A Greater Evil Read online

  Several of the jurors shifted in their benches, as though the responsibility made them uncomfortable. As well it might, Trish thought, knowing how accustomed many jurors had become to the certainties of pathologists in television series, which were rarely reproduced in real life.

  ‘The pathologist’s evidence has shown that some of the bruises on the child’s neck and ankles fit the size and shape of Melvin Briggs’s hands. He has also stated that there were other bruises with less defined boundaries, which cannot be matched to the fingers of either defendant. DNA from both defendants was recovered from the child’s body. When defence counsel asked whether this could have been left during normal contact, he agreed that it could.

  ‘You have heard Melvin Briggs testify on oath that his son was alive and crying when Maria-Teresa Jackson returned and that she lost her temper with his crying and picked him up, shook him and slammed his head against the wall. He has further stated that the only time he gripped his son, making the bruises described by the pathologist, was when he tried to take the child from his mother.

  ‘She, however, gave contrary evidence that when she reached the house her husband was asleep and smelling of alcohol and that the baby was lying in a pool of blood, not breathing. She stated that she phoned the emergency services and asked for an ambulance, evidence that has been corroborated by the London Ambulance Service’s records.’

  He took a careful breath, to Trish’s eyes sharing most judges’ distaste for this kind of defence, which was known in the profession as ‘cut throat’, with each defendant blaming the other and insisting on their own innocence. Now he had to explain to the jury what the law allowed them to do. She watched them, waiting to assess their reaction to it.

  ‘If you are sure that both defendants are guilty of the murder of their son, then that is the verdict you must bring. If you believe both are innocent, your verdict must be not guilty. If you are sure one is guilty but not the other, that too is a simple matter. However, members of the jury, if you decide that only one is guilty but you cannot decide – on the evidence, and on the evidence alone – which one that is, you must bring in a verdict of not guilty for both of them.’

  He went on to explain the difference between murder and manslaughter and how they must make their choice between the two, adding: ‘Take your time assessing the evidence you have heard. Do not hesitate to tell the jury bailiff if you would like to ask any questions on points of law or if you would like to be reminded of any of the evidence you have heard, and I will do my best to help. Now, go with the jury bailiff, who will show you the room that has been set aside for you and wait until you are ready to return.’

  The jury filed out, still moving awkwardly. One or two looked back at either the judge or the dock, with expressions of doubt rather than rage, which suggested to Trish that the evidence had been fairly presented and none of the barristers had exerted undue charisma over the proceedings. She’d seen more than one jury go against all the evidence because of a brilliantly presented defence by a dashing and witty silk.

  Everyone else in court rose, the judge departed, and the two defendants were taken down the stairs that led from the dock to the cells beneath the court. Trish had visited them often enough in her early days at the Bar to know what bleak little rooms they were, with their tiled walls and minimal furniture.

  The jury were likely to be out for some time, so Trish decided to go to the canteen for coffee.

  ‘Hey, Trish!’ called one of the more junior members of her chambers, as she emerged from court. ‘What are you doing here? You’re not coming to pick up a few tips on how to run a successful fraud prosecution, are you?’

  ‘I’m sure if I’d thought of it I would have,’ she said, laughing at his insult, even though she felt too depressed by what she’d heard for real amusement. ‘I’m interested in the Briggs/Jackson case. I thought I’d be in time for the meat of the summing-up today, but I didn’t get much more than the awful warning to the jury and an explanation of the cut-throat rules.’

  ‘They’re running that, are they? Pretty optimistic, if what I heard in the mess at lunchtime was accurate. You know, it’s lucky jurors are still not allowed to know defendants’ full records. They’d convict both at the drop of a hat if they knew the whole story.’

  ‘Maria-Teresa too?’

  ‘That sounds as though you know her,’ he said, pulling her out of the way of a clutch of lawyers and defendants’ families. He took off his wig and gave his short hair a vigorous rub to put it back in order, tucking the wig under his arm.

  ‘I don’t know her,’ Trish said. ‘I’ve just heard a bit about her. Everything I’ve heard suggests she’s been the victim of a string of brutal men.’

