by Dick Francis
I called her immediately.
‘He was the third one,’ she said in a rush. ‘They sent his passport photo over from South Africa and there was no mistake.’
‘So he’s still somewhere here with an expired visa?’ I asked.
‘Well, no,’ she said. ‘Not exactly.’ She then went on to give me some very interesting information about Mr Jacques van Rensburg, information that explained why the photograph of Millie and the foal had been important. So important that someone had taken it from Scot Barlow’s house. Maybe so important, indeed, that Barlow had been murdered to get it.
CHAPTER 17
The afternoon sitting of the court was taken up almost exclusively by witnesses called by the prosecution to testify about the well-known antagonism, even hatred, that had existed between the defendant and the victim for some time.
Any hopes that we, the defence, had of keeping quiet about Barlow’s sister Millie were dispelled by the very first on the list, Charles Pickering, a racehorse trainer from Lambourn.
‘Mr Pickering,’ said the prosecution QC, ‘how well did you know Mr Barlow?’
‘Very well indeed,’ he replied. ‘I knew him like my own son. Scot had ridden for me as number one jockey ever since he came down south from Scotland eight years ago. Helived as a member of my family for a while when he first started out.’
‘And how well do you know the defendant, Mr Mitchell?’
‘Reasonably well,’ he said. ‘He’s ridden my horses a few times, when Scot was unavailable or injured. And I know him by reputation. He’s a top steeplechase jockey.’
‘Yes, Mr Pickering,’ said the QC. ‘But please tell us only what you know personally rather than what you assume from a reputation.’
Charles Pickering nodded.
‘Now, Mr Pickering,’ the QC went on. ‘Did you ever hear Mr Mitchell and Mr Barlow arguing?’
‘All the time,’ he said. ‘Like cat and dog, they were.’
‘So there was no love lost between them?’
‘I should say not,’ replied Pickering with a smile.
‘Do you know what they argued about?’
‘Scot’s sister, mostly,’ said Charles Pickering, firing another shot into the defence case.
‘Scot Barlow’s sister?’ the QC said for effect, turning towards the jury.
‘Yes,’ Pickering said. ‘Scot accused Mitchell of as good as killing his sister. Mitchell used to tell him to shut up or he’d kill him too.’
‘Were those his exact words?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘It was the same argument every time. Scot’s sister had killed herself about a year ago and he believed that Mitchell’s treatment of her had driven her to it.’
‘Were Barlow and Mitchell on reasonable terms before Barlow’s sister killed herself?’ the QC asked, while knowing quite well what the answer would be.
‘Oh, no,’ said Pickering. ‘They’ve hated each other for years. Scot didn’t like Mitchell seeing his sister at all, right from the start.’
‘And when was the start?’ the QC asked.
‘About three or four years ago, when Barlow’s sister came down from Scotland to live in Lambourn.’
‘Thank you, Mr Pickering,’ said the QC. ‘Your witness.’ He smiled at me.
‘No questions, My Lord,’ I said. And Charles Pickering was allowed to depart.
There was nothing I could ask him which would undo the damage he had already done to our case, and I didn’t want to inadvertently lead him to reveal more damning details such as Barlow’s disclosure of the affair to Mitchell’s wife. Now that really would have provided a motive for murder.
However, my hopes of keeping that a secret only lasted as long as it took for the next witness to be sworn in.
‘Mr Clemens,’ said the QC. ‘I believe you are a steeplechase jockey, is that correct?’
‘Yes, sir. That’s correct,’ said Reno Clemens in his Irish accent.
‘Are you a successful jockey?’ the QC asked.
‘I am, sir,’ Reno said. ‘I am leading the jockeys’ table at the moment.’
‘So that means you have ridden more winners than anyone else so far this year?’
‘This season, yes, sir,’ he said.
‘So you know the defendant well?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He glanced briefly at Steve in the dock before returning his eyes to the prosecuting counsel.
‘And you knew Mr Barlow well?’
‘Yes, sir. I did.’
