Pugh was surprised to see Inspector Albert Cooper in the witness box. There was his youth and his youthful appearance for a start. Then there was the fact, as Powerscourt had briefed Pugh before, that Cooper did not think there should have been an arrest at all. He did not think the evidence was strong enough for a conviction. Powerscourt had approached the matter with extreme cynicism.
‘If he doesn’t appear,’ he had told Pugh over lunch at his club in Pall Mall, ‘then it means he’s an honest man. They have failed to nobble him.’
‘They being?’ asked Pugh.
‘His immediate superiors, their immediate superiors, their immediate superiors, the Superintendents and the Commanders and the Chief Constable in person. Not necessarily in that order.’
‘And if he does appear?’ asked Pugh.
‘Some or maybe all those superiors will have got to him. Maybe not to him, maybe to that girl he’s going to marry. His parents, her parents perhaps. Why should Albert throw up such a promising career for a few doubts about an arrest? If every police officer followed his doubts about arresting people then the prisons would be empty and the courthouses all boarded up. God knows how the senior officers in the Norfolk police will do it, but they’ll certainly try.’
Sir Jasper Bentinck found Detective Inspector Cooper a much better witness than his immediate superior. There weren’t the pauses for a start. Cooper brought an air of freshness into the courtroom, of youth and hope. He told the story of the aftermath of the murder very well, not omitting the complaints about his age. Sir Jasper did not bother to ask about any doubts Cooper might have had about an arrest. Pugh was wondering right up to the point where the examination in chief came to an end about whether to cross-examine or not. Of all the witnesses so far, Cooper was making the best impression on the jury. Georgina Nash came from a different world. The Detective Chief Inspector was too old and too slow. This young man, so quick and so bright, was the one for them. Pugh thought one or two of his recent converts to an acquittal vote might have defected back to the other side. Napier had sent him a note suggesting no cross-examination at all.
In the end Pugh couldn’t resist. If Powerscourt’s realpolitik in the Pall Mall club was right, then Cooper might prove a godsend. It was worth a try.
‘Detective Inspector Cooper,’ an emollient, a charming Pugh began. ‘I believe you have made the acquaintance of a colleague of mine, Lord Francis Powerscourt, who has been investigating this case?’
‘I have indeed,’ said Cooper, smiling back at the defence barrister.
‘Lord Powerscourt told me right at the beginning of the case that Mrs Nash over there informed him that you thought Detective Chief Inspector Weir was going to arrest the wrong man. Is that the case?’
Albert Cooper thought about all the arguments brought to bear on him not to repeat his doubts at the trial. Weir himself had spoken to Charlotte when he was out, trying to persuade her to persuade him to deny it. He remembered the ploy that had finally brought him round. The Chief Constable himself had told his parents that if he didn’t do what he was told, his career in the Norfolk Constabulary or any other Constabulary would be over for ever. His mother, never strong, had grown ill. It was his father saying that he couldn’t bear to see his mother going downhill that finally turned him. What, asked his father, were a few white lies compared with his mother’s health?
‘That’s quite right,’ said Detective Inspector Cooper cheerfully, ‘I did think that at the beginning of the case.’
‘Could you tell the court what persuaded you into that judgement?’ Pugh was still emollient.
‘Well, sir, it seemed to me to be too obvious that the defendant had done it. It was as if somebody meant us to think like that.’
‘Really?’ said Pugh. ‘And what made you change your mind?’
‘I think there were two things, sir. Chief Inspector Weir is a detective of great experience. He has been investigating murders in Norfolk since before I was born. You have to take account of things like that, especially when you’ve only just been promoted like I had been at the time.’
‘And the second reason?’
‘I think I was influenced by the fact that there didn’t seem to me to be any other explanation. None of the guests at the wedding came up with anything and as time went by no other explanation presented itself.’
‘I see,’ said Pugh. ‘I put it to you, Detective Inspector, that your superiors put considerable pressure on you to change your mind. How much more convenient to have all the officers in the case singing the same tune. Did they talk to you about your future prospects? Did they put pressure on your family to make you come round?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Inspector Cooper, but he had turned a shade of deep red.
Charles Augustus Pugh remained on his feet for half a minute or so, staring at Detective Inspector Cooper. Then he turned abruptly on his heel and sat down.
‘No further questions,’ he said.
Sir Jasper rose quickly to his feet, aware of the damage that might have been done to his case.
‘Detective Inspector Cooper, could you just confirm one or two points for the gentlemen of the jury? It is your belief that the defendant, Cosmo Colville, murdered his brother Randolph at Brympton Hall at a wedding in October of this year?’
‘It is,’ said Cooper, the red fading from his cheeks.
‘And you reached that opinion entirely on your own with no external pressure?’
Mistake, thought Pugh. The young man can control what he says but not what happens to the colour of his face.
‘I did,’ said Albert Cooper, the colour rising up his cheeks again.
Sir Jasper was quick to react. ‘No further questions,’ he said, and it so happened that right at that very moment he fell victim to a coughing fit that involved a great deal of noise and apologies to the judge while this storm raged about him. The fit also led to the production of a quite magnificent red handkerchief from his trouser pocket, an enormous kerchief about the size of a tea towel which appeared to bring some relief. Under cover of this display Albert Cooper was able to slip away with the gentlemen of the jury unaware of whether he had turned pink once more or not. Out of the corner of his eye Pugh caught an angry glower on the face of Detective Chief Inspector Weir, as though the young man had let them down. You could control his words but you couldn’t control the colour on his face. Weir in angry mode, thought Pugh, did have a remarkable similarity to an aged warhorse.
It was just after four o’clock now. Outside the lamps were being lit. A couple of hundred yards away the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral were preparing for the daily ritual of evensong. Sir Jasper thought he had chosen his last witness well. Willoughby Nash, husband of Georgina, owner of Brympton Hall, leading solicitor in the city of Norwich, chairman of this and director of that in the city where he worked, captain and leading run scorer for Aylsham Cricket Club, was a man of substance, a man of weight. Even in the alien territory of the witness box of the Old Bailey, seldom, if ever, the scene of courtroom encounters for the solicitors of Norwich, Willoughby Nash radiated an easy power. Sir Jasper hoped that he would prove a fitting final witness for the close of the prosecution case.
‘Mr Nash.’ Sir Jasper seemed to have recovered from his coughing fit by now. ‘Perhaps you could give us your account of the day of the murder. You were at the very centre of events after all.’
Willoughby Nash looked at the gentlemen of the jury as if he might be about to sell them at an auction and needed to determine the appropriate prices.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘of course. There was nothing untoward about the wedding itself apart from the fact that the organist fellow didn’t play what he’d been told to play. After that people milled around at the front of the church as they usually do, trying to kiss the bride or shake hands with the groom. Eventually they all drifted into the gardens at the rear – Brympton has gardens to the front as well as the back, being such a large house – and we served them champagne.’