In the Absence of Iles (21 page)

Esther could watch Iles in profile. He stared at the judge, his head utterly still, in that gundog pose once more. But now it was as though, even so late in proceedings, he meant to help her, browbeat her, hypnotize her, towards a right understanding of what had happened to Dean Martlew; this right understanding being based, naturally, on the Prosecution’s and Esther’s version of events, and forget the Ambrose Tutte Turton eyewash and his lawyer’s twists.

The judge said: ‘Mr Rowan and Mr Bates were in basic agreement about the appearance of the man they took to be Terence Marshall-Perkins. Mr Rowan said the man was dark-haired, between twenty-four and twenty-eight years old, just over six feet in height and about 170 pounds, athletically built. Mr Bates gave the age as twenty-seven, height 185 centimetres, around 175 pounds, “strongly made”, hair dark, with the tuft above his forehead that earned his nickname, “The Quiff”. We heard from Dean Martlew’s official police dossier that he was twenty-six, 187 centimetres, 173 pounds, hair brown.

‘The clothes as described by the two witnesses are similar: a dark double-breasted suit, light-coloured shirt, possibly white according to Mr Bates, a tie, dark like the suit but too far away for any decoration or pattern to be seen, no hat. Mr Rowan said that Terence Marshall-Perkins had bought refreshments at his snack bar several times in the past and that they passed the time of day on these occasions. Mr Bates said he had met Terence Marshall-Perkins once some months ago when Ambrose Tutte Turton introduced him on Dunkley Wharf. Both Mr Rowan and Mr Bates said that the man they saw on the evening of 8 June in the company of the accused and another man was, in their opinion, certainly Terence Marshall-Perkins, whom they knew from earlier close contact. It was evening, but the evening of a sunny summer day and the light excellent.’

Esther wondered if somebody had once called Iles ‘iconic’ in his hearing, and he’d decided this to be so brilliantly correct that he should act up to it. Or he might have read the word somewhere – about, say, Mandela or Castro – and at once seen a clear similarity to himself as deserving homage, though they were damned old and quite unBritish. Always Iles’s clothes looked chosen to excite worship. She recalled that magnificent suit Officer A sported at Fieldfare, and her idea then that the cloth held his shoulders the way a midwife might present a newborn child to its mother. Looking at Iles’s single-breasted grey job now, she felt this still a pretty good comparison, though not quite magnificent enough. This jacket, too, cosseted the shoulders brilliantly, but with the kind of joyous, delicate reverence a member of the Japanese royal family might show the long-awaited male baby heir to media cameras.

The judge said: ‘The evidence of Mr Rowan and Mr Bates gives the court, and specifically you, members of the jury, two considerable problems. First, have they got things right, and this man was Detective Sergeant Dean Martlew, known to them as Terence Marshall-Perkins? Against the evidence of Mr Rowan and Mr Bates we have to take what we heard from Ian Lysaght Brain, Maurice Cadenne and the accused. Of these, it is, of course, Ian Lysaght Brain who is the most significant. The Defence claim that the man Mr Rowan and Mr Bates took to be Terence Marshall-Perkins was, in fact, Ian Lysaght Brain. You have seen Mr Brain in the witness box and you have seen photographs of Dean Martlew and been given the police dossier account of his height, weight, build, age, hair colour. You have to decide whether there is a likeness and a likeness strong enough to have deceived Mr Rowan and Mr Bates from distances of 100 metres and 140 metres respectively in perfect light.

‘You may wish to give some weight to the fact that both Mr Rowan and Mr Bates were used to seeing Terence Marshall-Perkins on the wharf with the accused and that this might have influenced the identifications: sometimes if we are expecting to see something or somebody and we, in fact, see something or somebody approximately the same, we decide we are seeing what we anticipated seeing. The Defence say this was the first time Mr Ian Lysaght Brain had worked at the wharf with the accused, and that an error could easily have been made by Mr Rowan and Mr Bates. Mr Brain in his evidence says that he was with the accused and Mr Maurice Cadenne inspecting cargo from the vessel,
Astrolabe III,
at Dunkley Wharf on the evening of 8 June. He says Terence Marshall-Perkins was not present, and that in fact he had never met Marshall-Perkins, who left Cormax Turton before Brain joined. In their evidence, Mr Maurice Cadenne and the accused say Marshall-Perkins was not present, and that Mr Ian Lysaght Brain was the third member of the party at Dunkley Wharf on 8 June. Having seen Mr Ian Lysaght Brain in court Mr Rowan and Mr Bates agree he could have been the third man.’

