Connie Beauchamp brushed aside Will Curtis' insistent questioning with ill concealed irritation as to why she was taking time away from St Mary's Hospital.
"You have always complained that I cramp your style when I'm here. You can enjoy your freedom - just for one day"
"So when can everyone expect you back, Connie?" He enquired in his usual cold, aloof fashion.
She watched him closely scrutinize her to try and figure out the nature of her mysterious errand. Well, Will Curtis, you can guess a million times and you'll be wrong every time, she smiled to herself and deliberately paused for maximum effect before replying.
"You know I had a very interesting conversation with the defence barrister. It taught me such a lot that I needed to know. Bye Will."
Was her parting shot before she floated out the door and Will's feet were too stuck to the floor to move him to pursue her non-answer. He was out of her sight and her mind in moments as met the sharp fresh air. Her smile faded as she reached for her car keys as she suspected that the purpose of her visit was not going to be a laughing matter. The deal she had struck with George could end up seriously derailing her judgment of the situation to her discomfort. For once in her life, she was dressed inconspicuously and she slipped into the end seat on a row of the visitor's gallery entirely on her own, just below two smartly dressed men on the top row.
John stopped short of administering the most emphatic instruction to the jury that his eloquence could summon up as Jo attracted his attention.
"My Lord, there is a point of law I want to raise which is crucial to the evidence my next witness is permitted to raise"
"Clear the court." John immediately ordered. He strongly suspected what was to come and in the time taken for the jury and the visitors to make their exit, started to formulate his own thoughts. By the time Jo was ready to speak, the courtroom looked larger and barer than normal, like an empty theatre on a Saturday matinee performance.
"My Lord, late yesterday, you will recall very prejudicial evidence tendered by the prosecution witness about the defendant's previous stay in Larkhall which you rightly cut short"
"I think that is a somewhat understated description of what happened." John said dryly.
"It goes without saying that the circumstances that gave rise to the defendant being admitted to Larkhall on a previous occasion cannot be mentioned in any shape or form"
"I am about to give a very clear instruction to the jury on that very point"
"What complicates the situation is that I was intending to ask my witness as to the circumstances in which she first met her late husband and came to marry him. This took place when my client was previously an inmate and he was the then prison chaplain. It is material to the background to their relationship and forms a central plank in the case for the defence. I was going to request that my client's previous spell in Larkhall would be admissible but only in the area that I have marked out"
"So Jo, you want to morally have your cake and eat it." Brian Cantwell observed.
"No Brian, you prefer to get your cake by subterfuge. All I am trying to do is extricate the trial from the mess that your last witness landed us in," flashed back Jo.
"Enough." John cut in. "I see the force of the submission but these are complex matters and I wish to confer with my fellow judge and give you our judgment on the matter."
"Well, what do you think, Monty"
"It's damned difficult. The background to Barbara's marriage to Henry is, of course, important and her marriage cannot be presented as having materialised out of thin air. On the other hand, once we admit the matter of Barbara's time in Larkhall, then there are dangers. The trial is already in danger of becoming a grudge match especially after the events of last night. Once this concession is made, it is all too easy that the boundaries we set might slip. I am conscious that the beady eyes of the Lord Chancellor's Department are fixed on us"
"You get used to that, Monty. The point is do we have any choice on the matter"
"I have misgivings, John. We stand on a slippery slope but at the end of the day, Jo's submission gives us a tenable basis for proceeding. We must hold our nerve"
"Thanks, Monty." John said quietly but with great feeling
"Are all your cases as difficult as this, John?" Monty said after a pause for reflection. "I've always thought in the past that you've always sought out trouble but now I'm beginning to feel that that it stalks you"
John laughed heartily in appreciation of Monty's succinct and sympathetic summing up. Because he had long inhabited his world of politically and personally contentious cases, he had become hardened to the pressures and took them for granted. He stood up, tapped Monty on his shoulder before returning to the courtroom.
