False Witness

by Dexter Dias

  “Yes. Myth and Mystery. Sunday nights.”

  “You were asked because you wrote this book?” I held up a thick paperback.

  “Where did you get that?” whispered Justine.

  “Bought it in Chancery Lane yesterday. After you tried to get the relevance of introducing this—literature.”

  “I’m entitled to explore the credibility of this… man.” I stressed it in the same dismissive way Hardcastle had. “I ask for a little latitude.”

  The judge licked her lips and said, “Just this once, Mr. Fawley. But, be warned, what’s sauce for the goose—”

  “I understand. What’s your book about, Doctor?”

  “Enigmas in England.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “Enigmatic England.”

  “An ingenious title. Very… esoteric,” I said, thinking of the woman in the Tate. I then turned toward the public gallery.

  “Now, due to your celebrity, members of the public report strange phenomena to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you chronicle them in your book?”

  “Yes.”

  “And make money from them?”

  He was furious. “I add to the body of literature, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Ah, yes. I’m sure that’s what I mean. And how many people have communicated with you?”

  “Literally thousands.”

  “I see.” I paused. “And has a single one witnessed a Druid-like sacrifice?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever attended a cult sacrifice? Or a rite of any description?” My questions were now aimed at him rapidly, not giving him much chance to answer. “Have you even seen a group of wandering Druids? A single Druid? A Child of Albion? A… baby of Albion?”

  He had not.

  I opened the book, seemingly at random. “I notice you received a report last year that made the tabloids?”

  “I was informed of an unsolicited but corroborated manifestation of an extra-terrestrial nature.” He gabbled it out as quickly as possible.

  “Do you mean ET and his chums dropped in for tea?”

  Hardcastle slammed her hand on the desk. “Mr. Fawley, remember my warnings—and those of others?”

  I was having too much fun to be worried about the conduct committee. “Where did this sighting take place?” I asked.

  “Walsall.”

  “So your testimony comes to this: you have more evidence of little green men landing in Walsall than you have of Druid sacrifices?”

  Hardcastle seethed. “He never said they were green.”

  “Oh yes. What color were they?”

  “No one said.”

  “It’s a load of rubbish, isn’t it?”

  He did not answer.

  “Isn’t it all nonsense?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Possibly like the rest of your evidence.” I then asked the judge if I could exhibit the postcard and finally said, “Thank you, Professor. I need keep you from your adoring public no longer.”

  Justine told the court that after lunch she would call the girl.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  EMMA AND I WENT TO JOHNSON’S WINE BAR. WHEN I had guided her to an isolated table and ordered two orange juices, she could contain her curiosity no longer.

  “What’s going on, Tom?”

  “It’s called a trial. It’s what barristers do, Emma.”

  She waited for an account executive with his organic wine and pilchard and parsley couscous to pass. “When are you going to tell me what this trial is about?”

  “When I can.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “You’re the only person I trust any more. But—”

  “But?”

  “But I need you to do some more digging. Quite frankly the less you know the better. For—”

  “For my own good?”

  “For your own safety.” I thought about the heroin planted in my car and my fight with Templeman in the woods.

  “Did you say safety? Tom, you’re behaving very strangely.” She put her head in her hands and directed a searching look at me. “I’ve got to hand it to you. You’ve really done it. I don’t know if you’ve finally gone mad or have sold your soul to Kingsley.”

  “I need you to go to St. Catherine’s House again. Double-check that there is no Molly Summers on record.”

  “Why, Tom? Has Kingsley killed someone who doesn’t exist?”

  “Possibly.”

  “How can you kill someone who… who doesn’t exist?” Emma asked. “Well, I suppose if anyone can, Kingsley can. But how does it work?”

  “I’m not sure. But I’m beginning to have an idea—”

  “Which you can’t tell me because I’m a weak defenseless girlie.”

  “Which I can’t tell you because I’m worried about you. Will you go?”

  We started to head toward the door when Emma stopped. “I’m not going until I see the girl testify.”

  “You won’t be missing much,” I said.

  “How do you know? Oh, don’t bother. I’ll see the girl and then I’ll go.”

  “Thanks, Emma.”

  She paused. “You never did tell me, Tom. What was the home like?”

  “West Albion?” I asked and she nodded. “Well, imagine the Hammer House of Horror… with a few turnip fields thrown in.”

  “You have a thing about turnips, don’t you, Tom?”

  The girl’s hair was, of course, longer than when she appeared in the first trial. It had become almost prickly. She wore the same wax jacket as when she frightened my horse in Nethersmere Woods. But, to me, she did look different: the look of terror had gone. And I had no intention of writing a note of her evidence.

  Of all the barristers I knew, Justine was the perfect advocate to handle such a witness. She talked to her like an older sister.

  “I shall have to ask you to speak up,” Justine said. “You see all these people wish to hear, but just imagine you are chatting to me. OK?”

  The girl nodded.

  “Now, I would like to ask you about something that happened last year.” Justine’s tones were soft, melting in the air, and I remembered such softness and doubted whether it would ever be directed at me again. “Did something happen last year?”

