Triple Jeopardy Page 14

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Edgeley agreed.

  Jemima thought he was insufferably smug. She glanced at Sidney and saw his distress, but of course he could not speak. It was the ultimate horror of the mind, to have to sit there and listen to people say things about you, and not be able to protest, or explain, not defend yourself at all! Like being tied up while people hit you, unable to move, let alone strike back. They would also be watching your face to see if it hurt enough, and judge you on that, too. You could not even deal with your pain privately.

  She looked at the jurors and saw them staring one minute at Edgeley, the next at Sidney. A decent man would want to turn away, as you would if you had accidentally intruded on someone naked. But it was their job to judge him. They were obliged to look!

  “It must have upset you,” Daniel was continuing. “Did you ever suffer actual punishment on any of these occasions, Mr. Edgeley, such as the loss of an opportunity? A promotion, perhaps? Or the handling of a particular visit?”

  “Hard to tell,” Edgeley replied with the slightest shrug. “People don’t give reasons for things.”

  “I am beginning to appreciate what a difficult profession it is,” Daniel said sympathetically. “Whom do you trust? Not Sidney, apparently.”

  Edgeley snapped, “Not if you’ve any sense!”

  “And yet they didn’t dismiss him? Curious, don’t you think? He has no wealth, no connections, no family influence. Perhaps you can explain that, so the jury understands. I admit, I don’t.”

  Jemima held her breath. She was only dimly aware of Patrick stiffening beside her.

  “Mr. Edgeley?” Daniel prompted.

  “I don’t know!” Edgeley snapped.

  “You did tell them, I take it?” Daniel affected innocence. “Perhaps they are corrupt also?”

  “I didn’t say they were corrupt!” Edgeley was now very clearly upset.

  “No. I believe you still work at the Foreign Office. Or am I mistaken?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And you are about to see Mr. Sidney get his just deserts. You must be very…satisfied?”

  “Leave it alone,” Jemima said under her breath. Patrick turned to look at her, puzzled. He could barely have heard her, surely? Then with a flood of horror, she realized why he was staring at her. She wanted Daniel to win! She was cheering him on! It couldn’t be Sidney she was supporting. She would have to explain that, perhaps when they got home. Certainly not now.

  Hillyer knew enough to leave the testimony well alone. He called his next witness, another pleasant enough man, older than Edgeley. Hillyer wouldn’t be caught out the same way again. Mr. Stains gave his evidence with a kinder manner. It added little to the picture. It bored Jemima. Hillyer was wasting time, as Daniel said. Why? What was he waiting for?

  * * *

  —

  LUNCHEON WAS AGONY. It was unavoidable that Jemima and Patrick should accept Tobias Thorwood’s invitation to dine with them. A table had already been reserved at a very nice restaurant not far away, and the meal requested in advance so they would not have to wait for service.

  Jemima dreaded it.

  “We have to,” Patrick murmured when they had a moment alone, the Thorwoods, united outside the courtroom, having gone ahead. “For heaven’s sake, say as little as you can without being rude. No opinion, please, Jem?”

  “I promise. Really!” She meant it far more than he might believe. She was aware of just how deeply she loved him by how much this whole case hurt. She did not want even to question him, let alone consider that he might be wrong about Sidney. Or if he was absolutely right, that he had engineered the evidence so the assault would emerge, even though Sidney might not actually have embezzled anything. It wouldn’t matter. If he couldn’t be tried for the assault, let alone convicted, it would still ruin him. There would be nothing left for him in England. No employment. No friends. No acceptance anywhere. Society would punish him indirectly for what it could not get the law to exact. There would be no reprieve. No payment, therefore no freedom from the debt, ever.

  Was that really what Patrick wanted? Was there something bigger that she did not know about? Could she ask him, so it would not lie between them any longer?

  Not now. They were walking out of the courthouse and into the street. There were five of them. Two motorcars were waiting by the curb.

