Blood Royal

by Harold Robbins

  “At that precise moment you did not observe anger in her face, is that what you mean?”

  “She was calm when she killed the prince,” the woman said stubbornly.

  “You didn’t see her kill the prince, did you?”

  “No, but—”

  “And you just testified that she had swift mood changes, didn’t you?”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “I saw what I saw.”

  “You don’t like the princess, do you? I mean, even before the shooting, you didn’t like her, did you?”

  The woman shrugged. “She wasn’t well liked by some staff members.”

  “By the staff members who supported the prince in his marital disputes with his wife, you mean.”

  “We saw how he suffered from her constant mood swings.”

  “Did you see how she suffered from the treatment she got from him? Or did the fact you were getting a paycheck signed by the prince blind you to her pain?”

  The maid was followed by a police officer. Chief Inspector Arthur Field supervised the crime scene investigation and had taken the princess into custody. He spoke briefly with her after she waived her rights. His theme was the same as the others’, that the princess was calm and collected.

  When Desai paused in the questioning to peruse his notes, a bailiff handed Marlowe a folded note with a page attached. The note was a scribble that read, Sold to the tabs by an informed source. It was signed, Your pal Dutton.

  She looked up at the spectators’ gallery. Dutton grinned down at her.

  The attachment was a poor photocopy of a page from a Preliminary Investigation Report. The page had been filled in by hand. In the block that called for the officer to describe the suspect’s demeanor, the word hysterical was written. At the bottom of the page were the initials AF.

  “Your witness,” the judge told her.

  Marlowe took a deep breath and stood up, placing the page on her podium.

  “I was given a document by the prosecutor, Chief Inspector, called the Final Investigation Report. You were the author of that report?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And in that report you describe the princess’s demeanor at the time you questioned her as calm?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you wrote that report … when? About a week after the incident?”

  “Yes, ma’am, that’s correct.”

  “And in that report you described the princess’s demeanor following the shooting as calm?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now, there was another report, wasn’t there? An earlier one?”

  The officer visibly tensed.

  “Isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And in that report, the Preliminary Investigation Report you wrote within hours of the incident, you described the princess’s demeanor as hysterical?”

  “What I meant was—”

  “What did you write in the report?”

  “My lord,” Desai said.

  “Give the witness a chance to respond, Miss James,” the judge said.

  “Thank you. Chief Inspector, you described her demeanor as hysterical in the earlier report, yes or no?”

  “You see—”

  “Yes or no, did you describe her as hysterical?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now please turn to the jury and tell them who instructed you to criminally and fraudulently conceal this fact—”

  “My lord!”

  “Was it the prosecutor?” Marlowe shouted on the heel of Desai’s plea to the judge.

  The judge surprised Marlowe by calling a recess and leaving the bench—without instructing the attorneys to present themselves in his office.

  “I thought for sure he’d have me in chains,” Marlowe told Hall.

  “He’s disgusted,” Philip Hall told her, “he realizes Desai withheld the original report.”

  “Knows it and isn’t going to do anything about it. How the hell do you have a system in which a prosecutor can get away with that? And don’t give me that national security crap.”

  He shook his head. “You can’t judge a legal system based upon a trial that is extraordinary.”

  She was only pretending shock at the fact that the police and prosecution had buried a report. It was not an uncommon practice in American cases. It was rare for a major case to go to trial in the States where accusations weren’t made that critical information was being concealed from the defense.

  “What’s left of Desai’s case?” she asked. “I can’t believe that he’s only going to call the medical examiner and rest.”

  “That’s what he told us.”

  She looked at the autopsy photos that had been turned over. They showed the entry round of the bullet in the chest area but not the prince’s face. “In terms of the ghastly photos jurors are often shown in murder cases, these are really tame. We don’t even get to see suffering on the prince’s face.”

  “I suppose there has been an effort to keep the prince’s face out of the pictures, not show a Royal in a horrid death pose, that sort of thing.”

  “Something’s wrong,” she said. She looked up at the gallery. Dutton was gone. Probably not sure she wouldn’t sic the police on him, she thought.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s been too easy. The prosecution’s case has been too tame. I’ve jerked Desai’s leash a few times, but overall, he’s too damn smug. Something’s wrong, I can feel it in my bones. The other shoe hasn’t dropped yet.”

  50

  After court, Dutton hung around the courthouse, hoping to catch sight of Marlowe James and maybe let her show her gratitude by buying him a drink and giving him a story. He didn’t see Marlowe come out, but he spotted another familiar face—Keith Willard, the prince’s armorer, the servant who cared for the prince’s gun collection. Willard was one of a long line of “an unnamed but well-placed source inside the palace” who sold tidbits to Burn and other trash publications.

  He had never really gotten anything really juicy out of the gun handler, but it piqued his interest to see the man at the courthouse, because he wasn’t mentioned in the police reports and wasn’t on the witness list that the prosecution had disclosed.

