Indictment for Murder

by Peter Rawlinson

  The next time he had seen her was a week later when he had joined a group at a night-club. He arrived late and, as he sat, he saw her at the other end of the table sitting next to an elderly man with white hair. This time she was in gold. He had danced briefly with his hostess and then, finding himself alone, had looked down the table towards where Virginia had been sitting. Her place was empty, and he thought she must have left. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘If you like,’ she said, ‘you can dance with me.’

  When they were dancing, she began: ‘What I didn’t say last week was that you look interesting.’

  ‘And so do you,’ he replied.

  ‘Do you treat the women in your private life as you treat them in court?’

  ‘No.’

  At the end of the evening he took her back to her home in Cadogan Square, and she led him up the stairs to her flat on the first floor, bolting and locking the door behind them.

  ‘There’re drinks on the side table,’ she said, going to an inner door. ‘I’ll have fruit juice.’

  When she came back into the room she was wearing a thin, almost transparent robe through which he could see most of her body. Her feet were bare. He handed her a glass of fruit juice.

  ‘Are you bullying anyone at present in the law courts?’

  ‘I’m not in court at the moment, if that’s what you mean. I’m resting – as the actors say.’

  ‘When’s your next performance?’

  ‘In a week.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘A newspaper called a City company promoter a crook, or words to that effect. He’s suing the paper for damages for libel, and the newspaper, my client, is defending because, it says, what it wrote was true.’

  ‘And was it?’

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’

  ‘You don’t know and don’t care?’

  ‘I’ll care about the verdict of the jury. My job is to persuade the jury that the newspaper is right.’

  ‘Even if it isn’t?’

  ‘Who’s to say if it is or it isn’t? Not me.’

  ‘You’re just the hired hand?’

  ‘If you like. It’s for the jury, not for you or for me, to say who’s right.’

  ‘And you’re paid to persuade them, to seduce them. Like a whore.’

  He stood up. ‘I’d better be going.’

  As he walked to the door she said, ‘You can take me out to lunch tomorrow, if you wish.’

  He collected her from her office off Pall Mall. He was kept waiting in the outer room by a beaten-looking, wispy-haired young woman, her secretary, but the door was open and he could hear her on the telephone next door.

  ‘That’s not in my budget,’ he heard her say. ‘It’d cost too much fucking money, and it’s not coming out of mine. If you think it’s such a hell of an idea, get off your ass and send someone over to cover it. I’m not getting involved.’ Then, ‘Shit! There’s no story in that. I’m not sending Lucilla. Do as you fucking well please.’ He heard the receiver being slammed down. ‘Shi-it,’ he heard her say.

  The secretary knocked nervously on the open door. ‘Mr Shelbourne’s here, Virginia,’ she said.

  She was all smiles as she came from behind the large desk and, to his surprise, kissed his cheek. She looked very smart in her office clothes, a black suit with a white blouse.

  ‘You overheard me on the telephone? They talk like that in New York,’ she said.

  ‘So I’ve learned,’ he said.

  She took his arm. ‘Let’s go. I’m ravenous.’

  But at lunch at the restaurant she ate only salad and drank only mineral water. She told him she was leaving for the States for a conference in New Jersey and would be away for two weeks. At the end of lunch he asked, ‘When you get back, will you come and stay a weekend with me in the country?’

  She examined him coolly. ‘Perhaps,’ she said. She gathered up her bag. ‘I have the feeling you and I are rather alike.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘We’re both pro’s, and we both get, and take, what we want.’

  He had got her fax at his chambers about ten days later: ‘I’m taking you up on your invite. I shall come the weekend Friday February 15 to Sunday 17. Tell my secretary where and how I get there.’

  That would be the weekend after the Playfair trial was due to begin, but he was not going to refuse her. The secretary told him Miss Katz would come by hire car and arrive at about six in the evening of the 15th. He warned that he himself might get there a little later but said that Mrs Green would be at the house to let her in and look after her. Now, as he saw the lights in the upstairs windows, he guessed she had arrived.

