Final Witness

Chapter 18

“The next witness, my Lord, is Matthew Barne.”

“Barne or Barnes?”

“Barne, my Lord,” said John Sparling. “Without the s.”

It was Monday morning and the courtroom was once again full. The benches reserved for the press were packed, and there was a sense of expectancy in the air. All the jurors were alert, and Greta noticed that the Margaret Thatcher look-alike had moved into the seat nearest the judge, where the foreperson of the jury goes when it’s time to deliver the verdict. It looked as if it would be a forewoman this time.

Matthew Barne came in accompanied by his mother, who took a seat close to the witness box while her son took the oath.

He had red hair and freckles and pale blue eyes, which fluttered from person to person as he stumbled over the words on the oath card that Miss Hooks held up in front of him.

He was dressed in a double-breasted suit, which looked as if it had been bought for the occasion, and his school tie was tied in a big knot over a shirt collar that seemed to be a size too small for his bulging neck. He had a gift-wrapped appearance, and his discomfort showed in the way that he answered questions. He spoke in stops and starts, sometimes saying too little and sometimes too much so that his audience felt as if they were only catching periodic glimpses of his true personality. He constantly brushed his bangs off his forehead in a habitual gesture that reminded Greta of Thomas.

“How old are you, Matthew?” asked the judge.

“Sixteen, sir.”

“I think you’d be more comfortable if Mr. Sparling and Mr. Lambert here called you Matthew rather than Master Barne or anything formal like that. Is that what you’d prefer, Matthew?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I suggest you sit down to give your evidence. It’s not easy for someone of your age being in court, and you should tell me if there’s anything I can do to make it less difficult for you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Matthew managed a nervous smile as he sat down and turned his buttoned up neck toward John Sparling. “Matthew, do you know Thomas Robinson?” asked the prosecution barrister.

“Yes, I do. He goes to school with me.”

“Which school is that, Matthew?”

“Carstow School, sir. It’s in Surrey.”

“How long have you known Thomas?”

“Since last September. We both started together.”

“Tell us about your relationship.”

“He’s my best friend. All the other boys in our class had already been there two years when we got there, and so we were sort of in it together, if you know what I mean.”

“I see. Now, have you ever been to five St. Mary’s Terrace in Chelsea, London?”

“Is that where Tom’s dad lives?”

“Yes. Have you been there?”

“Yes. Yes, I have.”

Matthew suddenly sounded very nervous and looked up at Judge Granger, swallowing visibly as he did so. The judge did his best to calm him down.

“Just answer the questions, Matthew,” he said gently. “You have nothing to fear. Have some water if you need to.”

“Thank you, my Lord,” said Sparling. “Now, Matthew, when did you go to Sir Peter Robinson’s house?”

“Near the end of October last year. It was at the weekend. On a Saturday.”

“Who were you with?”

“With Tom. It was his idea.”

“I see. Now tell us in your own words, Matthew, what the idea was. Why did you go to the house?”

“Because the girlfriend of Tom’s dad had her stuff there. Tom read in the paper the weekend before that his dad was going to Paris for some political thing, and Tom said his dad’s girlfriend goes everywhere with him because she’s his assistant too.”

“So they’d be away. What was the significance of that?”

“So that Tom could go through her stuff. He thinks she was behind his mum getting killed, and he wanted to find something to prove it. Because that’s what the police told him. That they needed more evidence.”

Miles Lambert had caught Judge Granger’s eye while Matthew was talking, and the judge now leaned forward to speak to the prosecution barrister before he asked his next question.

“I know it’s difficult, Mr. Sparling, but please try and cut out the hearsay. Thomas Robinson can tell us about his motives when he gives his evidence. We don’t need Matthew here to do it for him.”

“No, my Lord,” said Sparling. “I hear what you say. Matthew, tell us what time you got to the house.”

“It was in the afternoon. About half past four. Tom had a key to the front door, but he rang the bell first. We watched to see if anyone answered, but they didn’t. He did the same downstairs in the basement. Then when we were inside, there’s a door that goes downstairs in the hall, and he went through that.”

“How?”

“There was a key in the door. He was down there for quite a while.”

“Where did you go?”

“I stayed upstairs. There was a room off the hall with a whole lot of computer equipment, and I sat in there. I didn’t touch anything.”

“What happened next?”

“Tom came back, and then he went through the stuff in the computer room.”

“What stuff?”

“He looked in the drawers and he turned on the computer and went through the files. He didn’t find anything though. We were there for ages and I wanted to go but he said we had to go upstairs. He said that his dad and his assistant were living together and so she’d have personal stuff in the bedroom.”

