A Fatal Verdict (20 page)

25. Harsh words

That night, Savendra phoned a man he greatly respected, a QC who had been his pupil master three years ago in Leeds. He explained the details of the case, and asked the man’s advice.

‘It’s a simple question, really. Knowing what I do now, can I still represent him?’

‘He’s charged with murder, you say? Not rape?’ Just listening to the fruity, whisky roughened old voice comforted Savendra greatly. It was true what they’d told him when he had been called to the Bar: there was always someone willing to help you out, someone who had met this problem before. This man, in his mid-fifties, had probably seen more criminals, encountered more variations of human mendacity, than an entire rural police force.

‘That’s the charge, yes,’ Savendra agreed. ‘And in my view, he probably did it.’

‘The court’s not interested in your view, old boy, you know that. The questions you have to ask yourself are, one, have you coached him to tell a lie?’

‘No. Definitely not.’

‘Fine. Good lad. Then, two: has he ever admitted to you that he killed the girl?’

‘No, again.’

‘All right, and finally, three: now that you know he drugged her, does that make the story he intends to tell the court impossible, or just unlikely?’

Savendra hesitated. ‘Well, unlikely, I suppose. I mean, given what I’ve seen of how he behaves, I think he’s still lying ...’

‘That’s not my question.’

‘Yes, I know. But if you say, is it possible that she woke up in the bath in a dazed stupor, was overcome by shame at what had been done to her, got out of the bath, ran into the kitchen  for a knife, came back and cut her wrists, then I don’t know ... I suppose it’s remotely possible. But that still makes him morally guilty, doesn’t it?’

‘Not your problem. If it’s possible his story is true, then you can still defend him.’

‘But if the police knew what I know ...’

‘It’s their job to find things out, my boy, not yours to tell them. However unpleasant it may sometimes be, our duty is to defend the client, not help the police.’

‘So this isn’t improper conduct, if I continue to defend him?’

‘Not if it’s the way you’ve described it to me, no.
You’re
not lying,
he
is. So long as he maintains his innocence of the main charge, and you haven’t coached him in a lie, you’re in the clear. It’s the prosecution’s job to expose him, not yours. Who’s against you, anyway?’

‘Sarah Newby.’

‘Ah.’  A fruity laugh gurgled down the phone. ‘The vixen who saved her cub, eh? Well, there you are then! If you really want to help your client, I’d buy him a pair of metal underpants. Otherwise he might lose something important.’

Had Savendra known it, it was not David Kidd but Bob Newby who was being savaged by Sarah just then. The argument had begun with her attempt to re-open the discussion about moving house, an attempt which had been rebuffed by Bob on the grounds that he had an important application form to fill in. It annoyed her. She had already been let down by one man she trusted today; she didn’t want it to happen again. But when she came down from the shower she found Bob chatting amiably on his mobile phone, the application form pushed to one side. As she entered the room he clicked the phone shut.

‘Who was that?’ she asked, crossing the room to pour herself a drink.

‘Stephanie, again,’ he answered gruffly, as though the call, or her question - which? - had annoyed him somehow. Stephanie was his new school secretary, a childless divorcee in her late twenties. ‘She works hard, that woman.’

‘You seemed to be getting on all right.’

‘What? Yes, she’s easy to talk to.’ Bob pulled the application form towards him.

‘Not just talking, Bob. You were having a good laugh.’

‘Yes, well, perhaps we were.’ Bob picked up his pen, sighed, and put it down. ‘It’s good to laugh, once in a while.’

‘Depends who you’re laughing with,’ said Sarah dangerously, perching on the edge of an armchair. She sipped her whisky, a drink she indulged in occasionally when her emotions were raw. ‘This woman seems to ring you at all hours of the day and night.’

‘She’s efficient, that’s all. We’ve got a lot of things on this term. She takes work home just like I do.’

‘Mrs Daggett didn’t do that.’

‘No, well, people are different.’

‘Mm.’ Sarah stared at her husband coolly. Mrs Daggett, a comfortable grandmother in her sixties, had recently retired after twenty years service at Bob’s school. She’d been quiet, efficient, and friendly. Sarah, no great shakes as a cook, had baked an embarrassingly amateurish cake for her retirement party, which had been attended by a surprisingly large number of parents, some of whom had been pupils at the school when Mrs Daggett was young. Sarah had never felt the slightest qualms about entrusting her husband to that woman’s care, and so far as she knew the school had run smoothly with only a couple of phone calls to this house each term.

