“Find the real murderer. Prove me innocent.”
“Things don’t work quite like that.”
“Well, how
do
they work?”
She leaned back in her chair and frowned. “We go to court and we give them the best fight we can. There’s no other way. It’s only on ‘Perry Mason’ that the lawyer and the private eye get out on the mean streets and track down the
real
killer.”
“Just let me tell them my story. I’m sure they’ll believe me.” “I’m not sure yet if I’m going to put you in the witness box at all.” “Why not?”
Shirley Castle frowned. “Cross-examinations can be really tough.”
“Is something bothering you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact it is. The CPS file suggests an approach to the case that involves similar fact to try and establish a
motive
for the murder, too.”
“But you said they didn’t need one.”
“Their case will be all that much stronger if they can come up with one.”
“What are they saying?”
Shirley Castle rested her chin in her hand. “Tell me about Michelle Chappel, Owen.”
Owen swallowed. His mouth felt dry. “What about her?”
“About your relationship. And why you lied to the police about the nude photographs, denied you knew her. You didn’t want them to find her and talk to her, did you?”
“No, I can’t say I did. Michelle … well, let’s say we parted on bad terms. She’d have nothing good to say about me.”
“As I understand it, there was violence, perhaps attempted murder?”
“That’s absurd! Have you talked to her?”
“No,” she said. “The police have. I’ve just been reviewing the statement, and it’s very interesting. Read for yourself.” She dropped a sheaf of papers in front of him.
Owen felt rising panic as he read the transcript of the taped interview with Michelle:
Q: Miss Chappel, could you tell us how and when you first met Mr Pierce?
A: Yes. In class. He was my teacher. I was his student.
Q: How old were you at the time?
A: Seventeen.
Q: Was this at Eastvale College of Further Education?”
A: Yes.
Q: How old was Owen Pierce when you met?”
A: Thirty-two, thirty-three. I’m not exactly sure.
Q: So he was almost old enough to be your father?
A: Technically. I suppose a sixteen-year-old could be a father.
Q: Did you live at home?
A: Yes. Until I was eighteen.
Q: Where did you go then?
A: I moved in with Owen.
Q: How long did you live with him?
A: Five years.
Q: How did Mr Pierce approach you?
A: He suggested a coffee after class, one day, then he asked me out to dinner.
Q: Were your marks good?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you start seeing one another regularly?
A: Yes. We went out together a few times for dinner, to the pictures or for a drink. Sometimes he took me out for a ride in the country in his car, and we’d find a little village pub somewhere.
Q: How soon did you become lovers?
A: Very soon after we first went out.
Q: Weeks? Days?
A: Days.
Q: And the relationship went well after you moved in with him?
A: At first it did, yes. Look, I mean, you have to realize, I was very young. A bit of a misfit, too, I suppose. I wasn’t very happy at home, and I didn’t really have any close friends. I found most people my own age immature. I was also very shy and Owen was nice to me. I suppose I was flattered, too, by the attention. When
I talked about leaving home, he asked if I’d like to move in with him, and it seemed like a good idea. I felt safe with him.
Q: Were you still his student when you moved in with him?
A: I was in his business communications class, yes.
Q: Did you continue to do well in that course?
A: Very well.
Q: Deservedly?
A: I think so. Look, I’m not stupid, but I also admit it may have helped, sleeping with my teacher.
Q: Do you think there was a price to pay for your success?
A: What do you mean?
Q: Did Owen ever suggest or attempt to commit any unnatural acts?
A: Do you mean was he kinky?
Q: Something like that.
A: No, I wouldn’t say that. I mean, he liked me to wear certain underclothes. You know, black silky things, thigh stockings, skimpy things. He liked me to keep them on when we … you know.
Q: During intercourse?
A: Yes.
Q: Was that all?
A: All? Was what all?
Q: The skimpy clothes. Did he ever make you do anything you didn’t want to?
A: He wanted to do it to me from behind, like dogs. I didn’t like that.
Q: But did you do as he wished?
A: Well, I … yes, at first I did. I wanted to please him.
Q: Because you were worried about your marks?
A: A bit, I suppose.
Q: Did he show any interest in pornography?
A: We watched a dirty video once. You know the sort of thing. I didn’t really enjoy it. In fact, I thought it was dead gross, but it seemed to turn him on.
