As the significance of what I’d said sank in, an audible gasp reverberated around the courtroom.
‘No further questions,’ said Pam Cotton, returning to her seat.
I was then cross-examined by Robert’s defence barrister, Mr Joshua Small, a sharp-featured little man whose stature matched his name. It was not a pleasant experience. His very first question was aggressive, and designed, I was quite sure, to shake any confidence I might have.
‘Mrs Anderson, do you really expect the court to believe that you shared your life with a man for sixteen years, and had a son by him, and yet you had no idea at all that he had another life, another wife and another family?’
However, this was a question I was ready for, because it was one I had asked myself so often.
‘You can believe what you like,’ I snapped. ‘But I am telling the truth, and that’s all I can do. I trusted Robert absolutely and had no idea that he was leading a double life, no idea at all until after our son died.’
The defence barrister, who had what I found to be a disconcerting habit of standing with his head tilted backwards and slightly to one side, gave a small snort of disbelief.
‘He must have been extremely convincing,’ Mr Small responded. ‘Indeed, rather more convincing than most people would consider possible. Would you accept that to be the case, Mrs Anderton?’
‘I don’t know what “most people” might think,’ I said. ‘But if you’re asking me if Robert was a good liar, then the answer is a resounding yes. Indeed, he was a far better liar than I would have thought possible. Far better.’
Another little gasp could be heard in the courtroom. It was only later that I realized just how significant that remark must have seemed. At the time I merely I thought I’d dealt with the first barrage rather well, and I probably had, because Mr Joshua Small seemed to tone down his aggression after that and only asked me a couple of more innocuous questions.
After I’d finished giving my evidence I was able to watch the rest of the proceedings from the public gallery. I was fortunate to have been called first because, painful though I knew the experience would be, I did not wish to miss a moment of Robert’s trial. My father had said he was too distressed to see his supposed son-in-law, who he had been extremely fond of, in court. And I’d managed to fend off Gladys. So I was alone in the gallery, but actually much preferred it that way.
There followed evidence from the young police officer who had been first on the scene when Bella was killed. He explained how her vehicle was found on the wrong side of the road having collided with a milk tanker, as I’d read in the paper.
‘We believe Mrs Anderton was killed instantly,’ he told the court.
DS Jarvis then gave his evidence. He was coolly professional, and somehow more articulate than I would have expected, as he summarized the police case against Robert. He spoke of Robert having both motive and opportunity, just as he had explained it to me.
And he told the court that Scenes of Crime Officers had found a set of overalls belonging to Robert, which he apparently kept in the garage of 5 Riverview Avenue, and forensic examination had revealed clinging to the overalls small particles of accelerator cable.
‘Were forensics able to establish precisely where these particles had come from?’ asked Pam Cotton.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ replied Jarvis. ‘From the damaged cable of Brenda Anderton’s Toyota.’
Pam Cotton emphasized the point as usual by repeating it, then began to take DS Jarvis through other aspects of Brenda Anderton’s life.
‘Is it true, Detective Sergeant, that, following the death of Brenda Anderton, you have now closed your investigation into the abduction of Luke Macintyre?’ she asked.
Jarvis agreed that was so.
An expert witness in automotive forensics, Mr Maxwell Brown, a man approaching retirement, I thought, with rather more white hair in his bushy eyebrows than on his head, was then called to the stand. He had apparently been brought in from Bristol to give a second opinion after the initial examination of Brenda’s car.
Pam Cotton made quite a performance of establishing that Brown was considered to be the foremost in his field. He stood even more upright than I had done in the witness box, shoulders thrust back, like a soldier at attention, while she asked him to explain what he believed had caused Brenda Anderton’s fatal accident. At first he appeared to reiterate the theory which I’d initially read in the Express & Echo.
‘Following a thorough investigation of Mrs Anderton’s vehicle, assisted by the original Devon County Constabulary team, I am quite certain that the accelerator pedal jammed,’ he said. ‘Mrs Anderton was unable to decrease her speed, so in an attempt to do so she switched off the engine. It was this that ultimately had fatal consequences because she was, of course, then unable to steer, the electronic steering system having been disabled. And it was at this point that her car swung across the A377 into the path of an oncoming milk tanker.’
‘Have you been able to establish the speed at which Mrs Anderton’s car may have been travelling when it collided with the tanker?’ Pam Cotton asked.
‘Probably between seventy and eighty miles per hour,’ replied Brown.
‘And you feel certain that she was simply unable to slow down.’
‘Yes. All the evidence points to that.’
‘So, could you please, Mr Brown, tell the court what caused the accelerator pedal to jam?’
‘Yes, indeed. Strands within the accelerator cable had been cut, so that it was only a matter of time before the cable would split fully into two halves, thus rendering it impossible for the driver to control the throttle.’
‘You said the strands within the accelerator pedal had been cut, Mr Brown?’ Pam continued. ‘Do you mean deliberately cut?’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘And there is no doubt about that.’
‘No, none at all.’
‘Is it possible to say when this damage might have occurred.’
‘Not exactly. It would depend largely on how much mileage the deceased had covered in her car. Not all the strands had been cut, and the intention was presumably that the rest of them would break after a period of time when the strain on them became too great, which would have been most likely to occur when the vehicle was travelling at a higher speed.’
‘So, is it possible for you to state, Mr Brown, whether or not the damage to the accelerator cable could have been executed, say, as much as three or four days before the incident which led to Mrs Anderton’s death?’
‘Oh yes, easily, depending on the subsequent mileage, of course.’
‘Thank you very much, Mr Brown, no more questions,’ said Pam after another of her dramatic pauses.
I realized that she was trying to establish early on in the jury’s minds a timescale confirmed by an expert, so that they would later more easily accept that Robert would have had the opportunity to sabotage Brenda’s car even though he was in the middle of the North Sea when she died.
Mr Joshua Small was on his feet at once to cross-examine.
‘Mrs Anderton’s vehicle was a Toyota Corolla, was it not, Mr Brown? It is well known that many of these vehicles were recalled three years ago due to alleged problems with accelerator pedals sticking, so could not this fatal collision have been a tragic accident?’
‘No. Absolutely not. The strands within the accelerator cable had definitely been cut. The problem with the Corollas, as with other Toyotas, involved strands breaking due to wear and tear. And it was actually later models than Mrs Anderton’s which were recalled by Toyota.’
‘And yet the Devon County Constabulary and their forensic unit at first accepted that this fatal collision was an accident, did they not?’