False Witness
Page 28
“Just leave, Emma,” I shouted.
“No. You better know this, Tom. About West Albion. The list of trustees, it included—”
Then the line went dead.
When I returned to my table Whitey Innocent had been replaced by Jamie.
“You look ill,” he said, grabbing my arm. “Not been skimping on the booze again? Better fill your stomach with malt before you start wanting to top yourself like—what is the matter, Tommy?”
I did not reply but thought of that isolated phone box and Emma coughing inside it.
“Had a tiff with your beloved?” Jamie asked, gesturing to Donald with three fingers. “I just saw her. She looked like shit, too.”
“Penny?”
“No. The Ice Maiden. What is it with those chambers? First, Manly does the death-scene from Swan Lake down his stairs at home, then—”
“What do you mean? Manly does the—”
“Haven’t you heard? They’ve found a note. Old Ignatius sent it to the Lord Chancellor’s Department, only some dozy clerk just goes and files it away and—”
“Jamie, what did it say? You must tell me.”
“All in good time, Tommy. First let’s get another—”
I banged my hand so hard on the table that it hurt. “Tell me what the bloody note said, will you?”
“Said it was all getting too much. He couldn’t keep it all secret anymore. Christ only knows what he was on about.”
“Where did you see Justine?” I asked.
“Heading for chambers.”
Donald came over with two full glasses of whisky. Jamie swallowed his immediately, saw that I ignored mine, picked it up, but only managed to drink half of it.
“Don’t want your drink, Tommy?”
“I don’t want to be a drunk, Jamie.”
“I’m getting a little old for this game, too,” he said, and loosened his tie. “Tommy, I know I’m persona non bloody grata in legal circles these days, but have the Ice Maiden’s chambers taken to defending down and outs?”
“What are you getting at, Jamie?”
“I saw this strange character walking into their chambers. Looked in a real state.”
I felt a chill. As though someone had walked over a grave, only I did not know to whom it belonged. Almost unaccountably, I feared for Justine’s safety. And I saw an image in my mind. It was the Sanctuary Seat in Stonebury. And I kept seeing those curious words from Deuteronomy written on it.
That the slayer might flee hither
And that he might live.
Donald allowed me to make a call. The answerphone was on in Justine’s chambers. Her personal line was dead.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
A WINTER’S CALM HAD SETTLED OVER THE TEMPLE. The cobbled alleys were beginning to glisten with the falling temperature. Scattered lights shone from high windows, but no one ventured out into the courtyards.
How must I have appeared? Trying to run, my tie trailing behind me like a leash, jacket slipping off my shoulders and so short of breath that I thought my lungs would explode.
When I reached Justine’s chambers, I could see that the curtains were drawn in her room, two stories above. The light was on and the window was open. Two figures stood opposite each other, like the shadows you make with your hands, silhouetted and barely moving.
I ran through the open reception, past the empty clerks room and started to go upstairs as the central heating throbbed noisily. As I reached the third step, I slipped and twisted my ankle. It was the same ankle I had turned over in the woods at Stonebury. It was excruciating.
I knew I had to get to Justine’s room. I crawled up the second flight, each further step was agony. When I reached Justine’s door, I could hear voices inside, but they were as calm as the dreamy squares of the Temple.
They were talking about me.
I needed to catch my breath, I needed to rest my ankle. Any normal person would have barged in, but I was restrained for a moment by cowardice and my curiosity.
Justine said, “You’ve got Tom all wrong.” It sounded as if she was nearer to me, nearer to the door.
“He’s a fool. An ignorant fool.” It was a man’s voice, barely audible as it spluttered and wheezed.
“Whatever you have to do—to me,” said Justine, “don’t harm Tom.”
The man said, “Sarah might be alive if it wasn’t for him.”
“Alex, it was my fault.”
“You were both to blame, then. What do you lawyers say? Equally culpable? You see, Justine, there is crime and then there is punishment. That’s the way it is.”
“What about forgiveness, Alex?”
“My sister’s dead. She can’t forgive you—and nor can I.” There was a scraping sound like something hard being picked up from a table. “Wouldn’t it be ironic, Justine. If… if I used the same knife on you?”
I had to intervene. I didn’t know what I would do, but I had to burst in. The swelling on my ankle grew and my head began to pound.
As Chapple continued, Justine was silent. “You see, Justine, Molly knew too much. Too much pillow-talk, I guess. If you call it pillow-talk when someone’s between your thighs. She was a gossipy little girl. We had to stop her blabbing. You know, Molly reminded me a lot of you. Took me back all those years.”
“Did you refer her to me?” asked Justine. “Did you, Alex?”
“She was young, she was there and she was available. But you can have too much of a good thing, I suppose. After a while, even abuse becomes boring. That’s when the trouble starts. I should never have told her what happened to her father. But I thought it would, you know, add a bit of spice.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t play the innocent maiden with me, Justine.”
“The maiden?”
“ ‘And the maiden soon forgot her fear.’ The poem. Of course you remember our first time. A student-teacher relationship in the finest traditions of the English public school.”
“How do you mean?”
