Blood From Stone

by Frances Fyfield

  She felt the hem of the skirt with the fingertips of one hand, and held on to her glass of wine with the other.

  ‘She damned herself.’

  ‘No, damn her, because I now find it impossible to hate her. I’ve sustained myself by hating her, to be honest. But to think of her jumping out, wearing this, I have to think of the other woman who wore this, and it’s tricky. I always wanted to be able to laugh at her, scorn her, and now I can’t. Because of this skirt. I wonder if she hated herself or loved herself, to wear it. Hell, you’ve got me hooked.’

  She was smiling. A rueful smile, he noticed, but still illuminating. She was an appealing woman when she smiled. He had not noticed the smile in court, when there had been no place for it, but seeing it now confused him. She did not look like a woman who was capable of hatred, or not for long. She looked like someone who should smile more often. This time, he noticed what she was wearing. Businesslike black jeans, black polo-neck sweater and a rust-coloured waistcoat with large triangular buttons, no jewellery, but small silver studs in her ears. Simple but striking on her small, neat figure. It made him think of Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He wondered who her friends were.

  ‘Did you hate her so much?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yes. When I was standing up in court answering her questions, I hated that woman with every fibre of my being, because then I knew what she was going to do to Angel and I knew that she’d already destroyed so much of the case against him. I hated her because she believed him, and that made her capable of anything. And she hated me, because he did. She was like a wolf protecting a cub, all teeth and claws.’

  ‘It’s just one way of doing it,’ he said, lamely to his own ears. ‘Not my way. There’s no need to maul a witness to make a point. You don’t have to wrestle them to the ground and stab them to death to create a reasonable doubt.’

  ‘Don’t you? Surely you have to, sometimes, if it’s the only way of undermining the evidence? If the only way of casting doubt on what a witness says is to make them look a fool, sneer at them until they start doubting everything themselves, then surely you have to do it. I didn’t hate her for that in the end; I hated her for enjoying it.’

  Yes, he understood that. Marianne Shearer had relished going for the jugular. She got high on the kind of interrogation that made a witness writhe with confusion. She was flushed with triumph afterwards, like a hunter with a wounded animal, not even wanting to watch the kill. Points scored by the wound, relationships ruined by unnecessary revelations; too bad. The witness stand was a lonely place and if you volunteered for it, you were fair game. Win, win, win. Sitting in this sterile room, he was suddenly glad he did not have the killer instinct and at the same time, he wanted to defend her, because the dead deserved defending, or at least understanding, and the mere existence of this garment, sitting there, filling the room, was a very significant sign that no one had understood Ms Marianne Shearer at all.

  ‘You’ve gone on to another planet,’ Hen said. ‘Can I look at the rest?’

  ‘If you’re sure . . . There’s bloodstains. It was really only the skirt I wanted you to see.’

  ‘Not so difficult to remove, blood,’ she said, briskly. ‘We all have some of it on our clothes. Usually in our pockets where we put our cut fingers. I’m always finding blood.’

  She was rummaging, looking in the suitcase, talking to herself, picking at undergarments, removing the pair of boots last, reciting an inventory.

  ‘Rigby and Peller corsetry, basque, thick vest thing with sleeves, sixty-denier stockings, black panty girdle, laced, knee-length boots with three-inch heels. My, she was very well upholstered, wasn’t she? I suppose it was a very cold day. Glamorous stuff, but practical. Several layers. Oh dear.’

  Hen put everything back but the skirt and closed the lid of the suitcase. She looked pale and reached for her glass of wine with an unsteady hand. Wine did not look as if it belonged on a steel bench. The glass made a noise when she put it down.

  ‘I wonder if you’re thinking what I’m thinking,’ Peter said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it all day and night. That she wore the layers to contain herself. Keep herself in when she imploded on the pavement. Soak up the spillage. Staunch the blood.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Hen said. ‘I didn’t think she had much of that. No heart, no bloody veins.’

  She drained the wineglass. Peter wondered if he was outstaying his welcome, and got up from the table.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Rather a tasteless remark, in the circumstances.’

  ‘Rather tasteless circumstances. Very tasteless of me to involve you at all.’

  She smiled at him again, and he found himself smiling back.

