The House in the Woods (Atticus Priest Book 1) Page 22

  Crow came through the door with Cadogan following close behind. Mack looked at their faces for any sign that might explain why they were late; Crow was concentrated, which was not unusual, but Cadogan looked exultant.

  Mack was still looking over at Atticus when he turned and held her gaze. As he did, he mouthed a single word that was impossible to mistake.

  Sorry.

  Mack frowned in confusion, but Allegra was talking to Atticus and he had to look away. Mack was about to press Abernathy for an explanation, but was forestalled by the arrival of the associate.

  “All rise, please. All rise.”

  58

  Atticus felt uncomfortable with the course of action that had been chosen. Crow had decided not to give advance disclosure of the evidence of Lamza’s perfidy, and, essentially, to ambush him and the prosecution with it. Crow had studied the procedural rules around defence disclosure and had concluded that he was within his rights to introduce the evidence as he saw fit, eventually deciding that he would call Cadogan—who had received the correspondence—as the witness who would give evidence about it.

  The emails between Lamza and Hawkins concerned a flaw in the prosecution’s main witness that, Crow argued, the prosecution should have already been aware of, and, in addition, the defence had only become aware of the evidence the day prior to the cross-examination. Time had been spent considering the probity of the emails and how best to deploy them, and that, he had argued, was more important than ensuring the prosecution’s comfort. His job was to use all lawful means to further his client’s interests, and the course of action that he had chosen fell squarely within that duty.

  It had been settled.

  Atticus knew that Mack would be blindsided just as badly as anyone else, and had argued—for her sake, although he didn’t admit that—that an application for an adjournment so that the evidence could be properly adduced would be the more equitable way to proceed. Allegra had looked at him as if he had sprouted two heads, and had brusquely asked him how equitable the prosecution had been in its relentless hounding of an innocent man. Atticus had ceded the point. There was no sense in an argument, and, after all, his loyalty was to his client and not to the Crown, the police or Mack.

  He still felt bad about it.

  The usher stood. “Mr. Frederick Lamza.”

  The courtroom settled down, a buzz of anticipation hanging in the air. Lamza came inside. He was wearing a different suit, this one a little more sober than the electric blue outfit that he had sported on Friday and a lot more respectable than the outfit that he had been wearing the last time that Atticus had seen him. He was noticeably more hesitant as he took the stand. He knew that he would be tested this morning; he didn’t know just how much.

  He was reminded of his oath and, at the judge’s invitation, he took his seat.

  Christopher Crow stood up. “Good morning, Mr. Lamza,” he began.

  “Good morning.”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Thank you for your evidence on Friday afternoon. It was very interesting. I have a few questions that I’d like to put to you.”

  “Of course. I’m happy to help.”

  “That’s very kind, Mr. Lamza. Very kind.”

  Crow opened the slim document folder that he had brought into the courtroom with him and took out a sheaf of papers. Atticus looked over at Mack; she was leaning forward, the tension obvious in the way she was fretting with the hem of her skirt.

  Atticus felt the buzz of anticipation in his gut. He knew what was about to happen: a bomb was about to be dropped right into the middle of the prosecution’s case.

  “Mr. Lamza,” Crow said, “could you tell the court whether there is anything that influenced your evidence?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me put the question a different way. Why did you give your evidence on Friday?”

  Lamza looked puzzled. “Because it was the right thing to do.”

  “It was your civic duty?”

  Lamza nodded. “Exactly.”

  “And there was no other reason?”

  Lamza turned to the judge for guidance.

  Somerville frowned. “Where are you going with this, Mr. Crow?”

  “My Lord, I’d like to hand up a selection of documents that have been brought to the attention of the defence. I have copies for the prosecution and members of the jury, too.”

  The usher came forward, collected the stapled sets of papers from Crow and handed one up to the associate, who passed it to the judge. The usher took the rest to the jury, where they were passed along the line so that each juror had a copy. Crow collected three additional sets from his desk: he handed one to Abernathy, one to the CPS solicitor behind him and one to the returning usher to deliver to Lamza.

