Summary Justice: 'An all-action court drama' Sunday Times (Benson and De Vere)

by John Fairfax

  12

  In a way, Tess admired Benson’s insistence on cold logic. It was a philosopher’s point. But it was also true: Sarah Collingstone’s DNA on a murder weapon didn’t mean she’d killed Andrew Bealing. But the jury would still want to know how it got there. Without an explanation, everything Benson’s willing servants might dig up would be worthless. With that sobering thought, Tess knocked on the imposing Wimbledon door of Debbie Bealing’s house.

  She’d been crying.

  She was pacing around now, like a caged maniac. She was forty-one with hair dyed a sort of purple-black, heavy red lipstick giving the impression of a crushed fruit jammed in her mouth. She wore perilous high heels, a tight white pencil skirt, a tight white blouse and had her pale arms wrapped tight across her flattened breasts. She’d stabbed at the remote control to cut the volume on the television. Contestants were laughing.

  ‘Andrew did not have an affair with that woman,’ she said. ‘Impossible. I would have known. He was my first and only love. And he loved me. He did. I don’t care what they say, I know. He adored me. And now they’re going to make a fool of me in public. Humiliate me. Laugh at me. They’re going to say he’d gone elsewhere. He’d never do that . . . just look at me for Christ’s sake.’

  She snapped into a model’s pose, one hand on a hip, a coquette pouting at the camera’s flash, drinking in the praise.

  ‘I’d have known. I’m a woman. We know these things, don’t we?’

  She was pacing again, following a precise line directly parallel to the edge of a cashmere rug. The Bealings – or at least Debbie – were into colour. The curtains were burgundy velvet. The sofa was wheat yellow. The plaster cornicing was pink. The pastel wallpaper had fine green lines. The ensemble was quite awful, with the meticulous tidiness of a professionally cleaned home. Debbie probably didn’t know where the dusters were kept.

  ‘How can they do this to me? How can they go into that court and tell everyone that Andrew was having an affair? Isn’t there a law against this sort of thing? Can they say what the bloody hell they like? I told them, for God’s sake, I told them . . . but they wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t?’ asked Tess.

  ‘The police. A fat oaf in Marks and Spencer’s trousers. And her solicitor. He wasn’t much better. None of them would listen. Because they think I’ve lost my marbles. Just because I’ve been depressed sometimes, just because I’ve been to hospital . . . that doesn’t mean I’m mad. Lots of people have mental health problems. One in three, or something like that. Lots of stars admit it these days. We’ve nothing to be ashamed of. I’m totally normal. I’m doing well. I’ve got medication. I never forget to take it . . . But they’ – she pointed angrily towards a crowd of whispering officials in uniform – ‘want to make everyone think I’m a fruitcake. That Andrew had fallen for this woman, felt sorry for her . . . and it just isn’t true. Doesn’t anyone out there have a heart? Andrew’s dead. He’s been murdered. Don’t they realise I’m in pieces? Anyone would be . . . it’s because I take tablets, I know it.’

  Tess broke into Debbie’s sudden abstraction: ‘What did you tell the oaf in Marks and Spencer trousers?’

  Debbie came directly to an armchair beside Tess. She dropped her voice, though no one else was near them. ‘The Chinese got him.’

  ‘What do you mean, Debbie?’

  ‘A gang. Ninjas or whatever. I don’t know.’

  ‘Why would the Chinese get him?’

  ‘Andrew did a lot of work with them. Imports. Mountains of stuff produced in concentration camps or whatever, I don’t know how they keep the prices down, but they make everything you can think of and it costs hardly anything and Andrew had lots of contracts with lots of people out there.’

  ‘For what type of product?’

  ‘You name it. Tea. Slimming machines. Car parts. Whistles. Herbs. Circuit breakers. Solar panels. Computer parts. All that Chinese medicine rubbish . . . leaf extract or whatever. I tried some gingko for my depression and it didn’t work. I much prefer my little white friends. That’s what Andrew used to call them. My friends . . . he’d remind me to take a friend out for dinner.’

  After a moment Tess said: ‘And the Chinese got him?’

