pass out in the car park of that pub. I didn't care whether Corcoran then went on to say that he had seen Brennan follow Edward in his car. I wanted revenge on the Irishman, but that could wait.
As Tom left the witness box and returned to the dock, I watched the jury for their reaction. It was incredible how their expressions gave so little away. I suppose they felt the eyes of the court were upon them and at least they had to give the impression of taking their duty seriously. I wondered whether they were really capable of analysing the issues, or knowing that their duty was to be certain of guilt before they reached a verdict to convict. Of course, they could only act on the evidence they had heard and seen for themselves. They knew nothing of Corcoran or of Musgrave's suspicious death or the link between my husband and Brennan. Who knows what feelings and emotions ran through their minds as they listened to the evidence? Had one of the male jurors himself been cuckolded and therefore hated any adulterer? Or had one of the women been cheated by her husband? It was a rare person who was able to leave his or her own prejudices and moral values behind as they stepped into a courtroom and passed judgement on a fellow man. I still hadn't given up hope. There was at least one woman who had appeared sympathetic as Tom had given his evidence.
Up ahead of me, Tom's counsel was now anxiously talking to his solicitor sitting in the row in front of him. Corcoran had obviously not appeared. The counsel rose to his feet and asked Snipe if the court would be minded to grant a short adjournment. Snipe was plainly not in such a charitable mood. He pointed out in acerbic terms that he had only allowed cross-examination on the entries in Edward's diary on the strict understanding that the individual in question, Corcoran, would be called by the defence. He saw no reason, if the witness was available, why he should not now be brought into court. Tom's counsel could offer no explanation for his absence. His application was refused by Snipe with unashamed enthusiasm. He then ordered that the usher should call out for Corcoran in case he was in the vicinity of the court. There was no response.
On that disastrous note the case for the defendant came to an abrupt end. The triumph envisaged by calling Corcoran had now turned into unmitigated disaster.
Chapter 17
That afternoon, the respective counsels made their closing speeches to the jury. Scott, on behalf of the prosecution, began by analysing the evidence coldly and clinically without displaying the slightest trace of emotion or passion. He delivered his speech without once appearing to look at a note and you could sense that he was gradually persuading the jury that whichever way they approached it, all the evidence pointed inexorably in one direction: the guilt of the accused, and therefore his just conviction for murder.
The jury now with him, Scott began to quicken the pace, cynically and rhetorically destroying Tom's defence. There was, he pointed out, ample motive and opportunity. Just as hell knows no fury like a woman scorned, who was to know what terrible deeds might be committed by an otherwise sensible and upright man driven by jealousy or despair? He poured scorn on Tom's attempts to answer the evidence against him. Asked about his whereabouts on the night Edward Pryde had disappeared, Tom answered that he was asleep, having passed out in the dark corner of the car park of a public house. How convenient! Pressed about the discovery of his footprints at the scene of the crime, he claimed feebly they must belong to someone else. Questioned about the petrol on his clothes, he explained it away as the result of an accident that same evening when filling up his car. Finally, when challenged about the incriminating contents of one of his letters to his lover, he is driven to claiming that there is a page missing.
By contrast, Scott argued, the attempt by the defendant to blacken the deceased's good name had deservedly failed. There was no sign of the mysterious Mr Corcoran who was going to tell the court what an evil blackmailer Edward Pryde was, and no doubt thereby seek to implant in the minds of the jury the notion that the world was a better place without him and that many people other than the defendant had a motive for wanting him dead. At the end of the day, urged Scott, it was simply a case of balancing facts, damning when considered in their entirety, against the word and demeanour of the accused in the witness box. There could be only one conclusion.
Tom's counsel, Fenton, earned his fee that afternoon. Reminding the jury throughout of their duty to convict only if they were certain beyond reasonable doubt, he proceeded to expose the truly circumstantial nature of the prosecution case. There was, he reminded the jury, no witness who had seen Tom follow Edward from the pub, no witness, even, who had seen them together after they had left the saloon bar just past closing time. It might well be that Tom had the opportunity to kill Edward Pryde, but so did hundreds if not thousands of other people. It was argued fiercely on behalf of the Crown that the accused alone had the necessary motive. What was that motive when analysed? An apparent desire to remove the obstacle between himself and marriage to Victoria Pryde. Was that, Fenton asked, really likely? His client had freely and frankly admitted everything from the outset, when questioned by the police about his affair with Victoria. He had told the court how he had accepted that so long as Edward refused to give Victoria a divorce, their love was impossible. It was Edward who had become aggressive and made a scene. If the prosecution case were seriously suggesting this was murder, Tom must have gone to that pub with a preconceived plan for disposing of his so-called enemy. And if that was so, why would he have been so clumsy as to have spilt petrol on his clothing when committing the murder? Or if he did spill the petrol, why didn't he then destroy the suit he was wearing? Instead, he freely handed it over to the police when they began their investigation. Would he really have been so naive as to have left that petrol can in a box at his own stable when he could have thrown it away in the undergrowth, or into a river where it would almost certainly never have been discovered? His client, he invited the jury to conclude, was a decent and honourable man who unfortunately had become involved with a married woman. That was not a crime in our society. He had accepted that the affair had no future and as far as he was concerned, that was an end to the matter. As for the incriminating letters, they were nothing of the sort. He invited the jury when they retired to read through the whole bundle and see for themselves that they contained the sentiments of a decent man who was sincerely in love. Why should the accused and Victoria Pryde not be telling the truth when they had both said that a crucial page was missing? After all, they were the only two people who really knew, and no explanation had been offered by the prosecution as to just exactly how those letters had come into the police's possession. Who was to say that a page had not become detached or gone missing by accident? It would be unrealistic and a cruel injustice to convict a man and condemn him to a life sentence where such a doubt existed.
It was, he continued, the duty of the jury to take into account the unblemished character of Tom Radcliffe, a man with no previous convictions and against whom nothing could be said to suggest he had a tendency to violence. Their decision had to be based, not on emotion or prejudice or morality, but on a detached and reasoned assessment of the evidence. That could lead to only one result: a verdict of not guilty.
I was certainly moved and I thought several members of the jury were too. It was now up to Snipe to sum up fairly and that task was adjourned until the following day.
No one who heard the Honourable Mr Justice Snipe would have been under any illusion as to what he considered the proper verdict. Of course, he was careful not to give any obvious indication of bias or make any statement blatantly prejudicial to Tom, but he was clever enough to review the evidence in a way which could lead any reasonable person to only one conclusion. By setting out in some detail the background to the murder – the development of our relationship, the secret and furtive sexual encounters, the gradual realisation by Tom that he could never marry me so long as Edward was alive – he planted the seed of motive firmly in the jury's mind. From there it easily and swiftly grew into opportunity. So much, he said, hinged on the accused's explanation of how he spent the night of the disappearance. Was he telling the truth when he said he must have passed out in his car after leaving the pub, or was that a highly convenient explanation fabricated to cover up for what he had really being doing? It was, of course, a matter solely for the jury as the arbiters of fact, but did they not think it a trifle curious that two or three pints of beer should have had such an effect on the accused? And so Snipe went on turning the screw a little more with each comment. Finally at three o'clock he sent the jury out to reach their verdict. It was like waiting for the result of a stewards' enquiry, only this time the outcome would be far more serious. When the jury returned, they all sat down and then the Foreman was asked to rise. An insignificant little man of about forty-five, balding and with glasses, rose hesitantly to his feet.
