The Disappeared (46 page)

'Ah.
So he specifically asked you whether you had seen a large black vehicle
containing two white men and two Asian youths?'

'He
did.'

'Did
he pay you, Mr Madog?'

'No.
Nothing.'

'And
did he suggest the incident with your granddaughter and the paint?'

Madog
shook his head firmly. 'I never told him about that.'

'I
see. So when did you first recount that alleged incident?'

'Last
week, when I was asked to make a statement.'

Martha
Denton adopted a puzzled expression. 'Let's be absolutely clear about this, Mr
Madog. You claim to have been too frightened to tell the police about a vicious
attack on your six-year-old granddaughter, yet you happily talked to a private
investigator who turned up out of the blue.'

'Not
about my granddaughter. I told you, I didn't mention it.'

Martha
Denton stared into space, as if trying and failing to make sense of his
answers. Then, with a dismissive shrug and a curt, 'Oh well,' dropped into her
seat.

Jenny
watched two jurors in the front row exchange a knowing look. Martha Denton had
made them feel clever and made Madog look a fool.

Havilland
had no questions, content to align himself with Denton's attack. Sensing a
breakthrough for his cause, Khan managed to repair some of the damage she had
inflicted by establishing that Madog had no credible reason for lying about his
sighting, and his subsequent encounter with the ponytailed driver, short of
being bribed. Madog insisted he had never taken money and had told only the
truth. Not all the jurors appeared convinced.

Collins
had no questions for the witness. Madog stepped eagerly from the witness box,
keen to escape as quickly as he could.

Halting
him in his tracks, Jenny said, 'If you could wait in the hall until the end of
the afternoon, Mr Madog - you may be required to answer some further
questions.'

Jenny
watched for Rhys's reaction. He remained impassive. Smug. She allowed herself a
brief indulgent fantasy: perhaps she could still raise sufficient doubt, pose
enough awkward questions to lead the jury to a brave decision that would shock
him out of his complacency. Although the substance of the evidence would have
to remain secret, the jury's verdict could not be suppressed. And a coroner's
jury had the unique power to deliver their findings in the form of a narrative.
If they decided Nazim and Rafi had been spirited away against their will and
that the official investigation had been negligent or deliberately suppressed,
they could spell it out.

The
eight very unsuspecting men and women, currently suffering varying degrees of
boredom and annoyance at having to perform their obscure civic duty, had the
power to whip up a storm.

The
next witness was David Powell, the proprietor of the vehicle-hire firm Jenny
and McAvoy had visited in Hereford. Short and heavy-set, he spoke in a broad
borders accent and made no attempt to disguise his impatience at being prised
away from his business. He glowered at Jenny with the same suspicious disdain
with which she imagined he greeted all officials.

Yes,
his firm had owned a black Toyota Previa in June 2002 he said, but his records
showed it had been rented from 20 to 23 June and not again until 6 July. It
would have been sitting in the yard out front on the 28th. When Jenny suggested
that he might have hired it out without keeping a paper record, Powell answered
with an adamant no and wouldn't be moved. If the records said it wasn't hired,
it wasn't. No argument.

Jenny
changed tack. 'You have a regular customer called Mr Christopher Tathum, don't
you?'

'Not
that regular,' Powell grunted.

'Have
you brought details of the cars he's hired?'

He
nodded and unfolded a sheet of paper which he produced from his jacket pocket.
Alison took it from him and handed it to Jenny. Printed on office stationery,
it was a computer-generated list of transactions conducted with Tathum, C. Mr.
The first was for the hire of an Audi saloon in December 2001. Running her eyes
down the list, Jenny saw that Tathum had rented the same vehicle half a dozen
times over the next two years, usually for week-long periods. There was only
one hire of the Toyota listed: in March 2003.

Jenny
said, 'Are you friendly with Mr Tathum?'

'Not
particularly.'

'You
wouldn't do him any special favours - a cash deal, for example?' 'No.'

Jenny
fixed him with a look as she asked her next question. 'Has he or anyone else
spoken to you or your staff about this vehicle?'

Avoiding
her gaze he muttered, 'No, ma'am.'

It
was little to go on, just a hint that he was lying, but it stoked her anger.
She couldn't resist making a point for the jury. 'Are you quite sure you've
told this court the whole truth, Mr Powell?'

'Quite
sure.'

After
Khan had probed with a few speculative questions, all of which met with
denials, Jenny asked Powell to join Madog in the empty public gallery. It was a
piece of theatre - lining up the links in the chain to keep the story vivid in
the jurors' minds - but one Jenny felt justified in using. Since Donovan had given
his implausible evidence, she'd been fighting a growing suspicion that events
were being managed. She had been scrupulous in keeping Elizabeth Murray, Madog,
Tathum and Maitland's identities secret until they had reached the witness box,
but none of them had raised Alun Rhys to even a moment of visible concern. She
needed to push harder. Her chest tightened at the prospect. She had to fight
panic with determination.

Tathum
took his time walking from the committee room to the witness box. Dressed in a
suit and tie, he could have been a business executive. All that gave him away
as a former military man was the solid squareness of his shoulders and a
certain predatory quality to his narrow gaze. Jenny glanced over at Madog,
hoping to detect signs of anxiety: he touched his cheek, scratched his neck.
Tiny clues, but not sufficient to reassure her.

Tathum
took the Bible and read the oath with the relaxed demeanour she imagined he
might have adopted while leaning through Madog's car window. She felt an instinctive
and visceral dislike for him, an irrational loathing which she knew would only
weaken her if she let it show.

'Mr
Tathum,' she said, having confirmed his name and address, 'can you tell the
court who you were working for in late June 2002?'

'As
far as I can remember, ma'am, no one.'

'Then
how were you supporting yourself?'