"I confess that I am perhaps remiss in not anticipating the crisis that blew up yesterday. Nevertheless, it has enabled us to deliberate and set firm limits on the case and, after careful thought, we propose to adopt the submission offered by the defence council. I would, however, strongly warn against the slightest suggestion of extending the scope of investigations into the defendant's previous stay in Larkhall beyond the strict limit of her relationship with her late husband. Any transgressions of this ruling will be dealt with exemplary severity. This will be put to the jury and I shall direct the jury to utterly disregard the previous witnesses last remarks as if they had never existed."
If it weren't for what only she knew, George reflected bitterly, she would not have read a deeper meaning into John's modest confession of temporary lack of foresight. How much is he really aware of this wider context, she wondered?
After the jury and the visitors had sat themselves down, John slowly transferred his gaze from Brian Cantwell, to Greg and Amanda and finally looked boldly at Sir Ian and Lawrence James who stared into the general distance. His glance slid rapidly away from Connie who was frozen in space like a statue.
"For the benefit of the jury, a point of law has been raised by council following the disturbance following the last witness' appallingly prejudicial comments which smack of lynch law rather than evidence suitable for a court of law. Our judgment is that you should entirely disregard the content as if it had never been. When you finally come to make your deliberations, you must focus your minds entirely on the charge under which the defendant is being tried. You will hear evidence as the trial proceeds that the defendant was an inmate in Larkhall on a previous occasion but only on restricted terms that council will set out in cross examination. Any slightest reference as to how the defendant came to be there will be punished by us with exemplary severity. If I have anything to do with it, the culprit and will be held on remand for contempt of court and criminal charges to be brought."
Jo rose to her feet with a touch more colour in her cheeks than there had been. The double act that she had performed with George and the reassurance of sorts that John had given her last night had a steadying effect and, this time, George was content to sit this one out. She saw Barbara before her, pale and nervous and she felt beholden to give her strength and support in her questioning before Brian Cantwell took over. She smiled at her, hoping that the meetings with Barbara over these past months would clarify her thoughts.
"Barbara, I have no doubt that you fully understand what the judge has said concerning what you can give evidence on. For the benefit of the court, can you explain how you came to meet your husband?"
"I have been an inmate at Larkhall prison on a previous occasion. I have been a churchgoer all my life and I had secured the duties of organist at the chapel. Henry Mills became the new prison chaplain at Larkhall prison and circumstances drew us together in the natural course of events. We had also both been widowed and lonely and a perfectly natural friendship grew up between us as we both keenly felt the loss of our respective partners. I knew that Henry was a shy, self effacing man and we realized over time and many conversations that we had much in common. Over the passage of time, such close friendship blossomed into love."
"Why and in what circumstances did you come to get married"
"There were certain difficulties one of which was the initial opposition of the church and another was Henry's family who took an unreasoning prejudice against me. We finally married shortly before I was released"
"I notice that you have not mentioned Henry's attitude to you being an inmate? Was that never a problem and if so, can you explain why"
"The thought had literally never crossed my mind or Henry's." Barbara replied after a pause, blinking with surprise at such a question. "From the very start, Henry accepted me for the woman that I was. He had no foolish notion of trying to reclaim some fallen woman. It was as if we were made to be together."
"Could you give the court a brief picture of what your life was like together before Henry became ill"
"It was heaven." Barbara smiled. "Henry secured a vicarage at Chipping Ongar, a delightful village in the country just outside London. The church was idyllic as some of you may recall. The vicarage was charming and the garden was delightful. We settled into a pattern of life where Henry busied himself in. I played the organ for church services and helped Henry out with his sermons. I performed all the wifely duties that a vicar's wife would do to support her husband. I needed nothing else in this world and I know that Henry felt the same. We felt as if our marriage made both of us feel whole"
Jo wiped a slight tear from her eye before she continued. For one second she wished that if only her own life had been less complicated. Brian Cantwell fumed silently at the way Jo Mills had expertly gilded the lily and vowed to exact his revenge.