Now, it seemed, there were two or three each day - some, like this, in the evening, others in the morning while they were having breakfast or even at weekends. Bob, having recently discovered how to text on his mobile, did that frequently too, though seldom to Sarah. She had met this Stephanie once at a dinner party in this very same room, to welcome her to her new job, and had not particularly warmed to her. She was young - no more than 28, Sarah guessed - blonde, taller than Sarah, with a slender, bony figure like a model, and liking for striking, ethnic jewellery. It was true that she laughed, loudly enough, and had a fund of amusing stories, many of them quite risqué, but she gave most of her attention to men rather than women.

Certainly not to me, anyway, Sarah thought, recalling the occasion with distaste. I welcomed her into my home but her eyes kept sliding away from me as though I wasn’t really there. At the time she’d put it down to shyness or nerves; after all, she was the headmaster’s wife and a criminal barrister too, and people could be intimidated by that; but curiously, this shyness didn’t seem to extend to her husband. Not if she could gaily ring his mobile at - what time was it now? - nine thirty in the evening for a jolly chat.

‘What did she actually ring about?’ Sarah asked coolly.

‘What?’ Bob shook his head distractedly. ‘Oh, just some assessment forms we have to fill in. You know, we get so much paperwork nowadays from the government.’

‘Couldn’t it wait till tomorrow?’

‘I told you, she takes work home. What is this, Sarah, are you jealous or something?’

‘Should I be?’

The slight, infinitesimal pause before his denial set alarm bells screaming in Sarah’s brain. She knew her husband well enough, after eighteen years, to recognise most of his moods, his thoughts, his responses. This one, a tiny hesitation before the correct words were chosen, was one she had never seen before. Not at home, anyway; she had seen it a dozen times on the witness stand and knew exactly how to deal with it there. But here - in her own home?

‘Of course not. Sarah, she’s my secretary, that’s all there is to it.’

‘A secretary who rings you at home.’

‘Yes. I’ve explained that already. It’s work.’

‘Was it work the other night when you took her out for a drink after the parents’ evening and didn’t come home till - when was it? - twelve!’

‘It’s not late, twelve, Sarah. A group of us went out for a drink. It’s quite a strain for teachers, you know, parents’ evening. It’s good to let your hair down afterwards.’

‘And Stephanie came too?’

‘Yes, Stephanie came too. For goodness’ sake, why not? She was there all evening, making things run smoothly - better than ever, as a matter of fact. It’s a new system she’s set up.’

‘Did all the teachers stay out until twelve?’

‘Some of them, yes.’

‘Who?’

‘Well, Paul, Melanie, they’re ...’

‘Having an affair, yes, you told me. Anyone else?’

Again, the awkward pause that gave the answer.

‘Did Stephanie stay?’

Bob sighed, sat back in his chair. ‘As a matter of fact, yes. We had a few drinks, I drove her home. But that’s all it was, Sarah, an evening in a pub. Nothing else.’

Their eyes met. Sarah sipped her whisky, using the scalding warmth to anaesthetise the sudden harsh pain in her chest, the rage in her mind. She imagined the woman’s brassy laugh in the car - their car - and the look on Bob’s face outside her house. The thoughts in his mind.

‘Is that all you wanted it to be?’

Bob shook his head, feigning ignorance of her meaning. ‘Yes, of course. What else?’

‘Don’t pretend to me, Bob. You know very well what else!’

‘If you’re saying did she invite me in, then no, she didn’t. Listen, Sarah ...’

‘Would you have liked her to?’

‘Would I ...? Look, I’ve had enough of this, I’m going to bed. She’s my secretary, she came out for a drink with the rest of the staff, I drove her home. End of story, all right? All the rest is in your imagination, nowhere else.’

‘And yours, Bob.’

‘What? Oh, come on now, Sarah, drop this before it gets any worse. Nothing happened, okay?’

‘Not then, no. But you want it to, don’t you, Bob? And so does she. That’s what all these phone calls and meetings and text messages are all about. It’s not work, it’s flirting, that’s what it is. You fancy that woman, and one day soon, if you’ve got the guts, you’ll do what you’ve been fantasizing about all this time. Well I hope she likes it, that’s all! Better than I do!’

‘What? What are you talking about now?’