  Again, the girl nodded.

  “What?”

  “Lots.”

  “What about the end of the year?”

  I hissed toward Justine. “Don’t lead the witness or I’ll object.” Then I started doodling with my black biro.

  Justine tried to ignore my barracking. “Did you meet—”

  “Don’t lead,” I whispered. “Unless you want to ask about the trustees of the home.”

  “Where were you when—”

  “Don’t lead, Justine. Gloves off, remember?”

  Justine looked in exasperation at the witness and tried the old advocate’s gambit. “Why are you here?”

  “I don’t rightly know,” the girl replied.

  Hardcastle had been watching with mounting displeasure. “Get to the point, Miss Wright.”

  “I’ve been told not to lead… anything,” Justine said.

  The judge tried to rescue the situation. “I want you to think really hard about something happening last year.”

  The girl put her nail-bitten hands on the rail of the witness box, screwed up her eyes and looked to all the world as if she thought any harder her head would explode.

  There was a terrible tension in court. Jennifer Stone, still on psychiatric duty, rushed up to Justine. Emma whispered to me, “The girl’s going to screw us. I can see it. Miss Moffet’s going to screw us.”

  Oblivious to the activity around her, the girl just stood there thinking.

  Justine finally said, “Do you know anyone called Molly?”

  “I know lots of Mollys.”

  “Or Mary?”

  She knew lots of those, too.

  Hardcastle then asked what the prosecution woul
d never be allowed to do. “But did any of them die?”

  “I can’t remember,” said the girl.

  With that answer, the jury was sent out and Justine applied to treat the girl as a hostile witness.

  Hardcastle asked, “Wasn’t this the witness who Mr. Justice Manly found in contempt?”

  “Yes,” Justine replied.

  “What was the contempt?”

  “She refused to answer questions.”

  I got to my feet. “But she is answering questions now. She’s just not giving us the answers we expected.” I had to try and protect the girl for if Justine were allowed to treat her as hostile, she could be questioned about what she said in the first trial, about Kingsley and the wheelchair and Molly and the woods. That would have been fatal. “This witness is trying to do her best.” I said. “She is either forgetful or frightened or both. But she is not hostile.”

  Hardcastle disagreed. “How can she forget what she knew at the last trial?”

  I noticed Jennifer Stone urging Justine to her feet.

  “Your Honor,” Justine said, “this is Doctor Stone who dealt with the witness after she collapsed last time.”

  “When I cross-examined her,” I added. I knew either Justine or the judge would make the point anyway.

  Justine continued, “Doctor Stone is extremely concerned about the girl’s mental state. She might have repressed this traumatic episode.”

  “As well as others,” whispered Stone.

  Hardcastle folded her hands. “So I can’t hold her in contempt and I can’t treat her as hostile? It seems to me that this young lady has had some very sharp advice.”

  Emma looked at me with deep suspicion and started to leave court.

  “Well, there it is,” said Hardcastle. “I’ll just have to release the girl. Bring back the jury.”

  When I looked down at my notepad, I realized that I had been sketching a bird of some kind. Rather like a magpie.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  JUSTINE WAS VERY BRIEF WITH HER FINAL WITNESS. It was Allan Greenberg, the fingerprint expert. The prosecution did not rely upon the partial print found on the knife, so Justine quickly called him, asked him if he could identify the print as Kingsley’s, got the expected negative answer and sat down.

  “I don’t know why you wanted him called,” she whispered to me. “A complete waste of time and money.”

  “I presume you have no questions, Mr. Fawley?” asked Hardcastle.

  “Just a few, Your Honor.” I looked carefully at Greenberg and tried to assess how far I could push him. He had a reputation for being honest, a man who had spent the best years of his life looking fondly at the little oily excretions left by people he would never meet, carelessly daubed on window ledges, toilet seats and bloody murder weapons. He stood with the ill-fitting brown suit which was de rigueur for a forensic scientist, unkempt hair spraying all over, and a knitted tie.

  “Mr. Greenberg,” I began, “will you tell us how you tried to match the fingerprints in this case?”

  “We received the sealed exhibits bag from PC Lynch. We treated the knife with powder and brought out the latent print. We then compared it to the fingerprint form in the name of Richard Kingsley and—”

  “Sorry to interrupt. You mean the form upon which the suspect’s fingerprints are taken at the police station?”

  “The same. On magnification, I could find no similarities between them.”

  “Really?” I sounded surprised. “None at all?”

  “None.”

  “Do you know this gentleman and his work?” I pointed to another little brown-suited man sitting behind me.

  “Yes, I know Geoffrey Snyde. He is editor of Fingerprint Quarterly, our journal. He is a respected member of our profession.”

  I held up an enlarged photograph of a fingerprint with ten red arrows pointing to certain forks and loops. “Is this an enlargement of the partial print from the knife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now look at this photograph taken from Mr. Kingsley’s fingerprint form by Mr. Snyde. It also has ten arrows.”

  Justine objected. “The defense has served no expert report.”