  ‘But you have, and I am. Not that I was ever uninvolved, you see, not ever since I saw that photograph. Which is why I went to the inquest yesterday. Just to sort of make sure she was dead, and it wasn’t some elaborate hoax. Maybe I’m just addicted to inquests. The last one I went to was Angel’s. It only took ten minutes. She wasn’t important any more. An overdose, death while balance of mind disturbed. The postmortem report was interesting, though. I sent a copy of it to Ms Shearer at her chambers address. She didn’t acknowledge it. I don’t suppose that’s turned up amongst her things?’

  He was taken aback by this conversational turn.

  ‘The point is, that her things haven’t turned up at all. She’s hidden them, or they’ve been stolen. Or lost. All we have is what she was wearing. Not even a mobile phone. Why on earth did you send Angel’s post-mortem report to Marianne Shearer?’

  She looked away, stood to fold the precious skirt carefully, then unfolded it, and put it back where it was, reluctant to put it away out of sight in the suitcase.

  ‘I’ll tell you the rest sometime, I hope. You were, after all, brave enough to accost me on a train. And you were on the right side of justice, once, even if you aren’t any more and you were too junior to interfere. And I do have a lot of guilt to resolve. Not guilt, mistakes. And whatever kind of bloodless bitch she was, it must be awful for her family not to know. They must deserve better.’

  Peter thought about Marianne’s only known family, Frank Shearer as described by Thomas. Not interested in anything but the money, couldn’t give a fig why.

  ‘Anyway, about this skirt, can I keep it for a day or two?’

  Peter could hear Thomas saying, you did what? You gave our only evidence to someone who might burn it or spirit it away? You incompetent idiot. It belongs to Frank Shearer. Hen could see the doubt in his face. This time, she liked his face, also the broad shoulders that seemed too willing to bear other people’s burdens. It would be easier to confess to Peter Friel than to anyone else. Someone had to know. She watched him hesitate, on the brink of trusting her when, really, he should not. She was waiting for him.

  ‘Yes, if you tell me why.’

  ‘I’d like to get it clean,’ she said. ‘Since she was so careful to preserve it, I’d like to get the blood out. That’s what she would have wanted. That’s what it deserves.’

  He was stunned. She went on.

  ‘Because, as I said, the woman who owned this thing was probably passionate about clothes. This might have been one of her best things, for her to choose to die in it, but there would be other things of similar quality. I’m sort of sure about that. It said in the newspaper that she had just moved house . . .’

  ‘Yes. Sold most of the contents of the last, hidden everything, but we don’t know where.’

  ‘Hmm, yes. I doubt she would have moved far from her precious clothes. Got them stored, carefully. Or given them to someone. There are specialist storage places for theatrical costumes and clothes. I could ask around. See if anyone in my line of business, the richer end of it, I mean, could have an idea of where they might be. Maybe she’s hidden away other personal things along with them, but whatever, she would always have looked after her clothes.’

  Peter went home without the suitcase, lighter for the lack of it, and feeling b
etter. He felt he was sharing a burden, but above all, he wanted to share hers and he wanted to know what was in her carpet bag.

  His flat seemed horribly colourless when he went indoors. A place with beige walls and no distractions except for the piles of paper which were still the heft of a legal practice –despite the computer, the disks, the online research, they were all, still, fixated by words on paper. It was second nature to come indoors on any evening and start reading.

  He did so, now.

  The transcript of the trial, in neat folders.

  Everyone had a copy as a souvenir. Marianne insisted.

  Why did Henrietta Joyce send the post-mortem report on her sister Angel to Marianne Shearer? Was this an act of malice?

  His phone went at midnight. Thomas Noble despised mobile phones, always used the landline, waiting for people to come home so he could get them there and had no idea of what were sociable hours. He phoned when it suited himself, and when he was excited.

  ‘Peter, dear boy, I’ve found the lover. Did you hear me? I’ve found the lover. No, he found me. Yet another person who wants to know if Marianne left anything around referring to himself. Very nervous, very distinguished, very cagey. Very. I’ve had to promise him extreme confidentiality. He won’t come in tomorrow, only the day after. You can use tomorrow for searching. I’m resting. Perhaps you’d better be there on Thursday afternoon? On second thoughts, better I deal with him myself. I’ll keep you posted. We’ll all take it easy tomorrow.’

  Peter went to sleep, dreaming of floating garments made of silk, and Hen Joyce.

