by Roy Lewis
Counsel for Martin Evans was rising to his feet. Crow knew him and felt a quiver of involuntary excitement and apprehension. Jason Warlock had made himself a reputation with witnesses, judges and opposing counsel: he was six feet tall, with fair hair and a slight stoop that had been uncorrected in spite of his time in the Brigade of Guards. Warlock was well known for his acid comments, his penetrating cross-examinations, and his skill in legal niceties. He was unloved, efficient, clinical and contemptuous of those who did not reach his own standards. But, above all, he was thorough.
He began quietly enough by getting Klein to stress some of the points already made. Klein was at ease, elegant in a cream shirt and brown tie, shoulders back and head up, conscious of his good looks and the impression of solidity and confidence his deep resonant voice made. Nevertheless, his confidence was shaken somewhat when Warlock suddenly asked,
‘Tell me about Northeast Credit, Mr Klein., ‘
‘I. . .I’m sorry. . .’
Warlock arched a contemptuous eyebrow.
‘Surely the request is straightforward? I want you to tell me about this firm. Northeast Credit were mentioned as your employers in examination-in-chief so my learned friend can have no objection. Why did you leave the firm, Mr Klein?’
‘It closed down,’ Klein answered stiffly.
‘For what reason?’
‘It just went out of business.’
‘Because of your frauds?’
The prosecuting attorney rose to his feet quickly.
‘Your honour, we really cannot allow—’
Warlock held up an imperious hand.
‘The question is withdrawn. My apologies to the court: the question slipped out. I shall rephrase it. Were you questioned by the police in connection with frauds perpetrated at Northeast Credit?’
Klein grimaced, drawing his lips back over his teeth. ‘I was, but—’
‘No proceedings were taken because of lack of documentary evidence.’
‘There was no evidence,’ Klein snapped.
‘No? Did not a solicitor representing the firm collect certain documents from the office one month before the investigations began? Did not those documents later disappear? Was not the solicitor in question the accused, Martin Evans?’
James Klein was pale, his self-assurance gone, and he looked helplessly towards Weir. The prosecuting counsel rose to his defence, protesting that he saw no point in this line of questioning, but both he and Crow knew exactly what Warlock was up to. James Klein was a leading witness for the prosecution: he had testified as to the fact of the break-up of the marriage between Martin and Donna Stark, the fact of Donna Stark’s character, her rejection by James Klein and her consequent seeking out of her husband with a view to extracting money from him. He had laid a foundation upon which other witnesses would build, consequentially. Warlock was out to shake the solidity of that base.
‘There is more to all this than has come out in James Klein’s testimony,’ Warlock was arguing with cold passion in response to the objections raised. ‘He has given us facts, but I wish to be clear as to motivations. Why did Donna Stark leave her husband? How was it that she found James Klein so ready to take her in? If she was so ready to blackmail her husband, had she already blackmailed James Klein? Was she blackmailing James Klein? He had a great deal to lose. The prosecution is arguing that Martin Evans had a motive in wanting to murder his wife. Was he alone in this?’
He turned swiftly, facing James Klein once more.
‘Where were you on June 6th, Mr Klein?’
Klein licked his lips.
‘I was on a business trip, in London, but I’m not here to answer questions on —’
‘You’ll answer such questions as I put, Mr Klein,’ Warlock said tigerishly, ‘and I intend putting questions as to your credit as a witness.’
And he did. Crow knew Warlock, had heard him before, but he marvelled at the skilful way in which Warlock skated on the edge of acceptability in the questions he put to Klein. But at the end of the day it became apparent that he had done all he had set out to do: James Klein’s testimony still stood, but Klein himself had been branded as a man of shady background and doubtful virtue, a man involved, possibly in fraud, if not something worse, an amoral, self-centred man whose reputation was worth little and whose word was worth less.
It was quite a performance.
When it was over Crow left, returned to Cardiff and sat in on a lecture at the University on hormonal treatment for sexual offenders.
