Autumn in Oxford: A Novel

by Alex Rosenberg

  Here Liz began to speak. “I’m afraid he’s dead, sir. I was hoping you might be able to shed any light for me on what he consulted you about.”

  Mishcon handed his coat and hat to the receptionist and opened his door. “I’m so sorry. Come through, Mrs. . . .”

  “Spencer. Thank you.”

  He motioned her to a chair, the very one Trevor must have sat in, and took a seat behind his own desk. “My condolences. Normally what is said here must be protected by attorney-client privilege.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But your husband was not a client. In any case, I provided him with only the most generic information.”

  Deftly he walked Liz through Trevor’s questions and his answers. Liz did not interrupt.

  “Your husband told me that he was contemplating a divorce and needed advice. He described his situation, and I provided him a broad outline of the relevant law. I told him that if you are working and he is at home not employed, the law deems him to be the children’s caregiver, and you would have to continue to support him and the children in a divorce.”

  Mishcon now looked slightly flustered. “I asked what grounds he contemplated, and he told me adultery. I told him in that case, his wife could well lose custody of the children.” Mishcon paused, allowing Liz to absorb this information. As she did not pose any question, he took up his recollection of the interview.

  “Your late husband asked specifically if in a divorce you could oblige them to move to more inexpensive lodgings. I told him the law would permit removal, but only to accommodations substantially similar and in the same area. Finally, he asked if you could take the children from Britain were you to get wind of a divorce action. I told him that he could probably secure a court order to prevent it.”

  When he had finished, Mishcon drew a breath. “There it is.”

  “I must tell you, Mr. Mishcon, my husband died under suspicious circumstances. I believe I will need a solicitor to represent me in a criminal matter.” Mishcon’s eyes widened. Liz saw his look. “I didn’t mean to—”

  The solicitor waved her apology away. “I don’t suggest you did anything improper. It’s just I cannot help you, Mrs. Spencer. It’s not my field.” He paused for a moment. “But I have a young friend who does practice criminal defence.” Then the solicitor pulled open the drawer in front of him and brought out a card. “If you have no objection to a woman, that is.” Liz shook her head vigorously. “Miss Alice Silverstone.” He passed the card to Liz. “Her firm’s offices are on the other side of Red Lion Square, number twelve.”

  Liz rose. “You have been more than helpful, Mr. Mishcon.” As she opened the door, she could hear the receptionist on one side and Mishcon on the other.

  “It’s Scotland Yard, Mr. Mishcon, CID,” the receptionist said. “A Detective Bennett would like a word. I told him you’d be free late this afternoon.”

  Liz was rather surprised that CID hadn’t already interviewed Mishcon. She walked out quietly. Cutting across Red Lion Square, she found number twelve.

  By Monday afternoon Tom had made attempts to eat five meals, none of which had been met with success. Much harder to deal with was the excruciating boredom, combined with complete mystification about what was happening to him. He still had not been questioned. This seemed to him very strange. There was nothing about his predicament he could put his mind to. At first he had felt no more than a vague disquiet. Was it the civility of the English police? The certainty that he was innocent? The whole experience was far less menacing than what he’d experienced in the war. But by Sunday afternoon the attempt at equanimity had been replaced by serious disquiet; Monday morning Tom awoke to cramps of anxiety in his gut.

  When his lunch tray came through the Judas port, he spoke out. “Am I to have a bail hearing today?”

  “Dunno, Wrought,” came a voice. “But there’s a solicitor here to see you. Quite a looker she is too.”

  A moment later the cell door opened. A young woman entered. She wore her dark hair long, and it was unevenly cut at her shoulders, a look Tom had seen in France the previous fall. Her attire was French as well, a severe blue suit, linen shirt with sparkling cuff links at the protruding sleeves. She was not tall but wore high heels and wore them well, Tom thought, admiring her legs. Her face was an olive-coloured oval, with deep-set eyes, heavy lids, a good deal of eye makeup under a strong brow line. Her nose did not come to a point but curved down in an arc over the upper lip, on which even from several feet Tom could see a fine line of nevertheless feminine hair. The woman exuded determination and energy. He rose from his bunk.

