False Witness

by Dexter Dias

  “I don’t want to get unnecessarily personal,” she said. “But were you, well, intimate?”

  “Want to know if I screwed her?” I shouted.

  “Please, there’s no need—”

  “Want to know the positions? Need some tips, Doctor?”

  “Just calm down,” said Traynor.

  “Justine Wright is catatonic,” Stone said.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Stuporose,” she said.

  “Are we still speaking English?”

  “She’s withdrawn from the world,” Traynor explained. “Like in shock.”

  “And we want to know why,” said Roach, but Traynor glared at her and she looked to the clock. It hadn’t moved.

  “We think… well, we think we know why,” Stone said. “When Miss Wright was found by the ambulancemen, she was sitting in a chair next to you. She had the knife. It was as if… well, almost as if she were frozen or carved in stone. Like she was standing guard over you.”

  I thought of the circles at Stonebury, but before I could make any meaningful analogy, I felt a stab of pain in my midriff.

  The psychiatrist looked at the bandage at my side, now slightly pink in places with the seeping of blood. “We just need a little more information. That’s all.”

  “If you must,” I said.

  “Yes, we must,” snapped Roach.

  “But how can someone end up like that?” I asked.

  “It’s a recognized psychiatric condition,” Stone said. “It’s called flexibilitas cerea, one aspect of catatonia. Can I ask, did she suffer from delusions?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Like a calling, or some sort of mission in life?”

  “Well, people had nicknames for her.”

  “Like what?”

  “The Ice Maiden, the Angel of Vengeance. But you know how people bitch about a successful woman… don’t you, Doctor Stone?”

  Roach tutted in disgust.

  Jennifer Stone ignored me. “Did she have any mood changes?”

  “Constantly. But surely everybody—”

  “Any tactile hallucinations?”

  “Any what?”

  “Ever complain of insects crawling over her, that sort of thing?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  Stone continued. “Did she believe, perhaps, she was being followed?”

  “I think we were.” But I wasn’t really sure. Not anymore.

  “Did she have difficulties forming relationships?”

  “She did with me.” And then I thought about Penny and Jamie, even, for a moment, about Hilary Hardcastle. “You see, Doctor, everyone has difficulties forming relationships with me.”

  Traynor smiled. Roach raised her eyebrows and tutted once more.

  The psychiatrist looked at me carefully, like a butcher, having sharpened a knife and trying to decide where to make the next cut. She asked, “Was she promiscuous?”

  “She was attractive.”

  “Did she think she was attractive?”

  “She never said.”

  “Was she insecure about her childhood?”

  “She was the daughter of a judge and owned a horse called Nigel. It’s hardly the most normal upbringing,” I said. “Anyway, who isn’t insecure?”

  “Are you, Mr. Fawley?”

  “Look, I’m a lapsed Catholic and a balding barrister. I’ve every right to be insecure. So what are you getting at?”

  “Almost finished,” said Stone. She wrote something down and tapped her chin. “Did she have any—how can I put this?—any sexual eccentricities?”

  “Apart from me?” No one smiled. I thought about what Chapple had said about their first time together on the night of Justine’s father’s death. But all I said was, “No. There were no eccentricities.”

  “Do you know of any emotionally inappropriate behavior?”

  “What? Like trying to kill me?”

  “We’re not interested in that,” said Roach.

  “Your concern is touching, Constable,” I said.

  Stone was keen to press the point. “What I want to know is, did she do things that were inappropriate? You know, out of context?”

  I thought about the first time we made love, on the desk of the judge who had so recently died. I thought about how sex and death always seemed to go together for Justine, for the village of Stonebury. But due to some reason I did not entirely understand, I could not betray Justine.

  “No, I don’t know of any inappropriate behavior.”

  Jennifer Stone turned to Traynor and said, “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Are you lying?” snapped Roach.

  “It doesn’t matter,” the psychiatrist said. “I think we have enough information to confirm our suspicions.”

