‘But…’
‘I repeat. You will not need to contact me. I will contact you. Make sure your phone is operating after the trial finishes.’
‘Do I not even get to know your name?’
‘My name is Maxine. That is all you need to know. Now you go and have your drink. I must leave. I have urgent business elsewhere.’
She pulled her hair back, arranged it with her right hand then put the helmet in place, pulling the tinted visor over her face. She was now unrecognisable. She walked across the narrow street to where her motorcycle was parked in front of a line of garages. He couldn’t help himself concentrating on the slim outline of her body and her long shapely legs as she sauntered past him. There’s something about a woman dressed in leather! Within a few seconds she was astride the machine. The engine roared into life as she rode off in the direction of the city centre. Dudley Manning shook his head. Behave yourself Manning, he said to himself. You’re old enough to be her father. He walked slowly into the saloon bar.
Chapter thirty-eight
‘That is the case for the Crown,’ said Cronshaw, looking at the jury from the corner of his eye. Although he had asked the judge to defer the closing of the prosecution case, nothing of note had been discovered overnight. Chief Inspector Hood and his team were still seeking further material. Cronshaw had given them a dead-line of 2pm. That was when he anticipated his cross-examination of Julia Hamilton would commence.
Without hesitation, Edwin Everdene stood up. ‘I call the defendant, Julia Hamilton, to give evidence.’
Julia stood and moved towards the dock exit. The officer jangled his keys on the chain he drew from his pocket, unlocked the door and followed her towards the witness box. Julia had, seemingly, taken even greater efforts with her appearance this Tuesday morning. Her hair was carefully but simply arranged and her makeup limited but expertly applied. She was dressed in an off-white dress and a matching short jacket. She looked simply stunning. Every eye was on her as she entered the witness box. The usher whispered something to her. ‘I wish to affirm,’ she said quietly. She repeated the affirmation after him and smiled.
‘If you wish to sit down, you may do so,’ said the judge. He was as entranced by her as everyone else.
‘Thank you, my Lord,’ she replied, ‘but I have been sitting down throughout the trial. I would prefer to stand, at least for the time being.’
‘As you wish. But I suspect you may be in the witness box for some time. If you wish to sit down at any stage, please feel free to do so.’
She nodded her appreciation. Everdene took his client through the initial stages of her evidence quickly. He established her good character, her education and professional life and her family background. He then turned to the question of Michael Doyle. She looked briefly around the courtroom to see if her mother were present as she answered Everdene’s questions carefully and quietly without emotion. There was no sign of Margaret Hamilton.
‘When did you first meet Michael Doyle?’
‘About seven years ago. I remember I was twenty-one. I was working for a firm of Derby solicitors at the time. They were representing him in a trial due to take place at Derby Crown Court.’
‘Was he in fact ever tried?’
‘No. The Prosecution dropped the case against him. He was found not guilty at a very early stage of the trial. I started to see him afterwards.’
‘Did you ever meet Gus Grayling?’
‘No. I have never met him. He was mentioned in the papers but was never prosecuted. He never appeared in court.’
‘You gave birth to a child on September the twenty-ninth last year?’
‘Yes. Michael Doyle is the father.’
‘You refused when you were first seen by the police to confirm you were pregnant by him?’
‘I agreed I was pregnant but I declined to say who the father was.’
‘Would you tell the jury why?’
She looked up and gave her counsel a languid look.
‘I didn’t see it was any of their business.’
‘Were you pretending that your relationship with Doyle had come to an end?’
‘I was not. It had come to an end.’
‘And now?’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘He’s serving a fifteen year sentence for robbery. I simply don’t know what will happen with us in the future. All I know is that he is little Michael’s father. Nothing can ever alter that.’
‘When did you become aware he was involved in the robbery at the Charnwood Centre?’
‘When he pleaded guilty. He’d always denied it until then.’
‘Did you have anything to do with the kidnapping of Judge Campion’s wife and son and the attempt to blackmail the judge?’
‘Nothing at all.’
‘Did you do anything to assist Michael Doyle escape the consequences of his now admitted participation in the robbery?’
‘No. It was all left to his lawyers. I was out of the loop once our relationship ended. I was aware of the legal point that was being taken by his co-accused, but I had nothing to do with him since early March of last year. I had no idea whether the argument would succeed. I don’t pretend to understand it. I am not a qualified lawyer.’
So far so good, thought Everdene. He then dealt with the suggestion that Julia had smuggled cash from the Charnwood robbery into Brussels when she travelled there with Bill Savage. She denied it. The chambermaid was obviously mistaken. The suitcase had been in the wardrobe all the time.
‘Did you ever have access to a large amount of cash?’
‘No.’
‘I want to turn to the twelfth of March last. That was the day of the Law Society dinner in Leicester?’
‘Yes. I’d agreed to attend with Bill Savage.’
‘Why did you agree to go with him?’
She smiled.
‘Because he asked me, and I wanted to go. It’s usually a very entertaining evening. All those lawyers making fools of themselves.’
