Read Online Yesterday's Papers by Martin Edwards - Free Book Online

but said nothing. Harry and Jim Crusoe had once speculated on what it would take to prompt Ronald to express surprise. Doubling his salary might do it, they agreed, but so far they had not been able to afford the temptation to put their theory to the test.
    Vaulkhard said, ‘So, Harry. A crucial cross-examination for us this morning. Let’s see if we can bait the trap.’
    A Liverpudlian born and bred, he had kept close to his roots, and life at the Bar had never rubbed the Scouse edge off his accent. His reputation was that of a crafty and cynical individualist, someone who did not quite fit in. The old men in smoke-filled rooms who made such decisions had never allowed him to take silk and Harry guessed they never would.
    â€˜Here come our clients,’ said Harry, glancing through the glass windows into Derby Square. He could see twenty or more journalists crowding Kevin and Jeannie Walter and throwing questions at them as if feeding fish to dolphins. It was plain that the real focus of their interest was Jeannie. Although her husband might be the plaintiff seeking huge damages, she was the character with reader-appeal. Love her or loathe her, Jeannie Walter had star quality and even the most hardbitten members of the pack were hanging on her every word.
    Pushing through the swing doors, she detached herself from the group of journalists and, her husband lumbering two paces behind, headed towards the lawyers. She moved as if on a catwalk, slinky and self-confident. Harry guessed she had been up as early as he had that morning, contriving her platinum curls into that exotic cascade. He had a gloomy feeling that she nurtured ambitions of becoming a new icon for the fashion industry.
    â€˜How’s my favourite pair of briefs?’ She squealed with laughter, as she always did when she cracked that joke, then rushed on without waiting for an answer. ‘Rarin’ to go, Paddy? Great!’
    â€˜Ready to give them bastards hell, I hope.’ Kevin Walter’s years in prison had left him with a carefully preserved sense of martyrdom and a vocal whine that set Harry’s teeth on edge. His skin was pallid, his shoulders hunched; he had suffered at the hands of the legal establishment and, like a cantankerous invalid, was bent upon making the most of his misfortune.
    â€˜The moment of truth!’ said Jeannie, her eyes gleaming.
    â€˜It’ll be a day to remember,’ said Vaulkhard wryly, ‘if we hear the truth in this court of law.’
    As he sat in the courtroom, listening to Vaulkhard question the detective sergeant who had taken Kevin Walter’s confession, Harry recalled a conversation from Crime and Punishment . He had read it as a schoolboy and the story of Raskolnikov’s downfall had made a lasting impression. In later life, it had even given him a little understanding of the forces that moved his own clients to their pointless acts of self-betrayal. A few lines about cross-examination stuck in his mind: Porfiry’s explanation of the method of starting an interrogation with trivial irrelevances as a means of putting the witness off his guard before stunning him with the most dangerous question of all. It seemed to him that Patrick Vaulkhard had taken the message to heart.
    The early exchanges were low-key, little more than a series of pleasantries. Vaulkhard lingered over the sergeant’s past record, and the commendations he’d received for shrewd detective work. The sergeant, a heavily built man in his forties, was on the alert for traps and for some time his responses were cautious and monosyllabic. But gradually he began to unbend and by the time Vaulkhard moved on to his part in the Walter case, he was in the mood to defend his actions with vigour.
    â€˜I suppose you will say that you were working long hours?’
    â€˜As a matter of fact, I was. We all were. It was an important investigation and we had plenty more on besides.’
    â€˜But you