* * *
The following day Crow found himself embroiled in a discussion group at the conference and was unable to escape until mid-afternoon to return to the Rhondda. As he entered the magistrates’ court he caught sight of Detective-Inspector Dewi Jones and he called his name. Jones turned, smiled, seemed pleased to see Crow. He was clearly less pleased about the course of the preliminary investigation.
‘Anyone would think it was a full-scale trial in there! Who does this chap Warlock think he is, anyway? All right, have a go at the prosecution witnesses, but this man, hey, he’s grilling them like trout over an open fire.’
‘It’s my guess he’ll want to suggest to the magistrates there’s no case to answer,’ Crow said.
Dewi Jones pulled a face.
‘Don’t see much chance of that coming off. We got the evidence, after all, haven’t we?’
‘That may be, I’m not sure. What do you think about Martin Evans?’
‘Taking it calm, isn’t he? Mind you, he’s been the same ever since we took him into custody.’ Jones fingered his lip thoughtfully. ‘You were never very happy about it all, were you?’
Crow pursed his lips.
‘Well, let’s put it like this. There are aspects of the case I’m not too pleased about. Did you ever manage to find any more about that envelope in Evans’s desk?’
‘The one with the printed address?’ Jones shook his head. ‘We asked the girl, Ceinwen Williams, about it, but she reckoned she’d never seen it at all, let alone the contents of the letter it might have contained. The Chief Super was inclined to shrug it off anyway, since he couldn’t see where it would conceivably fit in the case he had made out against Evans.’
Crow understood. The Chief Superintendent was not alone in his attitude. There were many policemen who either started a case with preconceived ideas, or else formulated opinions during the course of an investigation, and then refused to be moved from the conclusion they had reached. Thereafter, it would be a situation where evidence was selected to fit a point of view: if it fitted the theory, it was acceptable; if it did not fit, it was rejected as irrelevant.
‘Who are the witnesses to be called after this?’ Crow asked.
‘That fellow Scales is giving evidence this afternoon,’ Jones replied. ‘After him, the enquiry agent Skene will be called, then Dai Davies, the fish-and-chip merchant. I’ll be ending up with the confession. I’ve got to admit, the way Warlock handled Klein, I’m not too happy about the prospect of facing him with the confession.’
Crow had sympathy with Jones’s point of view. It would be crucial to Warlock to upset that confession, but for that matter Crow had been uneasy about it all along. Evans’s capitulation disturbed him . . . it was a matter of constants again. Evans had vacillated in his attitudes that day, indifference, vagueness, nervous excitement, and finally capitulation. It hadn’t been skill on Jones’s part that had drawn out the confession. It had been freely given, without a great deal of pressure being applied. It bothered Crow.
Jack Scales was being bothered by Jason Warlock, Crow found, when he took a seat in court.
‘I think you will have to explain this rather more clearly for my benefit,’ Warlock was saying sarcastically. ‘I find it difficult to understand just why Mrs Stark came looking for you. So recap for me, please. When you first lived with her what were your financial circumstances?’
‘I had a fair bit of money stashed away,’ Scales said grudgingly. ‘Not a lot, but enough to sp
end about a bit, give her a good time.’
‘But this was shortly after she had left her husband, and he had left the area?’
‘Yes.’
‘But did you not already state, when questioned by my learned friend, that she herself had “a fair bit of cash”?’
Scales was somewhat flustered. He turned his handsome head towards Weir helplessly, but there was no assistance from that direction. Weir’s head was down, as he read his notes.
‘Well, yes, she did have a fair bit. I never asked where she got it from —’
‘Not her husband, surely?’
‘Well, no,’
‘From James Klein, as payment for the documents abstracted from Evans’s office?’
Weir began to rise, again in protest.
Warlock waved his hand, stopped both the complaint from Weir and the answer from Scales, and continued, ‘All right, she had money. Why then did she come to you? Merely for sexual satisfaction?’
Scales didn’t like the sneer in the comment. He stood stiffly, his eyes angry.
‘I gave her a good time. I treated her right.’
‘You lived together.’
‘Yes.’
‘Your sexual life with her was satisfactory.’
