False Witness

by Dexter Dias

  Tom Fawley got by. Just.

  I could pretend that I never lost a case like those sharp lawyers in American films. But that wasn’t true either. Like a pretty average gambler, I lost and won in about equal measure. The result of a case had little to do with me. It seemed to be more affected by the composition of the jury, the mood of the judge, and the defendant’s horoscope. I always used to read those.

  And another thing: I hated the Old Bailey. For most criminal lawyers, a trial at the Bailey was the pinnacle of their profession, the height of their ambitions. I detested the place. To me, the building always seemed full of headless corpses, severed limbs and bloodstains. It was the closest thing in the law to an abbatoir. If ghosts existed, they would make a point of haunting such a place.

  As the morning wore on, Leonard read out yet another charge in Court 8. There was an uproar when he mentioned that the corrupted girl was eleven years old.

  “You’re evil,” shouted one woman.

  “Animal,” shouted another.

  Kingsley was also called a piece of scum which he ostensibly was not, and a monster which he possibly was. In fact, we were treated to all the usual platitudes as the public pretended to be outraged. But I suspected that they enjoyed the spectacle. After all, it was free.

  Through the turmoil, Kingsley sat impassively, as if the abuse was aimed at someone else. When I looked at him, he even tried to smile, but his eyes were as dead as ever. I glanced at the jury box and was relieved that it was empty, that I’d got a deal, that there was to be no trial, that I wouldn’t have to pretend Kingsley was innocent. I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to live the lie.

  And that, I suppose, was my trade. I had spent my fifteen years at the Bar living out other people’s lies and I was tired. So by the age of thirty-nine, my eyesight was failing, my waistline was expanding and strange things had begun to sprout from my nostrils. There I was on the apprehensive side of forty, waiting for my libido to abscond and my hair to fall out.

  When Kingsley finally pleaded guilty to all the sexual offenses, Leonard sat down and shuffled his papers frantically. I knew what he was looking for. It was the Bill of Murder. And I thought, even if Kingsley was convicted, what difference would it make? For in my experience, the criminal law was the art of trying to prevent crime, while finding it everywhere, judging it incorrectly, and punishing the wrong people in the most inappropriate ways.

  But it was a living. All those fancy words, the ones with the capital letters, like Justice and Mercy, just made me feel like vomiting into my wig box. Lawyers saw the other side. We did society’s dirty work. The criminal courts were its moral dustbins. We cleaned up the mess and they didn’t even give us gloves.

  Silence had again settled over Court 8 at the Old Bailey. As Leonard stood up holding the murder indictment, I could see the liver-spots on the back of his hands. His age was really beginning to show, and I wondered how many more murders he would see, and whether any of them would be as appalling as this one. The document shook between his fingers as he began to read aloud.

  It was then that Richard Kingsley was accused of murdering Mary—also known as Molly—Summers.

  CHAPTER TWO

  EVERYONE WAS ON EDGE. HOW WOULD HE PLEAD?

  However, I did not so much as blink twice when Kingsley entered a plea of not guilty to murder. That was the plan. As I surveyed the astonished faces in court, with their mouths opening and shutting, I hoped that Kingsley would remember the second part of the plea, the difficult part, the part without which there would have been no deal.

  Just before I left the cells at 10:17, Kingsley had almost seemed relieved that there was to be no trial. He sat in his wheelchair and talked it through.

  “So what do you want me to say when we go up to court?” he asked.

  “Look,” I told him, “all you have to remember is to add, But guilty of manslaughter. That’s all. The Crown will accept that you… that you did it by way of diminished responsibility.”

  I was very pleased, it was easy money. In seventy-seven minutes, I had persuaded one person to take the blame for killing someone else. Not a bad morning’s work. “I can’t believe it,” I said.

  “What? That I murdered Molly Summers?”

  “No. That the prosecution agreed to the deal. It’s too good to be true.”

  “What I don’t understand,” said Kingsley, “is if they accept I wasn’t really responsible, then who was?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, who or what made me do it?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” I said. “Leave that to the philosophers and the tabloids. They’ll sort it out. Articles will be written about you, Mr. Kingsley. Tory backbenchers will rue the fact that you still have possession of your testicles. Your sexual thrillers will sell out. Look at it as a bit of cheap publicity with rent-free accommodation thrown in.”

  Kingsley’s eyes caught a spark of light from the corridor outside the cells. “What if… well, what if I didn’t really kill her?”

  “With great respect, Mr. Kingsley,” I began. “That’s all very interesting, I’m sure. But the court will sit in about ten minutes.” I was excessively polite to him, but then I always was polite when I was trying to persuade a client of mine to plead guilty. “I mean, what defense could you run?”

  “Defense?”

  “Yes. Sorry to be all technical. But when people plead not guilty, they normally run a defense. It usually helps.”

  “Well,” Kingsley said, “how about… alibi?”

  “Do you have an alibi witness?”

  “I could have.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  Kingsley was silent.

  “Well, who would it be?” I continued.

  “Do I have to give a name?” Kingsley asked.

