Scene Eleven
The harsh lights shone down on the polished mahohany veneer of the large wide desk, the black laptop at the right hand side. To the right was an 'in tray' into which a large open folder lay,the pages splaying out in sequence. The protective wrapper marked 'restricted- staff in confidence' had been stripped and lay underneath it. The middle aged man with hair greying at the sides and hair combed neatly across his scalp whistled softly at the contents of the file that was unwrapped. This wasn't the normal file dealing with the run of the mill criminal investigations that he was used to and had come down from the very top, duly signed and sealed. The covering minute made plain how the investigation should proceed and just how the backup would provided a detailed briefing instruction as to the relevant law and a clear explanation of the practicalities. The police superindendent didn't need to think which of his DIs to allocate his case to. The man had that degree of tenacity and organisation to get stuck into the case and wotuld work out the logistics. He picked up the phone to call the man into his office.
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To Nikki, Helen and Karen, the prospect of Fenner's trial had a peculiar dreamlike quality about it. What was solidly etched in black capital lretters into their mindswas the trial date, Friday December 16th 2001. Objectively speaking the outcome of the trial was inevitable but both women had that lurking suspicion that they dare not count their chickens before they hatched. All of them had seen before how he had wriggled out of tight corners, only to turn round and ensnare his pursuer. Hopefully, the systematic application of the law would finally settle accounts, or so they hoped. Helen found a parking place near the Old Bailey and dropped the Red Peugeot into the slot, promptly followed by Karen's trim Green MG sports car.
"You ready to see the show?" Karen asked gaily, a broad smile on her face, her blond hair glossy and brushed as she swung out of her car. She looked in the peak of condition, her skin clear and subtly made up. Nikki could tell that Beth's kind of tender loving was continuing to do her friend the world of good.
"So long as that bastard goes down for a good long stretch," came Nikki's succinct reply, which made Helen laugh.
"Come on then," Karen replied, leading the way across the road.
Once again, they trod the well-worn steps of the Old Bailey as relative veterans to the very particular world of the criminal court. Somehow, they instinctively made their way to the same places they occupied in watching Nikki's reappeal, Sally Anne case against the Metropolitan Police for compensation and finally Karen's trial for the very same offence.
"Jesus, we've seen such a lot of this court," Helen said as they climbed up the succession of steps of the curving staircase to the visitor's gallery. It felt like an old friend to them.
"It's our choice, babes," Nikki said slyly, knowing very well what the answer would be." After all, it isn't as if we have to be here."
"You've got to be kidding, Nikki," exploded Helen. "You don't seriously think that I'm not going to watch him go by and taken down to the cells and make faces at the bastard?"
As they entered the gallery, they half expected to see the threatening black statue presence of Sir Ian on the back row with or without his faithful henchman Lawrence James. This time, they took their seats and felt free of the lurking presence of the establishment behind them. There was an underlying sense of bubbling cheerfulness between the three women even at such a solemn formal event.
"Beth sends everyone her love," explained Karen cheerfully while the court was ready to assemble," but her editor's breathing down her neck to contribute her piece. She knows it's not of earth shattering consequences but it pays her wages."
"Trisha phoned me last night just before she was due to head off to Chix," added Nikki." She knew very well that she and Sally-Anne were going to feel half dead this morning. I know what it's like way back when. She insists I phone up when the results are in, hopefully with the good news.'
"Good news?" questioned Helen, her high spirits bubbling over with infectious glee. "This one must be a dead certainty – as far as any move to nail the bastard ever is."
There was a definite sense of achieving final closure on a long and painful part of all their lives. The man had haunted their steps, ever since Nikki had run up against his very first misogynist jeer and his blatant favouritism of Shell Dockley. Helen, too, remembered his apparently smooth guileless face pretending agreement with her naïve enthusiasms while undermining her authority. Karen, too, wondered just why when she attended that long ago conference, she ever went to bed with that man. She let the thought go as she knew that, back then, she was a completely different woman. The only thing that connected them was the common flesh and blood that they inhabited, nothing else.
Right in the centre of their vision stood that man in the dock, a presence that alternately glowered at them and put on his best innocent expression to his defence barrister. He was dressed in his smartest suit and looked cleaned and polished to perfection. The only stain he couldn't erase was his thoroughly murky past going back over so many years and so many lives he had ruined. His eyes betrayed his nature as they darted round the courtroom suspiciously but somehow not looking in the direction of the visitor's gallery.
From the moment Fenner spotted George in her accustomed place, he glared at her with such intensity that the woman could grasp intuitively how much dangerous power there was unleashed to a woman without the protection, which she enjoyed. She could feel that she was hated, as she was a dangerous intelligent woman who wasn't taken in by his blandishments. The man was a borderline psychopath in his paranoia and his lack of guilt. George mentally shrugged her shoulders, as after all Neil Haughton was in the same category except that he took care to keep his hands clean. She felt fairly calm and relaxed as her recall of the details of Karen's trial set a pretty secure template for her thinking.
Soon, one of the judges they didn't recognized started the proceedings. He was fairly colourless and the three women noted immediately that he was no John Deed.
