The Green Flash (51 page)

Summit then asked if it wasn't unusual for men and women to fence against each other. In competition, Norbury said, it was never done. But in practice quite often, though usually when one was the teacher and the other the pupil.

Norbury drifted away and Summit held up proceedings for a couple of minutes while he finished his autobiography. Then he said: ‘I have no wish to add to any disagreeable publicity which has attached itself to this case; but it appears that shortly before the tragedy a dinner party took place at a well-known London hotel, given by Sir David and Lady Abden, and the police have been approached by two guests at the party who wish to give evidence. This seems the most appropriate moment to call them.'

I hadn't seen Palmer in the court, but there he was picking his way towards the witness box, stooping and theatrical and gaunt. To look at him you'd never have thought his fancy was teenage boys.

He had, he said, been a guest at a party given by Sir David and Lady Abden to celebrate her twenty-sixth birthday. There were about a score of guests. Sir David had arrived very late and had looked angry and dishevelled. He did not greet his wife, but sat down at the other end of the table, next to him, Palmer, and carried on little or no conversation with anyone. Lady Abden's attempts to bring him into the generally jolly mood of the party fell completely flat. He ate little and drank only champagne in considerable amounts. In the course of the dinner one of the few remarks he made which was audible to most of the table was: ‘I'm going to murder that woman.' A few minutes later he smashed two champagne glasses on the floor and left.

Mr Gale got up awkwardly on his peg-leg and bowed slightly to the coroner, who cleared his throat of static and nodded.

Mr Gale said: ‘ Is it your opinion that Sir David was intoxicated?'

Palmer licked his lips. ‘He seemed to have had a lot to drink.'

‘With the coroner's permission I will recall Mrs Carreros to the stand, but I understood her to say that was not her impression. Have you known Sir David long?'

‘About eighteen months.'

‘Since his marriage, in fact? Did you know Lady Abden before that?'

‘Oh, yes. About seven or eight years.'

‘Are
you
married?'

‘No.'

‘But you must know many married people who in a moment of frustration will say of their wives, ‘‘I could murder that woman,'' or, if it is the other way round, ‘‘ I could murder that man.''.'

‘This seemed to me more than just frustration.'

‘It seemed to you. But it must surely be a matter of opinion in what tone it was spoken.'

‘I have given you my opinion.'

‘Just so …' Mr Gale hitched himself on to his other leg. ‘Now, Mr Palmer, you are, I understand, a theatrical agent who at times helps to put packages together in the West End for the production of experimental plays.'

‘Not only in the West End. And not only experimental.'

‘Is it true that Lady Abden sometimes helped you with the financing of such ventures?'

Palmer smiled. ‘We call them angels. There are quite a number of such people who like to help in this way.'

‘Is it true that Lady Abden has not helped you since her marriage?'

‘As it happens, yes. But we were still on the best of terms.'

‘With her husband as well?'

‘Er – yes, I think so.'

‘Is it true that you made a special effort to interest her in the play you have recently put on at the Royal Court Theatre and that, in refusing to help you, she said that her husband had advised against it?'

Now where in hell, I thought, has he got such an idea? It was news to me; Erica would never have consulted me on such a thing.

Palmer said curtly: ‘I am not giving this testimony today out of enmity for Sir David Abden.'

‘Thank you, Mr Palmer.'

The coroner had got a cold: that was all that was wrong with his voice. After he'd tuned in again he said: ‘Was it your impression that Sir David Abden and his wife were usually on good terms with each other – that this could well have been just a lovers' quarrel?'

‘I saw too little of them to say. I can only assure you, sir, of the genuineness of this quarrel.'

Genuine enough, I thought. All my quarrels are genuine; they boil up in a moment, whether it's shaking a Mafia boss till he drops his drink or stabbing my wife. If only my ego would get out of the way – was that it? – something to stop me doing these things; if only I were paralysed all over. But this ganging up against me by people who pretended they were quite impartial …

Steve Houseman was saying he had been at the dinner party and that he had witnessed the quarrel, heard me threaten my wife, and she had expressed her anxiety about going home, yet feeling she must do so, with her husband being in such a violent mood. My arrival, he said, had cast a complete blight on the birthday party, and the other guests had gone home soon afterwards.

