The Aladdin Trial

by Abi Silver

  ‘Constance.’ Now, after much cajoling, he had finally begun to call her by her first name. ‘I have a bad feeling about this. I have read the newspapers. Already they think I am guilty, all of them, like Miss Burton was saying.’

  ‘They’re just trying to sell a story. Once they hear what we’ve got to say they’ll change their tune.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he had replied. ‘They don’t like to admit they are wrong. You know that. Maybe it’s not so different here from Syria?’

  ‘You mustn’t give up just because of the newspapers. In a few days’ time they’ll be onto the next story. I need you to be strong in there. I have asked them to give you a pen and paper. Anything you think of while the judge is speaking, or the other lawyer, or any of the witnesses, you make a note. Anything, however small. And don’t react to things they say, even if you think they aren’t true. Just calm and cool and relaxed.’

  ‘My wife?’

  ‘I saw her last night and she was fine. And a police officer went over this morning to check on things. I spoke to her a few minutes ago and your wife was having a cup of tea. Your daughter is at school, as normal.’ Constance hesitated. She hadn’t told Ahmad about the broken window. She had arranged for it to be repaired and had asked Dawson for some extra patrols on the street. He wouldn’t promise her anything, she understood that Aisha was not a police priority, but he had reluctantly agreed to send someone today for an hour, to provide support for his wife, as the trial opened.

  Ahmad thought that his wife didn’t drink tea – not the English kind – and she didn’t like strangers in the house, however well-meaning. She would sit with the mug on the table and stare at it. A sob formed in his throat.

  ‘Don’t think about them now. Think about yourself,’ Constance said.

  When they brought Ahmad up from the cells, Constance walked next to him. As he settled himself in the dock and his handcuffs were removed, she leaned in close and whispered ‘Remember what I said’ in his ear. He gave a cautious half smile before sitting back in his seat and then raising his head to take in his surroundings. Constance took her seat behind Judith.

  ‘What’s up?’ Judith muttered behind her hand.

  ‘All good.’

  Judith’s youthful opponent leaned over to shake hands.

  ‘Hello, Judith. Andy Chambers. We met once a few months back, at the Lord Chancellor’s Garden Party.’

  ‘Really? I meet so many people, but I’m sure you’re right.’

  Chambers ignored the brush-off. ‘All ready for the fight then?’

  Judith eyed him carefully.

  ‘We’re ready, yes,’ she replied.

  Mr Justice Seymour entered on time. He was known as a forthright judge with a quick temper. But Constance’s meticulous research had revealed that he had come to the attention of the public recently. In his last murder case, in the spring, he had delivered a lengthy lecture on the importance of sticking to the point in cross-examination. Unfortunately, there had been at least three occasions when he, himself, had wavered from the subject in hand. There was a rumour (strenuously denied) that a liquid lunch might have contributed to his lack of coherence. In any event, a stand-up comedian, related to one of the witnesses, had been in court, and the result was a parody of the cruellest kind.

  Judge Seymour had achieved celebrity status (briefly) with snippets of his speech being played on a fictional form of the radio show, Just a Minute, where he received penalty points throughout for repetition and deviation.

  ‘He’s no nonsense. He’ll be good for us,’ Judith had ventured to Constance that morning, hoping to convince herself as she spoke.

  Judge Seymour sat down and scowled at all assembled. Not a good start. Then he took his glasses from their case, which he snapped shut, put them on, and squinted with greater clarity across his courtroom. Judith gripped the bench with both hands. The beginning was always the hardest part.

  ‘Mr Chambers, you appear for the prosecution. Shall we start?’

  When Ahmad’s name was called, he rose to his feet. He threw back his shoulders and made eye contact with the judge, and then he allowed his eyes to wander towards the jury, as Constance had suggested. And when he replied, ‘I am not guilty of the charges you have brought,’ in perfect, hardly accented English (he had practised this over and over) when a simple ‘not guilty’ would have sufficed, surprise rippled through the courtroom.

