Letters To My Daughter's Killer - [51]

Then Mr Cromer produces a large mat of translucent plastic, thick, flexible – like a giant mouse mat with curvy edges. There’s an oval marked on one edge of it, and the usher raises the dummy and adjusts the mat beneath it so that the oval matches the outline of the head. The rest of it forms a puddle shape around the head and upper body.

‘This represents the pool of blood at the murder scene,’ Mr Cromer says. ‘Members of the jury please note that the marks at the front of Mr Tennyson’s shoes are several inches in from the edge of the pool. If Mr Tennyson had crouched there as he just demonstrated, both of his shoes would have been covered in blood. The shoes he gave the police did not have any traces of blood on them. Mr Tennyson, have you any explanation as to how this can be?’

‘I must have been standing further away and then have leant right over,’ you say. I can hear a frisson of anxiety in your tone.

‘If you had been any further away, you would not have been able to reach, would you?’ Mr Cromer says. ‘I think that is obvious to everyone. Why did you use both hands?’ The question is swift, and despite Mr Cromer’s Devonian accent, it sounds sharp.

‘It was instinctive.’

‘I’d suggest to you that it would have been more straightforward to use one hand, the left, but you needed a way of explaining the bloody fingerprints from your right hand on the stairs and the bathroom door. So you cooked up this two-handed gesture. Isn’t that the case?’

‘No, I used both hands,’ you say.

‘And washed them upstairs?’

‘Yes.’

‘In the sink?’

‘Yes.’

‘You didn’t have a shower?’ Mr Cromer says.

‘No.’

‘Then how did traces of diluted blood get in the shower cubicle?’

‘Lizzie must have had a shower while I was out,’ you say.

‘Yet the shower cap was bone dry? And having been to the salon that day, she would not need to wash her hair again, would she?’

Her bright, bright hair.

‘No.’

‘I ask you again, Mr Tennyson, did you take a shower that night?’ Mr Cromer paces slowly around the floor of the courtroom, like a large animal circling its prey, pausing to ask each question.

‘No.’

‘So how did that blood get there?’ says Mr Cromer.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know. Did you beat your wife?’

‘No,’ you say.

‘Did you beat her that night?’

‘No,’ you say.

‘Ever?’

‘No.’

‘But Mrs Tennyson told her friend Rebecca that you had. How do you explain that?’ says Mr Cromer.

‘I can’t.’

‘Do you think she was lying to this court?’

‘No, but it wasn’t true,’ you say.

‘Why would Rebecca lie?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Or do you think your wife lied when she told her friend that?’

‘I don’t know,’ you say.

‘Mrs Tennyson was pregnant the first time she spoke about you beating her. She was pregnant again last September. Did you row about that? An argument that became violent?’

‘There was no argument.’

‘You weren’t angry? Scarcely managing on one wage and the prospect of more children, her working life disrupted and all the extra costs,’ says Mr Cromer.

‘I didn’t know she was pregnant,’ you say.

‘The pathologist estimated that your wife was seven weeks pregnant; can you think of any reason why she would not have told you?’

‘No, I don’t know, perhaps she hadn’t realized it herself.’ There is no anger in your responses, which is a good way to play it. No doubt your counsel has told you to always remain polite and calm lest we glimpse your dark side.

‘You claim that you left the house at eight thirty?’

‘I did.’

‘And you arrived at the gym at nine?’ says Mr Cromer.

‘Yes.’

‘When did you get the text from your wife?’

‘Just as I got to the gym, when I went to turn my phone off.’

‘It arrived then, or had you already received it and only just noticed it?’

‘It was already there,’ you say.

‘We have been told it was sent at eight-forty. Ten minutes after you claim you left home. How long does it take you to walk to the gym?’

‘About half an hour,’ you say.

‘You don’t drive there?’

‘Not that distance, no.’

‘You are certain you left at half past eight?’

‘Yes,’ you say.

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Casualty had been on for about fifteen minutes. Lizzie liked to watch it,’ you say.

Did she? I struggle to remember.

You say, ‘I was thinking about watching it till the end but decided to go to the gym instead.’

‘Why did you go to the gym then?’

‘It’s a good time to go. Quiet,’ you say.

‘How would you know?’ says Mr Cromer, scowling, his head cocked to one side.

‘Sorry?’

‘How would you know it’s quieter at that time?’ he says slowly, and I sense something significant coming. Mr Cromer -his girth, the drawl of his accent, his steady, stately movements – might appear a little simple, but he is clever and quick-witted.

‘Because people are busy Saturday nights, going out, meeting friends.’

‘So you assumed it would be quieter then for that reason?’ Mr Cromer says.

‘Yes.’ You sound slightly puzzled.

‘Because you had never been to the gym on a Saturday night before, had you?’

You are stumped. For one glorious moment. Whatever you prepared for, it wasn’t this. ‘I don’t know,’ you say.

‘The electronic swipe system shows members’ attendance. You’ve never been on a Saturday after five p.m. In fact the latest you have ever been there in almost three years of membership is seven o’clock on a week night. Can you explain why your pattern of use changed so dramatically on that very night?’