George was reassured by the calm competence of the two lawyers. ‘I hope you’re right.’
‘We’ll see you in the witness box tomorrow,’ Pritchard said. ‘Go home to that lovely wife of yours and get a good night’s sleep, George.’
He watched them exit through a side door, then slowly walked from the empty courtroom. The last thing he felt like was driving back through the lush green Derbyshire evening. He wished he could find a quiet pub and get drunk somewhere. But he had a wife nearly seven months pregnant at home, and she needed to see his strength, not his weakness. With a sigh, George dug his car keys out of his pocket and walked back into the world.
George entered the witness room on the second day of Philip Hawkin’s trial to find Tommy Clough sprawled in a chair, a bottle of lemonade by his feet, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and the Daily News spread across his lap. He greeted his boss with a nod and waved the paper at him. ‘Ruth Carter seems to have made a good impression with the jackals. I reckoned they’d turn her into the scapegoat. You know the kind of thing – The Woman Who Married a Monster,’ Clough intoned with mock drama.
‘I’m surprised they let her off the hook so lightly,’ George admitted. ‘I was expecting them to say she must have known what Hawkin was like, what he was doing to Alison. Like you, I honestly thought they’d blame her. But I suppose they saw for themselves the state she’s in. That’s not a woman who’s turned a blind eye or connived at what that bastard did to her daughter.’
‘I had breakfast with Pritchard at his fancy hotel,’ Clough confided. ‘He said she couldn’t have been a better witness if they’d been coaching her for months. You’ve got a hard act to follow, George.’
‘Breakfast with the barrister, Tommy? You’re mixing with the toffs. By the way, where did you get to yesterday?’
Clough straightened up in his chair, folding his newspaper shut and tossing it to the floor. ‘Thought you’d never ask. I got a phone call late on Sunday night. Do you remember Sergeant Stillman?’
‘In St Albans?’ George was suddenly alert, leaning forward like a dog straining at a leash.
‘The same. He rang to tell me Mr and Mrs Wells were back from Australia. Back two hours, to be precise. So I jumped in the car and drove straight down there. Eight o’clock yesterday morning I was knocking on their front door. They weren’t best pleased to see me, but they obviously knew what I’d come for.’
George nodded grimly and threw himself into a chair. ‘Hawkin’s mother.’
‘Aye. Like we thought, she must have had a forwarding address after all. Any road, I acted the innocent. I explained that the description of the Webley he’d had stolen corresponded with a gun used in the commission of a crime up in Derbyshire. I laid it on with a trowel that we were impressed by the accuracy of his description and how it had made the match very likely.’
George smiled. He could imagine Clough’s subtle manoeuvring of Mr Wells into a corner he could only get out of with a tunnelling crew. ‘So of course, when you showed him the photographs, he couldn’t do anything else except identify his gun?’
Clough grinned. ‘Got it in one. Anyway, I had to come clean then about Hawkin and the trial this week. Wells got into a right old state then. He couldn’t testify against a friend and neighbour, we must have made a mistake, blah, blah, blah.’
George lit a cigarette. ‘So what did you do?’
‘I’d been up half the night. I wasn’t in the mood. I arrested him for obstruction.’
George looked appalled. ‘You arrested him?’
‘Aye, I did. He was really annoying me,’ Clough said self-righteously. ‘Any road, before I could get the caution finished, he’d rolled over. Agreed to testify, agreed to come back to Derby with me then and there. So we both agreed to forget I’d arrested him. Then he gave his wife a brandy, since she looked like she was going to pass out, got his coat and hat and came back with me like a lamb.’
George shook his head in a mixture of outrage and admiration. ‘One day, Tommy, one day…So where is he now?’
‘In a very comfortable room at the Lamb and Flag. I took a full statement off him yesterday when we got back here, and Mr Stanley wants to put him on first thing this morning.’ Clough grinned.
‘Ahead of me?’ George asked.
‘Stanley doesn’t want to hang about. He doesn’t want to run the risk of Mrs Wells getting hold of Hawkin’s mother and warning her that Wells is going to testify. He wants to try to catch Highsmith on the hop if he can.’
‘But Mrs Hawkin’s up here for the trial.’
‘True. But I’d bet a tanner to a gold clock Mrs Wells will know who to ask to find out where Mrs Hawkin’s staying.’
‘Highsmith will object to a witness who wasn’t included in the committal.’
‘I know. But Stanley says the judge’ll allow it, with Wells having been out of the country at the time.’ Clough got to his feet and dusted off the cigarette ash that had drifted down his grey flannel suit. He straightened his tie and winked at George. ‘So I better go into court and see how he does.’
Richard Wells, retired civil servant, had already taken the oath when Clough slipped in to the back of the courtroom. He didn’t look the type to have had the sort of war that would leave him with a Webley as a souvenir, the sergeant thought. If ever there was a man made for the Army Pay Corps, it was Richard Wells. Grey suit, grey hair, grey tie. Even his moustache looked timid and boring against the startling ruddiness of skin that had not taken kindly to strong Australian sun.
Hawkin was leaning forward intently in the dock, two vertical lines visible between his eyebrows. Clough found a childish pleasure in his obvious concern. Stanley took Wells through the formalities, then said conversationally, ‘Is there anyone in this courtroom you have seen before?’
Wells nodded towards the dock. ‘Philip Hawkin.’
‘How do you know Mr Hawkin?’
‘His mother is a neighbour of ours.’
‘Was he familiar with your house?’
‘He used to accompany his mother to our house for bridge evenings before he moved away.’ Wells’s eyes kept flickering away from the QC to the prisoner. He was clearly uncomfortable with his role, in spite of Stanley’s easy manner.
‘You used to own a Webley .38 revolver, did you not?’
‘I did.’
‘Did you ever show that gun to Mr Hawkin?’
Clough followed Wells’s anguished stare up to the public gallery where it rested on Hawkin’s elderly mother. Wells took a deep breath and mumbled, ‘I may have done.’
‘Think carefully, Mr Wells.’ Stanley’s voice was gentle. ‘Did you or did you not show the Webley to Mr Hawkin?’
Wells swallowed hard. ‘I did.’
‘Where did you keep the gun?’
Wells relaxed visibly, his shoulders dropping a little from their defensive position. ‘In a locked drawer in the bureau in the lounge.’
‘And was that where you took it from when you showed it to Mr Hawkin?’
‘It would have been.’ Each word was dragged out slowly.
‘So Mr Hawkin