Free Final Witness by Simon Tolkien

members of the jury. He is now Sir Peter Robinson, and he is the minister for defense in the present government. They had one son, Thomas, who is now aged sixteen. You will be hearing from him next week.
        “Sir Peter had a personal assistant, who is the defendant. She has now become his second wife, and the Crown says that that is part of what she hoped to achieve when she entered into a conspiracy to murder Lady Anne Robinson.
        “It is clear that Sir Peter came to depend heavily on the defendant’s assistance, and he would take her with him on his weekend visits to the House of the Four Winds. I will leave it to the witnesses to describe to you how the relationships between the family members and the defendant developed in the ensuing two years, but it is right to say that by the spring of 1999 the defendant and Lady Anne were certainly not friends.
        “I come now to the day of the murder. The thirty-first of May 1999. The housekeeper, Mrs. Martin, left at five o’clock, as she was going to stay with her sister in Woodbridge. This was something that she almost always did on a Monday evening, but on this occasion she was accompanied in her car by Thomas. Mrs. Martin was giving him a lift to a friend’s house in Flyte, where he was due to spend the night. You will hear evidence from the mother of this friend that it was the defendant who made this arrangement. This had never happened before, members of the jury, and the Crown says that it is highly significant. It shows that the defendant wished Lady Anne to be alone in the house later in the evening.
        “Before she left, Mrs. Martin checked that the windows and doors in the house were secure, and she also checked that the east and west gates and the door in the north wall were locked. This was her custom, and she did not deviate from it on the afternoon of the thirty-first of May.”
        Sparling paused and drank some water. He appeared to hesitate and then picked up some documents from the table in front of him as if coming to a decision.
        “I have spoken of doors and gates, and before I go any further I need to explain the layout of the house and its grounds. There are photographs and a plan.”
        Again Sparling paused while the diminutive usher with the long gown distributed copies to the jury. His opening was going well. Sparling could see that. The eyes of all the jurors were fixed upon him. He had their undivided attention.
        “You will see the points of the compass in the corner of the plan, members of the jury. To the east of the house is the sea and to the west the main road connecting the coastal towns of Flyte and Carmouth. To the south are the grounds of another property, and to the north is a small, unpaved stretch of road that runs from the main road down to the beach alongside the north wall of the property, and it was here that the two killers parked their car at about half past nine that evening. There were tire marks found in this lane, which are consistent with a car turning at speed.
        “They parked their car and then entered the grounds through the door in the north wall, which was unlocked. The police found footprints on both sides of the door, but there were no signs that the door had been forced or that the lock had been picked. It was unlocked at half past nine, but at five o’clock Mrs. Martin had left it locked. The Crown says that it was unlocked by the defendant before she left the house at half past seven with Sir Peter Robinson in order to drive down to London, where Sir Peter was to attend a government meeting early the next day.
        “Turn now to your album of photographs, members of the jury. You can see the lane and the door in the first two photographs, and then there are pictures of the outside of the house. Notice the wide lawn that the killers had to cross to get to the house from the north wall.”
        
        Greta sat in the dock listening to