The Man Whose Dream Came True (14 page)

Life in the prison hospital seemed to be based upon a wrong conception of what he was like, for he was persistently treated as though he were an invalid or a schoolboy. One day he went to see the Medical Officer, who gave him a careful physical examination and asked how he was getting on.

‘What do you think of the others, the other patients? Get on with them?’

‘They’re all right. But we’re not patients, we’re prisoners.’

‘What about your general health? Ever have any serious illnesses? As a child perhaps?’

‘Only the usual things, measles, mumps, chickenpox.’

‘Meningitis? Any form of rheumatic fever? Nothing serious at all, you’ve been lucky, haven’t you.’ He made little ticks and crosses on a form. ‘You’re eating well, I’m glad to hear that.’

Back in the ward he asked the old man the reason for the examination. ‘Just routine. They always like to have a look at you.’ On the following day he shook hands earnestly before leaving. Tony had somehow not liked to ask what he was charged with, but after the old man had gone he spoke to the warder and learned that it was rape.

On the following day he had two visitors. When he entered the interview room a little round-shouldered man was looking out of the window into a courtyard, clinking coins in his pocket. When he turned, Tony recognised his father.

Mr Jones came forward and shook his son by the hand. His moustache was grey and he had grown fatter, but otherwise he had changed little. His characteristic smell of beer, tobacco and sweat was as strong as ever.

‘How are things then? You’re pretty fit from the look of you. Take any exercise?’

‘An hour a day.’

‘That’s good. I’m keeping pretty well. Nora too, she sent her regards. I’ve retired now, you know. Taken to watching the Codgers again, makes something to do.’ The Codgers was the football team they had watched in Tony’s childhood. ‘Not a patch on what they were, though, shouldn’t be surprised if they go down. You follow them at all?’

‘No.’ How could he have loved and later hated this foolish little man? ‘What did you come for?’

‘Just wondered if there was anything you wanted. I brought these along.’ He snapped open his brief-case. The officer by the door moved forward but relaxed when Mr Jones took out a bunch of grapes.

Tony felt suddenly very angry. He flung the grapes on the floor. ‘I don’t want your bloody grapes.’ His father looked at him in astonishment.

‘Now then,’ the officer said, ‘that’s enough of that.’

Mr Jones snapped the brief-case shut and stood with lowered head. ‘That’s how it is, then. You’re no good, I always said it. No good and never been any good.’

Tony stood up too. ‘Get out.’

His father appealed to the prison officer. ‘What do you think of it, eh? You bring ’em up, you give ’em a good home, and see the way it turns out. Right from the time he was a boy I said to his mother, “You’re spoiling that kid.” I was away a lot, had to be you understand, business.’

‘Get out, get out.’ Tony advanced upon his father. The officer stepped between them, and Mr Jones went. The officer shook his head.

‘You’ve fairly blotted your copybook, you have.’

‘If he comes again, I won’t see him.’

‘Your own father, too. I don’t know. Knock you about when you were a kid, did he? Might have been better if he had, at that.’ He offered the comment in a philosophical rather than a critical manner.

The second visitor – he had grown cautious, and asked the name in advance – was Widgey. She gave him a perfunctory kiss and said, ‘Looks as though the cards were right, eh? How the hell did you get into this mess?’ He said truthfully that he didn’t know. ‘The police have been on to me asking questions. I told them we had a bit of a spat that last day. Had to when they asked me, understand?’

‘I understand. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Don’t suppose it does. Wanted to tell you though, because they’re calling me as a witness. Can’t really refuse.’ She offered a cigarette and he took it.

‘Widgey, would you do something for me?’

‘What is it?’

‘There’s someone I want very much to see. I don’t like to write because – well, I don’t know what to say. Will you get in touch with her, go and see her, ask her to come.’

Widgey’s thin mouth was clamped shut. She released smoke through her nostrils. ‘You’re a fool.’

‘You’ve never met her, you don’t know what she’s like.’

‘I’ll tell you what she’s like. This is something the police let out when they saw me, though they didn’t mean to. She’s the chief witness against you, that’s what she’s like.’

‘Your name is Genevieve Foster, and you are the widow of the deceased, Eversley Foster.’

‘Yes.’

‘What was your husband’s occupation?’

