The next get-together for the taskforce took place seven days later. They didn’t have meetings anymore. The edge had gone, the flow of tasks which had to be completed, one following on another as a coherent picture emerged, that had gone as well. All of it, the whole bundle, had been passed on to someone else. It was remarkable how very rapidly they became institutionalised again, hardly passing beyond the Village gates save for shopping and in Cynthia’s case, going across the road to spend time with David. Apart from that it was back to the coffee and papers, lunch and dinner with the brandy evenings carefully bookmarked. Even the get-together wasn’t formally arranged in advance. It was George meeting up with Gladys and Cynthia on their way back from the main hall in the morning and suggesting they have a chat. They sat down in Cynthia’s kitchen in the same seats they’d occupied before. It was Gladys who articulated best how they all felt. “Who would have thought,” she asked, wafting in the air the latest mention of the case in the paper, “that our finding a credit card out there on the common would lead to all this?”
The surprise at the arrest of Helena Ahmed was now part of the scenery, the political protest and the outrage that the police had taken advantage of a fleeting visit to London to set the trial in motion was still boiling. Government reaction had been that the law as always must be allowed to take its course. Behind the scenes, the message must have filtered down—“You’d better be sure you’ve got this right.”
“They must have put more flesh on the bones,” George said as he watched Cynthia boiling the kettle. “They must have built something more substantial on what we gave them to set all this in motion. I always thought my successor was good at handling the politics. She’s going to have to be at the top of her game now.”
“I’ve had people here who are following the case coming up to me asking me how I think it’s going to work out.”
“After your article about Shamira they probably think you have the inside track.”
Gladys pulled over her coffee cup while mouthing a silent thank you. “Well. I don’t, and it’s all making me feel quite jittery. I never realised what an inspiration this lady Helena Ahmed is.”
“Me too,” Cynthia chimed in. “I feel very uneasy that we have played a role in having her arrested. Picking her up at the airport like that as though she’s a common criminal doesn’t sit well with me either. I saw enough of what overbearing regimes can do to people in my job. Helena Ahmed stands for much of what I believe in. She’s a supporter of downtrodden women, not only in her own country but everywhere.”
“It’s a good thing you’re not going to be on the jury,” said George.
“How so?”
“How so? Because you’ve clearly made up your mind already. The whole principle of being a jury member is that you keep an open mind. Richard Pennington was murdered and his body was dumped. He surely deserves justice.”
“But he was a confirmed womaniser and judging by our experience at his bank quite possibly a fraudster as well.”
“Quite right—the FCA is investigating the bank and I’ve heard the Reserve Account has been suspended. The bank’s accountants were a small firm and they’ve been suspended as well, so that’s being taken care for. It doesn’t alter the fact that Pennington deserves justice. As for the arrest at the airport, surely, if the police have the evidence, that’s the right step to take. If they had to go for extradition that could take years and very likely wouldn’t be successful.”
Cynthia fell silent at this point. She had to admit one thing, namely that George was spot on about her unsuitability to be a juror. Here was a lady who was a champion of women’s rights making a difference in the world being put on trial for the murder of a prime example of low life. When they had started out with the taskforce it had been fun, an adventure offering relief from the tedium of life at the Village. Now she wished down to the bottom of her gut that she had embraced that tedium. A brief study of the expression on Gladys’s face told her that her friend’s feelings were a carbon copy of her own. George had been a policeman all his working life, she told herself, and once a policeman, always a policeman. Their views were bound to differ—it was something she’d have to accept.
“Let’s get back to practicalities,” she heard George continue. “The trial is kicking off in two and a half weeks’ time. The Court is about an hour’s drive from here and the public gallery will probably have room for around thirty members of the public. We need to discuss our best shot at being there.”
“Being there?” gasped Gladys. “Why in heaven’s name would we want to do that?”
George bore down on the arms of his chair, although his voice remained light. “Whatever your feelings about the protagonists, don’t you want to witness the outcome of all the work we did?”
“At the moment,” Cynthia responded, “I feel the same as Gladys. I don’t want to see this poor woman hounded. But, if I changed my mind, we’d have to set off awfully early, wouldn’t we?”
George nodded and gave her one of those smiles which she was starting to value. “There’s a car park beside the courthouse building. I’ve done the research. I would think we would need to be there by eight to park the car and get a place in the queue. I will tell you—I’m definitely going and, if I’m unsuccessful getting the first day, I’ll turn up earlier for the next one. If I’m on my own, I’ll have to bite the bullet and accept it, but I’d far rather be in Gladys’s red roadster with the two of you. You decide between yourselves and let me know.”
He gave them both a cheery wave and left. Cynthia busied herself clearing away the coffee cups.
“I don’t care what he says.” Gladys’s mouth was set in a thin line. “I’m not going.”
Cynthia turned away from the sink to face her. “As he says, there are two and a half weeks to go before the trial starts. We’ve got plenty of time to talk. Let’s make up our minds then.”
**
The session with her lawyer got off to an unexpected start. As the cell door opened to admit Shafiq he appeared energised and alert. The shambling, kindly figure she’d seen before had been very different. “Come with me,” he said.
“What?” Helena exclaimed. “This is my world now, where I have to stay. I don’t even know how you managed to arrange that. I expected to be lying in the dirt in a women’s prison.”
