Twenty-One Days Read online

  The juror took it as a compliment, and it showed in his face.

  ‘It matters,’ Ottershaw continued. ‘The whorls, the ridges, the islands, features and dimensions in the lines you can barely see with the naked eye, they are unique to you. More so even than your signature. I am sure you have seen many signatures that are illegible? Of course. Mine usually is, especially if I have been writing all day. But my fingerprints are always the same.’ He produced a card about four inches square. ‘May I, my lord?’ he asked, and assuming permission, he showed it to the juror. ‘If you touch it, grasp it, you will leave your prints on it as well. Please . . .’

  The juror took it, all the time watching Ottershaw’s face. Then he looked at the card, and saw nothing.

  Ottershaw held out his hand, and received the card back. He drew a small brush out of his pocket and ran it over the card. A luminous smile lit up his face. ‘There! You see?’ He handed the card back to the juror.

  The juror took it and his face too lit with delight. ‘Those are mine?’

  ‘Indeed, sir, they are. And no other man on earth, or woman either, can produce exactly those. You see that whorl in the centre? And the tiny islands? But I must proceed. Let me show you how this is relevant to the case on which you are required to render your verdict,’ he hurried on. He turned and walked over to Daniel.

  ‘Defence exhibit,’ Daniel said loudly, handing Ottershaw one of the papers they had prepared during the night.

  Ottershaw took it and walked over to the jury.

  Daniel handed a copy to Sefton, who took it at first with interest, then seeing what it was, put it down again. ‘My lord, this is a set of fingerprints unidentified, and therefore signifying nothing. And in case my . . . learned . . . friend has forgotten, no prints whatsoever were found on the gun. That has already been testified to. Mr Pitt is wasting the court’s valuable time.’

  ‘A man is fighting for his life, Mr Sefton,’ the judge said patiently. ‘Allow Mr Pitt to make his point, if he has one. If he does not, I promise you I will stop him. Proceed, Dr Ottershaw.’

  ‘Thank you, my lord,’ Ottershaw replied politely. Then, as he passed twelve copies of the paper first to the judge, who then gave them to the clerk to pass them to the jury, his voice gathered enthusiasm. ‘If you gentlemen would be good enough? You see many prints in front of you. Some are similar, some are utterly different, no two are identical. The differences may be small, but they are visible. Some are of a whole section of a finger or thumb, others are only part of a finger, as a man might leave on an object he had touched with the purpose of using it.’

  Daniel looked at the faces of the jurors. They were fascinated. They wanted to be unique! They were ordinary enough men; it pleased them to think they were each unlike anyone else, as he knew Ottershaw was well aware.

  The jurors were still sitting with their heads bent when Ottershaw continued. ‘If you were to touch anything with your bare hands, and that thing had a clean, flat surface, you would leave fingerprints upon it. This was known to the person who shot Mr Hinton, because all such marks were removed – or else he wore gloves. With Mr Pitt’s permission, I will show you what I mean . . .’

  Sefton could not be silent any longer. ‘My lord, it is perfectly clear what Dr Ottershaw means. And it is a waste of time, a diversion. There were no fingerprints on the gun! I have never argued that point. There is no purpose to this at all!’

  At last, Daniel rose to his feet. ‘There is a purpose, my lord. If I may demonstrate to the court for those who are unfamiliar with guns, just how you load a gun. If you will permit me to, I will be brief.’ It was only half a question. As he spoke, he picked up the gun he had brought with him. It was not the weapon used to kill Hinton, but one exactly like it.

  Daniel turned to the jury, holding the gun high, where they would all see it. Slowly, he opened the chamber, picked up the shells that lay on the table in front of him, loaded the gun, and closed it. He passed it to Ottershaw.

  Ottershaw dusted it with a light powder in all the places where Daniel had touched it, and blew away the surplus. He was smiling.

  ‘So? What is the purpose of that?’ Sefton demanded. ‘Why don’t you polish it with a cloth, and then you will have nothing! And be precisely where, in fact, we are!’ He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and offered it to Ottershaw.

  ‘Thank you,’ Ottershaw said. But instead of taking the handkerchief, he gave Sefton the gun.

