Johnny looked away and scanned the court again. There was nothing anywhere to suggest the slightest hope. The air was thick and hot up in the gallery. He yawned, mused, fell into a muggy day-dream of being loved.
It was Sergeant Hayter’s arrival in the witness box that brought him snapping back to the horrid reality of a present in which one of his dearest was in hospital and the other was in the dock.
He looked at Hayter, fascinated, as the policeman took the oath and confirmed his identity. The man was red in the face but he looked horribly calm and composed.
Reynolds led him through the events of that day.
‘Where were you at ten o’clock that morning?’
‘I was in the office.’
‘That would be the MOD Police office inside the main gate of Ramsgill Stray?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Were you called on the radio?’
‘Yes. At ten oh five I received a call advising me that Miss Weston had been spotted at the entrance to bunker nine and requesting me to attend urgently.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I got in a van with PC Hoskin and drove straight there.’
‘And at what time did you arrive?’
‘Within two or three minutes of the call.’
‘On arrival, what did you observe?’
‘I saw the accused standing in the foyer to the bunker.’
‘Was she known to you?’
Sergeant Hayter snorted and looked at the jury, who seemed to be hanging on his every word. ‘I have had occasion to remove Miss Weston from the base on many, many occasions. She breaks in all the time. If you ask me, she’s obsessed by—’
‘Objection,’ said Lisa Gardiner.
‘Would you confine yourself to fact rather than conjecture, Sergeant Hayter,’ said the judge mildly.
‘What action did you then take, Sergeant?’
‘I sent PC Hoskin off to make sure there were none of the other women in the vicinity.’
‘This left you and Miss Weston alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what happened then?’
‘I turned away for a moment and when I turned back she had a large piece of timber in her hands and was swinging it at my head. It hit me across the nose.’
‘Breaking your nose and causing considerable bruising to your left eye?’
Hayter suddenly seemed under strain. His face grew redder. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow.
‘Yes. I staggered back, saying something like, “Now then, there’s no need for that, Miss Weston,” and she swung it at me again. I had blood in my eyes and I couldn’t see very well. I tried to protect myself. I was flailing around with my arms. I think I must have contacted Miss Weston as she was lunging at me again because she seemed to trip and—’ Hayter broke off and stared at Heather for some time. Johnny wondered whether he could possibly be feeling any embarrassment. It seemed unlikely.
The barrister prompted him gently. ‘Yes?’
Hayter’s voice sounded thicker. ‘And she went back against the wall, didn’t she? Hit her head on it.’
‘She accidentally hit her head?’
There was another odd silence.
‘Serve her bloody right, I say,’ Hayter declared loudly.
The judge’s eyebrows went up to meet the fringe of his wig, putting lines in his forehead that made him look exactly like a Hogarth print. The prosecuting barrister jumped in.
‘Sergeant Hayter, we all understand, I’m sure, that you were very shocked by this attack and in considerable pain, but you bore no personal animosity towards the accused, did you?’
‘Animosity?’ Hayter seemed to have trouble with the word. His head was hanging low and he was shaking it slowly from side to side, looking at Heather from under his lowered brow. He spoke slowly in a fuddled voice, ‘I hate the fucking bitch.’
There was a buzz in the court-room. Some of the jurors looked shocked. The judge banged his gavel.
‘SERGEANT HAYTER. I would remind you to keep your language clean in my court room.’
‘Fuck you, four-eyes,’ said the Sergeant, getting to his feet swaying, ‘I’m going to sort that tart out once and for all.’
‘Sergeant Hayter, please sit down and compose yourself,’ said the barrister desperately, but to no effect. The Sergeant turned and got up out of the witness-box. The usher, an old man with grey hair, went valiantly to stop him. Hayter shook off his restraining arm and swung a fist, sending the usher collapsing backwards over the jury bench with a horrid cracking sound.
The judge was bellowing. Two of the jurors stood up. The prosecuting barrister had his arms up, flapping at the oncoming policeman, and took another fist full in the face. Sweat was pouring off Hayter. Johnny looked at the expression of fear on Heather’s face and realized there was no one left between her and Hayter who could be relied on to stop him. There was pandemonium right through the court.
He swung himself over the rail of the public gallery, hung by his fingers for a second above the long drop then let himself fall to land hard on the floor below, rolling with the impact.
He reached Hayter as he got to the dock. He was yelling incoherently now, clearing people out of his way with wild haymakers: One Group 4 guard was sent crashing backwards. Heather, white faced, was trying to get past the other one, who stood dithering, caught between preventing his prisoner leaving and getting out of the way of the oncoming madman.
Johnny jumped on Hayter’s back, got an arm round his throat and tried to bring him down. Hayter twisted and bucked like a fairground ride, banging him backwards into the stout woodwork at the edge of the dock so that his ribs flared with sharp pain.
That was when the jury finally came into its own. The three men in leather jackets decided they’d seen enough to make up their minds. One of them cut Hayter’s feet out from under him and he fell with Johnny still on his back. The others piled on top so Johnny found himself crushed and struggling for breath until a policeman, summoned from outside, got handcuffs on. Even then it took them all to force Hayter, struggling every inch of the way, down the steps to the cells.
It took five minutes to get the court back into some sort of order again. The prosecuting barrister had a bloody nose and a cut lip, the usher had been taken away for attention, one Group 4 guard had a swollen eye and the judge was looking very pale and breathing extremely rapidly. The jurors in the leather jackets sat there looking smug as if they’d had Hayter’s measure all along, pleased to be the heroes of the hour. Johnny had gone back up to the gallery, nursing his ribs. Heather looked dazed.
The judge sounded as though he was advancing into new and uncertain territory.
‘Mr Reynolds,’ he said, ‘I think it best if I give the jury the opportunity at this stage to consider whether they wish to hear any more of this case. I take it you have no objection?’
The barrister, leaning on the table in front of him for support, merely waved a weak hand in assent.
‘Members of the jury,’ said the judge, ‘you have witnessed a most unusual and shocking scene. Some of you indeed have played a valiant part in restraining the witness. It would seem that you have been given the most direct evidence conceivable that Sergeant Hayter is a man prone to violent and uncontrollable temper and that it is not possible for you now to take his evidence in this case seriously. Will you now go to the jury-room and consider whether you wish to hear any more evidence in this case or whether you are now in a position to find the accused not guilty?’
It took them under two minutes and the women in the gallery broke into cheers that the judge seemed unable to bring himself to halt. Heather walked from the dock, looking up at them and then at Johnny and only then did he start to understand.