  The snow was drifting in the narrow lane, obliging him to drive very slowly down the steep hill which led to his house. If it kept up, he thought, it wouldn’t be easy to get out in the morning. Then he decided. He’d be damned if he’d go. It would only be a waste of time; Playfair would tell him nothing more. He’d leave it to Benson. Benson had Playfair’s ear more than he, and he’d talk to Benson on the telephone and explain that the snow had prevented him – as well it might. He knew, if the worst came to the worst, he could get his tenant farmer to haul him out with his tractor.

  The gate of the yard was open and he turned into the barn that served as a garage. Taking his grip from the back of the car, he went across the yard and up the path to the front door, slipping and skidding in the snow in his rush to get to her.

  * * *

  Hugo woke in the small hours. He was thirsty and felt ill. He leaned across to the bedside table and turned on the reading-lamp, shifting it so that the light did not shine fully on her. She stirred and gave a slight snore, and he could see her face, the lines around her eyes etched deeply, the corners of her mouth turned down sharply. She’s ugly, he thought. She turned away from him, still asleep.

  He got out of bed, pulled on his dressing-gown and went to the bathroom and mixed salts in a glass of water. He came back into the bedroom, switched off the light on the side table and went downstairs. He had left the heating on low all night to make sure the pipes did not freeze, but it was still cold in the drawing-room and he stirred the dying embers of the fire, throwing on some twigs and using the bellows until he got a blaze. He spread his hands before the fire, undecided whether to go to the kitchen and make tea, hoping the salts would settle his stomach. The evening had not gone as he had expected. The love-making had started on the sofa almost as soon as they had come in from the dining-room after the dinner that Mrs Green had prepared and which Virginia had hardly eaten, pushing aside her plate with barely disguised distaste, refusing even a single glass of the burgundy he had so lovingly decanted. He could see their brandy glasses on the table beside him, his half empty, hers wholly. They hurly-burly of the chaise-longue! But later there hadn’t been much peace in the double bed!

  None of the evening had gone as he liked. He had a ritual. He would change into a smoking-jacket, which, on this evening, his guest had regarded with obvious amusement. Then, before dinner, he would pour the champagne. There would be the burgundy with the food and, after the leisurely, relaxed meal, the wander into the drawing-room for liqueurs, of which he kept a great variety, mostly sweet. Then music, a Mahler adagio perhaps, as they sat together in the firelight. Finally the ascent, arm in arm, to the bedroom. That was what he was used to; that was what he liked. On this evening that was not what he’d got. Vodka had replaced the champagne; iced water the burgundy; the food was left uneaten; a slug of brandy replaced the crème-de-menthe frappé. As soon as they were in the drawing-room, without any preliminaries, she had come to where he was sitting on the sofa, taking his glass from him, pulling his head to her, exploring his mouth with her tongue, fumbling at him, eventually pushing him back and lying on top of him. His neck was cricked at an angle, one leg hung awkwardly over the edge of the sofa – and the velvet of his smoking-jacket was badly crumpled. At one stage she had seen him grimace and twist as a spasm ricked
his back, but she had grinned and not relented or pulled away until she was finished with him. What had seemed to him like only a moment later she had led him upstairs into the bedroom, marching up the stairs ahead of him, not looking round but holding him tight so that he was forced to follow her, feeling foolish as he stumbled up the stairs behind her.

  In bed it had been much the same. She had found him clumsy and had sworn at him. At last she’d fallen asleep, while he lay sleepless beside her. She was very different from anyone before.

  Now, sitting in the chair in the half-light, he thought of the person in crimson or gold whom he had so desired – and of the face on the pillow. He began to regret what he had let himself in for.

  The first he knew she had come into the room was when a white figure slipped beside him and knelt by his chair, and he felt her hand on his thigh, exploring.