Q: How did he behave when you were watching the video?
A: Well, he was, you know, maybe a bit more ardent than usual. He wanted to try out things they were doing, you know, on the video.
Q: Against your will?”
A: No, but I thought it was a bit weird.
Q: Did he ever resort to violence for the purpose of sexual stimulation?
A: He used to like to tie me up sometimes.
Q: How did you react to this?
A: What could I do? He was stronger than me. I wanted to please him. It was uncomfortable and it frightened me a bit, but it didn’t really hurt. It was just a game, really. It was something he’d seen in that silly film and it turned him on.
Q: Did he beat you at all? Flagellation?
A: No.
Q: So apart from the tying up he wasn’t violent?
A: No … not until the end. Then living with him became sort of like being in prison. Every time I went out I had to account for my movements. Some nights he wouldn’t even let me go out.
Q: How did he keep you in?
A: He just made such a fuss it wasn’t worth it. I felt shut in, always under observation. I couldn’t breathe. I was frightened of his temper. I started rebelling in small ways, like seeing other friends and stuff, and it made him more and more possessive.
Q: Is that why you left him? Fear of violence?
A: Partly … it was frightening, especially the last night, but …
Q: Can you tell us about that last night, Michelle?
Michelle went on to tell about the night she claimed Owen had raped and tried to strangle her. Pale, Owen shoved the papers aside and looked at Shirley Castle.
“Well?” she asked. “What do you think of it?”
Owen shook his head slowly. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s not true, then?”
“Some of it, maybe. But she even makes the truth sound different, sound bad for me, the way she slants it.”
“In what way?”
“Every way. The sex, for example. She makes me sound like a pervert, but most of it was her idea. She loved it, the tying up, the talking dirty. It really got her going. And she liked the video.”
“Did you hit her that last night?”
“I pushed her. I was protecting myself. She was berserk, out of control. She’d have killed me if I hadn’t pushed her away.”
“And she hit her head as she fell?”
“Yes.”
“Knocking her unconscious?”
“Yes, but … Oh, God.” Owen held his head in his hands. “I know how it sounds, but I’ve never hurt anyone in my life, never on purpose.”
“Did you have sex with her after she’d knocked herself out?”
“No, I didn’t. That’s a lie. What do you take me for?”
“I’m just trying to get at the truth, Owen. Did you try to force her to have sex at any time that evening?”
“No. I mean, yes. No, I didn’t try to force her, but I suggested it. I just wanted to see how she would react. It was a test. I didn’t force her.”
Shirley frowned. “You made advances? I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Owen. You’ll have to explain it to me.”
How could he tell her about that night? Still vivid in his mind, it was like watching a cartoon play, the gaudy colours, the exaggerated violence, the sense of being a spectator, unable to stop the film, unable even to walk out of the cinema.
“How did it start, Owen?”
Owen tried to explain. He had grown suspicious of Michelle over the last year or so, he said, suspected that she was seeing another man, or other men. That night, when she said she was going to meet a girlfriend, he followed her into Eastvale town centre and watched her meet someone in a pub. As they talked and drank, rubbing close together, Owen sat, shielded by a frosted-glass partition and watched the shadows. At closing time, he followed them to a house not far from his own and watched outside as the bedroom light went on, then the curtains closed, and someone turned out the light.
He went home and paced and drank whisky until Michelle got in after two-thirty in the morning. Instead of challenging her immediately with what he’d found out, he made sexual advances to see how she would react.
She pushed him away and told him she was too tired, listening to her girlfriend’s tales of woe till so late. He could smell the other man on her, the stale beer and smoke on her clothes, in her hair, mingled with the reek of sex. She hadn’t even had the decency to take a shower afterwards.
Then he told her what he’d seen, what he had watched. She went wild, flew at him, screamed that he didn’t own her and if he was no good in bed she had every damn right to find someone who was. It was like watching another person emerge from the shell of someone you thought you knew.
He called her a bitch, a whore, told her he knew she’d been at it all the time they’d been together, that she had just used him, had never really loved him. For a moment, she paused in her attack and a different look came into her eyes: hard, cold hatred. She picked up a pair of scissors from the table and lunged at him. He grabbed her hand and twisted until she dropped them.
