False Witness

by Dexter Dias

  I raised the axe up to my face, Justine’s fingers looked tiny spread across the bark below. “Were you thinking of yourself? Your career?” I asked.

  “I thought—” She looked at me with a cold determination. “I thought we could win. Don’t you understand winning, Tom? Put your back into it.”

  The axe swung, and I thought about my fight with Templeman and how victory had felt. I imagined, for the first time, the jury pronouncing Kingsley not guilty (was that winning?) and I became confused. I thought about the funeral entry about Diane Morrow, and when I swung again, I saw that as the blade struck the wood, the log moved, the axe bounced to the left and gashed the side of Justine’s hand.

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry.” I flung down the axe.

  “It’s only a graze.” She got up and slowly put the open wound to her mouth.

  “Is there anything I can do?” I said rather feebly.

  “Haven’t you done enough?” Justine replied.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  AFTER WASHING THE WOUND, JUSTINE WANTED TO lie down. Consequently, I was left in the lounge by myself. I took out my case papers but could not concentrate. The recent events in Stonebury had troubled me greatly, and I feared that the legal process we were about to embark upon was no more than an artifice. I knew that the trial could be nothing but a shallow caricature of events, an imitation of the truth. For this was not the type of truth to be uncovered in a brightly lit courtroom, but one that was secreted here, in the woods of Stonebury.

  It is one of the inviolable taboos of the Bar that you do not look in your opponent’s brief. It is a little like being invited to dinner and then rummaging through your host’s drawers, or going on a date and snooping in your partner’s handbag. But Justine had left some of her papers strewn carelessly on the floor in front of the fire and as the flames began to rise, sparks started to jump mischievously toward her brief.

  I moved across the room and gathered up the jumbled mass of documents. I recognized the police report, but did not read it. There were a couple of interview transcripts which both sides had agreed to exclude. They basically consisted of Kingsley boasting about his tawdry novels. Then a copy of the indictment, the plea of guilty to manslaughter—the deal Kingsley reneged on—crossed out in red. A copy of Kingsley’s handwritten note, the one found in his cell. I still could not believe his foolishness. Two custody records, more interviews, a bundle of exhibits, letters from the Crown Prosecution Service. I turned these over rapidly; I didn’t want to see a syllable of the correspondence. Statements, further statements. Why couldn’t Justine file her papers neatly like a normal barrister?

  It was a mess.

  When I had sat down at the desk in the opposite corner of the room, as far from her brief as possible, I jotted down a few ideas for the next week.

  Accused – Kingsley

  Victim – Molly Summers… (?)

  Motive – Lust

  Then I crossed out lust. There was no evidence of sexual abuse. Bloodlust, then? Kingsley was sick but was he bloodthirsty? He had no record for violence.

  Motive – Madness? Motiveless?… Stonebury?

  Stonebury. Thinking of Kingsley’s note and the stones and Blake, I knew Kingsley’s motive must still be in Stonebury, somewhere.

  Then Mary flowed like a river of many streams.

  How distasteful a reference to the shedding of an innocent girl’s blood. But Kingsley did not quote it exactly in his notes from the trial. He had changed the beginning. How had he phrased it? Something was that wretched river: the truth? life? death? Before I knew what I was doing, I had found the copy of Kingsley’s note in Justine’s brief.

  The past is a river of many streams.

  The past. Why that? I wondered whether the prosecution had formed the link between the note and Blake and Albion and Stonebury. Perhaps they wouldn’t. Perhaps… what I saw then did not make sense.

  I was not holding a copy of Kingsley’s handwritten note. I was holding the scribbled note itself. Why had Payne given the original exhibit to the prosecution lawyers? How then did my handwriting expert examine it? Had they given him the wrong one? And someone had taken off the court’s exhibit label? What was Payne up to?

  Justine stirred next door and faintly called my name.

  “How are you?” I replied.

  “Can you come in here, Tom?”

  “Wait there. Just be a second.” I rushed back to the fireplace and flung Justine’s papers onto the floor again. They looked too neat. I kicked some of them about with my foot.

  “Tom? What are you up to?”

  “Just coming.”

  The flames were still spitting lively sparks from the fire.

  “Tom, I’m waiting.”

  The papers didn’t look suitably chaotic, so I continued to scuff them around while I said, “Want some tea?”

  “Some what?”

  “Tea. I’m making camomile tea.” Then I saw on the floor another copy of Kingsley’s note. And another. And another. All in his intense spiderish handwriting. How many did he write?

  “Can’t you just bring me a glass of water?”

  I picked up the assorted notes one by one and was sure that our expert, old Mr. Dove, had not seen any of them.

  “Tom? If you don’t come in here, then I’ll—”

  Payne had not told the court that Kingsley had written so many notes. The question was, why?

  The door opened and Justine caught me rifling through her papers. “I should have stopped them,” she said.

  She was not angry. But I was.

  For by the time we both sat down, it was absolutely clear to me that someone had been trying to imitate the handwriting of Richard Kingsley.

  “You know he’s a monster… and you know he’s guilty,” Justine told me. “I mean, are you going to say he’s not?”

