The Witness: A Novel (31 page)

Mr. Halladay began by giving her some general instructions about effective testimony. “Mr. Benjamin, the barrister, will want you to be honest but concise. He will endeavor to keep his questions clear, and where possible, not require long answers from you. He’s a Q.C.—quite capable, as we say. Little joke of ours.”

A very little one. “Why are you telling me about him? Won’t I be meeting him?”

“Absolutely not! There must be no personal contact whatever. Otherwise, charges of bias could be made.”

“That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard! Isn’t he supposed to be on my side? How will I even know who’s who?”

“The judge will address him by name,” Halladay said. “May I continue?”

“Isn’t he my ally?”

“Not exactly. You are a prosecution witness. It is his job to present the case for the prosecution in an objective manner. I assure you, Mr. Benjamin’s preparation has been more than thorough. He has met with Detective Chief Inspector Sinclair on a number of occasions, as well as with the other investigating officers on the case.”

Halladay was oblivious to her dismay.

“Listen carefully. You are required to respond only to questions, not to statements. If you don’t understand a question, you may request that it be repeated. Take as much time as you need to answer clearly. We do not want you to be unduly stressed by the legal process.”

“How can I not be? It’s intrusive, it reminds me of a terrible time in my life, and the man who caused it all will be only a few yards from me.”

“I realise it was a harrowing experience,” Halladay said in a matter-of-fact voice, “but you don’t have to look at the accused. Concentrate on Mr. Benjamin’s questions.”

“How long will it take? His questioning of me, I mean.”

“Mr. Benjamin’s examination will take at least a day. Defence counsel will likely use more than that. Mr. Benjamin may then reexamine you, if he deems it necessary.” He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Alistair Alford, Q.C., will be leading for the defence.”

“Leading?”

“The defendant has retained a team of barristers to represent him. Alford will lead the team because he is the most experienced.”

“What will he—they—do to me?”

“We do not believe that he can dispute the evidence effectively. Therefore, he will try to discredit you.”

It then seemed to her that Mr. Halladay tried to do the same thing. He queried her endlessly about her activities, particularly those during her college years, when she had been away from her parents’ influence. Lunch came and went. The men had learned to eat slowly to pass the time, but she didn’t have much appetite and wasn’t revived by the meal. She assured Halladay that she had never been arrested by the local police, never reported for dangerous driving, never disciplined by the dean of students, and never cited for any infraction of dormitory rules. She had never cheated on written tests nor submitted any work that was not entirely her own.

She’d expected the meetings with the solicitor to make her feel more confident about her courtroom experience, but instead Mr. Halladay’s colorless inquisition and the impersonal nature of the legal system conspired to shrink her courage. The law was like an amorphous structure of wheels and gears, each connected to the next, like a human skeleton without the heart and the features that gave it an individual personality. And she was the smallest cog on the smallest wheel. “If the monster—the accused—is convicted, will he get the death penalty?”

“We don’t have the death penalty in England.”

“He gave those other women the death penalty,” she pointed out. “What if he had killed a policeman?”

“Not even then.” Halladay paused. “There’s one other item I should mention. My work with you is complete, but a meeting with the instructing solicitor for the defence will be scheduled soon.”

“What?” She looked at Colin. “Do I have to?”

It was Halladay who replied. “There is a rule in law,” he said, “which provides that there is ‘no property in a witness.’ It means that we have no sole proprietary claim to you. It is unusual, but the defence are well within their rights to request a meeting.”

She was stunned.

“Try not to worry. Your testimony is compelling, to say the least, and we have every confidence in you.” He collected his papers and picked up his briefcase.

“Not so fast,” Casey said in The Voice. “Ladies first.” He nodded at Sullivan, who retrieved her coat from the bedroom. “Now,” he told his mobile. Davies opened the door, checked the corridor, and they were away.

T
he meeting with the instructing solicitor for the defence took place in yet another hotel. Brian was more heavily armed, and Jenny was nervous. The men exited the van first, shielding her from view when she stepped out and then surrounding her as they guided her inside.

