Trial by Fire (15 page)

`Can't open the bag before we go in court, miss,' the policeman said. 'Funny though, innit?'

`Yes,' Helen agreed thoughtfully. Very. Why on earth would William take these things? And later, at the very end of the session, with sulky, scratching, sadly unaccompanied William in the dock, unimpressed by the bulky presence of Harmoner, the worthy magistrates asked the same question.

The chairman of the bench, a local shopkeeper himself, had arranged the objects before him. 'I know he's pleaded guilty, but can your client tell us, Mr Harmony, why he took these, er, particular things?'

If he could, he wouldn't. William shrugged and, from the height of the dock, looked with regret at the display on the clerk's desk. There were four sets of earrings, mock diamond in green and white; three sets of very silvery bangles fit for a flamboyant slave girl; two sets of hair clips with silver and glittery buckles; two bright clip-on bows for shoes; and a necklace of shimmering paste. The collection sparkled in cheap harmony, reflecting the taste of someone addicted to Dynasty and young enough to mistake sparkle for sophistication. So: William Featherstone, a kind of human magpie drawn by anything brighter than his eyes, liked these pretty things.

`Got a girlfriend, have you?' barked the magistrate, profoundly suspicious of any other tendency this frivolous selection might imply. Helen looked at the pathetic collection with sadness, the sunshine of her weekend draining away. He had stolen the illicit fodder of dreams, poor child. Oh, yes, he could be cured by more pocket money or punishment or blows, like hell he could. Poor William. Stop dreaming, boy, it's illegal to dream with your hands. Goods and dreams, they have to be bought.

At the mention of the word 'girlfriend', William went into spasm, a stiffening of the body and such violent shaking of the head he looked about to lose it. He sat down — was pushed down, since he did not respond to orders — still indicating his negative while Harmoner preached mitigation.

Helen was relieved to see that William seemed preoccupied beyond listening, since like many of Harmoner's speeches on mitigation, this one sounded like a paean of insults:

'Poor child, not very bright, unfit for employment, unfit for anything. No parents here today, because he did not tell them the date, or if he did, they chose to forget. Lives in a dream world. Not much use to anyone, spends his days exploring on buses, he says. Should be given more pocket money, therefore less temptation to steal. Says he definitely won't do it again and is very sorry.'

More pocket money, simplistic solutions for incurable conditions, a pat on the head for insurmountable problems accumulating over a small lifetime of not quite wilful neglect.

Helen liked the eccentric Featherstones — she never criticized parental inadequacy, for lack of qualification — accepted the fact that William, like any thief, had to sit where he was, slumped as he was, beyond redemption by something as clumsy as the establishment, but for a moment she detested the ignorance that had put him there.

William would have needed to be born beautiful to gain forgiveness at this point in his life, but his crumpled face was not beautiful. He was fined twenty pounds, repayable at two per week; handouts would certainly have to be increased. Law was law to be upheld; Helen believed in it, but in William's case, had the feeling it made no impact whatever. He was hereby made a thief before he knew what thieving really was.

Court emptied for lunch; William was gone in a flash. Yesterday in a relaxed moment of communication, Bailey had told her about the fires and William's possible involvement; she regretted the knowledge, hoped that questions on the subject could be postponed even while she watched Amanda Scott follow William from the room. She thought, What a close creature, Bailey, looking at everything. I'm sure that boy doesn't start fires; he hasn't the sense, and he has no resentment at all. Unless there's a connection between a liking for glitter and a penchant for flames.

Why not?

What's happened to you these days, my love? You're turning savage with suspicion, or maybe I never appreciated what it was like to live with a copper, especially a good copper like you. No good being resentful: you've a closer acquaintance with human folly than I.

You're a graduate; I'm a student. She had thought it through a hundred times, not blaming Bailey, only the perceptions that made them different and him a stranger all over again.

`Ha! Miss West! Our delightful prosecutor for the day. Nice to see you. Nice of you to put your facts so fairly if I may say so. How you manage so many cases with such elegant economy . .