“Mr. Sparling,” said the judge in a warning voice.

“Yes, my Lord. Matthew, try to stick to what happened and don’t tell us what Thomas said. Okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right, tell us what happened upstairs. Did you go up there too?”

“Yes, but I only stood in the doorway while Tom went in. She did have stuff in there like Tom said she would, but he didn’t find anything to do with his mother in any of her clothes or her drawers or anything like that, and so we started to go back downstairs. Tom was really upset. He was frustrated at not finding anything when he’d been going on about how he was going to get Greta all the way up on the train. He — ”

“Yes, Matthew,” interrupted Sparling. “We do need to focus on what happened in the house. You said you were going downstairs. Tell us what happened next.”

“Well, we were one floor up from the computers. On the landing. And there was a door open into this big room.”

“The drawing room?”

“I guess so. Anyway, Tom saw this old desk in the corner, and he was saying that his mother used to use it when she was in London and that it had this really neat secret drawer. That was where he found the locket.”

“He showed it to you? You saw it up close?”

“Yes, sir. It was gold with a chain, and there was a little photograph inside. Tom said it was his parents. In the photograph I mean.”

“Thank you, Matthew. Now I’d like to show you one of our exhibits. It’s number thirteen, my Lord. Do you recognize that, Matthew?”

“It looks like it. Yes, I’d say it’s the same as the one Tom found.”

“Thank you. Now, Matthew, please tell us what happened after Tom found the locket.”

“He was really excited. Talking a lot and everything. I guess that’s why we didn’t hear the door open downstairs. We didn’t hear anything until she was on the stairs.”

“Who? Who was on the stairs?”

“Greta. She… she’s over there.” Matthew pointed at the dock where Greta was sitting forward in her chair watching him intently.

“What happened next?”

“Tom was in the doorway, and I think she saw him first. She was really angry, shouting at him, using all this really bad language.”

“We need you to tell us everything she said, Matthew,” said Sparling in a fatherly voice. “I know it’s not easy, but we need to know even if the words are bad.”

“She called Tom a fucking little sneak. I remember that. It was scary. Tom backed away into the room and almost knocked me over. I was behind him. Tom was holding up this locket thing in front of her saying, ‘Look what I’ve found’ or something like that. He was really angry too. They were both shouting.”

“What was Greta shouting, Matthew? Help us with that.”

“She said, ‘Give that to me. It’s mine.’ That’s what she said. She made a grab for it but she missed. Tom pulled it away and then he pushed her back. I don’t know what she was going to do. Scratch him or something I guess.”

“What happened when he pushed her back, Matthew? Where did she go?”

“She was on the floor and Tom was standing over her and he was like shouting down at her.”

“What did he shout?”

Matthew’s brow furrowed as if he was concentrating hard to remember something exactly.

“He said, ‘No, it’s not. It’s my mother’s. That bastard took it from her and he gave it to you. He gave it to you.’ And then just after that, Tom’s dad came in.”

“Sir Peter. What did he do?”

“He was really upset. It’s not surprising really. I mean we weren’t supposed to be there, and there was his girlfriend lying on the floor and Tom shouting at her.”

“Was Thomas shouting when his father came into the room?”

“I don’t know. It all happened really quick. Tom backed off when his dad came in. I remember that, and then his dad got Greta up off the floor and put her on the sofa. She was crying. I don’t know if she got hurt when Tom pushed her over.”

“Yes, I see. Carry on, Matthew. What happened next?”

“Tom’s dad asked Greta what happened, and she said how Tom had pushed her. She said Tom had attacked her, and then it was like this guy was going to hit Tom. I know he’s done that before because Tom told me. He had his fists clenched and he was going toward Tom, and that’s when Tom showed his dad the locket. He was holding it up like it was some magic charm or something and telling his dad where he’d got it from. He said that Greta must have gotten it off the man who killed his mother.”

Matthew’s words had come slowly at first, but now he spoke in a rush with sentences tumbling into one another until at the end he seemed to have entirely lost control of the torrent of words falling from his mouth.

“All right, Matthew, I think we’ve all got that,” said Sparling, “but please try to go a bit slower from now on; calm down a little; take your time. Now, how did Greta respond to what Thomas said?”

“She didn’t at first. She was crying, like I told you before, but then she said that it wasn’t true; that she’d found the locket in the bathroom a day or two after Tom’s mother got shot and that she’d put it in the secret drawer to keep it safe. That’s when Tom started asking her all these questions and she was answering them too. It was like she realized she needed to give some sort of explanation.”