  He woke early in the morning, and dragged out the manuscript of the transcript again. There was so much detail he had forgotten and it was somehow important to remember it all. He would keep going back to cross-examinations rather than evidence in chief. Cross-examination revealed more, although it was arguable whether it revealed as much about the person who asked the questions as it did about the person who answered.

  Continuation of cross-examination of Henrietta Joyce by Marianne Shearer, QC

  MS. To continue, Ms Joyce. I hope you’re feeling better today?

  HJ. How do you expect me to feel?

  MS. Like someone foolish might feel, I suppose. Unless you’re telling me you’re unfit to give evidence, it’s not really my business how you feel.

  HJ. You asked.

  MS. So I did, but it was only to see if you were fit, and a matter of courtesy, and you’re here, so we’ll just get on. I want to ask you about what happened after you brought your sister back to London from Birmingham. Can we agree she was in a sorry state, even if we might not agree as to the reasons for that state? She wasn’t well, can we say?

  HJ. She was ill.

  MS. I’ll go with that. She was a bit poorly and she was claiming she’d been raped, successively, hence some of the charges against my client. She also claimed he’d chopped off her finger. She told you this, you said so in your evidence in chief. You believed at the time that she had been seriously abused. So why didn’t you take her to a doctor?

  HJ. I did.

  MS. And? Why don’t we have a medical report of that consultation? Why didn’t you take her to the nearest police station and claim rape, like you did later? I’ve got your statement here, Ms Joyce and even you can’t quarrel with that. You kept dear little Angel in your flat, away from her parents and everyone else for three whole days. However ill she was, you kept her there.

  HJ. I didn’t. I drove her home, my home, and put her to bed. She was ill. She was raving—

  MS. At least you admit she was raving mad. Not amenable to reason, was she? Perhaps you thought you might dry-clean her up, is that right?

  Laughter from jury/reprimand from HHJ McD, who also smiled.

  MS. OK, I take that back, Ms Joyce, but why didn’t you take her to a doctor immediately if she was so ill? And ranting and raving etc.

  HJ. I did. I took her to Accident and Emergency on the way home. Then I let her sleep, and eat, and talk, and then I took her to a doctor.

  MS. So where’s the report from A and E?

  HJ. I presume it’s part of the evidence. I don’t know.

  MS. I’ll tell you why you don’t know. That medical report doesn’t exist. You never took her there. You simply said you did. Nor did you take her to a doctor.

  HJ. Isn’t going to a hospital the same thing?

  MS. It’s for me to ask the questions, not you. You kept her at your flat for three days, until you had both concocted the right kind of story. Then you went to the police.

  HJ. I took her to Accident and Emergency as soon as we got back. There was a queue. If the records of that are lost, I’m sorry. The next day I took her to the police after she was rested. It wasn’t three days after I brought her back, it was twenty-four hours.

  MS. Why not take her to hospital in Birmingham if she was that bad?

  HJ. I thought it better to get her out of that place, bring her away. Get her clean, make her feel safe. Besides, I didn’t know then how bad it had been. I didn’t know the extent of what he’d done.

  MS. Isn’t it true, Ms Joyce, that the only evidence of what my client had allegedly done, was what Angel told you he had done? There was no real evidence of abuse inflicted by him. There was only your belief in what she told you?

  HJ. She was seriously malnourished with visible bruises. Her right index finger had been severed.

  MS. But why did you assume that implicated my client? Why my poor client, when your sister’s real complaint was that he had already left her?

  HJ. It was obvious.

  MS. Obvious to whom? Wasn’t there another explanation? Didn’t it occur to you that your sister might be lying, creating a story of systematic, violent abuse in order to cover up what she had done to herself?

  HJ. No, that didn’t occur to me. Angel’s a truthful person.

  MS. My client always thought so too, Ms Joyce. He’s never suggested otherwise. Which leads me to this. Could it be that you helped her with the invention you both took to the police? Two minds working on it, with yours predominant, concocting a story for them which would hide Angel’s shame and reinvention?

  HJ. That’s nonsense.

  MS. I suggest it isn’t nonsense. It’s the only sense, isn’t it? If Angel was such a truthful person? You pushed her into making fantastical allegations.

  HJ. I didn’t.

  MS. It was your way of cleaning her up, wasn’t it, Ms Joyce?