Several jurors looked at each other and grinned.
‘You had refused previous invitations from him after the week-end you spent with him in Brighton many years before?’
‘I had. But he seemed to have changed. Men eventually grow up in my limited experience.’
More smiles from the jurors.
‘There are, of course, always exceptions.’ She gave the prosecution lawyers a withering look.
‘You were with him in court in this very building that morning?’
‘Yes. It was my last case before I gave up. I was three months’ pregnant by then.’
‘Did you tell Savage you were pregnant?’
‘Not then, no. I told him when we were in Brussels.’
‘He gave you a lift that day?’
‘Yes. He was driving back to Leicester and he dropped me off at the salon in Thrussington.’
‘You used to live in the village?’
‘My mother still has a house there. I lived there until I went to college.’
‘What time did you arrive at the salon?’
‘Just before two pm. My appointment was at two and I hate being late.’
‘Did you use the telephone box by the village green?’
‘No.’
‘You deny making the call that was played as part of the prosecution case.’
‘I do. That was not me. It may have been someone pretending to be me. Someone trying to make me look complicit.’
‘You had a mobile phone with you?’
‘Yes, but I couldn’t get a signal. I tried to contact my mother while I was in the salon.’
‘Did you use another phone?’
‘No. I left it. I saw her later at her cottage. It wasn’t urgent.’
‘Did you visit Grayling in Hastings the following Tuesday?’
‘I did not.’
‘Duffy says you did.’
‘Duffy is a liar.’
‘So does Hanlon?’
She smiled.
‘I hope no-one will believe a word he says, not given what he’s done.’
‘Do you have a driving licence?’
‘Yes. I passed my test three years ago, but I do not own a car.’
‘Are you licensed to ride a motorcycle?’
‘No. I have been a pillion passenger but never ridden one. Not upfront.’
‘Can you remember what you did on the sixteenth of March?’
‘I can. In the afternoon, I travelled to London on the three thirty-five train. I had arranged to have dinner with Bill Savage. I also wanted to see the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. I still have the brochure. I believe it’s in court.’
‘The Holbein exhibition?’
‘Correct.’
‘Were you anywhere near Hastings that day?’
‘No. I have never been to Hastings in my life.’
Everdene flicked over a few pages of the file in front of him.
‘You went to Brussels with Savage on the thirty-first of March?’
‘I did.’
‘Why?’
‘He asked me. Doyle’s case was also due to be heard that day and I simply didn’t want to be around. Doyle would have expected me to be there. I was also hoping, I suppose, that Bill Savage was developing an interest in me. I was certainly finding him much more pleasant than he’d been years before. I was becoming quite drawn to him, I must admit.’
‘But you were pregnant with Michael Doyle’s child?’
She dropped her head.
‘I know. I also knew I would have to tell him. My condition was beginning to show.’
‘He hadn’t noticed?’
‘It would seem not. He never mentioned it.’
‘So, you told him?’
‘Yes. At dinner on our second night at the hotel.’
‘What was his reaction?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘He didn’t say much at first. He seemed rather shocked. I’m not sure he believed me. He then pointed out that the child had to be Doyle’s.’
‘He knew of your previous relationship with Doyle?’
‘Of course. It wasn’t exactly a secret. Most people in the legal profession knew I was in a relationship with Doyle. He was one of the first, however, to learn that it was over.’
‘You told him?’
‘Yes. After a conference with a client at Glen Parva. That was the day he asked me to go to the Law Society dinner.’
‘You say he said very little at first when you told him of your condition. Did he say anything later?’
‘He was obviously disappointed. He asked me if I intended to keep it – the child, I mean.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I told him I didn’t know, although that was not the truth. I could never have had a termination. I don’t pretend to be a very moral person, Mr Everdene and I am not at all religious but that’s something I could never do. Believe it or not, I was hoping he would take me on with the child when he was born.’
‘Was there really any prospect of that?’
‘I hoped there was. And there were moments when it seemed at least a possibility. But when we got back to the UK it became clear he had more pressing matters on his mind. It was his career, you see. He’d just been made a QC and he told me there was a lot of talk in the robing room about the two of us. He told everyone who’d listen that the child was not his so it didn’t take much working out who the prospective father was.’
She paused and looked down before continuing, her eyes filling with tears. She gripped the sides of the witness box. ‘He couldn’t see himself being the step-father of a child of Doyle’s. Not after what happened to Judge Campion and his family. Everyone thought Doyle was involved in the abduction and blackmail. It looked for all the world that he was because it seemed it was for his benefit. When Inspector Hood questioned me, it was obvious that’s what the police thought too.’
She paused again and removed a tissue from her sleeve. She slowly wiped her eyes. The usher produced a box of paper tissues and placed it on the edge of the witness box.
‘How does she do that?’ whispered Markham-Moore to his leader. ‘She turns it on like a tap!’
Everdene continued his questioning. His voice, too, had dropped. The whole courtroom was unusually quiet. Everyone strained to hear what was being said.
‘But you had nothing to do with it?’