‘He was a director of several companies. He had spent a good deal of his life in South Africa, that was before I met him, and he had an interest in a mining company out there. Most of his directorships were connected with South Africa.’

‘And he went up to London on business every weekday?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you tell the Court in what circumstances you made the acquaintance of the defendant.’

‘I met him one day at the house of Mr Bradbury. I knew Mrs Bradbury, and he came to tea. I brought him back to Southbourne and happened to mention that my husband wanted secretarial help on a book he was writing in his spare time. It was a book on local topography. Bain-Truscott, that was what he called himself, said he had secretarial experience. He produced references.’

‘Is it a fact that the references were forgeries?’

‘I understand so. I did not take them up.’

‘And your husband engaged him.’

‘Yes. Eversley thought he would be suitable. He left work each day for the secretary to do. Bain-Truscott came in the morning and left before lunch.’

‘Was he an efficient worker?’

‘I believe so. Eversley did not complain.’

‘But after a few days your husband did complain to you about something, I believe. Tell us about it.’

‘It was at the beginning of the second week. Everaley missed a valuable pair of cuff links and a matching tie-pin.’

Tony closed his eyes, but her image remained on his retina, pale and composed. He opened his eyes again to see the door of the Court open and a man enter silently and sit down on one of the benches. The weak handsomeness, the white streak in his hair – it was Foster! He wrote a note quickly on one of the bits of scrap paper provided for him: ‘Man with white streak in hair – three rows from back – he is man I knew as Foster,’ and passed it down to Mr Hussick. The solicitor’s brows rose skyward. He nodded and passed over the piece of paper to his clerk, who sat next to him. The clerk got up and went out, grinning. What was there to grin about?

It is one of the peculiarities of English law that a prosecution case must be presented in full in the Magistrate’s Court, where it is decided whether or not the accused person should be sent for trial, while the defence may reserve its case. The advantage to the defence is more apparent than real, because the proceedings are reported fully so that the jury empanelled to hear the trial know a great deal about the case already, and what they know is likely to favour the prosecution. The proceedings lack the tenseness of a dress rehearsal because the principal actors, the counsel, are missing. On the prosecution side a bored and sometimes inaudible young barrister appeared on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and Mr Hussick had told Tony that he proposed to handle the defence personally at this stage.

‘Nothing to do really,’ he had said when he saw Tony just before the hearing began. ‘Hear what they’ve got to say, spot their weak points, bide our time, that’s the way.’

‘But I thought–’ Tony had been about to say, ‘–that I should have a proper counsel,’ but changed this to ‘–that you were engaging counsel.’

‘So I shall, so I shall, and you’ll have the best. But at this stage, what’s the point? It’s not as though we’re fighting here.’

‘Aren’t we?’

‘Certainly not. Reserve our defence, save our big guns for the time when they’re needed. You’ll see.’ Mr Hussick spoke as though his client might be involved in many such trials, from each of which he would learn something.

So the atmosphere was undramatic, the Court was not even quite full, everything seemed to be conducted
sotto voce,
but as one witness succeeded another and left the box unquestioned or only cursorily challenged by Mr Hussick, Tony’s spirits dropped. There was Carlos Cotton to tell about the money Tony owed him, and Bradbury to give an account of the loan that remained unrepaid. There was Widgey, obviously giving evidence under protest. Then came Mr Penny, which turned out to be the name of the little jeweller he had asked to value the links and tie-pin. A bank clerk named Podger came to say that Mr Foster had drawn out two hundred and fifty pounds on Friday morning, and to confirm the numbers of the ten pound notes. Then there was Dr Dailey, who was what they called a Home Office pathologist. He said that Foster had been killed at between eight and ten o’clock on Friday evening by several blows struck from behind. The hammer was produced in Court and he confirmed that it was stained with blood of Foster’s group, and had one or two hairs from Foster’s head adhering to it. And Dr Dailey was succeeded by a stiff self-confident fingerprint man named Moreston who said that he had found two clear prints of Tony’s fingers on the hammer, together with several other prints too smudged for identification. Hussick questioned none of these witnesses, but sat with a smile of apparent self-satisfaction on his face, taking an occasional note. And now here was Jenny, intolerably calm and beautiful. What was she saying?

‘On Friday morning my husband drew out two hundred and fifty pounds from the bank.’

