As Sue approached the courtroom that afternoon, she noticed Mark sitting in the waiting area, reading a newspaper. He wore a white shirt, open at the neck, dark jeans and desert boots. Sue thought he hadn’t dressed up sufficiently for court, then she wondered if she had overdone things, herself. She’d ensured she wore a suit and some shoes with a kitten heel. She hovered by his elbow, until he looked up and noticed her.
‘Is it all right for me to sit next to you, do you know?’ she asked.
Mark shrugged. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘We’re both witnesses, aren’t we? I was told you’re on before me. I thought, maybe we weren’t supposed to speak to each other.’
Mark frowned. Sue wondered if she had overdone it – the formality. She hadn’t wanted to just plonk herself down, especially if he was nervous. Some people wouldn’t have cared. She bet the Rosa Barreras of this world would have dived straight in. But if Mark thought her starchy, he didn’t say.
‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ he said. ‘If you’re worried, you could sit over there.’ He pointed to a row of seats across the corridor.
That wasn’t what Sue had wanted or expected. Now she’d put herself in a difficult position. If she sat next to Mark, it would appear as if she didn’t care about thwarting rules, important rules to prevent perverting the course of justice. But, if she sat over the other side of the corridor, he would think she was a pedant or, worse, that she had something to say about Brett’s death which might compromise him. Why hadn’t she just sat down without saying anything?
‘I’m sure it’s fine, here too,’ she said. ‘This is where they told me to sit. That’s what I’ll say if they ask.’
She wondered if Mark shifted just a few centimetres as she settled herself down next to him. Perhaps he was being courteous, not wanting that awkwardness which could come when you accidentally brushed against the arm – or worse still, the leg – of a friend or work colleague. That was what men – yes it was usually men, she wasn’t being sexist, just telling it how it was – gave as an excuse, when you complained about them.
‘How have you been?’ she asked Mark.
He stopped reading.
‘All right. You?’
Sue gave a half smile. ‘Not so great, actually. We had a break in overnight, at my lab.’ Her eyes rested on Mark’s face, longer than she would normally have dared.
‘Was anything stolen?’ he asked, withstanding her scrutiny without turning a hair.
‘No. It’s just…someone turned up the temperature. All our larvae hatched.’
‘Is that bad?’
‘The animal feed is larvae-based. Once they hatch into the adult flies, it’s no good.’
Sue had told herself to put the episode behind her, at least for now, when she had to focus on the court hearing. She applied pressure to her right leg, to prevent it from shaking. She didn’t tell Mark how the glass containers had similarly vibrated, as her quivering progeny fought for survival; the equivalent of a mass stampede in a kindergarten, the life being squeezed from them, before they even took one breath of real air.
‘You mean it was all wasted,’ he said, his words indicating a modicum of interest, but he still had one eye on his newspaper.
‘We had to switch everything off, clean out all the tanks and bring in some newly hatched larvae,’ Sue said. ‘It’s set us back, but it’s not just the cost. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get all the test results in in time. If I don’t, all my research over the past six months will have been for nothing.’ This, of course, was untrue, but it could have been true if Sue hadn’t been so well organised and cleaned up so quickly. Other, less determined people might have failed, faced with this kind of setback.
Mark looked at her now, full on. ‘That does sound bad. I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘Do they know who did it?’
‘The police came. They didn’t seem interested. But I’ve asked them to come back again and check all the cameras.’
‘Are you sure it was a break-in? Maybe someone just got the temperature wrong, got distracted? Someone made a mistake, most likely.’ Mark continued to look at Sue and held her gaze for a second or two more than she thought was normal, as if he was certain that he was right and wanted her to know that. But Sue was less bothered by the look and more by his words.
A mistake? she bristled. Another mistake. Did he think she was so incompetent that she would change the temperature on twenty-four separate containers by mistake?
‘We’re all very careful,’ she said. Then she picked herself up and sat herself down for a second time, in the chairs on the opposite side of the corridor.
Mark’s eyes followed her again, over to her new perch. He frowned. Then he returned to reading his paper.
***
Andy called out to Judith from behind as she headed down the steps towards court after the lunch break. ‘Judith, can we have a word?’
She waited for him to catch up.
‘You may have noticed I didn’t say anything about the film.’
‘Film?’
