Take My Life (12 page)

On the eve of the trial Mr Stephen Tyler had a final conference with Mr Claude Land, who was to be his junior, and Arthur McNeill and Mr Frobisher. When it became known that there was this gap in the murdered woman's history, McNeill, knowing his chief's quick changes of front, would not have been greatly surprised to see him scrap the line of defence they had been working on and use this unexpected flaw in the prosecution's case as part of a new plan.

But Tyler accepted the news with reserve. The police were still working full pressure to fill the gap and might any time succeed. Also it was just as plain to him as to the Director of Public Prosecutions that the weakness was really no weakness in the circumstantial evidence of the crime. It could be made use of, should be made use of, if still available. But there were bolder courses to take.

To attack the reputation and veracity of one of the witnesses for the Crown was a dangerous game. Once done, it enabled the prosecution to attack the reputation of the prisoner, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred that would be fatal. Bad faith, debts, previous convictions were the record of most men standing in the box on a capital charge. But Nicolas Talbot's record seemed clean enough, and Tyler's view was that this could be turned to advantage.

‘It's all very well,' McNeill said, arguing more on principle than because he was unconvinced. ‘But which of us here would like to stand in the box to be cross-examined by Wells on his past life? Nobody's been an angel, certainly not Talbot.'

‘D'you think he'll keep his temper?' Land asked.

‘Talbot gives me the impression of being a pretty tough character,' said Tyler, rubbing his bald head. ‘But likeable. A man who should make a good showing in the box. But in any case it should be worth the risk. Heaven seldom sends one a witness quite like the principal witness for the Crown. With a free hand I'll tear him to shreds.'

‘There are – er – certain features of Mr Talbot's life,' said Frobisher in his grey careful voice, ‘ which might be used against him. Since you indicated to me the line you would take, Mr Tyler, I've questioned Mr Talbot very closely on his past history. He was very frank and full in his account and you have it all set out in the brief. I hope it has not been overlooked.'

‘McNeill and I read it through in the early hours of this morning,' said Tyler. ‘It can and will be used against him, but I'm convinced it's worth the risk.'

The day of the trial broke warm and sunny. It was the first Thursday in May, and as Philippa looked out of the window of the flat she could hear the sparrows chirping and chattering. It was a day for going out and seeking the first green fields, to walk by a river or to wander in a wood. Middlesex were playing their first match of the season at Lord's.

In the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey spring existed on hearsay evidence. Only the brightness of the light falling in through the glass dome suggested that an outer, freer, sunnier air existed somewhere and that all men might not be bent on the grim faded processes of human law.

To Philippa, after a sleepless night of foreboding, the court came as an anticlimax. As at Bow Street, she had expected something bigger and more imposing. This might have been a small county court, drab and yellow and unimpressive and built for the consideration of trespass and petty thefts. Little wonder the policeman said that the long patient queue stretching round the building outside had no hopes of getting in. She was glad of that. The fewer to peer and whisper the better.

Joan and John Newcombe were both there to greet her, and they sat together on one of the front benches. Philippa knew she would have to go into one of the outer rooms as soon as the trial started, since she was an important witness for the defence, but she wanted first to see Nick and to feel the general atmosphere into which she would suddenly be called either late today or early tomorrow.

Presently leading counsel drifted in, and Philippa glanced anxiously at Sir Alfred Well,
KC
, who was leading for the Crown. He was a taller, older, more imposing man than Tyler, with a beak of a nose and a habit of pursing his lips suddenly as if about to say ‘shush'. As the benches filled up round her, Philippa's heart began to beat and the old sick, feeling returned. She realized that somehow the court was not unimpressive after all. She realized that she was frightened, and getting more frightened, for Nick.

‘Your name is Mrs Catherine Evans, and you keep a small private hotel at No. 29
A
, The Esplanade, Dolgelly?'

‘Yes,' said the woman in the box.

‘Do you recognize the prisoner?'

‘Yes, indeed.'

‘Tell us when you met him.'