  Even Mr Justice Seymour seemed taken aback. The media had portrayed Ahmad as an impoverished cleaner, uneducated but physically strong, a true Goliath. Although he stood tall and imposing before the world, his voice was soft, controlled, even gentlemanly. And Judith had to hand it to Constance, the suit was a triumph. She even worried they might have overplayed their hand this time. If anyone had been au fait with their labels they would have questioned how a hospital cleaner could afford to wear an Armani suit. She witnessed the raised-eyebrow exchange between Chambers and his solicitor. Touché, Judith thought to herself. Two could play at this game.

  Mr Chambers stood up with an encouraging air which rapidly morphed into a more solemn demeanour as he leaned forwards onto his lectern. Judith could not help but stifle a giggle. When she was first admitted to the Bar, one of her colleagues had written a piece about the indispensability of the lectern, focusing on the curious poses some of their more celebrated peers adopted when addressing the court.

  She remembered some of the names – ‘the hugger’ and ‘the prop’ were the most obvious but Chambers’ stance was more like that of ‘the mistress’, which had caused the most hilarity. ‘The mistress’ stance involved resting on one elbow, the fingers lightly touching the forehead, the other hand caressing the worn surface of the lectern. The writer had explained that this position indicated considerable attraction but not total commitment to the lectern; this had been the analogy which had earned him a serious rebuke, even in the non-PC days of the late 1980s.

  First, Chambers regarded Ahmad, his gaze long and searching, before turning his attention to the jury.

  ‘Members of the jury. This is a terrible crime of which Mr Ahmad Qabbani is accused.’ He stretched Ahmad’s name out into its composite syllables, Qa-bba-ni, making it as long and disjointed as a freight train. ‘The murder of a woman; not just any woman – a lonely woman, an elderly defenceless woman – in a place where she thought she was safe, a place of sanctuary and recovery, in one of our best-loved flagship hospitals.

  ‘You will hear from Dr David Wolf, her dedicated consultant, that she had a routine operation and was preparing herself to return home, when she was callously and cruelly thrown from the eleventh floor of the building, breaking her neck in two, just like that.’ He snapped his fingers. Two members of the jury flinched. Judith rolled her eyes and cleared her throat.

  ‘The defence will say there was no motive for the killing, but there was, ladies and gentlemen; greed and jealousy. Mr Qabbani stole two precious rings belonging to Mrs Hennessy, one given to her by her late mother, the other by her husband, each of considerable sentimental as well as monetary value. He does not deny he knew of those rings, both their existence and their location, and they were found in his house three days after Mrs Hennessy’s death.’ Ahmad remained still, his eyes directed towards the floor.

  ‘It is true we don’t have anyone who saw what Mr Qabbani did to Mrs Hennessy, no eye witnesses. Because Mr Qabbani made sure of that. Because he waited for his chance, till it was night, till the ward was deserted. And then he flung her to her death, calmly left the building and caught the train home. He might have even sat next to one of you on his way, just cold and calm, as if nothing had happened. How do we know this? Miss Burton will say it’s all conjecture, but no, we have evidence. That is what cases are based upon; hard, irrefutable evidence.

  ‘You will hear forensic evidence from Dr Jason Lewis, who will tell you that Mr Qabbani’s hair was found wrapped around the but
tons of poor Mrs Hennessy’s nightdress, no doubt when she wrestled with him in a desperate attempt to save herself.’

  ‘Objection.’ Judith sprang to her feet.

  ‘Yes, Ms Burton?’ Judge Seymour’s voice was loud and challenging.

  ‘That’s pure speculation, your honour. There is no evidence, including from forensics, as to how my client’s hair found its way onto Mrs Hennessy’s nightgown. My client, of course, will give his own account of events at the appropriate time.’

  Judge Seymour sighed impatiently.

  ‘There is nothing wrong with Mr Chambers expanding upon the forensic evidence to explain how the prosecution will put its case but, Mr Chambers, do stick to the facts please; not too much embellishment.’

  ‘Yes, your honour.’

  ‘And Ms Burton, I understand your enthusiasm but let’s try to keep the interruptions to a minimum, shall we? Mr Chambers is putting the prosecution case forward. You will have your opportunity to speak shortly.’

  Chambers smirked at Judith good-humouredly and resumed his ‘mistress’ position.

