Evidence of the Accused

by Roderic Jeffries

  I worked slowly and carefully. I had to sow in Pope’s mind the thought that I had vital information, then refuse to give it to him on the grounds of the ties of loyalty and friendship to the people concerned. I listened to Pope arguing bitterly that I owed no such loyalty, that I owed it only to the truth and the law, and after a while I let him force the information from me I was so eager to give him. I was able to tell him about Mark’s and Stuart’s money troubles which completed the motive he had been searching for … It had never been a secret to me either that Lindy was insured for ten thousand pounds or that Mark had heavily overspent on the house and later the horses: people such as they always seemed to think it a matter of humorous boast that they owed money here, there, and the other place.

  When Pope told me Stuart had confessed to the murder I reckoned the world had finally tumbled into lunacy. Later, I was to enjoy the irony of a situation in which Stuart confessed to a restricted dalliance with Lindy, Mark believed there had never been so much as a suspicion of an affair, and Stuart knew damn well there had been a red-hot one: later still, Mark tasted the irony as he began to realise the truth.

  At Stuart’s trial I assisted as much as I could. I held back on my evidence and was immediately bullied into confessing I had heard rumours concerning the affair Stuart had had with Lindy.

  Then the world went still more lunatic. Mark confessed. Everyone wanted to get into the act except me.

  Once more I helped Pope. I put him on to Charnley and at the time of the second trial stopped any vague thoughts Charnley might have had about changing his evidence because he wanted to help Mark. Most of the time Charnley gave his evidence I was watching Mark’s face — what precisely was it like to discover that the make-believe was real?

  Pope felt aggrieved by the results of the trials. I had an even greater reason to feel aggrieved … But then we’d both overlooked Sir Brian Tetley. Even had we remembered him, could we reasonably have been expected to think that he would have been able to persuade Mark and Stuart that it was better temporarily to tarnish the reputation of the dead than perpetually ruin that of the living: that to stay free they had to plead guilty? It takes a kack-handed lawyer to think that tortuously.

  I was sorry I should have to return Pears. I’d always had a soft spot for her and in the past few weeks we’d become very close friends. Maybe one day I could afford to buy and keep a G.S.P just like her.

  The Old Girl breasted the hill and the Marsh was spread out ahead. Mysterious in the night, filled with distant phantom lights. Away out on the right, Dungeness lighthouse flashed away, like the winking eye of a land that never slept.

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