  Abernathy stood. “What is this?”

  “New evidence,” Crow said. “I’m afraid we only became aware of it yesterday.”

  “My Lord?”

  Somerville was looking through the papers, flipping pages.

  “My Lord,” Abernathy pressed, “the prosecution has been made aware of additional evidence from Mr. Cadogan. I presume that this is it, but this is the first that we’ve seen of it. I would respectfully suggest that if it is important, then we should adjourn so that it can be considered.”

  “I disagree,” Crow said. “I think the witness should be asked to comment on the evidence now. It raises some troubling questions as to his motive in appearing for the prosecution. Speaking bluntly, it questions Mr. Lamza’s honesty. I’d like to question him without him having had the opportunity to fabricate a story by which he might try to explain it away.”

  The judge thumbed through the papers. “I’ll permit it,” he said. “We can discuss the timing of the disclosure later.”

  “Thank you, my Lord,” Crow said. “Now, Mr. Lamza—can you tell me what you see?”

  Lamza looked down at the papers. His expression had passed from confusion to fear. His mouth opened and closed, but he didn’t answer.

  “Mr. Lamza?”

  “They’re emails,” he said quietly.

  “Louder. The jury need to hear you.”

  “They’re emails.”

  “That’s right—they are. Emails. Who are they between?”

  “Between me and…”

  He looked away.

  Atticus turned his attention to Mack. She was trying to get a look at the copies that had been given to the CPS.

  “Mr. Lamza, would it be fair to say that these emails are between you and a member of the press? Would that be accurate?”

  Lamza swallowed.

  “Mr. Lamza?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly.

  “Is the person with whom you were corresponding in court today?”

  No answer.

  “Mr. Lamza,” Somerville said, “answer the questions, please.”

  “Yes,” Lamza said. “He is.”

  “Would you point him out to us?”

  Freddie looked over at the press gallery, raised his hand, and pointed to the front row.

  “Who is that, Mr. Lamza?”

  “His name is Hawkins. Steve Hawkins.”

  “That’s right,” Crow said. “You were corresponding with Mr. Hawkins.” He turned to the jury. “Mr. Hawkins is a freelance journalist who has written for most of the tabloid newspapers.”

  The jury turned as one to look at the man in the front row of the press gallery. Atticus turned to look at him, too. Hawkins’s cheeks were red and he was nervously scratching at his chin.

  “Mr. Lamza,” Crow said, “would you read the passage in the first email that I’ve highlighted? This is from an email that you sent to Mr. Hawkins a week ago. Please.”

  Lamza looked up at Somerville, but, if he was looking for an instruction that he did not have to do as he had been asked, then none was forthcoming. Abernathy was no help, either; he was hunched over his desk, his face hidden, as he read through the papers he had
just been given. Atticus glanced down at Mack; she looked as white as a sheet.

  “Mr. Lamza,” Crow pressed firmly, “read the passage, please.”

  Lamza cleared his throat and, when he spoke, it was in a hushed and tremulous voice. “‘Thanks for going the extra mile for me. You’ve been very generous. I promise I won’t let you down.’”

  “Mr. Lamza,” Crow said, “please tell the court how Mr. Hawkins has been generous.”

  Lamza was barely audible. “He arranged the contract between me and the newspaper.”

  “Louder, please.”

  “He arranged the contract between me and the newspaper,” he said, his voice still quiet, but—in a courtroom that was as quiet as a tomb—perfectly audible.

  “And he’s been very generous indeed, hasn’t he? I believe the newspaper he’s sold his story to has agreed to pay you a considerable amount of money for an exclusive.”

  “Yes.”

  “But there’s a stipulation in that contract, is there not?”