Esther felt it would be short-changing Iles to regard his distinction as only a matter of garments. He could actually
sit
iconically, as now. Esther fantasized: on a Hollywood set where the chair-backs of some crew members were labelled – ‘Director’, for instance or ‘Continuity’ – Iles’s would carry the simple word, ‘Icon’. It amazed Esther that the judge seemed able to trundle on imperturbably while Iles from no real distance gave her his dogged, stupendously unmatey glare. Anyone coming into this courtroom and knowing nothing about the proceedings would soon feel where dominance lay: not with the methodically gabbing judge but with Iles, although entirely quiet and motionless today.

The judge said: ‘I come to the second problem associated with this part of the evidence. We are here trying a case in which Ambrose Tutte Turton is accused of the murder of Detective Sergeant Dean Martlew. No evidence has been shown to us as to where, how and exactly when this murder took place. The Prosecution’s case rests on the assertion that Ambrose Tutte Turton was, allegedly, one of the last people to see Martlew alive, and that Turton would have a motive for the murder if he had discovered the supposed member of staff, Terence Marshall-Perkins, to be, in fact, a police undercover detective. This has not been proved, and, as I’ve already mentioned, the accused denies that knowledge.’

Although Iles maintained such stillness now, at other times, when on his feet and moving about, he had what seemed to Esther amazing lightness, grace and confidence. She’d noticed it even on that memorial visit to the stony beach at Pastel Head. Esther had the feeling Iles could gracefully snake up behind someone he’d lost patience with on some account or another and break their skull open with one blow from a cosh, or garrotte them, in what would seem to anybody observing a single, easy, fluid, textbook sequence. He was only of middle height and slight – not traditional male police build at all – yet he conveyed somehow a sense of brisk physical power, and famously once with a single butt broke the nose of a colleague at an otherwise almost civilized Force function.
^*
Although many said he had driven one of his former Chief Constables into breakdown by open, affectionate contempt and laughing disregard for his orders, he showed almost pathological loyalty to subordinates. This might help explain why he had never got over the death of his Out-loc officer, and why he felt compelled to attend this vaguely similar trial.

The judge said: ‘The Prosecution maintains Dean Martlew was put to death in an unknown location sometime shortly after the wharf visit. The difficulty here is not only the accused’s denial he ever knew Terence Marshall-Perkins to be the police. In addition, you might not think it sufficient for the Prosecution to try to demonstrate, through witnesses Rowan and Bates, that Dean Martlew was one of the three men at Dunkley Wharf. This, even if true, cannot of itself prove the accused killed Dean Martlew. The Prosecution asks you to make the following deductions: if you believe it to have been established that Dean Martlew
was
one of the three, then you will ask yourselves why would Ambrose Tutte Turton claim – backed by two Cormax Turton witnesses – that Mr Rowan and Mr Bates were mistaken, and have mixed up Terence Marshall-Perkins with Ian Lysaght Brain? The Prosecution argues that there can only be one answer to this: the accused wishes to refute any report that he was seen with Terence Marshall-Perkins on 8 June, the likely date of the murder. Why?

‘The Prosecution says the logical inference is that Ambrose Tutte Turton murdered Dean Martlew on or about that date. The Prosecution maintains that all the circumstances of the occasion, including the possible discovery by Cormax Turton of Marshall-Perkins’ real identity, point to Ambrose Tutte Turton as responsible for the death. I have just referred to “the circumstances of the occasion”: this kind of evidence is, in fact, called “circumstantial”. It is not the same as what is termed “direct evidence”, when a witness describes a crime that he/she actually saw being committed. Circumstantial evidence can only go so far and requires us – requires a jury – to fill in certain gaps. Obviously, this must not be done by casual guesswork.

‘Members of the jury, you have to look at those events you have decided to be true, and then ask yourselves whether they indicate beyond reasonable doubt that some other event or events would inevitably follow. In this case, it means you would come to the conclusion that Terence Marshall-Perkins did not leave Cormax Turton on 27 May, and was with Ambrose Tutte Turton at Dunkley Wharf on 8 June; and that the false evidence given by Cormax Turton indicates there is something to be hidden, namely, the murder of Dean Martlew by Ambrose Tutte Turton. Nobody else is charged with the murder, though Mr Maurice Cadenne appears also to have been present at Dunkley on 8 June. No explanation was given by the Prosecution for this omission, and it is for you to consider why this might be. Is it because the police have long been set on targeting a major figure in Cormax Turton, rather than an employee, and did not wish to widen the focus of their case, perhaps weakening it in some particulars? Or might there be some other hidden reason?’