“To whom?”

“I don’t know. To Tom and to Tom’s dad too, I guess. Tom was the one asking the questions, though.”

“Okay. Then tell us what they said, please, Matthew.”

“Tom was asking what she was doing in the bathroom because it was like near the top of the house, when Greta works on the ground floor where all that computer equipment was; and she said that the cleaner was in the downstairs loo and so she’d gone upstairs. Then Tom said that the basement would’ve been nearer. It was going back and forth like that, and then he asked her why she’d put it in the secret drawer in the desk. Greta said something about it being Anne’s desk and so it was a natural place to put it. Something like that.”

“Did Thomas’s father, Sir Peter, ask anything?”

“Yes, he wanted to know why Greta hadn’t given him the locket, and she said that she hadn’t wanted to upset him and then she’d forgotten about it. She seemed to have an answer for everything.”

There was a pause while John Sparling looked for something in his notes. Miles Lambert turned round to his client and smiled. The witness’s last comment had been a gift.

“Was anything else said, Matthew?” asked Sparling.

“Tom’s dad seemed to believe what Greta was saying, and he got really angry with Tom and with me too. It was scary. He said we were to get out and go back to school or he’d call the police.”

“Yes, Matthew, but was there anything else that anyone said before Sir Peter told you that? Have you left anything out?”

Matthew looked blank and Sparling tried again.

“What happened to the locket, Matthew?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, Tom showed it to his father again and told him what Greta had said about it before his dad came in.”

“What was that?”

“That it was hers. She denied saying it even though I knew she did. I heard her.”

“Yes, Matthew. Now you’ve said that Sir Peter told you to get out. Did you do so?”

“You bet I did. I ran down the stairs so fast that I almost fell over. Tom caught up to me outside. He didn’t run like me. I was really scared that his dad would write to my parents, get me expelled or something like that, but nothing happened. Not until the police came to see me.”

“When was that?”

“A couple of days later. It was Mr. Hearns and he said I’d done really well, which was the opposite of what I expected to hear. It was really weird.”

Matthew gulped and then smiled at the memory. The smile transformed his face and made him suddenly attractive, so that he was no longer a nervous schoolboy in an ill-fitting suit but rather a real person with a strange story to tell. Several of the jurors smiled too, and Sparling realized instinctively that he’d reached the high point in his examination of his witness. The high point was the point at which to stop; Sparling didn’t need to be told that.

“Thank you, Matthew,” he said as he sat down, with something closely resembling a smile playing across his usually funereal features.

“I think we’ll take a ten-minute break there,” said Judge Granger before Miles Lambert could get to his feet. “You can have a chance to stretch your legs, Matthew, and the jurors can have a cup of coffee.”

In his room Judge Granger sat in an easy chair facing out toward the London skyline and drew deeply on an unfiltered cigarette. The room filled with blue smoke as he exhaled so that Miss Hooks appeared as if out of a cloud when she arrived with his cup of morning coffee.

“Everything all right, Miss Hooks?” he inquired as he always did once the cup of coffee had safely been passed over. The judge had never rid himself of an anxiety that Miss Hooks would stumble over her floor-length black gown at the vital moment and fall down on him in a rain of scalding black coffee, but it hadn’t happened yet.

“Yes, your Lordship. Jury are in their room,” replied Miss Hooks, just as she always had done, except for that memorable day two years before when a younger juror had given Miss Hooks the slip and escaped from the building in midtrial.

Miss Hooks was a creature of routine, and to Judge Granger she was as much a part of the courtroom landscape as the barristers’ wigs and gowns and the old clock that kept the time above the defendant’s head. He’d never had a meaningful conversation with her, and to the extent that he had ever thought about it, he assumed that she did not pay attention to any of the evidence after she’d gotten the witness seated and sworn in. That wasn’t her department. The old judge imagined what a good job she’d have made of placing the black cap on his head if capital punishment were still in force. She’d probably have a little iron in the ushers’ room, where she could get the cap nicely pressed in anticipation of a guilty verdict.

Judge Granger did not believe in God, but he thanked him anyway that he had never had to sentence anyone to death. There were always cases where he did not feel sure. Like this one for instance. She was a strange fish, this Lady Greta Robinson. He had sat opposite her for two days now, making sure not to catch her glittering green eyes, and he still didn’t know what to make of her. She was obviously clever, as well as pretty, and she had nothing in common with the usual listless defendants fidgeting in their chair as incomprehensible legal arguments droned on in front of them. The judge had watched the way she balanced her notebook on her knee, looking at each witness intently and occasionally passing notes to Miles Lambert. He certainly seemed to believe in her.