  Sefton took it and wiped it off, smiling. ‘Satisfied?’

  ‘Yes . . . yes, indeed,’ Ottershaw said with an even wider smile. ‘Didn’t you forget something?’

  Slowly, the look of satisfaction on Sefton’s face slipped away. ‘What?’

  There was absolute silence in the courtroom.

  ‘You forgot the shell casing,’ Daniel answered for Ottershaw. ‘If you had loaded the gun, your fingerprint would be on the shell casing.’

  There was a rustling of movement in the gallery. Sefton looked shocked. The jurors’ attention was total. The judge leaned forward and spoke to Daniel. ‘Mr Pitt, do you still have the shell casing from the crime, and are there fingerprints on it which are provably not those of Mr Blackwell?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. We shall require your permission to take the prints of Mr Park, and anyone else we may reasonably suspect, but they are provably not those of Mr Blackwell. And if someone other than Mr Blackwell loaded the gun, I respectfully submit to your lordship, and to the gentlemen of the jury, that we may conclude Mr Blackwell did not fire the gun either.’

  ‘Indeed,’ the judge agreed. ‘That would seem the reasonable conclusion.’

  Daniel breathed in deeply, and then again. ‘My lord, since the prints on the shell casing are not those of Roman Blackwell, may I humbly request that the matter is now put to the jury? If the prints are those of someone else involved in the case, it may take a little while . . .’ He looked at Park in the gallery, and then away again. ‘The police will then arrest that person, and there will be a new case for another jury to decide.’

  He shifted his weight, and then wished he had not. It made him look impatient.

  ‘You seem in a hurry, Mr Pitt,’ the judge observed.

  Should he tell the truth?

  ‘I wish to see the case to its conclusion, my lord. But one of the lawyers in my chambers has met with a rather serious accident, and I am ordered to appear in his place as soon as possible.’

  ‘I believe you told us that yesterday,’ the judge said soberly. ‘When are you due to appear, and where, Mr Pitt?’

  ‘The Old Bailey, my lord. This morning . . .’

  ‘Indeed. How are they managing without you?’

  Sefton gave a snort. The judge looked at him, and he looked away.

  ‘Then you had better finish your argument, Mr Pitt, and hope the Old Bailey manages without you for a little longer. I imagine the jury will not keep us too long, but will hasten with their proceedings.’

  ‘Yes, my lord, thank you,’ Daniel said humbly.

  Indeed, it was not long. The verdict was delivered before noon: a unanimous not guilty. Daniel stayed long enough to receive Blackwell’s overwhelming gratitude, and Mercy’s thanks almost to the point of tears, which infuriated her. But she had been badly frightened, and she knew how close she had come to losing the son she loved.

  Sefton was generous about it, but it cost him dearly. For him, the matter was delayed, but far from finished.

  Ottershaw had enjoyed himself enormously, and promised to take Daniel to the best luncheon he had had, at some time convenient to him.

  Daniel raced out to catch a cab to the Old Bailey.

  Chapter Three

  Daniel had been to the Old Bailey before. How could he resist it? But he had only been able to visit as a member of the general public. It was one of the most famous courts in the world, certainly within the British Empire. But this was an entirely different situation. He was probably not going to say anything, just do errands and take messa
ges for Kitteridge. He would also be looking up legal references, and would have to be both quick and accurate. Kitteridge would tolerate no mistakes or delays.

  Kitteridge was a gangly man, with a most unusual face and a curious taste in neckties, or cravats. He had once been a junior himself, and had worked hard to improve his standing in the firm. He deserved his position, he cherished it, and he believed that Daniel had to prove his worth before he could aspire to anything like it. Kitteridge’s father had been a well-respected headmaster of one of the better private schools for boys, but he was very well aware that Pitt’s father was Sir Thomas Pitt, the Head of Special Branch. Kitteridge felt Daniel had benefited from nepotism, and did not approve.

  Daniel explained to the usher that he was assistant to Mr Kitteridge, counsel for the defence.

  The usher looked him up and down with disfavour. ‘You are very late, sir.’

  Daniel wanted to tell him that he was fresh from achieving a seemingly impossible victory in another court. However, he saw in the man’s eyes that no other court was worthy of mention, and instead merely apologised for his lateness.