‘Absolutely nothing. Only a madman would get involved in something like that. If the judge had done as was demanded of him, it would have no legal effect. I knew enough law to appreciate that!’
‘It is the prosecution case that you effectively hired Grayling to do the job for you and went to Brussels to give yourself an alibi.’
‘It isn’t true!’ Her voice was now back to its previous level. She sounded defiant and hard done-by.
‘This was down to Grayling and Duffy. They wanted to implicate Doyle. It was nothing to do with me or, as it turned out, Doyle either. And the trip to Brussels had already been arranged, as Mr Savage said in evidence.’
‘Did you have access to any of the money stolen by Doyle and his crew?’
‘No! I knew nothing about it. He always told me before we broke up that he was not involved in any robbery. He was staying at a hotel in Dorset at the time. I joined him there just before Christmas. I had no reason to disbelieve him.’
‘Were you aware he owed Grayling money?’
‘No. He always seemed to have plenty, but he was a successful businessman, so I never questioned it. He certainly never seemed short of cash. I knew nothing of his relationship with Grayling. He never told me anything about it.’
‘Did he ever mention Grayling?’
‘He did, but never in any detail and only very occasionally but it was obvious he was scared of him. He always changed the subject quickly after he’d mentioned him.’
‘What did he say about Grayling when he spoke of him?’
‘He said he was a dangerous individual. It was not a good idea to cross him. I remember asking him if he had ever upset him. He assured me he hadn’t.’
‘What about Duffy. Did you know him?’
‘No. As far as I am aware I have never met him. I’d never heard of him until I was questioned by the police.’
‘His daughter, Kelly Maguire. Have you ever met her?’
She maintained her poise as she looked at the jury and simply lied to them, but so effectively.
‘Only after I was arrested and remanded in custody. We were in the same prison van after the hearing at the Old Bailey and were both taken back to Holloway. But I was in the mother and baby unit, so we didn’t have contact again. She was also a sentenced prisoner by then. I was still on remand.’
‘You have been on remand at Foston Hall Prison during this trial haven’t you? It’s much closer than Holloway.’ Everdene smiled. ‘She’s now serving her sentence there, isn’t she?’
‘Yes. I believe she is, but we have never met. I am in a different part of the prison. Special arrangements have been made to make sure we do not have contact with each other.’ She looked at the judge. ‘In accordance with my Lord’s instructions.’
‘And your son?’
Her voice became choked with emotion.
‘He’s not with me any more. My mother is looking after him. If I am convicted and sent to prison, she will take him to Portugal. My mother has a villa there. I would not be permitted to keep him with me after twelve months so I thought it better that he should get used to my mother, just in case the worst happens.’
‘You sent a letter to Doyle after Michael was born?’
He
looked towards the jury. ‘A copy of it has been exhibited. Would you look at it for a moment?’
The usher found the page in the exhibit bundle. The jurors flicked through the pages of their bundles until they found where it had been inserted.
‘Is that a copy of the letter you wrote to him? Page thirty-two, my Lord.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you had any other contact with him?’
‘No. I never even got a reply.’
‘What did you mean by the reference to Paris at the end of the letter?’
She paused. A smile appeared on her face as if she were recalling something from long ago, then it gradually disappeared. She became quite emotional.
‘We once had a wonderful holiday in Paris. I knew he would be very depressed in prison. He suffers from claustrophobia you know. I thought it might cheer him up. That’s all.’
‘“We’ll always have Paris”. That’s a quotation from a film, isn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. Casablanca. It’s what Humphrey Bogart says to Ingrid Bergman right at the end of the film when he encourages her to go off with her husband, realising they would probably never meet again. It was one of our favourite films.’
‘Were you thinking you and Doyle would ever meet again?’
She said nothing for several seconds.
‘I really don’t know. I wasn’t very well when I wrote that letter. I was suffering from postpartum haemorrhage and caught an infection too. I was kept in hospital for nearly three weeks.’ She paused. ‘I have no idea what he feels about me now.’
‘And how do you feel about him?’
She straightened up and looked directly at the jury.
‘My main concern now is for my son. He’s the most important person in my life at the moment. I really don’t know how I feel about Doyle. I know he doesn’t seem as important to me as he used to. But it surprised me, it really did, how all my emotions seem to be concentrated on my son. I never thought it possible. Before I gave birth, I mean. Now it seems the most natural thing in the world. I suppose most mothers feel the same. For a mother to be separated from her baby is simply terrible.’
She gave a plaintive look then smiled. Hannah Mathews wiped a tear from her eye. Several of the other jurors looked on, sympathetically. Chief Inspector Hood did not. He knew better. He was sitting immediately behind counsel’s row, having slipped into court a few minutes earlier. He’d witnessed a similar performance when he’d questioned her months before. Like Cronshaw, he was immune to her blandishments and creeping sentimentality. But he had to acknowledge she was, without doubt, a remarkable woman but also a very dangerous one. Very dangerous indeed.
A Private and Convenient Place Page 31