  Debbie looked up. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The Chinese.’

  She was back on track. ‘That’s right. But you have to understand how haulage works. The police just wouldn’t listen. They think they know it all. But they don’t. A haulage company never really knows what they’re transporting. Take Hopton’s. We’d send a curtain-sider to Heathrow or Ipswich docks or whatever to pick up tons of wrapped crates or boxes or pipes. You don’t open them up. You don’t look inside. You just check the manifest. And off you go. You drive tons of rubbish from China to Newcastle. That’s how it works.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Andrew had upset one of his clients. A business in Shanghai.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘He’d refused to renew a delivery contract?’

  ‘He told you this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Three days before he was killed.’

  ‘Did he say why he’d refused a renewal?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But the client was annoyed?’

  ‘Yes, because they’d been safe with Andrew. He’d been their man for years. They didn’t want to start all over again with someone else.’

  ‘What was the product?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I think it was guns or swords or something. Maybe poison.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Andrew told me he was frightened. He said they were a gang with a weird name. He said he knew too much. Those were his words, “I know too much, Debs.”’

  Tess glanced at the television. The audience were clapping. The presenter was wagging a finger.

  ‘That woman is innocent,’ said Debbie, nodding. ‘The Chinks killed my Andrew, I know it. They didn’t want him to go to the police. He knew something. So they sent someone to kill him. Which sent a message to anyone else in the know . . . that you don’t mess with the Chinks. That’s why I’ve got a bodyguard. In case they come for me.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He comes three times a week and today’s not one of his days. But he knows his stuff. Ex-SAS. You don’t mess with them either.’

  Tess agreed, but with compassion. Bodyguards didn’t visit their clients, they lived with them. Nurses, on the other hand, came at fixed intervals; and she was sure that this ‘bodyguard’ was, in fact, Darren Weaver, the nurse mentioned by Sarah Collingstone; the man who ‘serviced’ Debbie, upgraded for conversations like this, when Debbie, desperate and ignored, wanted someone to take her seriously. ‘You’re in safe hands.’

  ‘I am. But are you going to tell the court what really happened? So that everyone knows? Will you tell the judge that my Andrew didn’t have an affair with that woman?’

  ‘Yes, I will. The court will be told there was no affair.’

  ‘Do you promise?’

  ‘I give you my word.’ Tess smiled sadly. If Sarah Collingstone had been let down by circumstances, Debbie Bealing had been let down by something as simple as chemistry. Finding the right medication would have been a really difficult call. Her doctor would have tried everything, switching from this to that, changing the doses, aiming for the right balance . . . and she was now on a relatively even keel, only it hadn’t stopped her creating a fantasy to escape the terrible truth that her husband might have been unhappy with her.

  ‘You’re selling up, Debbie?’ said Tess, conversationally. She’d seen the prestige ‘For Sale’ sign at the entrance to the property. Copse Hill was a sought-after area. There were no sewage plants nearby. The house and extensive gardens wouldn’t be on the market for long.

  ‘Yes. I can’t stay here. Not without Andrew. And not after people start talking about an affair.’

  Which they would. It was part of the Crown’s case. The smear would be all o
ver the papers. Poor Debbie. She lost her father in 2013, her mother in 2014 and her husband in 2015. She had no children. She was all alone with her little white friends and a nurse who came three times a week.

  ‘Where will you go?’

  Debbie thought for a long time. She was still sitting on the edge of her seat, close to Tess, examining cracked and brightly painted fingernails. Finally, and with awful longing, she said, ‘Somewhere where no one knows who I am, where no one knows about my husband’s murder, where I can start again as if nothing ever happened.’

  Tess walked slowly down the drive as if she’d left someone to drown. The television was back on. There was nothing she could do but keep her promise.

  13

  Benson put on his duffel coat, locked up Congreve’s and bought a packet of Camel. He smoked one, pulling hard on the tab. He then stamped on the packet and threw it in a bin. Twenty minutes later he came to Selby Street in Bethnal Green where he rang the doorbell to the consulting room of Dr Abasiama Agozino, a clinical psychologist specialising in battle stress.