  “What suspicions?”

  “Justine Wright has been deteriorating for years.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “Your wife told us.”

  “My wife?”

  “She’s next door,” added Traynor. “I suppose we can allow you access to her now.”

  “If she’s willing to speak to you,” said Roach.

  “We can normally treat Miss Wright’s illness with drugs,” said Stone. “She refused to take them. She staggered from relapse to relapse as her paranoia became worse. I understand she had to leave the Bar for a couple of years. I’m afraid she has completely withdrawn,” said Stone. “The prognosis is not good.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why didn’t she kill me? I can remember that after Chapple or Templeman had stabbed me and had fallen out of—well, I remember Justine standing over me with the knife. She could have—”

  “Her personality began to… in a sense, dissolve. But there must have been part of her that cared for you. It struggled to save you.”

  “To save me from what?” I asked.

  “From the part of herself that she did not understand,” Stone said.

  We can still have it all. It’s not too late for us.

  “Saving you from that part of herself,” the psychiatrist continued, “was probably the last thing she will do.”

  As we started to file out of the room, Roach turned off the tape-machine and Traynor took my arm. He spoke in a low voice so no one else could hear. “I’m really sorry for all this, Mr. Fawley. We’re just doing a job, you know. Like you.”

  How had I missed all the symptoms of Justine’s illness? The sleeplessness, the mood changes, the constant connection between love and death. When I thought about it, some of the evidence was there. Perhaps I was just too close to see? Perhaps I had subconsciously convinced myself not to believe it. Or perhaps it was something that I simply refused to believe. It did frighten me because since the first trial began, Justine had appeared to me to be the saner of the two of us. I had the dreams, I had the doubts. If Justine was lost, then where was I?

  Eventually, I asked Stone, “What will happen to Justine?”

  “We’ll try therapy, of course,” she replied. “And if that fails, we’ll try drugs again.”

  “And if the drugs don’t work? What then?”

  “Then, Mr. Fawley, I’ll have to section her. Under the Mental Health Act,” Stone said. “There’s only so much we can do. She’s retreated into herself. And if she doesn’t want to be found, there’s nothing we can do.”

  “Is there anything you want?” Traynor asked me.

  “Yes,” I said. “I want to see my wife.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  PENNY SAT IN THE POLICE CANTEEN, SIPPING A PLAStic cup of steaming black coffee. She seemed unruffled and hardly bothered to glance up as I joined her.

  “You don’t look so good,” she said.

  “I’ll live.”

  “I know. I spoke to the police surgeon, such a nice man. He said it was just a superficial wound.”

  “It might be superficial to him. He wasn’t stabbed with a Neolithic knife.”

  “Only a replica one, I u
nderstand,” she said, putting down the cup and brushing a few strands of hair from her forehead. “I’ve come to a decision.”

  “Not in here, Pen.”

  “Why not? Aren’t you meant to… come clean in these places?”

  They had given me back my tie and I wrapped it round and round my hand. Slowly, my head began to clear. Things began to recover their proper proportions. I missed our house in Chiswick. I longed to see our daughter. But most of all, I hated myself for what I had done to Penny.

  “So what have you decided?” I asked. “Can I come back—”

  “Home?” she said.

  “You know, I really—”

  “Fancy a coffee?”

  “No. It looks like tar. I’ve never understood how you can drink it so… look, Pen. What I meant to say was—”

  Penny grabbed my wrist. “Never—not for one second in your feeble little mind—imagine that I will forget. I won’t. Never. And don’t think I forgive you. Because I don’t.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you? Do you really see, Tom? It’s always so easy for you Catholics. You think if I say, “OK, Tom, I forgive you,” it’ll be all right. Well, it won’t. It’s not like a church confession, Tom. You can’t just say three Hail Marys, dip your thumb in some Holy Water and walk out with a clean conscience.”

  “I’m beginning to see that.”