  He wagged his head from side to side in a gesture that seemed to express bottomless scepticism.

  ‘I heard at lunch today that it’s only four years since she got off a serious assault charge. She put her common-law husband – this same bloke – in hospital with a broken leg and ferocious burns. It was alleged that she’d tipped the chip pan over him and he’d flung himself downstairs, breaking one leg, as he tried to get away from the boiling oil.’

  ‘What was the defence?’

  ‘Didn’t hear any details,’ he said, ‘but whatever it was, it must have been bloody clever, and her counsel must have been shit-hot for her to get off.’

  ‘And that, dear boy,’ Trish said, ‘is precisely why the jury are not allowed to hear about the defendants’ past. You don’t know she was guilty; she was in fact acquitted; it’s just your prejudice that makes you think she was.’

  ‘Prejudice?’ he said, looking down at her from his four-inch superiority. ‘Or experience, Trish? You know as well as I that a fair proportion of women in refuges have been the perpetrators, not the victims, of domestic violence. Don’t ever let yourself believe women are not quite as revolting as men. I’ve got to go; closing speech to prepare. See you.’

  She’d lost her appetite, even for coffee. Not knowing anything that had gone on before the judge’s summing-up, she had no idea how long the jury was likely to be out and she didn’t want to miss the verdict. It seemed absurd, given that she could easily find out later, but her brief moments of sympathy for Maria-Teresa Jackson in Holloway and then as she read the letters in the Foundling Museum made her want to stay to hear the jury’s decision in real time.

  She went out to buy a couple of newspapers, then returned to sit on one of the benches outside the court, waiting for the bailiff to announce the jury’s return.

  Here we go again, Caro thought as she looked at Guy Bait’s impassive face. For this session, she had Glen Makins beside her and Guy had his solicitor as usual.

  ‘I’d like to talk about the shares you sold just over a year ago,’ Caro began, reaching for a piece of paper from the pile in front of her. ‘Fifty thousand pounds’ worth. What did you do with the money?’

  The solicitor leaned towards Guy, who immediately said he didn’t wish to comment.

  ‘We have had access to your bank accounts,’ Caro went on, ‘and to your tax records. Your capital gain was very properly reported, but there’s no record of any subsequent acquisition. What did you spend the money on?’

  She got no answer and casually took another piece of paper.

  ‘The stock brokers have provided us with details of the bank in Leicester that accepted the settlement cheque,’ she said, looking down as though she was reading from the sheet. ‘They said it was used to open an account, through which there has only ever been one other transaction. Forty-nine thousand was converted into Euros; one thousand remained.’

  ‘I never opened any account in Leicester,’ Guy said before his solicitor could stop him.

  Caro looked up to smile at him, trying to banish all loathing and suspicion from her expression and make it show warmth, even affection.

  ‘No,’ she agreed, ‘your young friend from the extranet ASP did that. We’ll find him, you know, Guy, and he’ll explain what you wanted
him to do to the locked computer files containing the original designs for the building known as the Arrow, and how you paid him, and what he did with the money.’

  Guy said nothing, and his face barely changed, but for the first time Caro could sense in him the kind of pressure-cooker rage that would make sense of Trish’s suspicions and all the evidence her officers had managed to collect.

  ‘We’ve got lots more, already,’ she said in a cheerfully confiding tone. ‘A witness who will identify you as the man she saw pushing at the unlatched door of Sam Foundling’s studio just before she heard screams from Cecilia. We have the labs working now on the ashes of the clothes you burned in the stove. I’m pretty sure we will manage to recover some of your DNA. It’s over, Guy. You don’t need to go on fighting. We understand what happened. And we understand why. We know how Cecilia’s criticisms and refusal to help you reminded you of your mother, and the time when you smashed her head in with the solidified sugar, and she—’

  ‘Stop it.’ It wasn’t the solicitor who spoke, but Guy. Caro sat back in her chair and waited. She knew he’d talk now.