‘Well, he came to stay at my place in the spring of 1942.'

‘What name did he use?'

‘Talbot he says was his name. And Elizabeth Rusman stayed with him as Mrs Talbot.'

‘How did you know she was Elizabeth Rusman?'

‘Well, I had seen her playing in a ladies' orchestra at Llandudno the year before and using her maiden name. I told her so to her face and they said they were just married.'

‘How long did they stay?'

‘Three weeks or nearly so. Then one morning Mr Talbot pays the bill and leaves. The lady stayed on two more days and then she left. Fairly down in the mouth, she was, I assure you.'

Nick yawned. Yes, he was on trial for his life, but the natural reactions would not be balked. The court had grown stuffy as the morning wore on and this early evidence seemed so useless, since it only proved what was already admitted. The first part of the morning, Wells's opening speech had been a different matter. Quietly and without enmity he had given in detail the facts of the Crown's case. Methodically he had woven together the evidence, thread by thread, until it seemed to Nick like a giant net of misapplied testimony that would presently be flung over his head and drawn tight. The old liaison with the murdered woman, the two love letters she had preserved and the locket photograph about her neck, the encounter in the theatre, the assignment to meet, the silver pencil lying on the floor among the debris, the injury to his head and the contradictory stories he had told of how he had received it …

Certain phrases of Wells's speech still rang in Nick's head.

‘We cannot say with certainty what Nicolas Talbot's feelings were when Elizabeth Rusman spoke to him behind the stage at Covent Garden. Nor do we need to guess. The evidence, we contend, shows that she was determined at all costs to attempt a renewal of their old intimacy. Not only did she exact the promise of a meeting, but in scribbling her address added a few words which can only be construed as a deliberate threat. ‘‘Come,'' she said in effect, ‘‘or I'll make all the trouble I can.'' Faced with this sudden acute danger to the success of his new marriage, the probability of shipwreck …

‘This, members of the jury, is the statement made and signed by the prisoner that night in the presence of Inspector Archer and Detective Constable Kellett. May I read you an extract: ‘‘ I received this injury in a quarrel with my wife. It was a stupid quarrel and no doubt I was very irritating. She threw something at me and I left the house in a temper and walked round the streets for three-quarters of an hour before going into a chemist's shop.'' But in the early morning, let me remind you, the police went round to Pelham Court to see Mrs Talbot. They found her awake and a little anxious about her husband's absence; but when they questioned her she denied any such quarrel as he had mentioned. Nor was there any evidence of it when later she changed her story to agree with his …'

Wells had gone on: ‘What is the next thing the accused man says? ‘‘I never at any time that night went near Elizabeth Rusman's flat.'' Yet on the following morning at Bow Street there was an identification parade of ten men, one being the accused. They were all dressed exactly alike, in trilby hats and raincoats, and all with a bandage over their left temples. Present at this parade was Mike Grieve, the janitor, the only man to see the murderer leave the house. Now among those ten men, whom did he identify? He identified Nicolas Talbot …'

So it had mounted and mounted until there seemed no alternative for the jury but that they should rise at once and pronounce him guilty without wasting more of the court's time.

Now, having said all that, Wells was painstakingly going about the business of proving it. Poor Mrs Evans was dragged away from the Welsh fastnesses of Dolgelly to play her part; stage hands from the Opera House who had witnessed his meeting with Elizabeth, the tall shabby chemist, the young doctor and the young nurse, Inspector Archer and the Divisional Surgeon, Mr Grieve …

At these people Tyler waved a hand or cross-examined briefly. From Archer he established the fact that no finger-prints belonged to the prisoner had been found in the murdered woman's room, and then let him go. On the afternoon resumption Mr Justice Ferguson made everything drag by writing the testimony down in longhand, and Nick could see the trial running into Tuesday or Wednesday of next week at this rate.

