The Man Whose Dream Came True (15 page)

During the next few days there were several developments in connection with the case, some of them important.

Franklin Russell read the papers given to him by Mr Hussick and then turned the brief down. He said that this was because he had a full plate, but Mr Hussick suspected that it was because of the nature of the defence. George Pooling was taken ill with pneumonia after playing eighteen holes in a rainstorm, and had to be ruled out. Magnus Newton, however, said yes, and if he was not the subtlest cross-examiner or the most intelligent man in the world, there was no doubt that he had a flourishing criminal practice. Hussick left the papers with him and a couple of days later had a conference at Newton’s chambers.

‘Extraordinary story, does this fellow know what he’s doing?’ Newton was a little snuffy red-faced man. He had had a good lunch and was smoking a big cigar. Mr Hussick did not care for the smell of cigar smoke.

‘I’ve tried to show him the implications.’

‘There’s this to be said, that if his story’s true he committed no crime at all, you realise that.’ Mr Hussick smiled to show that he had realised it. ‘He was prepared to commit one, but that isn’t the same thing. Have you tried to check his story?’

‘I’ve done my best. The police say that on Friday night Mrs Foster arrived at Land’s house – he’s some sort of farmer, a gentleman farmer I’d suppose you’d call it – at seven-thirty. That’s confirmed by Lands himself and by two neighbours who came in for a drink. The housekeeper had left a cold meal and gone out for the evening to see a friend. She had to go and come back by train – Lands’ place is about a mile from the local station. It was arranged that she should come back on the last train, which gets in at eleven-fifteen. Mrs Foster met her, took her back and then left. It was a drive of about fifteen miles and she got back just before midnight. It all fits.’

Newton blew out smoke. ‘Why didn’t Lands go to the station to collect his own housekeeper?’

‘I’m sorry. I should have said he did go with her. His car was in the garage, so they used hers.’

‘Of course, according to his story Lands is in the plot.’

‘Yes.’

‘Would she have had time to do the things Jones says she did and get back to, what’s his name, Lands in time to meet the housekeeper?’

‘Perhaps. But I don’t see how we can prove it.’

‘If somebody saw her car –’

‘I’ve made inquiries, but so far there are no results.’

‘It’s important.’

Mr Hussick’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I know.’

Newton grunted, looked through the papers again, then pushed them aside. ‘What his story comes to is this. She’s in it with Lands, she must be Lands’ mistress, he came to this house Villa Minorca–’

‘Majorca.’ Newton was bad about names.

‘Somebody must have seen ’em together.’

Patiently Mr Hussick said, ‘Certainly they were seen together, and naturally he had been to the villa. Foster knew him quite well. After all he was a relative.’

‘This is the story and we have to use it.’ Newton tapped the papers. ‘Get somebody on to it, do some digging, what was she like before she married Foster, did she make trips to London and meet Lands there, look for a link.’

‘I am doing so. But we haven’t all the money in the world.’

‘Yes, well, I leave it to you.’ Newton got up and stood in front of an empty fireplace, cigar ash all over his waistcoat. He expanded his chest suddenly, with the effect of a frog blowing himself up. ‘What’s he like?’

‘Jones? A good-looking young man, quiet, polite. Conceited, I daresay.’

‘A good witness?’

‘I should think so.’ Mr Hussick hesitated, qualified this. ‘Rather lacking in self-confidence. Do you want to talk to him?’

‘Not unless I have to.’ Newton did not care for talking to his clients. In his experience such meetings were almost never useful, and they were sometimes embarrassing. ‘It’s all down here. If that’s his story, there it is. You’ll keep in touch.’

Mr Hussick took his bowler hat and got up to leave. Newton shook hands, went back to the papers again and then put them aside. They both knew that it was an open and shut case.

A couple of days later another conference was held in the chambers of Eustace Hardy, who was taking the case for the Crown. Hardy was an elegant, fastidious man, with a silver voice that matched his abundant silver hair, and an awareness of his own intellectual superiority that sometimes irritated juries. Just now it was irritating Detective Superintendent Jones, who wished that Hardy didn’t have such an air of regarding the whole thing as a tedious chore. When he murmured to the Director of Public Prosecution’s representative that it all seemed quite straightforward, Jones couldn’t help feeling that something might go wrong.

