False Witness

by Dexter Dias

  “Because I know your reputation. When you get blood in your nostrils, you’re like a dog after a rabbit.”

  “I’m after bigger game, Doctor Stone.”

  “You know, I’ve always wondered about you.”

  “What?”

  “Whether you could possibly be as neurotic as you seem. I’d love to examine you. You see, I’m doing a paper on anal fixation and the criminal Bar and—”

  Just then, Norman announced that we all had two minutes to resume our seats.

  I headed toward Court 8. “Fascinating as it has been, Doctor Stone, I’m afraid my bottom is required in court.”

  “Don’t traumatize that girl,” she ordered.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “That is precisely what I’m afraid of.”

  When she had joined the rest of the prosecution team in court, I realized that all around me were groups in animated discussion, arguing about Kingsley’s prospects, debating how I would attack the girl in cross-examination.

  People think that you plan such things months in advance. Often that is not true. You’ve read the papers, you know the facts, but you haven’t a clue where to begin. At such times, I wished I worked in a bank, or had become an accountant, or even wrote tales of titillation like Kingsley. I used to wish I was anything but counsel for the defense. You feel all eyes upon you—waiting.

  There was only one thing to do. I headed for the toilet.

  I was sure that the police had convinced the second girl to testify and that she was bound to be a far stronger witness, prepared, no doubt, to name Kingsley. But when I reached the lavatory doors, there was a violent tug at my gown and a jab to the kidneys with a well-practiced elbow.

  “You’ve got to do it.” I recognized Emma’s voice without turning around. “I know what you’re thinking, Tom. But you’ve got to do it.”

  My head was beginning to ache. “Give me a break,” I said.

  “Do you want to win this case? Or are you going to throw in the towel?” Emma adopted one of her attitudes which seemed to say, Listen—this is your conscience speaking. “There is no option. You’ve got to do it, Tom.”

  One of the newspaper reporters pushed past us with a bladder full of extra-strong lager. For a second I glimpsed the sanctuary of the cubicle doors, and could hear Davenport whistling “Nessun Dorma.”

  “Tom,” shouted Emma, firmly blocking my way and prodding me in the solar plexus.

  “Look, there is no way in heaven or earth that I’m going to cross-examine that girl,” I said. “And I don’t care how many times you violate my body.” I could see Emma fuming silently, so I added feebly, “Anyway, the girl hasn’t actually named anyone yet.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I knew Emma was right. She grabbed the corner of my gown and led me along the corridor, past astonished onlookers, and into the conference room near to the court.

  I groped for the light switch.

  “Leave it off,” she said.

  “Emma, let me explain why—”

  “Just listen,” she said. “The girl’s scared out of her wits. Right? But she’s mentioned the wheelchair. The police have the knife and they’ve got Kingsley’s confession. We can’t get round it. You’ve simply got to destroy her, Tom. The jury’s ready to lynch Kingsley.”

  “Well, you tell me then. You’re so full of bright ideas. What do I say? Sorry, love. You’re mistaken. You didn’t see your friend brutally hacked to death.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

  My temples throbbed.

  “There’s only one thing for it,” she decided, after pondering a while. “Put in her form.”

  I could hardly speak. The jury had a lot of sympathy for the ordeal the girl had been put through: harassing her about her previous convictions would make matters worse.

  “You’ve got to dent her credibility,” said Emma.

  “The jury will think I’m picking on her.”

  “Her record is our best weapon.”

  “It’s sheer lunacy.”

  “Got a better idea?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Plead guilty.”

  “No chance. It’s too late now. The Crown won’t buy manslaughter. Not now. Why should they? They can get Kingsley on the lot.”

  She was right.

  “All we can do, Tom, is to go on the attack. What was it you once told me? Attack being the best form of—”

  “It’ll add five years to the sentence.” I knew Manly would take it into account when recommending the minimum term of detention.

  “It might get Kingsley off.”

  “Do you really believe that?” I asked.

  Emma paused. Her silhouette seemed hardly to move but her words were highly charged. “Look. I really believe we’ve got to do what we can. If you leave it, Tom. he’ll definitely go down. We’ve got to try.”

  I wondered just how far I could push the girl.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE COURT BRISTLED WITH EXCITEMENT. THE JURORS sat in their box muttering in pairs. The shorthand writer was wrapped in debate with Leonard, the clerk. Only Norman seemed unmoved. He sucked on a clear plastic biro, toying with the anagram at thirteen down.

  Emma barred my route to counsel’s row. She had a puzzled expression upon her face. “Kingsley wants a word,” she said, gesturing toward the dock.

  One of the dock officers opened the door. The other continued to examine page three of the Sun and pretended not to listen as I entered the dock. Kingsley beckoned me closer still. How low he seemed, slouched in his chair, his right hand clawing at the wheel. His breath was unusually cold on my neck.

  “Tear her throat out,” he whispered. His mouth was smiling but his eyes did not move.

  I had less success than Davenport. The girl did not answer my questions and I could establish virtually nothing about her friends or links with Stonebury. Whenever she was cornered, she feigned confusion.

  “You say you saw a wheelchair?” The girl stared back at me with narrowing green eyes. I took that as a “yes.”

