Flowers For the Judge (13 page)

‘You say about half-past seven, Mrs Tripper’ – the Coroner was very gentle – ‘could you be more exact?’

‘Well, I
think
it was half-past seven. Anyway I left the house and went down to wherever I was going, and when I got there it was ten minutes to eight – because I saw the clock.’

‘Where was this?’

Once again Mrs Tripper flushed.

‘It was a shop in Red Lion Street – a fried-fish shop, if you must know. It was very foggy and I hadn’t been able to get about to do my ordinary shopping, and I knew my husband would like something hot for his supper and so I thought I might as well try some of their more expensive
pieces
. Some of these places are very high class, and the Red Lion shop is very nice indeed.’

‘Quite, quite,’ said the Coroner, rather taken aback by the vehemence of her confession. ‘You went straight to the fried-fish shop when you left your house and you arrived there at ten minutes to eight?’

‘Yes, I did.’

It was quite evident that Mrs Tripper was torn between the desire to acquire kudos by admitting to a knowledge of interesting facts and irritation at having to disclose the more humble activities of her private life.

‘And when I returned,’ she went on triumphantly, ‘the car was still running. I heard it turned off at ten minutes to nine or thereabouts.’

The Coroner leant forward across the desk.

‘I feel these times are important, Mrs Tripper,’ he said. ‘I wonder would it be possible for you to cast your mind back and think of any concrete fact by which you can fix them? For instance, are you quite sure that it was not half-past eight, or even a quarter-past nine when you heard the car turned off?’

Mrs Tripper’s narrow black eyes behind her gold pince-nez snapped.

‘I’ve told you there was a clock,’ she said. ‘Haven’t I? I stood talking in the shop a little while and suddenly I looked up and saw it was a quarter to nine. “Oh dear!” I said, “my husband comes in for his supper at nine,” – he goes down to the club on Thursdays – “and I must get home,” I said. I remember saying it. I hurried off and I got home at ten minutes to, as far as I can judge.’

The Coroner returned to his notes.

‘I see that it took you twenty minutes to get from your home to the fried-fish shop, Mrs Tripper, and only five minutes to get back …’

Mrs Tripper’s mouth set obstinately.

‘That’s all I can tell you,’ she said. ‘I hurried back and as far as I can judge it was ten minutes to, because my husband came in just as I’d got everything on the table, and he’s always punctual. I came in at the door, I listened, and
I
heard the car still running. Then just as I was saying something to myself about it, off it went.’

As she stepped down off the stand a sigh passed round the court and the jury whispered together.

Gina felt that she was crouching in her seat. She dared not think ahead. In her heart she felt there was nothing to be gained by thinking. There was a slow inexorable quality about this inquiry. Nothing could deter it. It was simple, brutal and unescapable.

She was still dithering when she heard her own name called, but for the first time, as she walked to the stand, she felt the longed-for sensation of remoteness. A wall of apathy seemed to have descended between her and the nightmare around her. Faces became vague and indistinct, voices heard from afar off.

She gave her name, her address and the fact that she was Paul’s wife with a calm detachment which passed for extreme self-possession. Her voice was soft and carefully modulated and she held herself rigidly.

She repeated the oath calmly, unconsciously imitating the lack of expression of the Coroner’s officer.

The Coroner became a nonentity, a questioning machine, gentle and not at all unpleasant. He took her quietly through her statement. She remembered making it, remembered signing it, but only in an impersonal far-off way as though it had not been of very great interest.

‘I last saw my husband at two o’clock on the afternoon that he disappeared. It was only for a few minutes. I went into his office and caught him, as he had returned early from lunch. We had a short conversation. Then I went back to my flat. I never saw him again alive.’

She was completely unaware of the impression she was creating.

The average British crowd is quick to admire beauty, especially in distress, but there is a curious streak in the temperament which makes it distrust the quality of smartness, especially when it is allied, however remotely, to something questionable or suspicious.

