‘Mr Lang, I want to ask you now about Wednesday 28 April. But before I get to the day itself, was there something that happened two days before, on Monday 26 April, which concerned you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Tell the jury about that, please.’
‘I was at work. It was about 10 o’clock, and this man came in and said he wanted to talk to me about getting his car serviced.’
‘Was this man someone you had met before?’
‘No, I’d never seen him before. He said he wanted a private chat, which usually means he wants to talk about how much it’s going to cost, and whether we take cheques or accept instalment payments, and all the rest of it, so I took him into the office. But it turned out he wasn’t interested in getting his car serviced.’
‘What was he interested in?’
‘He was interested in giving me a message. He said Danny Ice had sent him, and if I knew what was good for me, I would withdraw my custody application and let Susan keep the children.’
‘Did you recognise the name “Danny Ice”?’
‘Yeah, it was a name Louise had given me, as someone Susan had been associating with, someone involved in crime.’
‘What kind of crime?’
‘Well, we know that, don’t we?’ Mr Justice Rainer intervened.
‘We know now, my Lord,’ Ben agreed. ‘But Mr Lang, my question is what you knew about Danny Ice when this man came to see you?’
‘I only knew what Louise had told me, but she told me enough for me to believe that he was a serious bloke and he was up to no good. I didn’t need any more convincing about that.’
‘You took him seriously?’
‘Yeah, I did.’
‘Did the man who came to see you explain what he meant by if you “knew what was good for you”?’
‘He didn’t need to, did he? He opened his jacket, and I could see he was carrying a big knife – it looked like a hunting knife of some kind – and once he mentioned the name “Danny Ice”, I knew exactly what he meant.’
‘Yes, but we need to make sure that the jury are in no doubt about it. What did you think might happen to you if you didn’t withdraw your custody application?’
‘I believed that serious violence would be used against me.’
‘Did this man give you his name?’
‘No. He just said that Danny Ice had sent him.’
‘Did you say anything to the man?’
‘Yeah. I told him to get the hell out of my garage before I got my lads to throw him out.’
‘How did he respond to that?’
‘He just smiled – but he did get out.’
‘Did you think about withdrawing your custody application?’
‘What, and leave my children with Susan, when she was running around with people like that, and doing drugs? No, I didn’t think about it; not even for a minute.’
‘Let’s come, then, to 28 April,’ Ben said. ‘Mr Justice Wesley had asked Mrs Cameron to report on the case, and she had asked you both to come to her house for a meeting at 12.30: is that right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘All right. I want to take things slightly out of chronological order. First of all, the jury have heard the medical evidence, which was that immediately after stabbing Susan, you experienced a form of shock, which lasted for two days. Is that right?’
‘It is, yeah.’
‘What effect, if any, did that shock have on your subsequent memory of the events of 28 April?’
Henry shook his head.
‘I lost all memory of the events from leaving home in the morning to being in a cell at the police station when they brought me back from hospital two days later.’
‘You remembered nothing at all?’
‘It was a total blank.’
‘Did there come a time when your memory of 28 April returned?’
‘Yeah. Last Thursday evening, at about 8 o’clock.’
Ben paused.
‘Mr Lang, you understand, I’m sure, that the prosecution will say it’s just a bit too convenient that your memory comes back a few days before your trial begins, when you’ve been asked about it repeatedly, not only by the police, but also by Miss Farrar, Mr Davis and myself. What do you say about that?’
Henry nodded.
‘Honestly? If it happened to somebody else, I would probably be saying the same thing as Mr Pilkington. All I can say is, that’s what happened to me. It’s not something you have any control over.’
‘And you told us about it when we saw you the following afternoon?’
‘I did, yeah.’
‘How did it feel when it all came back to you?’
The tears were welling up again.
‘It was horrible. I was physically sick. I didn’t sleep. I lay awake all night, reliving it. If you want to know the truth, I wish it hadn’t come back. If I could wipe the memory out forever, I would.’
‘Even though you wouldn’t be able to tell the jury what happened?’
‘Despite that. Yeah.’