KATE
27 April 2017
Twenty-two
He looks just the same as he did then. If anything, age has not withered him but made him even better-looking: one of those men who improve, like a cheese or a fine red wine. The smile lines at his eyes and the faintest dusting of grey at his sideburns suggest a certain gravitas and his jawline is firmer, more determined. He has managed that clever trick of looking experienced and still youthful at the same time.
His body is that of a young man, of course. Still that rower’s torso: the broad shoulders and the definition at the waist – those Westminster lunches creating no hint of a paunch or, if one ever threatens, he must exercise it away. Though he may have practised excess with the Libertine Club, I’ve never thought this was truly him. Someone who rowed for an elite crew and managed a first, and who was catapulted into a junior ministerial rank within five years of being elected after a lucrative career in an entirely different area, is someone who exercises strong self-control and is capable of great discipline.
I merely glance at him, of course, as I enter the court. The last thing I want is to make eye contact. The fear that he might, somehow, recognise me still hovers, though I have reinvented myself so drastically. Even my profile’s different: the nose I disliked even before he’d kissed the tip of it, and grew to loathe after that, straightened by such a skilled surgeon I can’t find the girl I was when I catch myself in a mirror: have to peer even harder when dressed in wig and gown.
But, as the case has continued, it has become clear he sees me purely as Kate Woodcroft, QC. And, as my fear has eased, I’ve realised that of course he wouldn’t detect me: I was entirely unmemorable. Anonymous – ‘Was I Polly or Molly?’ he asked, our encounter just another notch on a bedpost. I was a run-of-the-mill conquest to be chalked up with all the others, if he ever even thought of it again.
I breathe deeply, sidelined by a sudden quickening of my heart; a fierce shot of anger. How dare he have forgotten about it, I think irrationally, or have no sense of the damage he inflicted so casually? With each brutal thrust, he stole my trust in others and my sense of the world as an essentially decent place. The pain of the rape quickly faded; the sickness, from the morning-after pill, lasted just one day, but the memory of his violence – the wrenching of my skirt; the burn of his lips; the phrase he uttered – that bitter aftertaste has lingered. I thought I had suppressed it – and then Brian handed me the court papers, and the memories were sparked again.
I shuffle my notes, wondering what he thinks of me – this sharp-faced woman in a wig. I cannot know if he looks at me with interest, for there is no reason for me to look at him. Though this whole trial revolves around him, one of its paradoxes is that for the bulk of the evidence, he can be ignored. We – the counsel for the prosecution and the defence – will spend hours not deigning to acknowledge him as we listen to the witnesses who take the stand to give their version of events. He need not even be called – though of course Angela will do so; it would be madness not to. Up until now and for a little longer, it is the other witnesses who will command the bulk of our attention – and not him, at all.
It is Kitty Ledger who is to give evidence first. Kitty is Olivia’s close friend, who works at Conservative Central Office. More pertinently, she is the woman who spoke to the Daily Mail when they first approached Olivia about rumours of an affair. Despite what Angela Regan might allege and James Whitehouse believe, Olivia didn’t go running to the tabloids herself but rather let Kitty respond when reporters got a sniff of the story. Angela Regan will seek to savage her for this – and for the fact that it was she who encouraged Olivia to go to the police. My job is partly to establish that she had no animus against this powerful, attractive politician – the close friend of the prime minister; a man whose party she seeks to promote, for she works in the electoral events department, and whom she knows, intellectually, she should do everything to bolster. So why did she help set in train the events that have put him in the dock at the Old Bailey? She can only have done so because she knew it was morally right.
She is a good witness. One glance as she enters the witness box tells you that: a stocky, dark-haired young woman in her late twenties with a no-nonsense bob, a demure, navy dress and an imperturbable manner. In another life, you could imagine her as the headmistress of a prep school; or the matron in a busy A&E. She is a coper. The sort of slightly bossy friend who would never get herself in tricky situations but would know how best to respond if others were involved; and who, in a crisis, would automatically take charge.
I look at her now and see that while she might be unimaginative, this young woman has a clear moral code: a sense of right and wrong, honed, I imagine – and yes, there’s a small, diamond cross around her neck so I may be right – by a childhood of Sundays in church. I can’t imagine that anything has gone drastically wrong in Kitty Ledger’s life; but I can see that, if it had gone wrong for another woman, she would want to put it right.
She speaks clearly and confidently to confirm her name and relationship to Olivia. I establish that her friend first approached her, the day after the incident in the lift.
‘Can you describe how she was?’
‘She was jangled, teary. Normally she was quite blasé about things – or she had been before their relationship ended. But now she was distressed.’