  Nothing of substance had been uncovered by Tess and Archie by 7 p.m. The encounter with Debbie Bealing spoke for itself. Roger Grange, Bealing’s financial adviser, hadn’t answered the phone. The proprietors of Felbridge Logistics and Winchley Transport Ltd had agreed to be interviewed, but only tomorrow, the morning of the trial. And as for Archie’s combing of the books, he’d found nothing. After this disappointing review, Tess had gone home, Archie had set off for the Pride of Spitalfields for a meeting of the Tuesday Club, and Benson had ostensibly continued preparing for the trial.

  ‘Thanks for seeing me at short notice,’ he said, sitting down in the usual chair.

  By agreement, there was no box of tissues between them. Benson had made that a ground rule. Instead, at Abasiama’s suggestion, there was a large cactus.

  ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Abasiama waited.

  ‘I’m back in Court One at the Old Bailey tomorrow.’

  Abasiama waited.

  ‘It’s where I was tried and sentenced.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Well, quite apart from the stress of going back in there, I’ve never conducted anything more serious than a burglary. And that was in the magistrates’ court. I’m flying by the seat of my pants.’

  Abasiama waited.

  ‘I’ve been instructed at the very last minute. It’s a hopeless case. Despite the evidence, I believe she’s innocent.’

  Abasiama’s appearance was often surprising. Today, she’d woven long plaits of yellow and purple hair. There was a wooden bead at the end of each braided tail. She was a walking human festival. But she wasn’t saying anything. Benson continued:

  ‘Everyone’s against me. The press are on to me. So are Paul Harbeton’s family. The government wants to ban me. People spit in my face. It just doesn’t end. That’s it. That’s everything. I think.’

  Abasiama never seemed to breathe. Somehow she drew in the oxygen and let it escape without moving. She was absolutely still, which would have been like death if she hadn’t been so alive, in a vibrant, almost threatening way.

  ‘That’s it?’ she repeated.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s everything?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Abasiama shook her head. ‘Well, that’s just not true. You know you’ll cope with Court One. We both do. You’ve faced greater challenges. Yes, you will shiver and sweat. Yes, you will be sick. But you won’t be overwhelmed. You know this. As for your client, you know all about hopeless cases and you know you can handle this one. A great many people have always been against you. Many of them will remain so. And some of them will continue to spit in your face. You know this. I know this. We both know that you are not going to give up. Tell me something I don’t know.’

  ‘I’ve met someone.’

  Benson had first come to see Abasiama about two years after he’d been released on licence. He was having trouble coping. The bouts of depression were something he ignored, accepting their arrival as if they were relatives he couldn’t avoid. The problem was doors. He kept standing in front of them waiting for someone to bring out their keys. And he could never find his own. He kept losing them. He had to keep doors ajar, regardless of the weather. And he was lonely. He couldn’t meet anyone without talking about his past, and his past was a dead place and a place that brought death, for not many people would trust a killer. Not many people wanted to board The Wooden Doll for a nightcap. His best friend was a stray cat. However, within minutes of meeting Abasiama, she’d moved away from everything Benson had raised. She wanted to know about his dad. And his mother who’d died while he was in prison. And Eddie, whom he no longer knew. Blinded by tears, Benson had lunged for a tissue, stabbing himself on the cactus.

  ‘I don’t mean romantically,’ he said. ‘Something else has happened, and it makes me . . . homesick.’

  ‘For the man you once were?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Abasiama seemed to foresee everything. Her brown eyes were like windows on to a continent.

  ‘When I first met Tess, I didn’t have a conviction. I was an innocent man. And if I’d been acquitted, I’d be an innocent man now. I think we’d have stayed in touch, we’d have become friends, but I was convicted. So in meeting her again after all these years, I’m reminded of the person she knew, the person I might have been . . . and want to be . . . and can’t be.’

  ‘No, you can’t,’ said Abasiama. ‘But no one is ever who they might have been. We all think our life is full of graves. But if we were to dig them all up, we’d find there’s no one there. We are who we are.’

  ‘But I no longer know who I am. And what I do know I don’t like.’

