by John Fairfax
‘But why lure me of all people?’
‘Because you’ve believed in him from the beginning. He knows that. And he also knows that Tess de Vere is compassionate and wouldn’t count the cost . . . and that she happens to be a hot-shot at Coker and Dale. I suspect Mr Benson could do with someone like that at his side, given that no one with clout is prepared to instruct him.’
Throughout the meal, Tess had grown increasingly uneasy. Her simple view of Benson had been shaken. Her mind began crawling over a small detail that, at the time, had pleased her: Benson had used the word fecker. That was her word. It was an Irish word. And used by him, it referred back to their first meeting; and that strange exchange of vows. Douglas approved the new wine and said:
‘You should know that the Harbeton family came here this morning. They wanted you sacked which, ironically, might help you in the long run, because no one here wants to be seen as bending to outside pressure. We said no. Politely.’
Tess replayed Benson’s look of dawning surprise when he’d recognised her . . . it had been utterly convincing . . . if it was a performance.
‘Apparently, Merrington informed them he intends to revise the scope of his legislative proposals.’
‘In what way?’ She was fully present now.
‘His target is to exclude from the legal profession anyone who is still serving a sentence.’
Tess had to think for a moment before she understood.
‘Benson is only out on licence,’ she said. ‘He’s still a lifer. He’ll always be a lifer.’
‘Behold, my dear, the agility of the political mind. And I have to say that Maureen Harbeton was pleased. Pleased that something might yet be done to protect the memory of her son. Strange, isn’t it? There’s nothing much in the Human Rights Act for grieving mothers and angry sons.’
26
If Douglas was right about Tess being exploited – which was a strong way of putting things – it would mean that Benson had planted that article in the Guardian in order to attract her attention. At least in part.
And she’d come running.
The thought wouldn’t go away. She arrived at the Old Bailey in time for Benson’s cross-examination of Dr Henry Lucas, the lean, spectacled Home Office pathologist who’d examined Andrew Bealing’s body for the Crown. She slipped into the solicitor’s benches and sat beside Archie.
There wasn’t much to argue about. Historic injuries were related first. Two scars on the right forearm. Surgical scarring from an appendectomy. A nick on the chin from shaving. The human body really is a kind of diary. Dr Lucas moved on to incidental markings: a bruised big toe. Five scratches to the back. He then addressed the injury that had brought about fatal consequences: a jagged curved wound measuring 60 mm by 25 mm on the left side of the neck, 31 mm below the angle of the jaw. Surrounding abrasions and lacerations were superficial in character . . .
If Douglas was right, it would mean that Benson had pretended he couldn’t quite remember her name. He’d sung, ‘And I would walk five hundred miles’, as if reeling in a fish.
The jugular vein and carotid artery had both been totally severed. There would have been swift and heavy bleeding. Within a matter of minutes Mr Bealing would have suffered . . .
It would mean that Benson feigned anxiety, gasping for air, because he knew that Tess de Vere had felt sorry for him once and might well feel sorry for him again.
Dr Lucas would have none of it. The injury was the result of a stab and not a fall. The injury was inflicted from behind, with Mr Bealing turning to face his attacker. He was being followed down the corridor towards the warehouse. Considerable force had been applied. There was no sign of hesitation, as one finds with prodding or scraping, for example. There’d been a single thrust deep into the left sternomastoid musculature. Blood would have sprayed from the open wound. The injury could have been inflicted with either the right or left hand.
And if Douglas was right about Benson exploiting Tess, he might be right about Benson having lied.
While this was an assault more commonly associated with men, Dr Lucas had been instructed in many cases where the assailant was a woman. No method of attack was gender specific.
It would mean that Benson was diseased. Which was barely credible; only Tess couldn’t uproot the seed of doubt that Douglas had planted. It was quietly germinating in a dark part of her mind.
Benson left matters there. The court was adjourned until the next morning and he convened a conference in a side room with Sarah Collingstone, her father, Archie and Tess. She was totally thrown, however, when he asked her to explain developments. Speaking through a kind of fog, she told a wide-eyed audience what she’d learned in four days of research.