‘The video you showed Diana Percival. From Zoe Whitman’s phone. No one has verified it as genuine. I could have objected…’
‘You’d have lost,’ Judith said.
‘I would have been allowed an adjournment to review it…’
‘Which would have wasted everyone’s time for no good reason.’
‘Which is why I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m a pushover.’
Judith wondered what Andy was really getting at with his protestation. Was he just vain, worried what she thought of him, what she might say if asked to provide feedback on his performance: sloppy, took it for granted that he would win, unprepared to graft, or was there something else at play?
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘You were being pragmatic, which is admirable.’
She began to move off, but Andy drew level again.
‘I hope you’ll do me the same courtesy, if the opportunity arises,’ he said.
Ah, so that was it. Tit for tat. You scratch my back and all that, which had never been Judith’s scene. Andy was laying down a marker, stacking up favours, or so he hoped. ‘I can’t promise,’ Judith said, ‘you know that. But your…expectation is duly noted. That’s the best you’ll get from me.’
***
‘Mr Sumner, you are a farmer?’ Andy began in familiar mode, and Judith had to fight the temptation to comment to Constance that the public was to be treated to yet another witness CV.
‘Yes, Lee Way Farm in Hertfordshire,’ Mark replied. ‘I also work closely with the board of the sustainable beef campaign.’
‘What were you doing at Brett Ingram’s meeting?
‘If you mean, why was I invited, then it was to talk about my work. There was a report out earlier this year, by the Food Farming and Countryside Commission, endorsing everything we do. Explaining that the carbon impact of beef livestock is less than we all thought and reinforcing that our pasture-based system of farming is nothing like other countries. Essentially, grass grows here in the UK without much help and cows take that grass and convert it, very efficiently, into beef – a pure source of protein. And, with a few tweaks here or there, we could be carbon-neutral by 2030. The clear message was that no one is forcing you to eat beef, but don’t give it up for climate reasons. Your t-shirt from Boho probably had a bigger impact on the environment than your T-bone steak.’
‘Is it true that Brett Ingram was a supporter?’ Andy asked.
‘Brett was interested in good-quality food, whatever it was. That’s what’s most important. We don’t want imported chlorinated chickens or hormone-fed beef. We want local beef fed on lush grass, watered by rain. And I’m not against people substituting vegetables for meat, like I said, even if that’s for a number of meals. But we can’t get away from the fact that a vegan diet can leave many people deficient, particularly in iron and vitamin B12. Red meat is also high in potassium and zinc. You also have to ask what we would do if eight billion people decided they wanted to give up meat and dairy and only eat plants. And in the UK alone we import around forty-seven per cent of our food already. If we were trying to feed our entire population on nuts and soy – products we don’t produce here – that would have an enormous impact on carbon footprint, leaving aside the demand for new arable land for farming.’
Judith found her fingers tapping lightly against her notepad. She knew what Mark and the beef brigade said to justify their stance. Mark was simply repeating the material emblazoned across the National Farmers’ Union website, and this was rapidly turning into some kind of campaign speech. But given that Greg had not found anything among Brett’s emails which supported a specific falling out with Mark or the NFU, if she was going to hint at conflict, it would be based wholly on conjecture. Constance dug her in the ribs. ‘He hasn’t answered the question,’ she whispered, loud enough that Andy turned around and frowned at her. Judith obliged by half-rising to her feet.
‘My Lord, it might be helpful to the court if Mr Sumner indicated whether, as my learned friend asked, Mr Ingram supported this local, grass-fed beef initiative that he has so eloquently described.’
‘Of course he did,’ Mark replied. ‘British beef is quality beef and that’s what he wanted in stores.’
Andy began to take Mark through the events of the 13th of April, but there was nothing new, although he corroborated Adrian’s evidence about Brett eating a sandwich. By the end of his evidence, Judge Linton was twisting a loose thread on the sleeve of his jacket around one of his buttons, his lips drawn together in concentration. Although she had sympathy with the judge, given that she felt Mark had little to add, Judith allowed one of her books to fall from her lectern onto the desk with a low thud, as she stood up to take over, and this was sufficient to attract the learned judge’s attention. She had already decided that she would grasp the nettle with Mark and try to find out what he and Brett had really been discussing at Tanners’ Hall. At worst, it would allow the jury a whiff of her murder-by-a-competitor theories.
