The Witness at the Wedding

Seventeen

There was a message from Jude on the High Tor answering machine when Carole got back from her talk with Gaby. Gulliver left her in no doubt that he really fancied – and was owed – a walk, but the summons to Woodside Cottage was more intriguing. His brown eyes followed her reproachfully out of the front door. Call yourself a dog owner? they seemed to say.

Carole’s excitement was considerably dampened when she found that Jude was not alone. Gita Millington was also there, almost unrecognizable in a smart black trouser suit and full make-up.

Jude dealt with the sticky point of diplomacy by a characteristically frontal approach. “I asked Gita to do some research for us.”

“What?” Carole was appalled, but, as Jude had anticipated, was too well brought-up to make a big issue of the betrayal while Gita was actually present. When they were alone, recrimination would inevitably follow.

“I haven’t heard any of it yet – you know, the stuff Gita’s found out,” said Jude. “I wanted to wait till you were here.”

The expression on Carole’s face did not suggest that this was sufficient compensation for the sin of involving Gita Millington in their own private murder mystery, but Jude felt confident her friend would soon get caught up in the drama of the situation.

On Gita’s black-trousered knees was a folder, which she opened with some deliberation. Inside were sheets of handwritten notes and photocopies of newspaper cuttings. “These are my preliminary findings,” she said, with a new authority in her voice. “I’ve got this stuff from local newspaper sources, mostly the archives of the Fethering Observer, and what you’ll hear is the main outline of the case. But, if you want more detail, I’m very happy to extend my researches.”

Neither of the other women spoke. The transformed Gita Millington held the floor and their complete attention.

“Jude, you asked me to find out what I could about a man called Michael Brewer, who was involved in a murder case in the Worthing area about thirty years ago. I can confirm that on the seventeenth of October 1974 Michael Graham Brewer was found guilty in a trial at the Old Bailey of the murder of Janine Buckley, who had died on the twenty-first of November the previous year. Brewer was sentenced to life imprisonment, and the judge recommended that he should not be released until he had served at least thirty years.”

Gita was confident enough to take a long pause, knowing that neither Carole nor Jude would want to break her spell.

“The circumstances of the murder were particularly callous. Janine Buckley was a seventeen-year-old girl studying for her A levels at a convent school in Worthing. Brewer, who was twenty-three at the time, worked as a gamekeeper on a large estate near Fed-borough. Janine Buckley had apparently met him at a discotheque in Worthing, and a relationship developed between them. The girl became pregnant and, having been brought up a Catholic, refused to have the abortion that Brewer wanted her to have. Unwilling to take the responsibility for a child, he decided the simplest way out of his predicament was to murder the girl. He strangled her, and then tried to hide the evidence of his crime by putting her body into a stolen car, to which he subsequently set fire.”

That prompted a simultaneous intake of breath from the two listeners. Jude looked across at Carole, glad to see her friend was now so caught up in Gita’s narrative that all resentment was forgotten.

“The burnt-out car was found deep into a wood on the estate where Michael Brewer worked. Though he continued to protest his innocence throughout his trial, there was compelling evidence against him. The alibi he put forward for the time of the murder proved to be a lie and, though the victim’s body was too badly burnt to show any traces of her murderer, Brewer’s fingerprints were found inside the boot of the stolen car and on an abandoned petrol can which had been used as an accelerant to set the vehicle alight. The jurytook less than two hours to reach a unanimous verdict of guilty. The trial judge described the murder as ‘a crime of exceptional wickedness, in the perpetration of which Brewer had showed a cynical disregard for all humane instincts, and had destroyed the life of a young girl and her unborn child from motives of pure selfishness.’ When Michael Brewer was driven away from the Old Bailey after sentencing, a large crowd of angry protesters shouted messages of hatred and threw various projectiles at the van which was carrying him.”

Gita Millington stopped and looked at Jude for approval. She got it. “Very good. Exceptionally good.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Carole, in a way that she knew sounded rather graceless. “So, if he started his sentence in October 1974, and served the full thirty years, he would have been released in October of last year.”

“Yes.”

Carole looked directly at Gita for the first time since she had arrived at Woodside Cottage. “Were there any other names mentioned in the case? Friends of Brewer’s? Accomplices? People who gave him the false alibi?”

“I’m sure I could track down that information. All I have given you today is an overview. I can check the national press and the records of the court proceedings, if you want more detail.”

“I think we do, don’t we?”

Jude nodded decisively. “Yes, it’d definitely help. That is, if you don’t mind, Gita?”

“Mind?” The journalist smiled wryly. “Today is the first time I’ve felt like a human being in the last three months, the first time I’ve felt like myself. I’ll research whatever you ask me to. I can’t think of anything I’d like to do more.”

“Good.”

“So, more detail of the trial – fine. I’ll write it up like an article. That’ll get me back into the right way of thinking.”

“And who knows?” Jude suggested gently. “One day you might be able to sell it somewhere.”

“I might at that,” said Gita with a determined grin. She picked up a notepad. “Right. Any other specifics you want to know about?”

“Names would help,” replied Carole. “Any details of Michael Brewer’s life before he committed the murder: who his friends were; who his enemies were, come to that; whether he mixed with Janine Buckley’s friends from school.”

Gita Millington scribbled a note. “OK, I can do that for you. Anything else?”

“Yes,” said Jude. “Can you confirm that Michael Brewer actually was released last year? And if possible, what he’s been doing since?”

“And,” added Carole, with an involuntary shudder, “his current whereabouts.”