A Matter for the Jury

by Peter Murphy

  Andrew glanced behind him. Dr Walker was sitting back, not indicating the need for a break, yet.

  ‘Miss Doyce, I know this is difficult. When you say a shadow…?’

  ‘A man – well it could have been a man or a woman at that stage – but it was a man. A man wearing a coat had come into the cabin. I called something out, I don’t remember what. Then I saw the man raise his arm to its full height above his head. He was holding something, but I couldn’t see what it was. He hit Frank from behind, and I heard Frank make a little grunting sound, and… it’s funny what you remember… I remember just for a second or two feeling his penis go soft again, before…’

  Andrew paused again, leaning back against his chair, arms folded. Eventually she looked up.

  ‘Before…?’ Andrew prompted.

  ‘Before the man hit Frank again. And this time, the man was pulling him up and off me by the back of his coat, and he hit him again on the head with all his force. I actually heard the blow as well as seeing it. It was like… it was like… no, I’m sorry, I can’t say it…’

  ‘It’s all right, you don’t need to,’ Andrew said. ‘What happened to Frank after…?’

  ‘It sounded like a perfect cover drive,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Andrew gasped.

  ‘You know, when the batsman hits one through extra cover for four and gets it right in the middle of the bat. You know how it sounds? It was just like that.’

  The court was totally silent.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to say it, but I can’t get it out of my mind. I… I get nightmares about it.… I follow the cricket, you see…’

  She broke down then, weeping hysterically.

  Andrew looked up at the bench.

  ‘We will break for lunch,’ the judge said. ‘I will rise until 2 o’clock.’

  * * *

  Outside court, Andrew Pilkington took Ben aside.

  ‘Ben, what’s going on with Martin?’

  Ben shrugged. ‘Food poisoning, courtesy of the George’s infamous steak and kidney pie.’

  ‘No, seriously. We both know what the source of the poisoning is. When will he be back?’

  Ben exhaled heavily.

  ‘I’m told tomorrow, Andrew. I have no reason to think otherwise.’

  ‘I can’t agree to an adjournment. I need to get Jennifer out of the witness box and back to Addenbrookes this afternoon. Dr Walker is pretty insistent about that after this morning.’

  ‘I understand. I’m not asking for an adjournment. I’m going to cross her, but I can promise you I won’t take very long, and I’m not going to beat her up.’

  ‘I know that,’ Andrew replied. ‘I just needed to make my position clear, that I am not going to back down and agree to an early day to help Martin out of this.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to,’ Ben replied.

  Andrew was turning back towards the robing room.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the judge takes the matter up,’ he said. ‘Martin has a bit too much of a reputation for this already.’

  ‘See you after lunch,’ Ben said.

  44

  ‘Miss Doyce, before lunch you told the jury that the shadow – the man – who came into the sleeping quarters of the Rosemary D hit Frank twice on the head with whatever he was holding in his hand, and that the second time, he pulled Frank up and off you, is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let me just ask you this. It may be obvious. Had you or Frank invited anyone else on board the Rosemary D? Were you expecting anyone?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘When you went on board, were you aware of anyone else in the vicinity of the boat?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you meet or see anyone in the meadow as you were making your way from St Ives?’

  She shook her head slowly, looking into the distance, as if searching her memory.

  ‘I’m sure the meadow was deserted at that time of night,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I would have remembered if we had seen anyone.’

  ‘Yes. What happened to Frank after the man had hit him the second time?’

  ‘He fell off the bed, to my left, on to the floor, and I didn’t see him again.’

  ‘Did he say anything, or do anything?’

  ‘No. He was completely silent.’

  ‘Had the man spoken at all? Did he say anything?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. Not that I remember.’

  The handkerchief went up to the eyes again. Pilkington paused.

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘The man was climbing on to the bed, on top of me. I remember screaming and telling him “no, get off me” – but he was very strong. I…’

  ‘Miss Doyce, can you describe this man at all? Do you remember anything about his appearance, or his clothing?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No. It was very dark. I seem to remember that one of our flashlights was on, and I have this strange memory of it being on the floor, facing away from the bed towards the river. So it wasn’t really any use. Where the other flashlight was, I don’t know. It was totally dark on the bed. I couldn’t see him at all.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He was holding my arms down by my sides. I was… well, I had no way to defend myself. My knickers were down around my ankles. I remember him lifting my skirt up. And that was when I felt his penis. That’s how I know it was a man. He had his erect penis against my leg, and he was trying to penetrate me.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I was screaming and begging him to stop. I think at some point I spat in his face, since I couldn’t move my arms.’

  ‘And what did he do?’

  She sobbed violently again. Without turning to Dr Walker, Andrew began to ask the judge for a break. But Jennifer held up her hand.

  ‘No. I want to get this over with.’

  ‘All right,’ Andrew said. ‘Take your time.’