  “I’m your solicitor, Mr. Wrought—Alice Silverstone.” She put out her hand and grasped his with a firmness he’d last experienced in North America. “We have only a few minutes before your bail hearing.”

  “Who engaged you, Miss Silverstone?”

  “Elizabeth Spencer. Mrs. Spencer has briefed me. For the moment I am representing her as well, so all our communication is protected. Anyway, she told me everything”—Silverstone looked into his eyes and repeated the word—“everything, at least as far as she knows it. Now, we are going up into the Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey. I will apply for bail. The Crown will oppose. But they’ll have to say why, and it will give us a start on a defence. Now, what did the police tell you when you were interviewed?”

  “I wasn’t.” Tom’s tone was emphatic, and it appeared to startle Silverstone.

  “Not at all? No one asked you any questions? They had a warrant; they must have some evidence against you. You’ve been told nothing?”

  “Only that I have been arrested for murdering Trevor Spencer.”

  Silverstone thought for a minute. “They must think they have a very complete case against you. They’ll have to tell the judge how strong it is, but for the moment we have almost nothing to go on.”

  As he climbed the stairs into the dock at the high court, Tom chided himself for a slightly unworthy thought: Silverstone? Probably Silverstein. As she came into view alongside the dock, Tom decided he’d trust her. A Jewish woman solicitor. She must be twice as good to survive in her profession. Let’s hope so.

  Two hours later Tom was shuffling down the corridor of Her Majesty’s Prison Brixton, where he would await trial for murder. He was wearing prison garb that was no worse than what he’d worn in the US Army. The thought passed through his mind: How quaint, but how characteristic that inmates are issued ties and expected to wear them. He smiled to himself. It was a fleeting distraction from persistent apprehension threatening to become panic.

  The bail hearing had been a formality at which his solicitor had been able to say hardly a word. The Crown’s solicitor had opposed bail, informing the judge that there were multiple witnesses to the crime and to the suspect’s flight from the scene. “Milord, the defendant had not only means and opportunity, but motive, which the Crown will be able to substantiate by witnesses when the time comes.” He added ominously that the defendant had been known to leave jurisdictions in the past against the wishes of authorities.

  Miss Silverstone had asked for a moment with her client. Granted it, she whispered to Tom, “What was that about leaving jurisdictions against the wishes of the authorities?”

  “Someone has probably told them about the US government’s threats to take away my passport. I’m on a blacklist for membership in the Communist Party when I was a kid.”

  “Did they actually take away your passport?”

  “Well, no. I managed to slip out of the US last summer before they could.”

  His solicitor nodded, then wondered, still in a whisper, “How did the prosecutor know?”

  Tom had no answer to that.

  When it came her turn, Tom’s solicitor rose. “Milord,” she began. The historian in Tom asked himself why it came out more like “mee laird” sans the r, as though every officer of the court were a Scotsman in their initial words to the judge. It was not the first time he had been diverted from his plight by some quirk of the criminal justice sys
tem in Britain. Beyond the boredom of his three days in the “nick,” Tom had been repeatedly surprised by the way things were happening to him, especially the studied politeness of the screws—as the voices from other cells taught him to call the warders. It seemed reassuring in a way, as if they knew he was innocent.

  Silverstone cleared her throat and repeated herself, “Milord, I have only just met my client and have had no time to prepare a case for bail. However, Mr. Wrought’s standing in his profession, his status in his university, and his freedom from any previous record of arrest in the United Kingdom are, I believe, sufficient grounds, along with some amount of surety moneys, to grant him bail.”

  “Is that all, Miss Silverstone?” There was distaste in the judge’s voice. Tom couldn’t tell whether it was owing to the solicitor’s sex or perhaps her religion. Or both. Tom searched the judge’s face for malice, but no one else bothered to look up from their briefs. Perhaps he needed to reconsider how reassuring these institutions would be. “Bail denied. Take the defendant down.”

