You're a graduate; I'm a student. She had thought it through a hundred times, not blaming Bailey, only the perceptions that made them different and him a stranger all over again.
`Ha! Miss West! Our delightful prosecutor for the day. Nice to see you. Nice of you to put your facts so fairly if I may say so. How you manage so many cases with such elegant economy..
Bit over the top, thought Helen. Harmoner, with his heavy bonhomie, chose this time to embrace her after eight months of rather more suspicious acquaintance. Woodford and Branston were almost country; they were certainly not town, where professional friendships developed perforce at greater speed, where trust or its opposite were bestowed in a glance, since you might never have seen that opponent before. She appreciated Harmoner's ponderous expertise and lack of dirty tricks, but could have postponed closer knowledge indefinitely. On the other hand, he appeared to have decided all of a sudden that she was good enough for membership of his club, which was not a club at all, simply the local fraternity of those thoroughly committed to their lifestyles.
`We're neighbours, I understand,' he continued with weighty familiarity, standing very close. 'My wife and I should see more of you. Marvellous place, Branston, don't you think?
Do you ever have a drink at The Coach? You should come to the Rotary Club… Sometimes a few of us get together; you know, good for business all round. Must get you involved more,' he boomed. `Haven't made you feel at home, have we? Must do better. Jolly good. Lunch, eh?'
`Very kind,' said Helen, smiling convincingly. 'But I must go back to the office. You know how it is. But tell me' – seizing the opportunity suddenly with Redwood in mind -
'are you doing the Sumner committal here tomorrow or are you using counsel?'
I'll do it myself. Why use a barrister?'
She replied diplomatically, 'Why indeed? You'll do far better. I'm not involved, of course, but you won't mind if I watch?' Best to secure some kind of permission, however worthless.
`My pleasure. Nice of you to ask.' He beamed, taking her interest in his case as a personal compliment. 'And after that, we'll arrange something for you and your husband in Branston.'
He would know very well that Bailey was not her husband in the strict sense: Harmoner knew everything, and used the word as a token of forgiveness. 'Look forward to seeing you.'
Not if I see you first. Waving goodbye, watching him watch her make for the oldest car in the park. Nothing personal, dear Mr Harmoner, but the idea of involvement in Branston's social life makes me itch. Rural pursuits means clubs, committee meetings at the church, maybe. God forbid, wine and cheese parties, coffee mornings, and almost certainly dinner parties to show off the wonders of your house. Not likely. She had many acquaintances, few friends, but such as there were provoking passionate loyalty and the desire to entertain in the full knowledge of their tolerance of burned food. The same was true of Bailey: they lacked the herd instinct.
She swore to herself. Guilty side up today: first William Featherstone, and then this wild resentment when some half-kindhearted soul tried to bully her into joining his club. Was she a self-protective freak or simply unclubbable, revelling in anonymity, missing her own city? Helen had a sudden and sharp yearning to escape, forgot the weekend's freedoms, wanted out and home to London, planned it quickly and furiously as she drove to the modern old-style house she could not call home.
Later this week I'm off, not for good, mind, but off to the smoke for a day out. With or without you, Bailey, I'm going home. After I've had a look in court at the evidence you've gathered. Then I'll certainly need to escape for a bit.
She did not know why she wanted to watch the committal, but the desire to do so had been strong from the beginning, growing in proportion to Bailey's reticence on the whole subject of the murder and escalating sharply after she had seen the evidence. She could not remember when this current cycle of silence and countersilence had begun to feed her professional curiosity. Perhaps her own action in recommending a solicitor for Sumner had made Bailey distrust her, but she doubted it; he was far too fair for that.
Somewhere along the line, his own doubt had touched him with obdurate reserve, had filled her with angry questions, and she was going to watch these preliminary proceedings to see the evidence in focus. Besides, she would one day return to the prosecution of murder and mayhem, and in case that day was far off, she was not going to lose her knowledge or any opportunity to test her judgement in the meantime.
She was better acquainted with the facts than other watchers at the back of another court in the same dreadful building, ghouls drawn by stories of blood, a local murder from a few miles down the road: would you believe we picnicked there once? Helen did not misunderstand the interest as she saw the ravens and the pressmen gather, felt it herself, this indignant, not always pleasant curiosity following violent death. Respectable blood, not a vendetta knife in the ribs or a drunken brawl resulting in death or domestic fury run riot with kitchen tools, all close enough to London to make them ten a penny.
This was crime passionnel, illicit passion at that. That her own interest was less prurient did not stop Helen from feeling relieved by Bailey's absence from the court. She knew he was allowing Amanda Scott to assume the role of managing officer for the day, had come to consider he was bored with the whole thing and slightly ashamed of it. A purely academic worry was running riot on this score: she had seen before the catastrophic effect on a case of an officer who had simply lost interest.
Murder deserved better.
Notebook in hand, making herself insignificant in the corner by the door in case Redwood should turn in his opening speech and include them all in his wide-angled view. She was not attempting to hide, but she felt like a trespasser and knew that was exactly how both he and Bailey might regard her presence. Spying on Bailey's handiwork, looking for some clue to his view of the world, seeking a perspective to show Sumner was innocent because she preferred to think that he was. They might have perceived it that way. Helen saw it as keeping her hand in.
Evidence recited out loud – marshalled into order, read like a story illustrated by faces and presented in court – was a different matter from evidence read in a book. To a casual reader it was not the same book; the overtones were familiar, but the style was different: level voices and the occasional inflection of emphasis or surprise, made as undramatic as possible – no emotion, gentlemen, please – by this quiet courtroom and these calm adversaries who brought it alive at the same time with their grave and silly gestures.
My learned friend insists. I beg to differ. If my learned friend wishes, he may interrupt, but with all respect to my colleague for the defence, this is the way it is, brother.
You might have the last speech, but I have the first. One defendant in dock, stripped of authority, almost of humanity, guarded on either side against escape. Poor frustrated Sumner.
Bet he wished he never set eyes on womankind. Helen still could not see the murderer in him; could see no capacity for deadly violence in those thin shoulders even while she knew that that potential lurked in almost every soul alive.
She watched Christine Summerfield sitting two rows ahead of her, wished she was close enough to touch, even offer the comfort she knew would be rejected. All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. Act One, curtain up, amateur thespians delivering expressionless lines, preliminary to final conclusion: sentence to death – sorry, life. Curtain down weeks or months hence. That was exactly what it looked like. Idly she drew her small pad towards her, pencilled a rough sketch of Harmoner and next to it, a cartoon of a guinea pig in a suit.
She knew by experience and instinct that the issues would be all about that knife.
While she listened, she sketched, ever so economically, figures for the voices she heard.
Come on, Dr Vanguard, I have had you described to me and we have met before. Do your stuff and tell us what you found. The doctor sounded shambly and tweedy with a compost-rich voice. Helen drew him as a gardener.
`The body was found in a small clearing among shrubs,' Vanguard said. 'There had been partial clearance of the soil before my arrival, revealing part of the head, shoulder, and right arm. The right hand had been eaten by predators and the head was infested with maggots, which appeared to be at the first stage, first instar. I proceeded to dig the body out of the ground, collecting soil samples in the process.
My external examination revealed a well-nourished woman, five feet four inches in height. The face was not identifiable because of decomposition. In the area of the neck there were two stab wounds on the left side. The top wound was one and a half inches, a lateral wound and the larger of the two, while the wound beneath was one inch, just above the thoracic inlet. On removal of the hair it was noted that there was discoloration beneath the front hairline with extensive bruising. There was also a laceration of the skin at the same point. There was