  ‘I thought you were asleep!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Did you think it was a ghost? Well, it’s not. Feel.’ And she took his hand and put it on her breast. Then, holding his hand where she had placed it, she began to question him about the trial of Jonathan Playfair. She had not mentioned it when he had arrived; she had not asked him what he had been doing or from where he had come. As she had just returned from the States, he thought she probably knew nothing about the case, and so fierce had been the activity on the sofa he had even forgotten to look at himself on television. Before and during the dinner she had not eaten she had talked only about herself and the magazine and the conference in New Jersey. In the drawing-room there had been no time for talk. But now, squatting beside his chair, she asked about the trial. There was interest in the States, she said, in the English judge charged with murdering an old war hero, and she wanted to know more. So, while she still held his hand on her breast, he told her. She listened in silence. Then she said, ‘I have a surprise for you.’

  ‘What surprise?’

  ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Coming with me where?’

  ‘To court.’

  ‘But the trial—’

  ‘I know. I’m coming to the trial. I’m covering it for the magazine. My bosses in New York are interested. The result, the verdict, will come long before we publish next month, but New York want a background piece. You know the kind – the personalities, the judge and his victim and everyone involved. Including you.’

  For once the prospect of publicity didn’t appeal.

  ‘I told them I know you,’ she went on. ‘That’s why they’ve specially asked me to do it. That’s why I’m coming with you.’

  ‘But I’ll be staying in a hotel and—’

  ‘I know, you’re at the Grand. You’d left when I called them from the car. They said you have a suite. I told them I’m joining you.’

  ‘At the hotel?’

  ‘Sure. The Grand hadn’t another room. I said I was with you. New York’s fixed a press pass for the court, so by day I’ll be watching you and by night I’ll be beside you.’

  He said lamely, ‘I’ll have time for nothing but the case. As for sharing my room, there are journalists everywhere.’

  ‘Who cares.’ She looked up at him and this time put her hand on him. ‘So we go to the trial together. Until then, relax.’

  To get her hand away, and to cover his confusion, he got up and threw a log on the fire. ‘You’ll get your death of cold,’ he said.

  ‘Then let’s go back to bed. We don’t have to get up in the morning. We’re snowed in, remember?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep. I shouldn’t have had brandy.’

  ‘I’ll make you sleep,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘Follow me.’

  And, obediently, Hugo Shelbourne QC followed her up the stairs to the bedroom.

  5

  JONATHAN was dreaming. He was back in the courtroom in the castle. On the judge’s bench was a line of figures in khaki uniform, their military caps on the desk in front of them; in the centre an older officer, with red tabs on the lapels of his tunic. In the well of the court stood another with his cap on his head. He was shouting up at Jonathan, and Jonathan began to shout back, leaning over the edge of the dock, thumping it with his hand. ‘You don’t understand,’ he was answering. ‘You don’t understand.’

  The man in the cap began to smile; then, sweeping off his cap, he threw back his head and laughed. Others in the court joined in, until the laughter grew louder and louder, echoing and re-echoing, filling the whole place from the floor to the rafters high above the silent, motionless judges. Jonathan looked up at the painted wheel of the Round Table. Instead of the names of the king and the knights – Arthur, Lancelot, Galahad, Mordred – there were now different names. Hartley was the name in the place of the king. Trelawney was on his left, Connor on his right. Then Playfair – and Willis.

  Jonathan looked down at the soldier below him and whispered, ‘But it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that.’

  At this the laughter ceased and the noise faded away. Slowly the man in the cap raised his hand and stood with his arm outstretched, his finger pointing up at Jonathan, who stared back at the silent, unsmiling faces of the judges while the noise of the laughter began again. Jonathan turned his head and saw Nicola coming towards him wearing a white evening gown with a train. There were ostrich feathers in her hair. She plucked one of the feathers from her head and curtseyed and handed it to him over the side of the dock.

  Jonathan woke. He sat up and switched on the light. He dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief, wiping away the sweat. Then he picked up his book and began to read. But the words danced before his eyes and he put it down and switched off the light. Pulling the bedclothes around him, he lay in the darkness.