  The door opened for him and he was permitted into the packed courtroom.

  He walked up the aisle between the rows of the crowded gallery, without once looking at the judge, and found his place in the front, beside Kitteridge. He slid into the seat silently.

  ‘Pitt, where the hell have you been?’ Kitteridge hissed at him. ‘You’d better have a damned good excuse. If you slept in, I’ll have your head on a plate. I don’t care how late you were last night, or in whose bed you slept, you’re not at university now. This is reality.’ He turned away and studied the papers in front of him.

  ‘I was in court, in Greenwich,’ Daniel replied.

  ‘For what? Drunk and disorderly?’ Kitteridge asked with an edge to his voice.

  ‘The trial was for murder,’ Daniel answered.

  Kitteridge swung around to look at him. ‘What were you? A witness?’

  ‘Appearing for the defence,’ Daniel said.

  ‘And what? You left the poor bastard to swing?’ he said with incredulity.

  ‘I got him off – with forensic evidence.’ Daniel kept the smile from his face with difficulty. ‘Reputation of the firm, and all that. As you constantly remind me.’

  ‘We are waiting for you, Mr Kitteridge,’ the judge interrupted sourly. ‘May we take it that you have nothing to ask of this witness?’

  Kitteridge rose to his feet, biting back his anger. ‘As a matter of fact, my lord, I do. My assistant has only just arrived. He was held up by unforeseen circumstances.’

  ‘Not another traffic accident, I hope,’ the judge remarked with barely concealed sarcasm.

  Kitteridge flushed, but he knew better than to antagonise the judge, or to attempt humour, although he was not without a sense of the ridiculous. ‘No, my lord. I did not ask for details.’

  ‘Very wise.’ The judge gave Daniel a scorching look. ‘Please proceed. If you need reminding, Mr Tranmere has just drawn from Major Lydden his professional opinion of the accused, and of the victim.’

  ‘Yes, my lord. Thank you.’ Kitteridge faced the grey-haired man standing to attention in the witness box. He was dressed in a perfectly ordinary suit, such as any gentleman of means might wear, but a regimental tie made it appear a uniform. ‘Major Lydden, I believe you live less than half a mile from the home of Mr and Mrs Graves, and you were socially acquainted?’

  ‘With Mr Graves, yes. Yes. Good historian. Accurate, you know, which very few are,’ Lydden replied.

  ‘Less so with Mrs Graves?’

  ‘Do not speak ill of the dead. Don’t you know that, young man?’

  ‘You speak the truth in court, sir,’ Kitteridge reminded him.

  Lydden was unused to being corrected and he did not take it well. ‘I know very little about her. Women like that are a mystery to me. Plain man, and all that.’

  Kitteridge was playing a losing hand, and he was only too aware of it. He tried another approach.

  Daniel studied the jury. It was supposed to be a jury of one’s peers. He knew nothing about Graves at all. There had been no time even to take a curious look at the notes last night. He was charged with killing his wife, that was all Daniel knew. And all London knew that!

  What he did not know was what on earth Kitteridge was offering as a defence. To judge by the jurors’ faces, it was not going over-well.

  Kitteridge tried again. ‘In fact, an officer in the Indian Army?’ he said, looking impressed. ‘A major?’

  ‘Retired rank of major. Acting colonel, to be precise,’ Lydden corrected him with quiet satisfaction.

  ‘In command of an entire regiment of men?’ Kitteridge asked with respect.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘A pretty good judge of men, then. Know who’s capable of what, and who will stand their ground under fire, and all that?’

  Lydden would rather have been stripped naked than deny such a thing. He stood even taller. ‘Yes, sir. I believe so,’ he replied.

  Daniel hid a smile. Kitteridge had made a good opening. But what could he put into it?

  Pretending to be searching for a piece of paper he had dropped, Daniel bent over. In straightening up, he glanced to his left, high up where the dock was, placed above the courtroom, and reached by a different stair. He looked steadily at the man sitting between the warders.

  Russell Graves was a big man, at least average height, and solid. He was quite handsome, with hair greying at the sides, but still thick. He had a fleshy face; not coarse, but perhaps insensitive. But how could any man be looking his best in a hostile court that had accused him of murdering his wife? He did not look like a grieving widower, but then why should he show his feelings to a prurient and alien public?

