This was the crux and Soma knew it. He objected again on grounds of speculation, and Hardy waited in suspension for Salter to rule.

Hardy was coming back to the present, though still sick in his heart. Walking an invisible tightrope between very close interpretations of the same evidence, he thought he’d phrased the question well. For his purposes all he needed was doubt about the struggle. Someone else could have been with Sal, could have helped him die, but there must not appear in the minds of the jurors that there had been any fight.

The judge finally spoke. ‘No, the question stands. I’ll overrule the objection. Sergeant, you may answer.’

The reporter read it back, and Parini gave it a reasonable amount of time. ‘No,’ he said. ‘He could have stumbled against it just as easily. Nothing ruled it out.’

All at once his frustration over Michelle’s Tryptech treasure gave way to enthusiasm to plumb the vein he’d hit with Parini. In the midst of these emotions Hardy made a cardinal mistake. Forgetting one of the first precepts of cross-examination, which is never to ask a question for which you don’t know the answer, he said, ‘In fact, Sergeant, isn’t it true that there was nothing in the apartment that pointed to a struggle between Sal Russo and some purported assailant?’

‘Well, no, that isn’t true. There was the position of the body.’

Covering quickly, Hardy strolled back to his table and, stalling, took a drink of water. ‘That’s right, Sergeant, the position of the body. You said earlier that it looked like Sal Russo got dropped, do I have that right?’

‘That’s right.’

Hardy was moving to the exhibit table. Having dug himself this hole, he remembered that the Chinese used the same word for disaster and opportunity. He picked up People’s One. ‘Do you mean that the victim was not in the same position as shown here?’

Parini glanced at the photo. ‘No. That’s how he was.’

‘And to your mind, does that look like he was dropped?’

‘Yes.’

‘Or fell after being hit? Knocked out?’

‘Yes. He was sort of crumpled.’

Hardy knew where he was going and he picked up the pace. ‘Looking now at People’s One, Sergeant, where the victim is lying sort of crumpled as you put it. By this do you mean his legs are curled up under him? Not stretched out?’

‘Yes.’

‘As they might have been, say, if he’d been sitting on the floor and then collapsed with loss of consciousness?’

Parini did not answer. The unflappable witness darted a quick glance toward the prosecution table. Hardy didn’t wait for him. ‘Isn’t it true, Sergeant Parini, that Sal Russo’s position is exactly consistent with a collapse from a sitting position?’

‘Well, it would-’

‘Yes or no, Sergeant. Isn’t that true?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘And having collapsed in this unnatural position with his legs under him, might his arm have fallen in such a way to knock over the whiskey bottle we’ve heard about that was under the table?’

‘It might have, but-’

‘Is that a yes, Sergeant? Yes, it might have?’

Parini hated it, but he nodded. ‘Yes.’

Hardy took a breath. ‘All right, one last point. You’ve testified that the syringe and vial were left sitting on the coffee table. Would you describe for the jury in what way, if any, these implements show any evidence of a struggle, or haste, or violence?’

Parini studied his lap for a moment, then met Hardy’s eyes.

‘There was none.’

‘And the lamp in the room, Sergeant, had it been knocked over?’

‘No.’

‘Had the glass been knocked off the table?’

‘No.’

‘Was the table itself knocked over?’

‘No.’

Hardy nodded, walked over to the exhibit table, and picked up a handful of Polaroids. ‘Sergeant Parini, as we’ve seen, these photos show dozens of objects in this room, do they not? Was any one of them broken, or out of place, or disturbed in any fashion that you could tell?’

Parini’s scowl was profound. ‘No.’

‘So would it be fair to say that your opinion that this scene shows a struggle is based entirely on the position of the body and a whiskey bottle out of the place on the floor?’

Parini hesitated, but couldn’t think of anything else to bolster his testimony. ‘That’s right, I suppose.’

‘You suppose, I see. And you’ve already said that both the position of the body and the whiskey bottle can be explained without reference to any alleged struggle, isn’t that true?’

Hardy felt he couldn’t have scripted Parini’s reaction any more perfectly. The sergeant crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in the witness chair. Intransigence incarnate. Or, Hardy thought, bullheaded stupidity.

‘Well, counselor, it’s my opinion there was a struggle.’

‘Precisely,’ Hardy said. ‘That’s your opinion.’ Hardy hadn’t said a word about the safe, about all the evidence of Graham’s presence. There were a dozen areas into which he could have wandered, but only one that did his client any good. He’d damned well rebutted the argument that two grown men had left any sign of a struggle in the apartment.

This didn’t mean that Sal Russo hadn’t been cold-cocked from behind with the whiskey bottle and fallen like a lump – which Hardy believed was what had transpired – but that there was no evidence to support that theory. He’d leave it at that.

29

Sarah was next. The prosecution might have a secretly hostile witness in the female inspector, but she couldn’t do anything about the cards she held. They were excellent for Graham’s enemies. Directly after the midafternoon recess, after stretching and coffee or cigarettes, the men on the jury were especially unlikely to lose interest with a pretty woman on the stand.

She wasn’t in one of her cop suits, which were purposely formless and without style. Knowing that she’d be testifying, Sarah thought she should look as good as she could. So she was wearing a red silk blouse that showed no skin but shimmered tantalizingly over her breasts with each breath, with the beating of her heart. A short combed woolen skirt and low pumps flattered her good legs. Her hair was off her face, falling to her shoulders.

When she came through the bar rail, Hardy put a hand over his client’s arm, squeezed hard enough to draw blood. ‘Look down,’ he whispered. ‘She catches your eyes, you’re both done for.’

Inexplicably, perhaps ominously, Art Drysdale rose and walked to the center of the courtroom. Hardy caught a worried glance from Sarah but, like his client, could make no sign that it meant anything. He looked across to Freeman, who shrugged again, but beneath the nonchalance Hardy detected a note of concern. Could they have found out? Would Drysdale, in his homespun way, hang Sarah out to dry?

If so, there was no immediate sign. Drysdale quickly introduced himself to the jury and to Sarah and started in. As he was going along with it, Hardy began to see the logic behind choosing Drysdale for this witness. Endlessly affable, he would remain the same calm and reassuring inquisitor as he drove home lie after lie after lie.

Soma, on the other hand, by about the fifth lie, would have his adrenaline running. Unable to stop himself, he would speed up. And this was evidence to be savored, lingered over.

This was a lovely young woman putting stake after stake into the heart of a handsome man. It would have been a very difficult Q & A, even if she’d had no feelings for him, and no one would suspect that she did. The more her answers seemed wrung from her, the more devastating they would be.

‘Inspector Evans, you’ve had a great number of opportunities to interview the defendant personally, have you not?’

Sarah nodded, then spoke, her voice a tempered contralto. ‘Yes, sir, I have.’

‘When did you first speak with him?’

‘At his home, on the day after’ – she paused and searched for a neutral phraseology – ‘the victim’s death.’