The suite was large. A lustrous maple table dominated the dining room. The sofas were decorated in a tropical pattern, palm trees with mocha trunks on a sand background and an area rug the color of summer sunlight. It reminded her of a Caribbean island, and she tried to imagine how warm it would be on the white beaches. It was another cold day in London. The wind had gone right through her slacks, and the sweater she’d worn under her coat was acrylic, not wool.

Colin arrived shortly after they did, explaining that Humphrey Cooke had been sent to another location as a ruse and would be brought along shortly by Sergeant Andrews. It was barely ten a.m., and he expected their session to last most of the day. Sullivan set several glasses on the table with a pitcher of water and began to brew tea in the little kitchen. She had just wrapped her hands around the hot cup when Andrews and Cooke were admitted. Cooke was breathing hard, and he set his briefcase down and shed his overcoat and brown tweed jacket immediately.

“Sir, I’ll have to search you,” Davies announced.

“I’ve already been scanned by this officer,” Cooke said, referring to Andrews. “Won’t that do?”

“No, sir. Extend your arms, please.” Davies patted him down. “Your briefcase, sir.”

With a disgruntled snort, Cooke snapped it open for his inspection. Davies removed Cooke’s phone. “Your mobile will be returned to you at the end of the session, sir.” He handed it to Sergeant Andrews, who pocketed it and left.

Sinclair introduced Cooke to Jenny and took a chair at the end of the table. Cooke hefted his briefcase onto the table without the semblance of a smile and took a chair perpendicular to her, so close that his knees bumped hers.

She wasn’t ready to face this well-fed bear of a man, with his black
eyes and unblinking stare. She walked over to Brian and whispered, “I’m stalling. Think of something.”

“I’ll get some for you, Miss,” he said. “Just one moment.” He collected some tissues from the bathroom at the back of the suite and brought them to her. She returned to the table but to a seat farther from the solicitor.

No reaction showed in Cooke’s fleshy face. His voice was smooth and even as he began questioning her. Initially everything he asked was nonthreatening, clarifying her reasons for visiting London and detailing her early days there.

The men were quiet. She heard them change duty positions occasionally, but they didn’t disturb the process in any way. She thought about how interminable these sessions must be for them, but it became rapidly clear that Cooke wasn’t as bookish as Halladay had been.

As the questioning continued, he focussed on the events she had described in her statement. His voice never altered, but his eyes seemed to bore in on her, and his mouth never closed. Over and over he said, “You have stated that…” and then asked if she would care to rephrase her statement in any way, giving her an example. She noticed that the vocabulary he used was only slightly different in meaning from hers, and at first the differences didn’t seem significant to her. If she accepted his terminology, however, his next sentence contained words that modified her meaning even more. Instead of being helpful by saying things for her, he was trying to get her to change them. It was confusing and mentally exhausting. She was glad she’d studied literature—she’d never have been as sensitive to the nuances of his words otherwise.

Eventually the lunch hour drew near, and Sergeant Andrews returned, offering to allow Cooke to make his sandwich selection first from the variety he’d brought.

“May I have my mobile, Sergeant?” Cooke snapped.

He was met with a bland smile and a negative response. She felt an undercurrent of support from Sergeant Andrews. She’d seen the duty smile he directed at Cooke but hadn’t heard one in his voice.

“Then let’s go on, shall we?” Cooke urged. “I never eat at midday.”

Sinclair stood. “Miss Jeffries does,” he responded.

That was her cue. She pushed her chair away from the table. When she rose, all the pieces of Kleenex she had shredded with her hands slipped off her lap, a tangible testament to her anxiety. She went into the bedroom, shutting the door. Almost immediately there was a soft knock. She tensed, but it was Danny, bringing her a Coke and a chicken salad sandwich on a croissant. There were rocket leaves instead of lettuce inside, definitely a step up from their other hotel lunches. “Save a little room,” he grinned, pulling a Penguin bar from his pocket. Chocolate! She could have kissed him.