'I'd
left the army the year before. I had a military pension and I did occasional
contract work. I still do.'

'What
kind of contract work?'

'Close
protection is the technical term.' He aimed his explanation at the jury. 'A
bodyguard in layman's language.'

He
was effortlessly confident, not in the least frightened of the jury knowing who
and what he was.

'Who
was your main employer during that year?'

'I
had several contracts with a company called Maitland Ltd. I was looking after
British oil execs in Nigeria and Azerbaijan.'

'Were
you armed while carrying out these duties?'

'I
wouldn't have been much use if I wasn't.'

Despite
her blanket of medication, Jenny's heartbeat picked up and her diaphragm drew
tighter. She kicked herself on.

'You
had a different hairstyle at that time, didn't you, Mr Tathum? You wore it in a
ponytail.'

'I
did,' he said without hesitation.

Jenny
stalled, his directness had thrown her. 'Let's talk about 28 June of that year.
Are you able to say where you were on that day?'

'I
was probably at home, what there was of it. I bought a broken-down old
farmhouse when I came out of the army and was rebuilding it.' He smiled at the
jury. 'It's turned into my life's work.'

They
didn't react. There were neither smiles nor frowns, just a vague sense of
wariness at Tathum's practised charm.

Jenny
steeled herself. 'Two men were seen in the front of a black Toyota people
carrier that evening in Marlowes Road, Bristol. The same or a similar vehicle
was seen crossing the Severn Bridge at about eleven p.m. The driver was a white
man, thickset, with close-cropped hair; the passenger, also white, had a
ponytail. There were two young Asian men in the back seat. Were you in that
vehicle, Mr Tathum?'

Tathum
smiled and shook his head. 'No, I wasn't.'

'On
several occasions you have rented cars from Mr Powell's company in Hereford.
Were you travelling in one of his vehicles that day?'

'No.
I have my own car which I use when I'm not working.'

His
denials weren't surprising, but Jenny was rattled by the depth of his
confidence. She didn't believe anything she could throw at him would shake it.
The jury's questioning expressions told her that they were slowly putting two
and two together, but still there was no solid evidence on which they could
hang their suspicions.

'On
the following Saturday, Mr Madog, the toll collector on the Severn Bridge who
noticed the Toyota, says that he was accosted by a man with a ponytail whom he
recognized as the driver of that vehicle. This man told Mr Madog that he
"hadn't seen him", then proceeded to spray paint into the hair of his
six-year-old granddaughter who was sitting in the back seat.' Jenny met
Tathum's gaze and felt herself weakening. 'Was that man you?'

He
responded with a look of genuine astonishment. 'No, ma'am.'

'Are
you able to say where you were on that day?'

'Still
at home, I expect.'

All
she needed was one thing to implicate him beyond a flimsy chain of
circumstantial evidence, one tiny patch of solid ground. Out of the corner of
her eye she saw Mr Jamal, his face filled with pent-up anger, willing her on.
Now was the moment. She had nothing more to lose. She looked over the heads of
the lawyers to Madog.

'Mr
Madog,' she said, 'I'm not asking you to perform a formal identification, but
can you say if you recognize this witness?'

Startled,
Madog flinched, then gave a nervous shake of his head.

'It's
very important that you give this proper thought and don't feel at all
intimidated, Mr Madog. I'll spell it out: do you recognize this witness as the
man whom you allege accosted you and your granddaughter?'

Rising
timidly to a hunched, semi-standing position, Madog said, 'No, ma'am . . .
That's not him.'

A
dreadful familiar numbness crept over her. She continued mechanically, a
dispassionate observer. She scarcely absorbed a word of the cross-examinations
offered by Havilland then Khan, except to register that Tathum had survived
without a blow being landed. Tathum brushed aside every accusation and hectoring
question Khan threw at him, and stepped down from the witness box as
confidently as he had entered it.

Maitland's
evidence took less than ten minutes. A brisk, polite, ex-SAS colonel, he
confirmed that he ran a company specializing in the provision of highly trained
ex-servicemen as bodyguards and security advisers to wealthy businessmen and
foreign governments. Tathum was one such, who had completed three contracts in
the year 2002. None of them, he explained with the reassuringly nonchalant tone
of a high- ranking officer, involved the escorting of two young Asian
university students over the Severn Bridge from Bristol.

It
was nearing four o'clock when Maitland strolled out of the hall with Tathum. It
was a natural moment to call a halt and take stock of the ruins of the day, but
Jenny couldn't bear to send the jury home having made up their minds. It was a
gamble, but maybe it was the right time to introduce them to McAvoy. He would
be wild, full of extravagant speculation and conjecture, but at least he'd make
the jury take notice.

'We'll
have Mr McAvoy next, please,' she said to Alison.

Her
officer gave her a look as if to say she hoped she knew what she was doing,
then made her way to the back of the hall to call him in from the front lobby,
to which he'd been banished at lunchtime. After an unnaturally long pause,
Alison returned announcing that according to the constable at the front door,
McAvoy had left the building an hour ago.

'Oh,'
Jenny said, failing to disguise a sudden surge of panic. 'Well, then perhaps
we'll call it a day and see if we can't have him back here first thing
tomorrow.'

Martha
Denton interjected, 'If I could trouble you for a moment, ma'am preferably in
the absence of the jury.'

'Is
there a matter of law you wish to discuss?'

'It's
more of a procedural issue, but nothing that need concern the jury at this
stage. I'm sure they're extremely keen to get away after a long day.'

She
was greeted by a ripple of thankful laughter. 'Very well,' Jenny said and
reminded the jury not to discuss the case overnight, even with members of their
close families. They had begun to gather coats and handbags even before she had
finished talking, and bustled eagerly out of the hall with almost indecent
haste.