  ‘Well, that’s an improvement.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes. When I first met you, you said you hated yourself. Do you remember my reply?’

  ‘Sorry, no. Tell me.’

  ‘It’ll come back to you when the time’s right.’

  ‘You really won’t repeat yourself, will you?’

  ‘No.’

  She wouldn’t budge. She was maddening. And at the same time she was just wonderful. Because it meant recovery was possible. It wasn’t a word in the index of a shrink’s manual. It was a fruit in a tree. Already within reach.

  ‘A word of warning about tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Don’t fool yourself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t think that by winning this trial you’ll change your world.’ She took one of her dreadful breathless pauses. ‘Any number of people can thank you for saving their life, but adulation won’t change how you see yourself. It might well change how others see you – and that’s all to the good – but you’ll be left unchanged. You can’t escape guilt so easily.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Benson. ‘I feel just great now. I’m really glad I came.’

  Abasiama flicked her hair and the beads clinked like a wind-chime. ‘Have you had a panic attack recently?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What brought it on?’

  Benson sometimes wondered if Abasiama followed him around. She regularly seemed to know what had happened and why. It was unnerving.

  ‘I was talking to Tess. She thought I was worried about the trial or needed a cigarette . . . but it wasn’t either of those, and it wasn’t the closed door either.’ He searched for the right words. ‘I don’t know this person,’ he said, at last. ‘I’ve not seen her for sixteen years. Back then, we only spoke for an hour or so. For her, now, I’m an interesting human rights case. But for me? This is the person who first told me I could make it at the Bar. She gave me the idea, and then she vanished, but she came back, just as I set myself up on my own . . . and I didn’t want her to leave again. I didn’t want to talk things over with Papillon.’

  Abasiama seemed not to have heard. She said, ‘Let’s talk about your breathing.’

  * * *

  On his way
back home Benson found the bin, recovered the packet of Camel and fished out a crushed stub. He lit up and then set off, trying to remember what Abasiama had said to him about self-hatred. He really had no idea whatsoever. When he reached Seymour Road he was still none the wiser. But he sighed. Someone had tipped a sack of rubbish by his gate. Household waste. Half-eaten food, tins, plastic pots, tea bags. The handle of the gate had been covered with something sticky. Papillon was scavenging, disappointed with the selection. After cleaning up the mess, Benson checked his mailbox. There was nothing unpleasant . . . just an envelope marked ‘W. Benson Esq. By Hand.’ He recognised the handwriting instantly.

  It was from Helen Camberley QC, the woman who’d defended him; the woman who’d told him to forget about the Bar; the woman who’d then helped him get to grips with jurisprudence; the woman who’d given him a pupillage against the will of her own chambers; the woman who’d given him a wig and gown, bands and a blue bag; the woman who’d made countless telephone calls to get him work, even as the door was closing. He took out the letter and read it by the streetlamp:

  Dear Will,

  I’m told you’ve been instructed in the Hopton Yard killing. Remember what I told you in pupillage: murder is usually a domestic argument gone wrong. It’s often very simple. Sift the evidence. Assume nothing. Test everything.

  This case is a golden opportunity to establish a name for yourself, different from the one that fate and folly has imposed upon you. All great careers begin with such a stroke of fortune. Seize the day.

  I am very proud of you.

  As ever,

  Helen.

  Benson placed the letter in his pocket and made his way through the trees. Once on board, he banged yesterday’s leftovers into the microwave and gave Papillon his monthly sardine. He polished his shoes and sharpened his pencils. He placed his blue bag in a cupboard, out of sight. The brief itself had been safely locked in chambers. He was ready for the fight. Leaving the stern door ajar, he went to bed with a volume of poems by Edward Thomas, the one Tess might have touched. For some reason, his mind strayed from the poems, gathering random memories. He thought of Needles, whose seat of power had been a shared toilet. He thought of Jaffa, who’d never learned to go straight, and who’d been killed with a claw hammer; and he thought of the ex-con from Wandsworth and other holes who’d finally been entrusted with the keys to an abandoned building. Benson nodded off, remembering a plea.