Twenty-One Days (Daniel Pitt #1)(87)

‘You had no alternative,’ he said to her as they stood in the hallway outside the courtroom. ‘If you had left it any longer, the charge would have been murder.’

‘But what will happen to her? What will happen to us? Arthur . . . and me? We have nowhere to go, and I can’t look after him by myself.’

‘You will not be by yourself.’

‘We’re not staying with him!’ Her fear was so intense she was almost paralysed by it.

‘He is not going home,’ Daniel assured her. ‘He’s being arrested for bigamy. He won’t dare touch you now, and you will have plenty of time to work out what to do next. Anything can happen – in seven years.’

‘Everyone will know we are . . . not legitimate. We have no money or . . .’

‘First we must think of defending your mother. For tonight, you can go home and be safe.’

‘Will you defend her? We can’t pay you . . .’

‘Let me have one of Arthur’s paintings. That will be payment enough. Not his favourite – another one.’

‘He’ll be happy.’ Suddenly a smile broke through. ‘They are beautiful, aren’t they?’

Before he could answer her that they were, they were joined by Marcus fford Croft and Kitteridge.

‘Thank you, Mr Kitteridge,’ Sarah said with the utmost sincerity. ‘I know you defended my father the best way possible. Mr fford Croft, I am very grateful. I imagine my father will settle what he owes you. Perhaps you will defend him for bigamy. That is not up to me. But . . . but can Mr Pitt be permitted to defend my mother? I’m sure she would ask him to, if she were allowed.’

‘I will not defend your father,’ fford Croft replied. ‘I have discharged my duty to him, and I think it very likely he would prefer his defence to rest with someone else . . . who . . . who can wholeheartedly represent him. My firm would gladly represent your mother. Mr Kitteridge is my best litigator, and he is at your mother’s disposal. I will send him to her as soon as it is possible. We must get the matter concluded as satisfactorily as we can.’

Daniel knew it was intrusive, and perhaps he was asking for something he had no right to, but the case was not over yet. Not only must Ebony be defended, but it must be done in such a way that the final blow must go to Russell Graves’ reputation. The trial must accomplish his ruin, so that when he was tried for bigamy he would receive the maximum sentence, and he would no longer be believed in the repetition of his lies about anyone else, particularly about Sir Thomas Pitt. If Kitteridge failed to save Ebony, the legal charge against her was grave and the evidence powerful. Graves himself might well be permitted to testify. He would be desperate for vengeance. This judge had been gentle with her. He could not rely on another being so.

‘Sir, may I take this case? Please . . .’ Daniel glanced at Kitteridge and knew he understood. He did not wish to offend him. He found, to his surprise, that he actually cared about his feelings. But Kitteridge relied on the law, which was against Ebony. This was a case where the jury must be made to care for Ebony and seek reasons to acquit her, or at least find a way to lessen the charge.

Marcus looked startled.

‘Mr Kitteridge would . . . assist me . . . and make sure I honour the law, sir,’ Daniel pleaded.

Kitteridge’s eyes widened. The thought of being assistant to anyone was abrasive, to say the least, but to Daniel Pitt, who was a total beginner, clearly appalled him.

Marcus looked from one to the other of them. ‘Kitteridge?’ he said hesitantly.

‘This once!’ Kitteridge granted with obvious difficulty. ‘It will never happen again!’

‘Thank you,’ Daniel said very soberly.

Marcus nodded, and turned to walk away.

‘I’ll even second you, if it’s possible,’ Kitteridge said under his breath.





Chapter Twenty-One


Sitting at his desk almost a week later, facing the reality of the trial, Daniel did not feel nearly so certain of himself. He should have been less arrogant, and let Kitteridge do it. What had made him think that he knew better? Trials were about law, not emotion, and certainly not justice. His professor at university had told him often enough, ‘You go to court for the law, not for justice.’

It was too late now. He would be facing a lawyer named Grisewood, an agreeable-faced, fleshy man of roughly forty, whom nobody seemed to know much about. He was not a Londoner, but came from somewhere in the Midlands, and was beginning to make a name for himself.

Kitteridge interrupted his thoughts. ‘I’ve got all the witnesses you asked for.’

‘Oh, thank you . . .’ Daniel did not want to ask Kitteridge’s advice, but he was overwhelmed with the idea of what he had asked for, and been given. ‘Can you think of anyone I’ve missed?’

Kitteridge raised his eyebrows. ‘If I had, I’d have told you. Do you think I want to see you shot down? I think Graves is a total bastard, and I’d see him hanged with pleasure, if I thought it was even remotely legal, but it isn’t. You can’t hang a man for being a swine.’

Daniel said nothing. He didn’t really want to hang Graves. If he imagined it, the reality of it, a gallows, a rope, the drop beneath, and a person’s life gone in minutes – where there had been a human being alive, thinking, feeling, and there was now just a corpse – it was horrifying. What if you had made a mistake anywhere? At any point along the line? Even if you hadn’t, that kind of judgement was too big to make. And yet he had been willing enough to think of it.