  Why had Nicola come to him in his dream? She had never before, although he thought of her so often – of her as a child by the tree over the stream; of her face when they had caught Beau kissing the headmaster’s wife; of another summer day in another place, another cricket match. It was strange, he reflected, how his memories of her were punctuated by cricket matches, a game he couldn’t play, a game he so disliked. Beau had longed for a son who would be captain of cricket, as he had been in his day. Did he, Jonathan, hate cricket because his father had so wanted him to be good at it?

  One memory was of his last Fourth of June. By then he had won the scholarship to Cambridge and was idling away his last weeks, mainly in the Drawing Schools, until at the end of July school would be over for ever. Julia had promised she would bring Nicola, whom he hadn’t seen since she had gone to school in Switzerland. But when Jonathan had telephoned home, he hadn’t dared to ask if Nicola were coming because Beau had answered and had said they’d arrive at noon and go straight to the cricket. They were joining the Trelawneys, and they all wanted to see David play. So he still wasn’t sure if Nicola was coming.

  He had gone to Agar’s Plough early. Rory was with him. None of Rory’s people were coming. ‘They’re not such asses as to come all the way from Galway to watch a cricket match and a few fireworks,’ Rory had said. ‘If it’d been horses, they might have. Not for cricket.’ So Rory was to spend the day with them.

  At the field Richard Trelawney was parading around in a pearl-grey suit with the empty sleeve of his missing arm tucked into the pocket and on his head a white panama with a regimental ribbon. He looked very grand as befitted the father of the captain of the Eleven and President of Pop. But, beneath his jaunty hat, his face was drawn and pale and his ginger moustache now pepper and salt. It had been about then that the illness had started which was to kill him three years later. Annette was on his good arm, in a long, tight-fitting pale blue dress with a broad-rimmed hat decorated with flowers, flirting with everyone, exaggerating her French accent. When she flirted with Beau, Julia only smiled. Then.

  It was about this time that Jonathan realised that his mother drank – not like Beau and their friends, but seriously and secretly. It was probably because of the drink that she looked at people so intently, and smiled at them, that slow, beautiful smile. The
y thought she was interested in them and was listening, but really it was because her mind was in a haze of gin. She had not known then about Beau and Annette, but she’d always known what her son felt about Nicola.

  Annette Trelawney asked Jonathan when his parents would be arriving. ‘Soon, very soon,’ he replied, hoping that soon, very soon, he would be seeing Nicola. Annette said they’d kept a place for the Playfairs’ car next to theirs, a cream and black Wolseley saloon. Jonathan knew that car. In the spring, walking in Hyde Park, he had seen it parked by the Serpentine, with Beau sitting beside Annette, his arm around her shoulders.

  It was not until just before lunch that the Playfairs arrived, not now in a bull-nosed Morris but in a bottle-green Bentley tourer. Jonathan’s grandmother had died two years before and Beau, with his brothers, had inherited. Jonathan directed the Bentley into the place the Trelawneys had kept for them. He had already seen her sitting in the back, hatless, her dark hair cut short, waving a thin, brown arm. He leaned over the side of the car and kissed his mother. Beau jumped out, slapped him on the back and went straight to the Trelawneys. ‘Sorry we’re late,’ he said. ‘Julia kept us, as usual.’

  Jonathan took Nicola’s hand in his and looked into her brown eyes.

  ‘Remember me?’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, shyly. ‘I’m so glad you could come.’ He dropped her hand. ‘This is my best friend, Rory Connor.’

  ‘I’ve seen you before, at the Uncles match at Plimpton’s,’ Rory said. ‘You had pigtails then.’

  Nicola laughed, and ran her hand through her short hair. ‘They went a long time ago.’

  The four grown-ups were now sitting on the rug. Beau was opening a bottle of champagne.

  ‘Would you like to stroll around?’ Jonathan asked. ‘You’ve missed the speeches in Upper School – anyway they’re all in Latin and Greek.’

  He wanted to walk with her, to be seen with her, and he didn’t mind that he had Rory in tow.