  She fidgeted a little, her hands at her sides.

  “Well, what sort of wheelchair was it?”

  Again, she didn’t answer.

  “What sort?”

  “The sort what’s got wheels,” she said.

  Two of the tabloid hacks to my right sniggered audibly and scribbled away. The exchange would make good copy—maybe even the basis for a cartoon.

  “I’m suggesting you’re wrong about what you saw.”

  “I know what I sees.”

  “Don’t you mean, you think you know?”

  I could hear disapproving tuts from the jury box. The witness was baffled and turned to the judge. It was far from my most elegant question.

  “What are you driving at, Mr. Fawley?” asked Manly. He tapped his red pencil impatiently.

  I looked at him and then at the girl and I knew I had to press on. “Does Your Lordship have a copy of the 609?”

  Emma pulled at my gown. “Leave it, Tom. Let’s forget it. You’ll wind up the jury.”

  I chose to ignore her. It was too late.

  Justine handed a pair of stapled white sheets to Norman. He passed them to Leonard who handed them to the judge.

  Manly frowned profoundly.

  “Are you an honest person?” I asked the girl.

  “Mr. Fawley, I have to warn you,” scowled Manly. The jury was intrigued. “You understand the consequences of such a question?”

  I understood the consequences of very little that I did in those days, but this was a legal matter. “I understand perfectly, M’Lord.”

  “Well, you have been warned,” he said.

  “So it appears,” I replied, knowing that Manly was threatening to allow the prosecution to cross-examine Kingsley about his convictions.

  Emma tugged somewhat harder. “Can’t you leave it, Tom?”

  “Did you hear my question?” I said to the girl. “Are you an honest person?”

  Th
e witness sniffed a little artificially and spotted a reply. “Honest like how?”

  “Either you are honest or dishonest, aren’t you?”

  “Honest then.”

  That was the reply I wanted. An elderly juror wearing a scarf from Fortnum and Mason smiled at the girl.

  I asked, “And when you shoplifted a skirt from M and S, was that honest or dishonest?”

  She did not reply. The juror still smiled at her, though not quite as much. I could see what she was thinking—I would have probably thought the same—spot of youthful crime, nothing too bad, what was the harm?

  I continued, “And when you committed burglary were you honest then, too?”

  The girl liked this even less. “Yeah, but I never stole nothin’,” she said.

  “Remind us. Where were you caught?”

  “Er… can’t remember. Too long ago.”

  “Let’s see if I can jog your memory.”

  “Well you can’t.”

  “Let’s try, shall we?” I looked quite deliberately at the elderly juror. “Didn’t you burgle an old people’s home?”

  “I denied it.”

  “But you were convicted. You don’t disagree with that?”

  The girl was clearly annoyed. So, too, was the elderly juror, but I felt that her anger was no longer directed at me.

  “Do you have any other convictions?”

  “Can’t remember.”

  “Well, is that because you have too many convictions or too little memory?” That was one of my favorite lines.

  “You tell me.”

  “What were you doing in January last year?”

  “I can’t think that far back.”

  The atmosphere was beginning to change in court, shifting slowly, almost imperceptibly, like the sands along a beach.

  I paused until the girl was forced to look at me. “Weren’t you in Stonebury on the night of 10th January?”

  “Dunno.” She gave a careless wave of her hand.

  “Well, I do. You visited some friends of yours.”

  “They were still in the home.”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “The home. West Albion. Do you smoke?”

  Manly, who had been watching this exchange with mounting irritation, asked, “What possible relevance can that have, Mr. Fawley?”

  “I’ll let the witness answer that,” I replied impertinently, “if Your Lordship pleases.”

  He huffed, but let me continue.

  “So do you smoke?”

  “No.”

  “Where did you get the matches then?”

  The girl was beside herself. “I never dun that. I never dun it.”

  “Done what? Perhaps you’d care to tell us—if you can remember that far back.”

  “What they said was lies,” she protested.

  “You were convicted of setting fire to the home. Was that another mistake?”

  “I was innocent.”

  “But you confessed to the police.”

  “They fitted me up.”

  “And you pleaded guilty?”

  “My brief made me do that.”

  “Well, you must be the unluckiest young lady in the West Country.”

  “Mr. Fawley,” said Manly, “please don’t comment.”

  “Poor you,” I continued. “You were caught with some matches when you don’t even smoke, the police say you confessed when you didn’t say a word? You were forced to plead guilty when you really were innocent? Come, come. That’s not the truth.”

  “I hated that home. Molly did, too,” blurted out the girl. “They used to make us—”

  “I’m not concerned with that,” I tried to interrupt.

  “They beat us and put us in—”

  “Please. We’re not interested.”

  “They put us in that room,” she cried. She turned to the judge. “Don’t let them put me back in the Hole. I’ll tell you what you want.”

  I had to try to stem the flow of such damaging information. I appealed to Manly.

  “I’m afraid you rather opened the door of the West Albion, Mr. Fawley.” The judge clearly enjoyed my discomfort.

  Emma had her arms tightly folded and looked at the floor. No notes, no help, just stern disapproval. I could now see why no one wanted to grapple with the issue of the home. It cut both ways and was extremely dangerous.