  When Hardcastle eyed me suspiciously, I told her my intentions. “We only have to serve a report if we intend to rely upon a defense expert. But I intend to rely upon Mr. Greenberg, the prosecution expert.”

  “You intend to do what?” the judge asked.

  “I trust the prosecution explicitly,” I said.

  As Justine sat down, she mumbled, “What are you up to?”

  “Listen,” I whispered, “and learn.” I turned back to Greenberg who had been comparing the photographs. “Do you agree that the ten arrows match up?”

  “Yes.”

  “So there are in fact ten points of similarity?”

  “Yes. But I don’t know how we missed it.”

  “What are the odds that they match?”

  “It’s a million to one on that they belong to the same person.”

  “Let’s be more precise,” I said. “It’s one million forty-eight thousand to one against there being a mistaken identification.”

  “Yes. But I still don’t see how we missed it.” Greenberg shook his head, admonishing himself.

  I looked at Kingsley who for the first time looked shaken.

  Justine whispered to me, “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Your job,” I replied.

  “In fairness to the defendant,” said Greenberg, “our practice is not to rely upon only ten similarities. We need sixteen.”

  “But in Canada,” I said, “ten is enough?”

  “Yes.”

  “So the Mounties can identify someone with ten but our boys in blue need sixteen?”

  “In this country a million to one isn’t good enough,” Greenberg said.

  “It’s good enough for my purposes,” I said and sat down.

  All around me there was chaos and mayhem, but I sat in the front row smiling.

  As Justine rose to close the prosecution case, I jumped up.

  “I wonder,” I said, “if the officer in the case can be called?”

  Very often the supervising officer is called at the end of the case to tie up any administrative loose ends about the investigation. The door opened and Inspector Payne walked reluctantly into court.

  Payne took off his beige raincoat and entered the witness box. Justine had him sworn and tendered him to me for questioning.

  She asked the judge for a moment. “Are you going to mention the handwriting, Tom? You know it will ruin me. Is that what you want?”

  “You don’t know if I’ll do it, do you?” I said. She shook her head, biting her bottom lip. “But you should know. You would know if you ever really… oh, what’s the point?”

  Justine sat down and was miserable. As I got up, I glanced at Kingsley who was no happier. I smiled at him and he looked away.

  “Inspector, you didn’t attend Mr. Kingsley’s home. Your dealings with him were solely at the police station?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you weren’t there during the search? When the exhibits were seized?”

  “No. They are placed in a sealed bag at the scene and then placed in a store before transportation to the lab.”

  “So you had very little involvement with this case?” I smiled benignly at him.

  He half-smiled back. “Right.”

  “Wrong,” I shouted.

  Justine whispered, “Please, Tom. Don’t.”

  “Didn’t you fingerprint Mr. Kingsley at the station?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Well, look at this document.” I handed him the custody record, a document detailing the history of detention. “Does that jog your memory?”

  “It does. Mr. Kingsley was rather uncooperative. There was a bit of a struggle before I could fingerprint him. Of course, by then he knew we had the knife. But I eventually got his dabs on the form.”

  “Is this the fingerprint for
m with your signature as the officer taking the prints?” He agreed. “Anyone else present?”

  “No. Just me and Mr. Kingsley.”

  I folded my arms and looked at Justine as I spoke. “You see, you were involved—with others—in setting up Richard Kingsley, weren’t you?” Justine’s eyes began to moisten, but there were no tears.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Mr. Fawley,” howled the judge. “This is an allegation of the utmost gravity. I hope you can substantiate it.”

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “You can’t? Well, you remember what was said… in another place?” A clumsy reference to the disciplinary tribunal.

  “I remember.”

  “And you can’t substantiate this allegation?”

  “I can’t—but the prosecution can.”

  Justine looked down. “Tom, for God’s sake.”

  “Miss Wright?” asked Hardcastle incredulously.

  “Not the prosecutor,” I said, “the prosecution—the prosecution evidence.”

  “Well, I must have missed something,” said Hardcastle sarcastically.

  “Yes, you must,” I said.

  “Be very, very careful, Mr. Fawley. You’re playing with fire.”

  I turned back to the inspector. “The truth is you planted the knife at Mr. Kingsley’s home.”

  “Rubbish.”

  “You swear you never touched the knife?”

  “Never.”

  “Then why is your fingerprint on it?”

  “It can’t be.”

  “Well, it is. You see, Inspector, the print on the knife doesn’t match the defendant’s.”

  Hardcastle threw down her pencil. “That’s enough. You brought out the evidence of a million to one match between the knife and Mr. Kingsley’s print.”

  “No, I didn’t. With great respect,” I said, knowing the phrase annoys them. “There was a match between the knife and a print on Mr. Kingsley’s fingerprint form.” I turned to Payne and held up the incriminating form. “You see there are Mr. Kingsley’s ten prints and there is another one on the edge of the form. There was a struggle, wasn’t there, Inspector?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “No one else was present, but you got your fingers a bit inky?”

  He put his hands in his pocket.