‘Hello Mr Sumner,’ she began. ‘I understand that during the course of lunch at the 13th of April event, you particularly wanted to speak to Mr Ingram about something.’
‘Well, not anything special… I was a guest like everyone else. We all wanted to talk to the main man.’
‘Miss Percival said you were quite insistent that you speak to Brett before the public part of the meeting. You asked her to find him, if she could. She eventually located him outside, in the car park and you joined him out there. Does that jog your memory?’
Mark’s face seemed to grow to double its usual size and he ran a finger around the inside of his open collar.
‘It wasn’t anything about…nothing about…’
‘What wasn’t it about?’ Judith asked.
‘I’m not sure I remember now.’ He frowned and shook his head.
‘Brett Ingram was in favour, as I understand it, of giving consumers as much information on packaging as possible, regarding what was inside, including its precise source and, in the case of livestock, that included how the animal had been killed.’
‘If you say so,’ Mark said. His face reverted to its usual size, but he fidgeted again, adjusting his shirt, at the cuff. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘That’s not what you were talking to him about that day?’
‘No. I mean… No. I don’t know anything about that.’
‘Were you aware of any enemies Brett might have made, because of his stance on food quality? It sounds like you are in favour, but clearly not everyone shares that view.’
Mark held Judith’s gaze. ‘If you’re in business, you can’t please everyone,’ he said, eventually, ‘but “enemies” sounds like you mean something really serious, like someone who would want to hurt Brett. I don’t know anyone like that.’
‘All right. What were you talking to him about, then?’
‘Just what I said a minute ago, about supporting beef farmers, promoting us, that kind of thing.’
As Mark was sticking to his story, Judith decided to move on. ‘Before Mr Ingram’s collapse, did you see anything to indicate that he may be feeling ill?’
Mark hesitated. He looked at Andy, then over at Judith and behind her to Constance, who obliged by leaning over so that she was not in Judith’s shadow.
‘I didn’t know the man well, OK? But when she took me to him, Diana took me out to him in the car park, he didn’t look all that great. I can’t say what or why, but I just had the feeling at the time.’
‘Was there anything in particular…’
‘I…he was kind of leaning back against his car, he had his phone in his hand. At the time I thought he’d had a difficult call with someone – that sort of thing. Then, when we got talking, he seemed OK. We went back inside together. Now you’re asking, he might have felt ill and he’d gone outside for some fresh air. I left him talking to Diana.’
‘We saw a video earlier today of Brett’s collapse, filmed by Zoe on her phone. At one point, he said something to Diana. Do you have any idea what that was?’
Mark shook his head. ‘I was there at the beginning when he collapsed, but then I tried to keep the audience away and Diana sent me off looking for a defibrillator. It was just those two left with Brett then: Adrian and Diana.’
Judith reflected on how all roads seemed to lead back to Diana. But none of this took her any further with Nick’s defence. She nodded to Mark. ‘That’s all from me, Mr Sumner, thank you,’ she said.
Judge Linton checked his watch. It was hardly 3pm but he closed his laptop with an air of finality.
‘I’m not sitting tomorrow,’ he said. ‘You should have been informed.’
Judith exchanged a glance with Andy which confirmed to her that neither of them had known this was the case. Judge Linton frowned.
‘And Mr Chambers, I see you have another two witnesses. You do understand how precious court time is, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course, My Lord.’
‘How we’re desperately trying to clear our backlog.’
Judith thought, but did not say, that taking a Friday off during a trial was not going to assist that objective.
‘Yes, I’m aware, My Lord.’
‘So, I suggest you use the interval wisely, to think really hard about whether you need those two witnesses. At least two of those you’ve brought before me so far have had nothing of any real value to add. If it happens again, I shall have something more serious to say. Back Monday then. Thank you.’
As Judge Linton stood up, everyone rose to their feet, and he left the court without another word.
‘And just like that, he was gone,’ Judith quipped to Constance, who smiled, but Judith could see she wasn’t entirely sure of the reference.
‘Usual Suspects, wasn’t it?’ Andy chipped in, although it was clear he was trying to be chirpy when he felt anything but, after his telling-off. ‘I had to watch it twice before I got it,’ he admitted. ‘Great film. One of Kevin Spacey’s best, if we’re allowed to say that any more. I imagine you worked it out first time though,’ he said to Judith.
‘I’m not sure I remember now,’ Judith said. ‘See you Monday.’