  The notes fluttered gently in my hand as warm currents floated up from the fire. Justine walked toward me in her nightshirt, saw the astonishment in my eyes and sank back into her armchair. This was not a time for touching.

  She gathered her knees under her chin as she began to speak. “It all happened so fast. You know what the confusion was like what with the judge shouting at you and everything. But I swear—Tom, you’ve got to believe me—I knew nothing about it till later.”

  “Why should I believe anything you tell me?”

  “Because you love me.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “It’s what I believe. I mean, it’s what I want to believe… Oh, God, when we used the note in court to oppose bail, we thought it was genuine. What else could we think, Aubrey and me? It was Richard Kingsley we were prosecuting. You know what the man is capable of.”

  Yes, I did know. Glancing down at the note, I remembered how Kingsley had gestured with his finger, like a knife cutting a throat, when I was about to cross-examine the poor girl. Yes, I knew what he was capable of. I knew, too, that he had no respect for youth or innocence or vulnerability—they were all there for him to violate. I knew he had to be stopped. But like this?

  “Who did it?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Who did it?”

  “I think… I think it was Payne’s idea. I’m pretty sure of that. I went berserk when he told me later. He was so smug and self-satisfied. But what was I supposed to do?”

  “Withdraw from the case.”

  “And have them pull even bigger strokes? At least this way I can… well, exercise some control.”

  “Justine, think what you’re saying.”

  “But I told them there was no way they were going to use this evidence against Kingsley at the retrial.”

  That was something. I put the papers down and moved to the window. Small patches of yellow light from the village shone between the trees.

  I said, “And that’s why—”

  “Why we never got the note tested. We were never going to use it.”

  Another piece slotted into position.

 
“But where did you get a sample of his writing to copy?” I asked.

  “Payne said that he seized piles of manuscripts of Kingsley’s sleazy novels. I wanted to tell you, Tom. But—”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “But I was scared.”

  “Scared? Of what?”

  Justine put her head in her hands and once again her soft hair covered her face. “I was scared of them.”

  “Them?”

  “All of them. I think…”

  “What?”

  “Oh, I can’t tell you.” She sounded terrified.

  “You must tell me everything, Justine.”

  “I think… that heroin was meant for me.”

  “For you?”

  “As a sort of reminder. You know, Remember which side you’re on. That sort of thing. Tom, you just don’t understand half of what is going on.”

  “No, Justine. I don’t understand why a young girl should kill herself. I mean, where did she get the heroin?”

  “Where do you think?”

  “The home? But—”

  “Kingsley was a trustee of the home.”

  “What?”

  “We can’t use that fact. There’s so much that we can’t use,” Justine said.

  My mind began to race. Just when I thought that things were beginning to make sense, there was something else. There was always something else. “You’ve got to pull out of the case,” I said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Don’t be crazy. If you don’t—”

  “I’m frightened, Tom.”

  But that was something I already knew. She began sobbing as though a heart would break and I was determined it should not be mine.

  “Davenport can get another junior,” I said.

  “Aubrey won’t let me go.”

  “Say you’re ill. Say… anything.”

  “Tom, if Kingsley goes down, that will be the end of it.”

  “And you believe that?”

  “I think so.”

  “And you’re willing to go along with it?”

  “What choice do I have?”

  “I don’t know. But I do know one thing. If you do go along with it, you’re no better than they are. No better than Kingsley. You’re just—”

  “Oh, please. Don’t go all righteous on me, Tom. There’s nothing more sickening.” There was suddenly a different tone in her voice; her helpless retreat had turned again into counterattack. “You’re the one who said we’re part of this now. Well, you were right. Congratulations. Go to the top of the class. But for Christ sake don’t get on your damn high horse at the same time.”

  “I’m going,” I said.

  “That’s right. Run away, Tom. Like you ran away from Penny. Like you ran away from your daughter.” She looked at me coldly. “Like you’ve run away from everything in your life.”

  “You can be a cruel person, Justine.”

  “Kingsley has got to be punished, Tom. This thing has got to be done.”

  “I’ll see you in court,” I said.

  I knew I couldn’t stay another moment. Justine was clearly set on what she intended to do. The more I thought about what had been going on with the notes, the angrier I became. If I were to be honest, I would have to admit that a large part of that anger was because they were stupid. Stupid enough to give Kingsley an opportunity to make people feel as though he were the victim.

  But there was something else. The plotting and scheming seemed to have a certain logic in Stonebury. Like the circles. Something everyone understood, but no one could properly explain. And my head had become so full of lore and legend that I wondered whether I would still recognize the truth if I was unfortunate enough to meet it.

  So even though I would be leaving one day early, I sensed that it was the right thing to do. As I looked from the window, a light wind moved silently through the trees. Beyond the woods lay the stones and the village, and beyond that lay the long road from Stonebury to London.

  As I drove toward the London Road, it had started to rain again. I passed St. Stephen’s. The churchyard was made to look even bleaker with the weeds and nettles washed to the ground. I was about to drive past the outer gate when a bedraggled magpie perched upon a gravestone opposite the newly dug grave of Diane Morrow.

