Dead in the Water (Stone Barrington 3)

“Indeed it does—most immediately to Allison, but eventually to us all on this island.”

“Is any of the other candidates to succeed the prime minister a better man than Sir Winston?”

“Both,” Hewitt said. “One of them could be very good indeed. He has Sir Winston’s intelligence without his venality or his vanity, especially that. It is his vanity as much as his ambition that makes him dangerous. If we can defeat him in court today, we will have struck a blow, perhaps a fatal one, to his political dreams. That is why I am taking part in this case. A new prime minister, whoever he is, will not reappoint Sir Winston as minister of justice. He will be back depending on his skill as a barrister and his wife’s money. That would give me great satisfaction.” Leslie Hewitt smiled sweetly.

Chapter

54

Court reconvened after lunch, and Sir Leslie Hewitt rose and addressed the bench. “Your Lordship, normally at this time the defense would move for a dismissal of the charges on the grounds of insufficient evidence. Certainly, the evidence submitted by the prosecution has been almost laughable and quite easy for us to refute. But the defense will not request a dismissal of charges, because we want the jury to hear our client, Mrs. Allison Manning, tell her own story, so that they will know from her lips that she is an innocent woman.” He sat down.

The judge nodded sagely. “Mr. Barrington, please call your first witness.”

Stone stood. “Your Lordship, the defense will, of course, call Mrs. Manning to testify, but before we do, we wish to call one other witness, Mr. James Forrester.”

“Call James Forrester,” the judge said.

The bailiff called out the name, and Jim Forrester took the witness stand and was sworn, giving a New York City address and styling himself as a journalist.

“Mr. Forrester,” Stone began, “were you the last person, apart from Allison Manning, to see Paul Manning alive?”

“I think I may very well be, along with anyone else who was standing on the quay when their yacht left the Canary Islands.”

“Good, now let’s begin at the beginning. How long did you know Paul Manning?”

“I first met him during our university years, more than twenty years ago, when we played on opposing basketball teams.”

“How well did you know him?”

“While we were not close friends, we had a very cordial relationship, and I knew him fairly well.”

“How would you describe Paul Manning?”

“I always found him to be a pleasant and friendly person, very bright, and a good athlete.”

“After your graduation from university, did some years pass before you saw him again?”

“Only two or three years passed before I saw him the first time,” Forrester said. “I ran into him in a restaurant in Miami, Florida. He was working as a journalist for the Miami Herald, and I was working for a travel magazine in New York.”

This was information new to Stone, and he wondered why Forrester had not brought it up before. “Did you renew your acquaintance on that occasion?”

“Yes, we had dinner together.”

“And when did you next see him?”

“At a baseball game in New York City, some five or six years later. Paul was covering sports for the Herald, and I visited the press box with a reporter friend.”

“And did you renew your acquaintance on that occasion?”

“Yes, we had dinner again after the game.”

“And when was the next time you saw Paul Manning?”

“Only a few weeks ago, in Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands.”

Stone felt relieved to be back on familiar ground. “And how did you come to meet him?”

“I was doing a travel story on the Canaries, and we were taking some photographs at the Las Palmas yacht club. I ran into Paul at the bar late in the afternoon.”