"Innes, Hammond - The Doomed Oasis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Innes Hammond)

The Judge's voice suddenly interjected: 'How long ago?' His hand was cupped to his ear.

'Four years, my Lord.'

The Prosecution moved a step nearer, hands hung in the lapels of his jacket, the skin of the face cool as parchment in the humid heat. 'I will ask the witness to take his mind back now to the afternoon of March twenty-first four years ago. On that afternoon you received a telephone call from a Mrs Thomas of Seventeen, Everdale Road, Cardiff. And as a result of that telephone call you went to that address.'

'Yes.'

'Perhaps you will now tell the Court in your own words what happened--'






II. THE WHOLE TRUTH





1. Escape to Saraifa


Everdale Road was in the Grangetown district of Cardiff. It was one of those terrace streets of grim Victorian brick, roofs hunched against the wet west wind, windowed eyes peering blindly for the view of river and sea that was blocked by other similar houses. Two streets away and you could look across the Taff to the litter of cranes, the glimpse of funnels that marked the Bute Docks. It always depressed me, this area of Cardiff; it lacked the squalid colour of Tiger Bay, the bridge across the Taff seeming to cut it off from the toughness and sense of purpose that gave a lift to the real dock area. The street was deserted except for one car, a small black saloon. It stood outside number seventeen, and as I drew in to the kerb behind it, I glanced quickly at the house. There was nothing to distinguish it from the others, except the number. A light was on in one of the downstairs rooms. Neat lace curtains were looped back from the windows.

I got out and rang the bell, wondering what I was going to find inside. Trouble of some sort; nobody ever called me to this district unless they were in trouble. And the voice over the phone - it had been a woman's voice, low and urgent, near to panic. I glanced at my watch. Four-thirty. The light was already going out of the cloud-filled sky. A slight drizzle gave a black shine to the surface of the street.

Across the road a curtain moved; hidden eyes watching, something to gossip about. I knew the black saloon parked at the kerb. It was Dr Harvey's. But if there was death in the house then the curtains would have been drawn. My hand was reaching out to the bell-push again when the latch of the door clicked and voices sounded:' . . . nothing else I could have done, Mrs Thomas. A case for the police . . . you understand, I hope. And the ambulance will be here any minute now.' The door was flung open and Dr Harvey bustled out, almost cannoning into me. 'Oh, it's you, Grant.' He checked in mid-flight, black bag gripped in his hand, no overcoat as usual, a young, fair-haired, very serious man in a perpetual hurry. 'Well, I suppose you'll be able to make some sort of a case out of it in court. The boy's certainly going to need legal advice.' There was no love lost between us. We'd tangled over medical evidence before. 'Got to deliver a baby now. Can't do anything more for that chap.' And he almost ran out to his car.

'Mr Grant?' The woman was staring at me uncertainly.

I nodded. 'Of Evans, Jones & Evans, solicitors. You telephoned me a little while back.'

'Yes, of course.' She held the door open for me, a small neat-looking person of between forty and fifty with deep-set, shadowed eyes. Her hair was greying, swept straight back from the forehead, the face dead white against the dark background of the passage.' Will you come in, please.' She shut the door behind me. 'Dafydd didn't want me to call you. But I thought you wouldn't mind as your firm it is that handles that little allowance for me.'

It was the first I knew we acted for her in any way. I thought she'd phoned me because I'm willing in certain circumstances to take a case without a fee. 'What's the trouble, Mrs Thomas?' I asked her, for she was standing motionless as though unwilling to let me go further into the house.

She hesitated, and then almost in a whisper, 'Well, it's Dafydd really, you see. He came back - and then. . . . Oh dear, it's all so difficult to explain.' Now that she had shut the street door, I could see no more than the outline of her face, but her voice, trembling to a stop, told me she was having to fight to keep control of herself. She was frightened, too. 'I don't know what he'll do,' she whispered. 'And Sue not here. Sue could always manage him when I couldn't.'

'Sue is your daughter, is she?' I knew it would steady her if I asked questions.

'Yes, that's right. She works at the Infirmary, but I didn't phone her because she'd never get back here in time.'

'And David - that's your husband?'

'No, Dafydd's my son. He and Sue are twins. She understands him somehow.'

'I see, and he's in some sort of trouble?'