Common Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

considerably less distinguished. The beautifully proportioned entrance hall had been partitioned to provide a waiting room and offices and comfortless plastic chairs abounded where Chippendale furniture might once have stood. The paintwork was grubby and chipped and there was a pervasive odor of stale bodies and cigarette smoke. Lindsay felt Cara’s grip tighten as they encountered the usual odd mixture of people found in magistrates’ courts. Uniformed policemen bustled from room to room, up and down stairs. A couple of court ushers in robes like Hammer Horror vampires stood gossiping by the WRVS tea stand from which a middle-aged woman dispensed gray coffee and orange tea. The other extras in this scene were the defeated-looking victims of the legal process, several of them in whispering huddles with their spry and well-dressed solicitors.
    For once, Lindsay felt out of her element in a court. She put it down to the unfamiliar presence of a four-year-old on the end of her arm, and approached the ushers. They directed her to the café upstairs where she had arranged to meet Judith. The solicitor was already sitting at a table, dressed for business in a black pinstripe suit and an oyster gray shirt. She fetched coffee for Lindsay and orange juice for Cara, then said, “I’d quite like it if you were in court throughout, Lindsay. How do you think Cara will cope if we ask a friendly policeman to keep an eye on her? Or has she already acquired the peace women’s distrust of them?”
    Lindsay shrugged. “Best to ask Cara.” She turned to her and said, “We’re supposed to go into court now, but I don’t think you’re allowed in. How would it be if we were to ask a policeman to sit and talk to you while we’re away?”
    â€œAre you going to get my mummy?” asked Cara.
    â€œIn a little while.”
    â€œOkay, then. But you won’t be long, will you, Lindsay?”
    â€œNo, promise.”
    They walked downstairs to the corridor outside the courtroom and Judith went in search of help. She returned quickly with a young policewoman who introduced herself to Cara.
    â€œMy name’s Barbara,” she said. “I’m going to sit with you till Mummy gets back. Is that all right?”
    â€œI suppose so,” said Cara grudgingly. “Do you know any good stories?”
    As Lindsay and Judith entered the courtroom, they heard Cara ask one of her best questions. “My mummy says the police are there to help us. So why did the police take my mummy away?”
    The courtroom itself was scarcely altered from the house’s heyday. The parquet floor was highly polished, the paintwork gleaming white. Behind a table on a raised dais at one end of the room sat the three magistrates. The chairwoman, aged about forty-five, had hair so heavily lacquered that it might have been molded in fiberglass and her mouth, too, was set in a hard line. She was flanked by two men. One was in his late fifties, with the healthy, weatherbeaten look of a keen sailor. The other, in his middle thirties, with dark brown hair neatly cut and styled, could have been a young business executive in his spotless shirt and dark suit. His face was slightly puffy round the eyes and jowls and he wore an air of dissatisfaction with the world.
    The court wound up its summary hearing of a drunk and disorderly with a swift £40 fine and moved on to Deborah’s case.
    Lindsay sat down on a hard wooden chair at the back of the room as Deborah was led in looking tired and disheveled. Her jeans and shirt looked slept in, and her hair needed washing. Lindsay reflected, not for the first time, how the law’s delays inevitably made the person in police custody look like a tramp.
    Deborah’s eyes flicked round the courtroom as a uniformed inspector read out the charges. When she saw Lindsay she flashed a smile of relief before turning back to the magistrates and answering the court