Friday 1 October 1971
The prison officer unlocked the conference room and ushered Ben, Barratt and Jess inside. It was a procedure that had become wearily familiar: the trip from the Temple to Brixton prison, where Henry Lang was on remand; the time-consuming process of being checked in, having briefcases and handbags emptied and examined; the delay while prison officials found an unoccupied conference room, protesting surprise at the visit even though it had been booked long in advance; the further delay while they searched for an officer free to escort Henry; the discomfort of the small claustrophobic windowless room with its hard metal table and chairs. And, of course, the frustration of interviewing a man who remembered everything except the events they needed him to remember. But now, there was the added pressure of the trial. This was Friday, and the trial was fixed for Monday. All they had left was a weekend.
Time after time, Jess had used her knowledge of the family proceedings to establish a full history of Henry’s life – his home background, education, business success; and the essential details of his marriage, the birth of his children, the beginning of the break-up, Susan’s leaving home with the children, and his decision to divorce her. Jess was patient in her questioning, and skilful in drawing information out of him. The trust she had gained during the family proceedings was intact, and he seemed at ease with Ben, who deliberately stayed in the background, asking only an occasional question to clarify something.
But each time, they had run into a brick wall which shut out any image of the occasion on which he had killed his wife. His last memory was leaving the house at about 11.30 in the morning on his way to see Wendy Cameron. After that, his mind was a complete blank until they returned him to Holborn Police Station from Barts hospital, two days later.
At first, Ben had found himself sceptical. They had confronted Henry time after time with the evidence of the police officers who had attended the scene. It was a compelling account of terrible violence wrought by a man with no history of violence, but with every reason to resent, and perhaps even to hate, his wife. As a trial lawyer, Ben struggled to believe that none of this vivid and dreadful evidence had released any fragment of memory at all, however small.
But as he got to know Henry better, he gradually came to share Jess’s belief that the amnesia was not an act. If it was an act, he grudgingly conceded to himself, it was a performance worthy of an Oscar. Very few people, if any, could have acted so well over such a prolonged period. He and Jess were not Henry’s only audience. Ben had seen the notes of two police interviews in which DI Webb and DS Raymond had gone over exactly the same ground as he and Jess, had tried just as hard, and had met with exactly the same result; and he had seen the report of a Dr Harvey, an expert in both neurology and psychiatry, whose opinion was that Henry’s inability to remember was not inconsistent with the evidence of what had happened on the fateful Wednesday.
But while he was glad to think that Henry was genuine, Ben knew that it offered little hope for the trial that was about to start. If he couldn’t offer the jury some explanation for what he had done to his wife, he would leave them with little choice. A conviction for murder and a sentence of life imprisonment were staring Henry Lang in the face.
Ben was arranging his papers on the table, Jess was whispering something to Barratt, when Henry entered the cell. The prison officer slammed the door shut and locked it from the outside, leaving the four of them alone together. Ben got up to shake hands, but Henry stood rigidly just inside the door, making no movement towards him.
‘I’ve remembered,’ he said quietly.
For some time, no one spoke.
‘What?’ Ben asked.
‘I’ve remembered what happened,’ Henry replied.
He suddenly sat down on the floor, and began to weep, more and more loudly until his weeping became a howl and finally a scream.