The fact that she was a foreigner told in her favour
naturally
– foreigners may be forgiven for having chic – but her calm weighed heavily against her. Widows should weep and emotional display is not only expected but demanded of them.

The questioning continued.

‘You say in your statement, Mrs Brande, that you expected your husband to come home to dinner at half-past seven and that you waited for him until nine, at which time you rang up your husband’s cousin, Mr Michael Wedgwood, who took you to see a film. Were you not worried when your husband did not appear for dinner?’

She repeated the word. ‘Worried? No. I don’t think so. I was annoyed.’

It occurred to her that she might explain that Paul was always late for appointments with her, that his neglect of her, his indifference to her feelings, had rendered her completely impervious to the sensation of alarm where he was concerned, but she did not want to explain. It seemed so unnecessary to go into details to all these stupid gaping people, who could never be expected to understand. She held her tongue.

The Coroner went on.

‘You say that when you went to see your husband in his office that afternoon you had something very particular to ask him. What was it?’

‘I wanted to impress upon him that he must dine with me that evening, because I wanted to talk to him.’

It appeared to occur to the Coroner that she was making no effort to help herself and he bent forward.

‘Mrs Brande,’ he said, ‘how long have you been married?’

‘Four years.’

‘Would you say your marriage has been a happy one?’

‘No,’ she said, more vehemently than she intended. ‘No, I don’t think it was.’

There was excitement in the court and John would have risen had not Mr Scruby held him down. The Coroner pursed up his lips.

‘Perhaps you’d like to amplify that, Mrs Brande,’ he
said
. ‘This is a court of inquiry, you know, and we want to arrive at the truth. Did you quarrel with your husband?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘We were indifferent to one another.’

As soon as she had spoken she was sorry. The publicity of the whole business struck her again, but not forcibly enough to make her angry. She was past anger.

The Coroner sighed and his manner became a little less friendly.

‘Mrs Brande,’ he said, ‘you made this statement voluntarily to the Inspector and the Coroner’s officer, I understand?’

‘Of course,’ she said stiffly. ‘I had nothing to hide.’

‘She’s a cool one.’ The court’s comment was almost audible.

‘Of course not,’ the Coroner agreed. ‘You say in your statement that you were particularly anxious to confer with your husband on the evening of the twenty-eighth because you wanted to persuade him to help you to get a divorce?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘You do not wish to add anything to that statement now?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

The Coroner looked at her under his eyebrows. He had seen many frightened women and to him her reaction was not incomprehensible, but his duty was to inquire and she was not helpful.

‘Why were you so anxious to talk to him about it at that particular time, Mrs Brande?’

‘It is all in the statement,’ she said wearily. ‘I told Inspector Tanner that I had visited a solicitor and found out exactly how I was placed. I realized that I could not get a divorce from my husband unless he assisted me.’

There was an audible murmur in the court and little Mr Scruby bounded to his feet. The Coroner acceded to his request that he might be allowed to question the witness and Gina became aware of the little man staring at her anxiously across the crowded room.

‘Had you had any violent quarrels with your husband upon this subject, Mrs Brande?’

‘No, of course not,’ she said in some surprise. ‘It was only that we saw really very little of each other and I wanted Paul to consider my point of view.’

Mr Scruby sat down, not at all sure that he had been of any real assistance. The Coroner returned to the statement.

‘You say you had ordered dinner in your flat for half-past seven? Were you alone?’

‘No. I had my charwoman, Mrs Austin, with me.’

‘I see. And you waited for your husband until nine o’clock?’

‘Yes, until almost nine.’

‘Was your charwoman with you then?’

‘No. I let her go about eight o’clock. I saw no point in keeping her after that.’

‘You were pretty sure your husband would not come then?’

‘I thought it extremely unlikely.’

‘Yet you waited for him yourself?’

‘Yes. I hoped, you see.’

The jury stirred. This was more like it.

‘And at nine o’clock, or nearly nine o’clock – eight fifty-five, to be exact – you rang up Mr Michael Wedgwood in the flat below and suggested that you went out together? The rest of the evening you spent in a picture palace?’

