The Cruellest Game (38 page)

‘Could you please give an audible answer, Mrs Anderson, for the court record,’ he said.

‘Yes, I did confront my husband.’

‘And how did he respond?’

I told the court how Robert had tried to explain it all away, using his desire to leave his past behind and start a new life with me as an excuse for everything.

‘And at this stage what did he tell you about his marital status?’

‘He told me that he was probably still married to another woman, and that was partly why he’d assumed a false name, but that his wife had left him and disappeared to Australia and
he’d absolutely no idea where she was or how to find her. Neither could he, therefore, even be certain that she was alive.’

‘I see,’ Pam Cotton allowed herself a dramatic pause. ‘Perhaps you would now tell the court, Mrs Anderson, how you came to meet and, it seemed, become friends with the woman
you knew as Mrs Bella Clooney.’

I told the first dog-walking story, and related how we’d exchanged phone numbers and began to meet quite regularly for walks.

‘But you were never invited to the home of Mrs Bella Clooney?’

‘I wasn’t, no.’ There seemed to be no need to mention my uninvited visits. After all, I had never actually crossed the threshold of number 5 Riverview Avenue.

‘And did your husband ever meet her in your company?’

‘Yes. The night Robbie died. The police wanted me to find someone to be with me. I think it’s routine, isn’t it? We never had many friends, as a family. We always seemed to be
enough for each other . . .’

The memories flooded over me again and for a moment I lost my thread. I opened my mouth to speak again, but no words came.

‘Are you able to continue, Mrs Anderson, or would you prefer to take a break?’ asked the judge kindly.

I nodded. ‘Yes, but c-could I have a glass of water?’ I stumbled eventually.

This was duly provided. I took a deep drink and did my best to pull myself together, aware that I was standing unnaturally straight, as if the physical act of doing so might in some way prop me
up emotionally. I was wearing the same ancient navy suit I’d worn to both Gran’s and Robbie’s funerals, and I’d lost so much more weight that it was falling off me now, as
were all my clothes. But I hadn’t any spare cash to spend on a new outfit, and in any case, I’d no wish to splash out on anything new for this particular occasion. Neither had I been to
a hairdresser since before Robbie’s death, and my hair, displaying prominent iron-grey roots, was now well below collar length and had lost much of the curly bounce Robert had always
professed to love so much. I knew my face was haggard and drawn. I thought I looked like a victim, all right, and suspected that suited rather well the purposes of the prosecution barrister.
Certainly the contrast between my lacklustre appearance and her confident glamour could not have been much greater.

‘Are you ready to continue now, Mrs Anderson?’ asked the judge, again quite kindly.

I said I was. But actually I had no idea what I’d been saying. Pam Cotton stepped in.

‘Mrs Anderson, I asked you if your husband ever met the woman you knew as Bella Clooney in your company.’

‘Yes,’ I said, finding my voice and some of my brains again. ‘I phoned her the night Robbie died and she came over to be with me. She was still there when Robert got home from
the rig, earlier than he’d led me to expect.’

‘And how did they respond to each other?’

I told her how Robert had been quite rude but I’d understood that was because he was in shock and would have hated any outsider to be there. Bella had seemed to behave normally.

‘But, of course, I didn’t know her very well. Not at all, as it turned out . . .’

Pam moved on from there to ask how I’d eventually discovered that Bella Clooney was actually Brenda Anderton and that we shared a husband. I told her, as I had the police, about seeing the
newspaper story after she’d died, and how I’d recognized her from her picture.

‘You had no doubt that Brenda Anderton and Bella Clooney were the same woman?’

‘None at all,’ I said.

She took me through my second confrontation with Robert and I related how he’d finally admitted everything to me.

‘And what about Mrs Anderton’s death, did you discuss that?’

‘I suppose so,’ I said, ‘I know it’s dreadful but I was more interested in what he’d done to me . . .’

I paused again.

‘Rather than what he might have done to her,’ I added.

‘“Rather than what he might have done to her”,’ Pam repeated. ‘What do you mean by that exactly, Mrs Anderson?’