  It looked at me and I looked back. The bird did not move until I got out of my car and started to walk to the mound of soil that was all that remained of the disappearing witness. Then the magpie flew off.

  Rising from behind the gravestone opposite was a girl who shivered and stared and wept and hugged her chattering body with two bony arms, as if the very vibrations would shake her apart.

  It was the girl from the fox-hunt.

  “What were you thinking of?” I said. “Scaring my horse like that.”

  “I wasn’t there,” she said, momentarily arresting the chattering of her teeth.

  “Rubbish. I saw you.”

  “I wasn’t there.”

  “Do you know how dangerous it is? Look, I don’t agree with fox-hunting either but—”

  “I wasn’t there,” she insisted.

  “So you say. Take a professional’s advice: alibi isn’t your best defense. Say the horses charged you. Run self-defense.”

  She was silent.

  “What if I was injured?” I said. “Would that stop Aubrey Davenport waddling off to pester Charley the Fox? No. All it would do is land you in jail.”

  “I don’t want to go to no jail, mister. They made me say it.” She grasped the top of the gravestone with two nail-bitten hands.

  “So what are you doing here?”

  “You know.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes,” she said and pointed to the mound of earth above Diane Morrow.

  “Your friend?”

  “My sister,” she said miserably.

  “Why did she kill herself?”

  “She didn’t.”

  “Then who killed her?”

  “The heroin.”

  “So she didn’t want to die?” I asked.

  “She didn’t want to live neither… not there.” The girl shivered again and tried to chew at nails that no longer remained. I noticed a tattoo on the back of her hand. “You wouldn’t want to live there,” she said.

  “West Albion?”

  “No one would. It’s like…”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s like hell, mister. It’s like bloody hell and Diane reckoned heroin’s the way out.” She looked again at the wet soil above her sister. “But they can’t do her no harm now.”

  “They?”

  The girl did not respond.

  “They?” I repeated. “Who are they?”

  The girl waved her frail arm equally in the direction of the village and the circles. And I could not say whether she indicated man or stone. But then I realized something of far greater significance. I had seen her before the fox-hunt. I noticed the hair, the nails, the vacant look and at last understood what she meant.

  “So you really weren’t there?” I said.

  “No. Not at them stones.”

  Another knot was undone. Perhaps the tightest yet.

  “Come on,” I said, grabbing her tiny hands. I had seen the girl before. At the trial. She was the first witness.

  PART IV

  RETRIAL

  I implored the rapid sword

  To secure my liberty,

  I asked the poison I abhorred

  To succour my timidity.

  Alas! the poison and the sword

  Only showed contempt for me.

  “You deserve not the reward

  Of freedom from your slavery.”

  The Vampire

  Baudelaire

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  “AND THE DEFENDANT, MEMBERS OF THE JURY, IS represented by m’learned friend, Mr. Thomas Fawley who sits next to me in counsel’s row.” Justine waved a delicate hand in my direction but did not look at me. I could see the gash I had made with the axe. “And Rich
ard Kingsley is also represented by Miss Emma Sharpe who sits behind Mr. Fawley.” No gesture. Not her learned friend. Justine never liked Emma.

  “Mr. Aubrey Davenport who leads me for the Crown will, we hope, join us this afternoon—or, at least, tomorrow. Until then, I’m afraid”—she smiled and tilted her head to one side—“you are going to have to put up with me.” Justine had already begun her girlish flirtations with the men on the jury. That was to be expected.

  Davenport was ill—but not very. Influenza, we were told. I suspected gout.

  Justine continued in her gentle way and it was all very pleasant, the professional courtesies at the start of a case, the civilized preludes to battle. We will try to tear each other’s eyes out, but we must remain learned friends, bowing respectfully like contestants before the Saturday matinee in Nero’s Coliseum.

  “So what is this case about?” Justine asked. “I can answer in one word. Murder.” She didn’t stress the word, said it like any other, like you would say, thank you or please. It was a nice touch. I taught her that.

  She talked to the jury as if she were reading a story to a class of children about dungeons and nasty dragons, but where good would triumph, as it must.

  “I can tell you that this case will be rather short. Why? Because the most important witness, the one who could tell you blow by blow what happened, is not here. She is dead. Buried in a grave in the village of Stonebury. Her name is Molly Summers.”

  Justine glanced at Hilary Hardcastle, who was looking particularly reptilian even by her gruesome standards, and then fixed upon Kingsley.

  She continued, “So what is it to murder someone? Which of us who has not killed can really understand? Who can really say what drives one man to take the life of another? I suppose only one person in this court will ever really know why Molly Summers was murdered.” Justine paused. “And that person, says the prosecution, is sitting in the dock.”

  All eyes moved toward Kingsley, who sat there attentive but unmoved.

  “Members of the jury, you might like to remember one thing: the prosecution does not have to prove motive. Or, to put it another way, we don’t have to prove why Richard Kingsley chose to kill this sixteen-year-old girl in cold blood. We only have to prove that he did murder her. And when we call the evidence”—her voice lowered, she spoke more slowly—“that is precisely… precisely what we shall prove.”