Primrose Brown got to her feet. ‘Officer, you mentioned earlier in your evidence information relating to a German company, Schafft-Steinmetz. Can you confirm that at no time progressing these enquiries is my client’s name mentioned?’
Alexander replied, ‘That is correct.’
Brown continued. ‘In relation to the instructions regarding specifically the four classic sports cars, can you again confirm that my client’s name was not found anywhere on that paperwork?’
‘That is correct,’ said Alexander.
Primrose Brown persisted. ‘Detective Sergeant, did you find anything untoward about these four previous cars, other than them being replicas?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I did not. But, of course, they have never been examined.’
‘Would you consider yourself an expert in the field of classic vehicles?’
‘Other than my father owning a vintage Harley Davidson motorbike, no, probably not.’
She nodded. ‘I understand there is a large and legitimate market in replica models of classic cars. Many of these are exhibited and raced at classic car events in the full knowledge they are replicas. So, you would not be aware of this?’
‘No,’ Alexander admitted.
‘You have also just said that LH Classics of Chichester is owned by the defendant through a chain of offshore companies, as if you were casting aspersions on such a thing. Many highly reputable companies operating out of the UK are in fact owned by companies registered abroad, either for tax mitigation or for other equally legitimate purposes. Do you have any reason to suppose my client had a nefarious reason for having this company registered offshore, if indeed he did? Our case is that he had no connection with this company.’
‘Beyond masking the ownership of the Ferrari seized at Newhaven Port, no,’ he conceded.
Brown then spent the next hour running through the evidence that Alexander had given but was unable to sway his evidence or gain any advantage from what he had said to the court that would help her client.
She paused for a moment. ‘One more question, officer. Is it possible that someone who visited the house could have placed these items in the post of my client’s bed? Can you discount that?’
He replied, ‘No, I cannot.’
‘Thank you,’ she said and sat down.
Cork then rose to his feet. ‘Officer, how likely is it that the scenario my learned friend has just raised might have happened?’
‘It is of course possible,’ Alexander said, ‘but due to the nature of where these items had been hidden, I think it extremely unlikely.’
‘Thank you, officer, I have no more questions.’
Alexander left the courtroom.
64
Thursday 16 May
It felt like the defence had hit a brick wall, Meg thought, despondently, reflecting on today’s proceedings. She was in Laura’s bedroom, giving the daily treats to the rodents, as per the very precise list of instructions her daughter had left. A handful of dandelions for Horace the guinea pig, which he scoffed in seconds. She stroked him with her finger before moving on, hand-feeding some cucumber and pumpkin seeds to the gerbils. She did a quick spot clean to keep things fresh in between the deep clean she was instructed to do each week, then topped up the water in each cage. This whole process made her feel sad and worried. Laura cared for the welfare of each and every creature she kept and now, there she was, in danger, unaware and far, far away.
She stared at a purple cushion with a large L embroidered on it, on the bed. Then glanced around the room with a wistful smile. Her daughter’s string of fairy lights; her stack of boxes that contained her precious, different-coloured trainers; the large map of the world; the clutter of her make-up and hair products on her dressing table; the fluffy rug; framed inspirational quotes dotted around the walls.
Then the photograph on the bookshelf. Taken just months before that fatal day. All four of them doing a family fun run in Reigate, which they’d done with Nick’s brother and his family for charity.
The memory twinged, painfully. She turned and looked out of the window at the rear garden. A thrush was washing itself in the birdbath. It was a gloriously warm evening. Just five weeks shy of the longest day. Normally she loved this time of year. Normally. But nothing was normal any more. It never had been since Nick and Will had died. The day her world had skewed sideways. And had remained sideways until last week when it had skewed again, this time completely upside down.
It was 6.20 p.m. A long, light evening stretched out ahead. She should sit out in the garden and read a book, but she had barely read a single page since that first phone call last Saturday evening. Nor could she focus on anything much on television. Alison had been telling her for ages about a series called Succession. She’d tried the first episode a few nights ago in her attempt to switch off from all the horror of her predicament, but within seconds her mind had wandered.
A drugs gang was watching her — and had invaded her home. Her daughter, thousands of miles away, was being followed around the clock and they had threatened to kill her if there was anything other than a ‘not guilty’ verdict. She was breaking the law and risked going to prison herself — not to mention trying to help a major criminal evade justice.
The spinning wheel in the gerbil cage began squeaking; one of them was inside, turning it increasingly quickly, as if at some point, if he got fast enough, it would stop simply rotating and actually lead him somewhere — perhaps Mongolia, where most of them originated from, Meg thought with a faint smile. At first when Laura had given her the list, she’d viewed looking after these creatures as a chore, but now she found them comforting; grounding.
She was so damned wound up. A run would do her good, she knew, realizing she hadn’t done any exercise for almost a week. Overwhelmed, suddenly, by everything, she sat down on the soft bed, feeling utter despair.
God, she so desperately needed to talk to someone. But she didn’t dare.
She had a friend on the jury — but who was it? The evidence against Gready today from that officer, DS Alexander, was pretty damning. Although, if she was honest, Meg had lost track a little as he’d detailed, throughout the long afternoon, the chain of overseas companies and how they connected. She’d tried hard to follow, but it had done her head in — as it had for some of the other jurors, too, she could tell.
All that stuff before, about whether or not Terence Gready had been in his office when the man who had driven the vehicle into Newhaven, Michael Starr, had been there, too. That did not seem to have played well with the jurors. During a brief afternoon recess, Mike Roberts, sounding more like a cop than ever, had said he found the evidence so far to be strong and, in his view, the defence was squirming. He was backed up by Maisy, who seemed to have changed her mind, Toby, Edmond, Sophie, Mark and Harold. The ones who had kept quiet were Hari Singh, Rory O’Brien and Hugo Pink.
The man had very definitely said a friend.
Who? Hugo Pink was one possibility, she suspected. He wasn’t accepting any of the negative evidence. Rory O’Brien was possibly another, but she couldn’t be sure, he was difficult to read.
She’d looked up online to see if, with a jury reduced to eleven, a judge could still convict on a 9–2 verdict. They could.
If, however, more than two jurors were unconvinced of his guilt then that would simply result in a hung jury, and the judge would likely go for a retrial. And that wasn’t acceptable. It had already been made very plain to her what was needed. Those two words. Nothing less.