The DPP’s man, whose name was Walker, nodded. Jones felt impelled to put in a word.

‘I think their line is going to be that Mrs Foster egged him on, maybe even that she took part in the murder. These things get round on the grapevine. They’ve been checking her movements that night – she went to dinner with a cousin, man named Lands.’

‘Is there anything in that?’ Hardy’s fingers moved to straighten a silver cigarette box on his desk.

‘As far as I can see, nothing at all.’

‘What is Jones’ mental condition?’

‘You’ve got the report there, Mr Hardy.’ Jones could hardly conceal his annoyance. Why didn’t the bloody man look at his papers?

‘Yes indeed.’ Hardy glanced at it. ‘Well integrated in relation to ordinary social contacts, possible inferiority complex, affected by mother’s suicide, poor relationship with father, yes, well, this kind of thing doesn’t mean very much. He doesn’t have any doubt that the man’s fit to stand trial, that’s the important thing.’

‘That’s the important thing,’ Walker echoed.

Hardy scratched a red spot on his neck. The Superintendent was not usually an uncharitable man, but he could not help thinking, you’re not perfect you bastard, you have spots on your neck like anybody else. And scratch them too.

‘He’s got no form, although he was hard pressed for money,’ Walker went on. ‘But there’s one thing you should know about, although we can’t use it, nothing to do with this case. Just a few days before he took up residence with Old Mother Widgeon, Jones was working for a retired General, helping with his memoirs, that kind of thing. The General got rid of him after he’d forged a cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds.’

‘Just got rid of him. He didn’t prefer charges?’

‘And
let him keep the money,’ Jones said in disgust. ‘Slapped charges on him, he’d be in prison and Foster would be alive today.’

‘What name was he using then, Bain-Truscott?’

‘Scott-Williams.’

‘Any idea why he used that name?’

Hardy was scratching the spot. Jones watched it becoming angrier. ‘I think he used quite a few, mostly double-barrelled.’

‘Compensating, I suppose the psychiatrist would call it. Where did you get this story from?’

‘The General wrote to us. Seemed to think it would prove he wasn’t a murderer.’

‘Did he say why he didn’t prosecute?’

‘I gather he felt Jones deserved another chance, something stupid like that.’

‘Interesting. He must be a persuasive young man.’ Interesting, hell, the Superintendent thought, he’s a villain and that’s all there is to it. ‘However, all the ends seem to be neatly tied up.’

‘It’s an open and shut case,’ Walker said. Hardy smiled faintly and thanked them both.

‘…I don’t see how you could do what you did to me. You know I love you, doesn’t that mean anything at all? I’m not surprised you couldn’t look at me when you were giving evidence, you knew it was all lies. How could you be such a bitch, bitch, BITCH.’ He read the long repetitious scrawl, then tore the sheet across. What was the good of writing? He put his hands on his knees and stared at the bed opposite. Every move she made was meant to destroy me, he thought. And I can’t feel anger against her, I don’t feel anything at all. When the warder came across, said he had a visitor and stuck a card under his nose he was incredulous at the name written on it.

The General was bolt upright in the uncomfortable chair that the interview room provided for visitors. Tony sat opposite him, the table between them. The prison officer stood in the corner. It was like some curious game. The General spoke.

‘So your name’s Jones. Don’t know why you didn’t say so, nothing wrong with it, had an adjutant named Jones, good chap.’ Silence. ‘Feeling sorry for yourself?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘I wrote to the police, told them about our little affair. I thought it might help you, show that you had money, had nothing to do with the other business. I suppose you got through the money in a few days. Still, I wished I hadn’t written. That’s why I’m here.’

Silence. He looked at the chintz curtains.

‘I’m putting you on your honour now. Did you have anything to do with the death of this man?’

How was it possible to answer such a question? He did not even try. The General’s head was a fine one, handsome and perfectly proportioned, but he noticed now for the first time that it was very small, almost a model of a head carved in brown and white.

‘I should like to help you. I feel a certain responsibility, I don’t know why. But I must know the facts.’

‘You said I was a scoundrel.’

‘You behaved outrageously. However, I still don’t believe you capable of anything like this. Is your defence being properly conducted?’

