False Witness by Dexter Dias

convictions?”
    “Can’t remember.”
    “Well, is that because you have too many convictions or too little memory?” That was one of my favorite lines.
    “You tell me.”
    “What were you doing in January last year?”
    “I can’t think that far back.”
    The atmosphere was beginning to change in court, shifting slowly, almost imperceptibly, like the sands along a beach.
    I paused until the girl was forced to look at me. “Weren’t you in Stonebury on the night of 10th January?”
    “Dunno.” She gave a careless wave of her hand.
    “Well, I do. You visited some friends of yours.”
    “They were still in the home.”
    “Oh, yes,” I said. “The home. West Albion. Do you smoke?”
    Manly, who had been watching this exchange with mounting irritation, asked, “What possible relevance can that have, Mr. Fawley?”
    “I’ll let the witness answer that,” I replied impertinently, “if Your Lordship pleases.”
    He huffed, but let me continue.
    “So do you smoke?”
    “No.”
    “Where did you get the matches then?”
    The girl was beside herself. “I never dun that. I never dun it.”
    “Done what? Perhaps you’d care to tell us—if you can remember that far back.”
    “What they said was lies,” she protested.
    “You were convicted of setting fire to the home. Was that another mistake?”
    “I was innocent.”
    “But you confessed to the police.”
    “They fitted me up.”
    “And you pleaded guilty?”
    “My brief made me do that.”
    “Well, you must be the unluckiest young lady in the West Country.”
    “Mr. Fawley,” said Manly, “please don’t comment.”
    “Poor you,” I continued. “You were caught with some matches when you don’t even smoke, the police say you confessed when you
     didn’t say a word? You were forced to plead guilty when you really were innocent? Come, come. That’s not the truth.”
    “I hated that home. Molly did, too,” blurted out the girl. “They used to make us—”
    “I’m not concerned with that,” I tried to interrupt.
    “They beat us and put us in—”
    “Please. We’re not interested.”
    “They put us in that room,” she cried. She turned to the judge. “Don’t let them put me back in the Hole. I’ll tell you what
     you want.”
    I had to try to stem the flow of such damaging information. I appealed to Manly.
    “I’m afraid you rather opened the door of the West Albion, Mr. Fawley.” The judge clearly enjoyed my discomfort.
    Emma had her arms tightly folded and looked at the floor. No notes, no help, just stern disapproval. I could now see why no
     one wanted to grapple with the issue of the home. It cut both ways and was extremely dangerous.
    “Let me move on to… another topic,” I said. No one was fooled—I couldn’t even fool myself. I was losing the battle.
    “Mr. Fawley, have you finished with this witness?” Manly wanted to press on. “Or do you want to know anything else about her
     childhood?” He flourished his pencil in a taunting fashion.
    At first I did not realize what I had found. My hands nervously fingered the papers in front of me, and I toyed with a sheet
     somewhere near the top. It was crisply folded and quite neatly typed.
    Manly asked Davenport if he wished to re-examine. Davenport declined.
    “You’re free to leave, young lady,” said Manly.
    Doctor Jennifer Stone tightened her belt and started to usher the young girl from the court with that cold compassion that
     used to be shown by workhouse governesses. Norman rose reluctantly and looked at Davenport to see who the next witness would
     be. Davenport conferred with Justine and they agreed on the second girl, the other “filly” as he had called her. And all the
     time I was looking at the sheet of paper and thinking, what can it mean? I had not read the whole brief properly as Emma had
     urged me to do. So when I looked at the sheet, I could not truly say whether the note had been there all the time or whether
     it was new.
    The Past is a