‘Did you ever hear Mr Mitchell and Mr Barlow arguing?’ the QC asked.
‘Were they ever not?’ said Reno. ‘Sometimes they would even argue all the way round during a race. The rest of us got fed up listening to them.’
‘And what did they argue about?’ asked the QC.
‘Anything and everything,’ said Reno. ‘But mostly about Barlow’s sister and Mitchell having had an affair with her.’
‘And was Mitchell married at the time of the affair?’ asked the QC.
Oh no, I thought, here we go.
‘He was at the beginning,’ said Reno. ‘But not at the end.’
‘Do you know if Mitchell’s wife was aware of his affair with Scot Barlow’s sister?’ the QC asked almost smugly.
‘She was after Barlow told her,’ Reno said.
‘Is that something you know, Mr Clemens, or just something you have heard from others?’
‘I heard it from Mitchell himself,’ Reno said. ‘He would often shout at Barlow in the jocks’ changing room and accuse him of being a Judas for snitching to his wife.’
‘You bloody lying bastard,’ Steve Mitchell stood up and shouted at him from the dock, hammering on the glass partition with his fists.
The judge had his gavel banging down almost before the echo in the courtroom had died away.
‘Silence,’ he ordered. ‘Silence in court. Mr Mitchell,’ he pointed the gavel at the dock, ‘another outburst like that and I will have you taken down to the cells. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, My Lord,’ said Steve sheepishly. ‘I’m sorry.’
Steve sat down again. But more damage had been done to our side.
The prosecution QC had remained standing throughout, and now he had a slight smirk on his face.
‘Now, Mr Clemens,’ he said, greatly enjoying himself. ‘Let me get this straight. Are you telling the court that you had often heard the defendant shouting at Mr Barlow that he, Barlow, had been a Judas for telling Mitchell’s wife that Mitchell was having an affair with Barlow’s sister?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Reno Clemens very distinctly. ‘I am.’
A motive for Barlow’s murder had just been clearly established by the prosecution.
∗
Two more prosecution witnesses completed the day’s proceedings. Both of these gave testimony to reinforce that already given by Charles Pickering and Reno Clemens.
The first was another jockey, Sandy Webster, who did little more than confirm that Mitchell and Barlow argued a lot. When asked what they had argued about he couldn’t really say because ‘he didn’t bother to listen to them ranting on all the time’.
I imagined the prosecution was regretting having called him because he was sonervous that his voice was continuously quivering, and he was hardly giving them the answers they wanted. In my experience, witnesses who were over nervous tended to be discounted by juries, who were inclined to think they were lying.
The second witness was Fred Pleat, a former employee of Mitchell, who had worked as a groom at Mitchell’s home soon after the stables were built and when horses were housed there at livery.
‘Now, Mr Pleat,’ said the prosecution QC in his smarmy manner. ‘Were you present at Mr Mitchell’s property the day three new pitchforks were delivered?’
‘Yes, I was,’ he replied.
‘And can you recall the actions of Mr Mitchell when he saw that they had been delivered?’
‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘Steve, that’s Mr Mitchell, picked one of them
up and thrust it forward and said something about sticking that bastard Scot Barlow with it.’
There was a moment of silence in the court.
‘Thank you, Mr Pleat,’ said the QC. ‘Your witness.’
I rose to my foot.
‘Mr Pleat,’ I said to him. ‘Were you frightened by this action you say Mr Mitchell performed?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Why not?’ I asked him.
‘I figured Steve was only joking, like,’ he said. ‘He was laughing. We were both laughing.’
‘Thank you, Mr Pleat,’ I said. ‘No more questions.’
Fred Pleat left the court and, as a bonus to our side, he gave Steve a slight wave as he passed the dock. I hoped the jury had been watching.
‘My Lord, that concludes the case for the prosecution,’ said their QC.
The judge looked at the clock on the courtroom wall that showed ten past four, then he turned towards the jury.
‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,’ he said. ‘You are free to go now until tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. May I remind you not to discuss the case amongst yourselves, nor with anybody else, not even your families. You will get your chance to deliberate in due course.’
The jury was then ushered out of court.
‘Mr Mason,’ the judge said when the jury door had been closed. I had earlier informed the judge that I wished to make a submission at the conclusion of the prosecution’s case, and members of the jury were never present in court during legal argument.
‘Yes, My Lord,’ I said, struggling upright. ‘Thank you.’ I collected together some papers in front of me. ‘My Lord, the defence wishes to make a submission to the court that the defendant has no case to answer. The prosecution have presented nothing more than circumstantial evidence. There is nothing to show that my client was ever in Mr Barlow’s house, let alone being there at the time of the murder.’
I took my time going over each of the witnesses’ evidence in some detail.
‘In conclusion,’ I said. ‘The forensic evidence may be able to place my client’s pitchfork and wellington boots at the scene, but this does not prove that my client was there with them at the time. The prosecution may also be able to show that hair and blood from the victim were found in my client’s car, but they were not able to demonstrate that the car had ever been at Mr Barlow’s residence, nor that it had been locked throughout the afternoon and early evening on the day of the murder, while it sat on Mr Mitchell’s driveway.
‘While the defence readily accepts that our client and Mr Barlow held an ongoing and deep-seated antagonism towards each other, this is not evidence of murder. If it were, then half the nation would be so tainted. The defence further accepts that our client does not have an alibi for the time of the murder, but failure to have an alibi is not evidence of guilt. It is our contention that the prosecution has failed to present prima facie evidence of Mr Mitchell’s guilt. My Lord, we submit that you should direct the jury to return a not guilty verdict because there is no case for Mr Mitchell to answer.’
I sat down.
‘Thank you, Mr Mason,’ said the judge. ‘I will consider your submission overnight and make a ruling in the morning. Court adjourned until ten o’clock tomorrow.’
‘All rise.’
Eleanor finally did come to Oxford on Wednesday night. She was waiting for me in the dimly lit hotel lobby when I returned from court. I hadn’t expected her to be so early, and I was worried that there might be a message for me giving yet another good reason why she couldn’t make it tonight either. So I was caught unawares as I struggled with both my box of papers and the crutches. She came up behind me and took the box just before it dropped to the floor.
‘Oh, thank you,’ I said, thinking it had been one of the hotel staff.
Eleanor peeped at me round the side of the box.
‘Hello,’ I said with a grin from ear to ear. ‘How absolutely wonderful. You can catch my boxes any day you like.’
‘I thought I’d surprise you,’ she said. ‘I’ve been here more than an hour.’
‘Blimey,’ I said. ‘If I’d known that I would have been here more than an hour ago.’
‘Why weren’t you?’ she said in mock annoyance.
‘I was busy telling my client what a complete fool he’d been,’ I said.
‘Why?’ she said.
‘He shouted at one of the witnesses,’ I said. ‘What an idiot!’
I had indeed spent the last hour giving Steve a roasting in the holding cells beneath the court.
‘I’m sorry,’ Steve had whined at me. ‘I couldn’t help it. I was so mad. That bloody Clemens has been riding all my horses. He’d be delighted if I got convicted. Be laughing all the way to the bloody winner’s circle.’
‘But you still mustn’t do it,’ I had urged him again. ‘It is the very worst thing you could have done and now the judge has to make a decision about whether we carry on with the trial or if he lets you go, and he will not have been impressed by your actions. You showed him your temper. He might just think that your temper has something to do with the murder.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he had said again.
‘And,’ I had said, rubbing salt into his wound, ‘Clemens wasn’t even lying when you shouted at him. You have often said that Barlow was a Judas. I’ve heard you myself in the changing rooms.’
Steve had sat on the bare wooden chair in the cell looking very shamefaced. For a change, he’d seemed quite pleased when the prison officer had unlocked the cell door to say that the transport was ready and he had to go. Perhaps I had been a little hard on him but, if the trial were to continue, I needed him to remain sitting calmly and silently in the dock, no matter what the provocation.