Then she renewed the attack, kicking, scratching, flailing out wildly. He held his hands in front of his face to ward off the blows and tried to talk her down. But she wouldn’t stop. Finally, out of desperation, he pushed her away, just to give himself some space to manoeuvre, and she fell over and hit her head on the chair leg.
He tried to tell Shirley Castle all this, as calmly as he could. He knew it sounded thin without the whole background of the relationship, from the early innocence to the bitter knowledge that it had all been a lie.
What he couldn’t tell her, though, what he hardly dare even admit to himself, was that after Michelle had fallen on the floor, arms spread out, one leg crooked over the other, he had wanted her. Hating her even then, he had torn at her clothing, then, half-mad with jealousy and hatred, had put his hands around her throat and wanted to choke the life out of her for what she had done to him, for ruining, for defiling what he had thought was the love of a lifetime. He hated himself for wanting her, and he hated her for making him.
At that moment, the full power of his love turned to hate and overwhelmed him, and he knew that everything, her words, her gestures, her lovemaking, her promises, had all been a lie. But he let
go; he couldn’t kill her. He stood up, steadied himself and went to collapse on the bed. She was still breathing; there was no blood; he hadn’t raped her.
In the morning he found her sulking in the spare room, nursing the bump on her head. She tried to make up to him, told him she would do anything he wanted …
anything
… and started squirming around under the thin sheet. It had always worked before, but this time Owen had had more than enough.
He knew that if he took her back, if he lived with her for just one more day he would lose his self-respect for ever. When he told her to go, she screamed and begged, but he threw her out in the street with only her suitcase. The next thing he knew, he got a letter with a Swiss Cottage address to send on the rest of her things. He did so.
Shirley Castle let the silence stretch after his explanation. Owen couldn’t read the way she looked at him. He didn’t know whether she believed him or not.
“Owen,” she said finally. “Whatever the truth is, Michelle’s is a very damning statement. You can imagine the case the Crown is trying to build up. A man obsessed with pornography, especially if it features young girls, capable of sexual violence against women … You see my point?”
“But it’s not true!” Owen argued. “None of it. I’m not obsessed with pornography.”
Shirley held up her hand. “I’m not attacking you, Owen. I’m simply trying to demonstrate the spin the prosecution will try and put on the facts, given the chance.”
Owen laid his hands on the desk and stared at the veins in his wrists. “I don’t know what you must think of me,” he said, his voice hardly more than a whisper, “but I want you to know that I’m not the monster they say I am. It’s a distortion. If I knew only
certain
facts about your life, or anyone’s, if your fantasies were laid bare for all to see … well, I might form a picture, and it might be the wrong one. Do you know what I mean?”
He could have sworn there was an amused glint in her eyes, and perhaps a faint flush on her cheeks. “You don’t need to please me, Owen,” she said. “I’m here as a professional. It’s not my place to
make judgements about your private life, only to prove reasonable doubt. You don’t need to seek my approval.”
“But I want it,” Owen said. “Damn it, I want it! You’re not a machine, are you? You must have opinions, feelings.”
Shirley Castle didn’t answer. Instead, she shuffled the papers back towards her briefcase and said, “There’s one more important question before I go, Owen. Why would Michelle do what she did? Why would she say all those things about you to the police if they’re not true? What reason has she to want you to go to jail?”
“Don’t you understand? Michelle’s a user. She used me from the start, for her education, her escape from her overbearing parents, for her living-quarters, the good life. I was her passport through college. She threw me a few crumbs and I took them for love. Even now I have a hard time believing that you can live with someone for so long and not really see them for what they are, not know them at all. But it’s true. Maybe I didn’t
want
to see. All the time she was with me, she was going with other men, and I admit I got jealous and possessive. But she didn’t care. She thought she could get away with everything, just take her clothes off for me and make it all right. At heart she’s a cold, calculating monster. She has no conscience. Do you understand? Sometimes, it’s only when the final piece falls into place that you see there was ever a pattern at all. That was what happened that last night. The final piece. She’d been doing it all along, lying to me, seeing other men, doing exactly what she wanted, using my home—
our
home—as a squat. I gave her all the freedom she wanted at first, before I started to suspect the truth. She was young after all. How can you keep the love of a younger woman if you try to put her in a cage? As soon as I became more vigilant, the cracks started to appear.”