Death of an Expert Witness by P. D. James

had been very kind this morning about the murder. He had arrived at the Laboratory over an hour late, at ten o'clock, looking terribly tired because he had been up that night at the scene of crime, and had come over to the reception desk to collect his personal post. He had said:
    "You'll be getting exhibits from your first murder case this morning.
    Don't let them worry you, Brenda. There's only one death we need to be frightened of, and that's our own."
    It was a strange thing to have said, an odd way to reassure her. But he was right. She was suddenly glad that Inspector Blakelock had done the documentation on the clunch pit murder. Now, with care, the owner of those stained panties would remain, for her, unknown, anonymous, a number in the biology series on a manila folder. Inspector Blakelock's voice broke into her thoughts:
    "Have you got those court reports we checked yesterday ready for the post?"
    "Yes, they've been entered in the book. I meant to ask you.
    Why do all the court statements have "Criminal Justice Act 1967 sections 2 and 9' printed on them?"
    "That's the statutory authority for written evidence to be tendered at committal proceedings and the Crown Court. You can look up the sections in the library. Before the 1967 Act the labs had a hard time of it, I can tell you, when all scientific evidence had to be given orally. Mind you, the court-going officers still have to spend a fair amount of time attending trials. The defence doesn't always accept the scientific findings. That's the difficult part of the job, not the analysis but standing alone in the witness box to defend it under cross-examination. If a man's no good in the box, then all the careful work he does here goes for nothing."
    Brenda suddenly remembered something else that Mrs. Mallett had told her, that the motorist who had killed his daughter had been acquitted because the scientist had crumbled under the cross-examination; something to do with the analysis of chips of paint found on the road which matched the suspect's car. It must be terrible to lose an only child; to lose any child. Perhaps that was the worst thing that could happen to a human being.
    No wonder Inspector Blakelock was often so quiet; that when the police officers came in with their hearty banter he answered only with that slow, gentle smile.
    She glanced across at the Laboratory clock. Ten forty-rive. Any minute now the scene-of-crime course would be arriving for their lecture on the collection and preservation of scientific evidence, and this brief spell of quiet would be over. She wondered what Colonel Hoggatt would think if he could visit his Laboratory now. Her eyes were drawn, as they so often were, to his portrait hanging just outside the Director's office. Even from her place at the desk she could read the gold lettering on the frame.
    Colonel William Makepeace Hoggatt
    VC. Chief Constable 1894-1912
    Founder of Hoggatt's Forensic Science Laboratory.
    He was standing in the room which was still used as a library, his ruddy face stern and bewhiskered under the sprouting plumes of his hat, his braided, bemedalled tunic fastened with a row of gilt buttons. One proprietorial hand was laid, light as a priestly blessing, on an oldfashioned microscope in gleaming brass. But the minatory eyes weren't fixed on this latest scientific wonder; they were fixed on Brenda. Under his accusing gaze, recalled to duty, she bent again to her work.
    By twelve o'clock the meeting of senior scientists in the Director's office to discuss the furniture and equipment for the new Laboratory was over, and Howarth rang for his secretary to clear the conference table. He watched her as she emptied and polished the ashtray (he didn't smoke and the smell of ash offended him), collected together the copies of the Laboratory plans and gathered up the strewn discarded papers. Even from his desk, Howarth could see Middlemass's complex geometrical doodles, and the crumpled agenda, ringed with coffee