  On Tuesday afternoon Liz Spencer was seated in Alice Silverstone’s office on Red Lion Square. It was cold in the small space, and she had kept her coat on. Hardly larger than a broom closet, the office was in an advanced state of disarray—open law books everywhere, stack upon untidy stack of legal papers, many of them stained with the rings of saucerless teacups.

  Looking the solicitor squarely in the face, Liz recalled the response her initial statement had produced the day before. Silverstone’s look of astonishment had immediately turned to one of pleasure as she replied, “Am I to understand, Mrs. Spencer, that your husband has been murdered, and you want me to defend the man the police suspect must have killed him?” When Liz nodded, all Silverstone had said was, “Excellent.” A very strange response, Liz couldn’t avoid thinking.

  Unlike the disorder of her cubbyhole-like office, the solicitor was, Liz noticed, again impeccably dressed: a grey suit this time, with a strand of pearls over a light-blue blouse, and still another pair of stiletto heels. The woman’s brief bag made Liz’s attaché case seem shabby by contrast. And she was not cold. Silverstone was radiating energy.

  There was no ashtray on the desk, but Liz could smell the stale aroma of tobacco smoke. When she began to light up, Silverstone wagged her finger. “No smoking.”

  Before Liz could say anything, Silverstone began. “There are several things that trouble me about this case. They make it hard for me to know where to begin. First, the CID detectives haven’t even bothered to interrogate their suspect.”

  Liz had to interrupt. “CID?”

  “Criminal Investigation Department. Scotland Yard to everyone else.” Silverstone returned to her enumeration. “Second, nothing in the papers, or almost nothing. A tiny squib on Friday about a death causing train delays the evening before. Then nothing. And here’s a third oddity—the apparent motive is obvious. So, I don’t understand why they have not even questioned you.”

  “They have taken my passport. They know where to find me.”

  “But if this is a murder motivated by love and the threat of disclosure or of divorce, the police should be interested in what you could tell them under caution. I think they must know already that you had nothing to do with the murder. But how could they know that?”

  Liz couldn’t pretend not to be relieved, but she saw the point. Silverstone was almost looking past Liz, pursuing her line of reasoning.

  “The biggest mystery, however, is this: the fact that Mr. Wrought was on the platform at the time your husband was killed.”

  Liz interrupted. “Can we call him Tom, please?” Liz wanted a cigarette badly by now. The intensity of Silverstone’s demeanour was difficult for her. She needed to humanize the interview. “I’m sure he’d want you to call him that.”

  “Yes, certainly. Better call me Alice, then . . . Liz?” Liz nodded, and Alice’s voice resumed its slightly officious timbre. “Please do let me go on. You tell me his presence on the platform was coincidence. If we accept that, then not only did someone else kill Trevor Spencer, but they killed him for reasons that had nothing to do with Tom’s presence on the platform that afternoon.” She paused. “I can’t believe that.” Then she made eye contact with Liz. “Who would have wanted to kill your husband?”

  Liz met her gaze. “Only Tom and me, I am afraid.”

  “Exactly. That rules out coincidence and makes the lack of police interest in questioning you very mysterious.” Alice hesitated, and then continued. “Mrs. Spencer—Liz—for the moment you are my client. If you didn’t kill your husband, you have nothing to fear from telling me everything. If you did and you confess it to me, I cannot tell the police. I can only withdraw as your solicitor.”

  “No, it’s nothing like that.” Liz fumbled with her cigarettes again.

  “Go ahead; smoke if you must.” She pulled an ashtray from a drawer. Liz offered her packet, and Alice shook her head. “I’m trying to quit.”

  Then Liz began to speak. “Anyway, they’ll find out we had a motive, Tom and me both. Trevor knew about us. The police told me he had a prophylactic cover in his pocket when he was killed.”

  “First I have heard of this. Please explain.” Alice was making notes.

  “They think it points to Trevor’s having an extramarital affair. But it came from my clothes drawer, I’m pretty sure. It’s a kind you can only get in France.”

  “So, there is no chance the irate husband of some other woman could have done this to Trevor.”

  “None.”

  “Well, there is nothing to stop us from suggesting it to a jury, is there?”