  “Let me move on to… another topic,” I said. No one was fooled—I couldn’t even fool myself. I was losing the battle.

  “Mr. Fawley, have you finished with this witness?” Manly wanted to press on. “Or do you want to know anything else about her childhood?” He flourished his pencil in a taunting fashion.

  At first I did not realize what I had found. My hands nervously fingered the papers in front of me, and I toyed with a sheet somewhere near the top. It was crisply folded and quite neatly typed.

  Manly asked Davenport if he wished to re-examine. Davenport declined.

  “You’re free to leave, young lady,” said Manly.

  Doctor Jennifer Stone tightened her belt and started to usher the young girl from the court with that cold compassion that used to be shown by workhouse governesses. Norman rose reluctantly and looked at Davenport to see who the next witness would be. Davenport conferred with Justine and they agreed on the second girl, the other “filly” as he had called her. And all the time I was looking at the sheet of paper and thinking, what can it mean? I had not read the whole brief properly as Emma had urged me to do. So when I looked at the sheet, I could not truly say whether the note had been there all the time or whether it was new.

  The Past is a River of Many Streams

  The court door was opened and the first girl slipped out. Jenny Stone cast a venomous glance in my direction, tightened her belt still further, and also departed.

  When I looked back at Kingsley, I realized that I was still on my feet. He seemed—as did everyone—miles and miles away from me. A vast distance below me, Emma refused to look up.

  There comes a time in any trial where all is at stake. The balance is perfect. At such times, do you have a choice? Or is it all ordained? I instinctively felt that the note had a bearing on the truth of the case. But if I had been asked at that precise moment what that was, I could not have said.

  “M’Lord,” I said, “I have not finished my cross-examination of the last witness.”

  Emma was speechless. She gawped at me, her mouth wide enough to accommodate a sheaf of her notes.

  “Do I understand that you want the young lady recalled?” The color seeped out of Manly’s face. “Do you object, Mr. Davenport?”

  The prosecutor saluted his good fortune, smirked and shook his head. The girl was hauled back, her screams of protest pouring into the well of the court and then rushing round and round. When I saw her, she was disorientated, her head flicked from one corner of the ceiling to the other.

  Jennifer Stone glared at me, no doubt trying to think of an appropriate psychiatric disorder for my behavior.

  The sheet of paper in my hand was not the product of a word processor. It had been typed on an old-fashioned typewriter. The underside was bumpy. The content was meaningless.

  I read the note again.

  The Past is a River of Many Streams

  One night I had heard similar things. At least, I thought I had.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE FIRST THING I EVER LEARNT ABOUT ADVOCACY was from the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. A lawyer in the Deep South was defending a black man on a rape charge. The attorney’s child said, “Never ask a question unless you know the answer.” It is sound advice, but there are two exceptions. Ask what you like if you want to know the truth. And ask about anything if you don’t really care.

  As I looked at the girl trembling again in the witness box, it became very clear to me that I didn’t give a damn.

  “You know exactly what happened,” I said to her.

  She did not answer me. Her nail-bitten fingers danced along the witness box.

  “D
on’t you?” I said under my breath so she could barely hear. It forced her to look up and strain to hear. “Don’t you?” I shouted.

  My right hand moved up to the edge of the sheet. “Look at this,” I said as she stared back at me defiantly. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  Norman petulantly stamped across the court to deliver the sheet so noisily that I was able to ask Emma where the note came from. She didn’t know. I half looked at Kingsley when I heard the rustle of paper in the witness box. He lightly fingered his neck.

  “Now, tell us,” I said. “What does it mean?”

  The girl dropped her head vacantly, like a fast-wilting bloom. She waved the note and turned it over and over.

  “Well, what does it mean?”

  Emma hissed urgently to me. “Tom, just leave it. Leave it there.”

  “Have you got something to hide?”

  The girl became whiter. The spot of blood on her nose stood out strangely.

  “I’m going to ask you for one last—”

  Manly intervened. “Can you read? Young lady, are you able to read?”

  She shook her head.

  Manly turned sharply toward Norman. “Give me that,” he growled. The judge read the note and jotted something down. “Do I understand you want to put this to the witness, Mr. Fawley?”

  “No,” whispered Emma.

  “Yes, M’Lord,” I said.

  “Very well.” Manly turned toward the box. “Young lady, I’m going to read this note to you, do you understand?”

  She seemed completely empty.

  Manly cleared his throat and then did so again. He held the sheet of paper in front of his face and read slowly and clearly.

  “The past is a river—” He broke off and looked at the witness. She was gazing at the ceiling, her eyes quite pale. He continued, “A river of many streams… do you recognize that?”

  She said nothing. Her mouth was open, and I could see that half her teeth were rotten little stubs. But still she said nothing.

  Manly put down the paper and addressed me. “I really think that is as far as we can go.”

  I was about to agree with the judge when the girl began to speak, and her voice was different, somehow older.

  “When I met Molly we went to the woods,” she said. The strip lighting played on her horizontal face. “I says to Moll, we’re sure to get caught. I’d never done it… not like that before.”