‘She didn’t complain.’
Warlock nodded, his eyes glittering. ‘But she left you and went to live with Klein. Why?’
‘The money ran out.’
‘So what was it she was after?’ Warlock asked swiftly. ‘Sex or money?’
‘From me, both,’ Scales replied angrily. ‘From Klein . . .’ He stopped and Warlock smiled wolfishly.
‘From Klein . . ?’ he prompted gently.
‘I think that was more of a business arrangement. From Klein, she wanted . . . she wanted money. I think she pressured Klein, but she was a good-looking woman, and Klein . . . well, I think he said he’d pay her but she had to give as well as keep quiet. So they lived together.’
‘I see . . .’ Warlock consulted his notes, smiling thinly. ‘But the second time she came to you, what did she want then? The same combination? Sex? Money? What was it she was after?’
Scales shook his head.
‘You got it wrong! It wasn’t like that. Klein threw her out. She told me she had threatened to spill the truth about the frauds but he was past caring, he said she’d only be involving herself anyway and she was bluffing. I guess she was. You got to remember, Donna was hard, but she didn’t have much by way of guts. She wanted the easy way all the time. It was too much trouble to fight Klein once she saw his mind was made up. She clawed him then she came to me. We had sex, sure, but I reckon she came to me more for friendship—’
‘Friendship?’ Warlock’s tone was cutting.
‘Friendship and help,’ Scales repeated stubbornly. ‘She wanted to find her husband again.’
‘Why?’
‘To put the squeeze on him. She’d tried that game with Klein and it had paid off for a while until Klein threw her out. She decided she’d go after her old man, try it again with him.’
‘And you helped her . . . by taking her to Cardiff to see an enquiry agent.’
Scales nodded.
‘That was the end of it for me. We split up then.’
‘You mean she’d had enough sex . . . sorry, friendship and assistance?’
Scales flushed, angry at the open contempt in Warlock’s tone.
‘We quarrelled. She knew I didn’t want to be stuck with her. That was one reason why she was after her husband. I had no cash; I wanted to go back to sea; I couldn’t give her what she wanted.’
‘What was that?’
‘I already said. Money. Security, I suppose. Donna had an awful fear of growing old and ending up in the gutter.’
Warlock nodded.
‘So you passed her to an enquiry agent . . .’ He shuffled the papers in front of him, then almost casually, asked, ‘Did you love Donna Stark?’
Scales hesitated, considered the word ‘love’ as though it were strange to him, then shrugged.
‘I was fond of her. I suppose at one time I did love her.’
Jason Warlock wrinkled his nose, nodded and then spoke carefully. ‘Let me put a case to you, Mr Scales. Imagine this: a woman leaves her husband and takes up a new life with her lover. She then leaves the lover to live with someone else but later returns to him. When she finds he cannot give her the security she wants she decides to leave him a second time and return to her husband. What would that lover do?’
‘I don’t follow,’ Scales said, but there was a shakiness in his voice that suggested he knew very well the direction in which Warlock was headed.
‘I’ll spell it out slowly,’ Warlock said in a silky tone. ‘That lover could have felt angry; he could have wanted to do something about it; he could have argued with her after she had found her husband; he could have pleaded for her to stay with him, wait until he had returned from sea. Maybe she refused. Maybe in a fit of passion he—’
‘It never happened,’ Scales interrupted, and his voice rose as he leaned forward and gripped the edge of the witness box. ‘It wasn’t like that. I didn’t love her, didn’t want her, I handed her over to Teddy Skene and was glad to see the back of her. She was trouble, always was; me, Stark, Klein, she was trouble for all of us. But I’d finished with her, it wasn’t the way you say. I went to sea—’
‘Ah yes.’ Warlock held up his hand, stopping Scales’s nervous flow of speech. ‘You went to sea. The freighter . . .?’
‘Isle of Arran.’
‘Ah yes, that’s right. Isle of Arran. The freighter that left Cardiff Docks on . . . when was it exactly?’
‘May 29th.’