  “You wanted it all. You wanted me. Then you wanted Justine. Now you want me again.” She put her other hand on mine and stopped me winding the tie. “Have you ever thought—even for a moment—what I wanted?”

  “Of course I—”

  “Don’t lie.” Her nails cut into my skin. “No more lies. Please, Tom. No more lies.” She sat up straight. “Well, did you ever think how I felt?” When I couldn’t reply, she said, “I thought not.”

  “What do you want then?”

  “It’s what I don’t want. I don’t want to be alone. The shame of it. Failure. People talking, you know, warm tea and cold sympathy. We have a daughter and nothing you did with—”

  “With Justine?”

  “—with that woman, can destroy that fact. You see, Tom, it’s no longer about you. It’s about me now. I’ve invested too much to let you ruin it.”

  I saw Roach walk into the canteen with a pair of handcuffs and it concentrated my mind wonderfully. “I’ll try, Pen. Really I will. What can I say to make you believe that?”

  “For God’s sake, don’t say anything. That’s the problem. You’re always saying things. You say you’ll do this and you say you’ll do that. But you never actually do anything. Well, the time for talking is over. Just do something, if you really… well, you know.”

  Traynor came over with a cup of tea for me. “I see they gave you back your…” He indicated toward my tie. “Just thought I’d tell you. Templeman’s not going to die. Well, he will eventually. We all will, I suppose. What I meant was, he’s not going to die just yet.” Traynor sensed the tension between Penny and me. “Well, Mr. Fawley, if there’s anything you need,” he said as he walked over to Roach.

  I turned back to Penny, having remembered something Traynor said. “How did you end up at the police station, Pen?”

  “Emma phoned Chiswick. Reversed the charges.”

  “But I thought you were at your parents?”

  “Wanted to start cleaning up. You know after I…” She again waved her hand as she had when she was on the kitchen floor with the knife. “Emma wanted to speak to you again. And we both realized that if you weren’t with me… well, we guessed you’d be with Justine. You’re so bloody predictable.”

  “I suppose it has its advantages.”

  “I phoned that dive bar. Emma gave me the number. Your drinking buddy, Jamie said you’d headed for the Temple.”

  “He’s not my drinking buddy. Not anymore—”

  “Don’t ruin my story. This is the best bit, Tom. So I phoned the porter’s lodge in the Temple. Asked them if they had seen my so-called husband. Oh, yes, they said. Saw him being carted off by the police, Mrs. Fawley.”

  “I suppose it wasn’t difficult to track me down to the local nick after that.”

  Penny took another sip of the tarry liquid and winced. “You know, Chapple once tried to grope me at school.”

  “Did it traumatize you, Pen?”

  “Not really. I just kneed him in the goolies.”

  “So how do we sort ourselves out?” I asked.

  “Well, you’ve got to sort yourself out first. I don’t think you want a wife, Tom. What you need is a woman who’s a cross between a mistress and your mother.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You want someone to screw your brains out and then wash the sheets. See if you can work out what you really want, Tom.”

  “So you’ll have me back?”

  “You never really left. You just took a sabbatical from your senses for a while. Only—”

  “Only what?”

  “Only don’t do it again, Tom. Or—”

  “Yes?”

  “Or I’ll cut your balls off with that Neolithic knife.”

  “Don’t you mean, the replica?”

  “Yes, Tom,” Penny said, “I mean the replica.” She smiled for the first time that I could remember for weeks. Then she sipped the dregs from the plastic cup. “My two vices, I suppose. Strong coffee and weak men.”

  “I don’t deserve you,” I said.

  “No, you deserve a good horsewhipping. But—”

  “But?”

  “But I still… well, sort of love you, you adulterous bastard,” Penny said.

  “Despite what I’ve done?”

  “Despite what you’ve done. Look, if men were supposed to be faithful, do you think they would have dicks?”

  “So you don’t hate me, Pen?”

  “Of course I hate you.”