We have already established that this occurred a week before Kitty spoke to the Daily Mail to confirm their story. In agreeing to this, was Olivia out for revenge?
‘No. She was angry with him’ – I see Angela make a note out of the corner of my eye – ‘She felt used. But it was more than that. As if she blamed herself for the fact he did this to her as much as hating him for his behaviour. She said she felt dirty. As if it was all her fault.’
We go through the fact that Kitty had probed her friend for details. I can see her doing so: brown eyes widening with the horror of it; arm around her friend like a protective older sister; her tone alternating between outrage that he could have done this; and a gentle, persuasive sympathy.
‘Who raised the question of rape?’ We need to tackle this head on.
‘I did.’ Kitty is unapologetic; head held high, chest out. ‘After she’d told me about him ripping her knickers and showed me that bruise; after she told me what he’d called her.’ She looks revolted. ‘I said: “You do realise what he’s done, don’t you?” She nodded and started crying. She wouldn’t say the word.’
‘And so you did?’
‘Yes.’ I sense a frisson run through the court. ‘I said. “He raped you. You told him you didn’t want it repeatedly and he ignored you. That’s rape.” ’
‘What happened then?’
‘She cried some more. She said that she had thought he’d loved her. That she couldn’t believe he would do that to her. I know it’s hard to believe, I said, I can barely believe it myself, but James has done that to you.’
‘Did you discuss what, if any, action she should take?’
‘I suggested she go to the police. She was very reluctant at first. I think she wanted it all to somehow be made better. She wouldn’t go for over two weeks.’
‘That was on Monday October 31st: nine days after the story was in the paper.’
‘Yes.’ She refuses to be cowed by this. ‘I only spoke to the paper when I was approached about rumours of their relationship – and I confirmed that they’d had an affair, making no mention of this.’
‘I think they quoted “a friend” as saying: “He treated her abysmally. She was in love with him and he’s abused her trust.” Was that you?’
‘Yes. It was.’
‘What did you mean by “he’s abused her trust”?’
‘That he had let her down. Treated her badly. I didn’t allege rape – or even assault. She was very anxious that I not do that and, of course, legally I couldn’t. I think she somehow still hoped he would apologise – and that they would make up.’
‘That they would make up?’ I raise an eyebrow: we need to confront this implication that Olivia was being manipulative and that she went to the papers – via Kitty – hoping to prompt a loving reconciliation.
‘Not that they would get back together but that they would be able to work together. She was finding it impossible to work in his office after he’d done this.’
‘But that didn’t happen?’
‘No. He was furious about the story in the paper, which made out she was vengeful. He refused to take her calls or even acknowledge her. And she came to realise that he would never apologise for what he’d done. He couldn’t see he’d done anything wrong. That’s why it took some time to go to the police. She needed to properly process what had happened and accept it couldn’t be resolved or made better before she went to them.’
Angela tries to make short shrift of her, of course. She takes a more dogmatic approach than with Olivia. One heavyweight fighter limbering up to score some blows against another – and they will not be glancing blows. Even her posture changes: shoulders more firmly square, chest out. Two women of the world, her stance seems to say: both assured of themselves; neither prepared to be underestimated; each fighting for their perception of the truth.
This Kitty is a calculating figure, in Angela’s version of events. The sanctimonious friend who disapproved of Olivia’s affair with a married man and was keen to swoop to judgement; the do-gooder, with a grudge against the junior minister whom she once admitted was ‘ravishingly gorgeous’ but who failed to acknowledge her – and why would he? – on the occasions when they’d met. The young woman who introduced the idea of rape, and first mouthed that ugly word: who tried to shame the politician in the papers – ‘Abused her trust? That was code for: he raped her, wasn’t it?’ – who kept on and on at her distressed friend until, a fortnight after the incident, she finally cracked under the pressure of her incessant questions – and went to the police.
His Lordship interrupts: asks Angela to ask questions and not make comment; ensures that Kitty can come back to each point put to her. The allegations swirl, risking clouding Kitty’s evidence: a blur of muddied water puddling round. Angela scores a few points: yes, Kitty disapproved of the affair and didn’t have a high opinion of James Whitehouse – though Kitty’s take – ‘I thought him a cad’ – makes some jurors smile. She intimates there was something prurient in her interest. ‘Why were you so quick to chivvy Miss Lytton into believing a worst-case scenario? Why interfere?’