  Jemima sat beside Patrick. Three times she started to ask him just what he knew, then lost the nerve to continue. She could not find the right words. It all sounded accusing. How do you ask someone you love every day, every night, whose triumphs, dreams, and losses you share, if he is framing a man for a crime he did not commit?

  They arrived at the hotel and were taken straight to the dining room. It was decorated in a comfortable, time-dulled sort of Persian red, deep and rich. The furniture was heavy, carved oak, and looked as if it hadn’t been moved since it was first put there, perhaps a century ago. The linen was all crisp white, the crystal sparkling, the staff plentiful to attend to every wish. Bottles of white wine nestled in buckets of ice, and a bottle of red wine stood open on the next table, to breathe.

  The meal began immediately. It was delicious, served on the best porcelain. At another time, Jemima would have relished it. Now she was hardly even aware of its taste.

  “I don’t know what he is driving at,” Bernadette said suddenly, putting her napkin down completely. She seemed to be speaking to Tobias. “What is he achieving? What’s he waiting for? These people are boring the jury as much as they’re boring the rest of us. I suppose he’s building the tension, so that Sir John will be a complete contrast, and they will remember everything he says.”

  Jemima thought that made excellent sense, but she did not want to join the conversation. Bernadette must be referring to Sir John Armitage.

  Tobias looked slightly surprised. “Is he up this afternoon? I didn’t know that. I’m sure he didn’t mention it when I saw him this morning.” That sounded like an accusation.

  “I daresay he thought you already knew,” Bernadette dismissed the oversight.

  “Will they ask him why he got Mr. Sidney out of America, so he didn’t have to face charges for breaking into our house?” Rebecca asked suddenly. She had been pushing her food around the plate in a pretense of eating. Now she stopped altogether.

  Tobias’s hand tightened on his fork, until he unintentionally scraped it across the porcelain with a loud squeak.

  Jemima drew in her breath to reassure him, then realized she should not interrupt.

  “No, of course not,” Tobias said without looking at her. “Armitage would only answer the questions he’s asked. But if he is asked anything that would lead to that answer, then I am sure he would not be less than honest. I know how you feel, but nothing is your fault. We have already been over this.”

  “I know,” Rebecca kept her eyes on her plate. “I…I just hate it!”

  Bernadette put her hand over her daughter’s, quite gently, stopping her daughter’s nervous fidgeting. “You will not be required to say anything. Patrick has promised you that, haven’t you, Patrick?”

  Patrick was obviously caught off guard. He hesitated a moment.

  Jemima wondered then how much Patrick really knew about what was going on, what Tobias planned, and with whom. She looked at him now and saw the shadow in his expression, the second’s silence before he answered.

  “You don’t know anything,” he said to Rebecca with a slight smile. “You woke in the night and found a stranger in your room. You screamed. He tore the pendant from your neck, then ran away. It was your father who came immediately to your aid, and saw him in the hallway. He recognized him. You can add nothing. They know that.”

  He was explaining too much, Jemima knew that. If he had been sure, he would simply have said “no.”

  Rebecca relaxed, smiling back. She believed hi
m.

  It was Tobias who would not let it go. “Why is Armitage prepared to testify this afternoon? He can hardly say he knew Sidney was embezzling. If he had, he’d have dismissed the man whenever he first found out. Saying that he was in charge, yet didn’t know he was being systematically robbed, makes him appear incompetent. He’s far too proud to do that! Has he no sense of patriotism?”

  “Obviously Sidney has none,” Bernadette cut across him. “Perhaps that is why Sir John sent him back to England, so he would not disgrace the embassy in Washington, but still answer for the crime in London. After all, it is essentially an English crime.”

  Jemima stiffened. “Embezzlement?” she said very coolly, taking exception to Bernadette’s wording. “Really?”

  Bernadette’s eyes were like stones as she stared across the table. “One Englishman steals from his own embassy and is got out of the country by a man high in that embassy, who then accuses him when they are over here, back in England, and gives evidence against him in an English court. I don’t see what you are questioning. It seems to be both an honorable and a just way of dealing with it. In all respects.”