  Daniel brought his attention back to Kitteridge and Major Lydden. He was eliciting details of the kind of man Graves was, his place in the community.

  ‘Excellent chap,’ Lydden repeated. ‘Quiet. Not one of those who arrives in a place and instantly expects to be taken notice of. Too many like that. Think they know better how to run a place than those of us who’ve lived there all our lives.’

  Kitteridge drew everything he could out of Lydden’s testimony; it proved nothing. He sat down at the end weary and, in spite of his best effort at courage, defeated.

  They adjourned early that afternoon.

  ‘You look asleep on your feet,’ Kitteridge said testily to Daniel as they left the court. ‘You are not much use to me like that. Would a meal put some stuffing into you?’

  Daniel thought not. What he wanted was about ten hours’ sleep. ‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘I got about two hours’ sleep on Ottershaw’s couch last night.’

  ‘Who is Ottershaw?’ Kitteridge asked, matching his stride to Daniel’s as they went down Ludgate Hill towards one of the best pubs in London.

  ‘Fingerprint expert,’ Daniel replied.

  ‘Won’t need him for this.’ Kitteridge shook his head. ‘Do you know anything at all about this case?’

  ‘Beyond the fact that Graves is charged with having killed his wife, no I don’t.’

  They turned into Fleet Street.

  ‘We’ll go to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. There are plenty of private corners there,’ Kitteridge said.

  Daniel looked sideways at him. He appeared tired and disappointed, the beginnings of defeat showing in the twist of his mouth. He was surprisingly vulnerable for one who usually seemed sure of himself, to the point of arrogance.

  Kitteridge was losing the case, and he knew it. A defeat in front of Daniel was going to be doubly difficult for him to bear. He didn’t lose often.

  ‘Do you think Graves is innocent?’ Daniel lengthened his stride to keep up.

  ‘Not really,’ Kitteridge admitted. ‘I looked at the evidence and I don’t think there’s a cat in hell’s chance. Then I look at the man, and something in me believes him – I think.’ He sounded surprised at his own conclusion.

/>   Daniel was still trying to think of a reply when they entered Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.

  Kitteridge held the door open for Daniel, and they found a quiet table. A waiter appeared immediately and welcomed Kitteridge by name. Daniel was determined not to show it, but he was impressed. He was also quite sure that Kitteridge intended him to be.

  ‘I suppose I’d better catch you up,’ Kitteridge said. ‘Since you did not catch up last night, as I had hoped.’

  Daniel was tempted to say that he had already gathered that Kitteridge was losing. Kitteridge was losing his temper in a way he had not seen before. Daniel had had that same feeling of near panic only yesterday, thinking he was going to let Blackwell down disastrously. Did Kitteridge care that Graves did not hang, or only that he, Kitteridge, did not lose?

  ‘What is the evidence against him?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘It’s all against him,’ Kitteridge said with sudden bitterness. ‘His wife’s body was found in her bedroom, her skull cracked at the back, and a good deal of her face and upper body burned to the point of total disfigurement. It was appalling. There is no sign of anyone breaking in. No strangers seen by the resident staff, or by the daughter, Sarah, who is nineteen, or the son, Arthur, who is sixteen and an invalid.’ He stopped abruptly, staring at Daniel, waiting for his reaction.

  Daniel looked back at him, and saw distress in his face, imperfectly masked. No wonder Kitteridge was afraid he was going to lose; it seemed impossible to win. ‘Why did you take the case?’ he asked. Kitteridge was ambitious, clever, self-assured. Everybody was vulnerable, but Kitteridge seldom showed it. Or perhaps Daniel was not wise enough yet to see beyond the surface.

  ‘You wouldn’t have?’ Kitteridge asked curiously.

  Daniel did not know the answer to that. He had taken on Blackwell’s case because his father had asked him to. And he had immediately liked Blackwell personally. He liked his quick mind, his imagination, and his throwaway sense of humour. Blackwell was an adventurer, but he was not violent. He was a teller of tall stories, largely to entertain more than to deceive. He was generous, both with his means and with his judgements of others.