up because you’d already decided that Greta was guilty and so you had to make sure that she got charged.”
“I knew she was guilty, but that didn’t make me lie. It made me look for proof. That’s how I found the locket.”
“And yet your reasons for believing she was guilty didn’t amount to much, did they?”
“Mr. Lambert, we’ve already been over that,” said the judge irritably. “Try not to argue with the witness. Cross-examination is about asking questions.”
“Yes, my Lord,” said Miles. “Let’s move on, Thomas. Let’s talk about what happened on the fifth of July.”
Thomas shifted in his seat but otherwise did not respond. Miles did not carry on immediately but allowed a silence to build before he spoke again.
“Let’s make sure I’ve got the setting right first. Jane Martin left at six, having locked all the doors. You were in the dining room eating your dinner, with all the windows open.”
“Yes, it was a warm evening.”
“So it was. And you had your panic button next to your plate ready to call the emergency services if the need should arise?”
“No, it was in my pocket. Sergeant Hearns told me to keep it with me all the time. He’s the one who got it for me.”
“He told you there was a risk of the men coming back, the men who had killed your mother.”
“Not exactly.”
“Did he put that idea in your mind, Thomas?”
“No, he said it was better to be safe than sorry, that’s all.”
“I see. So the men came through the north door in the perimeter wall, crossed the lawn, and entered the house, and you stayed in this bench while they were looking for you?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t have been able to see very much from inside that.”
“I could see out through the holes in the eyes, like I said before.”
“Ah, yes. The holes in the eyes. They wouldn’t exactly have given you a grandstand view of what Lonny and Rosie were up to though, would they?”
“No. Not really.”
“And yet you say in your statement that ‘they looked around the rooms downstairs for a while but they didn’t touch anything.’ Were you able to watch them all the time then, see that they weren’t touching anything?”
“No. I meant that when I could see them, they weren’t touching anything. Rosie did later, though.”
“And Rosie just happened to mention my client by name.”
“That’s right. He said that she’d told him how the hiding-place mechanism works.”
“It’s very convenient, isn’t it, Thomas?”
“You don’t need to answer that, Thomas,” interrupted the judge. “Ask the witness questions; save your comments for the jury. I shouldn’t need to keep telling you that, Mr. Lambert.”
“No, my Lord.” Miles smiled affably up at the judge. Old Granger’s interruptions and instructions seemed to have no effect whatsoever on Lurid Lambert, who carried on relentlessly along his charted course, guiding the witness slowly but surely onto the rocks.
“Was it Rosie who said: ‘Fuck, they’re all fucking closed’ about the windows on the night of your mother’s murder?”
“I don’t know. I’ve thought about that a lot, but I just don’t know.”
“Yet you say in your statement about Rosie’s return that you would recognize the voice of the man with the scar.”
“Yes. If I heard it again I would, but my mother got killed a year before they came back.”
“So you can’t say if the man with the scar said the words about the windows but you remember the words clearly?”
“That’s right.”
“I see. Well, let’s go on to the end of your story. You hear the siren. Rosie stops talking in midsentence, and he and Lonny run out the front door. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“You get out of the bench and answer the intercom.”
“I buzzed the police in through the front gate.”
“Having spoken to Officer Hughes through the intercom first. Isn’t that right, Thomas?”
“I don’t remember.”
“He told us what happened when he gave evidence yesterday. He said that you asked him who he was and he identified himself as a police officer. Then you opened the gates by remote control. Do you agree with his account, Thomas?”
“I suppose so. I was in a panic. I don’t remember everything that was said.”
“Well, I’ll take that as a yes. Now, you knew from Officer Hughes that the police were at the front gate. You knew that Rosie and Lonny had parked their car in the lane. You must have assumed that they were running back to their car. You knew all that, and so why didn’t you tell Officer Hughes through the intercom to drive down to the lane and cut them off instead of buzzing him in through the front gate?”
Miles had asked his final question with a fierce directness that sparked the jury into a concentrated focus on Thomas, who didn’t answer immediately. He looked like a chess player who has suddenly seen his king exposed to a massive unforeseen attack and now looks around desperately but in vain for a move that will stave off inevitable defeat.
“I don’t know,” Thomas said eventually. “I didn’t think. Those men would have killed me if they’d found me. I suppose I wanted to feel safe.”
“But you were safe. The men had left. This was your opportunity to catch your mother’s killers.”
“I didn’t think.”
“You didn’t think. It makes no sense, Thomas. It makes no sense because none of this really happened, did it?”
“Yes, it did. I swear it did.”
“Just like it makes no sense that the police found the north door locked.”
“They must have locked it when they left because they would have known how it would look.”
“Like they’d never been there?”
“Yes.”
“It looks like that because that’s the truth, isn’t it, Thomas? You’ve made all this up. You didn’t think the locket would be enough, and so you invented Rosie’s return and a casual reference to Greta and the bookcase just to be sure of getting your stepmother convicted. Isn’t that right, Thomas?”
“No! No!” The denial seemed to be wrenched from somewhere deep inside. Thomas’s face was contorted with pain, but this did nothing to deter Miles from driving home his point.
“You were the one who opened the front door before the police got close enough to see what you were doing.”
“No, they left it open.”
“Who?”
“Rosie and Lonny.”
“Rosie and Lonny! I don’t know where you got those names from, Thomas — unless it was some late-night TV movie — but the point is you made them up just like you made up this whole sorry story.”
“No, I didn’t. They came for me, I tell you. They’ll come again.”
“Will they, Thomas? Will they?” Miles Lambert wore an expression of sorrowful incredulity on his round face. He was not looking for an answer to his question, and he sat down before Thomas could give one.
Chapter 22