“You came to me for consolation, Justine. You know, on the day your father—”
“Died,” she said plainly. “He passed away so suddenly.”
“Perhaps,” the man interrupted, “he couldn’t bear to think that other people would begin to… play with—”
“His daughter?”
“His property,” Chapple said. “Don’t you remember the rest of the poem?”
“No.”
“ ‘To her father white, Came the maiden bright. But his loving look, Like the holy book, All her tender limbs with terror shook.’ “
There was a slight pause and then Justine spoke. “He never, you know, went… the whole way with me.”
“Any way at all is too far for a father to go, Justine.”
“It was how he showed his… love.”
“But that Sweet Love was a crime.”
“Alex, you’re hardly in a position to—”
“Come on, I did give you a shoulder to cry on. You can’t deny that.”
“It’s everything else you gave me, Alex. That was the problem.”
“You really wanted it.”
“I never said I did.”
“You never said you didn’t. You see, Justine, when does desire end and when does abuse begin?”
“When you start molesting a vulnerable girl, Alex. That’s a pretty good starting point. Have any of you ever thought of the damage you’ve caused?” Justine asked.
“Damage? To whom?”
“To me. To Molly. To all the other girls.”
I could hear him walking to the far side of the room by the window, and his voice became muffled and I guessed he had his back to the door.
I wrapped my tie around my ankle to provide a little support and tried the handle. It opened silently. Justine must have had the clerks oil it.
“I tried to warn that boyfriend of yours,” Chapple said. “Sent him messages in The Times. You know, from beyond the grave, that sort of thing. Tried to warn
him what he was dealing with. Nethersmere Woods. Summers’s death. You remember all that. Payne and I tried to scare him off through that half-blind informer. But Fawley was a fool. I bet he still doesn’t know who Molly was. Even now. The idiot… Justine, would you mind turning off the light?”
“Alex, please don’t.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
“Don’t make it any more difficult,” he shouted. Then with a gentler inflection, he said, “Come here, Justine.”
“Alex, please.”
“Think about your sins, Justine. Think about your sins and think what must happen to you.”
“Oh God. Alex—”
“I don’t remember the knife being this sharp.”
A click of the light switch. This was the time, swollen ankle or not.
I flung open the door and hobbled across the room, pushed Justine to one side, and as the lights from the Great Hall glinted off his knife, I barged him with all my strength. Then I saw him sail through the window.
It was not a dramatic crack but dull thud that I heard, as his body fell two stories and hit the concrete outside.
Justine rushed up to me and put her hand to my side. “My God, Tom. What’s happened to you?”
“I know, my ankle. It’s agony.”
“No, Tom… you’ve been stabbed.”
I could feel nothing except the trickle of blood, like hot water running up your sleeve, not unpleasant if it wasn’t for the wetness.
Then the anger built and clouded my mind and I wanted to see his face, this man who had abused Justine and had murdered Molly Summers.
As I peered over the window sill, there was a deep pain, which felt like a handful of needles being driven into my side. It shot up my arm, raced around my head and I cried out. Justine stroked my hair.
Lying in the cobbled yard, his body twisted and quite still, with the colors from the stained-glass windows playing over his contorted face, lying there with his eyes staring toward the ancient round church, was Philip Templeman.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
I LOOKED AT MY WOUND. IT FELT AS IF A SHARK HAD casually swum up the Thames and had taken a bite out of my side. And then, as well as blood, my reasoning flooded out. Hard as I tried, I could not match the scrawny man I had throttled in Nethersmere Woods with the hideously twisted face two stories below.
“He used many names,” said Justine. “I’ve even forgotten some of them.” She had placed me in a chair, the same chair from which, many years previously, she had gazed at Ignatius Manly with wide-eyed naivete. “I better call someone,” she said.
“No, let him rot,” I told her.
“But Tom—”
“Let him rot in hell.”
Justine had her hand on my wound and I could feel her fingers, trying not to move, but slipping every now and then with the amount of blood. I felt a part of her inside me and felt very close to her, in the room where we first made love.
“There’s a towel in the pantry,” she said.
“Don’t go.”
“I’ll only be a second, my darling.”
“Was Vera right?”
“Try not to speak, Tom.”
“About Chapple. Was she right?”
“Sort of,” Justine said.
“So she was sort of… wrong?” Each word seemed to produce more blood.
“Quiet, darling. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Justine left me. With the flowing of blood there was also a curious flowing of cares. I couldn’t understand Chapple’s—or was it Templeman’s?—connection with Kingsley. But I didn’t care. The man was dead. I had killed him. There is crime and then there is punishment, that’s what he had said. And now he was punished. It was like a cheap prophecy in an old movie that had come true and now the prophet himself was dead.
I thought that Justine had been gone for hours but it could only have been a matter of seconds. When she returned with a dripping towel, she tried to smile, but there was fear in her eyes as they reflected my wretched state.
The wet towel burned into my midriff and I could see the knife lying a few feet away, at the foot of the window. I tried to speak but had to stop. With every breath I felt as though I was sucking the towel deeper into my bowels.
