‘Well, yes.’
‘I make no criticism, Professor, but it is a fact then, from the very beginning of your analysis, you were searching for evidence of sleep? Anything that could support that theory?’
‘I can assure you I took an entirely objective view of the evidence.’
‘Of course, but your whole report comes from the perspective of sleep – in other words, can the facts fit sleep?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘What’s your point, Mr Hussain?’ interjected the judge.
Hussain cut to the chase: ‘If you had been asked whether the evidence from the crash was consistent with a seizure, for example, you would have to say yes, wouldn’t you?’
‘I can’t comment on that, I’m an expert on sleep.’
‘But Mr Anderson wasn’t taken from the vehicle asleep, was he?’
‘No, he wasn’t.’
‘You are relying on the movement of the defendant’s vehicle – the arcing or drifting − being consistent with a lack of braking, which you say suggests sleep?’
‘That’s right.’
‘That evidence alone does not distinguish between sleep and any other state of unconsciousness.’
‘Well, no. If there was evidence of a pre-existing medical condition I would have to revise my findings.’
‘Is there any evidence?’ asked the judge, already aware of the answer.
‘No, Your Honour, although there rarely is in these cases.’
‘Are you giving evidence now, Mr Hussain?’
‘No, Your Honour.’ Hussain turned back to the witness. ‘Professor Hawthorn, there is no evidence that Mr Anderson was tired, is there?’
Stapleton cut in: ‘No medical evidence of tiredness.’
The professor followed her lead: ‘There’s no medical evidence of tiredness. One has to look at the surrounding facts, such as the evidence of Sandra Granger.’
‘Yes, thank you, Professor,’ said Hussain, eager to change the subject. ‘And there is evidence that the defendant had a cup of coffee shortly before the crash. Surely that would have prevented sleep?’
‘Well, firstly we don’t know how much he drank. That is critical in answering what effect it would have had. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, coffee does not act as a stimulant until at least twenty minutes after it’s consumed. We see this a lot after people stop at the services on the motorway due to tiredness, grab a coffee and continue their journey. They then fall asleep a few minutes later.’ Hawthorn was in full flow. ‘The point I make is this – from what I’ve read the defendant consumed the coffee at most, twenty minutes before the crash. Sadly, it didn’t have time to stimulate him.’
‘But do you agree with this proposition, Professor?’ asked Hussain. ‘Because Mr Anderson had just drunk a coffee he would have assumed himself to be awake and fit to drive?’
‘I can’t speculate about that, I’m afraid, but I can say this: if someone falls asleep, there must have been a moment, before sleep occurred, where the driver felt tired and should have pulled over. Sleep doesn’t just happen out of the blue.’
Hussain sat down and instinctively turned to Anderson who gave a nod of appreciation, but both men knew the professor’s last answer had been most unhelpful.
Day one of the trial was over. Hussain hurried off to the robing room to discuss matters with Stapleton for the following day, but not before reaffirming his promise to explain things later.
Anderson and Adey set off on their train journey back to Manchester. The long silences weren’t uncomfortable anymore, almost expected. They both relived the expert evidence in their heads, trying to find answers that weren’t there. Anderson was certain there was so much more to discover. What was it? Would he ever know the truth?
Or was he just going mad?
Adey paid for a cab from Victoria back at the flat.
Anderson stood in Adey’s lounge, staring aimlessly out of the window across Manchester, ignoring the piece of paper stuck on the glass, and its contents. The gentle tapping of Adey’s fingers on her laptop had become such a familiar sound that he hardly noticed anymore.
‘I give up!’ she shouted, slumping back in her chair.
‘What is it?’
‘The ghost of Heena Butt. I’ve searched everywhere. This woman doesn’t exist, not with that date of birth anyway. It’s never happened before. You can always find them somewhere, whether it’s on the electoral role, benefit claims, or even a dating site. With her there’s nothing.’
Anderson joined Adey at the table and tried to come up with new lines of enquiry. ‘OK, so all we know is that she had a library card?’
