizit. I have already said that. Somehow they found out. I don’t know how. I believe they killed him.”
“And he was killed in a pretty bloodthirsty way, you know that.”
“So I have heard.” Cudlipp shook his head sadly.
“And whoever informed on the informer was as much responsible for this death as the man who wielded the knife, would you agree?”
There was a hesitation. “I am not competent to judge that sort of issue,” Cudlipp said.
Cobb was through skirting the point and honed in: “Did you ever tell any person that Jim Fat was your informer?”
“No, not even my superior officer. I maintain a trust with my informers.” There was a muffled laugh from somewhere in the gallery. The sheriffs looked stern.
“Come, corporal, did you not tell the accused, Au, that Jim Fat was an informer?”
“Of course not.” Cudlipp, blustering, sounded indignant.
“You met with the accused a couple of days before Jim Fat’s death?”
“I may have. We met often. He was giving me information, too. I have already said that.”
“It was at a time when you were carrying out an investigation as to Au’s activities as a drug trafficker, that is what I am suggesting. Did you not tell fellow officers you were expecting to arrest Au in his car with a large quantity of heroin?” Charrington had learned of the December first stake-out of Au’s car during interviews with junior drug-squad officers.
There was a delay before Cudlipp said anything, and when he spoke, he repeated the question: “You are asking whether we expected to arrest the accused with some heroin.” Cudlipp looked down at Smythe-Baldwin, who simply stared at his notes, unable to help. “Well, there was an investigation. We have to follow all leads. I had information there might be some heroin in Dr. Au’s car, but it was probably Plizit’s. He had access.”
“Where did that information come from?”
Smythe-Baldwin was on his feet before Cobb finished the last word. “My friend knows that the rules of evidence do not require a police officer to name informants in these courts. We have just heard an exposition of the dangers that exist to their lives if their names become known, and I am sure my friend would not wish to find himself in the position of being a party to endangering someone’s life. How did he put it? ‘Whoever informs on the informer is as responsible as the man who wields the knife.’”
“I am sure fraud is an exception to the rule,” Cobb replied.
The judge ruled against Cobb, reserving a right to change his mind if Cobb could offer proof of fraud. Then they took the regular morning adjournment. Jennifer Tann brought him a coffee, and they went to the crown-counsel room.
“Very briefly,” she said, “evidence can be called by the crown to rebut only issues raised which are not collateral. You can call evidence to disprove alibi, but the cases say credibility is collateral, and you cannot call evidence to prove a witness has lied about some unrelated issues. For instance . . . hey, are you all right?”
Cobb had a far-away look. He had not heard her essay on law. His anger gripped him and his muscles became rigid.
“Foster,” Tann said. “Hey.”
“Right,” he said. “That’s good. That’s excellent.”
“Where did you migrate to?”
“When — Friday night?”
“No, just now.”
“I don’t think I can tell you.”
Tann put her hand over his and held it there for a moment.
On the way back to the courtroom, Cobb stopped by the witness room. Special Agent Flaherty seemed composed, ready, and was reading over the Cudlipp notes. Giulente was tense, and gave Cobb a tight smile.
Outside the courtroom, Cudlipp was finishing a cigarette, talking bravely and earnestly with the sheriffs. He was still one of the boys.
Inside, Au calmly looked around. He saw Charrington sitting in the front row beside Harrison, near the seat Leclerc had occupied. Au assumed correctly that the man was of high rank and had business here, and that the business had to do with Cudlipp. The slightest fringe of a headache was making passage from behind his optic nerve to the base of his right ear. He touched a place in his lower back and the pain ceased. But he knew it would return, travelling different routes. The prognosis was uncertain, and because the illness was novel to him, and seemed to centre somewhere in the brain, no diagnosis could be accurate. But there was serenity in his expression. He did not betray the subtle erosion of his inner tranquillity. His mind, he believed, was still as clear as a mirror.
Cudlipp was unhappy. He had spent Saturday with Alice Carson, and she had puffed him up to full confidence, but on Sunday, alone, he had sagged, feeling the confidence hissing out through small leaks. This morning he had picked Carson up and they had gone to the courtroom together, and again she had given him courage — but that had ebbed as Cobb seemed to guess too closely at the truth.
But perhaps Cobb had nothing, and the whole of the cross-examination would be bait and bluff. The money was safe in Carson’s sock. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars would be sufficient recompense for whatever humiliation he might suffer here.
Alice Carson was quite relaxed. She was dressed tastefully in a new suit which showed only a little leg. It was an expensive outfit, but Cudlipp had insisted she buy it. Appearance mattered in court, he said.
M.C. Smythe-Baldwin leaned back on his chair at the counsel table, trading quips with reporters who hovered about him practising cynical lines upon him. When Cobb re-entered the court, he caught his eye, and raised his eyebrows, as if to ask: How do you plan to do this man in? What do you have in your pocket?