  Silence from witness.

  Sigh from Ms Shearer.

  MS. Please answer.

  HJ. The suggestion’s beneath contempt.

  MS. So be it. You went to the police. They were shocked by the finger and the bruises and they accepted the allegations, hook, line, and sinker. You were sent to a place for vulnerable persons and handled with kid gloves.

  HJ. Not kid gloves, surely. They mark so easily. Objection from Prosecution Counsel. Pejorative statement, Counsel must stick to questions and refrain from comment.

  MS. All right. We’ll move on. Ms Joyce, if the allegations of sexual abuse were true, why was it that your sister refused a full medical examination?

  HJ. Did she?

  Objection by Prosecution. Witness cannot speak for what was going on in another witness’s mind outside her presence. Unfair.

  MS. All right, point taken. Shame’s a powerful factor, isn’t it, Ms Joyce? You wanted her to push her shame on to someone else. You say you don’t know why an intimate medical examination was refused, but I suggest you do. You didn’t want anyone to know how little she had suffered. How much did you really know about what was in her mind when you persuaded her to refuse?

  HJ. She didn’t want to be touched. She didn’t want anyone to know . . .

  Witness falters. I know she did not want to be touched.

  MS. Didn’t want anyone to know, Ms Joyce? Wasn’t it you who didn’t want anyone to know how much your sister was capable of inventing? How corrupted she was?

  HJ. I waited fo
r her to come out. That’s all I did. I was waiting to take her home. I don’t know, didn’t know if she was examined. I thought she was.

  MS. You didn’t know? Surely you told her to refuse. Otherwise I could see your surprise. Angel Joyce refusing a finger up her vagina? That would be a first, wouldn’t it? Interruption from Prosecution; rebuke from HHJ McD.

  HJ. Stop. Please stop.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  All women were bitches. That was the only sentiment upon which he and his sister had agreed.

  The moment would be soon. Frank Shearer could feel it in his bones. It was not quite near enough. In the quiet of early morning the frustration was less, because at this time of day he could feel he was lord of all he surveyed, not quite an emperor, but at least a governor. He could ignore the imminent presence of the manager, due in at eleven or whenever it suited him, ready to bark orders, talk about targets and tell Frank he was a lazy bastard. Between eight and ten a.m., he could lose himself in admiration of the space, the bright lights, the location, the metallic sheen on the bonnet of the nearest, newest Mercedes. He could even turn a key in the ignition, listen to the purring of an immaculate engine, imagine he owned the power of it and could drive it away into another dawn in another place, safe in the pale upholstery.

  He could drive away, or be driven. At this time, Frank could forget that his first task of the morning was to dust and remove fingerprints from all fifteen of the models on display without transferring the dirt to his clean suit; or fail to remember how he was the lowest of the low in the pecking order of this business with a job not greatly admired in the larger world, either. His name badge described him as ‘consultant’, which meant he was a car salesman who could not afford to buy the cheapest of the branded, all-leather interior, air-conditioned Mercedes Benz and BMWs he was employed to persuade other people to buy. He was the slightly ridiculous man who came to work from the suburbs on the tube, to cut a swathe amongst all this mechanised glamour while possessing none of it. Not even a real salesman; the cars sold themselves, or not: the fools who inspected them could not be conquered or persuaded although some of them could be nudged. There was nothing creative about parroting by heart the specifications of every machine: he could blind them with science and even simulate love for the things and the people, while knowing that, at a pinch, he could just about afford to hire one of the Mercs for a whole weekend. Frank was a man who was employed for his suit and his manner, who longed to punch the manager in the jaw and dreamed of the day when he could tell him what to do with his job. The day was coming, but not yet. Frank took a flying kick at a large cardboard advertising sign which announced the best discounts on BMWs alongside a depiction of a tanned male hand flourishing a set of car keys towards an awestruck woman who smiled with huge, parted lips and ultra white teeth. The message was Buy this car . . . blow jobs for life. He sent the sign skittering across the floor to thump into the flank of a Mercedes, the feeling of satisfaction quickly displaced by horror as he raced over to the car and examined it for a scratch. So powerful, these machines, and yet so vulnerable in their perfection. There was no mark, but he caught sight of someone staring through the window to see him leaning over to look for it with his bum in the air. A woman on her way to work laughed at him. That’s how powerful he was.