‘Yes. That is true.’

There was a long pause while the Coroner wrote.

‘Now,’ he said at last, ‘were you in the habit of ringing up Mr Wedgwood and suggesting that he should take you out?’

She hesitated. Something odd about the question warned her to be careful, but there was no time for adroit manoeuvring, even had she been capable of it.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was. We have been about a good deal together.’

Mr Campion felt the hair on his scalp rising and Mr Lugg granted him a single reproachful glance.

‘You were very great friends?’

‘Yes. We are.’

‘Are you lovers, Mrs Brande?’

She stared at him, hardly believing that she had heard the words. She was so completely taken aback that for a moment she was silent and during that instant of stupefaction her anger and indignation were transmuted into helplessness. The old apathy reclaimed her.

‘No,’ she said evenly.

‘You are not shocked by the suggestion?’

She opened her mouth to protest violently but thought better of it.

‘It is too utterly ridiculous,’ she said, and the proud quiet words were momentarily convincing.

A few unimportant questions followed and she was allowed to step down. She walked to her seat with the eyes of the whole court upon her, but it was not until she saw Mrs Austin’s sympathetic but horribly knowing face raised to hers that she realized quite what had happened.

Panic seized her. What had she said? What were they all driving at? The blood drained out of her face and Mrs Austin caught her arm.

‘Put your head between your knees,’ she whispered. ‘Shall I get you out?’

Gina had sufficient strength to shake her head and to turn her eyes resolutely towards the desk. She knew that John was staring at her angrily and in imagination she could see the startled little face of Mr Scruby by his side.

Mike was the next witness.

The jury were wide awake now and their interest was not assumed. They had completely forgotten their own prominence and were absorbed by the story being unfolded so lucidly before them.

Gina did not take her eyes from Mike’s face during the whole of his evidence. She felt she was seeing him for the first time. He was extraordinarily handsome, with the tall, lank Barnabas figure and the crisp curls shorn tightly to his head.

To those who knew him he betrayed his nervousness. He spoke with a drawl not natural with him and the ease of his stance was assumed.

His written statement was necessarily brief. He admitted
helping
the doctor to move the body on to the table and afterwards up to the flat, and gave a brief account of his cousin’s position and activities in the firm.

The Coroner questioned him about the strong-room. Evidence that had been given by other witnesses concerning its use was confirmed by him and he repeated that the car in the garage belonged to him.

‘The yard gates are kept locked,’ he said, ‘but not the garage itself. I never considered there was any need for that.’

The Coroner returned to the question of the strong-room.

‘I see in your statement, Mr Wedgwood,’ he said, ‘that you admit to having visited the strong-room on the night of the thirty-first, three days after your cousin’s disappearance and on the evening before the discovery of his body.’

The excitement at this point was intense and the Coroner had to enforce silence.

Mike’s lank form seemed to be leaning back upon the air and his drawl became more pronounced.

‘That is so,’ he said.

‘Will you describe exactly what you did upon that occasion? It is all written down, I know, but I should like to hear it from you again.’

Mike complied. He described how he had left the flat on Sunday night, had gone into the darkened office, taken the key from its usual place, opened the strong-room and taken the folder which John had needed from its shelf, and had come away, locking the door behind him.

The Coroner seemed puzzled and he took the young man through the story again and again. Finally Mike’s evidence was interrupted while Miss Curley and Miss Marchant were called to describe the exact place in which the body was found.

When the Coroner returned to Mike again his tone was peremptory.

‘Can you offer any explanation why you did not see the body of your cousin on Sunday night?’ he said.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t. It wasn’t there. Or, if it was, I didn’t see it.’

Mike’s exasperation was not unmixed with defiance. The Coroner dismissed the matter for the time being and went back to the Thursday night.

‘Mr Wedgwood,’ he said, ‘will you tell us what you did from three o’clock in the afternoon of Thursday the twenty-eighth until you answered the telephone at nine o’clock and went out to a picture palace with Mrs Brande?’