  “We’ve got to give the prosecution advance notice of any alibi evidence. If you’re going to call your witness to testify, I have to know everything. His name, his address, his inside leg measurement, which side he dresses on—everything. So tell me, who is he?”

  “Philip Templeman.”

  “A friend of yours?”

  “Not really.”

  “So what do you know about him, Mr. Kingsley?”

  “About the same as I know about you.” The little man crouched in his seat and stared straight at me.

  “How do you know you can trust him?”

  “How do I know I can trust you, Mr. Fawley?”

  “Look. This is matter of the utmost gravity. If we put Mr.—”

  “Templeman.”

  “If we put him on a notice of alibi, the police will be entitled to interview him.”

  “They would have to find him first.”

  “So where does he live.”

  “I can’t really say.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  “Is he of good character?”

  “As far as I know,” Kingsley said.

  “At least that’s something.”

  “But then I was of good character before I was caught.” Kingsley smiled, but only a little.

  “Do you think he will tell the truth?”

  “Do you think I will, Mr. Fawley?”

  “I hate to be rude,” I said, “but it does all seem rather farfetched. We might as well say you were water-skiing with Lord Lucan in the Gobi Desert. It’s about as believable.”

  “I can’t water-ski,” Kingsley said, shuffling in his wheelchair.

  I realized how insensitive I had been. “Look,” I said, “why pin your hopes on this Templeman?”

  “It’s not him I’m pinning my hopes upon.”

  “Then who?”

  “You, Mr. Fawley. I’m pinning my hopes upon you,” Kingsley said, undeterred. “You see, what if I didn’t murder Molly Summers at the stone circle?” he said.

  I could see that this would be a complication, and I had to quash any delusions of real innocence immediately. “You never said
you did murder her.”

  “Quite.”

  “But you never said you didn’t either.”

  That seemed to silence him for a short while. I spent the time describing in detail the horrors of a trial: the public demanding blood, the sleazy reporters, the court artists who would portray him with demonic features and bad skin; then there were the cold stares of the jury and that dreadful moment when the verdict was announced.

  I wasn’t sure whether he was really listening, but when I had finished, his mood had changed. When I started to explain the benefits of a guilty plea yet again, Kingsley suddenly stopped me. And he agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter.

  So when we finally went upstairs, I sat in the front row of Court 8 and waited for the defendant to fulfill his part of the bargain. I even turned toward the dock and started to mouth, “But guilty of manslaughter.”

  Kingsley looked away.

  “Perhaps you might like to take some instructions from your client, Mr. Fawley.” Of course, there exists a state of limbo between the Bar and oblivion called being a judge. The nearest incumbent rattled his chains, not even attempting to hide his displeasure. But I knew Mr. Justice Manly very well.

  Ignatius Manly was one of the first black men elevated to the High Court Bench. He was not a bad judge, which is not to say he was a good judge—which of them were, when you were defending a hopeless case? But he was fair. Black folks know a thing or two about justice, he once told me, slipping as he occasionally did into a mid-Atlantic vernacular. Yes, we know about justice because we’ve had none for five hundred years.

  After Manly had spoken to me, I adopted that half-crouched scuttling position barristers rather shamelessly assume when the judge is in court. Manly sat at the front, high above me. As I got up, the prosecution team sat to my right. The defendant was detailed at the rear of the court. It all appeared faintly ridiculous to me. We were in the new part of the Old Bailey and the courtroom was full of stripped wood and spongy seats. It looked rather like the departure lounge of a tacky provincial airport.

  On the way to the dock, I passed Justine Wright.

  “Shall I cancel the Savoy, Tom?” she whispered. “The table’s booked for twelve thirty.”

  Suddenly, I was behind schedule.

  Justine Wright was on the other side of the legal divide. As prosecuting junior, she was separated from me by a Chinese wall. But given a little foie gras and a lot of vintage Burgundy, I hoped that such walls—and who knew what other barriers?—might come tumbling down. Lunch at the Savoy with Justine was one of the fringe benefits of a guilty plea. Of course, I hadn’t told Kingsley this. He would be dining at Her Majesty’s pleasure and then slopping out.

  I reached the dock, which was like a wooden playpen at the very back of the court. Varnished wood came up to chest level and there was a gate-like opening guarded by a dock officer.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Nothing much.”

  “So there’s no problem?”

  “There’s no problem,” Kingsley said. “Well, not for me. You see, I’m going to fight the case. I hope that’s not going to be too inconvenient for you, Mr. Fawley.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  KINGSLEY SAT IN THE DOCK AND PLAYED WITH AN ancient ring on his shriveled right hand, while the whole court waited for me to resolve the situation.

  “We had a deal,” I said.

  “You had a deal,” he replied.

  “Yes. I had a deal, Mr. Kingsley. It’s the best deal I’m going to get.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Funny thing is, it’s not me who will get a life sentence for murder. It’s you.”

  “I think I had noticed that.”

  “Well, have you also noticed those rows of good citizens with saliva dribbling from their jowls?” I pointed a little histrionically to the public gallery, but Kingsley ignored me.

  “You see, Mr. Fawley, I’ve decided: I don’t do deals.”

  “Well, you better start.” By now my voice had risen to an indecorous, that is, audible level.