Eleanor now leaned forward and gave me a brief kiss on the lips.
‘Do you want to go for a drink?’ I asked her. ‘It’s nearly six.’
‘No,’ she said emphatically. ‘I want to go to bed.’
In the end we did both.
I ordered a bottle of champagne and two glasses from the bar to take up to my room.
‘I’ve never made love in a prison before,’ said Eleanor excitedly as we came out of the lift onto one of the galleried landings of ‘A’ wing. ‘In fact, I’ve never even been in a prison before.’
‘They’re not usually like this,’ I said. ‘For a start, they always smell dreadful. A mixture of disinfectant and stale BO. Never enough showers.’
‘Ugh,’ she said.
All my apprehension about this encounter came flooding back with a vengeance and I was shaking like a leaf by the time we had negotiated the long gallery to my room, so much so that I couldn’t even get the cork out of the champagne bottle.
‘Here,’ said Eleanor taking it from my trembling hands. ‘Let me do that.’ She poured the golden bubbling liquid into the two tall flutes. ‘My, we are a nervous boy,’ she said as I took the glass with a tremor.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Don’t be,’ she said. ‘I’m pretty nervous, too.’
I sat on the edge of the bed, kicked off my shoes and lay down, putting my feet up on the bedcovers. I tapped the hard plastic shell beneath my shirt.
‘This damn thing doesn’t help either,’ I said.
‘Let me look after you,’ she said, coming over and lying down beside me.
And she did.
All my apprehension drifted away to nothing and all my fears were unfounded. Maybe it really was like riding a bicycle, I thought. Once you had learned the knack you never forgot it.
Eleanor helped ease my itchy body out of the plastic straightjacket and also out of my clothes. I lay naked on the bed as she washed and cooled me using damp towels from the bathroom, and then she herself stripped off and climbed in beside me, between the sheets.
Making love with a broken back is, by necessity, a gentle and tender process. But we discovered it could also be a sensual and passionate one.
Afterwards, we lay entwined together for a
while, drifting in and out of light sleep. I would have been so happy to stay like that all night but I needed to do some reading, ready for the morning.
I rolled over gently to look at the digital clock on the bedside cabinet. Seven forty-five. I tried to ease myself up, although it was against my back surgeon’s rules. Eleanor stirred as I tried to remove my arm from beneath her waist.
‘Hello,’ she said, smiling up at me. ‘Going somewhere already?’
‘Yup,’ I said, smiling back. ‘Got to get back to my wife.’
She suddenly looked alarmed, but relaxed when she saw I was joking.
‘You kidder,’ she said, snuggling into my chest.
‘But I really do need to get back to my work,’ I said. ‘I have to be prepared for tomorrow. And, what’s more, I’m hungry.’
‘I’m hungry for you,’ Eleanor said back to me, seductively fluttering her eyelashes.
‘Later, dear. Later,’ I said. ‘Man cannot live by sex alone.’
‘But we could try,’ she said. Then she sighed and rolled off my arm, releasing me.
She helped me back into my plastic corset and then into a towelling robe.
‘Let’s have some room service,’ I said. ‘Then I can work and eat.’
Eleanor called down for the food while I set about looking through the papers that I would need in the event that the judge did not rule in our favour over the defence submission. To be honest, I didn’t really expect him to. Even though much of it was circumstantial, there was probably enough evidence to convict, and certainly enough to leave the question to the jury.
If it was in the balance, the judge might simply allow the trial to continue because the decision was then taken out of his hands and passed to the jury. And Steve Mitchell’s conduct during the afternoon had almost certainly not endeared him to the judge – not that that should be a consideration, but it probably would be.
Since the Criminal Justice Act 2003 had come into force, the prosecution had the right to appeal rulings by judges over whether there was a case to answer, and, in my experience, judges had since become less inclined to so rule for fear of having their decision overturned on appeal.