‘But you must understand, we’ve no evidence. People have only explained why they’re not prepared to make a statement. But it does seem reasonably clear that Andrew Bealing had become involved with the distribution of legal highs, at least, and that when he attempted to extricate himself from the arrangement, he became scared for his life, almost certainly with good reason.’
Ralph Collingstone’s mouth had fallen open. ‘You’ve no evidence?’
‘None.’
‘Can’t you tell the court?’
‘No. What I’ve been told is hearsay and double-hearsay. For me to repeat it would be double-hearsay and triple-hearsay. It’s useless, evidentially. I am not the witness. We need someone to say, “This is what I know, saw, said and heard.” Nothing else counts.’
‘But Sarah’s totally innocent.’
Tess played safe. ‘Sarah faces a raft of evidence that Mr Benson and I seek to discredit. If we succeed, Sarah will be acquitted.’
‘No, no, sorry, that’s not good enough. Sarah didn’t kill Andrew Bealing, you know that, we all do. The man with cancer has got to pull himself together. He’s got to say what he knows. So does the warehouse manager.’
‘I am working on them. There’s no point in twisting arms. The best way to handle frightened people is to keep a low voice. I’m trying to lure them out with gentleness and an appeal to conscience.’
‘And if they don’t respond?’
‘Then they don’t respond.’
‘But the police must know about these gangs. Don’t they watch them?’
‘Probably, yes, but it’s irrelevant to Sarah’s case. It only becomes relevant when we demonstrate the link between one of those gangs and a threat to kill Mr Bealing and when we find a witness who is prepared to explain that link to the court without reference to hearsay, or with elements of hearsay introduced by notice with the judge’s approval, with or without screens, maybe by videolink . . . it’s complex, Ralph. You have to trust us.’
‘I didn’t kill him, Miss de Vere.’ Sarah’s quiet voice broke the tension. ‘I didn’t do this. I promise. I’m innocent.’
‘Then please help me,’ said Benson. He waited for the raised feeling to subside a little. ‘So far, we’re not doing too badly. The suggestion that you had an affair with Andrew Bealing is looking pretty thin. The jury are prepared to accept that someone else could have come to Hopton’s Yard after you say you’d gone. This is good, Sarah. We’ve made ground. The jury will be asking themselves who that someone might have been, and we’ve given them three names: Kym Hamilton, David Hamilton and Anna Wysocki. The police should have investigated them and they didn’t and now it’s too late. We’re in a good place. But you have to help me. Otherwise, everything can fall apart.’
‘How, what do you want me to do?’
‘Just be brutally honest.’
‘What about?’
Benson leaned forward, as if to exclude everyone from the room. ‘Your DNA is on the murder weapon. That’s not good. Tomorrow morning I cross-examine Dr Elaine Gooding who found it there. I need an explanation.’
‘But I don’t have one. I swear I never touched that bottle. There wasn’t even a bottle on the table when I was in that room. I don’t know where he got the bottle from. What else can I say?’<
br />
‘Who said there was a bottle on the table?’
Sarah’s face collapsed. ‘You’ll always be able to trip me up, Mr Benson. So will Miss Glencoyne. But it changes nothing. You must understand, I only care for Daniel. I can’t go to prison. Don’t you realise, I’d do anything to help you defend me? But I didn’t touch that bottle. I didn’t.’
‘Okay, fine. But returning to another question in the trial. Your relationship with Andrew. Are you sure you didn’t get close to him? He’d been kind. It would be natural and normal.’
‘No. I didn’t.’
‘Not even once?’
‘Not even once.’
‘Fair enough. I’ll do what I can tomorrow with Dr Gooding. It’s going to be a decisive moment. I’ll do what I can to advance your best interests.’
Tess thought that last statement rather strange. It was more like an explanation or a warning. The conference ended and Sarah Collingstone and her father left to collect Daniel from the Alington Trust day centre.