The Coke settled her stomach a little, and she remembered as she ate that Colin had suggested once, when she was upset, to focus on something neutral. She studied the pale green silk curtains and
matching bedspread. The fabric was dotted with embroidered lavender and blue hydrangeas, much larger than the ones her mother had grown at home. How far away home seemed now—farther even in experience than in miles. She had come to depend on the policemen in the other room. What would it feel like to go home to Texas and leave them behind? Would she find her family changed also? Was trauma contagious? It must not be, or Colin and Sergeant Casey would have caught it long ago.

This time it was Colin’s knock that interrupted her. He came in with a concerned look and an extended handkerchief. She laughed through her tears, thinking of the headline, “Jennifer Jeffries in London—Handkerchief Sales Soar.” She brought the handkerchief with her when she returned to the dining room.

The afternoon session began. Cooke had unbuttoned his waistcoat, and his white shirt glistened like a viper’s new skin. She recalled the advice Mr. Halladay had given her about testifying in court: Take your time, and be concise. She decided to apply that wisdom here, so she answered all Cooke’s statements which began, “You have stated that…” with one word: “Yes.” When he asked if she wished to rephrase her statement, she simply said, “No.”

Eventually it was the material laden with frightening memories that had to be covered. She did not want to cry in front of this man, but it still hurt to remember, and taking a deep breath or a sip of water didn’t shield her from her feelings.

Cooke varied his approach. When she became upset, he softened his questions, trying to make it sound as if the things that had happened hadn’t been so bad. He never used the word rape, referring instead to what he called energetic intercourse, and acknowledging in an understanding tone that such activity could be distressing for someone so inexperienced, however agreeable she may have been when it began.

Once again she took refuge in short, simple answers. When he mentioned unfortunate discomfort, she said, “Pain.” When he referred to scratches, she insisted, “Gashes.” She corrected Cooke, who suggested that perhaps she could agree that in the heat of the moment Scott had “just taken things a bit too far.”

His deceptively soft vocabulary notwithstanding, he disputed everything. Parrying his repeated thrusts exhausted her. From time to time he made a note, his pen jabbing into the paper. Did she have to answer every question? There was no official recording being made of her replies.

Cooke leant toward her and raised his voice suddenly, startling her. “You don’t want to admit to initiating this whole charade, do you?”

“It isn’t a charade, it’s all true,” she insisted.

“Truth is relative, Miss Jeffries! A jury will decide whose truth will prevail.”

She paled. Surely the jury would believe her!

“What did you think when you saw Mr. Scott’s residence? Money?
You had a motive then, didn’t you?”

She heard Brian rise to his feet. When a man of his bulk moved, it was impossible to disguise.

“Defending yourself wasn’t an issue, was it, Miss Jeffries?”

His words cut into her. “Stop!” she gasped. “Go away!”

“Like a bitch in heat, you led him on!”

Colin’s fist hit the table. “This interview is terminated! Casey, prepare to depart with Miss Jeffries.”

Casey snapped his mobile closed. “We’re off, sir,” he told Sinclair, and then he was at her elbow. She wiped her cheeks and stuffed the handkerchief in her pocket for the trip back to the flat. This time she didn’t feel the cold. The aggressive, accusatory attitude of the solicitor presaged worse to come. And the memory of her three protectors’ wary, alert faces scanning the streets as they took her home haunted her.

O
ver the next days Jenny tried to forget Cooke’s insidious interrogation and the lurid nature of his vocal attack. Relaxing with a book and two new CDs proved impossible, so she chose instead to reread the correspondence from her parents. Her mother had sent short encouraging notes. Her dad relied on quotes, including Lincoln’s: “Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” He wanted to bolster her strength of will, and she needed it. The words that kept running through her mind were less positive: Hamlet’s lament that “the time is out of joint—O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!”

Meanwhile the men worked. Colin brought a detailed map of the entire area between their block and the courthouse and described their destination. “St. George Crown Court was built to ease the case load at the other Crown Courts. The courtrooms are about the same size as Southwark or Middlesex, and judges hear a variety of cases there. The neighbourhood is primarily commercial.” In response to Casey’s questions, he reported that all the streets between the two sites were surface streets. There were no overpasses, tunnels, or railway crossings to negotiate. There were several one-way streets, including one behind the courthouse.