‘I’ll tell you the rest sometime, I hope. You were, after all, brave enough to accost me on a train. And you were on the right side of justice, once, even if you aren’t any more and you were too junior to interfere. And I do have a lot of guilt to resolve. Not guilt, mistakes. And whatever kind of bloodless bitch she was, it must be awful for her family not to know. They must deserve better.’
Peter thought about Marianne’s only known family, Frank Shearer as described by Thomas. Not interested in anything but the money, couldn’t give a fig why.
‘Anyway, about this skirt, can I keep it for a day or two?’
Peter could hear Thomas saying, you did what? You gave our only evidence to someone who might burn it or spirit it away? You incompetent idiot. It belongs to Frank Shearer. Hen could see the doubt in his face. This time, she liked his face, also the broad shoulders that seemed too willing to bear other people’s burdens. It would be easier to confess to Peter Friel than to anyone else. Someone had to know. She watched him hesitate, on the brink of trusting her when, really, he should not. She was waiting for him.
‘Yes, if you tell me why.’
‘I’d like to get it clean,’ she said. ‘Since she was so careful to preserve it, I’d like to get the blood out. That’s what she would have wanted. That’s what it deserves.’
He was stunned. She went on.
‘Because, as I said, the woman who owned this thing was probably passionate about clothes. This might have been one of her best things, for her to choose to die in it, but there would be other things of similar quality. I’m sort of sure about that. It said in the newspaper that she had just moved house…’
‘Yes. Sold most of the contents of the last, hidden everything, but we don’t know where.’
‘Hmm, yes. I doubt she would have moved far from her precious clothes. Got them stored, carefully. Or given them to someone. There are specialist storage places for theatrical costumes and clothes. I could ask around. See if anyone in my line of business, the richer end of it, I mean, could have an idea of where they might be. Maybe she’s hidden away other personal things along with them, but whatever, she would always have looked after her clothes.’
Peter went home without the suitcase, lighter for the lack of it, and feeling better. He felt he was sharing a burden, but above all, he wanted to share hers and he wanted to know what was in her carpet bag.
His flat seemed horribly colourless when he went indoors. A place with beige walls and no distractions except for the piles of paper which were still the heft of a legal practice -despite the computer, the disks, the online research, they were all, still, fixated by words on paper. It was second nature to come indoors on any evening and start reading.
He did so, now.
The transcript of the trial, in neat folders.
Everyone had a copy as a souvenir. Marianne insisted.
Why did Henrietta Joyce send the post-mortem report on her sister Angel to Marianne Shearer? Was this an act of malice?
His phone went at midnight. Thomas Noble despised mobile phones, always used the landline, waiting for people to come home so he could get them there and had no idea of what were sociable hours. He phoned when it suited himself, and when he was excited.
‘Peter, dear boy, I’ve found the lover. Did you hear me? I’ve found the lover. No, he found me. Yet another person who wants to know if Marianne left anything around referring to himself. Very nervous, very distinguished, very cagey. Very. I’ve had to promise him extreme confidentiality. He won’t come in tomorrow, only the day after. You can use tomorrow for searching. I’m resting. Perhaps you’d better be there on Thursday afternoon? On second thoughts, better I deal with him myself. I’ll keep you posted. We’ll all take it easy tomorrow.’
Peter went to sleep, dreaming of floating garments made of silk, and Hen Joyce.
He woke early in the morning, and dragged out the manuscript of the transcript again. There was so much detail he had forgotten and it was somehow important to remember it all. He would keep going back to cross-examinations rather than evidence in chief. Cross-examination revealed more, although it was arguable whether it revealed as much about the person who asked the questions as it did about the person who answered.
Continuation of cross-examination of Henrietta Joyce by Marianne Shearer, QC
MS. To continue, Ms Joyce. I hope you’re feeling better today?
HJ. How do you expect me to feel?
MS. Like someone foolish might feel, I suppose. Unless you’re telling me you’re unfit to give evidence, it’s not really my business how you feel.
HJ. You asked.
MS. So I did, but it was only to see if you were fit, and a matter of courtesy, and you’re here, so we’ll just get on. I want to ask you about what happened after you brought your sister back to London from Birmingham. Can we agree she was in a sorry state, even if we might not agree as to the reasons for that state? She wasn’t well, can we say?
HJ. She was ill.
MS. I’ll go with that. She was a bit poorly and she was claiming she’d been raped, successively, hence some of the charges against my client. She also claimed he’d chopped off her finger. She told you this, you said so in your evidence in chief. You believed at the time that she had been seriously abused. So why didn’t you take her to a doctor?
HJ. I did.
MS. And? Why don’t we have a medical report of that consultation? Why didn’t you take her to the nearest police station and claim rape, like you did later? I’ve got your statement here, Ms Joyce and even you can’t quarrel with that. You kept dear little Angel in your flat, away from her parents and everyone else for three whole days. However ill she was, you kept her there.
HJ. I didn’t. I drove her home, my home, and put her to bed. She was ill. She was raving-
MS. At least you admit she was raving mad. Not amenable to reason, was she? Perhaps you thought you might dry-clean her up, is that right?
Laughter from jury/reprimand from HHJ McD, who also smiled.
MS. OK, I take that back, Ms Joyce, but why didn’t you take her to a doctor immediately if she was so ill? And ranting and raving etc.
HJ. I did. I took her to Accident and Emergency on the way home. Then I let her sleep, and eat, and talk, and then I took her to a doctor.
MS. So where’s the report from A and E?
HJ. I presume it’s part of the evidence. I don’t know.
MS. I’ll tell you why you don’t know. That medical report doesn’t exist. You never took her there. You simply said you did. Nor did you take her to a doctor.
HJ. Isn’t going to a hospital the same thing?
MS. It’s for me to ask the questions, not you. You kept her at your flat for three days, until you had both concocted the right kind of story. Then you went to the police.
HJ. I took her to Accident and Emergency as soon as we got back. There was a queue. If the records of that are lost, I’m sorry. The next day I took her to the police after she was rested. It wasn’t three days after I brought her back, it was twenty-four hours.
MS. Why not take her to hospital in Birmingham if she was that bad?
HJ. I thought it better to get her out of that place, bring her away. Get her clean, make her feel safe. Besides, I didn’t know then how bad it had been. I didn’t know the extent of what he’d done.