Simon Tolkien - Final Witness

“You need to surrender to custody. It’s the rules.”

“But haven’t I just done so?”

“No, I’ve got to search you. Check your bag.”

“Oh, all right,” said Greta, offering her handbag up for inspection.

But this wasn’t enough.

“It’s through here,” said the woman, touching Greta’s arm this time as she guided her through a door in the side of the dock out into a small holding area. The once white walls were covered with obscene words and pictures drawn by rapists and murderers raging against their fate. Greta thought how strange it was that such a place should exist within a few yards of the judge, sitting in all his pomp and glory. But neither the graffiti nor the stale smell of urine emanating from a lavatory cubicle with a seatless toilet in the corner really bothered Greta. She’d seen worse.

It was the staircase in the far corner that sent a shiver down her spine. She couldn’t see more than the first three steps from where she stood near the door to the court, but it was enough to know that they went down and not up. Down to the cells below, from which there would be no escape. One word, one little word from the jury, and she’d be stumbling down those stairs with guards holding her elbows. Greta felt that it was like having the chance to see the scene of one’s own death before it happened. She was suddenly gripped by a wave of nausea and sat down on the bench that ran the length of the room as if she’d just been punched.

“Come on now,” said the security woman with a note of irritation creeping into her voice. “You can sit on your arse in court all day. But right now I need to search you. It’s the rules.”

Greta held herself rigid while the woman’s hands patted down her body. Shoulders, breasts, stomach, thighs; with each touch Greta felt herself being claimed by a system that was too big for her. Too impersonal. She kept her eyes fixed on the whitewashed ceiling until the search was over, never allowing her gaze to stray for a moment to the staircase in the corner.

“All right, you’re fine,” said the woman, holding open the door to the dock.

Back in the courtroom, Greta breathed deeply. She took out her handkerchief and held it to her nose. The fragrant Chanel perfume allowed her to imagine the cool interior of the drawing room at home. The chandeliers and the rich hangings. With an intense effort of will she forced the holding room and the descending staircase out of her consciousness. Then, opening her eyes, she ran her hands through her perfectly layered black hair and settled back into her chair as she began to take in her surroundings.

The reporters had gone back to talking amongst themselves, and in front of her the barristers were unpacking heavy files and law books onto the long tables at which they worked. To Miles’s left a tall, distinguished-looking man in wig and gown was listening to the police officer, Detective Sergeant Hearns.

They made a strange pair, thought Greta. Hearns in his ill-fitting suit and kipper tie standing almost on tiptoe to whisper what he wanted to say to the barrister, who leaned slightly to his left, allowing Greta to see his profile: the long, thin face and the aquiline nose. This must be the man that Miles had told her about, John Sparling, counsel for the prosecution.

As usual Hearns was waving his crude, stubby-fingered hands about for emphasis. Greta remembered this irritating habit from the interview that she had had to undergo with him before she was charged.

“I put it to you, madam, that you’re the brains behind this conspiracy,” he had said then.

“The eminence grise, Mr. Hearns?” Greta had asked, resorting at last to sarcasm.

“Don’t bandy foreign words with me, madam,” he’d countered. He had always addressed her as madam; never Greta or Miss Grahame. Perhaps that was something they’d taught him at the training college. Interrogation techniques for aspiring detectives.

“This is a very serious allegation, madam. A lady is dead and I’m putting it to you that you’re responsible.”

“And I’m putting it to you that you’ve been reading too many detective stories.”

And so it had gone on. Hour after hour in the dingy police station in Ipswich. At least she wouldn’t have to hear all the interviews played back. Miles had managed to agree with the prosecution that a summary would be read to the jury at the end of their case.

Greta pulled her mind back to the present. Hearns had finished putting whatever he had to put to Sparling, and as the lawyer turned back to his papers, his eyes met Greta’s for a moment. She could not read his expression. It was distant but knowing, cool but penetrative. She shivered.

A loud knocking on a closed door to the right of the judge’s chair brought everyone in the court to their feet. Immediately the door opened and His Honor Judge Granger swept in, preceded by the court usher. He was an old man with only a year or two left before his retirement, and yet he carried himself ramrod straight. His threadbare wig was perched forward on his head above a pair of bushy eyebrows. His face was very lined and his cheeks were sunken, but his bright gray eyes told a different story. They seemed as if they belonged to a much younger man as they darted around the room taking in everybody and everything before he gathered his black robes about him and sat down heavily in his high-backed chair. There was a shuffling and scraping as everyone else in the courtroom including Greta followed suit, but she was only allowed to remain seated for a moment.

The clerk of the court, dressed also in wig and gown, rose to his feet.

“The defendant will stand.”

Greta did so.

“Are you Lady Greta Robinson?”

“I am.”

Greta tried to keep her voice up, but the words that came from her lips sounded small and distant. Not how she wanted them to sound at all. She needed to remember what her elocution teacher had taught her before she came south. “Projection,” it was called. She hadn’t worked as hard on that part of the course, as her attention had been focused on changing her accent — losing the thick northern vowels and replacing them with the long a’s and o’s of the British ruling class.

The judge had heard her answer, at any rate. He treated her to a half smile and gestured downward with his hands.

“Sit down, Lady Robinson. Sit down.” His voice was surprisingly high, and its almost feminine tone was accentuated by the courtesy with which he always spoke. Loudness and rudeness formed no part of Judge Granger’s judicial vocabulary.

“Now, Mr. Sparling.”

The counsel for the prosecution got slowly to his feet. “Yes, my Lord.”

“What about bail?”

“There are conditions of residence and reporting, my Lord.”

“Reporting, Mr. Sparling?”

“Yes. On Wednesdays and Saturdays to Chelsea Police Station.”

“Well, I don’t think we need persist with that now that the trial is under way. Residence should be quite sufficient.”

“Very well, my Lord.”

“Now, there is one other matter that I want to raise with you both at this stage, gentlemen. I’ve been looking at these photographs.”

“Of the house, my Lord?” asked Sparling. “Or the victim?”

“Of the victim. There are five, I believe. Showing these very dreadful wounds. Now, I can’t see any need for them to be shown to Lady Anne’s son. The medical evidence is agreed as I understand it. Death occurred as a result of two gunshot wounds to the shoulder and the head, with the second shot being fired at close range.”

“That is correct, my Lord,” said Sparling. “The photographs will be given to the jury during my opening statement this morning, but the Crown will not show them to Thomas Robinson, who will by agreement be giving evidence last.”