Then little Edmond Gale was on his feet again. Witness had spoken of Sir David being violent. What evidence did he have that Sir David was a violent man?

I could provide plenty. Steve said: ‘Well, throwing those glasses like that. I'd call that violent, I really would, wouldn't you?'

‘The previous witness has spoken of Sir David
dropping
two glasses. Do you insist that he threw them? And if so, what at?'

‘Well, on the floor – he threw them on the floor. I thought,
what
a frightful temper!'

‘This was a large dinner party, Mr Houseman? Eighteen, I believe. I suppose it was like any other party, was it, people eating and chinking and talking, waiters moving about?'

‘Well, naturally.'

‘Where were you sitting?'

‘On the right of my hostess.'

‘Yet you were quite able to hear what Sir David said about his wife, separated as you were from him by about eight people?'

‘Yes, of course I was.'

‘You were very friendly with Lady Abden?'

‘Well, I've known her for simply ages.'

‘And Sir David? A newer friend?'

Steve tossed his head. ‘Oh, I've nothing against him.'

The coroner was looking at the clock. He compared it with his own watch, then nodded to the clerk.

‘Sir David Abden.'

Someone gave me a nudge on the shoulder, otherwise I probably wouldn't have recognized the call. I got up and made a wandering way to the box. Scruffy old book. How many tearful hands had grabbed it, how many lies spilled over it? Were mine going to make it worse?

Close to, the coroner was an older man than I thought. One eye was bloodshot. Summer colds are the devil. It couldn't be a help to his temper. He was inviting me to tell it in my own words. Whose other words would I use?

‘… then when I got back from the dinner party I decided –'

‘No,' said Summit. ‘Earlier than that. Just summarize what you were doing earlier in the day.'

I swallowed a piece of tonsil and stared across the courtroom. Lot of people. Curiosity and the newshounds. I wondered if Chalmers or one of his men had come to watch. Mrs Lease was dabbing her nose with her handkerchief.
Hers
wasn't a summer cold. Poor dear. Oh Christ, what had I done to
her
?

‘Tuesday morning I was up about four, drove from Edinburgh to London – actually to Barking Magistrates' Court.' Summit looked puzzled so I explained wearily what I'd been there for. ‘After the – d'you call ' em committal proceedings? – Inspector Chalmers asked me to stay behind because he thought I might help them with their further enquiries.' I stopped. You couldn't have put that bloody worse if you'd sat up all night thinking how to give the wrong impression. ‘Someone I once, knew,' I said tonelessly. ‘ I helped to provide a background … Then my car gave trouble and I took it to the garage for servicing. So I was late arriving at the party. Must have been just before nine … I had a light meal there and then left again. I walked back across the park to our flat and began packing –'

‘Packing?' said Summit.

I gave him a stony stare. ‘I'd decided that things weren't ever going to work out between myself and my wife and it was time to opt out.'

‘I see … And then?'

‘Well, my wife returned from the dinner party earlier than I expected and challenged me to a bout.'

Summit said: ‘Just like that?'

‘Well … There was conversation first.'

‘But you agreed?'

‘Reluctantly. She seemed overexcited.'

‘In your view, was she drunk?'

‘Not at all. She'd
had
drink. As I had. But I don't think there was drunkenness on either side.'

‘May I ask what caused this sudden quarrel between you? You must have been at odds before?'

‘Oh, yes.'

‘Then there was nothing special about this evening?'

‘Oh, yes …'

‘Could you explain to me what it was?'

I saw Shona had got Alice Huntington with her. That old Fairy Queen. Did she need that sort of moral support?

‘I didn't like some of the guests at the party. They were people whose – habits I don't care for. It seemed to me that my wife had invited them specially to get back at me … to show her contempt for me,' I explained.

‘Ah.' He wrote down a few words. It was like the Recording Angel doing his stuff on Judgement Day. ‘So, being insulted, you threatened to kill your wife; broke two glasses and left.'

I met his eyes again. I came to the sour conclusion that he had come to a sour conclusion about me.