  “Is there a problem?” Ignatius Manly’s rich baritone boomed across the court; it bristled with impatience, and I could feel an attack of the vernacular coming on.

  “There isn’t a problem, M’Lord. But—”

  “But what?”

  “But I’d like a little more time.”

  “And I’d like to win friends and influence people, but I’ve got a court to run.” Manly threw down his pencil, a favorite judicial trick. “Now is your client pleading guilty or not guilty?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “No,” he said. “Why should you know? You’re only his barrister.”

  “Yes, M’Lord.”

  “You know, Mr. Fawley, in my day at the Bar, a barrister used to take the trouble to find out whether his client was pleading guilty or not guilty to murder. We had a word for it. It was called being a professional.”

  This public humiliation riled me and I attempted to fight back. “I have been trying to get instructions, M’Lord. But I haven’t had much luck.”

  “Well, you better get some.”

  “Luck or instructions, M’Lord?”

  “Both,” he shouted. “Now get on with it.”

  I turned to Kingsley and tried to adopt my most professional tone. “If you fight the murder, you’re bound to be convicted.”

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “Trust me.”

  “Can you think of any good reason why I should?”

  I could not. So I decided to try another line of attack. “Plead to manslaughter and you’ll only get ten years. With time off for remand and remission, you’ll be out in six.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. But can you imagine what a six-year sentence means?”

  “Mr. Kingsley,” I said, straightening my back and trying to look down imperiously. “I’ve been married for seven years. This is the best deal you’re going to get.”

  “Six years is a long time.”

  “Life, they tell me, is a little longer,” I said. “Look, if you convince some dotty bishop you’ve found religion, they might let you out even sooner than six.”

  “No deals.”

  “They might even campaign for your release. You might become a miscarriage of justice.”

  “No deals,” he said in such a way that I knew it was the end of the discussion, for his eyes rolled over and even seemed white, like those of a shark when it has made its kill. And I imagined Kingsley among the stones, and a knife was in his hand, and the hand was no longer shriveled, but healthy and slender, like a woman’s, and there was no discussion as he went about his—little games.

  When I returned to my position in counsel’s row, my junior, Emma Sharpe, had drawn a gallows and a noose in her notebook with a question mark against it. But I wasn’t in a playful mood as I knew the judge was waiting.

  I needed to compose myself. The glass of water rattled against my teeth as I took a sip. I was wearing my midnight blue suit which was double-breasted, naturally, a battered pair of brogues, scuffed at the toes, black stuff gown, and a wig—ashen gray, filthy, and held together with pins. I was the picture of the thoroughly modern barrister. I was going to trial on a murder and didn’t have a prayer.

  “The plea of not guilty stands, M’Lord,” I said.

  For a moment Mr. Justice Manly was lost for words which, on the whole, was a welcome state of being for a hostile judge. He whispered something to Leonard. Leonard sulked. But then Leonard always sulked when he saw a black man as opposed to a black cap on the Bench.

  Two dozen people were brought into court. They had an almost comical variety of tired faces, trash novels and rolled-up newspapers. They looked bored and annoyed, as if they were waiting for a charter flight to Torremolinos and had been delayed yet again.

  Leonard shuffled the cards and selected twelve of this jury panel at random. They were strangers to each other, strangers to the law—they didn’t e
ven know what the case was about. And I knew nothing about them. The law specifically prevents two classes of persons from being on a jury: criminals and lawyers. Apart from that, they could be virtually anybody. And they were to decide whether Richard Kingsley murdered Molly Summers.

  I wished it was a Friday. Friday at the Old Bailey: fish served in the Bar Mess and a diet of rape and buggery pleas downstairs. Friday was a day of reckoning. Not too many people pretended they were innocent on a Friday. But there we were in Court 8 on a bright Monday morning. Start of the week, start of the trials, high-water mark of the hopeless defense, and despite all my efforts, Kingsley’s case was to be no different.

  As each of the jurors was sworn, I hurriedly drafted a notice of alibi, including the name of Philip Templeman. When I had given it to the prosecution team, the trial began.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “MEMBERS OF THE JURY,” SAID AUBREY DAVENPORT QC, the prosecution leader, “the evidence that Richard Kingsley murdered Molly Summers is overwhelming. But”—here Davenport glanced at the judge—“but Mr. Kingsley has pleaded not guilty.”

  Like many large men, Davenport had a slightly high-pitched voice, as though a tape of his speech was being played back at the wrong speed. He was eighteen stones, pigeon-toed and had a revolting mustache, all of which made me suspicious of him. He whistled Puccini arias at the Old Bailey urinals, always ate red meat, never drank white wine, and salivated at the sight of female jurors. He was mediocre at speeches, passable in cross-examination, yet prided himself on his eloquence, which was his incorrect diagnosis of a chronic bout of verbal flatulence.

  But the most disgusting thing about Aubrey Davenport, and it was a truly disgusting thing amid stiff competition, was his special knack for inserting his fat tongue into women’s ears in the backs of taxis. What astonished me was that surprisingly few complained, and when they did, it was more an objection to his rough bristle on their earlobes rather than to the insertion of the offending organ in the first place.