  Jemima was furious at Bernadette’s tone, and at her objecting to Jemima defending her countrymen, and yet she could think of nothing to say. Certainly nothing she ought to say in the circumstances. She was the Thorwoods’ guest and she disliked it intensely, but it could not be helped.

  She felt Patrick’s hand on hers, where the tablecloth hid it, and closed her fingers over his. Did he understand? Perhaps he hated it, too, but he was better at hiding it? Or more used to having to.

  Bernadette bent to her meal again.

  “I doubt I will be called,” Tobias said. “I can add nothing about the embezzlement. How could I possibly know what goes on inside the British Embassy?”

  “But you know Philip Sidney,” Jemima pointed out. She wanted to disconcert him. “You could be called as a character witness.”

  Tobias looked stunned. “You think I’m going to…to stand up there and say that I think well of the man? After he…assaulted my daughter…in her bedroom? And tore the pendant from her neck? Are you…?” He bit back what he’d been about to say.

  It was Patrick who explained what Jemima had meant. “Not for the defense,” he said quietly. “For the prosecution.”

  For seconds, no one spoke.

  “Are you?” Bernadette said at last, staring at her husband with an expression that was unreadable. “Are you going to do that?”

  “The man’s a…a total swine!” Tobias almost choked on his own words. “I cannot stand by and let him get away with it! Is that what you expect of me?”

  Bernadette stared down at her plate and the delicate fish bones on it, the flesh taken away. “No, my dear,” she said very quietly. “It will be very difficult for you, for all of us, but you have to do what is right. Rebecca will understand that. And if it is done here, that will be so much easier for us. I…I thank you for your courage and foresight.”

  Tobias flushed deep pink, but it was impossible to tell what mixture of emotions caused it.

  Jemima considered saying something normal, unconnected with the case at all, but nothing came to her mind that was not ridiculous.

  * * *

  —

  THE AFTERNOON EVIDENCE began with Hillyer calling Sir John Armitage to the witness stand. Now, at last, the attention was complete. The jurors sat up straight, eyes wide open.

  Armitage swore to his name and occupation, then faced Hillyer with grace and intense seriousness.

  “Good afternoon, Sir John,” Hillyer said gravely, his face almost without expression. “I believe you have known Philip Sidney for many years. Indeed, it was on your recommendation that he gained his position at the British Embassy in Washington.”

  “Indeed.” Armitage shook his head ruefully. “It was perhaps the worst mistake I have ever made in a man. I knew his mother. A very fine woman. She—I suppose like many women do—saw only the best in her son. I accepted that she was basically correct in her judgment of him. I now regret that.”

  “He did not live up to his mother’s words?” Hillyer asked.

  Jemima looked across at Sidney and saw such pain in his face that it was as if she had felt it herself. She thought of how she would have felt, had her father recommended her for something and been bitterly disappointed in her. She could not bear it. She could not bear it for Sidney, and she hardly knew him! She had unwittingly seen what should have been private. Was it true, and she was just being a coward, complicit because she was not brave enough to face the truth?

  Armitage was talking about Sidney’s earliest years in the embassy. He seemed to have been excellent.

  “You saw no fault in him?” Hillyer pressed.

  “No, none at all, at that time,” Armitage admitted. “I even imagined he had an outstanding career ahead of him. Indeed, I thought so until—” He stopped suddenly, as if he had unintentionally let slip more than he had intended. There was a moment’s silence.

  “Until what?” Hillyer prompted.

  “It is not relevant to this case,” Armitage replied.

  “We should judge that,” Hillyer told him. “I—”

  Daniel shot to his feet for the first time in the trial. “Your Honor, if it is irrelevant, it should not be offered. Once the jury has heard it, it will affect their view, and thus their judgment. Even with the best intentions, we do not forget our feelings, just because we no longer remember what prompted them.”

