MURDER BRIEF (15 page)

"Umm, no."

"And after he changed his story,
and said he was at your house, you declined a police request for an
interview, didn’t you?"

"Ah, yes."

"Why?"

Grimble waved his arm
flippantly. "Oh, I didn’t see much point. I mean, by then they’d
charged Rex with murder and, I suppose, I didn’t want to get
involved."

Mahoney looked contemptuous.
"Didn’t want to get involved, even though your client - your good
friend - had been charged with murder?"

Grimble shrugged. "Maybe I was
wrong. But the police obviously weren’t going to change their
minds, so there was no point talking to them."

"In fact, you and Rex Markham
have concocted this alibi, haven’t you?"

Grimble flushed. "No, certainly
not."

The Pope’s Prosecutor leaned
close to Brian and whispered malevolently: "Time to shake my
sleeve."

Brian felt a tremor of fear.
Mahoney obviously had a nasty surprise in store and there was
nothing Brian could do.

Mahoney turned back towards the
witness. "Alright. You own a mobile phone, don’t you, Mr
Grimble?"

"Yes, of course."

Mahoney picked up his pad and
read from it. "Number 0044 286 787?"

"Could you read that out
again?"

Mahoney repeated the number.

"Yes, that’s it."

"And you used your mobile phone
on the night of the murder, didn’t you?"

Grimble’s face reddened. "Did I?
I can’t recall."

"Yes you did, Mr Grimble.
According to your telephone records, you used it at 8.35pm."

Grimble trembled slightly. "I’ll
take your word for it."

"Yes, and when you used it, you
weren’t at home, were you?"

Brian realized the defence case
was hurtling towards an abyss. Trying to look relaxed, he leaned
towards Robyn and whispered. "Oh, fuck."

Grimble said: "Are you sure? I
think I was."

Mahoney said: "No, Mr Grimble,
you weren’t. I’ll be calling evidence from your telephone company
to show you were nowhere near Watson’s Bay when you made that call.
In fact, you were in the city centre, weren’t you?"

Grimble shifted uncomfortably in
his seat and tugged at his collar. "Umm, no, I was at home."

Mahoney’s voice became shrill.
"I put it to you again: you were in the city centre, weren’t
you?"

"No, I wasn’t."

Brian wanted to put his head in
his hands and scream. Instead, he kept a poker face and doodled on
his pad. Only immense self-control stopped his eyeballs rotating
towards the jury box.

Mahoney said: "Oh, come on, Mr
Grimble. You weren’t at home at 8.35pm when you made that phone
call, were you? So you didn’t have dinner with the accused, did
you?"

Grimble licked quivering lips.
Brian had seen plenty of witnesses crack and Grimble wasn’t far
away.

Grimble’s shoulders slumped and
his voice slurred. "I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s such a long
time ago."

"Oh, so now you’re not sure
whether you dined with Rex Markham that Saturday night?"

Grimble vigorously rubbed his
temples. "I suppose I’m not sure. Maybe I got confused. I don’t
know. It’s such a long time ago."

"So you’re not sure?" Mahoney
insisted.

Looking defeated, Grimble
whispered. "That’s true. I’m not sure. Maybe I had dinner with Rex
on a different night."

Mahoney looked like a tenor
who’d just nailed a couple of High Cs. "In fact, you’ve been lying
to this court, haven’t you?"

"No, I haven’t."

Mahoney screamed triumphantly.
"You’ve been lying?"

Grimble paused for a long time
while the court throbbed with tension. His shoulders slumped again
and he spoke softly. "No, I wasn’t lying. I just got confused,
that’s all. I got confused."

The Mad Monk grinned
ecstatically at the jurors, just in case they didn’t get the
message.

Brian maintained a straight face
while continuing to doodle on his pad, as if he'd never heard such
boring evidence. But he whispered to Robyn. "You can toe-tag this
one. It’s all over."

Fortunately, the judge glanced
at the clock on the wall, which showed 4pm. "I note the time, Mr
Prosecutor. Will you be much longer?"

Mahoney glowed with self-love.
"Probably only another ten or fifteen minutes, your Honour."

"Alright then, I’ll adjourn
until tomorrow morning. You can continue your cross-examination
then."

"Thank you, your Honour."