"What were the types of situations that would have caused you to have cross words with each other"
"If Henry had a fault, he was too gentle and not assertive with those who put unreasonable demands on him. He regarded all troubled souls as his flock to be encouraged. I can remember one incident when that frightful woman, Sylvia Hollamby conceived what I could only best describe as a schoolgirl crush on him and pushed herself on him. I had to make it clear to her that he was not in the slightest interested in her. I reproved him for not facing up to telling her what had to be said. To make it worse, she was a long serving prison officer at Larkhall Prison."
A pin could have dropped in the court and would have been heard in the intense silence as Barbara spoke with heated animation as if the events happened yesterday. A huge grin split the faces of Gina on one side of her and Dominic on the other and the humour of the situation could be seen on the faces of Yvonne, Crystal and Roisin in the gallery. Behind them, Connie listened with intense concentration and an open mind.
"Excuse me, if I may, I have a couple of questions for the defendant." John jumped in quickly which Jo conceded to with a tolerant sigh, as she knew only too well how insatiable his curiosity was.
"Was Mrs. Hollamby in any way jealous and resentful of you because your husband preferred you over her"
"Insanely jealous, my lord. We were never on the best of terms to begin with and this made matters ten times worse"
"What was the reason for this ill feeling"
Barbara paused for a moment and collected her thoughts.
"I confess that I did not like her because her attitude towards prisoners was harsh and Victorian. I think it would be true to say that I ran up against her because she took particular exception to me being an inmate and also well spoken and a Christian. "
"My Lord, the testimony from the defendant is sheer conjecture and hearsay." Brian Cantwell interjected.
"I would allow your point if it weren't for the fact that Mrs. Hollamby had been offered full opportunity to testify on this matter but neglected to do so. Her silence upon the matter is very eloquent. I'm going to dispose of one matter at this convenient point in time and address the jury directly on a point of law. I need no submissions from either counsel. I'm going to direct that when you, the jury make your deliberations that you ignore totally the entire evidence provided by Mrs. Hollamby. It is so tainted, so compromised that it is not worth the air it is breathed upon. It has lost any credibility whatsoever. It is fortunate for the prosecution that it does not interconnect with other witness evidence or else the entire body of the prosecution case would be brought crashing to the ground in total ruination."
"Appreciative as I am for the vividness of your metaphors, I merely wish to ask you which case you want to take over, the defence or prosecution or both?" Brian Cantwell asked in exasperation at John foreseeing the dangers of John carried away in full oratorical flow.
While John laughed heartily, Monty looked studiously at his papers.
"Not this time, Mr. Cantwell. Please continue, Jo."
Behind the collective amusement from the front row of the visitor's gallery, Connie was smiling with appreciation at John's performance. She couldn't say what impressed her more, his sheer theatricality behind which she could feel his very alert mind or the very outrageous way he was willing to push at the boundaries of professional etiquette in every way. She could readily identify with his strong inclination to customize his profession to his own specifications.
"Did you keep in contact with friends that you had made in prison?" Jo continued, smiling broadly.
"Oh yes, within the limits of a busy vicar's wife. It was easy to keep in touch with friends who were released round about the same time as I was. It was harder with friends who remained on the inside but I know now from meeting them again that at least we were in each other's thoughts"
"At any point during your marriage to Henry Mills, did you keep a diary"
"Oh yes."
"Was this a new pastime, or was it something you had done from before you met Henry"
"I've always kept a diary throughout my life. It has helped me collect my thoughts, in times of happiness and in times of trouble."
"Did Henry himself ever keep a diary"
"Yes, he did."
"Did you ever read each other's diaries, just as a matter of interest"
"We never needed to." Barbara smiled. "We both accepted that each other had private feelings, emotions, to be committed to a diary but we were confident enough in our love that there was no need to be insecure and intrusive."
"How involved were you with Henry's work as a vicar"
"Heavily involved. His work meant that part of his duties were mine, something which I was glad to shoulder."