I thought for a moment before replying.

‘I’m not quite sure,’ I said. ‘I mean, I don’t think I suspected him of anything then. I don’t think it occurred to me. Not until after I’d called the
police anyway. Actually, not until after the police came round and questioned me about it all.’

‘And then?’

‘Then, well, I began to wonder, yes. I still found it hard to believe that he could have been responsible for his wife’s death. But I did know he had been with her, staying at the
house they had together, their home, just a day or two before the accident.’ I paused. ‘Or whatever it was.’

‘I see.’ Pam stared at me for a few seconds, then turned her back to me and walked towards the jury box.

She still had her back to me when she asked her next question.

‘Mrs Anderson, perhaps you would tell the court if your husband knows anything at all about motor cars?’

‘Yes, he does,’ I responded honestly, again telling her what I had told the police.

‘Robert always serviced our vehicles himself and just took them to a garage for their MOTs. He also seemed able to carry out most repairs unless they required specialist equipment.
He’d been a professional car mechanic before going to work on the rigs, and he was very good at it.’

As the significance of what I’d said sank in, an audible gasp reverberated around the courtroom.

‘No further questions,’ said Pam Cotton, returning to her seat.

I was then cross-examined by Robert’s defence barrister, Mr Joshua Small, a sharp-featured little man whose stature matched his name. It was not a pleasant experience. His very first
question was aggressive, and designed, I was quite sure, to shake any confidence I might have.

‘Mrs Anderson, do you really expect the court to believe that you shared your life with a man for sixteen years, and had a son by him, and yet you had no idea at all that he had another
life, another wife and another family?’

However, this was a question I was ready for, because it was one I had asked myself so often.

‘You can believe what you like,’ I snapped. ‘But I am telling the truth, and that’s all I can do. I trusted Robert absolutely and had no idea that he was leading a double
life, no idea at all until after our son died.’

The defence barrister, who had what I found to be a disconcerting habit of standing with his head tilted backwards and slightly to one side, gave a small snort of disbelief.

‘He must have been extremely convincing,’ Mr Small responded. ‘Indeed, rather more convincing than most people would consider possible. Would you accept that to be the case,
Mrs Anderton?’

‘I don’t know what “most people” might think,’ I said. ‘But if you’re asking me if Robert was a good liar, then the answer is a resounding yes. Indeed,
he was a far better liar than I would have thought possible. Far better.’

Another little gasp could be heard in the courtroom. It was only later that I realized just how significant that remark must have seemed. At the time I merely I thought I’d dealt with the
first barrage rather well, and I probably had, because Mr Joshua Small seemed to tone down his aggression after that and only asked me a couple of more innocuous questions.

After I’d finished giving my evidence I was able to watch the rest of the proceedings from the public gallery. I was fortunate to have been called first because, painful though I knew the
experience would be, I did not wish to miss a moment of Robert’s trial. My father had said he was too distressed to see his supposed son-in-law, who he had been extremely fond of, in court.
And I’d managed to fend off Gladys. So I was alone in the gallery, but actually much preferred it that way.

There followed evidence from the young police officer who had been first on the scene when Bella was killed. He explained how her vehicle was found on the wrong side of the road having collided
with a milk tanker, as I’d read in the paper.

‘We believe Mrs Anderton was killed instantly,’ he told the court.

DS Jarvis then gave his evidence. He was coolly professional, and somehow more articulate than I would have expected, as he summarized the police case against Robert. He spoke of Robert having
both motive and opportunity, just as he had explained it to me.

And he told the court that Scenes of Crime Officers had found a set of overalls belonging to Robert, which he apparently kept in the garage of 5 Riverview Avenue, and forensic examination had
revealed clinging to the overalls small particles of accelerator cable.

‘Were forensics able to establish precisely where these particles had come from?’ asked Pam Cotton.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ replied Jarvis. ‘From the damaged cable of Brenda Anderton’s Toyota.’

Pam Cotton emphasized the point as usual by repeating it, then began to take DS Jarvis through other aspects of Brenda Anderton’s life.