‘Was it unusual for him to draw so large an amount?’

‘A little unusual. He had a foible for paying all the accounts in cash each month where this was possible, rather than by cheque. This month they were for rather large amounts.’

‘Can you remember anything else he said on that morning?’

‘Yes. Before leaving for London he said that he would have it out with Bain-Truscort, that is about the links. He was convinced that Bain-Truscott had taken them.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes. He asked me to tell Bain-Truscott that he would like to see him on Friday evening. I told him when he came that morning, and he said all right.’

‘Were you in on Friday evening?’

‘No. Eversley knew that I hate scenes. I arranged to go out to dinner with my cousin at Redling, particularly so that I should not be there.’

‘After that, you knew nothing more of the matter until you returned home shortly before midnight and found your husband’s body?’

‘That is correct.’

‘And then you telephoned the police?’

‘Yes.’

During this recital she had not looked at him. Once her tongue came out and quickly licked her upper lip as it had done after they made love. Remembering this, and remembering the things they had planned but which she never meant to carry out, he gripped the side of the box in which he sat so tightly that a splinter of wood went into the middle finger of his left hand. He took a piece of paper, scrawled on it in trembling capitals ALL LIES and handed it down to Mr Hussick. The solicitor looked at it and put it aside. His clerk came back, still grinning. Would Hussick attack her, say she was lying? The solicitor rose from his chair. ‘No questions,’ he said. Jenny made her way out of the box. The man with the white streak in his hair rose and followed as she left the Court.

He hardly listened to the rest of the evidence. On Hussick’s application he was committed for trial at the Old Bailey instead of at the local Assize near Southbourne, on the ground that there might be some local prejudice against him.

After these proceedings he realised for the first time that his acquittal was not inevitable. This was made clear by Mr Hussick who came to see him and said, with no diminution of cheerfulness, that they mustn’t let the other side have it all their own way.

‘But you didn’t challenge them. I told you, her story was all lies.’

‘Tactics, tactics.’ Mr Hussick shot up his eyebrows. ‘Play your cards close to your chest. One thing, though. I’ve got to know what the cards are.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You’ve been a little bit naughty. You never told me about Mr Penny now, did you? I’m not going to hide anything from you. They have a case, no doubt about it they have a case.’

‘Everything she said was a lie.’

Mr Hussick ignored this. ‘I’ll tell you what I don’t like. Taking those links for valuation, they’ll make a lot of that. Ask how you got hold of them. Then there’s the money. I mean, I don’t think we can deny that it was Foster’s money, can we? And of course the hammer, I don’t care for the hammer. Then your appointment with Foster on Friday evening, you must have known it wouldn’t be pleasant, what happened? If I could clear up those points I’d feel a lot happier.’ He opened the exercise book at a blank page.

‘Suppose they can’t be explained.’

‘Oh, but they must be,’ Mr Hussick said happily. ‘It would be very unwise to offer no explanation.’

‘You mean I might be found guilty?’

‘I mean you mustn’t keep anything back. You must tell me the truth.’

‘What about my ticket?’

‘Ticket? Oh yes. When the time comes I don’t think you’ll find there will be any problem.’

‘Who was the man I pointed out in Court?’

‘He’s Mrs Foster’s cousin, the one she had dinner with on that Friday night. His name is Mortimer Lands.’

Mortimer Lands. He had been deceived, then, from the start he had been deliberately deceived. The body in the bedroom twisting like a fish above the blue eye of the medallion, the gifts, the plans for the promised land of Venezuela, all of these had been a dream. The deception was reality. This was what he had to endure and to accept.

‘She planned it. She planned the whole thing.’

‘What’s that?’ For once Mr Hussick appeared surprised.

‘She gave me the cuff links, said she’d bought them for me, that they were a present.’ Beginning at that point he told the whole story, Jenny’s plan for disposing of Foster, the money she had given him for the fare and later for living in Caracas, the drive on Friday night out to the motor launch, the passage down the river to the sea and the thing being dropped overboard, then his own departure to London and to the airport. To tell the whole story was a relief, and he felt himself to be absolved from any consequence in doing so, because this little man was on his side.

Mr Hussick covered several pages of his notebook. When the narrative flow had stopped he rubbed his nose. He seemed for once hardly to know what to say, and when he did speak it was in a manner unusually tentative.