When court resumed, Cobb switched the topic. “Did you bring your notes relating conversations with the accused?”
“You mean notes of my conversation with him last December third? I know you are going to make something of this, but I lost them.”
“You lost them.” Cobb said it as a well-predicted truth.
“Yes. I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t think they would be important, so I just mislaid them someplace. I spent the whole weekend hunting high and low for them, Mr. Cobb, and I know the first thing you’re going to think is I destroyed them or something.”
“Your notes for December third are missing.”
“Yes.”
“And your notes containing other references to the accused, recounting other meetings with him — where are they?”
“To be quite honest, the only notes I have are with respect to on-going investigations, or matters that are coming before the courts. I don’t usually keep my notes unless I know they will be used.”
“So you destroyed them?”
“No, I lost them. Or just threw them away, I don’t know.”
“You lost them. Or you threw them away.”
“I can’t find them, anyway. I looked high and low.”
“And where did you look high and low?”
“All over my house. I never keep them at the detachment.”
“And when did you look high and low?”
“All weekend.”
“Oh,” said Cobb. “You have decided to return home. I think I may have called you there a few dozen times in the last few weeks, and the phone kept ringing. Were you on holidays?”
“I took some holiday leave, yes.”
“You were not hiding from me?”
“Oh, no.”
“And where did you take these holidays? Some sumptuous tropical resort?”
Cobb regretted that. Sarcasm was a poor weapon.
“Where did I spend my holidays?” Cudlipp gave a grunting, forced laugh. “Well, it wasn’t a pleasure holiday, believe me. I was asked by Mr. Smythe-Baldwin to help with the defence, so I stayed close to the courthouse, where I would be handy to him.”
“And where was that?”
“Hotel Vancouver.”
“Hotel Vancouver? You had a room there all this time?”
“A room, a suite.”
“A suite? That’s larger than a room, then? It would cost about sixty, seventy-five dollars a day?”
“I don’t know. Mr. Smythe-Baldwin paid the bill.”
“How generous. And you were all alone in this hotel room? I take it you are not married?”
“I am separated from my wife. I don’t mind you knowing that. I have a girlfriend and she visits me, and I don’t mind you knowing that, either. We love each other very much, and you may as well know that, too, if you are interested in my personal life.”
“Since you are not shy about such matters, perhaps you can tell me something about your current relationship with Mrs. Cudlipp. I take it you may be paying her some form of financial support.”
“I have three children. I pay seven hundred and fifty a month.”
Smythe-Baldwin rose wearily from his seat to complain. “Is my friend interested in these details, or is he hoping to try to toss a little dirt around? The witness has nothing to hide, and is he not entitled to keep the facts of his personal life to himself.”
“I will show the relevance, my lord,” Cobb said.
“If you can, I will let you proceed, but you should exercise care, Mr. Cobb,” said the judge.
Cobb, flaring a bit, said: “I try always to exercise care, my lord. I do not enjoy rummaging for scandal.”
“Proceed, Mr. Cobb,” Horowitz said. “When you have gone too far, I will let you know.” Judges do not like to be upbraided, even mildly.
“Are you up-to-date in the payments to your wife and family?” Cobb asked.
“I am, sir.”
“Have you always been?”
“I have paid every last cent I owe, or that family court claims that I owe.”
“Were you always up-to-date, corporal?”
“There have been disputes about how much I owe, but I am paid up fully to date.”
“Were you always up-to-date on these payments, corporal?”
“I suppose I was behind for a while.”
“In fact, in early December you were behind to the tune of seven thousand dollars, isn’t that so? Seven thousand dollars?”
“If you’ve been talking to my wife, I suppose that’s what she might have said. She and I don’t get along well, and I’m not afraid to tell you that.”
“Seven thousand dollars. I put it to you.”
“I don’t know. December? No, it couldn’t have been that much.” Cudlipp gave the air of carefully trying to reconstruct his marital financial history. He looked at the ceiling, then closed his eyes, frowning.
“This will help,” said Cobb, flashing from his file a court document. “This is a family court order for payment of arrears of maintenance, and it is dated November twenty-eight. Do you see any names on it you recognize?” He walked to the witness box and placed it in front of Cudlipp.
“Yes, I am shown here. And you’re right. Well, it says seven thousand dollars. I honestly couldn’t remember. I ask you to believe that.”
Again Smythe-Baldwin rose, and Cobb heard tension in his voice. “In the name of decency, my lord, my friend should now stop this invasion of a man’s private life.”
“I will tell him when he must stop, Mr. Smythe-Baldwin.” The judge had caught the scent.
“Tell us when you paid out this debt, witness,” Cobb ordered.