He stole a glance at the jury, and was relieved to find none of them staring at him. On the whole a fairly intelligent group, the exception being a burly red-faced young man in the back row who looked as if he had just come out of prison himself. The three women had been given seats in the front row: two might have been school teachers or civil servants, the other was a motherly soul with a kind eye. The foreman, a man called Pindar, had a nervous sniff that irritated Nick. He wanted to pass a handkerchief along.

Mr Tyler was asking questions. It all seemed very unimportant.

‘You say the time you reached your home was about ten minutes past eleven, Mrs Grieve?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Where was your husband when you first saw him?'

‘Coming out of the bedroom, gaspin'and chokin'with the smoke.'

‘What did he do?'

‘He shouts to me: ‘‘For Gawd's sake fetch the cops, Maggie, the 'ouse is on fire an' there's been bloody murder done!'' '

‘Quite,' said Mr Tyler dryly, ‘and then I think you ran into the next-door house to telephone?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Was there anyone else about when you first reached your home?'

‘No, sir, but by the time I'd done my phoning and got back there was a bob – a policeman there who'd seen the smoke from down the street and come without bein' asked.'

‘Thank you, Mrs Grieve.' Tyler sat down.

Her husband was next to be called, and Nick stared with interest at this witness whom he had only seen once before, for a moment at the identification parade. A tough-looking man, worthy companion for that odd juror: coarse red face, a chin built for bristles, eyes screwed up a little as if unusued to bright lights.

Sir Alfred Wells was treating him gently, courteously, trying, one suspected, by his deferential attitude to hypnotize the jury into a similar attitude of mind. He went through it all, and Grieve, to do him justice, was a good witness while the expected questions could be met with the well-drilled answers. Nick felt it was all old stuff, but he could see the effect it had on the jury.

Sir Alfred Wells sat down satisfied, and Mr Stephen Tyler got up. He looked at Mr Grieve, blew his nose, and looked at him again reflectively while he stowed the handkerchief away in an under pocket.

‘How old are you, Mr Grieve?'

Grieve stared at this new, smaller, wigged figure. He knew all about this one.

‘Fifty,' he said in his husky voice.

‘Ever been in a witness-box before?'

‘No,' said Grieve.

‘Have you ever been in a court before?'

There was a moment's hesitation. ‘Maybe.'

‘The witness-box is not your usual position?'

‘Eh?'

‘What I mean is that you are more accustomed to standing in the dock?'

‘No, I ain't.'

Mr Tyler raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you telling the court that you have never been in the dock?'

Grieve looked up at the glass dome.

‘Maybe I 'ave.'

‘Tell us about your appearance in dock.'

‘Which one?'

A murmur of amusement ran round the court.

‘Oh, any of them,' said Tyler. ‘ It doesn't really matter.'

‘What's it to do with this case, eh?'

‘Precisely.' said Sir Alfred, half rising, ‘what I was going to ask Mr Tyler myself. My Lord, I trust Mr Tyler realizes that this constitutes –'

‘I fully realize,' said Tyler, ‘everything it constitutes, Sir Alfred. Tell us, Mr Grieve, what you were convicted of.'

‘Not much, anyway.'

‘Shall I refresh your memory. Have you been convicted at least five times of being drunk and disorderly?'

Again Grieve hesitated and glanced at Sir Alfred. But Sir Alfred was not looking.

‘Maybe.'

‘Answer me yes or no.'

‘Yes …'

‘Thank you, Mr Grieve. Now will you cast your mind back to your last conviction. Is it true that you were convicted of assaulting a lady?'

This was too much for the witness. ‘ Well,' he said indignantly, ‘I only put me arm round 'er in a bus and the old geyser run me in!'

The murmur was nearer a laugh.

‘You were drunk then?'

‘No! I was only being friendly!'

There was something in Tyler's manner as he put the next question that quelled the amusement which was moving about the court.

‘Were you feeling friendly on the night of the second of April last?'

‘What d'yer mean?'

‘What time did Elizabeth Rusman come in that night?'

‘I've told you. About 'alf ten.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Because I seen her go in just as I was turning into the pub opposite for a pint.'

‘What did you say to her?'