‘It was my office outfit when I worked for the lawyer in Chepstow,’ she explained. ‘So I thought it was legal-looking enough for attending the Assizes!’
When they arrived in Gloucester, they found a parking space for the car in a lane off Bearland and walked through to Westgate Street, where the imposing Shire Hall was situated. Moira knew the city slightly, but the classical building with its four massive Ionic columns flanking the main entrance was new to her. She followed Richard inside with a feeling of awe and expectancy.
The hall was a hive of activity, people either hurrying across it or standing in groups talking. Police officers, clerks in schoolmaster gowns and barristers in wigs were mixed with members of the public who stood around uneasily, especially if they were jurors or witnesses, unsure of what lay before them this day.
Richard made his way across to a set of heavy varnished doors.
When he pushed through they found themselves in a small panelled antechamber like an airlock, with another door ahead, which took them into the court itself.
Moira gazed around the high chamber, a huge room panelled in dark wood. It was almost empty, and on the high platform at the front which stretched the width of the court, seven chairs stood unused. The largest one in the centre was directly below a huge gilt model of the Royal Arms.
‘Are you sure it’s all right for me to come in?’ she whispered to Richard as she trailed him down towards the front of the court, where three men and a woman stood talking.
‘I’ll get you tucked away somewhere where you can see what’s going on,’ he said reassuringly as he approached the group.
Two were in black robes, but they held their wigs in their hands, white tabs at the throat completing their archaic costumes. The other man was the rotund solicitor, George Lovesey, who came forward now to greet the pathologist.
‘Morning, Dr Pryor. We’ll be going to one of the small rooms in a moment to talk things over.’
Richard introduced Moira as his secretary and asked if she could be found a place in court. The portly lawyer shook her hand warmly, and Richard suspected that he still had an eye for an attractive woman.
‘Sit on the end of this row here, behind your boss,’ he said, indicating the third row of what looked to Moira like long church pews. ‘My own secretary will be alongside you when we get started.’ He nodded towards the middle-aged woman who was talking to the barristers. Moira settled herself on the padded bench and looked around the court, picking out the empty jury benches on her left and the witness box between it and the high palisade that stood below the judge’s domain.
Nathan Prideaux detached himself from the others and came forward to shake Richard’s hand. ‘Good to see you, doctor. We’ll go off and have a chat, shall we?’
Leaving Moira to absorb the atmosphere, Richard made his way out of the court with the barristers and solicitor, the secretary lugging several box-files under her arm. They went a few yards down a dark corridor to a small windowless room, furnished only with a table and some plain upright chairs. A couple of tin lids lay on the scarred tabletop to act as ashtrays, and as soon as they were all seated the QC lit up a small cheroot and promptly had a good cough.
He held out a hand to the secretary and, without prompting, she slid one of the files across the table to him.
‘Today, the prosecution are calling their four medical witnesses. They will have to rely almost totally on their evidence to get a conviction, as what they’ve led so far wouldn’t convince a monkey!’ he said disparagingly.
His junior, Leonard Atkinson, looked slightly less sanguine.
‘But if we can’t crack their expert evidence, we’re in the same boat. So it’s largely up to you, Dr Pryor.’
Nathan nodded ponderously. ‘Make or break, this looks like being one of the shortest murder trials of the year!’ he growled. ‘So I want you to sit right behind me, doctor. You know the drill; listen to every word they say – and if there’s the slightest chink in their evidence, I want you to let me know.’
He looked across at the secretary. ‘Mrs Armitage, make sure that Dr Pryor has plenty of sheets of paper so he can pass notes to me, please.’
He winked at Richard. ‘Nothing like the sound of a defence expert tearing paper to unnerve another medical man in the witness box! We need absolute rebuttal of their medical evidence, or we’re sunk. I can deal with all the other circumstantial stuff, but if we can’t torpedo Dr Angus Smythe, our client is going to be left in a very grave situation.’
‘So what’s the batting order, Mr Prideaux?’ asked Richard. ‘Are you going to pick Angus apart in cross-examination before I get to say my piece?’
The London QC gave a crafty smile. ‘That should be the normal procedure, as you well know. But I’m going to try to get the judge to let me defer my cross-examination until after I’ve called you, as you would be the next witness anyway. I think it would make a bigger impact on the judge and the jury if you blew his conclusions out of the water first and then I’ll come back and put him through the wringer.’
George Lovesey tapped his wristwatch and suggested that time was pressing, so the procession went back into court, where they found it far busier than when they had left it. The public benches were now almost filled, ushers and police officers were standing around and a gaggle of reporters were gossiping in the press benches on the right-hand side.
Richard Pryor went to sit with George Lovesey in the second row of pews, immediately behind the two defence barristers.
Behind him, the solicitor’s secretary slipped in to sit alongside Moira, a friendly woman who introduced herself to Moira as Doris and proceeded to explain various aspects of the procedure to her.
‘The defence team are on the left side of the benches, so the prosecutors are over there.’
She covertly pointed at another brace of bewigged barristers on the right side, with the acolytes from the Director of Public Prosecutions sitting behind them.
Both leading counsel had erected their small folding tables on the wide ledge in front of them, to hold their papers and give themselves something to either grip or lean on. The juniors had a collection of legal textbooks in front of them with bits of coloured paper marking relevant pages.
Moira watched as Nathan Prideaux flipped his wig on to his head with a practised gesture and shuffled over to have a word with his opponent, the prosecuting counsel. Rather to her surprise, they seemed to be cracking a joke together and she heard the words: ‘… a handicap of three and he still lost!’
Bemused by this strange system of English law where a man’s life hung on a contest between two apparent friends, she now saw another man in a wig and gown seat himself behind a table below the judge’s chair. The clerk of the court, an important cog in this elaborate drama, faced the courtroom, and almost on the stroke of ten thirty Moira heard a sudden susurration of whispers from the public gallery. Turning round, she saw that two prison officers had appeared in a box a few rows behind, one with a brass rail around it. Between them she saw the pale face of a man in a sober blue suit.
‘Is that the vet?’ she whispered to Doris and got a nod in return. Any further exchange was stopped as a portly man dressed in a morning suit appeared alongside the judge’s chair up on the high dais and called out ‘All stand!’ in a voice that brooked no dispute. As everyone lumbered to their feet, he stood aside, and from a door behind the chairs Mr Justice Templeman appeared.
Though Moira had many times seen judges in photographs and films, the actual thing was much more impressive. A tall, lean figure with a severe face below a high forehead, he was resplendent in a scarlet gown with a black belt, cuffs and sash.