“What is it, darling?” Justine asked.
“The knife. I… I don’t understand how—”
“Alex must have got it from Payne.”
Of course. Whitey Innocent had seen Payne leaving Il Paradiso in a hurry and Payne, of all people, would have access to the exhibits.
“How was Vera… sort of wrong?” I asked.
I looked at the knife and saw a fine streak of red at its tip and along its serrated edge. There was the instrument of murder no longer with the blood of the murdered girl, but glistening with mine.
“I called an ambulance,” said Justine. “Won’t be long.” She stroked my hair. “You’re so brave.”
But I was not brave. I was stupid. Very stupid. How could I have missed something so obvious? As I looked at the knife, a change must have come over my face, for Justine, I felt sure, sensed it. Suddenly the truth, brilliant, crystalline but ultimately appalling, was revealed.
It was a different knife.
“You see, you never knew her,” said Justine, walking to the window. “She was common. Vulgar. No more than a slut. And she…” her voice rose to a crescendo and then fell back to her gentle jury tones. “And she was going to ruin it all?”
“Were you jealous of Molly? You know, because of her and Alex or something?” Now I felt a worse pain, a hurting so deep, so complete that I could not imagine ever recovering.
“Alex was right. You are a fool, Tom.”
“I worked out the knife.”
“That was easy. No exhibit labels, not coated in fingerprint powder.”
“I still got it,” I said. “And I detected your feeble lie.”
“Congratulations.”
“So the knife in court—”
“Was planted by Payne at Kingsley’s as you said in court.”
But there was something that was puzzling me even more. “Why did you represent Chapple’s sister?” I asked. “After all that he—”
“Sarah was another victim,” Justine said. “She’s not responsible for what her brother did to me.” But by now, Justine was becoming impatient. It was all so obvious to her. She crouched at my knees and said, “A lot of bad things have happened, Tom. But we can still have it all. It’s not too late.”
“For what?”
“For us.”
“Justine, come on.”
“For you and me.”
“It’s too late for Molly Summers. Isn’t that the point?”
She put her hands on my knees and used them to lever herself up. The pain was immense and I felt as though I would faint.
Justine looked down at me from what appeared an enormous height. “You always were weak, Tom. Like Daddy. Couldn’t resist a woman. I mean, what chance did poor Daddy have? Living alone. And Annie did this for him and Annie did that for him. What chance did he have? The slut.” Justine turned her back on me sharply and gazed down at the body below.
“Annie… the woman who looked after—”
“She was a slut, just like that daughter of hers.” Justine looked over her shoulder and was virtually smiling. “Can you believe what the stupid little girl said to me last year? ‘I be’s your half-sister, Miss Wright. That’s what Mr. Templeman tells me.’ Can you imagine? That orphan and me, related?”
I remembered what I was told in the Tate about Albion: the source, the seed, the father of all things. In some way, was Justine’s father the source of all this? And I remembered the strange myth about the King of Syria and his daughters with a taste for castration.
It all started with the daughters. All the trouble started with the daughters.
Justine now stood in front of me. “When I saw her in the village, Tom, I was… scared.”
“Scared?” I asked.
Just
ine did not answer at first. She knelt in front of me and began to weep. Clouds moved slowly across the sky and the room went from darkness to light and then back to darkness.
Without looking up, she finally said, “I know I’m ill. Always have been. It’s just these bad thoughts. I don’t know where they come from. But I can’t ignore them, I can’t pretend they aren’t real. You see, they seem to come true.”
“Justine, what are you talking about?”
“That so-called father of hers—”
“You mean Summers?”
“He tried to get money out of us once he knew who sired that bitch. And Daddy said it would ruin his career and I so wanted the man to go away and leave us alone. Then suddenly, it seemed like magic—pouf. He was gone.”
“Justine, it was an accident.”
“And I had done it.”
“Look, he was a poacher, wasn’t he? His shotgun went off.”
“Pouf—he was gone. And I had willed it. Daddy paid Alex to be a false witness. He got him a job at the school. Then he promised Ignatius the earth if he did nothing at the inquest. And Payne planted the gun on Summers. But that was the easy part. It was her. She was the one I was scared of.”
“But why?” I asked. “Molly was just a teenager when she died.”
“I used to see her, Tom. All the time. There in the village. I just couldn’t stand it.”
“But what did she do?”
“It’s not what she did, it’s what she was. Every time I came down from London, she seemed to look increasingly like Daddy… and like me.”
By now, Justine had really worked herself up. Her eyes were clouding over and it was as if she were being filled up with the past. And as I looked at her face, I remembered the first trial. I remembered how Justine had the same gray eyes as the woman juror. I remembered how the juror had the same gray eyes as Molly Summers. Should I have spotted the connection? I didn’t know.
But what I did know was that I needed to divert Justine. She was tearing herself up with these thoughts, and I had to challenge them. But at last I knew why it was that when the first time we made love in her chambers I had seen not just her face, but the face of Molly Summers.
“This is all in your mind, Justine,” I said. “It’s just that all you Stonebury girls look alike.”