by Dexter Dias
“I don’t think the prosecution will introduce that fact.” Kingsley replied.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“But that’s what I answered.”
“Were you a bloody—”
“Yes, I was a trustee.”
“You never said.”
“You never—”
“I know, I never asked. So who was murdered, Kingsley?”
“Poor innocent Molly Summers. Well that’s what your… lady friend, Justine Wright told the court.”
“Leave her out of it.”
“No supper at the Savoy tonight?”
“Shut it, Kingsley.”
“Didn’t Miss Wright say poor Molly was buried in a little grave in Stonebury?”
“But Molly Summers doesn’t exist, does she?”
“You mean she doesn’t? I hope we haven’t all been chasing the wrong fox.” He smiled, the rows of little round teeth sparkled. “Can you murder someone who doesn’t exist, Mr. Fawley? Now there’s a question.” He tapped a crooked index finger against his lips. “Yes, a very interesting philosophical question. Of course, St. Matthew said—”
“Just shut up,” I told him. I walked slowly to the door and glanced through the glass panel. The jailer was waiting outside. “I don’t know what’s going on, Kingsley. I’m not so sure anyone does any more… I mean, what’s your defense? Is it: A. I wasn’t there. B. I was there but did nothing. C. I was there but killed someone else. Or—”
“Or D. I’m just not going to tell you.”
Kingsley made to say something else but I stopped him. “Just listen, Kingsley. Now I’ve got a job to do. And I’ll do it. I don’t like it, but I’ll just have to put up with it. But what I won’t put up with is your feeble pretense at innocence. It makes me sick.”
Kingsley was silent.
As I closed the door behind me, I heard him say, “Hope you sent my love to Stonebury. I do so miss the place.”
I spotted Justine walking ahead of me on the south side of Fleet Street on the way back to the Temple. She looked very different from the rest of the rush-hour crowd, somehow above it all, untouched by the grime and the sleaze and the noise. She momentarily gazed into a shop window. As soon as she saw my reflection in the glass, she was off up the hill.
I grabbed Justine’s arm and said, “We’ve got to talk.” She stopped, looked at the offending hand in disgust and then pulled away rapidly.
“That piece about circumstantial evidence was a bit below the belt,” I called after her.
She carried on walking.
“Let’s not make this worse than it need be. Can’t we keep our… differences out of it, Justine?”
She had reached the arch opposite Fetter Lane which led into the Temple. I again managed to grab her sleeve.
“Justine, why is it no one wants to bring up Kingsley’s link to West Albion?” When she did not reply, I added, “Justine, I’m talking to you.”
“No, Tom. You’re talking at me.” Her eyes were ablaze. It was more than anger, it was loathing. “Winning’s not good enough for you, is it? You want everything.”
“So?”
“So you can’t have me.”
“Gloves off then,” I said.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want us to be civil to each other.”
“You walked out on me, remember?” she said.
“And you know why. Because—”
“Because you wanted to run back to your wife.”
“No. Because what’s happening is all wrong, Justine. I had to leave. Can’t you see that?”
“Oh, I saw it all, Tom.” For a moment, she stopped trying to get her arm free. “I told you right at the start.”
“What?”
“That you’d leave me.”
“You never said—”
“I told you that all my men abandon me when I need them most. Alex was sent away, my father died, Ignatius… so why should you be any different?”
“Justine—”
“Let go of me.”
“Just one thing, then. Are you going to call the girl?”
“Get off me, you pig.”
I shook her more vigorously then I intended. “Are you calling that wretched girl?”
A policeman, seeing the commotion, marched over and removed my hand. He looked a little like that buffoon, Lynch. “Are you all right, madam?” he asked.
“Just mind your own business,” I said. “This is private.”
“No, sir. This is public. A public street. Now you just shut it.”
I pulled my hand free of his rough grip. “How dare you speak to me like that.”
“Is he bothering you, madam?” he asked.
“Just leave me alone,” I said. “She’s my girlfriend.”
“Is he your boyfriend, madam?”
Justine looked at the policeman in a helpless way.
I tried to grab her again to get her attention. “For God’s sake, Justine. Tell him.”
“Right,” said the officer when she was again silent. “On your way or you’re nicked.”
“You can’t arrest me,” I said. “I’m… I’m a barrister.”
“I’ll count to five,” he said.
By the time he had reached three, I was on my way to the old bookshop on Chancery Lane, muttering to myself about the prevalence of police brutality. But there was something more important to do. There was a paperback I needed urgently to buy.
I worked late in chambers, waiting for the traffic to die down. By ten o’clock the Temple was again a deserted village with its gas-lights and its cobbles, its fountains and its courtyards, a place stranded at the end of the wrong century.
When I reached Chiswick, I had almost finished the book I had bought, and opened the front door imagining that everything was as it had once been. I imagined that Penny was watching television and Ginny was doing her maths homework at the kitchen table.