“I arranged it by asking for bail.”
“I told you not to do that. How can I trust you if you don’t follow my instructions?”
“But I did follow them. I sought to reach the best compromise I could for you by keeping you here. I told you there was a ninety percent chance bail would be refused. Actually I’d calculated it at one hundred percent but I wanted to give a glimmer of hope in case you wanted to go for it. By asking for bail and emphasising your high profile, which could well put you at risk as a non-convicted person in a prison, I looked for a compromise. Mr Hook objected forcefully to bail, as I expected. However, he couldn’t deny that it would be counterproductive to turn you into a martyr. Crowds are already out on the street in your support. It took a while but the judge finally agreed to this unconventional arrangement we have here. I explain all this to show the importance of our working together.”
Helena couldn’t conceal a smile. “All right, but surely that’s all the more reason why I have to stay in the cell.”
“Not at all—you know as well as I do that the police have to provide a room where you can talk to your defence counsel in secret without being overheard. You have that facility as well—indeed, the judge emphasised that it had to be available.” He held out his arm to show the way. “So that’s where we’re going.” And Helena, who hadn’t left the cell for a week, went out and followed him. She found herself in what was obviously a meeting room with chairs skewed at angles as though the last session had only recently vacated. They sat down opposite each other. She looked around. The room seemed enormous.
“Don’t worry,” Shafiq assured her, “there’s no audio in here. Now tell me, how are they treating you?”
“They’re pulling out all the stops, really. I have enough clothes to fill a charity shop. They collect them from my niece, provided by my supporters. They’ve told me I’ll have to wear a standard issue jumpsuit in court. Of course, nobody can know where I’m being held—that’s part of the deal. As for food, I’m not eating much, but whatever I want I can get.”
“And the nights? I had a word.”
“Yes, they stopped the inspections. I can sleep now.”
“They should take you for a walk round the station each day. I’ll have a word about that too.” He pulled the battered briefcase he’d been carrying up on to the desk and clicked the catch to open it. “There are some things I need to ask you. Firstly, do you want to take the stand? It would not be my advice to do so.”
“That’s good, because I would refuse.”
“It’s important to get that one out of the way. Now,” he pulled a page of notes in front of him, “the police questioned you after Pennington’s body was found. His time of death was estimated as being between noon and three pm. Did they ask you where you were between those hours?”
“They did.”
“And how did you reply?”
“I told them I was at work. I was in court in the morning and afternoon with a ninety-minute break for lunch.”
“And over that break?”
“I always took sandwiches with me or I went jogging. There were often things to do over the break and I was the junior member of the team.”
“The case you were working on was where you were prosecuting the man called Enver Kelmert, otherwise known at the Grouper?”
“That’s right. He was charged with money laundering and tax evasion.”
“And he was acquitted?”
“He was—two handwritten notes from him were lost. Without those as evidence the case fell. I was blamed for losing them and forced to leave the firm.”
“I understand you were told to put those letters in the safe.”
“I did—the next day they weren’t there.” She watched as Shafiq placed a neat tick against three lines of script on his sheet.
“Right—now, I want to ask you about your relationship with Pennington.”
“What relationship?”
The lawyer seemed to retreat back into his shell. “How well did you know him?”
“Hardly at all. I met him as a result of our firm doing some legal work for his bank. He asked me out a couple of times but I soon made it clear to him I didn’t want to see him again.”
“Why was that?”
“He wanted to go further than I was prepared for. If I’m going in for a relationship, I like to build it slowly and really get to know someone. That wasn’t his style. Also he was much older than me, but most of all he was very intolerant of my Muslim beliefs.”
“You mean religious beliefs?”
“Absolutely religious beliefs.”
Shafiq checked his notes. “According to prosecution submissions you met him again at a party and alleged that he raped you.”
Helena shook her head in apparent wonderment. “The British justice system never ceases to amaze me. I can’t believe my name stayed on that file. The story is quite simple. I met Pennington again by chance at a corporate occasion, not a party. He came on to me again and I agreed to go into another room with him so I could explain once and for all that I wasn’t interested in him. He then tried it again and I lodged a complaint with the police. His response was to deny that he had ever met me so I dropped the charge.”
“Why did you do that?”
Helena spread her arms wide. “I would have thought the answer to that is self-evident. I didn’t believe the police would take my complaint seriously. I left this country in disgust soon after and sought my future elsewhere.”
Shafiq applied two more ticks to his list and then gave her a beaming smile. “All right, that’s it for today. The trial is scheduled to begin in seventeen days. I’ll be along to see you regularly in the meantime.”
“Is there any point?”
“How do you mean?”
“Mr Narwaz, my faith in the justice system here is zero. My card is marked. Otherwise, why humiliate me by arresting me at the airport? I’m resigned to continuing my work from a prison cell and I have the inner strength to do that if I must.”
“Ms Ahmed, I would have volunteered to take your defence even if the High Commission hadn’t approached me. I’m here to provide you with the best possible defence I can and your attitude makes me all the more determined.”
“To prove me wrong you mean?”
“Something like that.”
It was Helena’s turn to smile, a very weary smile. “Mr Narwaz, I’m pleased to have you on my side.”