  Abernathy got to his feet. “This is ridiculous. I’ve only just seen these—”

  “Just a moment, Mr. Abernathy,” the judge said. “Answer the question, Mr. Lamza.”

  Lamza swallowed. “The newspaper has paid me half. They’ll only pay the other half if Mr. Mallender is found guilty.”

  There was an audible gasp from the gallery. Atticus turned to the jury and saw the same reaction. Those who were taking notes were scribbling furiously; the elderly woman at the end of the line was shaking her head, her disapproval obvious.

  “And I understand you’ve been promised additional payment for subsequent stories if the defendant is convicted, have you not? Beyond the money you’ve already agreed.”

  “I have.”

  Crow held up the sheet of paper with the email. “What did you mean when you said that ‘I won’t let you down’?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think I do.” He took a second page from his desk and adjusted his spectacles so that he could read it. “This is an email that Mr. Hawkins sent to you the day before the email you just read out. He says, and I quote, ‘It’s important that you tell the court everything that you told me. Don’t spare anything. It’s going to be important to your story that all the salacious detail is included. You asked me whether I thought you should exaggerate anything—of course, I can’t possibly condone that, but I will say that adding a few judicious bits of colour won’t go amiss.’”

  Atticus watched Mack as Crow read the passage. She had her eyes closed. He knew how she must have been feeling: the pieces of her carefully constructed case against Ralph Mallender were detaching and tumbling to the floor. He felt bad about that, but Crow had been adamant: this had to be an ambush to get the most from the disclosure. Crow could not do anything else, and Abernathy would have known that. There was the possibility that he might be ostracised by colleagues and that Somerville might be censorious, but he was still prepared to press ahead, because, Atticus presumed, the benefits to his career of success in a trial as big as this one would outweigh any temporary opprobrium from his colleagues. Money tended to salve all wounds, and Crow was banking—with good reason, Atticus thought—that a win would bring in a flood of new work.

  Abernathy was on his feet again. “I’m sorry, my Lord, but this is simply intolerable. We haven’t had sight of these documents until just now. We don’t know where they came from. We don’t know how they were obtained, but we have to consider the possibility that it was by criminal means.”

  “They were emailed to my instructing solicitor yesterday morning.”

  “From whom?”

  Crow shook his head. “From an anonymous source. You’ll have the chance to cross-examine Mr. Cadogan when the defence calls him.”

  “And where did this source find Mr. Lamza’s personal emails?”

  “I don’t know,” Crow said, “but, given how important his evidence is for the prosecution’s case, it would be highly prejudicial for them not to be considered.”

  Abernathy was flustered. “My Lord, I really do think a conference is necessary.”

  “I disagree,” Somerville said. “This evidence is clearly important. And you confirm that Mr. Cadogan will be called?”

  “He’ll be called, my Lord.”

  The judge nodded. “Then I think we are fine to proceed. Carry on, Mr. Crow.”

  Atticus turned to the dock. Ralph Mallender was smiling at his wife. Atticus looked back to Mack. She noticed him, and their eyes met for a second; she stared at him, her lips pursed and white and her eyes cold. Would she guess that he had found the emails? Perhaps. She knew him well, better than most, and he had always been prepared to push the boundaries of what was acceptable when he had been working for her. Getting his hands on something explosive like this, regardless of how he came by it?

  She would see his fingerprints all over it.

  59

  The prosecution gathered for a meeting during the lunchtime adjournment. A CPS paralegal had gone out to buy sandwiches and coffees from Pret, but they remained on the table, untouched; they had all lost their appetites.

  Mack was slumped in her seat. It felt as if months of grinding, hard graft had just been flushed away. She had been confident that Ralph was guilty, and what they had just learned from the pitiless demolition of Freddie Lamza had cast all of that in doubt. That, in itself, would have been bad enough, but, as she waited for Abernathy to arrive, Mack found her thoughts settling on Hugo, Juliet, Cameron and Cassandra Mallender. She wanted to deliver justice for them, and now she didn’t know if she could.