But the rooms felt different, the furniture seemed out of place, even the photographs seemed like photographs of strangers. I was visiting my home and realized that I no longer belonged and that, perhaps, I never really did. Stonebury had changed my perspective. It was like putting a different lens onto a camera, a wider one, even if it was not yet properly focused.
I knew that I was on the verge of letting go completely and that my control had gone. I was about to lose everything except—possibly—the one thing I did not want to win. And that was Kingsley’s trial.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
HE WAS TO BE THE PROSECUTION’S SECRET WEAPON. Edward Blythe stood in the witness box on the second day with his silver hair and artificial tan. He had the type of looks that would have made him a matinee idol had he lived forty years earlier. He was the type of man who had very few male friends, who “Simply adored” women but who had never truly loved one.
Even Justine, at least a generation his junior, was taken in. “Could you please tell us your occupation, Mr. Blythe?”
“It’s Doctor Blythe actually, young lady. I am Professor of Ancient Religion at the University of Cambridgeshire.”
“And your qualifications and experience?”
“I am a Doctor of Philosophy, visiting lecturer at California University, I have written widely about the ancient world, am President of the British Institute of the Paranormal, and then, of course, I regularly appear on—”
“Your academic qualifications will suffice,” said Justine. “Do you have a particular specialization?”
“Yes. Celtic mythology.”
The grandmother gazed at Blythe with unrestrained admiration, the social worker faltered in her note-taking.
However, one woman in court was less than impressed. “Miss Wright,” said Hardcastle, her eyes as hard as billiard balls, “what is the relevance of all this?”
“Does Your Honor not have a copy of this expert’s report? It was sent to the court last week.”
“No. I haven’t seen it. I’m sick and tired of papers go
ing missing. When I find out who’s to blame—” Hilary then realized that she hadn’t sent the jury out and tried to revert to a friendlier tone. “I wonder, Miss Wright, do you have a spare copy?”
With some trepidation, Justine began, “I’m afraid I haven’t.”
Anticipating another judicial explosion, I shot to my feet. “Your Honor can have the defense’s copy.”
“Thank you… again, Mr. Fawley.”
“Not at all. We got our two copies yesterday. But Miss Sharpe and I can share one.”
Hardcastle began to fume. “You mean… you mean an expert’s report was only served on the defense on the morning of the trial?” The prosecution has a duty to serve such reports well in advance so that the defense can consult its own expert.
I tried to sound a little hurt. “I’m afraid so, Your Honor.”
Justine attempted to salvage something. “But we… we served it as soon as—”
“I wasn’t addressing you, Miss Wright,” snapped Hardcastle. “Do you wish the jury to retire, Mr. Fawley?” That was the lawyers code for, Do you want to exclude this evidence?
“No, thank you. I wish the jury to hear everything.”
Smiles from the twelve. Jurors hate being sent to their room and missing the action.
Emma tugged my gown. “She’s giving you the green light, Tom.”
“You mean you don’t object to this evidence?” asked the judge.
“Not at all,” I said. “I shall be fascinated to hear what the good doctor has to say. I’m a real fan.”
“Fan?”
Edward Blythe’s vanity could not be contained. “Well, I do have my share.”
Hardcastle was dumbfounded. “Continue, Miss Wright.”
Justine leant slightly toward me. “Thanks, Tom. Sorry for being such a brat yesterday.”
I did not reply.
“Now, Doctor Blythe,” asked Justine, “have you read the report of the pathologist, Doctor Molesey?”
“I was in court when he gave evidence this morning.”
“You were?” Justine was surprised.
“Yes. I asked that gentleman if it would be all right.” He pointed to me. “And he didn’t seem to mind.”
I smiled back.
Justine glanced at me suspiciously. “The pathologist testified that the shallow stab wounds on the victim’s back were not fatal. Have you got anything to say about that?”
Blythe had a lot to say. He always had. Like so many people with good looks and intelligence, he was convinced that his every word was golden. In fact, he was a bore.
We were then treated to a posted history of the Celtic peoples of West England. their rites and their rituals. After twenty minutes, Blythe eventually reached the Roman conquest with Hardcastle huffing and puffing about the relevance of it all. I sat there pretending to be captivated.
Blythe said, “The main social group around Stonebury was a Druid-like sect. The Romans considered them—”
“Did you say Druid?” asked Hardcastle.
“Yes, Druid.”
Hardcastle threw down her pencil. “Now I’ve heard everything. As trial judge, I have an overriding duty to prevent irrelevant evidence wasting the court’s time and—”
I got to my feet. “Doctor Blythe is reaching the relevant evidence. I don’t object.”
Emma was incredulous.
“Make it short, Doctor,” Hardcastle said.
“These indigenous peoples were suppressed and persecuted by the Romans because they practiced human sacrifice.”
“How?” asked Justine.
“They used to sacrifice enemies or sometimes their own maidens.”
“Maidens?”
“Young girls. Maidens. They sacrificed them to the gods. But before death they used to stab them in the back—to release the omens during the death throes.”
Hardcastle was still confused. “To release the what during the which?”
“They believed that a sacrificial victim would tell prophecies, predict the future, as she was dying. She would pass on messages from the gods.”