"How would you describe your marriage as a whole"
"Blissfully happy. I thought that it would never end"
At this point, Barbara's voice, which had remained steady throughout her testimony, trembled as she was brought face to face with the reality, which some portion of her mind still strove to deny. Curiously enough, Jo's gentle voice didn't make it any easier. She dabbed at her eyes with a small white pocket handkerchief. "I miss him so much." She added.
"I think now would be a convenient time to break for lunch." John announced to Jo's relief. It would give Barbara a chance to gather her strength for the more grueling part of her testimony.
While everyone else dispersed, Gina and Dominic escorted Barbara to a small side room. Hardly had they shut the door then they both gave voice, having nobly restrained their intense curiosity.
"Hey, Barbara, you never told us about Sylvia making an idiot of herself."
"Yeah, Babs, Tell us more. I'll fetch you a cup of tea, just the way you like it"
"Some might sell their honour for thirty pieces of silver." Barbara joked, a slight twinkle in her eye and a suspicion of a smile.
"Who's talking about selling anything?" cajoled Gina.
"But I'll tell you for free but mind you that my cup of tea is nice and hot. It all started this way…….." Barbara started. Her mind lightened as she first related how Sylvia had prevailed on Henry's charitable desire to help someone in distress after her Bobby had died and the final absurd scene when the altar in the chapel was disarranged. She smiled to herself as the mild farce unreeled itself in her mind and in Gina's and Dominic's broad grins. It gave her that necessary lift in her spirits.
Jo glanced at Barbara and was pleasantly surprised to see that she was less nervous than when she first took the stand and sensed that Gina and Dominic weren't so much keeping guard on her but standing protectively either side of her.
" I now turn to events which I am sure you will find very painful to relate so please take as much time to reply that you feel comfortable with, Barbara. Can you explain to the court what was your initial reaction when Henry became ill"
"Henry had been to his GP as he had been continually coughing but when he started complaining about having no energy, I started getting seriously worried. That wasn't like him no matter how tired he got. I still remember that day we saw Mrs. Beauchamp. She was so kind and concerned for us and I could tell that she hated to be brutal about the matter as she might have been"
Connie sat motionless as the middle-aged woman with a lifetime's experience described her with so much sympathy and understanding. She hadn't taken her in at the time as she had faded unobtrusively into the background. How could she have possibly have overlooked her, she asked herself with a twinge of guilt?
"………words like 'palliative care and increasing levels of pain relief' floated past me. It took me a long time to realize that she was telling us that Henry was dying."
"What was Henry's reaction to his illness?"
"I think he was shocked as I was but he found it hard to put it into words. I found it hard to take everything in myself. I'm sorry for sounding vague." Barbara answered, stumbling over her words to Connie's intense feelings of sympathy for her plight. She was more and more conscious that she might have made something of a snap judgment.
Jo could see the way that Barbara was struggling and she was perilously aware that her own memories were becoming dangerously entangled. George was casting an anxious sidelong glance from where she was sitting, her blue eyes willing Jo the strength to continue. In that split second, Jo lighted on a mode of dispassionate thinking, which would best help her client and was true compassion.
"If it might help both the witness and the court, I would like to draw your attention to the bundle of evidence being the first extract from Henry Mills' diary. This has been authenticated and has the advantage of being written contemporaneously as the tragic events unfolded……. "………So God's purpose is not to let me live my threescore years and ten. I had hoped to live out many years with my dear wife. I have given comfort to my late first wife and often to parishioners in their troubles and I ought to know what to say, what to think but I dare not put it into words. I would be foolish to pretend that I won't be frightened as I can feel myself slowly but surely getting weaker. What troubles me most is the effect on my dear wife, Barbara and that I won't be around to comfort her when she needs me……"
"I can hear Henry speaking those words to me." Barbara answered in a tremulous voice.
"What made you decide to care for Henry at home?" Jo continued in a firmer, more reassuring tone of voice much to George's relief. George had been concerned that both women would last the course from when this session started.