The judge gave the witness a
lofty stare. "Mr Grimble, you’ll have to return here tomorrow
morning and continue your evidence."

Grimble looked like he’d rather
jump off a cliff, but nodded glumly. "Yes, your Honour."

"Good. And just remember, you
must not discuss your evidence with anyone between now and then.
No-one. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Right. Then, we’ll resume at
ten o’clock tomorrow morning." The judge looked at the jurors.
"Members of the jury, I’ll see you then."

The Court Officer stood and
bellowed: "All rise."

As the judge left the bench,
Robyn leaned close to Brian. "That didn’t go well."

"A fucking disaster."

Grimble left the witness box and
scuttled away, deliberately ignoring the defence team.

Brian turned and looked at the
ashen features of their client. A Sheriff’s Officer pushed Rex
towards the steps leading down to the holding cells.

Brian said: "We’ll see you
downstairs."

Rex nodded mechanically and
disappeared.

Brian turned back to Robyn. "You
know, to win this one, we always needed a big slice of luck. Now we
need an outrageous miracle."

Brian led his junior and
solicitor down to the holding cells, where they found their client
sitting in a small interview room, head in hands, shoulders
quivering.

Brian had kept his emotions in
check. Now he yanked off his horsehair wig and threw it against a
wall. It bounced off and fluttered to the floor like a shot
bird.

He glared at Rex. "Christ. What
the fuck were you thinking when you cooked up that false alibi with
Grimble? What the fuck were you fucking well thinking?"

Rex licked his lips and spoke in
a cracked voice. "I was thinking that I didn’t want to spend the
rest of my life in prison. That’s what I was thinking."

"Well, let me tell you, you’ve
made sure that’s exactly where you’ll reside for many decades to
come. So who came up with the idea? You or Grimble?"

Rex’s shoulders slumped and his
voice was colourless. "I suppose he did. I mean, when the cops
found out I was in Sydney on the night Alice got murdered, he said
I needed an alibi."

"And he offered to give you
one?"

"Yes."

"Jesus. What a pair of
dumbshits. And I suppose Grimble didn’t mention he was cruising
around Sydney that night, squawking on his mobile phone?"

Rex gasped for air. Words
emerged in bunches. "No, he didn’t. But I didn’t kill my wife. I
know I’ve told lies. But I was scared - scared. I didn’t kill
Alice. I didn’t."

"Then what were you doing in
Sydney that night?"

"If you really want to know, I
came up to see a movie."

Brian looked incredulous. "A
movie? By yourself?"

"Yes. Why not? I needed to get
away from the beach-house, so I came up and saw a movie. I could
get back in the witness box and say that."

"Yes, you could. But I’m afraid
nobody will believe you. Not now."

"So you don’t want me to give
any more evidence?"

"No. You’ve given enough."

"Then what are you going to
do?"

"I’m going home to have a couple
of stiff drinks. Maybe after that, I’ll think of something. But I
doubt it."

Bernie interjected. "Maybe Rex
should consider entering a plea of guilty."

Brian said: "Yes, he definitely
should. But there are two problems with entering a plea."

"What?"

"The first is that Rex still
claims he’s innocent. If he wants to plead guilty, he’s got to
instruct us that he is, in fact, guilty." Brian turned to Rex. "You
understand that?"

Rex nodded. "Yes. But I’m not
guilty. I’m not."

"Exactly. The other problem is
that, even if he changes his plea, he won’t get much leniency. He’s
left it too late in the day for that."

Rex’s face sagged. "Oh."

Brian sighed deeply. "You think
about your options overnight and we’ll have a chat in the morning,
OK?"

"OK."

On that note, the lawyers
trooped out.

Robyn had just started to truly
believe Rex Markham would be acquitted when Hugh Grimble got
hammered in the witness box and the alibi defence turned to dust.
Now Rex looked doomed.

That was bad news for him. But
it was also bad news for her, because she’d been determined to make
a big impression at the trial. Soon she’d be back in the Local
Court, defending petty criminals, wistfully pondering what might
have been. If she was lucky, in a few years, she’d graduate to
representing child molesters and low-level drug dealers in the
District Court. But she’d probably never get another murder brief
in the Supreme Court.

While Grimble’s credibility was
being shredded, she wore a mask of indifference. However, after
court, she enjoyed watching Brian’s angry outburst at their client.
She felt like throttling the bastard herself.