‘Legal aid.’ He was bored with the whole thing. Why should he sit here and let himself be questioned by this old fool, what had his past history to do with the disastrous present? He felt a longing to be back in the ward and looked at the man beside the door. The General misinterpreted him.

‘Leave us alone for five minutes.’ The officer shook his head and Tony warmed to him. ‘You can tell me anything, any way I can help.’

‘There’s nothing.’ Tony stood up.

‘If you refuse to accept my help–’ The General stood up too, erect and neat. Again it was a shock to see that not only his head but his whole body was small, he was like a large toy soldier.

‘I’d like to go back now,’ he said to the officer by the door.

Strange things are found on beaches. Some boys digging for bait on the beach a couple of miles away from the place where Tony had thrown his bundle into the sea found an old pillow, a plastic hand of the kind sold in joke shops, and a partly-inflated football bladder. They were loosely joined together, and obviously other things attached to them had come away in the sea. They trod on the hand and squashed it and played beach football with the bladder. Later one of the boys took it home and kicked it about in his backyard until it hit a nail sticking out of an old toolshed and burst.

Life in the prison hospital was enjoyable in its way. The officers were overworked and Tony made himself useful in doing little jobs about the place, taking in the tea trolley and helping with the washing up. It was pleasant to find that he was respected by some of the other prisoners awaiting trial. A Cockney named Mobey who was to be charged with attempting to poison his wife with arsenic was apologetic about his own inefficiency.

‘I have this bird, you see, who’s fallen for me, twenty years younger than I am, you wouldn’t think it possible would you?’ Mobey was in his forties, and a carpenter by trade. ‘When the wife got to hear of it she played up, gave me hell. Between her and Sandra, that’s my bird, I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. But I should never have used arsenic, that was my mistake, it happened to be handy that’s all. Should have used something else.’

‘Are you pleading guilty?’

‘What do you take me for? My mouthpiece’s going to say it was a mistake, she did it herself, cooked it with the greens.’ Mobey gave Tony a wink. ‘She was never much of a cook and I don’t eat greens. But you, now, I can see you really gave it some thought.’

‘I had nothing to do with that man being killed.’

‘That’s right.’ Mobey winked again. ‘Mum’s the word. I admire you for it. Got a picture of her?’

‘Who?’

‘Mrs Foster, that the name? Here’s Sandra.’ He produced a dog-eared snap of a girl in a bikini. ‘How’s that for a piece of homework? And she’s hot stuff. Look at this.’ Tony read a letter from Sandra in which she told Mobey in detail of the pleasures they were both missing. ‘Can’t wait to get back to it. What’s your piece like?’

He found it impossible to talk about Jenny, but Mobey was not annoyed or disconcerted, considering this rather as a further proof of Tony’s superiority in sensibility as well as in the conduct of his affairs. He had an enviable certainty of his eventual release and talked continually about the splendid times he and Sandra would have when he got out.

Tony was also surprised to receive a number of letters from women who had read details of the case in the Magistrate’s Court. Some called him a murderer and breaker-up of homes, but most wanted to start a correspondence and two suggested marriage after the trial. ‘If your heart is still free – and I do not see how you can have any feeling for
that woman
after the way she has behaved – I want you to know that there are real loving women in the world who are keen to get something
exciting
out of life,’ wrote a woman from Bedford who described herself as thirty years old and fancy free. Two or three letters asked for a signed photograph and one woman enclosed a lock of hair with the request that he should send one of his in return. He answered some of the letters and was annoyed when, apparently satisfied to have heard from him, the women didn’t keep up the correspondence. At the same time there was something undoubtedly agreeable in finding himself a celebrity.

Upon the whole the days passed pleasantly enough. He seemed to have drifted out of life and did not feel seriously disturbed even when Mr Hussick came in and reported that their attempts to disprove Mrs Foster’s story had come to nothing. He looked forward to the trial with a mixture of excitement and distress. Distress because it would mean the end, one way or the other, of the hospital life that in some ways suited him very well, and also to the sessions with the psychiatrist which had continued and which he rather enjoyed. He did not allow himself to think what might happen after the trial ended if he were found guilty, and on the whole distress was submerged by excitement. It would be the first time in his life that he had ever really been given attention, and he felt the importance of doing his best in the witness box not only because (as Mr Hussick had said over and over) it was vital for his case, but because it was a real chance to show his true personality in public.