  “Indeed,” the judge said, shaking his head. “Mr. Hillyer, you know better than that. Fly-fishing, sir? I cannot allow you to plunge in with a net!”

  Hillyer sighed. “Yes, Your Honor. I apologize. I will come at it a little later, more directly.”

  The judge gave him a sour smile and nodded. “Indeed.”

  Jemima let her breath out very slowly. She dared not look at Patrick. She did glance at Daniel, but he was staring straight ahead of him. Surely Armitage had been about to refer, perhaps obliquely, perhaps quite openly, to the attack on Rebecca. At the very least, it would have been a thread someone would follow. The jury had heard this, and had to be wondering what it was that could not be said.

  Daniel must have known what he was doing, mustn’t he? Did he intend to defend Sidney, really defend him? And as the question came clearly in her mind, Jemima knew that, yes, he did.

  What had changed?

  She turned her attention back to Armitage’s testimony.

  * * *

  —

  PATRICK WAS ALMOST silent on the way home, and even later over dinner. When he did speak he did not mention the trial. Jemima felt her mother watching, and twice Charlotte was on the edge of asking him a question, her face filled with concern. But Jemima smiled and spoke of something else. It was not until the bedroom door was closed that he spoke. He stood in the center of the room, stiff with pent-up tension.

  “Did you know he was going to do that?” he asked, his voice brittle and sharp.

  “No! Of course I didn’t,” she said straightaway. “Armitage was the prosecution’s witness. We took it for granted he was going to say that Sidney seemed to be all right, but underneath he was bad. And he did! But he must have intended to drop the assault in—”

  “Not Armitage,” Patrick cut across her. “Daniel! If he’d waited a couple of seconds later, Armitage would’ve said it. Then it would all have come out eventually. You couldn’t keep it in, no matter how you tried.”

  “Don’t keep saying ‘you’!” she interrupted. “It’s not me…”

  “Not you, Jemima Pitt—‘you’ are the English, the society, the people Sidney belongs to. People sticking by their own, no matter what.”

  She felt her heart cramp with an overwhelming sense of loss. “I thought I was Jemima Flannery! Am I suddenly ‘them’ and not ‘us’? Is that what it�
�s about? Not whether Sidney is guilty or innocent of either crime, but whether he’s English or American?”

  “Isn’t it?” Patrick flashed back. “Loyalty. None of us, except Sidney himself, knows exactly what he did…or why. We take the word of the people we know against those we don’t. We trust the people who are like us, and who trust us. It’s natural.”

  “It’s tribalism,” she replied. “We should be beyond that.”

  “Beyond loyalty, patriotism, trusting, and being worthy of trust? What is beyond that? Every man for himself?”

  “You’re using words—”

  “Well, what the hell else?”

  “No! I mean you’re using them, making them mean what you want, emotion, not thinking.”

  “About what? It’s a big thing to be trusted, Jem. Look at Cassie and Sophie. They trust you in everything. Would you give that up? Betray it?”

  “That’s not fair! They are my children! That’s not tribalism, it’s…family.”

  “Which is the beginning of the tribe. Do you want to walk through life alone?”

  “Of course not! But that’s different. Sophie’s a baby; Cassie’s only three!”

  “When are you planning to stop? When she’s six? Twelve? Eighteen?”

  “When she marries!” she flashed back. “But that’s not the point, Patrick, and you know it! There comes a time when you can’t give loyalty without thinking.”

  “Questions of loyalty don’t often give you time to debate.”

  “Then you need to know what matters most, before you have to make a decision,” she replied. It sounded smug, and she knew it, even as the words were on her tongue.

  He shook his head. “And you know it all, Jem?”

  “No, I don’t! Of course I don’t. But I know I don’t decide the Thorwoods are right because I know them, and Sidney is wrong because I don’t.”

  “And Daniel is your brother? That means nothing? Don’t expect me to believe that you don’t trust him, because you’ve known him all his life.” He smiled reluctantly. “I’ve seen that same look on your face when you watch him that you have for Cassie. Just for an instant.”