“Was it raining?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“On the drive back?”
“No.”
“Good, now just one more question about that evening, Mrs. Ball. How long would you say it was between Thomas calling his mother and you getting in the car to take him home?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s difficult to remember.”
“Try, Mrs. Ball. Please try.”
“Well, I remember we talked about it. About why she wasn’t answering. Speculating a bit. And I don’t know; maybe it was then that my husband called.”
“At eight o’clock.”
“Yes.”
“So there might’ve been a good ten or fifteen minutes between Thomas calling his mother and leaving in the car?”
Mrs. Ball didn’t answer. She looked uncertain.
“Could that be possible, Mrs. Ball? We need your answer.”
“Yes, I expect so.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Ball. That’s all.”
“You’re sure about these late-evening walks that Lady Anne used to take, Greta?” asked Miles Lambert.
The judge had given the jurors a coffee break, and Miles and Greta were closeted in an interview room discussing the evidence.
“Yes, she’d always go down to the beach. With the dog. It was like a ritual.”
“The dog was dead, though.”
“Dogs,” corrected Greta.
“Sorry, yes I forgot,” said Miles. “Place was a canine disaster area. No doubt we’ll be hearing about that in a minute from Mrs. Martin.”
“Shriveled-up old shrew,” said Greta.
“Yes, but let’s hope she helps us with these walks. I’ll try and take her by surprise. The last witness set it up nicely, I think. Probably about eight-thirty that Thomas returned home. Butler said it didn’t start raining until after nine, and Mrs. Ball doesn’t remember any rain.”
“What’s so good about him getting back then?” asked Greta. Miles’s musings often frustrated her when she didn’t know what he was getting at.
“It gives us the time for Lady Anne to go for a walk in the beautiful warm evening. Down to the beach and back.”
“And forget to lock the north door on her return,” added Greta excitedly. Now she was seeing where Miles was going.
“Yes,” said Miles. “And good Mrs. Ball has been generous enough to allow us at least thirty minutes between Thomas’s phone call and his arrival back at the house. Consistent with what I shall tell the jury. She didn’t answer the phone not because it was unplugged but because she was out walking, setting off soon after you and Peter left the house at seven-thirty. Detective Butler has already told us it was a warm evening before it rained, which explains incidentally why you opened the study window, Greta, and then forgot to close it before you left. If Thomas opened his bedroom window when he got back, then it makes sense for you to have opened the window in the study three hours earlier.
“So anyway, Lady Anne walks down to the beach to admire the waves, and then, while her son’s debating with the Ball family about what to do, she comes back through the north gate and forgets to lock it behind her. She crosses the lawn to the house and hangs up the key by the side door. Then she goes up to bed, takes her sleeping tablet, unplugs the telephone so that she won’t be woken up and is fast asleep by the time Mrs. Ball arrives outside the front gates. Half an hour later the rain starts and washes away all her footprints.”
Miles finished his long speech and blew his nose on a bright yellow handkerchief. He looked very pleased with himself.
“What about the phone call that I made to arrange Thomas’s visit?” asked Greta. “Isn’t that a problem?”
“No, you can explain that when the time comes. Lady Anne asked you to ring up. No reason you should have had to spell it out to Mrs. Ball. No, so far so good, my dear. Let’s see how we do with Mrs. Martin. What did you call her?”
“A shriveled-up old shrew,” said Greta, emphasizing each word.
“Well, let’s see if I can tame her,” said Miles, smiling.
Jane Martin had dressed in black for her day in court, a simple black dress above a pair of sensible patent leather shoes. Her only concession to female vanity was an ebony comb, which kept her almost white hair in place above the nape of her neck.
Miles Lambert thought that she must be over seventy, but she was strikingly well preserved for her age. It was as if she had spent many years growing into her angular face and now wore it comfortably, with no attempt to hide the multitude of tiny lines that crisscrossed its surface. She didn’t look shriveled-up at all, he thought. As to whether she was a shrew, only time would tell.
She chose to sit down to give her evidence with her small bony hands folded over the clasp of her black leather handbag, but this did nothing to diminish the imposing presence that she brought with her into the courtroom. As the morning wore on, Miles Lambert was struck more and more by the defiance of the old housekeeper, her refusal to be intimidated by either the court or its officials. She sat with her small, hard chin jutting forward and made sure that she always gave as good as she got.
Miles Lambert was secretly rather impressed with Mrs. Martin. She was not what he had expected. There was something almost admirable about her, and he wondered to himself about whether he should be benevolent or aggressive in his cross-examination. Benevolence might be interpreted by the jury as weakness, but aggression might lose their sympathy. There was still plenty of time, however, for Miles to study the Robinsons’ housekeeper before he had to ask her any questions. John Sparling had plenty of his own to ask this witness.
“How long have you known the defendant?” he asked once Mrs. Martin had taken the oath and given her name.
“About three years. Maybe a little longer.”
“How would you describe the relationship between your former employer, Lady Anne Robinson, and the defendant during that period?”
“Reasonable at first but then it got worse. By the end I’d say that they hated each other.”
“What led you to form that view?”
“That they hated each other?”
“Yes.”
“It was what happened when the little dog died. What they both said.”
“I see, Mrs. Martin. Now I think we’re going to need some background here. Whose dog are we talking about?”
“Thomas’s. My Lady gave her to him for his fifteenth birthday just after they got back from London. The old Labrador, Barton, died at the beginning of April, and Thomas was heartbroken. Mattie was supposed to cheer him up.”
“Mattie being the new dog?”
“That’s right. She was a sweet little thing. A little Highland terrier with a wet, black nose. Always getting into things. Running about.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Martin. We’re not going to need a detailed description of the dog.” Sparling was eager to get to the meat of the story.
“Thank you, sir, but I think we are,” said the housekeeper tartly, causing almost everybody in the court except Sparling and the juror who looked like Mrs. Thatcher to burst out laughing.
“It was Mattie’s running about that caused the problem,” she added.
“I see,” said Sparling with a half smile. “Please explain.” It had only taken him a moment to swallow his irritation and decide to let Mrs. Martin tell it her own way. He knew better than to cross swords with his own