What indeed, Sarah thought, struggling to rein in her galloping anger. You don’t say things like this to your husband, but I don’t care, he deserves it, the bastard, no one treats me like this.

‘Sex, Bob, what do you think? Look, it was fine between us when we were young but it hasn’t really happened for years, has it? Certainly not since Simon’s trial. It’s not really your thing.
You
know that and
I
know that and poor little Stephanie is about to find out too, if you ever get inside her door. It won’t be any better, Bob. It’ll just ruin our marriage to no purpose.’

Now what have I done, Sarah thought, seeing his appalled face. ‘Look, I didn’t marry you for sex, Bob, which is all you can offer her. I married you for friendship, and kindness, and loyalty, and that’s still what I need. But we’ve lost it somehow, and you can’t give it to Stephanie because that’s not what she’s looking for, she’s divorced already. And even if she was looking for kindness and loyalty she’s not going to find it with you, is she - because she’ll know, right from the start, that you’ve been disloyal to me.’

Bob sat stunned, unable to speak. Sarah stared at him for a long moment, aware suddenly of Emily moving around somewhere upstairs. I’ve broken something that can’t be mended, she thought. Not now, maybe not ever. She finished her whisky and stood up.

‘She just wants you for a laugh, Bob, that’s all. And that’s what you’ll be. Fine, if that’s what you want.’

Upstairs, she took her nightdress into the spare bedroom, and locked the door.

26. Cross examination

David Kidd, Savendra had to admit, had taken care with his appearance. He wore a clean suit, white shirt and sober dark blue tie. He took the oath in a clear, respectful voice. Savendra began with the most fundamental question of all.

‘Mr Kidd, you are charged with the murder of Shelley Walters. Did you kill her?’

‘No sir, I did not.’

That’s clear, at least, Savendra thought. Start with a lie and keep going. He glanced up at the public gallery, where his prospective father-in-law sat with Belinda. Michael James was a self-made businessman with strong views about lawyers. In the restaurant last night he had reiterated his view that murderers should be hanged, and that lawyers who defended criminals they knew to be guilty should be set to clean toilets for a living instead. Savendra’s protests that everyone was entitled to a proper defence had been brushed aside. It had been a lively meal, made worse by the fact that Belinda had decided to goose him with her foot under the table. Now she smiled at him from the gallery.

‘Very well. Perhaps you could tell the court how you first met Miss Walters, and describe your relationship with her.’

As David answered, Sarah studied him closely. She was surprised how cool he seemed, unfazed by the eyes watching him, relishing the attention almost. He acted the part of a man trying to clear up a dreadful misunderstanding. He even managed regret. He’d loved Shelley, he said, and was sorry his fling with his old girlfriend had caused her pain, but it had meant nothing. Shelley had a volatile personality and was often depressed. She’d spoken of suicide once or twice but never, he thought, meant it seriously. Nonetheless he knew she was feeling low, and had booked a holiday in Kenya to cheer her up.

It was a convincing performance if you believed it, nauseating if you did not. Several jurors nodded sympathetically. But what surprised Sarah was the way Savendra was conducting the examination. The questions were fine, but his body language suggested that his heart wasn’t in it. As Sarah watched, she recalled the scene in her office last night. He doesn’t believe it! she thought with delight. He thinks the bastard’s guilty and is just going through the motions.

David described how he’d found Shelley’s message on his answerphone that afternoon, and begun to prepare a meal. He admitted that they had argued when she arrived, but there’d been no violence, and eventually she had calmed down.

‘And what happened next?’ Savendra asked, dully.

David smiled, at a pleasant memory. ‘Well, we had a glass of wine together.’

Silence. Not a long silence - ten or fifteen seconds, perhaps - but it was long enough for the judge to look up quizzically at Savendra. Why has he paused, Sarah wondered?

‘A glass of wine, you say. And then?’

‘Well, er ...we took our clothes off and made love.’ David turned to face the jury. ‘It was brilliant, a reconciliation really. It showed she’d forgiven me, you see. At least that’s what I thought. She must have been more depressed than I realised, poor kid.’

Savendra sighed. It was the sort of sigh often used deliberately when cross-examining a hostile witness: one of the standard repertory of tricks that barristers employ to indicate that they don’t believe a word that’s being said - like never meeting the witness’s eyes, or throwing down your notes in disgust. But this is his own client, Sarah thought. Savendra, perhaps unconsciously, was indicating that there was something wrong here, with this particular piece of evidence. But what was it?

‘After you had made love, what happened then?’

‘She got into the bath, and I went into the kitchen to finish the meal. Then I realised I’d run out of olive oil so I went out to buy some more.’

‘And Shelley was still in the bath when you left, was she? Alive and well?’

‘Yes, fine.’ As Sarah had expected, David exaggerated the time he’d been away: the shop was at least two minutes’ walk from the flat, he said, and he’d been there ten minutes, maybe more. Then he’d spoken to the priest for a couple of minutes, so he might have been away for fifteen or twenty minutes altogether. All of which, if true, virtually destroyed the possibility that he could have cut Shelley’s wrists before he went out, and found her still alive when he returned. It was the defence’s key point, and Savendra brought it out clearly.

When David described his shock on discovering Shelley drowning in a bath full of her own blood, even Sarah was impressed. The jury certainly were. His voice broke, and the horror of the scene came before everyone’s eyes. So he’s an actor, Sarah thought. No surprise there. After all, if he did it, he would have seen all this for real, so he was only changing the story a little, not making it all up.

‘All right. One more question, Mr Kidd. The pathologist found a number of subcutaneous bruises around Shelley’s head and neck. Do you have any idea what caused them?’

‘I don’t know. I never tried to hurt her,’ David answered earnestly. ‘But I did have to hold her head tight when she was in the bath, so I could breathe into her mouth like the lady told me on the phone. I mean I was in a panic, she was slipping under water all the time, so maybe I held her tighter than I should. I was trying to save her, for Christ’s sake!’

‘And then you rang 999 to call an ambulance?’

‘Yes, exactly. Why would I have done that if I’d wanted to kill her?’

It was a key question, Sarah knew. Several jurors nodded wisely.

‘All right, Mr Kidd. Wait there please.’

As Savendra sat down, Sarah stood, her hands trembling slightly with the surge of adrenalin. But her voice, as usual, was calm, husky, controlled. This is where my aggression belongs, she told herself. Not savaging my husband, as I did last night. She’d woken this morning wondering where that outburst had come from, and what, if anything, she could do to repair it. But Bob had left for work early, and here she was, in a theatre where such cruelty was licensed in the interests of justice.

‘Do you feel any guilt for Shelley’s death, David?’ she began sweetly.

‘What? Well no, not really. Why should I? I didn’t kill her.’

‘Nonetheless, according to your story you quarrelled violently, had sex with her, and then she committed suicide. I just wondered if that made you feel guilty.’

‘She didn’t kill herself because of me. She did it because she was depressed, because her parents were putting so much pressure on her. They wanted her to leave me.’

‘I see. So your girlfriend died in your bath, but you don’t feel guilty at all. It’s useful to establish that point.’ Sarah glanced at the jury, hoping they would feel as contemptuous as she did. ‘Let’s look at some of the details surrounding her death, shall we? The bag in her bedroom, first. How did that get there?’

‘Shelley brought it with her. To collect her things.’

‘Oh, really? When the police first asked you about this you said she brought it to stay the night. So you lied to the police about that, didn’t you?’

‘I didn’t lie, no. I didn’t think about her bag, it wasn’t important.’

‘Not to you, perhaps, but it was to Shelley. That’s why she came. All right, let’s move on to another detail. This quarrel you had with Shelley. It was a loud violent quarrel, wasn’t it? So loud and violent that Canon Rowlands heard it and thought Shelley was in danger. Yet you told the police it was ‘a friendly chat.’ That was another lie, wasn’t it, David?’

‘No. We did have a friendly chat, later. I was talking about that, not the row.’

‘Yet the detective asked you quite specifically, didn’t he?’ Sarah consulted her notes. ‘‘Did you shout at her,’ he says. And you answer: ‘No, of course I didn’t. Why would I?’ That was a lie, wasn’t it, David?’

‘Okay, I may have lied about that, but not about the other things.’

‘Oh really? What about the fact that you had sex, then? Why didn’t you tell the police about that in your first interview?’

‘Well, it was personal, wasn’t it? Private, between me and Shelley. It was nothing to do with them.’

‘So you lied about it?’

‘Not lie, no. I just didn’t mention it.’ David’s expression, she was pleased to see, was dismissive, truculent, as though he could scarcely be bothered to answer. Such insolence suited her fine. The more surly he appeared, the more likely he was to be convicted.

