A Certain Justice Read Free Page B

roughly the same age and the same height? Take your time, Mrs. Scully. Think back. There’s no hurry.”
    There were only eight words the witness needed to speak: “It was Garry Ashe. I saw him plainly.” A professional criminal would have said them, would have known that in cross-examination you stick to your story doggedly, without alteration, without embellishment. But professional criminals know the system; Mrs. Scully was under the disadvantage of honesty, of nervousness, of the wish to please. There was a silence, then she said: “I thought it was Garry.”
    To leave it there or to go one step further? This was always the danger in cross-examination. Venetia said: “Because it was his house, he lived there. You would expect it to be Garry. But could you really see plainly, Mrs. Scully? Can you be sure?”
    The woman stared at her. At last she said: “I suppose it could have been someone like him. But I thought at the time it was Garry.”
    “You thought at the time it was Garry, but it could have been someone like him. Precisely. It was a natural mistake, Mrs. Scully, but I suggest to you that it was a mistake. Thank you.”
    Rufus, of course, could not leave it like that. Entitled to re-examine on a point requiring clarification, he got portentously to his feet, hitched up his gown and surveyed the air above the witness box with the puzzled frown of a man expecting a change in the weather. Mrs. Scully looked at him with the anxiety of a guilty child who knows that she has disappointed the grown-ups. Rufus attempted with some success to modify his tone.
    “Mrs. Scully, I am sorry to keep you but there is one point on which I think that the jury may be somewhat confused. During your examination-in-chief you said that you had no doubt that it was Garry Ashe whom you saw leaving his aunt’s house at a quarter past eleven on the night of the murder. However, during cross-examination by my learned friend you have said — and I quote — “I suppose it could have been someone like him. But I thought at the time it was Garry.” Now, I’m sure you will realize that these two statements can’t both be right. The jury may find it difficult to understand what precisely it is you are saying. I confess I find myself somewhat confused. So I have just the one question. The man you saw leaving Number 397 that night, who do you believe he was?”
    And now she was anxious only to be let out of the witness box, no longer to feel that she was being pulled between two people who both wanted a clear answer from her, but not the same answer. She looked at the judge, as if hoping that he would answer for her, or at least help her to a decision. The court waited. Then the answer came and it came with the desperation of truth.
    “I believe that it was Garry Ashe.”
    Venetia knew that Rufus had little choice but to call his next witness, Mrs. Rose Pierce, to confirm the time at which Mrs. Scully had left her house. Time was of the essence. If Mrs. O’Keefe had been killed immediately or shortly after arriving home from the pub, Ashe would have had thirty minutes in which to kill, shower, dress and set out on his walk.
    Mrs. Pierce, plump, red-cheeked, bright-eyed and padded in a black woollen coat topped with a flat hat, fitted comfortably into the witness box like Mrs. Noah ensconced in the cabin of her ark. No doubt, thought Venetia, there were places which Mrs. Pierce might find intimidating but the premier court at the Old Bailey was not among them. She gave her profession as retired children’s nurse, “A nanny, my Lord,” and gave the impression that she was as capable of dealing with the adult nonsenses of the male sex as she had been with their childhood delinquencies. Even Rufus, facing her, seemed to be visited by uncomfortable memories of nursery discipline. His examination was brief and her answers were confident. Mrs. Scully had left her house just before Mrs. Pierce’s carriage clock, given to her by one of her