  When Desai came out of the courtroom with Chief Inspector Field, Willard started to approach them. Desai gave him a warning look and a slight shake of his head and kept walking. Willard took the hint and stopped.

  Dutton caught the fact that Field said something in an aside to Willard as the police inspector veered over to a drinking fountain.

  Willard nodded, spun on his heel, and started for the exit out of the Old Bailey.

  What’s that all about? Dutton asked himself, as he followed Willard. It came as no surprise that Willard would testify—he was the person who took care of the prince’s guns, including the pistol the princess had used to blow a hole in her husband. One would expect that he would be called to the stand to identify the gun as belonging to the prince. But he hadn’t testified for the prosecution so far. And now he was skulking around the courthouse playing at intrigue with the Crown Prosecutor.

  “What’s it all about, Alfie?” Dutton sang as he exited the courthouse. He let Willard get halfway to the Underground station before he came up behind him.

  “Hello, Keith, haven’t seen you in a long time.”

  Concern flashed on Willard’s face. “Piss off, I’m not supposed to talk to reporters.”

  “That makes two of us avoiding reporters. I’m on my own now, writing a novel. Say, we should talk—you knew a lot about the prince, didn’t you? You were his executive assistant, eh?”

  “I was his armorer and I’m not supposed to talk to reporters.”

  “I’m a novelist, don’t you know, and the book won’t come out for a year or two—won’t make much difference then, will it?” He grabbed Willard’s arm and steered him toward a pub. “I need to wet my throat before I hit the tube. You know, Willard, a man like you who
was close to the prince should consider a book, too. I could introduce you to my publisher. I’m buying myself a place on the Costa del Sol. You’ve been to the south of Spain? Bet your old lady is crazy about it, all that sun, and it’s not a bad place for men, is it, the women wear nothing but a little sand at those beaches. With your insider information about the prince, I’ll bet you could buy a bloody villa, eh?”

  51

  “You’re being sandbagged,” Dutton told Marlowe.

  She had no sooner entered her room than the phone rang. And Dutton had the ability to catch her by surprise. “The hotel operator is supposed to screen my calls.”

  “I told her I was Anthony Trent.”

  “I should call the police.”

  “And turn in your friend? Your only friend.”

  “You are a slimy reporter for a scandal rag.”

  “I’m the guy who tipped you off about the police report, remember?”

  “Mr. Dutton, I know who you are and what you are, and for certain you don’t do favors without getting blood in return. I appreciate your tip today, it repays me for burglarizing my room and assaulting me. Now let’s just call ourselves even before I yell for the police again.”

  “Tsk-tsk, it’s going to be that way, is it? I just thought you might be interested in knowing when you were being had, but I guess you’ll have to read about it after you fall on your face.”

  She gripped the phone tighter. The bastard thought he could manipulate her. And he could, she was that desperate. “All right, you tell me what you have and I’ll tell you if it’s worth anything to me.”

  “Now, that’s a hell of a deal—I give, you take, I get lost. I thought perhaps we could get together and get to know each other better—”

  “I’d rather cuddle up to a snake.”

  “And pass information back and forth, give and take, tit for tat, buy and sell.”

  “You have nothing I want or need.”

  “You’re a smarter girl than that, aren’t you? Did you hear the part where I said you were being sandbagged? Again.”

  She sighed. “Talking to you is like having a conversation with the devil. It’s all very tempting, but I know in the end you will want nothing less than my soul. Tell me what you have. If it’s any good, I’ll give you an exclusive first chance I get. You’ll have to trust me.”

  He chuckled. “I know Shakespeare’s philosophy about lawyers, but I admit I do have a place in my heart for street lawyers. I’ll be in the hotel lounge. You’ll recognize me, I’m the handsome devil who was feeling you up the other day.”

  “How did you get into the hotel?”

  “A police officer investigating the attack in your hotel room is always welcomed by the more-than-cooperative hotel personnel.”

  * * *

  SHE FOUND HIM IN the lounge. “I’m glad you chose a dark corner.”

  “I could learn to love you in the dark, luv. In fact, I already do. I’ve always had a fatal weakness for women who get right down to it and let me know that I am worthless and despicable.”

  “What are you trying to sell me, Mr. Dutton?”

  “Tony.”

  “Let’s get on with this, Mr. Dutton. What do you have?”

  “You don’t really understand. I take this personal.”

  “Really? I wouldn’t think a tabloid reporter had feelings.”

  “Oh, I’m not talking about your insults, those are just defense mechanisms to protect yourself. You are captivated by my sensuous male charisma and are—”

  “My God, you’re delusional.”

  “But let’s put aside our differences, because we both have the same exact motivation about the princess’s case.”

  “Which is?”

  “We both want to win. I have something for you. I will put you on your honor as a lawyer for the people and not the muckety-mucks that you will repay me when you can with an exclusive. I want to build a bond of trust between us. I believe that there should be trust besides sex with the woman in my life.”

  “Would you mind getting to the point before they come to cart you off?”

  “The point is Keith Willard.”

