“And others.”
“Do the female characters in these books ever scream with passion, Mrs. McIntosh?”
She reddens. “Yes, I suppose.”
“Have you ever actually heard screams of passion?”
“No, I. . not really.”
“Well, you must know they may be mistaken for screams of fear?”
“No, I don’t know that.”
“But based on your reading experience you do know that lovers will say all manner of things to each other when they are in passionate embrace?”
“I suppose so.”
“A woman might do something to prompt her lover to call her a naughty girl.”
“It was not said in that way. It was very loud.”
“You’re sure that was the word, ‘naughty’?”
She hesitates. “Naughty, I think.” Now she amends, “No, a wicked girl. A wicked, wicked girl, that’s what he said.”
The ground continues to collapse from under me. I am losing what remains of the jury’s sympathy. Their faces are cold, hard, unforgiving.
“And you are aware that when a couple engages in vigorous intercourse, their bodies will slap together?”
“I don’t know, really.” She is beet red. I am overdoing this. But I am obsessed, irrational.
“And these pleading sounds — could you have mistaken them for something else?”
“Like what?”
“Like the piteous groans of lovers demanding more from each other.”
“I don’t know.”
“Thank you, that is all.”
Wally must be looking for a chance for a ten-minute kip on his couch because he orders a break. I descend slowly into my chair beside Augustina. “Well?”
“I don’t know, Arthur. It doesn’t sound like something she read in a Harlequin.”
“My cross was bloody awful, wasn’t it?”
“Well, it felt, you know, a little mocking.”
It had been mean and small. I have pulled off a disaster. The Commander of the Titanic is going down with all hands on board. Maybe I do need to talk to that psychiatrist — from her couch.
In any case I should meet with her before I finish cross-examining Kimberley Martin. I lean across to Patricia’s table. “Let’s read in Dr. Hawthorne’s testimony after the break and adjourn for lunch.”
She accedes. In great need of nicotine, I skip out, weaving through the muted throng in the mezzanine. They seem appropriately embarrassed for me.
Outside, I light up, alone, dejected. I shall have a reward posted for Cleaver’s body, dead or alive. Had this lonely spinster’s statement shown up in timely fashion, I might have been better prepared to discredit her. Did she impress as a prying, lying shrew or a godly, caring nursemaid?
Back in court, I continue to berate myself through the lengthening break — the judge has stolen an extra ten minutes — and remain glum as court resumes and Dr. Hawthorne’s previous evidence is read into the record. O’Donnell, the jurors learn, is a gentleman against whom has never been heard an ill-mannered word. Such praise is surely lost on them. They are thinking of slaps and screams. Miss Jackson-Blyth looks upon Jonathan as if he has just risen dripping from the swamp. I have lost Mrs. Beiran, the nurse, and even the broker Goodman looks entirely too uncomfortable.
At twelve o’clock, Wally adjourns court and wearily slogs his way out to his chambers.
I stare down at my open copy of the Criminal Code. Section 272. “Everyone who, in committing a sexual assault, causes bodily harm to the complainant is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years.”
Jonathan pats me on the shoulder. “Tough morning. Thing that really bothers me is Kimberley hasn’t returned my handkerchief.” He laughs hollowly at this weak jest, then leaves to enjoy what freedom is left for him. Dr. Jane Dix retrieves a small briefcase and begins to follow him out, then turns to me with the oddest little smile.
“See you for breakfast,” she says.
Morosely, I accept Augustina’s invitation to drive me in her Porsche to Coal Harbour. En route, I am too choked with grief to utter anything but imprecations to the gods to punish Gowan Cleaver.
“I saw him this morning,” Augustina says. “Coming out of court after a Charter argument. Looking pretty cocky until I told him about his little lapse.”
What retribution might be appropriate? I think of the punishment of Ixion, bound by writhing snakes to a revolving wheel of fire through all eternity.
“You’re comfortable about this afternoon?” I ask.
“Sure. I’m doing only three witnesses. And Wally’s in such bad straits I don’t have to worry about him bugging me. Do we need anything from the serologist?”
“No. He will merely say the sheets and clothing seized at Jonathan’s house bore no stains of semen or lipstick.” But the sheets also were freshly washed: Will the jurors smell something besides Rinso?
“Any advice on handling Sergeant Chekoff?” she asks.
“He’s liable to say anything to help us. But he’ll be piqued that Patricia, not he, obtained the housekeeper’s damning statement, so be careful. Bring out the fact Jonathan was cooperative and courteous, a man with nothing to hide. You’ve examined Rosa Sanchez before.”
Dr. Sanchez is a frequent visitor to our courts and can be depended upon to be blunt and fair, though doubtless the Crown will dwell tenderly on every minor bruise.
“The left shin, where the skin was broken, that’s the only injury of consequence.”
“How do we explain it, Arthur? How do we explain the bruises on her wrists and ankles? The ones on her breasts? They weren’t noticed by Mrs. McIntosh, so do you think Remy did it?”
“It may be the best we have to offer.” They fought — that has been established. But will the jury buy the theory these were not merely verbal fisticuffs? Why would she lie, why remain engaged to such a brute? “Is there any other option?”
“Self-inflicted? Just like her paint job? How’s this: When Kimberley realized Remy was determined to call the cops, she bruised herself against the bathtub to make her story look good.”
But is she so conniving? Though I pride myself on an intuitive talent for reading people (other than, of course, myself), I still have no firm handle on Kimberley Martin.
“I guess these are more like rope burns, though, aren’t they, Arthur? There has to be a better answer.” I sense she is disappointed in Jonathan, distrustful now, feeling victimized again by her own foolish heart.
She blows me a kiss as I board my plane. “Pass that on to Mrs. Blake for me.”
The little aircraft chugs into the harbour and throttles into the wind, lugging this sad sack back to Beauchamp Bay on Potter’s Road.
From the air, my island looks sombre under a drizzling, mournful sky; fields and forests of bereavement. We spin above my plot of land: there, that is my home, that is my garden, that is Stoney waving from a garage still unroofed. That is my life, one that I solemnly swore not to forsake. The gods are punishing me for breaking my oath, for my arrogance in having taken on this dismal trial.
And there — that is Margaret Blake standing on my dock. A simple black dress, a sad smile: She looks beautiful beyond imagining.
As I step onto my dock she comes to my arms, holding me tight. But she looks at me without offering her lips. “You okay?”
“I blame myself. I ignored the warnings. I should have been here for him.”
“Don’t do that to yourself, Arthur. What could have driven him to this?”
“He died from a loss of faith.” There’s no afterlife, only darkness, sweet, empty darkness.
I tell the pilot to wait, and we proceed towards the house.
“The death of a friend certainly puts a bad day in court into perspective.”
“I heard something on the radio. The naughty-girl bit.”
The merest hint of fall is upon Garibaldi, swatches of yellow on the big-leaf maples, colourful mushrooms poking through the earth, purple and yellow and orange. The garden is weedy and needs a sound harvesting. A lazy pock-pock of hammers, as Stoney and Dog fix shakes to the garage roof.