  Abernathy came into the room and took the spare seat near the door. He had a face like thunder. “What the hell just happened?”

  Harry Probert, the CPS solicitor responsible for the case, just shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “The emails? They just appeared?”

  “Who knows?”

  “‘Who knows,’ Harry? We’ll have to do rather better than ‘who knows.’”

  “Perhaps Lamza forwarded them to someone and they—I don’t know—they sent them to Cadogan.”

  “Lamza says he didn’t.”

  “So perhaps Hawkins did.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Probert said, slumping back.

  “It would have been immeasurably helpful if you could have found out that Lamza was not to be trusted before I called him as our key bloody witness!”

  “There was no way we could have known,” Probert protested. He turned to Mack, ready to pass the blame. “Detective Chief Inspector?”

  Mack bit down on her lip until it hurt.

  “Mack?”

  Now Probert and Abernathy were both looking at her.

  “I’ll speak to Lamza,” she said. “The obvious answer is that he’s been hacked. But it won’t hurt to be thorough. I’ll look into it.”

  “What now?” Probert said.

  Abernathy leaned back in his chair and sighed loudly. “Crow is going to finish his cross. It’ll be unpleasant for Lamza, I’m afraid—very unpleasant—and it might get worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up being investigated for perjury. And Hawkins is probably looking at a charge of perverting the course of justice. But what happens to them isn’t of any concern to us.”

  “And the case?” Probert asked.

  Abernathy looked at Mack. “Do you have any other witnesses who will say that Mallender said he was going to kill his family?”

  “If we did, we would have told you.”

  Abernathy exhaled. “Then I’m afraid we’re going to be struggling. We have Sandeau next. We should be able to show that Cameron wasn’t the murdering type, but, since they’ve blown holes in our case that Ralph is, we just get to stalemate.”

  “And then it’s me,” Mack said.

  They had decided to leave her evidence until the end of the prosecution case. It would give them the chance to use her to pick up any incongruities that had developed durin
g the evidence. Abernathy had said that it would be all over bar the shouting by the time that she was called, but it didn’t look that way now.

  “Yes, Detective Chief Inspector,” Abernathy said, picking up on Mack’s obvious trepidation. “This afternoon is going to be unpleasant for Freddie. But tomorrow is going to be unpleasant for you, too. I suspect Crow is going to lay all of the failings of our case at your door. Everything. He’s going to rake you over the coals.”

  60

  The cross-examination of Freddie Lamza continued for another hour. Mack watched, aghast, just as if she were observing the aftermath of a particularly nasty car wreck. It was purgatory for her and, for Lamza, something more unpleasant entirely. Crow took him through his emails in detail, having him read them out loud line by line. The exercise must have been excruciatingly embarrassing; every answer made it more obvious that he had been prepared to lie in order to secure his payday and his moment in the sun. He seemed to shrivel in on himself, and the fine clothes that he was wearing suddenly looked like badges of shame, purchased with the proceeds of his corruption.

  Crow ratcheted up the stakes even more as he drew towards the end of the cross-examination, suggesting that Lamza had perjured himself, that it was a serious offence, and asking sternly whether he knew the consequences should he subsequently be prosecuted and found guilty.

  Lamza said that he did not.

  Crow told him that he might expect to be sent to prison for two years.

  Abernathy interceded at that point, and Somerville warned Crow that the proceedings were about Mallender and not the witness, and, addressing Lamza, said that he didn’t have to answer if he felt he might incriminate himself. Of course, it was too late for that by then; Lamza was up to his neck in ordure. He was as pale as a sheet and looked as if he was about to be sick.

  The jury’s view of him—and everything that he had said—had been comprehensively, utterly, irretrievably poisoned.

  Crow concluded his cross-examination and Abernathy passed up the opportunity to re-examine; the damage was done, and there was nothing that he would have been able to do to fix it.