  “All right, I’ll bite, who’s Keith Willard?”

  He nodded. “I didn’t think you knew. Interesting, very interesting. You have a gun in your case, right? The smoking one the princess used to shoot her husband with.”

  “I think you, me, and five billion other people are aware of that.”

  “You understand that the prince had a gun collection, that between what he inherited, got as gifts, and bought, his collection was probably the size of the armaments of some small nations.”

  “Okay, he had a lot of guns.”

  “He didn’t just have a lot of guns, he had a collection valued at a king’s ransom.”

  “And Keith Willard had something to do with that collection?”

  “When most of us think of a woman grabbing her husband’s gun and ventilating him with it, the image of a weapon that was stored in a bedroom end table or closet comes to mind, perhaps even a desk in a home office. But the prince didn’t own a gun or even a bunch of guns, he had hundreds of them. Willard is—was—the prince’s armorer, the person who cared for the guns, cleaning them, repairing them, keeping them from rusting, whatever you do to guns. Most of the weapons are kept under lock and key in display cases.”

  “The princess got the gun from Willard?”

  “Indirectly. She got the key to the display case from him.”

  It hit her, a revelation from hell. She saw it coming, but kept her features frozen. “I take it Willard has some recollection of when she checked the gun out.”

  “He kept a log. She didn’t sign out the gun, but he saw her take it and noted it in the log.”

  She nodded. Her throat was dry. “And?”

  “The media briefing from Trent’s office says the princess got the gun three hours before the shooting, then drove to Cragthorpe and used it.”

  “What does the log say?”

  “She got it the day before. Twenty-seven hours before.”

  Twenty-seven hours. Not even Slow Trigger James could sell a jury on a heat-of-passion defense in which the shooter got prepared the day before—then drove a couple hundred miles to pull the trigger.

  It was one thing to spend years building up provocation, but another to plan the killing one day, sleep on it, and execute it the next day.

  Especially after the world’s been told that she had gotten the gun a few hours before.

  52

  “It’s prejudicial misconduct of the most egregious nature,” Marlowe told the judge. “The prosecutor has sandbagged the defense every step of the way. This latest obstruction of justice denies the defendant the fundamental right to a fair trial. It was deliberate, malicious, prejudicial, and irreparable.”

  She spoke calmly, with deliberation. The judge listened to her quietly. Trent and Hall had arrived in the room only seconds before. She had stormed the judge’s office and demanded he call in the prosecutor.

  When she was finished, the judge said, “Mr. Desai?”

  “As usual, Miss James makes accusations beyond the limits of sound legal precedent. It’s true that we did not reveal the armorer’s exact knowledge. However, that information was in the hands of the defense, wasn’t it? The princess knew how and when she got the gun—it’s not the fault of the prosecution if their client lied to them. We planned to use the evidence during rebuttal and would have notified the defense once that phase of the trial began.”

  “Miss James?”

  “The defendant doesn’t have a duty to reveal information. It’s the prosecution that has the burden of coming forth with evidence to prove the allegations—and to reveal that information to the defense. The duty of disclosure includes witnesses and physical evidence. The princess didn’t tell us about the armorer because she didn’t know he had observed her, if in fact he did, and didn’t know he made an entry in the log, if in fact he did.… As we know, it w
ouldn’t be the first time that evidence was tampered with in this case by the police.”

  The judge flushed. “Miss James, I have tried to give you as much free rein as possible because you are not used to our legal system, but I will not permit a catty remark to be made that defames a Crown Prosecutor.”

  “Judge, I did not make a catty remark and I find your statement that I did as being chauvinistic—I don’t think you would refer to a man’s comment in those terms. I spoke the truth, and once again you have come down on me. You have just heard that the prosecutor did not turn over critical evidence and earlier had tampered with a police report, you have been in the courtroom when the prosecutor made a prejudicial, inadmissible statement to the jury calling the defendant a child murderer, and I have yet to hear you sanction the prosecutor. What I do hear is continuous remarks on my character and I want that to stop. If you can’t handle this trial with an even hand, I suggest you disqualify yourself and let’s get another judge.”

  The judge turned so purple he appeared on the verge of a coronary. She was certain he had stopped breathing. There was frozen silence in the room until Trent spoke.

  “My lord, I apologize on behalf of the princess and her defense team. May we be excused?”

  Without waiting for a response, Trent got up and she and Philip Hall followed him out.

  “What exactly do you think you’re doing?” he demanded in the outer chamber.

  “Something you’re not doing—defending the client. Why didn’t you know about the armorer?”

  “We knew about the armorer, we knew about the log.”

  “How did you—”

  “We spoke to the armorer’s supervisor.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You never asked. You never bothered to tell us before you confronted the judge with it.”

  “Desai thought he was sandbagging me, but it turns out that it was my cocounsels who were doing it. How did you plan to deal with the armorer’s testimony when he brought him on rebuttal?”

  “We had prepared a legal argument to keep him out.”

  “The judge won’t keep him out.”