Soul

The direct nature of the question floored Lavinia. Staring at the prosecutor—his eyebrows raised in query, his whole face a parody of disingenuous bewilderment, as if the very question astounded him—Lavinia suddenly found that she could not lie—neither to protect herself nor her child. I am my father’s daughter, she thought; I cannot utter falsehoods after swearing an oath upon the Bible. Paralysed by this knowledge, she faltered.

‘Will you answer the question?’

Lifting her chin, she tried to blank out the leering faces beyond the prosecutor: some expectant; some already closed in judgement; others appearing to be willing her to defend herself—or so she imagined.

‘I did, sir, perhaps too much so.’

A ripple ran through the court. Lavinia stayed focused on the prosecutor.

‘I believe now that I might have had unnatural and unrealistic expectations of such an emotion,’ she said. ‘As a younger person, I read novels and was much influenced by their romantic notions. My husband was a great deal older than I; in the early days of our marriage, he was both mentor and husband to me, and we enjoyed much intellectual discourse. Then later…’

‘Later, you quarrelled. About what, Mrs Huntington?’

‘I cannot say.’

‘Come now, we have already heard how Colonel Huntington received bruises about the head due to your hysteria—’

‘Objection!’

‘Dismissed, Mr Cohen. Continue, Mr Abby.’

‘Did you engage in a relationship with Mr Aloysius O’Malley while he was in the employment of your husband?’

Condemn me if you must, but not Aloysius, she prayed. During the cold of the prison nights, she had imagined her execution a thousand times over. Exhausted, she now wished only for the charade to finish. They had worn her out with their questioning. Every day when she entered that court, she had to suffer the hysteria of the newspaper men and a crowd of screaming women holding placards. The letters she had received in the last month had not helped: impassioned notes from wronged women; letters from young girls trapped in arranged marriages who had elected Lavinia as their champion, death threats from cuckolded husbands. But the most terrible deprivation they had imposed upon her was not being able to see her son Aidan. She had not seen him since her arrest and the unbearable absence widened with each passing day.

She turned to Aloysius. The coachman had been in the dock for the past three days and Lavinia had longed for the chance to speak with him. But at the end of each session she was bustled away to her cell. Aloysius: just the sounding of his name gave her strength. Aloysius. She stared at his helmet of dark hair, his green eyes now conveying a sensibility that stretched across the courtroom like a rope to a foundering vessel.

‘Will you please answer the question.’ The prosecutor’s harsh voice jolted her back.

‘We had a brief liaison, initiated by myself.’

So there it is, I have condemned myself: the realisation ran like a shudder throughout her whole body. But now that she had actually said the words, a great calm followed—a sense of disconnection, as if she floated high above the proceedings.

The court seemed to voice a collective gasp, then broke into shocked murmuring. The judge slammed down his gavel and the murmuring ceased.

Determined to be heard, Lavinia continued. ‘You have to understand that I was driven by loneliness. He h

ad come from the same county, from my homeland. He is innocent of murder! He is merely guilty of succumbing to my seduction.’

‘So you admit there was a murder?’

‘I do not know. I only know that at the time of my husband’s death, I was possessed by a great jealousy and a great despair. I believed I would never have my marriage back, nor ever have the freedom to love another. At twenty years of age, one’s life yawns before one like an eternity—’

‘Jealous of whom, Mrs Huntington? Surely not of the friendship between Colonel Huntington and Mr Hamish Campbell?’

‘I repeat, I cannot say. But I do not believe myself responsible for my own actions at the time of my husband’s death.’

‘That will be all, Your Honour.’ Mr Abby bowed briefly to the judge who then indicated that Lavinia should take her seat.

75

Los Angeles, 2002

JULIA STOOD THERE FOR WHAT seemed an eternity, wanting to kill him, knowing she had the capacity.

‘Aren’t you going to make your call?’ Still eating, Klaus didn’t bother to turn around.

Julia didn’t answer. Every atom of her being was focused on the .44 Magnum, heavy in her hand, pointed at the back of his skull. It became fused with her skin, an organic extension of her anger.