Soul

After glancing at the jury, Hamish stepped down from the witness box. Erasmus sat back down and reaching over to the next row leaned to whisper in Lavinia’s ear.

‘I do believe the jury may be swinging our way, my dear.’

73

Los Angeles, 2002

KLAUS REACHED FOR HIS WINE GLASS. ‘I know it must have come as a huge shock to you,’ he said, ‘but that wasn’t my experience. It was like a pressure had been building for months. I just couldn’t deal with it any more. You must understand that.’

‘Can we just talk about practicalities?’

‘If that’s what you want.’

Julia watched as he swallowed a mouthful of wine.

‘Do you mind if I make a quick phone call?’ she said. ‘It’s work.’ She indicated the phone that sat on the sideboard.

‘Not at all.’

She stepped behind him, slid open the drawer and took out the gun then aimed it at his head. Klaus, his back to her, continued to sip his wine. Julia stood there, paralysed, her finger curled around the trigger.

As Gabriel careered down the hill, he saw there was a car in Julia’s driveway that he didn’t recognise: a red Golf Volkswagen with a miniature Belgian flag in the corner of the rear window. His instinct had been right.

The road flattened out and he skidded into Julia’s front yard, dropping the bike on the lawn. He pelted to the front door and rang the bell.

Open, open, he prayed. To his horror, nothing sounded inside the house.

74

Old Bailey, 1861

LAVINIA STOOD IN THE WITNESS BOX, her hands gripping the rails. This moment, imagined, had terrified her, but now, in its actual execution, terror had detached her from her body. The weeks in custody had thrown her into an examination of her behaviour and psychology: she knew she was guilty and must face her judges, both now and after her death. But here, standing before the rows of curious spectators, completely exposed, all she could think of was her son and how she should try to preserve her life for his sake.

Mr Abby stepped forward.

‘Mrs Huntington, is it true your husband asked you to assist him in this ritual?’

‘It is.’

‘So you were witness to his preparation and, how shall I put it, his transportation…’—his sardonic tone had the court laughing—‘…on the evening of September sixteenth, and, I might add, to his horrific death the same evening.’

‘I was, sir.’

‘And you did nothing to save him from dying?’

‘Objection, Your Honour,’ Erasmus cried. ‘That is a blatant accusation!’

‘Objection noted. Please answer the question, Mrs Huntington.’

‘I was rendered immobile by a great fear, sir.’

‘A great fear or a great indifference?’

Lavinia hung her head. ‘I do not know.’

Mr Abby, fuelled by what he perceived as a minor victory, strolled along the row of jurors, studying their faces as if to say I told you so. At the end of the row, he spun back around to the witness box with great dramatic effect.

‘Did you love your husband, Mrs Huntington?’