“But what, Miss Wright, has all this to do with the murder of Molly Summers?” Hardcastle cracked her dry knuckles. “I mean, we’re talking about two thousand years ago.”
Blythe answered. “I have inspected the… should I say, alleged?… murder weapon. It’s an exact replica of a Druid ceremonial knife excavated at the Stonebury Sepulchre by the Victorian archaeologist Aloysius Blythe—no relation. Found very close, I understand, to Mr. Kingsley’s house.”
Reporters rushed out for the telephones. But I remembered what Emma’s friend had said: Falce aurea, the golden sickle, the sacrificial knife.
“Anything else?” asked Justine.
“I understand straw was found at the murder scene. The Children of Albion—that’s what the cult was called—used to place the dead body in a straw effigy, a Kolosson, but I won’t bother you with the details. Then they would burn it. However, I understand it rained heavily on the night of the murder.”
“What about this cult of Albion? Does it still exist in some form?” asked Justine.
This went further than the report and I objected. “The doctor is an expert on ancient religions,” I said. “Not the outer fringes of the Church of England.”
Hardcastle, leading light of various societies of Christian lawyers, was appalled. “You may answer.”
He bowed a little toward the judge. “With the much lamented decline of our main religions, there has been a revival in ancient cults, including, it seems, the Children of Albion. In my opinion, this murder is in all respects consistent with the sacrificial rites of a localized cult.”
“See what you’ve done,” whispered Emma.
Justine flicked through the report and said she had finished. “Your Honor, might I have just a moment to speak to m’ learned friend?”
Justine and I huddled together, our gowns intertwining.
“What is it, Justine?”
“We’ve got the girl,” she said.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
AS I ROSE TO CROSS-EXAMINE, BLYTHE STOOD THERE with unbearable smugness. Emma warned me to be careful as the jury clearly liked him.
I began, “You say you are Professor at the University of Cambridgeshire. Has it another name?”
“Cambridgeshire University, I suppose.”
“Until last year, wasn’t it known as something else?”
“Yes, but I don’t really see—”
“Just answer my question. What was it known as?”
“Peterborough Poly.” He blushed a little.
“And you weren’t a professor but a lecturer on a—what is it called?”
“A sandwich course.”
“And did Peterborough Poly have an international reputation for expertise in the ancient world?”
“No. But Peterborough was a glorious Roman town and—”
“And now is a glorified railway junction?”
It was time to see what he really knew. I glanced around the court trying to gauge how far I could push it. “I imagine, Doctor, that you were at Stonebury on the night of the murder?”
“No.”
“You mean you weren’t?” I feigned surprise.
“No,” he said in a so-what fashion. “But my opinion is based upon years of research. And I think—”
“We’ll come to what you think, Doctor. Let’s investigate what you know, shall we? The fact is, from your personal knowledge, you don’t know what happened?”
“No.”
“So what you say is speculation?”
“It is an informed reconstruction cross-referenced with scientific data.”
“Does that mean speculation in plain English?”
“Perhaps.”
“Is the answer, Yes?”
“Yes.”
The taxi-driver was unimpressed. He turned to the man next to him and shook his head. No doubt he spent his life tearing around the streets of London speculating about the state ec
onomy and the England football team, and wanted something more concrete in a court of law.
“You testified about the significance of straw at the scene of the murder?”
“Yes. What I would call the Kolosson dimension.”
“This Kolosson is an effigy—made of straw? To look like a human being?”
“Yes.”
“Like a Stone Age scarecrow?”
“Certainly not.”
“Might there be another explanation for the straw?”
“Such as?” he asked defiantly, pushing out his chin. His ego was bruised and he was not prepared to be reasonable.
“Look at this, please.” I handed Norman a card which he conveyed, grumbling all the time, to the witness. “What is it?” I asked.
“A postcard which says, ‘Historic views of Stonebury.’ “
I had kept it from the village shop and had Tipp-Exed out the messages from Molly. “Do you see the inner stone circle? Tell us, what else is shown?”
“Well, you can see…” He held up the card reluctantly. “You can see for yourself.”
“No. You tell us—for the record.”
“Well, it shows some cattle grazing among the stones.”
“Grazing on?”
“Grazing on straw.”
There were tuts from the social worker as she put a line through her note of Blythe’s evidence.
To his credit, the professor tried to fight back. “But this photograph was taken… let me see… yes, three years ago.” He beamed triumphantly. “We don’t know if cattle were allowed to graze there last year.”
“You mean the postcard might be out of date?”
“Precisely.”
“Taken three years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Tell us,” I said. “How many years ago were the Children of Albion persecuted by Caesar’s legions?”
He looked down sheepishly.
“Well?”
“Two thousand years ago.”
Hardcastle had seen enough. She asked whether I had any further questions of “this man.”
“Just a few,” I said. It was time to move in for the kill. “You are a bit of a celebrity, aren’t you?”
“One doesn’t like to boast.”
“Come, come. Don’t be shy. You present a television series?”