‘If that’s the complete story–’

‘It is.’

‘You were on your own account prepared to be accessory to a crime. It doesn’t put you in a good light.’ Tony made no reply to this. ‘Although in fact according to you no crime was committed. What was in the sack? The thing you threw over into the water.’

‘How do I know?’

‘No, of course not. This line involves an outright attack on Mrs Foster, you understand that?’

‘Yes.’ He leaned forward. ‘Somebody may have seen the car as we drove to the launch, or on the way back. Someone may have seen the launch going down the river.’

‘Possibly.’

‘You could make inquiries.’

‘Naturally I’ll do that. You must understand that while legal aid covers my costs and those of your counsel, it may be difficult to put in hand a full scale inquiry of this kind.’

‘She wasn’t where she says at ten o’clock that night. She was in her own house, and afterwards she was with me.’

‘The police will have checked this, I’m sure. I’ll have a word with them.’ Mr Hussick closed the exercise book, and said with a return to his customary cheerfulness, ‘Let’s consider who we should brief for you. What would you say to Franklin Russell? George Pooling? Magnus Newton?’

‘I don’t know any of them. But if it’s a matter of money–’

‘Oh no no, not so far as counsel are concerned. If they aren’t too busy they will be happy to take it on. It’s just that legal aid won’t run to a great deal of money.’ He left the sentence rather hanging in air, for he had been about to add
being spent on a wild goose chase,
but refrained.

‘I leave it to you.’

‘The best thing you could do. I’ll let you know developments. Don’t worry, keep smiling.’ With a pat on the shoulder he was gone.

That night Tony slept soundly. He felt that by telling the truth he had exorcised Jenny from his mind for ever.

On the following day he saw the psychiatrist, who gave him tests involving putting shapes in different relationships to each other, and then consulted some papers. He was an urbane balding man with a pleasant smile.

‘Well, Anthony, you know why I’m seeing you. You’ve been examined by the doctor and you’re in good physical condition. I have to report on you mentally.’

‘Whether I’m mad, you mean?’

‘That isn’t a word we use. It’s a question of whether you are fully responsible for your actions, and that involves all sorts of things like how easy you find it to adjust to other people and so on.’ The smile said that there were no aces hidden in his sleeve. ‘They tell me you’ve been very co-operative. There’s just one little thing, what was it now? Oh yes, when your father came to see you. You got rather upset. Why was that?’

‘We don’t get on”

‘I see. what about your mother?’

‘She’s dead.’

‘I know that, but how did you get on with her. Did you love her?’

‘I suppose so.’ The man was as comforting as a bedwarmer. ‘She committed suicide. Took sleeping tablets. I found her.’

The psychiatrist, who had an account of the suicide on the paper in front of him, nodded. ‘That upset you a lot?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was after her suicide that you hated your father?’

‘It was his fault. He had a mistress, she found out. And then he married this woman, very soon afterwards.’

‘You felt it was a betrayal of your relationship with your mother?’

‘I suppose so.’ Had he felt that? He didn’t know. Had he ever loved his mother? Surely it had been his father who was loved. ‘It was because of him that she took the pills.’

‘That’s what you feel.’

‘It’s why she took them.’

‘It was a terrible experience for you,’ the psychiatrist said in his warm voice. ‘And soon after it you left home. Then you had several jobs, but you kept none of them for more than a short time. Tell me about those jobs…’

He emerged bewildered from this long session. It seemed to him that his involvement in what had happened at the Villa Majorca was being treated far too seriously. Why should it be a reason for digging into his childhood and youth, why should it be thought that they had anything to do with it? He tried to say something like this to the psychiatrist, who seemed to regard his attitude as novel and curious, and interesting chiefly because it was suggestive about Tony’s state of mind. But surely it was a normal thing to think that a single incident in the present had nothing to do with the past? Lying in bed that night, fingering the coarse sheet that for some reason brought the image of Jenny before his eyes, he thought of all the things he might have said. ‘I am going to be charged with murdering a man named Eversley Foster so that I could take his money. Will you tell me how that can possibly be connected with the dislike I feel for my father or with my mother’s death?’ Let him try to answer that one. Staring into the blackness of the ward he thought of half a dozen other questions that would have dented the psychiatrist’s shell of urbanity, but of course the man was not there to answer them.