John Sparling kept producing all these bits of evidence like they were links in a sturdy chain, but they didn’t feel like that to the judge. An unlocked gate and an open window. The victim could have left the gate unlocked herself, and the window might not be sinister at all. The defendant had admitted leaving it open after all, and it had been a summer evening. What else? A few angry words muttered in a hallway; an identification from behind, and now this locket. Would this clever young lady really have kept such a dangerous trophy? And what did she need a trophy for when she’d gotten the husband and the money? So much seemed to depend on this boy, Thomas. It certainly wasn’t usual for the chief prosecution witness to testify last, but of course there was a reason for that. Sparling said the boy had been traumatized by the return of the killers a week before the trial began. If this had happened, trauma would be too mild a word for the boy’s experience. But had it happened? What was it the statement said: the killer had looked for him in the house but hadn’t found him because he was hidden in a bench, and so this “Rosie” had gone away, but not before he’d implicated Greta, the defendant, by name. There was something all too convenient about this reappearance; something that just didn’t feel right.

The judge shifted in his chair and stretched out his long legs, enjoying the last of his cigarette. There were rumors that the courthouse would soon be a smoke-free zone, although he’d probably be retired by then. He dreaded his approaching compulsory retirement to the same degree that Mrs. Sybil Granger back home in Richmond-upon-Thames was looking forward to it. She’d long ago made clear what she had in mind. The annual holiday down in Bournemouth would become a permanent arrangement. They had so many friends there, after all, and the judge could play a little golf and maybe join a society or two. He couldn’t say no after all the years that he had kept his wife in London, and the thought crossed his mind, as he got up stiffly and positioned his threadbare wig on the top of his bald head, that the best solution might be for him to die. Death or Bournemouth? It was a tough choice.

Still, he didn’t need to think about death right now. Old Lurid had had a sly look on his face toward the end of this Barne boy’s evidence. Perhaps he had something up his sleeve. Judge Granger approached the door of the courtroom with something almost approaching a spring in his step.

“Matthew, are you okay to continue?” asked Miles Lambert solicitously.

“I’m all right.” Matthew sounded more confident now, as if he’d gotten used to the courtroom and the barristers in their wigs and gowns.

“Good. Now, I want to read back to you a little bit of your evidence so that you can have a chance to think about it some more. You told Mr. Sparling that Thomas Robinson held up the locket in front of Greta saying, ‘Look what I’ve found’ and that they were both shouting. Do you remember that?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then Mr. Sparling asked you what Greta was shouting, and you told us that she said, ‘Give that to me. It’s mine.’ Do you remember telling us that?”

“Yes, I do.”

“But did she really say that, Matthew? Are you sure you’ve got it right?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“I see. Well, why didn’t you confirm it to Sir Peter when he asked you if she’d said it?”

Matthew swallowed but did not reply. He was nervous again now.

“Come on, Matthew. You know what I’m talking about. You gave evidence that Thomas showed the locket to his father and told him what Greta had said about it and that she then denied saying it. You remember telling us that, don’t you, Matthew? Mr. Sparling was so anxious that you should remember that bit of your statement that he asked you all those questions until you did.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Good. The point is, though, that you didn’t tell us what Sir Peter said after that. I’m not criticizing you, Matthew. Mr. Sparling didn’t ask you.”

“What’s the question, Mr. Lambert?” asked the judge, moving restlessly in his chair.

“The question is this, my Lord. Did Sir Peter ask you whether Greta had said it? Yes or no, Matthew.”

“Yes. Yes, he did.”

“And what was your answer?”

“I didn’t answer. I ran down the stairs. I told you that already. I was scared.”

“But you’re not scared today?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that you’ve been prepared to tell this jury something today that you weren’t prepared to tell Sir Peter Robinson nine months ago.”

“I was scared nine months ago. He was really upset. I thought he was going to hit Tom. He’d done it before.”

“You said earlier that you weren’t surprised he was upset, Matthew?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Because you’d gone into his house without his permission and been through private files and papers?”

“I didn’t. Tom did.”

“He went through all Greta’s clothes too, didn’t he? You were watching from the bedroom doorway, I think you said.”

“Yes. I wanted to go.”

“Did he go through her underwear, Matthew?”

“I suppose so.”

“I see. It wasn’t the first time you and Thomas Robinson had done something like this, was it, Matthew?”

“I’d never been there before. I swear it.”