"The choice was presented to us of Henry becoming an in patient or of being looked after at home. I knew how attached Henry was to his home surroundings and I hated to have him removed far away from me. He felt the same."
"Was this a joint decision, and how did Henry feel about it"
"We discussed it as we discussed everything to do with us. His only worry was if I could cope with looking after him"
"Were there any times, when you doubted your ability to continue caring for him at home"
"Quite frankly, I did. There were times when I could sense that he would get gradually weaker and his illness difficult to deal with but I just carried on."
"Was this something you ever discussed with him?"
"No, never." Barbara said firmly. "I would not have wanted to let him know of my own fears in case that would burden him with guilt. He knew me well enough not to press me on the matter. It was an understood matter between us, like a lot that went on in our marriage."
"As the day of Henry's death approached, were your stress levels exponentially increased?"
"I seemed to float in a sea of tiredness and just struggling on. I did not despair as I was taught that giving way to despair is not actually a sin as such but letting yourself down and your loved one. I seemed to forget that there was ever another world except in ministering to a dying man and both of us continuing for as long as we could. His pain was mine"
"Did Henry ever suggest to you that he had thoughts of doing what he eventually did"
"There was never any suggestion of this. Even in my frame of mind, I am pretty sure that I would have known if he had any thought of taking his own life." Barbara's tired but clear response was clearly articulated.
"Again it might help if I read the second extract from Henry Mills' diary in the bundle of evidence." '……….So all the philosophizing about death has come to this. All I can think is that every breath I take is damned painful and I am utterly helpless. I know that my hour of going cannot be long in coming but every minute is stretched out in eternity. I can sometimes see Barbara's troubled face all around me but a lot of the time the morphine fogs my thinking. Only when that starts to wear off can I think more clearly but then I'm in agony and praying for some kind of deliverance. I feel guilty as it sounds selfish. I must persevere for a little while yet……'
"Precisely what were you doing, immediately prior to discovering that Henry had died?
"I'd gone downstairs to make a cup of tea for the two of us. It was a sort of ritual we'd clung to like a fragment of normality. I felt that he was safe to leave as he was resting, half awake"
"What was your initial reaction, to realising that Henry had killed himself?"
"The memories are patchy. I can clearly remember that he was peacefully sleeping in his bed and I very gently touched him to wake him up but he didn't move. It was only by degrees that I realized that he wasn't breathing. After that, I remember looking at the quilt and I remember thinking that the quilt was disarranged. I was staring at that quilt for ages and something took my attention to the bedside table and I realized that the syringe was missing, the one that I always kept ready and contains the morphine for Henry. It wasn't until I went to the side to straighten the quilt that I saw the syringe sticking out of Henry's leg. It was then that I broke down. I don't know what happened next for a while.……."
Barbara's voice trained off and again, she reached for her handkerchief. It was fortunate for Jo that it happened as she needed as long to collect herself as Barbara did. She knew how Barbara through her nerve endings, not what she saw or heard. She remembered.
"Did you expect Henry to die on the day that he did?" Jo continued in a surprisingly firm tone of voice.
"Definitely not. Neither of us thought in terms of his death, just in him staying alive until his Maker sent for him which was not yet"
"What did you do, when you realised what he had done?"
"I phoned for the ambulance immediately. I know it seems irrational but I wanted someone else to say that he was dead, not me"
" How did you feel, when the police charged you with Henry's murder?"
"Like the bottom had dropped out of my world. It was bad enough that Henry had died so unexpectedly but to be arrested for his murder seemed like a nightmare I wanted to wake up from but couldn't"
Connie was starting to live that nightmare also. George was right. All those firmly held opinions were surely and finally dissolved away this quietly convincing testimony and the shocking contrast in the two diary excerpts. She prayed that her evidence would be finally discounted. She could live with a knock to her professional pride but not if her ability to convince and persuade had disastrous consequences for an innocent woman.