False Witness by Dexter Dias Read Free Book Online Page A

and rushed toward the door.
    “Justine called round,” said Penny. “She left a note in your study.”
    “What about?”
    “Well, I didn’t read it. I’m not going to read a
billet-doux
between you and your—”
    “She’s not my—”
    “Of course she’s not,” Penny said. “Justine’s just up to her old tricks again. That’s all.”
    “What old tricks?” I asked.
    “Oh, leaving things in strange men’s studies.”
    “What on earth does that mean, Pen?”
    “Look, ask Justine about… Alex,” she said.
    “Who?”
    Penny did not reply but pulled the duvet over her head and curled up.
    When I crept along the landing, I had a desperate urge to look in on Ginny, my daughter. Her door was shut and I couldn’t
     bring myself to open it in case it woke her. So I edged my way down the stairs, feeling terribly alone.
    I had a little gas heater in my study. When I was forced to work through the night, getting up a brief, it was a source of
     comfort. Penny forbade the central heating’s use during the night. I tried to light a match but my hand was shaking too much.
     The matchbox fell to the floor, matches were everywhere.
    On the desk were various piles of case papers. Emma had photocopied the entire Kingsley brief so that I could work on it at
     home—not that I was bothered. There was a crisp white envelope tucked in the Kingsley depositions. I understood immediately
     what it was. I picked up a broken match and used it to prise open the rear of the note.
    Justine’s writing was deliberate, full of ornate letters, with deep strokes almost tearing through the paper.
    Dear Tom,
    Sorry to miss you. I’ve jotted down the name of a witness we do not intend to use. The police don’t want to disclose it (for
     some reason). I think you should have it—in fairness. It might help.
    Love, Justine
    Love, she wrote. She had never written that before. I’d known Justine Wright for many years. From the moment I met her at
     one of Penny’s old schoolchums evenings, she invaded an untroubled corner of my imagination. I didn’t resist. Did she really
     write Love, Justine?
    As I stared at the stacks of dog-eared papers and the unlit gas heater, my bedroom seemed very distant. I sat in my armchair
     with a damp bathrobe draped around me—wondering.

C HAPTER E IGHT
    I T WAS THE SECOND DAY OF THE TRIAL AND I WAS late.
    For that night I had slept little but had dreamt a lot. And what I had dreamt was this: there was a great field. And in the
     field were numerous stones. But these stones were not scattered. They were arranged in three circles. And I thought: Why three?
     Three for luck, perhaps? But good luck or bad luck? And luck for whom?
    For some reason, I imagined myself walking around the circles, noticing a debris of acorns and straw. But I awoke with a start
     and realized that I would be late. And is this not the way of things? No sooner had I crawled out of my Fred Flintstone boxer
     shorts than I forgot about such insubstantial matters and worried instead about the very terrestrial terrors of being late
     in the court of Mr. Justice Ignatius Manly.
    When I reached the security doors at the Old Bailey, I remembered that crusty old sages in the robing room used to say that
     the great defense barrister, Edward Marshall Hall, used to keep the court waiting deliberately. He would stalk outside the
     courtroom with his cushion. He suffered from piles, which along with thinning hair and an overblown sense of one’s own importance,
     was an occupational hazard. There Marshall Hall would remain until the tension became unbearable. Then the doors would be
     flung open and he would march into court with a triumphant swirl of his gown.
    When I arrived at Court 8, I peeped my head through the double doors. I was in trouble—the court was in session.
    I delicately shut the door and scampered along the corridor. Every step echoed around the halls. I sneaked past statues of
     great legal reformers, solemn paintings of