She set out her case with systematic determination with no need to employ any theatrics as her thorough grasp of the case enabled her to stick to the facts. She started to forensically stack up the evidence against Fenner as Shirley Cheetham rapidly and confidently ran through her evidence with total precision, including the very damning CCTV evidence. Gleefully, the gallery watched Fenner glare stonily in front of him as they could see him tied down to the truth with no chance to blur the facts. Helen marvelled at the way that, for once in his life, the man was left no opportunity to squirm his way out of the trap he'd fallen into. He had no accomplice he could either fool or browbeat. She looked sideways at Karen and knew that both of them shared the same feelings. They weren't going to be totally certain of the outcome until the trial finally came to a conclusion. They'd both had their fingers very badly burnt before. They could have sworn they saw him mumble 'bitches' under his breath as Shirley Cheetham made particularly telling points
It took time for a déjà vu feel start to build up as, this time around, Karen's innocence was the starting point. Finally, George confronted Fenner directly for the first time during the trial.
"Mr. Fenner, you testified at the trial of Karen Betts for the very same offence that you were charged with that, on the night Gerald Baker's life was taken that, and I quote, 'I felt really ill from the row so I headed off home and crashed out. When I came to, I wanted some fresh air so I had a wander round on my own to clear my head. Couldn't say where I went to. After a bit, I went home and got some sleep.' Are you still prepared to stick to that account of your actions that night?"
"I've got no reason to say different," Fenner said sulkily.
"Do you deny that saying to Karen Betts 'what are you up to, you conniving bitch- secret meetings-you're at it big time', telling her not to 'prick you about.' And that you'd 'bloody well kill her.' The evidence given in the trial seems pretty conclusive."
"I've had arguments with plenty of people. As a long serving prison officer, you get used to all sorts of aggravation. You get it and you give it back. It doesn't mean I'm going to murder them," Fenner said in a low tone of voice. Helen shook her head that the man was still trying his old tricks.
"Do you really deny the evidence that you had an almighty row with Karen Betts, the same day that Gerald Baker's life was taken?"
"You are taking things right out of context. You're not telling the court the things she said to me."
"Then there's the evidence given by Tony Foster who saw you in Karen Betts car putting on a blond wig and driving off at a time just before Gerald Baker was murdered."
"Me put a blond wig on. That's laughable. The next thing you'll say is that I put lipstick on. I'm totally one hundred per cent straight."
George was struck by the strangeness of this man's reply. His words and manner were identical to when he had appeared as a witness and Karen Betts was in the dock. This only put her off her stride for a split second. She pressed home Tony Foster's account in more detail and finally rounded into her concluding masterstroke.
"I put it to you, James Fenner, that you cold bloodedly ran over one Gerald Baker in order to incriminate Karen Betts. This would have the very convenient effect of negating the file she had submitted to the Prison Service of your sexual abuse of a vulnerable prisoner."
This had an extraordinary effect on Fenner. They seemed to light a match inside him, as he turned red in the face and his eyes glittered manically. Unknown to George, those words had been hurled at him by a livid Karen Betts when Di Barker had tipped him off about the file that Karen Betts had been preparing. This mental explosion sparked off a secondary combustion inside him as the man recalled Nikki Wade's glare and angry words fixed in his direction, naming and shaming him at the aftermath of the appeal hearing that set her free. All his long pent up feelings surged out in a long stream of words, delivered at a volume level, which filled the courtroom.
"Sexual abuse? That's a good one. I've slaved for years in Her Majesty's Prison and the Army before that. I've done every menial job there is and worked my way up because I know what I'm doing. Everything started going wrong for me when that Stewart got parachuted in over my head. I was the one asking her to not swamp us with a load of needless paperwork, to go easy on the drugs testing. She was the one who went on the wing and caused a near riot to break out when I told her that the softly, softly approach would work…..now take that bitch Wade, always cheeking us and trying to undermine the system only that Stewart went moist on her and took her side every time…..now you take Betts. She'd done her footslogging days …the only trouble was when she got authority, it went to her head and she took Atkins' side….now there was another dangerous con, wife of that Eastend gangland villain Charlie Atkins…… All I was doing was trying to do my job…all the time I served at Larkhall, I never once stepped over the line not once……."
By contrast, the court was in total hush as the non-stop rant continued without check. The three women in the gallery realized to their horror that Fenner wasn't really speaking to them, but about them in long monologue to himself. George reflected on one of life's ironies that the establishment had deliberately excluded John Deed from trying the case. If he had been there, John would have had the force of personality to stop Fenner in his tracks and this anonymous judge hadn't that capacity. The defence barrister opposite number, Neumann Mason-Alan was opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish. She could read his thought as if they were written on the space that separated them. This man was digging himself deeper into a hole and the judge should stop him. He wouldn't or couldn't as proprieties held him back from intervening. From George's position, she was happy enough to let the man carry on with his self-deluding lies. They served to convict him as surely as did her prosecution of the case.
"……You have to be strong to work in the prison service. Strong." Fenner continued, beating his chest with his fist in pride." There's lying bitches who'll try and drag you down and tempt you into going off the straight and narrow. It's not just in the cons. There are prison officers who'll let the side down. As for this accusation of running down this man, can't you see that this is raving madness. I wouldn't step over the line, I tell you."
To the horrified spectators, Fenner suddenly extended his arms wide, either side of him. It seemed that he was adopting a 'crucifixion' pose. It felt grotesquely inappropriate but the three women in the gallery knew beyond doubt that he really believed in himself. This was ultimate lunacy.
"I'm innocent. Can't you see that I'm innocent? I'm innocent, I tell you," Fenner shouted at the top of his longs.
There was a total hush in the court as the reverberations slowly settled down.
"Thank you, Mr. Fenner. I think you have made everything crystal clear for the jury," George said softly.
Neumann Mason-Alan waved his hand in indication to the judge that he didn't want to reexamine Fenner. All he wanted was to get out of this court as soon as possible and collect his fee.