As the defence team left the old
Supreme Court building, it was already dark. The media pack had
scattered to meet their deadlines.

Bernie looked glumly at Brian.
"So, do you believe his story about going to a movie?"

Brian shook his head. "Nope.
Sounds like more bullshit to me. I’m sure the jury won’t swallow
it. Not now."

Bernie shrugged. "Oh, well. We
tried our best. Anything you want me to do before tomorrow
morning?"

Brian shook his head. "No. Just
try to get a good night’s sleep."

"Hah. No chance of that. Well,
see you tomorrow morning."

Bernie departed and the two
barristers strolled towards their chambers.

Brian sighed. "What a debacle.
Rex has done a wonderful job of outsmarting himself, hasn’t he? I
told you that calling witnesses is dangerous, and this proves it. I
probably shouldn’t have called anyone. Not Rex. Not Grimble.
No-one."

She’d never seen him so
depressed and full of self-doubt. It worried her a little. "Look,
don’t beat yourself up about this. The alibi defence was our best
bet. We had to run it. We couldn’t know Grimble would
self-destruct."

Brian shrugged. "Maybe, maybe
not." He half-smiled. "Anyway, what’s done is done."

She felt a wave of sympathy for
Brian. But that feeling was overwhelmed by a growing unease about
the day’s events. Grimble seemed too cunning to make such a bad
slip-up. So maybe he didn't slip up. Maybe he was playing a deeper
game and wasn't really on their side at all.

She said: "You know, I can’t
understand how Grimble could have been so stupid."

"What do you mean?"

"He’s a smart guy. Surely he
realized that, if he gave Rex an alibi, the cops would check his
phone records. Yet he still offered to help Rex."

Brian shrugged. "Must have
forgotten about the telephone call."

"No. He’s too smart to do
that."

"Smart people do dumb things all
the time."

"Yeah. But not when they’re as
smart as Grimble. You know, it’s as if he deliberately set out to
sabotage Rex’s case.
Deliberately
."

"Hah. Now you’re getting
paranoid. This was just an old-fashioned cock-up."

"No, I think something funny’s
going on."

"It’s not. But even if it is,
the fact remains that our client has told two whopping lies and has
no alibi - none at all. Nada. Zip. Zero."

"True. But he’s not the only
person without an alibi."

"What do you mean?"

"Grimble doesn’t have one
either. I mean, if he wasn’t with Rex on the night of the murder,
where was he?"

Brian looked puzzled. "Who
cares? You don’t think he killed Alice Markham do you?"

Robyn shrugged. "Yeah. Why
not?"

"You’re kidding, right? Why
would he kill her?"

"I don’t know. But maybe that’s
why he destroyed Rex’s case."

Brian looked bemused and
scornful. "Look, a few days ago, you thought that fake author,
Richard Olsen, might be the murderer. Now you think it might be our
main alibi witness. You’re getting tired and paranoid. You need a
good night’s sleep."

"I do, but I’m not
paranoid."

"Yes you are," he barked.

"OK. Maybe I am. But I still
want to find out what game Grimble’s playing."

"Listen, he’s not playing a
game. He fucked up. That’s all."

They entered their building and
got into the lift. The neon lighting made Brian’s face look old and
worn-out.

He said: "Look, right now, the
best strategy is to get a good night’s sleep. That’s what I plan to
do."

"You mean you don’t want to talk
about the trial?"

The lift reached Brian’s floor
and the doors opened. He put out an arm to stop them closing.
"Correct. I’m all talked out. See you in the morning."

He shuffled out and the doors
shut.

Robyn rode up to her floor and
strolled towards her room, pondering Hugh Grimble’s evidence. How
did the bastard forget making a mobile phone call that would
destroy the alibi defence?

However, that wasn’t all Grimble
forgot: in the witness box, he couldn’t even remember when he last
saw Alice Markham alive. How was that possible? Surely, when he
heard she was dead, he immediately recalled their last encounter
and froze that moment in his mind.

Robyn suddenly recalled the
receptionist at Grimble & Co also couldn’t remember her last
encounter with Alice. The receptionist obviously wasn’t as smart as
Grimble, but was surely bright enough to remember such a
significant event.