‘At what time did you leave your flat on the morning of 28 April?’ Ben asked.
‘About 11.30.’
‘How did you get to Mrs Cameron’s house?’
‘I walked.’
‘Why didn’t you drive? It’s quite a walk, isn’t it?’
‘I just wanted to walk. You can’t always park round there, and I didn’t want to be worried about it. And I wanted to think about things. I wasn’t sure what to do about the threat I’d received, whether to tell Mrs Cameron, you know, and I thought the walk might give me the chance to clear my head.’
‘Let me ask you about that. The jury may want to know why you didn’t tell someone about the threat immediately, either Mrs Cameron or the police.’
‘I know. I should have done, but you have to understand: she had my children, and if I told anybody, Danny Ice knew where my children lived, and I wasn’t sure any of us would be safe.’
‘So what did you decide to do?’
‘I decided not to tell anyone, and if Danny Ice tried anything, I would deal with it myself.’
‘What do you mean, exactly, deal with it yourself?’
‘Look after myself. My lads at the garage would deal with anything that happened there. They work with some pretty heavy duty tools, and it would be a stupid man that would try anything on at the garage. If it happened somewhere else, I would just have to look out for myself.’
‘But if –’
‘I know. Like I said, I should have told someone. But I didn’t.’
Ben nodded.
‘Did you take anything with you from the flat?’
Henry did not reply immediately.
‘Mr Lang?’
‘Yeah. I took a knife.’
‘I needn’t show it to you. Is that the knife the jury have seen, our Exhibit 2, one of the knives from the set in your kitchen?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How did you carry the knife?
‘I have a long jacket with a deep inside pocket.’
‘I’m sure it’s obvious to everyone,’ Ben said, ‘but was that a method of concealing the knife?’
‘Yeah, obviously.’
‘You didn’t want Mrs Cameron to see it?’
‘I didn’t want her to see it, and I didn’t want Susan to see it. We were having a meeting. I didn’t need them to know that I was carrying the knife. I hoped I wouldn’t need it.’
‘So that the jury are clear about this, Mr Lang, did you take the knife with you on 28 April because you had already decided to kill Susan?’
‘No. I would never have done that.’
‘In that case, why did you take the knife?’
‘Because I believed that Danny Ice was likely to use violence against me, and I needed the knife for self-defence.’
‘Looking back today –’
‘It was a stupid thing to do,’ Henry said. ‘I know that now, and if I could turn the clock back I would. But I can’t.’
‘How did the meeting go?’ Ben asked.
‘Just like I thought it would. It was a complete waste of time.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Mrs Cameron was trying her best to get us to come to some agreement, but Susan wasn’t interested in agreeing, and, to be honest, neither was I. Mrs Cameron wanted to know what kind of accommodation we had for the children, how we were going to look after them, that kind of thing. She wasn’t interested in the fact that they were being exposed to drugs and crime. She was more interested in whether I was working too hard, and who I was going to get to look after them when I worked late.’
‘What was the atmosphere like?’
‘It was all right. Susan and I were polite to each other, as much as we could be. She had the odd dig at me, but she could never resist that, and I didn’t react. Most of the time, I just wanted to get out of there, so I’m sure I didn’t make a great impression on Mrs Cameron, but I wanted to talk to her on her own, not with Susan there.’
‘I take it that no agreement was reached, then?’
Henry shook his head.
‘I would have been generous to her if she’d only agreed to let me keep my children. I would have let her see them whenever she wanted, and I would have offered her some money, maintenance, you know. But I didn’t want to say that in case Mrs Cameron got the wrong idea…’
‘You didn’t want her thinking you were trying to buy custody of the children?’
‘Yeah, and I wasn’t. That wasn’t my intention. It was just that I wanted Susan to see what she was doing to my children, and if she gave them back, that was all I would have asked of her. But that was the one thing she wouldn’t agree to.’