‘Does anyone fancy a quick one at Grapeshots?’ said Benson, awkwardly. ‘Or somewhere else?’
‘No, thanks,’ said Tess. ‘I’ve already got something planned.’
She avoided his attention.
‘Archie?’ Benson ventured.
‘Sure.’
‘Good. I’ll just get changed.’
After Benson had left the room, Archie said, ‘He’s brilliant. I’m no lawyer, but he’s taken control of that court. It’s extraordinary. He’s a fisherman’s son from Norfolk, a simple lad, but he sounds like he was born into a wig and gown. He’s made for this . . . he’s—’
‘Archie, does Benson read the legal press?’
‘He reads everything.’
‘Whose idea was it to speak to the Guardian? You know, the article on Congreve Chambers.’
‘His. Why?’
‘Just wondering. It made him a lot of enemies. But he won some friends, too. Do you think he saw that coming?’
‘Of course he did. You should watch him in court. He’s one step ahead of everyone.’
Tess went along Ludgate towards St Paul’s. On the way she picked up a copy of the Evening Standard. The Hopton Yard killing dominated the front page, with detailed reference to Benson’s dismantling of key witnesses. The outcast had thrown his critics into disarray. But the item that caught her attention the most related to Debbie Bealing. She’d been hospitalised under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983. She’d smashed an aquarium at the Bamboo Terrace Takeaway in Wimbledon, screaming, ‘It’s the Chinks who killed my husband.’
27
‘But you’ve always been impulsive,’ said Sally.
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Tess, you have. You think that just because you’re a lawyer, you must be cool-headed, analytical, measured, all that stuff, and you aren’t. You’re bloody Irish, for God’s sake. You’ve got freckles. You’re a Banshee. You fly off the handle and even you don’t know why, but you’re clever enough to find the sort of reasoning that got you a First.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘Remember that warlock at Balliol? The one with spells?’
‘Sally, don’t be so—’
‘And the playwright? The one who wrote that dream-state crap about Gandhi and Che Guevara waiting for the same bus.’
‘You’re being—’
‘No, I’m not. I still don’t know why you went to Strasbourg. You came up with all that twaddle about the Centre of International Something or Other but you made the decision overnight. You hadn’t really thought it out. You’d been overwhelmed by a whim. And it’s the same with this Benson. You meet him in court, you’re convinced he’s innocent, your freckles light up, and you talk of nothing else from—’
‘Paris to Prague. I’ve heard that one.’
‘Well, here’s another. You overhear a conversation in a restaurant and by the time you go to bed you’re aligned with a convicted murderer. Not privately or secretly but in public. That’s what I call fast. It’s not cool-headed, analytical and measured. It’s impulsive. It’s why I like you. You bring colour and chaos into the world.’
They settled on a kind of speakeasy in north London: The Bar With No Name on Colebrooke Row. Inspired by Matisse, Sally had dressed in yellow and red. Dashes of blue. She was drinking a French 75. Tess, wanting to get a long way from London, had plumbed for a Mai Tai. The location was apposite. Benson lived five minutes away on foot.
‘This isn’t something romantic,’ said Tess. ‘It’s—’
‘Professional?’
‘Yes, actually. But it’s also personal, you’re right. I’m shifting tack, Sally. I’m moving back to what people call “bog standard” crime. It’s where I belong. And it’s inevitable that I’ll be working with Benson. I want to work with Benson. But I saw Douglas today, and he shook me. He thinks Benson might be using me to help neutralise the outrage against him . . . make himself marketable.’
‘So what . . . if he’s innocent?’
‘Exactly. I was troubled at first but then I thought about it: if you’ve been to prison for years you might learn to dodge and weave, rather than ask for help. You’re slow to trust. You do desperate stuff to survive. I can live with that.’
‘But if he’s guilty?’
‘Exactly, again. It would mean he’s drawing me into something very different.’