‘And stopped off in Barry Dock?’
‘That’s so. We finally left on June 2nd, as far as I remember.’
‘As far as you remember .’ Warlock smiled unpleasantly. ‘No doubt you’ll also remember the date given as to the likely death of Mrs Stark?’
‘June 6th,’ Scales snapped out.
‘As far as you remember . . . So you sailed on May 29th, June 2nd, and Mrs Stark died on June 6th . . . are these the facts as you remember then?’
‘Yes.’
Warlock consulted the papers in front of him, frowning as though puzzled. Mildly, wonderingly, he said, ‘As far as I’ve been able to ascertain the Isle of Arran . . . that was your freighter, yes? . . . she left Barry Docks on the 12th June. How can you explain this apparent discrepancy in your evidence? I should add I have the dock schedules to support this statement.’
Scales stood still. The colour ebbed from his face and his eyes were glaring. From where he sat Crow could see Weir, prosecuting counsel, sitting up, head raised in surprise. The courtroom was silent. Warlock ended the silence.
‘It seems odd to me you never told the police, for whom you are a witness, that although the Isle of Arran left Barry on June 2nd, she had returned on June 4th, with engine trouble. It seems curious to me you never explained that there were several days when you were free to leave the ship while repairs were carried out. It seems strange to me you never volunteered the information that the final date for leaving the dock was June 12th, so that you were still in the Cardiff area before and after the date on which Donna Stark died. And I see from the consternation on the face of my learned friend that he considers it strange also.’
Warlock paused, raised his eyebrows and sneered. ‘Of course, on the other hand, you may see nothing strange in it at all.’
* * *
On his way out of the courthouse Crow managed to snatch a few words with Dewi Jones again.
‘He flayed him,’ he said.
‘Jack Scales?’
Crow nodded.
‘Didn’t you carry out a check on the sailings from the docks?’ Crow asked.
Jones shrugged unhappily.
‘It was done, but I suppose it wasn’t done thoroughly enough. I mean, we had Evans’s confession, we learned the bloody freighter left when Scales said it did and now
you say Warlock has proved Scales left something out, if he didn’t actually lie . . .’
‘It’s worse than that,’ Crow said calmly. ‘Warlock questioned Scales about Donna Stark. He sowed the seeds of doubt by suggesting that Scales was in love with her and might have had motive enough to want to stop her returning to her husband. And now he’s shown Scales to be a liar. You see the points? First, Scales maybe had a motive for lying: second, he did lie, by omission, at least and third, if he lied on this, with motive, is any of his testimony to be regarded as trustworthy?’
Jones was silent for a moment.
‘Aye, I know . . .You warned us. You told us to go slow. But the Chief Super—’
‘There’s Skene to come yet. I want to see how Warlock handles him. He’s discredited, to a large extent, two of your witnesses already. I’m beginning to think our Mr Evans is a clever fellow, and Warlock is the support he needs.’
‘It don’t follow—’
‘It’s what our friends in the States call ‘double jeopardy’,’ Crow said grimly.
* * *
Much of the effusive garrulity that Jones and Crow had seen in Teddy Skene, the enquiry agent, was not apparent in the courtroom. The man seemed appreciative of the solemnity and dignity of the occasion and was content to restrain himself. Crow felt that Skene was once again playing a part, nevertheless: it was possible he was being careful in the face of the obvious cynicism of Jason Warlock, but it was more likely that he was displaying the traits that Crow had already observed in him – the capacity to be what his audience wanted him to be.
Warlock wanted answers and he got them, controlled, precise, carefully constructed answers that dispensed with verbiage and concentrated on the issue in hand.
‘I understand you were born in the Rhondda?’ Warlock asked.
‘That’s right. Treherbert.’
‘And you now work in Cardiff.’
‘That’s so. My job as an enquiry agent takes me further afield, of course.’
‘You ever go abroad?’
Skene hesitated, then shook his head.
‘No, for my clients are mainly local, and not moneyed people. I’ve been abroad, of course, for I was in the Army for a while and spent some time in Cyprus.’