Bit over the top, thought Helen. Harmoner, with his heavy bonhomie, chose this time to embrace her after eight months of rather more suspicious acquaintance. Woodford and Branston were almost country; they were certainly not town, where professional friendships developed perforce at greater speed, where trust or its opposite were bestowed in a glance, since you might never have seen that opponent before. She appreciated Harmoner's ponderous expertise and lack of dirty tricks, but could have postponed closer knowledge indefinitely. On the other hand, he appeared to have decided all of a sudden that she was good enough for membership of his club, which was not a club at all, simply the local fraternity of those thoroughly committed to their lifestyles.

`We're neighbours, I understand,' he continued with weighty familiarity, standing very close. 'My wife and I should see more of you. Marvellous place, Branston, don't you think?

Do you ever have a drink at The Coach? You should come to the Rotary Club . . . Sometimes a few of us get together; you know, good for business all round. Must get you involved more,'

he boomed. `Haven't made you feel at home, have we? Must do better. Jolly good. Lunch, eh?'

`Very kind,' said Helen, smiling convincingly. 'But I must go back to the office. You know how it is. But tell me' — seizing the opportunity suddenly with Redwood in mind —

'are you doing the Sumner committal here tomorrow or are you using counsel?'

Ì'll do it myself. Why use a barrister?'

She replied diplomatically, 'Why indeed? You'll do far better. I'm not involved, of course, but you won't mind if I watch?' Best to secure some kind of permission, however worthless.

`My pleasure. Nice of you to ask.' He beamed, taking her interest in his case as a personal compliment. 'And after that, we'll arrange something for you and your husband in Branston.'

He would know very well that Bailey was not her husband in the strict sense: Harmoner knew everything, and used the word as a token of forgiveness. 'Look forward to seeing you.'

Not if I see you first. Waving goodbye, watching him watch her make for the oldest car in the park. Nothing personal, dear Mr Harmoner, but the idea of involvement in Branston's social life makes me itch. Rural pursuits means clubs, committee meetings at the church, maybe. God forbid, wine and cheese parties, coffee mornings, and almost certainly dinner parties to show off the wonders of your house. Not likely. She had many acquaintances, few friends, but such as there were provoking passionate loyalty and the desire to entertain in the full knowledge of their tolerance of burned food. The same was true of Bailey: they lacked the herd instinct.

She swore to herself. Guilty side up today: first William Featherstone, and then this wild resentment when some half-kindhearted soul tried to bully her into joining his club. Was she a self-protective freak or simply unclubbable, revelling in anonymity, missing her own city? Helen had a sudden and sharp yearning to escape, forgot the weekend's freedoms, wanted out and home to London, planned it quickly and furiously as she drove to the modern old-style house she could not call home.

Later this week I'm off, not for good, mind, but off to the smoke for a day out. With or without you, Bailey, I'm going home. After I've had a look in court at the evidence you've gathered. Then I'll certainly need to escape for a bit.

She did not know why she wanted to watch the committal, but the desire to do so had been strong from the beginning, growing in proportion to Bailey's reticence on the whole subject of the murder and escalating sharply after she had seen the evidence. She could not remember when this current cycle of silence and countersilence had begun to feed her professional curiosity. Perhaps her own action in recommending a solicitor for Sumner had made Bailey distrust her, but she doubted it; he was far too fair for that.

Somewhere along the line, his own doubt had touched him with obdurate reserve, had filled her with angry questions, and she was going to watch these preliminary proceedings to see the evidence in focus. Besides, she would one day return to the prosecution of murder and mayhem, and in case that day was far off, she was not going to lose her knowledge or any opportunity to test her judgement in the meantime.

She was better acquainted with the facts than other watchers at the back of another court in the same dreadful building, ghouls drawn by stories of blood, a local murder from a few miles down the road: would you believe we picnicked there once? Helen did not misunderstand the interest as she saw the ravens and the pressmen gather, felt it herself, this indignant, not always pleasant curiosity following violent death. Respectable blood, not a vendetta knife in the ribs or a drunken brawl resulting in death or domestic fury run riot with kitchen tools, all close enough to London to make them ten a penny.

This was
crime passionnel
, illicit passion at that. That her own interest was less prurient did not stop Helen from feeling relieved by Bailey's absence from the court. She knew he was allowing Amanda Scott to assume the role of managing officer for the day, had come to consider he was bored with the whole thing and slightly ashamed of it. A purely academic worry was running riot on this score: she had seen before the catastrophic effect on a case of an officer who had simply lost interest.

Murder deserved better.

Notebook in hand, making herself insignificant in the corner by the door in case Redwood should turn in his opening speech and include them all in his wide-angled view. She was not attempting to hide, but she felt like a trespasser and knew that was exactly how both he and Bailey might regard her presence. Spying on Bailey's handiwork, looking for some clue to his view of the world, seeking a perspective to show Sumner was innocent because she preferred to think that he was. They might have perceived it that way. Helen saw it as keeping her hand in.

Evidence recited out loud — marshalled into order, read like a story illustrated by faces and presented in court — was a different matter from evidence read in a book. To a casual reader it was not the same book; the overtones were familiar, but the style was different: level voices and the occasional inflection of emphasis or surprise, made as undramatic as possible — no emotion, gentlemen, please — by this quiet courtroom and these calm adversaries who brought it alive at the same time with their grave and silly gestures.

My learned friend insists. I beg to differ. If my learned friend wishes, he may interrupt, but with all respect to my colleague for the defence, this is the way it is, brother.

You might have the last speech, but I have the first. One defendant in dock, stripped of authority, almost of humanity, guarded on either side against escape. Poor frustrated Sumner.

Bet he wished he never set eyes on womankind. Helen still could not see the murderer in him; could see no capacity for deadly violence in those thin shoulders even while she knew that that potential lurked in almost every soul alive.

She watched Christine Summerfield sitting two rows ahead of her, wished she was close enough to touch, even offer the comfort she knew would be rejected. All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. Act One, curtain up, amateur thespians delivering expressionless lines, preliminary to final conclusion: sentence to death — sorry, life. Curtain down weeks or months hence. That was exactly what it looked like. Idly she drew her small pad towards her, pencilled a rough sketch of Harmoner and next to it, a cartoon of a guinea pig in a suit.

She knew by experience and instinct that the issues would be all about that knife.

While she listened, she sketched, ever so economically, figures for the voices she heard.

Come on, Dr Vanguard, I have had you described to me and we have met before. Do your stuff and tell us what you found. The doctor sounded shambly and tweedy with a compost-rich voice. Helen drew him as a gardener.

`The body was found in a small clearing among shrubs,' Vanguard said. 'There had been partial clearance of the soil before my arrival, revealing part of the head, shoulder, and right arm. The right hand had been eaten by predators and the head was infested with maggots, which appeared to be at the first stage, first instar. I proceeded to dig the body out of the ground, collecting soil samples in the process.

My external examination revealed a well-nourished woman, five feet four inches in height. The face was not identifiable because of decomposition. In the area of the neck there were two stab wounds on the left side. The top wound was one and a half inches, a lateral wound and the larger of the two, while the wound beneath was one inch, just above the thoracic inlet. On removal of the hair it was noted that there was discoloration beneath the front hairline with extensive bruising. There was also a laceration of the skin at the same point. There was similar impact bruising on the left shoulder . .

And so on. Blows to head and shoulder with a blunt instrument, but the cause of death was the stab wounds to the neck. So far so good: ponderous, mildly said, and dreadful. Then the questions.

Harmoner lumbered to his feet to cross-examine. 'You say, Dr Vanguard, that the stab wounds on the deceased were compatible with having been caused by a single-edge weapon, such as a knife? Indeed. Not the same weapon, if weapon it was, which inflicted the bruises and lacerations to the head?'

Ì don't know. He could have used the knife handle as a club, I suppose, but the head injuries were blows, not cuts. There is a very obvious difference, you see.'