“The middle of December, or thereabouts.” Cudlipp’s voice was slightly ragged now, and he cleared his throat.
“And where did you get the money? Tell us that, please.”
“I had some money in the bank, and I got a loan.”
“How much money was in the bank, and how much did you borrow from it?”
“I didn’t borrow from the bank. Well, I had a few hundred in the bank, and the rest I got from a friend.”
“A friend?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A very good friend.”
“I suppose.”
“Will you tell us who the friend is?”
“He is a man who I know from back east. I wrote to him and he sent me some money, that is all.”
“What is his name?”
“Franklin. John Franklin.” Cobb wondered whether that name had just now been obtained from the air, or whether Cudlipp had prepared for this area of questioning.
“His address.”
“It’s a Toronto address. I don’t have it here. Probably at home, somewhere.”
“What does he do?”
“He has a . . . he is a businessman. Tools and implements, I believe.”
“And he sent you a cheque?”
Cudlipp hesitated for a moment. “Well, now, gosh, I can’t remember whether it was a cheque or money order, or what, to be honest.”
“Well, if it were a cheque or money order, we could easily trace that, couldn’t we?”
“I suppose. No, wait. It was cash. I remember. He was in town. He travels a lot. And he must have gone to his bank and withdrawn the cash for me.”
Cobb let all of that sink home for a while while he looked at the jury. One man was smiling.
“Witness, the money was given to you by Au P’ang Wei, the accused. Please tell us if that isn’t so.”
“I deny that,” Cudlipp said. “I know what you are trying to do.”
“I am merely trying to seek the truth, witness.”
“I think you are trying to discredit me.”
“Yes, indeed,” Cobb said. Cudlipp was a very big fish, but he was on the line now. “You didn’t consider that it was curious of Mr. Frank Johnson — is that his name?”
“Yes. No. I said John Franklin.”
“That Mr. Franklin would pay you this whole sum in cash?”
“He deals in large sums of money all the time.”
“And did you sign a promissory note or some document?”
“No. We work on trust.”
“Yes, and you deposited all of that in your bank account?”
“I believe so, yes. Yes, I sent a cheque to family court. You probably have that, too.”
“Well, I have a record of it, as a matter of fact. The cheque was issued from your current account, number 4578403, Bank of Nova Scotia on East Broadway. Is it not true, as well, witness, that you had lost a large sum in stock-market speculation last year? Some penny stocks that didn’t turn out?”
“I invest a little, win a little, lose a little. A lot of people do that.” He cleared his throat again.
“Your bank covered you to the tune of about fifteen thousand dollars, is that right? You borrowed to cover these losses?”
“You seem to have done a fair bit of poking around. Yes, I’m not going to lie about it. I borrowed money, and I paid that off, too, and that money came from my friend as well.”
“What — he gave you twenty-two thousand dollars? Cash? No receipt? No note? No record?”
“I am a policeman, Mr. Cobb. People trust my
word.”
“People trust your word. And you put all this money in your bank?”
“Yes, to pay off the loan and to pay off Stella and the kids.”
“And you received this cash in the middle of December.”
“Thereabouts.”
“I suggest that you deposited it on Friday, December second.”
“Oh, you probably have something to prove that, too. I’m not sure of the dates.”
“Well, now, there is someone here who perhaps can help us with all of this. You know your bank manager, Mr. Jessup?”
“Yes, I know him.”
“Mr. Sheriff,” said Cobb, “please go to the witness room and ask Mr. Jessup to step inside for a moment.” The bank manager came through the door and looked about, lost.
“Do you know this man?” Cobb asked Cudlipp.
“Yes, that’s Mr. Jessup.”
“Now, unfortunately, he can’t release any of your documents without a court order, but I am sure he has brought them with him. For the time being, will you agree that you made the deposit on December the second last and it was in the amount of twenty-two thousand dollars?”
“I won’t dispute it.”
“Send him back for now, Mr. Sheriff. Now, December second was the day before Jim Fat was murdered, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And it would appear that someone must have advised his murderer that Jim Fat was an informant — that is a kind of information that can be bought, is it not? In your wide experience?”
“If you say.”
“Don’t play with me.” Cobb bit each word off and spat it. “Do you say it?”
“It happens.”
“And it happened in this case a day or two before Jim Fat’s death.”
“How would I know?”
“How would you know? Because, witness, I suggest to you that you sold his name to his murderer.”
“I gave no information.” Cudlipp’s voice seemed duller now, the modulation gone.
“You were in debt, and family court was hounding you, and you were not able to hold everything together on a salary of twenty-seven thousand dollars a year, and you sold Jim Fat to the accused as a butcher would sell a side of beef.” Cobb was shaking; his voice was ringing. He was aware that Smythe-Baldwin was speaking, and the judge was speaking. Cobb waited until the judge finished admonishing him, then continued.
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