  “I suppose not, but it would just be another coincidence once they find out Tom and I went to Paris.”

  Alice drew an audible sigh and crossed out the words she’d been writing. “Go on. Is there more about your husband that might make you want to kill him?”

  “Well, for the last few years I’d been supporting him and our kids.”

  “That doesn’t rise to the level of motive for murder.”

  “But they’d say he was threatening to hold the children hostage in a divorce by painting me as a mentally ill adulteress.”

  Alice stared at Liz. “Are you? Mentally ill, that is? We already know about the adultery.”

  Liz flushed. “I’m afraid I had a serious psychotic episode sixteen years ago, when I was nineteen. Trev knew about it.”

  “Does anyone else know about your psychiatric history?”

  “Only Tom. But there were also some police records in Toronto. I was arrested twice—the charge was soliciting and drug possession.”

  Alice frowned. “An assiduous Crown prosecutor could find those records in Ontario.”

  “I suppose so.” Liz lit still another cigarette from the one she’d almost finished. Was it nerves or shame?

  Alice didn’t seem to notice. “Here is another remarkable thing about this case.” She paused for effect. “The Crown prosecutor told the judge at the remand hearing that they had witnesses as to motive, along with means and opportunity. But I had a word with Victor Mishcon, and he told me that the police came and interviewed him about Trevor Monday afternoon, after the remand hearing. So they must have known about you two before they found out that Trevor consulted him about divorce.”

  “Yes,” Liz said, “but how could they have known? My personal assistant, Beatrice Russell, is the only one who might have guessed. She’d have to tell them she suspected Tom and I were lovers. She might even know we’d meet sometimes at a hotel in Bloomsbury. But they haven’t interviewed her either, not yet anyway.”

  Alice’s voice finally acquired a touch of emotion. “So, Trevor Spencer was killed at four ten on Thursday afternoon. The police knew enough to arrest Tom Wrought for the murder by Friday morning. The CID is efficient, but that must have been a record.” By now Liz could see clearly where Alice’s thoughts were headed even as her words were formed. “Conclusions: first and most obvious, the police have an informer, a very
well-informed informer. So well informed they didn’t need to do the normal police spadework. And so reliable the police could believe him implicitly. Second, Tom’s presence on the platform at the time of the killing was not coincidental. The killer—killers, probably—knew he would be there. They wanted him to be there. They needed him to be there. And third, Tom was the target, the victim. Your husband was killed by someone who wanted to pin it on Tom, perhaps even to have him hang for Trevor Spencer’s murder.”

  “But if someone wanted to get rid of Tom, why kill Trevor? Why not just kill Tom?”

  Liz’s question was left hanging in the air for several seconds. They both looked up at the cloud of smoke hovering above them in the incandescent light of the windowless room.

  “Yes,” said Alice. “That is a puzzle.”

  It was exactly the sort of puzzle Alice Silverstone had been seeking for weeks now. She needed it badly. She needed a reason to go on doing what she wanted most to do—criminal defence—and in a case so interesting and so seemingly closed that prying it open would take her completely out of herself.

  For weeks she had been feeling the slight twinges, the momentary cramps, the rearrangement of her insides that the oncologists had warned her about. These were the signposts showing her the coming endgame—if they were right. Their track record had been by no means perfect. She would laugh at the thought. Everyone had been optimistic after the surgery, and equally so after the radiology. This sort of uterine cancer was supposed to be a known quantity to them. The doctors had been confident what to do. But then came ominous signs, even in her first postoperative visits, queries, lab work, and reexams, and finally an interview in which she was advised to prepare for the worst.

  Any family to talk to?

  No, both parents dead, in a maritime accident the previous summer.

  Any brothers, sisters, fiancé, friend to tell and to help you?

  ’Fraid not. Only child, too busy with my career for men.

  No one ever talked about cancer. It was even more taboo than sex. Alice had been slightly surprised the oncologists were so direct and frank about her condition. The one thing they would not tell her about was the suffering—the intractable, searing sensations, worse than any burn, the pain that she’d feel towards the end. It required some digging and reading and questioning, but it didn’t take Alice long to find out about it.