‘I see, so when you told the police: ‘She said she needed to relax, so she’d have a bath while I did the cooking’ that wasn’t a lie, then? Or does ‘relax’ in your vocabulary mean ‘we had sex together?’’

‘No, of course not. I was just ... protecting our privacy.’

‘Oh. You’re a modest man about sexual matters, are you, David?’

‘Well, sometimes. I mean, I didn’t want to embarrass Shelley - her memory, I mean ...’

Sarah looked away, refusing eye contact or any hint of sympathy. It was a way of needling a defendant without being openly rude, letting the jury see that his answers were treated with contempt. ‘Were you worried about embarrassing Shelley, when she found you in bed with another girl making a porn video?’

‘That was different! She wasn’t supposed to see that!’

‘No, but she did. And she was pretty angry about it, too, wasn’t she? She smashed your girlfriend’s camera. Did that annoy you?’

‘Not really, no. It wasn’t my camera.’

‘Did you think it was funny, perhaps?’

‘Well, it had its funny side at the time, yeah. Not for Shelley, of course.’

‘Not for Shelley. She saw her boyfriend in bed with another girl, laughing at her, it seems. So when she came back to your flat a week later, what was this violent quarrel about, exactly?’

‘I was asking her to stay. I loved her.’

‘Oh really. And would Shelley say the same, if she was here to tell her side of the story?’

‘Of course she would, yeah.’

‘I see. That’s the problem the jury has, you see. You can stand there and tell lies all day, but Shelley can’t tell us the true story, because she’s dead.’

‘I’m not lying. I’m telling the truth.’

‘Well, let’s talk about another detail, shall we? The knife DI Bateson found on the bathroom floor. He asked you whether you’d touched it, and you said no. Yet there’s only one set of fingerprints on that knife, David. Yours. Not Shelley’s.’

‘Yes, well I meant I didn’t touch it in the bathroom. Of course I’d been using it before, to cut vegetables. That’s why my fingerprints were there.’

‘So you didn’t carry it into the bathroom?’

‘No.’

‘Very well. The jury may think that’s another lie. How many is it now? Four? Five? Let’s try another detail, shall we? The bruises on Shelley’s neck. You claim they were caused when you tried to give her the kiss of life, in the bath.’

‘Yes, well, that’s all I can think of. They must have been caused like that.’

‘Exactly. It’s all you can think of. But what would Shelley say if she was here, David? Would she agree? Or would she say, no, he’s lying again. He didn’t try to save me, he held my head underwater. That’s how I got the bruises. He was trying to drown me.’

‘No. I didn’t do that.’

‘Didn’t you, David? But how are we to believe you, when you’ve lied so many times already? Let’s take another point, shall we? Canon Rowlands saw you outside your front door, apparently listening for something inside the flat. What were you listening for?’

‘I wasn’t. He’s lying, I was just looking for my keys.’

‘Oh,
he’s
lying now, is he? A man of the church. Not you?’

‘Yeah, well. I mean he’s mistaken. I wasn’t doing that.’

‘You weren’t listening to check whether Shelley was dead before you went back in and pretended to give her the flowers you’d bought?’

‘No. How could I anyway? There were all those bells.’

‘All right. So after all this time we’ve got - how many lies? Five, six, seven? I’ve lost count. Each time you say you’re telling the truth, and it’s other people - the priest, the police, Shelley’s friend Sandy - they’re all either lying or mistaken, according to you. Yet when we look at things in detail we find that you have lied again and again. You do know what the truth is, do you, David?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘All right. Well let me tell you what I think the truth is in this case. You’re a man who likes to control women, aren’t you, David? That’s what attracted you to Shelley Walters. She was younger than you, she was naive and vulnerable and she needed someone older to rely on. But in order to get her under your control you had to get her away from her mother and her university, both of which you saw as threats. So you tried to persuade her to give up everything of value in her life: her family, who loved her, and her university, which gave her the chance of an independent career.’

‘They pushed her into it. She hated the uni. It was driving her crazy!’

‘So you say. But that’s not what Shelley’s friend or her tutor say, is it? And Shelley can’t answer for herself. Your plan was to make her totally dependent on you, wasn’t it? With no family or career to fall back on.’

‘You’re twisting things. I told her, I wanted the best for her.’

‘And she believed that, did she?’