  ‘I was waiting for him to penetrate me. But instead, he hit me over the head. Twice, I think.’

  ‘Can you say what he hit you with?’

  ‘I didn’t see it. It was a heavy object of some kind. It wasn’t just his hand. It felt like it was made of metal.’

  ‘You said, you thought he hit you twice?’

  Her eyes lost themselves somewhere above the jury box again.

  ‘I can’t be sure. The first one knocked me into the middle of next week. Everything after that is a blur. I couldn’t see properly. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t have been fully conscious. Then there was a second blow, and it was like I went out like a light then, after some time, God knows how long, I drifted back into consciousness a little, then out again, then in again, then out again. I had no control over my body. At one point I am pretty sure I felt something, which I assumed to be his penis, inside me, but then I blacked out again.’

  ‘And did you…?’

  ‘But even when I was partly conscious, it felt as though I was a spectator, watching something happening to someone else.’

  ‘Miss Doyce, during this time – and I appreciate that you have said you were not always fully conscious – were you aware of any sound?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Please tell my Lord and the jury what it was.’

  ‘I heard the man singing in a soft voice.’

  ‘Indeed. Were you able to recognise what it was he was singing?’

  ‘Yes. It was the Lincolnshire Poacher.’

  ‘Is that a song you were familiar with before?’

  ‘Yes. My family sings songs around the piano every New Year’s Eve. It’s a long tradition. I have sung that song often. It’s in the book of English folk songs we have at home.’

  ‘And what was going on while he was singing? What w
as he doing?’

  ‘It was while I was drifting in and out, and he was raping me. And whether he was singing the whole time, or for periods of time, and for how long, I have no idea at all. I just remember the silence, and then instead of the silence there was this singing of the Lincolnshire Poacher, then perhaps there was another silence and then more singing. I don’t know for sure.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ Andrew said. ‘And what is the last memory you have of that night?’

  She was absent again for some time.

  ‘Watching this woman on the bed being raped. Listening to the singing. At some point it all went black and stayed black. That is the last thing I remember.’

  ‘What is your next memory?’

  ‘Waking up in hospital. My mother. Everyone being so excited that I was awake. I had no idea where I was. I had no idea even who I was for quite some time. It was as if a new life was beginning and I couldn’t account for or explain anything that had happened before.’

  Andrew nodded. ‘Finally, Miss Doyce, you told my Lord and the jury that you were wearing your gold cross and chain, Exhibit Five, when you left your house on the evening of the 25 January. Did you take it off, or did it leave your body, at any time before the man attacked you?’

  ‘No. I’m sure I did not take it off. There would have been no reason for me to take it off.’

  ‘When did you first realise that it was missing?’

  ‘Not until a day or two after I woke up at Addenbrookes and the memory of the night began to come back to me. I asked about it and my mother said the police had not been able to find it among my things or on the boat.’

  ‘The doctors found a mark on your neck where the chain might have been resting. Do you have any recollection of anyone removing the chain?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you give any person permission to take your gold cross and chain from your body, or to take it away?’

  ‘No. I did not.’

  ‘Miss Doyce, thank you very much. Please wait there. There will be some more questions.’

  * * *

  As he rose to his feet, Ben felt every eye in the courtroom on him. He had barely spoken a word in the trial before now. Most of those present would not know who he was or why he was there. If they noticed anything amiss at all, it would have been that Martin Hardcastle was not present, rather than that Ben was. He was sure that even the judge must be reaching for his copy of the daily list to remind himself of Ben’s name.

  The eyes upon him were not friendly. Jennifer Doyce had clearly suffered during her evidence, even her evidence in chief, answering questions from the prosecution. Ben knew that many of the spectators would be assuming that he would unleash a brutal cross-examination – and that the press might actually be hoping for it. In Ben’s imagination, every one of them seemed poised to leap to Jennifer’s defence, to jump on him and bring him down if he caused her any further suffering. But the only eyes he could allow himself to care about were those in the jury box, those which, he could only hope, were concerned with the evidence and nothing else.

  ‘Yes, Mr Schroeder,’ the judge was saying.

  ‘May it please your Lordship. Miss Doyce, I do not intend to take long, and I certainly do not intend to cause you any further distress. If you would like me to ask his Lordship for a short break, please do so, and I invite Dr Walker to do the same.’

  She nodded slightly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You told my Lord and the jury that you and Frank did not notice anyone in the meadows as you made your way to Holywell Fen, is that right?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Or anyone hanging around near the Rosemary D?’

  ‘No. No one.’

  ‘What about when you left the Oliver Cromwell? Were you aware of anyone following you when you left the pub?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or when you left the corner shop after you had bought the cigarettes?’

  ‘No.’

  Ben looked down and scanned his notes. The next piece of his short cross-examination was the one he knew he could not control. He asked himself again whether he had to put the questions to her, and concluded that he did.

