I loved my work as a barrister, but as the millennium approached and the Peter Jackson movies of The Lord of the Rings appeared on the horizon I began to feel restless again. Now everyone in the world seemed to be talking about my grandfather, and in sharing his distinctive surname I felt that I needed to forge an identity of my own and become a writer in my own right. I had grown in confidence as a barrister and I no longer felt so inhibited by my grandfather’s achievements. For the previous ten years I had kept a diary, even while remaining convinced that I couldn’t write, and through the thousands of daily entries I had slowly found a voice that I was comfortable with. I wrote my first book in nine months working at weekends and in the evenings after court, and dispatched it full of optimism to innumerable literary agents in the UK and US, only to find that each and every one of them turned it down with varying degrees of politeness. Slowly and reluctantly it began to dawn on me that this first novel wasn’t a masterpiece but rather a necessary learning experience, a way of teaching myself how to write fiction. I found it very hard to start over, but I steeled myself to do so, and one spring day I sat down in my back garden and began work on the novel, which became Final Witness, first published in the UK under the title The Stepmother.
I made an important decision with the book at the outset. I wanted above all to make my readers suspend their disbelief and so I set my book squarely in a world that I knew – the world of criminal law. I decided that I would tell the story of a family torn apart by jealousy, murder and accusation through the medium of a trial in the most extraordinary courthouse that I had ever worked in – London’s Old Bailey, where the judges wear black and the most notorious and important cases are tried.
Final Witness was a success – it was translated into eight languages and has changed my life. In the years that have followed I have given up the law, moved to California and become a full-time writer. Having had two more novels published in the States – The Inheritance, also a courtroom drama, in which a detective races against time to save an innocent man from death by hanging, and The King of Diamonds, in which the same detective faces personal ruin as he accuses his wife’s lover of a double murder – I am now hard at work on a new novel about a fictional assassination attempt against Winston Churchill, and I am delighted that HarperCollins is to publish all three of these books in the coming year. However, Final Witness still holds a special place in my heart. I wrote it with passion and determination and the day of its publication was the proudest moment of my life, reinforcing my belief that the most wonderful and unexpected things can happen to people if they stay the course and remain ready to seize new opportunities as they appear.
Simon Tolkien
Santa Barbara, California June 2011
CHAPTER 1
My name is Thomas Robinson. I am sixteen years old. Today is Thursday, 6th July, and I am making this statement to Detective Sergeant Hearns of the Ipswich Police. I have made two statements already in these proceedings. Everything that I say is true to the best of my knowledge and belief, and I make this statement knowing that, if it is tendered in evidence, I shall be liable to prosecution if I have wilfully stated anything which I know to be false or do not believe to be true.
I live in the House of the Four Winds, which is on the outskirts of the town of Flyte on the coast of Suffolk. The only other person who lives here now is the housekeeper, Jane Martin, who looked after me when I was a boy. My father never comes to visit me any more.
My mother was killed in this house on the 31st May last year. I described everything that happened in my first two statements. Two men came and murdered her. One of them had a ponytail and a scar behind his jaw. I was here too but hidden in a secret place behind the great bookcase at the top of the stairs. It was made for Catholic priests to hide in when the Protestants were searching for them hundreds of years ago. I hid there but my mother didn’t. She couldn’t because there was not enough time. That’s why she died.
The men didn’t see me, but I saw the man with the scar through the little spyhole in the bookcase. He was bending down over my mother, and I saw him when he got to his feet with something gold in his hand.
I remember his face more clearly than any face I’ve ever seen, although I only saw him for a second or two. It’s like my memory took a photograph. Small, dark eyes, thin, bloodless lips and a thick scar that ran down from behind his jaw into his strong bull neck. You could see the scar because he had his black hair in a ponytail.
I’d seen the man before. He was with Greta in London. It was six weeks before he killed my mother. I only saw him from behind, but I know it was him. He had the same ponytail and the scar.
Yesterday evening at about seven o’clock I saw this man again. For a third time.
Jane Martin goes to the town hall in Flyte on Wednesday evenings for the Women’s Institute, and so I was alone in the dining-room eating my dinner. There are windows looking out to the front and towards the lane on the north side of the house. They were all open. I think I was listening to the sea and remembering things like I some times do.
I don’t suppose I would have heard them come if the television had been on, but I felt that something was wrong as soon as I heard the car pull up in the lane. We use the lane to go down to the beach, but nobody else does. It’s too far out of town and I wasn’t expecting any visitors.
They came through the door in the north wall just like they did on the night my mother died. They must have had a key. I saw them coming down the lawn to the front door. They were moving quickly, and there was no time for me to get upstairs to the hiding place behind the books where I’d hidden before. I ran instead to the old black bench, which is beside the door going from the dining room into the hall. It has a seat that opens up and I got in there. There are carvings of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John on the front, and you can see out through the holes in their eyes. When I was small, I used to climb in there when I played hide-and-seek with my mother and Aunt Jane, but now I didn’t fit very well and I was frightened, very frightened.
The police have installed a panic button in the house, and I pressed that before I got in the bench. It’s connected to Carmouth Police Station and makes them come if I need them.
I was in the bench when they came in through the front door. There were two of them and they used a key. I’m sure of that. The one with the scar was in charge, but he didn’t have his hair in a ponytail this time. He wore it long so I couldn’t see the scar. He called the other man Lonny. They wore leather jackets and jeans, and Lonny was wearing a baseball cap. He was overweight and looked like a boxer. I’d never seen Lonny before. I’d say they were both in their thirties, but they could have been older.
They looked around the rooms downstairs for a while, but they didn’t touch anything and they had gloves on.
Then the one with the scar said, ‘Lonny, watch the fucking road while I go upstairs. The kid’s behind that bookcase where he was before. Greta told me how it works.’
Lonny came and stood really close to where I was, but I couldn’t see him because he was to the side of me, and the man with the scar went upstairs. It was really hard not moving and I tried to hold my breath. That made it worse, and I thought Lonny would hear my heart beating. It sounded so loud to me.
About a minute later the man with the scar was back and I could hear anger in his voice, like he was getting ready to do something really bad. He wasn’t shouting though; it was almost as if he was talking through his teeth. And I can’t remember the exact words he used. All I can do is give the gist of them.
‘Fucking kid’s in here somewhere,’ he said. ‘Look, he was halfway through eating when we got here. He can’t have gone far.’
‘Want me to turn the gaff over, do you, Rosie? I’ll find him for you.’
I could hear the eagerness in Lonny’s voice, like he really wanted to break something.
‘No, I fucking don’t. I don’t