sped up on their way to London and the west. That would be the way Thomas would be going the next morning, in the back of an unmarked police car. Sergeant Hearns had said that they would need to leave just after six to be sure of getting to the Old Bailey on time.
Thomas’s head dropped as he felt the weight of the trial that he had done so much to bring about descend on his shoulders. With one last look at the great wide sea, he turned for home.
He let himself in through the east gate, hoping that Aunt Jane and the policeman had not noticed his absence. He had no wish to cause them anxiety if he could avoid it, but he need not have worried. They were halfway through their third cup of coffee when Thomas went into the kitchen. Aunt Jane had always been fond of the forces of law and order, but she seemed to have taken a particular shine to this policeman. He was local and shared her interest in Flyte gossip as well as providing a willing audience for her views about Greta and her barrister, which seemed to become more extreme by the day.
It was not a subject that Thomas wanted to talk about. He needed help with moving a picture out of his mother’s bedroom and hanging it in his own.
Twenty minutes later the task was done. Lady Sarah Sackville’s portrait hung on the wall of Thomas’s bedroom between the map of Suffolk shipwrecks and a photograph of his mother holding Barton.
That night Thomas looked up at his grandmother from his bed, warmed by the smile in her flashing dark eyes. It gave him strength to face the prospect of meeting the glittering green eyes of his adversary across the courtroom the next day.
Chapter 21
“Right, Mr. Lambert, remember the age of the witness and remember what I have directed about the photographs,” said Judge Granger, fixing the defense barrister with a hard look as he got to his feet to cross- examine.
It was two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, and Thomas had already been in the witness box for more than two hours. John Sparling had finished asking him questions at five to one, and then there had been only an hour to walk the unfamiliar crowded streets around the court and try to compose himself for what was to come.
Giving evidence had so far been both better and worse than he had expected. Better because he found that he had been able to shut Greta out of his mind, even though she was sitting only a few yards away, watching him intently all the time. Worse because Sparling had made him tell the jury all the terrible details of what had happened on the landing when he was shut inside the bookcase and those men were murdering his mother on the other side. Telling it made it real and the reality had made him cry. Thomas had hated that. Crying in front of that bitch, Greta, while the little usher woman brought him a box of tissues and a glass of water. Thomas swore to himself that there would be no repeat of such emotion this afternoon, whatever Greta’s fat barrister might do to him.
“I want to start with this man Rosie,” said Miles Lambert in a friendly tone. “You say you first saw him outside your father’s house in London?”
“Yes.”
“In the dark?”
“He was standing under a streetlight.”
“With his back to you.”
“Yes.”
“And he never turned around.”
“No, he didn’t. He’d have seen me if he had.”
“So you never saw his face.”
“Not that time. No.”
“Just the back of his head where he had a scar.”
“Yes, it was long and thick too. I saw it because he had his hair in a ponytail.”
“Ah yes, the ponytail. Plenty of men have ponytails though, don’t they, Thomas? Scars too.”
“Not like that one. Somebody must have taken a knife to him to do that.”
“Very dramatic. The point I’m making, Thomas, is that you can’t possibly say that the man under the streetlight is the same as the man who murdered your mother on the basis of a view from behind.”
“I’m sure it was the same person.”
“Even though you only saw the man in your house for a few seconds through a spy hole in a bookcase?”
“I will never forget his face.”
“You saw one man from behind and the other for only a few seconds when you were beside yourself with terror and distress and you jumped to a conclusion, which was based on very weak evidence. That’s the truth, isn’t it, Thomas?”
“They were the same person.”
“You jumped to the conclusion because you wanted to blame Greta Grahame for what had happened.”
“No.”
“Because you felt guilty that you hadn’t been able to save your mother from those men when you had saved yourself, and so you needed someone to blame.” Miles went on relentlessly.
“No, it’s not true. I couldn’t have saved her. She was behind me. She pushed me forward in there. I didn’t shut the bookcase — ”
“It’s all right, Thomas,” said the judge kindly. “Try to calm down. I know this is difficult for you. Mr. Lambert, try to be less confrontational.”
“Yes, my Lord. Thomas, I’m not saying you were to blame in any way for what happened that night. That’s the last thing I’m trying to say. I’m just suggesting that you feel guilty about it. People do feel guilty even though they shouldn’t when someone close to them dies. You know what I’m saying, don’t you, Thomas?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Thomas reluctantly.
“And if you feel guilty, then you need someone else to blame, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were upset with Greta at that time, though, weren’t you? Before your mother died.”
“In a way.”
“In a way. You were upset with her because she had rejected you.”
Thomas said nothing but he blushed deeply. He turned involuntarily to look at Greta in the dock and found her staring at him intently.
“You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Thomas? She took you out in London, and on the way back home in a taxi you told her that she was beautiful and that you loved her, and she rejected you. She said you were too young. Isn’t that right, Thomas?”
“Yes,” said Thomas almost in a whisper.
“I can’t hear you, Thomas,” said Miles Lambert. “Was that a yes?”
“Yes.”
There was silence in the courtroom. Sparling shifted uncomfortably in his seat. This revelation had come as an unpleasant surprise. There was nothing about it in Thomas’s statement. What else had the boy left out? Sparling wondered.
Miles Lambert allowed the silence to build, and with it Thomas’s discomfort, before he asked his next question.
“All this happened less than two months before your mother’s death, didn’t it, Thomas?”
“Yes.”
“So the rejection was fresh in your memory?”
“I didn’t think about it.”
“Are you sure about that, Thomas? You told Greta that you loved her.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“So you told her something that was untrue?”
“No. I meant it at the time, I suppose, but it was just something that happened that afternoon. It was just