“That’s not what I mean, Matthew, and you know it isn’t. It wasn’t just your day out in London that made you think you might be expelled, was it? You were both already in trouble at Carstow. Isn’t that right, Matthew?”

The boy’s pale blue eyes remained fixed on Miles Lambert, but he didn’t reply. The movement of his Adam’s apple as he repeatedly swallowed showed the extent of his anxiety.

“All right, Matthew, let me help you. You’ve already told us that Thomas Robinson and you started at Carstow at the same time in September of last year, when you were both fifteen. Yes?”

Matthew Barne nodded.

“And everyone else in your class had already been there two years so that you and Thomas were like outsiders. Was that difficult, Matthew?”

“A bit.”

“Did the other boys let you join in with their activities?”

“Not at first. No.”

“No. They said you had to prove yourselves first, earn their respect. Isn’t that right, Matthew?”

“Something like that.”

“Do a dare. Is that the right word for it?”

The boy nodded.

“What was the dare, Matthew?”

“Going into the headmaster’s room and taking something. Showing it to the rest of them and putting it back.”

“And that something was a paperweight, wasn’t it, Matthew? Quite a distinctive one.”

“Don’t answer that for the moment, Matthew,” interrupted the judge. “What is your source of information for all this, Mr. Lambert?”

“A letter sent by the headmaster to Thomas Robinson’s father after the event, my Lord. I can prove the evidence later if the witness disagrees with it.”

“What’s its relevance?”

“It’s relevant to the witness’s credibility, my Lord.”

“Very well, but let’s not stray too far, Mr. Lambert, and please make sure that you remember the witness’s age. I will not allow him to be bullied.”

“That is not my intention, my Lord.”

“All right, but keep it in mind. Don’t get carried away. Now Matthew, Mr. Lambert was asking you about a paperweight.”

“Yes, it was a paperweight,” said the boy.

“Did you take it, Matthew?” asked Miles.

“No, I didn’t. Tom did.”

“I see. The same setup as in London. What did you do?”

“I stood outside while he went in, and then the headmaster’s secretary came by and asked me what I was doing.”

“That would be Mrs. Bradshaw?”

Matthew nodded. He’d stopped swallowing and started to speak quickly again as if he wanted to make a clean breast of what had happened and get it over with as fast as possible.

“She wanted to know what I was doing, and I told her I was waiting to see Old Lofty.”

“Who’s Old Lofty?”

“Sorry. The headmaster. It’s just a nickname.”

“His real name is Mr. Lofthouse. Is that right?”

“Yes. And he’s tall too so…” Matthew laughed nervously without finishing his sentence.

“You were lying when you told Mrs. Bradshaw that you were waiting to see the headmaster. You accept that, don’t you?”

The boy nodded.

“That’s a yes, is it, Matthew? For the record. The tape won’t pick it up if you just nod.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Now what did Mrs. Bradshaw do when you told her this lie?”

“She didn’t believe me. I don’t know why.”

“Perhaps because you’re not a good liar, Matthew.”

“Mr. Lambert,” said the judge crossly. “I’ve warned you about this. Let the witness say what happened without interrupting him. Go on, Matthew. Tell us what Mrs. Bradshaw did.”

“She went in the study and found Tom in there and then she called the headmaster and he made us empty our pockets and that’s when he found the paperweight. Tom had it in his pocket.”

“He’d stolen it. Yes?” asked Miles.

“We were going to put it back afterward. I already told you that,” replied Matthew defensively. “Lofty believed us. That’s why he only wrote to our parents and didn’t expel us or do anything like that. He was quite decent, really.”

“Yes, he certainly was,” said Miles. “Now, I’ve only got a few more questions, Matthew, and the first one is this: have you talked to Thomas Robinson about your evidence?”

“We’ve talked about the case at school. Everyone has.”

“Have you talked about what everyone said in the drawing room? Greta and Thomas and Sir Peter?”

“I suppose so.”

“Word for word.”

“Not word for word. No.”

“What about what you say Greta said: ‘Give that to me. It’s mine.’ Have you talked about that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Maybe,” repeated Miles musingly, and then he suddenly opened up at Matthew Barne with all guns blazing. “Not maybe, Matthew. Definitely. Greta never said that. Thomas Robinson has told you to give that evidence, and you’ve done so even though you know it’s untrue. You’re lying, Matthew. That’s what I’m putting to you. You’re lying to this jury.”

“No, I’m not. I swear I’m not,” stammered Matthew with tears in his eyes, but Miles Lambert had already sat down with a satisfied look on his red face.