And yet I’m not convinced this mud sticks. I watch the jury, trying to anticipate their response, and I spot the likely foreman frowning at Angela at this point and Ms Orange Face rolling her eyes as if to say: Do me a favour, pur-lease. It helps that Kitty seems unquashable. No one likes a bully. And though Kitty is hardly an underdog – too establishment, too educated, too damn posh – there is something endearingly plucky about the way she refuses to be cowed by my fellow counsel, this weighty woman swamped in black.
‘No,’ she insists, at the climax of it all. ‘I told her to go to the police because he raped her.’ And her voice – the voice of a young woman who has had a charmed life, yes; but would never consider agreeing to another’s viewpoint if it didn’t suit her; the voice of a woman who won’t be cowed into saying something she doesn’t believe entirely – rings out loud and true and clear.
Essex Boy smirks: a smirk that holds the threat of menace and is directed at the dock, where James Whitehouse is sitting, and not at the woman in the witness box who helped put him there. Next to me, Angela plumps herself down – all gown and self-righteousness with just a hint of bad temper: her mouth a tight, impenetrable line. She knows she could have done better for her client; that she did not handle this witness in a way that helped his case; that Kitty’s confident assertion – ‘He raped her’ – has reverberated around the courtroom and will be a piece of evidence the jury remember during their deliberations. My heart swells, and I begin to hope.
The day stretches: a short day for the judge has a pre-trial review and a couple of sentences to deal with this afternoon. ‘If you don’t mind, we will have this afternoon off and arrive bright and early tomorrow,’ he tells the jury – and they beam like children told that school has been cancelled, for the case is beginning to tell on them: the need to concentrate on the evidence; to listen attentively as each strand of the story is unravelled and the different versions lie like pieces of wool and embroidery silk; threads of the wrong colour and texture that can never be woven into a convincing whole.
First, though, they need to listen to James Whitehouse’s police interview: the words spoken by him after he was approached by two police officers and cautioned. Detective Sergeant Clive Willis, the officer in charge, takes the stand; head held high, voice ringing clear, for this is the most high-profile case of his career.
My junior, Tim, should be reading out the police interview but he’s been called out on another case and so DS Willis and I will be playing the parts of the officer and defendant; me voicing the words in as brisk and neutral a tone as possible, reading through the slightly edited interview at my customary, page-a-minute pace.
DS Willis is a perfectly pleasant man but it’s fair to say that he sounds like a detective when giving evidence: with that peculiarly deadpan delivery – as if he cannot conceive of, still less risk uttering, something exciting. The questions he asked a senior politician about a serious criminal offence appear of no more interest than the shipping forecast or his shopping list. Nevertheless, the words contain their own drama and my scalp tightens as he reveals what he said to James Whitehouse when he was cautioned; words that every member of the jury will recognise if they have ever watched a detective programme on the TV.
‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court,’ he incants and his voice finally rises with confidence and a sense of occasion. ‘Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
I wait, just for a couple of seconds, and let the significance of the words press upon the jurors; watch them brighten in recognition as the phrases swell and ripple around the room.
‘And where did you arrest him?’ I ask.
And DS Willis puffs out his chest, the drama of the moment and the incongruity of the setting recalled and relayed. ‘Just outside the Houses of Parliament.’
Though we finish at lunchtime, I feel exhausted by the time I have raced through the police interview. Perhaps it is the process of reading aloud for half an hour or perhaps the effort of not betraying my frustration as I recite James Whitehouse’s suave, credible version of what occurred. My mouth fills with cotton wool as I articulate his words; feeling the cadences of his sentences; noting the ease and fluency with which he spins his story. He explained it so effortlessly, that it’s all perfectly credible.
For his claim is that Olivia is lying, of course. She never told him to stop as they made love in the lift; she initiated it – just as she had done so many times before. He is sure this is all a misunderstanding that can be smoothed over. And then a hint of his ruthlessness: the officers are aware that he had finished the relationship – he was a married man; it had been a foolish mistake; he owed it to his wife and children – and that she had taken it very badly. She had gone to the papers. Frankly – and it pained him to say this; he said it more in sorrow than anger – he was now concerned for her mental health. It hadn’t been as robust as he’d assumed; a bout of anorexia in her teens; the rampant perfectionism that made her a superb researcher but indicated a lack of balance; and, now that her going to the papers hadn’t paid off – that he hadn’t left his wife as she’d wanted – this patent fantasy.
His blithe dismissals tumble from my mouth. Does he believe them? A politician who is so self-assured that his version of the truth is entirely subjective: his truth the one that he wants to believe? Or is this the smooth response of a liar who knows that he lies? We shall find out soon. For tomorrow, the press benches and the public gallery will be packed for the main event and I will test these claims in my cross-examination. Tomorrow, James Whitehouse will give his evidence. And I shall face him at last.