  QPXQ Holdings had announced record profits, Trish noticed as she skimmed the financial pages. That should help them fund the reconstruction of the Arrow, even if they didn’t get the full costs back from the engineers’ professional indemnity insurers.

  She wondered how Caro was getting on with Guy Bait and whether the case against him would hold.

  ‘Jury’s coming back,’ she heard, and shook out the paper to fold it back on itself into a small enough bundle to tuck under her arm.

  This has to be a guilty verdict for at least one of the defendants, she thought. No jury comes back after less than an hour with an acquittal on any grounds, unless they hate the prosecution or the defence is especially brilliant. None of the jury had looked engaged enough for either of those to be true.

  The defendants re-emerged, separated by uniformed prison officers. Neither looked at the other. The judge’s clerk preceded him into court and then the jury filed back in.

  ‘Members of the jury,’ said the clerk of the court, as soon as the foreman had announced herself by standing up, ‘have you reached a verdict on which you are all agreed?’

  ‘We have,’ she said, revealing an Australian twang.

  ‘Is your verdict in respect of Melvin Briggs guilty or not guilty of murder?’

  ‘Guilty.’

  The broad shoulders Trish could see from her bench slumped forwards.

  ‘Is your verdict in respect of Maria-Teresa Jackson guilty or not guilty of murder?’

  ‘Not guilty.’

  I wish I’d heard the evidence, Trish thought, even though the summing-up had been pretty clear.

  She barely heard him announcing the mandatory life sentence of murder for Melvin Briggs, but the familiar words ‘take him down’ made her look towards the dock.

  ‘Maria-Teresa Jackson, you have been found not guilty of the charge of murder and you are free to go.’

  ‘All rise.’

  Getting to her feet with the rest, Trish saw Maria-Teresa Jackson look round the court, as though in search of someone to tell her what to do. Her gaze slid past Trish’s face, showing no sign of recognition. The prison officer with her murmured something, then opened the door of the dock. Maria-Teresa took a tottery step out of it, still looking hunted. Her solicitor walked towards her with a broad smile.

  ‘It’s over, Maria-Teresa,’ she said, well within Trish’s hearing.

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘You can go home now. And rebuild your life.’

  ‘You mean I just go out into the road? Now?’

  ‘That’s right. We can call you a taxi.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Come on outside anyway,’ said the solicitor kindly. ‘And we’ll talk about it.’

  Trish followed them at a discreet distance, wondering whether she ought to go over and say something. It was easy to imagine the sense of bemused anxiety that would stop Maria-Teresa feeling any kind of triumph after the ordeal of this kind of trial. She’d had no family or supporters in court with her.

  You can’t take her on, Trish reminded herself. So any friendliness now would be unfair. She’s got her solicitor there. She’ll be all right. She’s not your responsibility.

  They’d reached the outside now. There were no journalists or photographers here. The case hadn’t been reported and no one was particularly interested in a scraggy untidy woman who hadn’t killed her two-year-old son.

  A strong hand came down on Trish’s shoulder and she whirled round in shock to see Sam Foundling. The baby was lying against his chest, suspended in her dark-blue sling.

  ‘Were you in court?’ he said. ‘They wouldn’t let me in with Felicity and I didn’t have anyone to leave her with.’

  ‘I was there.’ She told him what the verdicts were.

  ‘I know. I’ve just heard. I’ll do my best to be back for our celebration tea,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got to go with her now.’

  Trish opened her mouth to ask if he had taken the DNA test.

  ‘Whoever she is,’ he said quickly. ‘Whatever she’s done. She shouldn’t be alone now.’

  He didn’t wait for Trish’s nod, just walked towards Maria-Teresa with one hand held out. Her solicitor barked a question, but Maria-Teresa took his hand between both of hers and spoke rapidly. Trish moved closer to listen, then knew it was none of her business. From where she stood she could see Sam unmistakably dismissing the solicitor and hailing a taxi. He took the arm of the woman who might be his mother and escorted her to the cab, holding the door for her, then getting in himself.