‘And yes, amazingly she didn’t need any ID to get it. She gave a fake address, I’ve checked it out.’
‘So we know she needed access to books?’
‘Computers more like.’
‘Right, of course,’ acknowledged Anderson.
‘So what else would she definitely need to exist?’
‘A place to sleep,’ Adey replied immediately. She’d obviously spent hours considering these questions. ‘She didn’t own a property but she might have used hotels. It’s impossible to check every hotel and hostel even in Manchester, let alone England. And that’s even if she used the name Butt.’
‘What if she was in Manchester more long-term? She could’ve been renting. It’s very hard to rent anywhere nowadays without ID – all these new money laundering regs.’
‘Maybe,’ nodded Adey. ‘I’ll put it on my list.’ She checked her watch. ‘Come on. Let’s go. He’s had long enough to speak to Safa. I need to know what the hell’s going on.’
Chapter 55
Hussain was tight as a drum. He showed them into the kitchen where Safa was hiding her face at the sink, wiping the tears from her puffed-up eyes. She managed only a muttered welcome to the visitors. Hussain invited them to join him at the table. After a few seconds of intently clasping and unclasping his hands, he spoke.
‘The police recovered a debtors list in Waqar Ahmed’s things. My name was on it.’
They digested the information.
‘But you represented him on legal aid,’ said Anderson, jumping to a conclusion. ‘So you were taking cash on top?’
‘No,’ replied Hussain, irritated by the assumption. ‘I owed him money.’
‘What? You owed money to your own client?’ Anderson couldn’t decide which scenario was worse.
‘How much?’ asked Adey, without making any judgement.
‘Twenty grand.’
‘Twenty grand! What for?’
Hussain stared down at his hands. ‘Shahid.’
‘Shahid?’ repeated Adey in surprise.
‘Who is Shahid?’ asked Anderson.
A tear ran down Hussain’s cheek. ‘My son. My beautiful, beautiful son.’ He was lost in thought. Then: ‘He died of leukaemia, last May. The twelfth.’
‘Just before the Banji case?’ Anderson asked.
Hussain nodded.
Anderson remembered a difficult drugs case in which he had bullied and insulted Hussain throughout to hustle his way to a conviction. He shuddered at the realisation his opponent had been mourning the recent death of his child. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘There was a new treatment in America. Our only hope. We had to try everything.’
On seeing Hussain overcome with emotion, Safa sat down and continued the story. ‘We had no money. The house was mortgaged, everything we had went on keeping the firm afloat, and with all these legal aid cuts…’
Anderson asked, ‘So you borrowed it from Ahmed?’
Hussain hung his head in shame. ‘Yes.’
‘I bet Ahmed jumped at the chance to have a hold over you.’
‘Did you tell the police?’ asked Adey.
‘No. I went no comment. If I’d told them I defended a gangster whilst in his debt, I’d be struck off. It’s a blatant breach of the code.’
‘Taz!’ exclaimed Adey. ‘Better that than a life sentence for murde
r.’
‘No, you were right,’ said Anderson, surprising himself at how pragmatic he had become lately where the law was concerned. ‘Say nothing. If that’s all they’ve got, you’re free and clear.’ ‘It is,’ replied Hussain.
‘I’m so sorry about your son. Both of you, I had no idea.’
‘But Safa,’ asked Adey, ‘why do you blame Anderson?’
Anderson thought he’d already worked it out: ‘Because Ahmed called in the debt – for defending the man that prosecuted him?’ Anderson paused while he thought it through. ‘And so he’d been putting pressure on you to withdraw?’
‘Yes,’ lied Hussain. Never had he felt so ashamed.
Adey took Safa’s hand. ‘And poor Safa couldn’t understand why Tahir wouldn’t dump the Anderson case?’
‘Yes,’ she said defiantly. ‘I’m sorry, but Taz should put his family first.’
‘Well, it doesn’t matter now – he’s dead,’ said Hussain with some relish.
Reflecting further, Anderson wasn’t so sure. ‘That debt meant he owned you, Tahir. If we’ve worked that out so will the police. It’s not just the debt; they can attribute motive to you. Motive to kill.’
Chapter 56
Anderson made the morning train journey to Bradford alone. Adey had explained at breakfast that she had some enquiries to make, and Hussain was going by car. Anderson didn’t want to put him off his game by getting a lift and asking a million questions about the case. He knew from experience, Hussain needed a clear head.
Bradford Interchange. Anderson followed the hoards off the train to make the short walk past the Victoria Hotel to the court. His phone bleeped – a text. He fished it out of his coat pocket. His fingers struggled to find the keys in the cold Yorkshire air. It read: YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.
Anderson gulped. With everything else he’d put the last call to the back of his mind. Instinctively, he looked around him at the crowds, the faces. Were they commuters or was one of them out to get him? He pulled the collar of his coat up around his neck and quickened his step.
The court building was a welcome sight, despite Anderson’s dread of what might unfold there. Once he was beyond the metal detector he read the text again. There was a mobile number from which it was sent. He forwarded the text and the number to Adey. He could feel someone watching him. Paranoia? No. Standing by the lifts – Sam Connor. Waiting to be spotted, he gave Anderson a nod of acknowledgement. What was he doing here? Had he just sent the text? As some kind of sick joke? No, of course not, he reasoned, pulling himself together. His old colleague had come to give evidence for the prosecution.
Anderson took the stairs to avoid him.
Hussain was pacing up and down outside the courtroom. On seeing his client he hurried over, full of ideas about the day’s cross-examinations. ‘You know today is all about Stapleton getting witnesses to say how tired you were on the day of the crash, because of working on the Ahmed case?’
‘I know,’ Anderson sighed.
‘I’ve got to go in hard. Put it to them they are lying out of jealousy, ambition, rivalry.’
Anderson agreed. ‘But be careful not to lose the jury. Nothing gratuitous.’ Anderson was finding it hard to stay positive. ‘I don’t think we are ever going to know the truth of what happened. Maybe Waqar Ahmed took that with him to the grave.’
‘Come on, my friend. You mustn’t think like that. And remember, the burden is on the prosecution to make the jury sure of guilt. We don’t have to prove your innocence.’
They heard the tannoy: ‘All parties in Anderson to Court One immediately.’
The courtroom was packed. Journalists filled the press box – a chambers colleague giving evidence for the prosecution would add human interest for the readers.
Anderson scanned the public gallery for a friendly face. Only strangers. Had one of them sent him the text, he wondered?
‘Your Honour, members of the jury,’ announced Hannah Stapleton, ‘I call Matilda Henley-Smith.’
The usher led Tilly into court. Less wet behind the ears than Anderson remembered, but still very attractive − the jury would like her. She confidently repeated the oath whilst scanning the courtroom so as to know her audience. Brief eye contact with Anderson, but no acknowledgement.
Stapleton moved quickly through the preliminaries to the day of the crash. ‘So you were with him pretty much all day?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how did he seem?’
‘Tired,’ came the reply, without the slightest prick of conscience.
‘Just a moment,’ said the judge. ‘I’m making a note.’ He wasn’t going to let the jury forget that one.
‘Miss Henley-Smith,’ Stapleton continued. ‘Why did you come to that conclusion?’
‘He just seemed very run down. Exhausted. We went for a coffee after court, to recharge his batteries.’
Anderson listened open-mouthed as this demure young girl sought to destroy him, seemingly without a second thought.
‘The case had really taken it out of him. It was very demanding. And I think he had some personal problems at home.’
Hussain turned around to see Anderson shrug. How could Tilly have known about his home life? She was deliberately poisoning the jury against him.
Stapleton continued: ‘You were in fact one of the last people to see him before the crash. How did he seem when he left Starbucks?’
‘Still tired, and distracted by something,’ she offered, feigning regret at having to give such a damning answer.
‘But he did drink a coffee, didn’t he?’
‘I’m not sure that he did. I remember him getting up to leave and knocking the cup all over the floor.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Stapleton glanced off to the jury. ‘Thank you, Miss Henley-Smith. Please wait there.’
Hussain got to his feet. Feeling the pressure: ‘Difficult trials were nothing new to John Anderson, were they?’
A hesitation, then: ‘No.’
‘He grew up with this pressure and did these trials week in, week out, didn’t he?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But of course, you didn’t see him do any other trials, did you?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘No?’ emphasised Hussain. ‘Because you were a pupil. You’d hardly seen anything of the courtroom, had you?’
‘Well, I—’
Hussain followed up with: ‘As you’d never seen Mr Anderson at work before, you have no idea how he comes across during a case. It might be that he would always seem tired to you?’
‘I suppose so. He might yawn after court in every case he does.’
The jurors laughed.
Tilly Henley-Smith had raised the stakes; Hussain had no choice but to go for the jugular. ‘Why did you go for that coffee?’
‘He asked me. You don’t say no to a senior member of chambers.’
‘Weren’t you worried?’
‘Worried?’
‘That Sam Connor, your pupil-master, would be jealous?’
Buying time to think, she repeated: ‘Jealous?’
‘Yes.’ Hussain shot the witness a mischievous smile.
She didn’t answer.
‘If we were to see your emails, would they reveal that you were in a relationship with Mr Connor?’
Tilly’s face lost its rosy pallor. Was Hussain bluffing? Had he read them? He couldn’t use them if he’d hacked in, but to deny the affair would be perjury.
Judge Cranston rescued her: ‘Mr Hussain, what possible relevance could this witness’s personal relationships have to whether your client fell asleep whilst driving or was in some other way distracted?’
‘It is our case that the witness is not being entirely truthful about the defendant’s tiredness − or lack of it – she has animus towards him which I must explore further.’
‘Very well,’ replied the judge, convinced Hussain was making a big mistake pursuing this line with the young witness.
‘Were you in a relationsh
ip with Sam Connor, Miss Henley-Smith?’
She waited for the judge to rescue her again.
This time he didn’t.
‘That’s not why I’m here,’ she said, trying to stop herself moving around in the box. A dead giveaway. ‘I’m not answering that.’
‘I’m afraid you have to, Miss Henley-Smith,’ said His Honour. ‘I will stop Mr Hussain if he oversteps the mark.’
‘So, I will ask you again,’ said Hussain. ‘Were you in a relationship with Sam Connor?’
Reluctantly, she replied: ‘Yes.’
‘Now let’s go back to my question that started all this off: weren’t you worried that Connor would be jealous if you went off for coffee with his leader?’
Unsure of how to answer: ‘No.’
‘Thank you. Now, you are a barrister, aren’t you? An officer of the Court, are you not?’
‘I am.’
‘You are under oath, Miss Henley-Smith. Think long and hard before answering my next question. Is the reason you weren’t worried because Connor knew you were having a coffee with Anderson?’
There was no escape. With an air of defiance: ‘Yes.’
‘Was there some agreement with Mr Connor that you would take Mr Anderson for a coffee?’
‘Anderson suggested it.’
‘But that was just good fortune. You had agreed with Connor to keep him busy anyway, hadn’t you?’
Eventually, with a nervous glance across at the prosecutor: ‘Yes.’
Hussain had guessed right. ‘Why, Miss Henley-Smith?’
The sanctimonious young barrister had disappeared to be replaced by an embarrassed little girl. ‘Connor didn’t want Anderson going back to chambers.’
‘Why not?’
‘It was all to do with a junior brief on a murder. Orlando West, our Head of Chambers, had promised it to Anderson. They were supposed to have a meeting about it after court. Connor thought West would switch the brief to him if Anderson didn’t show.’
The jurors’ shock at her duplicity smashed around the courtroom. Their fickle loyalties were shifting.
Hussain took advantage: ‘So you and your lover were trying to damage your leader’s career whilst he was in the middle of prosecuting a difficult trial?’
Death By Dangerous Page 16
