Cometh the Hour (The Clifton Chronicles 6)

“Are you ready to call your next witness, Mr. Carman?” asked the judge.

“I am indeed, my lord,” said the prosecution’s standard-bearer, as he rose slowly from his place. Mr. Carman tugged at the lapels on his long black gown and adjusted his wig before turning to face the jury. Once he was confident that every eye in the courtroom was on him, he said, “I call Mrs. Kristina Bergström.”

Chattering broke out in the court as an elegant, middle-aged woman entered the room. Mr. Gray swung around to see that his client had been taken by surprise, although he clearly recognized her immediately. He turned back to look more closely at the woman everyone had been searching for, for the past five months. He grabbed a new yellow pad, unscrewed the top of his pen and waited to hear her evidence.

Mrs. Bergström took the Bible in her right hand and read from the card with such confidence you would not have known English was her second language.

Mr. Carman didn’t attempt to remove the Cheshire cat grin from his face until he’d asked the witness his first question.

“Mrs. Bergström, would you be kind enough to state your name for the record.”

“Kristina Carla Bergström.”

“And your nationality?”

“Danish.”

“And your occupation?”

“I am a landscape architect.”

“Mrs. Bergström, so as not to waste everyone’s time, yours included, do you recognize the prisoner standing in the dock?”

She looked straight at Hakim and said, “Yes, I do. We were seated next to each other on a flight from Lagos to London some four or five months ago.”

“And you are certain that the man you sat next to is the man in the dock?”

“He’s a handsome man, Mr. Carman, and I remember being surprised that he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.”

One or two smiles greeted this statement.

“During the flight, did you strike up a conversation with the defendant?”

“I thought about it, but he looked exhausted. In fact, he fell asleep within moments of the plane taking off, which I envied.”

“Why did you envy him?”

“I’ve never acquired the knack of being able to sleep on a plane, and have to pass the time watching a film or reading a book.”

“Which was it on this occasion?”

“I’d read half of Watership Down on the flight to Lagos, and I intended to finish it on the way back to London.”

“And did you?”

“Yes, I turned the last page a few moments before the captain told us we were about to begin our descent into Heathrow.”

“So you were awake for the entire journey?”

“Yes.”

“Did you at any time see another passenger, or a member of the crew, open the luggage compartment above you and place something in Mr. Bishara’s bag?”

“No one opened it during the entire flight.”

“How can you be so sure of that, Mrs. Bergström?”

“Because I’d closed a major deal when I was in Lagos, to landscape the oil minister’s garden.” Hakim wanted to laugh. So that’s why he’d been kept waiting for five hours. “And to celebrate I bought a Ferragamo handbag in duty-free. I’d placed it in the same overhead locker. If anyone had opened it I think I would have noticed.”