  The court had declared Maria-Teresa innocent, and the CPS had dropped all charges against Sam. But no one knew whether they were right. Only these two knew the truth.

  Trish stood in the street, wondering how it would end for them. Once she’d yearned for final answers, neat endings, certainty. Now she knew nothing could ever be neat, neither the start nor the end of any story. All of them had roots that spread far beyond the lives of any of the parties, and they would go on involving these two and their children and their children’s children.

  There was no point going back to chambers now so she turned down New Bridge Street for her usual walk across the Thames at Blackfriars. Most of the light had gone, but it was nowhere near real darkness. Spring would come soon and then summer, with all the plans David and George had been making for a month-long trip to the States. George’s descriptions of Cape Cod in July had entranced them both and they were determined to walk along pale golden sands and gaze out at horizons where sea and sky merged in one glorious blaze of blue.

  Her phone buzzed in the pocket of her trousers when she was halfway across the bridge. She flipped it open and heard Caro’s voice.

  ‘Trish, I thought you should know: we got a confession.’

  ‘From Guy Bait?’ she asked, leaning against the parapet, looking west towards the National Theatre and the London Eye.

  ‘Yup. His solicitor was here. He signed the statement. It’s all on the level. He killed Cecilia Mayford, just as you thought, not after a plan but in an excess of frustration when she wouldn’t agree to hide what she knew about the building he’d ruined with his mistake in the diameter of the cables.’

  It didn’t seem right to congratulate Caro or express any kind of relief, so Trish produced a complicated, non-specific murmuring sound.

  ‘We’d never have got there without you,’ Caro said. ‘I … I’m too played out to say it right now. We’ve been at it all weekend as well as today. But I’m sorry. For the things I said and even more for the ones I thought.’

  ‘I know. Don’t worry,’ Trish said, feeling the lids slide over her eyes. ‘I’m just glad to know he really did do it.’

  ‘So you weren’t sure?’ Caro said. ‘You always managed to sound pretty confident.’

  ‘Sure? I don’t know what that means any more. You can want something to be true so muc
h that you can’t let yourself believe it isn’t; and you can be so afraid it’s not that your subconscious paints pictures of the very thing you most dread, until you can’t remember what’s real and what’s not.’ She paused, wondering why the relief didn’t make her feel any better. The street lights came on, casting a warm yellow light over the dusk. ‘I wish Cecilia hadn’t died.’

  ‘Thanks to you, her child will grow up with her father, unlike Cecilia herself – or you or me,’ Caro said, generous again now they’d lost the huge obstacle that had grown big enough to block their friendship. ‘There should be some comfort in that.’

  ‘I suppose there is.’

  ‘Good. Oh, and by the way, I don’t know whether it’s of interest to you, but Sam Foundling asked us for a copy of the DNA fingerprint we took while he was with us.’

  And Maria-Teresa was tested too, Trish thought, so maybe he does know who she is.

  ‘So shall we meet?’ Caro said down the phone. ‘We never did have that lunch.’

  They made a date and Trish walked on, home to George and David, and her own life.

  Epilogue

  Gina Mayford was drafting the judgement she was due to give next week when her clerk brought in a cup of ginger-and-lemon tea. The slice of ginger was so perfectly peeled and shaped Gina knew it was an expression of sympathy in itself. She glanced up to smile her gratitude. The clerk nodded, looked as though she was about to speak, then backed away. Gina tried to concentrate on her judgement, but there were other things she had to do, and there wasn’t much time. She saw her rolly suitcase out of the corner of her eye and checked her watch. There was just under half an hour before she had to leave to pick up Sam and Felicity.

  They were all off to Paris by Eurostar so that she could babysit while Sam was presented with the Prix Narcisse for his Head of a Boy, with all the formality and glamour the Parisians did so well.

  A batch of photographs he’d taken of Felicity lay beside the phone. Gina reached for one and had to smile again at the sight of the small pudgy face, already so individual it barely reminded her of Cecilia’s in babyhood. She pulled out a sheet of paper from the box, found her old fountain pen, shook some ink down into the nib and wrote: