LITMIR.BIZ

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Surely everyone in the country was familiar with them now? How her cousin had committed suicide on the eve of his employer’s discovery that he had embezzled many tens of thousands of pounds from them by way of a complicated computer fraud. He had known he was about to be found out, that much was obvious.

      The police had broken into his flat just after he’d taken the overdose. There had been long enough before he died for him to tell them the story that brought her here to this court today.

      The story—the lies, didn’t she mean? She had a shrewd idea why Gary had done it, of course, but who was going to believe her now? It had been three days before he’d died of liver failure connected with the effect of the tablets he had taken, a side-effect not known to many would-be suicides, and one which was just as lethal as the taking of the tablets themselves.

      The police had remained at his bedside until he had lapsed into that final coma, or so she had been told. She had not been allowed to see him. Her aunt and uncle had been with him, of course. She had been waiting outside for them when they finally ended their long vigil.

      She had never expected them to simply ignore her, never imagined they would believe Gary’s lies. He was their son. Surely they knew how he liked to embroider, to deceive? But of course that wasn’t the only reason he had told the police that he had stolen the money to give to her. He had said that it was her incessant demands, her threats of blackmail if he didn’t comply with them, that had driven him to more and more embezzlement and finally to suicide.

      What had started as a game had got out of control because she had forced him to steal more and more, or at least that was what he had told them. Only it hadn’t been like that. She had had no idea what was going on; she had not even known about Lydia Meadows until she had seen the photographs in the local paper: a tall, elegant woman posing at the side of her much older husband, a very wealthy industrialist.

      And then she remembered seeing Gary with her, a Gary who had obviously been completely besotted with her. Had she been the reason he had turned to crime? Had it been to protect Lydia that his dying words had been those lies which had brought Lark herself here today?

      She admitted grimly to herself that she was probably never likely to know. After all, she wasn’t going to get much chance to find out, locked away behind prison walls.

      James Wolfe was still watching her, and she only just managed to repress the violent shiver of anguish trembling through her body at the thought of what today could lead to—prison. She wanted to cry and scream that they were wrong, that she had done nothing, nothing at all. Pride wouldn’t let her.

      Why would these strangers believe her when her own family would not?

      She still couldn’t believe how completely her aunt and uncle had turned against her. How they had never even for one moment allowed themselves to believe that their son might be lying—that she might be the innocent party. All those years when she had tried to think of them as her parents, when she had hoped they thought of her as a daughter, she had been living a lie. She knew that now.

      It was hard not to feel bitter, not to feel resentful. But bitterness and resentment would get her nowhere now. No—what she needed was the skill of another James Wolfe, skills that she somehow doubted she could find in her own tired and cynical counsel.

      The cross-examination started and, although she was trembling inside, Lark held up her head proudly, her dark green eyes clashing with those of her attacker. How cool and controlled he was, how sure that he was going to win. She would be convicted. Such a large hammer to wield against such a very frail person as herself, but her cousin’s employers were determined to make an example of her now that Gary himself was beyond their reach.

      They and others like them were too vulnerable to embezzlement of this kind, and therefore they would want to ensure that no one else was tempted to follow in Gary’s footsteps, that others saw exactly how harsh the punishment for such embezzlement could be. As an accomplice, her sentence would be comparatively light, of course—non-existent if she could convince the judge that Gary had lied. But, even as her solicitor had said those words, Lark had read in his eyes his own disbelief of her tale. After all, why should her cousin deliberately implicate her, a girl who had been brought up practically as his sister? What kind of man would do such a cruel and malicious thing to another member of his family? Certainly not a man as mild as Gary.

      But there had been another side to Gary—one that the world did not see. One that was hidden and secret. It had been a long time since she had allowed herself to think of those first days when she had been orphaned, when Gary’s parents, her aunt and uncle, had taken her into their home.

      They had been unhappy, dark days, filled with longing for the parents she had lost. Days which had been further darkened by Gary’s hostility towards her. Two years older than her, he had tormented her cruelly in those early months: getting her into trouble with his parents, stealing and destroying her toys, taunting her by telling her she would have to go and live in a home. But surely it wasn’t just because of his childish resentment that Gary had lied about her now?

      No—she was convinced that there was more to it than that. Convinced that Gary had lied to protect the woman he loved. A woman who was married to another man.

      Caught up in her own emotions, she was intensely aware of the emotional climate of the court room, and of the way James Wolfe skilfully played on those emotions, when describing to the jury the enormity of her supposed crime.

      It was the company shareholders, ordinary people much like themselves, who would ultimately be the losers, so he told them. People who put their life savings into companies such as the one Gary worked for. Life savings which had been stolen by a young man who was now beyond their reach. But he was not the real perpetrator of the crime. He had been forced into it, blackmailed by his cousin, by herself.

      Sickly, Lark realised that the jury were drinking in every word, sitting in silence, deeply absorbed in everything that James Wolfe was saying to them. He was lying, lying to them, she wanted to call out. None of what he said was true. She wasn’t the reason Gary had robbed his company. She wasn’t the one he had wanted the money for.

      What was the use of saying anything? Nobody would believe her.

      Listlessly, she answered the questions he put to her, the words mechanical and without emotion. How many times had she already been through those questions? How many times had she already listened to the same words?

      The cold grey eyes focused on her, and an unnerving sensation raced up and down her spine.

      ‘What a very fortunate young woman you are, Miss Cummings. Tell me something, do you honestly feel no compunction, no guilt, no remorse?’

      It was too much. Lark stared at him, her temper suddenly deserting her.

      ‘No,’ she told him recklessly, ‘I don’t feel any of those things. Not a single one. I don’t need to. I’m not guilty. I haven’t done anything. You don’t understand. You’re wrong, wrong!’

      To her horror she discovered she was crying, her whole body shaking with the force of her emotions. There were sounds behind her, tuts from the jury, the vague sounds of unease the British always make in the face of other people’s emotions.

      Hatred engulfed her as she tried to control herself. He had done it deliberately—deliberately trapped her into saying what she really felt. She looked at him proudly, her head held up, her body trembling under the force of her feelings. Grey eyes looked back at her. She could read nothing in them, but then, what had she expected to read? Triumph, because he knew he would win his case? He was far too professional for that, she decided scornfully, watching him as he turned and walked away from her.

      The rest of the proceedings passed in a blur. There were questions and then more questions. There were speeches and then more speeches, but none of it meant anything to her. She already knew what the outcome was going to be. No one had had such a profound effect on the jury as James Wolfe, no one had had as profound an effect on her.

      Her solicitor was withdrawn and ill at ease when the case was eventually adjourned for a break. The jury had

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