  ‘You also told the jury that you were wearing your gold cross and chain when you left your house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that you had no occasion to take it off while you were on board the Rosemary D?’

  ‘No reason at all.’

  ‘Am I right in thinking this? If whoever attacked you stole the cross and chain, he must have done so after he had attacked Frank, and when Frank was lying on the floor, unconscious?’

  She thought for a moment.

  ‘Yes. That is correct.’

  Ben hesitated.

  ‘Do you generally take off the cross and chain before going to bed?’

  ‘Yes, I take it off then. It’s too heavy to sleep with it on.’

  ‘That is what I was wondering. It would be uncomfortable, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I am sure it would.’

  ‘You were about to go to bed with Frank on the Rosemary D, weren’t you? I wondered whether…’

  The suggestion seemed to irritate, rather than distress her. She replied almost defiantly.

  ‘That’s not the same thing at all. I told you, we couldn’t take our clothes off. It was too cold. I had a blouse and a jumper on. It was not uncomfortable at all.’

  ‘I mean no offence, Miss Doyce. But you were about to exchange virginities,’ Ben reminded her. ‘Isn’t it possible that you would have preferred not to wear your grandmother’s cross and chain while…?’

  Jennifer straightened up in her wheelchair and spoke, not loudly or angrily, though she was by now clearly very angry, but quietly, and with a devastating dignity.

  ‘My grandmother eloped with her thirty-year-old lover when she was sixteen,’ she replied. ‘She would have been cheering me on. I wouldn’t have been embarrassed for her, any more than I was for myself.’

  ‘Once in a while,’ Gareth had told him, early in his pupillage over a pint in the Devereux, ‘a witness will knee you right in the balls, and there is nothing you can do about it. Just make sure they don’t see your eyes watering. Carry on as confidently as you can, as if nothing had gone wrong.’

  Ben nodded and searched his notes, trying to forget that out of the corner of his eye he had seen several members of the jury nodding towards Jennifer with sympathetic smiles. It had been a gamble and he had lost. But he had had to risk it. And he had been right to deal with the theft of the cross and chain in the middle of the cross-examination, and save a better point to close on. He held on to that thought as firmly as he could.

  ‘There is just one more thing, Miss Doyce. You described hearing your assailant singing the Lincolnshire Poacher, and you said you recognised that song from many New Year parties at your home, is that right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But that was at a time when you had already been seriously injured by two savage blows to the head, which we now know had caused at least one fracture to your skull?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And while you were, in your own words, drifting in and out of consciousness?’

  ‘That is quite true.’

  ‘When did you first remember that you had heard the man singing the Lincolnshire Poacher?’

  ‘When did I first remember?’

  ‘Yes. You told the jury that when you first woke up in Addenbrookes, you could not remember who you were, much less what had happened. Isn’t that right? If I am being unfair, please tell me.’

  She nodded. ‘No, that is correct.’ She lowered her head and considered for some time. ‘Everything came back to me in patches, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I remembered the attack on me first, but not all of it. I remembered the shadow, then the shadow hitting me, then I remembered abou
t him hitting Frank.’

  She looked up suddenly.

  ‘That was when I asked my mother about Frank, you know, how he was, whether he was in hospital as well. She didn’t want to tell me anything, but she didn’t have to. I knew straight away.’

  The tears returned. Ben paused, found Andrew Pilkington and then Dr Walker with his eyes. Neither gave any signal, and Ben allowed her to regain her composure.

  ‘Then, gradually, it all came back, almost in reverse order,’ she said. ‘And at some point, the Lincolnshire Poacher came back as well, probably when I was remembering the rape.’

  She looked up again and added another answer, almost randomly.

  ‘And of course, the police were doing their best to help me remember.’

  Ben felt a rush. He heard Barratt Davis sit up in his seat behind him.

  ‘Really? How did the police help you to remember, exactly?’

  ‘Obviously, they told me what they had found on the boat; they told me when they recovered the cross and chain…’

  ‘They told you when they found the winch handle they believed had been used to assault you and Frank?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They told you when they arrested Mr Cottage?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which officers would come to see you at the hospital?’

  ‘It was mostly PC Willis, but Superintendent Arnold and Inspector Phillips came once or twice as well. They were all very kind.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  Ben paused. He felt a tug on his gown. He turned slightly. Barratt was shaking his head almost imperceptibly. He was right. Ben was reaching the same conclusion. He had no evidence that the police had planted the Lincolnshire Poacher in her head, and a negative answer would take the point away without hope of recovery. The door was open for the jury to walk through if they chose to do so, but he could not guide them any further.

  ‘It would be fair to say then, that they brought you up to date with the investigation as, and when, there were any developments?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ben nodded. ‘Thank you, Miss Doyce. My Lord, I have nothing further.’