  ‘As I was saying, Mr Qabbani’s hair was wrapped around the buttons of Mrs Hennessy’s nightgown. And, unusually – and we will come back to this later on, so I ask you now, just to hold that thought...’ Chambers held his right hand up in a claw-like motion to indicate seizing something.

  Judith swallowed. Chambers was good. This was going to be more difficult than she had anticipated.

  ‘…there is more forensic evidence. Mr Qabbani’s fingerprints were all over Mrs Hennessy’s medical notes.’ He paused and his eyes bored into Ahmad, as did those of every other person in the courtroom. Ahmad remained motionless at the start but then he tucked one hand inside the other and shifted in his seat. ‘Not just on one page; on the cover and on each and every page.’ Judith made a note herself to talk to Ahmad about this privately. ‘Why should Mr Qabbani have read through Mrs Hennessy’s notes unless he was plotting his moment to strike, waiting until she was at her most helpless?

  ‘And, more importantly, his fingerprints were found all around the staff room, including the door which opened out onto the fire escape from which she fell. I will repeat that, members of the jury, the door which opened out onto the fire escape from which she fell, and this is not disputed by the defence.

  ‘In addition, the day following Mrs Hennessy’s heartless murder, after Mr Qabbani had been questioned by police, the day he failed to mention “helping her to the bathroom”, we have CCTV from the platform of Acton Central mainline station which I will play to the court; disturbing footage of Mr Qabbani behaving in an erratic manner.

  ‘And Mr Qabbani’s Oyster card was swiped at Hampstead Heath station at 8:45pm when his shift finished at eight. He could walk to the station in less than ten minutes. What was he doing in those extra thirty-five minutes? Simple but terrifying – he was murdering Mrs Hennessy.’ Judith’s throat went dry. This hiccup in the timeline was problematic and Ahmad would have to deal with it convincingly in court.

  ‘And finally, and we shall get on to this also in more detail later, just to give an insight into the kind of person Mr Qabbani is – a runaway from Syria, a person to whom we gave a home, a job and sanctuary from his own war-torn land – he thought he was above his role as a cleaner. He gave Mrs Hennessy a book, but no ordinary book, The Arabian Nights.’ Chambers coughed out the name of the book so raucously that the judge grunted under his breath. ‘A book full of misogynistic imagery, of magical misdeeds and violence.’

  Judith muttered ‘what a load of nonsense’ as loudly as she dared as she gestured in Chambers’ direction, the microphones picking it up and provoking a low chuckle from one or two quarters. But Chambers was enjoying himself and continued without drawing breath.

  ‘Why should he have given her any gift? I’ll tell you. It was to ingratiate himself into Mrs Hennessy’s affections. He could see she was alone and he wanted to take advantage of her. Perhaps he was hoping that she would give him something in return.’

  Ahmad’s eyes closed, his eyelids flickering, a low moan came from his lips. Chambers halted once more and waited for a response. Ahmad opened his eyes and raised his head to meet the challenge of Chambers’ words.

  Judith was struck by the fact that in different circumstances the two men might have been a match for each other. Not just physically, at either ends of a rope in a tug of war, but also in terms of their presence. Chambers was better-looking in a public-school boy kind of way, but his dancing eyes were without depth. He was eloquent and convincing but he provoked the impression that life had been easy for him. Everything from his naturally curling hair, to his flawless complexion, to his manicured nails, to his black, highly-shined shoes oozed easy wealth.

  When you perused Ahmad’s face you saw the experiences of the world etched across it. Judith imagined each line representing a challenge he had faced and overcome: poverty, starvation, war, death. In an endurance test, she knew whom she would back. But of course, they were not in those different circumstances, they were not competing on a TV survival show. Instead, Ahmad was forced to sit mute and listen to these accusations, completely at the mercy of Andy Chambers. And smooth, articulate words and clever arguments were worth more in this courtroom than inner strength and stamina.

  And Judith had remembered Chambers; she never forgot a face. She had met him, shortly after her return to work on the Maynard case. He had congratulated her warmly on her victory, had encouraged his friends to lift a glass in her direction, but she had felt their tribute insincere; it might have been her sensitivity about Martin, her former husband, raising its head again. In any event she had acknowledged them politely and moved swiftly away.