‘Is it true, Detective Sergeant, that, following the death of Brenda Anderton, you have now closed your investigation into the abduction of Luke Macintyre?’ she asked.

Jarvis agreed that was so.

An expert witness in automotive forensics, Mr Maxwell Brown, a man approaching retirement, I thought, with rather more white hair in his bushy eyebrows than on his head, was then called to the
stand. He had apparently been brought in from Bristol to give a second opinion after the initial examination of Brenda’s car.

Pam Cotton made quite a performance of establishing that Brown was considered to be the foremost in his field. He stood even more upright than I had done in the witness box, shoulders thrust
back, like a soldier at attention, while she asked him to explain what he believed had caused Brenda Anderton’s fatal accident. At first he appeared to reiterate the theory which I’d
initially read in the
Express & Echo
.

‘Following a thorough investigation of Mrs Anderton’s vehicle, assisted by the original Devon County Constabulary team, I am quite certain that the accelerator pedal jammed,’
he said. ‘Mrs Anderton was unable to decrease her speed, so in an attempt to do so she switched off the engine. It was this that ultimately had fatal consequences because she was, of course,
then unable to steer, the electronic steering system having been disabled. And it was at this point that her car swung across the A377 into the path of an oncoming milk tanker.’

‘Have you been able to establish the speed at which Mrs Anderton’s car may have been travelling when it collided with the tanker?’ Pam Cotton asked.

‘Probably between seventy and eighty miles per hour,’ replied Brown.

‘And you feel certain that she was simply unable to slow down.’

‘Yes. All the evidence points to that.’

‘So, could you please, Mr Brown, tell the court what caused the accelerator pedal to jam?’

‘Yes, indeed. Strands within the accelerator cable had been cut, so that it was only a matter of time before the cable would split fully into two halves, thus rendering it impossible for
the driver to control the throttle.’

‘You said the strands within the accelerator pedal had been cut, Mr Brown?’ Pam continued. ‘Do you mean deliberately cut?’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘And there is no doubt about that.’

‘No, none at all.’

‘Is it possible to say when this damage might have occurred.’

‘Not exactly. It would depend largely on how much mileage the deceased had covered in her car. Not all the strands had been cut, and the intention was presumably that the rest of them
would break after a period of time when the strain on them became too great, which would have been most likely to occur when the vehicle was travelling at a higher speed.’

‘So, is it possible for you to state, Mr Brown, whether or not the damage to the accelerator cable could have been executed, say, as much as three or four days before the incident which
led to Mrs Anderton’s death?’

‘Oh yes, easily, depending on the subsequent mileage, of course.’

‘Thank you very much, Mr Brown, no more questions,’ said Pam after another of her dramatic pauses.

I realized that she was trying to establish early on in the jury’s minds a timescale confirmed by an expert, so that they would later more easily accept that Robert would have had the
opportunity to sabotage Brenda’s car even though he was in the middle of the North Sea when she died.

Mr Joshua Small was on his feet at once to cross-examine.

‘Mrs Anderton’s vehicle was a Toyota Corolla, was it not, Mr Brown? It is well known that many of these vehicles were recalled three years ago due to alleged problems with
accelerator pedals sticking, so could not this fatal collision have been a tragic accident?’

‘No. Absolutely not. The strands within the accelerator cable had definitely been cut. The problem with the Corollas, as with other Toyotas, involved strands breaking due to wear and tear.
And it was actually later models than Mrs Anderton’s which were recalled by Toyota.’

‘And yet the Devon County Constabulary and their forensic unit at first accepted that this fatal collision was an accident, did they not?’

‘I believe so, yes.’

‘And was it not only after DS Jarvis interviewed Mrs Marion Anderson and was told of Rob Anderton’s double life, and all that entailed, that the car was re-examined?’

‘Yes, that was the case.’

‘So surely the fact that these strands had been cut and not just broken due to wear and tear could not have been that obvious?’

‘Pretty obvious, in my opinion.’

‘But not, it would appear, in the opinion of the forensics experts who examined the car the first time round?’