When I didn't speak he said: ‘I'm asking you a question, Sir David. Two of your guests have apparently testified to this effect. They may have given me the wrong impression. You are now in a position to correct it.'

I thought, what is there to say in a court like this about a personal relationship? Was a personal relationship between me and Erica ever
possible
? Can a man begin to explain his own violence and, by spilling it out, be able to draw away from it, detach himself, say: ‘Look, that wasn't really me'? Yet so far, I'd played the innocent. Was that what I'd been
intending
to do?

‘There's nothing to correct,' I said.

After a pause Summit cleared his throat and said: ‘ I see.' He sighed. ‘ Well, let us leave it at that, then. Now in the matter of the fencing bout, do you say that you often had such practice tourneys with your wife in your own home?'

‘Usually once a day. Sometimes twice, when she was training for the Olympics.'

‘Did you ever injure each other before?'

‘No.'

‘Why did you choose the épée for this bout? I understand it is the heaviest of the fencing weapons.'

‘I didn't choose it. She did.'

‘Did you usually use the épée for such practice bouts?'

‘Always. My wife felt the extra weight and power made foil fencing easier when she returned to it.'

‘Was it not extremely unwise to enter into such a bout on an evening when there was such ill feeling between you?'

‘Yes.'

Summit looked over his glasses towards Edmond Gale. ‘Do you wish to ask Sir David anything?'

‘If you please.'

Distance from Gale, you saw that his stumpy figure and gentle voice didn't seem to matter: he came over well; no risk of him not being noticed.

‘Sir David, is it true that your wife made a special point of asking you to return from Scotland in time for this party, and that you made an extra effort to do so?'

‘Yes.'

‘So that when you arrived at the party to find it a party entirely of men – and of men, shall we say, to say the least, you did not like – it could not have been unexpected to her that you should show some annoyance?'

‘I think it was meant as a gesture. A rude gesture, if you like.'

‘And did you threaten to murder your wife?'

‘I said: ‘‘I could murder that woman.''.'

‘In a loud voice?'

‘No. It was in an aside to the man I was sitting next to. Derek Jones.'

‘Could the two witnesses have heard what you said?'

‘Palmer probably did.'

‘Was your remark meant as a threat?'

‘Of course not.' That was
true
, wasn't it? You couldn't lie to
lose
your skin.

‘And you threw the glasses? Dropped them?'

‘Dropped them. Bad temper. I just wanted my wife to get the message that it was the end between us.'

‘And when she followed you home? You were preparing to leave. She tried to stop you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did you want to fence with her?'

‘It was the last thing.'

‘Why did you finally agree?'

‘Not much choice. She had her weapon out and blocked the doorway.'

‘Sir David, did you at
any
time have
any
intention of harming your wife?'

Probably the hesitation was only split second. ‘No,' I said. Pilate saith unto him: what is truth?

Gale had gone away. The coroner was writing again. I thought, now he's going to ask, where was Mrs Carreros in all this? Because if he does I'm going to have to say, she wasn't there. David, the practised old liar, isn't prepared to tell that sort of lie. Stupid git. But Summit just wasn't thinking along those lines. Shona, it seemed, had put her evidence over with such precision and authority that in this husband and wife squabble she'd inserted herself as the witness standing in the kitchen watching the contest from beginning to end. Bitch. Bloody bitch. All women were bitches.

‘Very well, Sir David, you may stand down.'

Almost before I got back to base the coroner was on his way.

‘This,' he was saying, ‘has been a very tragic event, which could and should have been avoided. Two talented and distinguished people engage in a routine fencing exercise, but in a situation charged with a degree of dislike which may have made the exchanges more robust, more hostile, than they would normally have been or should ever have been. We have two witnesses who have come forward, voluntarily, to testify that this hostility had been newly fuelled at a dinner party, at which Sir David had either issued a threat against his wife or muttered a casual aside. There is a conflict of opinion on this point. We have, however, a further witness who says she witnessed the fencing practice and saw nothing unusual or remarkable in the bout until the fatal blow was struck. Both contestants had been drinking, but again this witness confirms Sir David's own statement that they were not drunk. It was not a drunken brawl. Fencing conventions were observed. It was no different in appearance from any other practice bout – until the fatal blow was struck.'