  Chambers was now sitting down and tidying his papers on his desk, his opening statement at an end. She glanced over her shoulder at Constance, hoping she was keeping notes as her own wandering thoughts had obliterated the last two minutes of Chambers’ speech. Constance was tapping away at her keyboard, and Judith composed herself with a quick ‘nothing to it’ inside her own head.

  ‘Your honour, members of the jury,’ Judith began. ‘There is no evidence linking my client to Mrs Hennessy’s death, and no reason why he would have wished to kill her, no what we often refer to in legal parlance as “motive”. Ahmad Qabbani was a hard-working cleaner at the hospital. He finished his shift, his security card records him leaving the building promptly and he knew nothing of Mrs Hennessy’s tragic demise until the following day, when her body was found, in the undergrowth at the back of the hospital.

  ‘In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever that Mrs Hennessy was even killed. Dr Lewis, the pathologist from whom you will hear, has propounded some unusual theories as well as more well-recognised ideas, but none of them is conclusive. What is undisputed, however, is that Mrs Hennessy was unsteady on her feet after her operation and that she fell to her death from a fire escape with a low barrier. It is perfectly possible that no one pushed her; tragic as it may be, Mrs Hennessy might simply have fallen.

  ‘There is a camera opposite the entrance to the ward, a ward into which members of the public are free to enter and leave at any time of the day or night. But sadly, it was not operational on the evening of Mrs Hennessy’s death. A recent report by NHS England recounts that it is no longer able to afford the upkeep of the cameras in any of its hospitals, not even in one of our “flagships”.’

  She smiled at Chambers, who returned the compliment. ‘Understandably, there are no cameras on the wards, either. And, tellingly, no one saw Ahmad Qabbani push Mrs Hennessy off the balcony, or accompany her from her room, the long trek down the corridor to the place from which she fell, past six other rooms, three each side of the corridor with glass doors, each one occupied. Or force her against her will from her room. No one saw it, members of the jury, because it didn’t happen.

  ‘My client was seen leaving the hospital at the end of his shift. His se
curity card confirms his time of exit from the ground floor as 8:12pm, his Oyster Card was used at Hampstead Heath station at 8:45pm and shortly after that he caught a train home. Of course, it is not impossible that he returned to the hospital later on in the evening, after having dinner with his wife, reading to his daughter and pretending to go to sleep, although there is no evidence of any kind that he did. No, members of the jury, the facts I have set out are much more consistent with a man who calmly leaves his place of work to return home; calm, not because he wears a mask to hide the face of a ruthless killer but simply because this day is no different from any other. After he left, Mrs Hennessy died. A calamity but not of my client’s making.

  ‘True, a single hair from my client’s head was found attached to Mrs Hennessy’s clothing. A single hair. Yes, “DNA evidence”, as we like to call it. It sounds so snappy, doesn’t it? “DNA evidence” is invaluable in many cases. It’s particularly helpful when it links a person who may otherwise be completely unconnected with the deceased, to the case – a passing lorry driver, a hitch hiker – either of whom might be identified and linked to a person they had never previously met, by a stray thread from clothing or saliva residue; it is next to useless when we know that Ahmad Qabbani was already acquainted with Mrs Hennessy and was with her on the day she died.

  ‘As to the evidence that Ahmad’s fingerprints were in the staff room; well it would have been surprising if they were not. This was a room used by all staff, of which Ahmad was one. He had a locker in that room, he ate his lunch there and, from time to time, he went out onto the balcony for some fresh air, as did other members of staff, whose fingerprints were also found at the scene.

  ‘My client accepts that he helped Mrs Hennessy out of her bed on the morning of the day she died, as she needed to go to the bathroom. The prosecution will make much of the fact that he did not tell the police about this when he was first interviewed, at a time when he was not a suspect. I say it was foolish but understandable that he kept this to himself. He was not supposed to help the patients. It was against the rules. His natural desire to help Mrs Hennessy, so she would not lose her dignity, has been twisted into the only piece of tangible evidence against him. And that is cruel and unjust. And in this country, we are neither of those things.