Iles said: ‘May I ask, Esther, is there someone who wears a bow-tie associated with you at all?’

‘What?’ she replied.

‘Or perhaps a stalker.’

‘Where?’ She glanced about. They were on the steps outside the court: an adjournment.

‘A musician, possibly,’ Iles said.

‘Well, yes.’

‘Or machine-gun hit-man.’

‘But where?’

‘Carrying an instrument in a case – woodwind, I think, if not a Kalashnikov. Bassoon?’

‘Where?’

‘Was watching you very intently from under the Central Market sign across the road.’

‘No, I don’t see anyone like that.’ God, she ought to be able to recognize Gerald.

‘You had your back to him. He seemed to realize I’d noticed his vigil and at once went out of sight into the market.’

‘My husband.’

‘Oh? A yellow bow-tie, red spots, worn loosely.’

‘Yes, my husband, Gerald. There can be complications. I expect you know how it is. You’re married?’

‘He really watched you,’ Iles replied.

‘He has an interest in trials – that kind of thing. Trials as trials.’

‘Especially when you are personally concerned, I expect.’

‘And court architecture – as symbolic of a particular law-and-order system, but in the broadest sense. He’d be much taken with the façade here.’

‘Fascinating.’

‘A professional bassoonist,’ she replied.

The judge had broken for lunch. She said she would need a couple more hours afterwards before sending the jury home with instructions to come in tomorrow morning and start discussing their verdict. Iles had Mr Martlew with him.

‘Will he join you?’ Iles said.

‘My husband? I don’t know.’ But she doubted it and highspeed prayed he wouldn’t. There’d be something especially untoward about a disturbance in the street here, near the courthouse. He’d seen her with two men and would probably think he understood now why she’d discouraged him from coming to the trial. Perhaps he’d guess Iles to be Iles: Esther had mentioned the great tailoring, and it would be apparent to Gerald although 100 metres off.

‘I’ve suggested to Mr Martlew that we look for a pie and a pint somewhere,’ Iles said. ‘Perhaps if Gerald’s not coming back from his market visit you’ll eat with us?’

Oh, God. ‘If he was carrying his bassoon he might be on his way to some work. They’ll phone for him in emergencies – when an orchestra or group is short, because of illness and so on. He’s mainly bassoon but oboe and clarinet also, if pushed.’ Maybe the Millicent had at last heard her hints and wanted him to do a rehearsal run-through for the tea dance this afternoon. Of course, she had never spoken of the possible Millicent work to him, fearing he would feel degraded and go into one of his all-out diva fits, bawling about crappy music for the ancient, limping, waltzing, early-home bourgeoisie. But if the offer had come seemingly direct and unsolicited . . . well, an offer was an offer in a bleak calendar. The hotel stood near. He might have wanted to announce his triumph to her. A call on the mobile could have seemed inadequate. It would be important for him to come to her damn prestige milieu, the court, and confront Esther in those surrounds with his proud, unique, earned news.

And then, what happens? He sees her with Iles and Martlew. Gerald’s disappointment and rage would not get soothed by the comfy, local-produce aroma of Central Market. She wondered whether she should go at once and look for him among the traders. But, of course, if Esther found him he would ask – and ask at artistic-temperament volume, full shindig volume – how she could possibly know he was in the market. He’d disturb business, and pull a ready audience. An ACC mustn’t be associated with that kind of froth-flecked public strife among stalls selling cold meats or sisal matting. Police might be called. Gerald would have noted Esther had her back to him at first, and it was bound to make him even more embittered if he thought that one or other of the men had spotted him staring and alerted Esther. This he would consider cheeky and intrusive, and regard Esther’s acceptance of the tip-off as treachery, especially as it had been completely right.

‘I expect he mentioned the fucking bow-tie, did he, did he?’ She could imagine Gerald screaming something like that at her in the market. Occasionally, he could reveal painful, disarming self-awareness, though he still kept on with the fucking bow-ties. ‘This seemed distinctive and comic to him, did it, did it?’ Naturally, Esther would not admit the bow-tie had singled him out, and certainly not the ‘worn loosely’ aspect. She’d have said it was the bassoon made him noticeable. That might work. But it could also go wrong. The bassoon represented his victory, his recall to life, and earnings, and he had wanted her alone to share this with him today. Instead, the bassoon’s role had been hijacked and changed. It had become something that simply labelled him ‘musician’, just as carrying a broom said ‘road sweeper’. This, too, would wound and inflame him. On balance then, Esther decided it would be best not to seek him in the market. Besides, if he was on his way to a rehearsal at the Millicent he might have left the building via the rear doors, which would take him closer to the hotel.