Andrew Leigh met her at a restaurant, not a law office.
His choice. She noted this — the implication that this was a conversation between reasonable people, informal, over a good lunch. The particular approach of a lawyer who has learned that people say more when they feel they're not in a legal context.
She ordered the salmon. She waited.
He explained what they needed. The Thursday dinner, the timeline, her confirmation that Robert had been present from eight until eleven. "You were there," he said. "You organized it. Your testimony would be the most reliable account of the evening."
"I was there," Helen said.
"And Robert was there throughout?"
Helen looked at her food.
"He stepped out," she said. "Around nine."
A small pause. "For how long?"
"I'm not sure. I was managing the room." She looked up. "Ninety minutes, perhaps. Maybe a little less."
Andrew Leigh's expression did not change. He was very good.
"That creates a gap," he said.
"Yes," Helen said.
"A gap that — in the context of the timeline the other side has established—"
"I know what it means," Helen said. "I've been thinking about it."
"Your testimony doesn't have to address the gap directly," Andrew said. "It can simply confirm Robert's presence at the dinner."
"Yes," Helen said. "It can." A pause. "Or it can be accurate."
Andrew set down his fork.
"Helen," he said. "You understand the position Robert is in."
"I do."
"He is facing serious allegations. A conviction would—"
"Andrew," she said. "I have been thinking about this for three weeks. I understand the position Robert is in." She looked at him directly. "I also know where he was for the ninety minutes he was absent from that dinner."
Andrew was very still.
"He was with Sarah Cole," Helen said. "I know this because I have checked his phone records, which are available to me as I am his wife, and because I have spoken to Sarah Cole's building concierge, who confirmed a visitor matching Robert's description on that date and time." She paused. "I'm telling you this not because I plan to volunteer it, but because you need to understand that I am not in a position to testify selectively."
"If you say he was absent—"
"I will say he was absent," Helen said. "Because he was. I will not say where he went, because that's not my testimony to give. But I will not say he was present throughout. I won't say something that isn't true."
Andrew looked at her.
"Robert needs to know this," he said.
"Robert already knows this," Helen said. "He knows what he did that night. I'm sure his recollection is very clear." She picked up her fork. "He simply assumed I would provide cover. As I apparently have been doing, in various forms, for some years."
Robert came home at six and found her in the study.
She heard him stop in the doorway. She kept working.
"Andrew called me," he said.
"I expected he would."
"Helen. What are you doing?"
She turned around. He was in the doorway in his white shirt, still in his good shoes — he hadn't taken them off at the door, which meant he'd come straight here — and his face had the expression of a man who has been managing something for too long and can feel it getting away from him.
"I'm telling the truth," she said.
"You're going to—" He stopped. "You're going to ruin me."
"I'm going to tell the truth about what I observed," Helen said. "You were absent from the dinner for approximately ninety minutes. That's what I know. That's what I'll say."
"You know where I was."
"I have a reasonable belief about where you were," she said. "I won't testify to that. I'll testify to what I directly observed."
"That's going to destroy the timeline defense."
"Probably," she said.
He came fully into the study. "Twenty-two years, Helen. After twenty-two years—"
"After twenty-two years," she said, "you assumed that I would say what you needed me to say. That's what twenty-two years means to you. That I'm available. That I'll cover." She turned back to her work. "I spent three weeks thinking about this very carefully. I'm not going to lie under oath for someone who doesn't know where I am when he steps out of a room."
"I love you," he said.
"I know," she said. "I also know that you love me the way you love the house — because it runs well and it's yours and it would be very inconvenient if it weren't there."
Robert was quiet.
"I've been to see a solicitor," Helen said. "My own, not yours. I've begun the process of separating our finances. When this is resolved — however it resolves — I want to discuss the house."
"You're leaving."
"I've been thinking about leaving for some time," she said. "The investigation is separate. I'm not doing this to hurt you. I'm doing it because it's true, and I have spent enough years saying things that were convenient rather than true."
She testified in February.
She said Robert had been present at the dinner from approximately eight until nine, and again from approximately ten-thirty until eleven. She said she did not know his whereabouts during the gap.
She said this clearly and without hesitation and without looking at Robert, who was sitting with his lawyers on the other side of the room.
When the cross-examination asked if she had any knowledge of where he went during the gap, she said: "I have beliefs. I don't have direct knowledge. I won't testify to beliefs."
The other side's barrister looked at her for a moment.
"Thank you, Mrs. Marsh," she said.
Helen stepped down.
She did not look at Robert as she walked past.
She went out into the corridor and stood by the window that looked out over the street and breathed.
Her sister was waiting at the end of the corridor. Her sister had always had the quality of showing up when it mattered.
"How was it?" her sister asked.
"Accurate," Helen said.
Her sister nodded.
"Come on," she said. "Lunch."
They went to lunch. Helen had the soup. She talked about her current translation project — a biography of a nineteenth-century botanist, fascinating actually — and her sister talked about her own work and the new kitchen renovation.
They did not talk about Robert.
There would be time for that. There was a great deal ahead: the divorce, the house, the disentangling of twenty-two years. It would be slow and occasionally unpleasant and she had prepared for it.
But today she had told the truth in a room full of people, and it had not felt like anything except right.
That was enough for now.