  “But I thought you said—”

  “You can love and hate someone, Tom. It’s called being married. I’m your wife and you’re my husband. So we’ll just have to stop whingeing and get on with each other.” She stood up as the psychiatrist, Jennifer Stone, walked over to Roach on the far side of the canteen. “You know, Tom,” Penny said, “I think it’s me they should be putting in that loony bin.”

  The clock on the canteen wall, unlike the one in the interview room, worked. It was 8 A.M. The police shifts were swapping over and there was a flurry of uniforms. If I was quick, I could go home, change and perhaps—for once—I would not be late for court.

  Hilary Hardcastle looked miserable. She sat on the Bench and scowled and moped and frowned, trying to think of some way around it, but knowing there was none. Norman was perched on his chair in the corner of the court, still struggling with the crossword, and the shorthand writer started to record proceedings.

  Leonard, the clerk, had begun to speak. “Will the foreman of the jury please stand?”

  The taxi-driver stood up.

  “Mr. Foreman,” Leonard said, “do you find the defendant, Richard Kingsley, not guilty of murdering Molly Summers?”

  There was silence until Leonard added, “Do you find him not guilty of murder on the direction of Her Honor, the judge?”

  Hardcastle nodded.

  The taxi-driver took a deep breath and said, “We find him not guilty.”

  “And that is the verdict of you all?”

  “I suppose so,” said the foreman.

  “Just say yes,” Hardcastle said.

  “Er, yes, then,” answered the taxi-driver.

  It was my turn. “Your Honor, may Mr. Kingsley be discharged?”

  “On these matters only, Mr. Fawley.” Hilary had not forgotten the sex offenses to which Kingsley had pleaded guilty. All she said to the jury was that extraordinary events had overtaken the case and then dismissed them without thanks.

  The social worker smiled at me as she left the box. I felt rather light-headed and very tired, but I didn’t want to miss the last curtain call for anything.

  When the jur
y finally left, Davenport stumbled to his feet. He was still rather bilious after a bout of food poisoning. It wasn’t influenza or gout. He tried to outline the facts of the sex offenses, the ages of the girls, and what Kingsley had paid them to do. But he was not on top of the case.

  Davenport seemed lost without Justine and I knew how he felt.

  “I thought five years’ imprisonment was a little vindictive of Hilary,” said Kingsley later in the cells. “We will appeal, of course.”

  I just stared at him. Compared to the dark cubicle in which I had spent the preceding night, the Old Bailey cells seemed palatial.

  “What is it? What do you want to know?” he asked.

  “The truth.”

  “Have you become interested in that? You have come a long way. Wasn’t it you who told me that too much truth and the lawyers go out of business? Well, you’re still wearing the old wig and gown.”

  “Let’s cut the bull, shall we? You weren’t involved in the murder of Molly Summers, were you?”

  “I never knew who killed her. But no one would have believed that. I mean, Mr. Fawley, you didn’t.”

  I was silent for a moment. Then I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me you were innocent?”

  “Everyone said I was guilty. So I thought—how does the saying go? ‘In an entirely corrupted age, the safest course is to follow the others.’ “

  “Who said that?”

  “The Marquis de Sade,” Kingsley said.

  “In One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom?”

  “No, in his book, Justine. Are you familiar with the work, Mr. Fawley?”

  I did not answer.

  “Such a shame about Miss Wright,” he said. “Such a fine… person.”

  “Don’t you dare talk about—”

  “Philip Templeman said he’d give me an alibi. I suppose it was part of the plan to frame me. Templeman never intended to testify.”

  “Making up a false alibi could have really damaged your case,” I said. “I never did understand why you put the first note in my brief.”

  “Well, you saw its effect on the girl. I never realized that you would have to make it an exhibit.”

  “That was because the poor girl could not read,” I said.

  Kingsley tutted. “The failings of modern education, I don’t know. Perhaps if she’d had an attentive teacher like Alex—”