‘A couple of days ago, you told me you believed he was innocent because he said he was innocent. What’s changed?’
‘I wasn’t involved, I suppose. And now I am. Back then, nothing hung on it. Now . . . there’s a lot.’
And if she was absolutely honest, regardless of Douglas’s reservations, and those of Braithwaite before him, Tess was drawn to Benson. He was a man of so many contradictions. His books were ordered, but there’d been one volume of philosophy among the poetry (by Wittgenstein: she hadn’t understood a word). He reached out but he was withdrawn, not wanting anyone to approach him. He kept leaving doors open but was always looking for his keys. The inconsistencies made him oddly vulnerable and Tess felt vaguely protective. More deeply, she’d been moved by the epic scale of his choices. Not many men would enter a courtroom if it meant they’d be spat on when they left it. Moreover – which moved her even more – he’d no appreciation of what he’d achieved: he was oblivious to its scale. But there was another reason for this growing attraction. Tess had felt a shiver of excitement during Benson’s routine cross-examination. Archie was right. There was a kind of electricity in his voice and bearing; even the gesture of a hand. He had the one thing that can’t be learned. Talent shows called it star quality. And, once again, Benson hadn’t the faintest idea that he possessed it. Tess had to sigh: it would be magical if he was innocent, rejected, self-effacing and brilliant. But if he wasn’t?
‘Take a look at this,’ she said, changing the subject. She removed a sheet of paper from her briefcase on which she’d pasted photocopies of certain paragraphs taken from Sarah Collingstone’s replies to Benson’s questions. The content was innocuous and couldn’t be linked to the trial. ‘Look at the answers. What do you make of the handwriting?’
Sally was gracious. She confined herself to the text. She made no reference to the previous history of snorting ridicule.
‘It’s not an exact science,’ she said, flute in one hand, papers in the other. ‘The upstrokes are all clean and tidy, all the letters are well formed . . . the capitals are precise . . . there is almost total uniformity—’
‘What does it all mean?’
‘The writer is probably a woman. She’s hiding a great deal. The order is a front. No one is that tidy without effort. In my experience people usually hide two things. Guilt and shame. The large lettering here and there is like a burst of colour to liven up the monotony. But it’s a choice. They’re not instinctive. She’s had years of practice . . . the swift formation of words suggests someone who’s got used to what she’s doing . . . being someone different to whom she feels herself to b
e. You can’t trust her, I’m afraid.’ Sally handed back the papers. ‘People like that can be stubborn. They stick to their cover story, even when it’s obviously not in their best interests.’
Tess thought for a while. ‘I’ve never heard such a load of bollocks in my life.’
‘I just knew you were going to say that.’
‘But it is. You described yourself. You always do.’
‘I just knew it.’
‘And a good half of what you said is me. And everyone in this room.’
‘Don’t ask again.’
‘Do you really get paid for saying stuff like that?’
‘Yes. And they come back for more. Because it works.’
‘What do you mean it works?’
‘It’s confirmed by later experience. You’ll see. For what it’s worth, while the writing couldn’t be more different, whoever wrote the questions has a similar profile.’
‘Really?’
Tess had an idea. She finished her Mai Tai and said, ‘C’mon. Let me cook you dinner. My place. I’ve something else to show you.’
Tess lived in Knightsbridge. Ennismore Gardens Mews. A two-bed refuge from Coker & Dale and everything her profession represented: the fight for an outcome where no one agreed on what that outcome should be unless the Supreme Court had considered the matter. Or, in relation to human rights, Strasbourg. It had been the London pad of her paternal grandparents, when they weren’t in Warkworth, Northumberland, and then her father when he’d done his Ph.D. at the LSE. The family joke was that Tess’s mother had fallen in love with the mews, and not her father. The irregular, cobbled lane; the heavy wisteria above the arched, dimpled windows; the cracked earthenware pots with shrubs . . . they’d have won over any Irish rebel.
‘Cast an eye over this one,’ said Tess.
‘No.’
‘Please. I’m interested.’
