CH 206

After the crime scene investigator Gerold left the stand, Gaunt immediately called up a new witness, eager to launch a counter-offensive against Gu Yan.

So much such that he didn’t even notice that his masterly tempo had already been disrupted. The whole court had started to walk in Gu Yan’s unique beat now. 

The witness was a slightly rotund middle-aged man with bulging eyes. Without first wearing an exaggerated expression, he seemed lackadaisical; anyone could see that he didn’t exercise often.

His name was Matthew Claude and he was the road security guard for the belt at Emerald Valley.

Gaunt inhaled deeply, stood up, and nodded at Claude in greeting. He asked, “Mr Claude, correct?”

“That’s me.” Matthew Claude spoke slowly. 

Perhaps due to his lack of expression and the drawl in his voice, his general impression to others was that of slight arrogance.

But Lawyer Gaunt didn’t mind.

As long as it was another chip to lend credence to his arguments, he couldn’t care less about their speech mannerisms.

“You’re the security guard for the belt at Emerald Valley?” Gaunt put on a smile. “Could you please give us a broad overview of your job?”

Matthew Claude said, “Of course. The belt at Emerald Valley on Helan is well-known for its frequent storms and earthquakes; a very rainy and wet place. To what extent, though? It’s such that even energy reserves can get affected. There’s a weather incident at least every other day, and even the surveillance installed there often shorts. My job is to stay in the guard post and keep an eye on the mountain pass the whole day. If there’s a small blip with the energy reserve, I can service it, but if it’s anything major, I’d promptly escalate the issue. Also, part of my scope is manual surveillance.”

“Does this mean to say that you can see the cars that drive through that mountain pass?” Lawyer Gaunt extracted the main point, asking again to make sure that everyone caught that.

Matthew Claude nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Did you see anything on the day that the crime took place, September 19?” Gaunt asked. 

Matthew Claude was unhesitating. “A white Silver Jaguar GTX3, driving over from the 013 mountain pass.”

Gaunt asked, “Are there any other logs? Like camera footage?”

Matthew Claude scoffed. “I can only say that the defendant was very shrewd to have specifically picked a rainy day, knowing that the damn surveillance has a tendency to short when that happens. So, no, there aren’t any other records.”

Gaunt nodded. “Where does this mountain pass lead to?” 

“Straight to the abandoned warehouse on the westside of Emerald Valley.”

“Gbfr la ifjv jcsktfgf firf?”

Jbcrlvfglcu la, Jijevf qegrfv tlr ilqr. “Yglulcjiis, sfjt. Dea atf gbjv jtfjv kjr yibmxjvfv ys j ijcvrilvf veglcu j rabgw, rb qjra ws uejgv qbra, atf bcis qbrrlyif vfralcjalbc lr atf kjgftberf. Sgg… bg ab vbeyif yjmx atf kjs sbe mjwf.”

“Pr atfgf jcs batfg gbjv lc atf nlmlclas atja mjc ifjv ab Jglwf Vmfcf 7, atja kjgftberf?” Ojksfg Xjeca jrxfv. 

“There used to be, from the other direction.” Matthew Claude, possibly feeling that it was a dumb question, snapped back, “But I’ve already said that. There was a landslide so the other side got blockaded. This is the only road left.”

“Alright.” Lawyer Gaunt nodded, before asking, “What time did you see the Silver Jaguar GTX3?”

“It drove past the guard post towards the warehouse at 5:15 p.m. Around four hours later, at 9:10 p.m., it left.” Matthew Claude said.

Gaunt nodded again, satisfied, then turned to look at the jury, saying politely, “At the risk of sounding repetitive, there is mention in the very first evidence that narrowed the time frame of the crime to between 6 and 7 p.m. on September 19. Which also means to say that this Silver Jaguar GTX3 stayed long enough to cover the time of abuse.” 

After a pause, he brought the topic back to Gu Yan and Gerold’s conversation. “Moreover, the defendant also had enough time to stay at the crime scene and slowly admire his masterpiece.”

As he spoke, he took out and cast a forensic report on the holographic screen, marking out the keywords in red, calling attention to them. “In order to smoothly understand the timeline of the case, I am only presenting this forensic report now in conjunction with Mr Claude’s testimony. This is the car found by the traffic police three days after the crime at a road section of the 013 mountain pass.”

Gaunt went “ah” and added, “It’s worth noting that it didn’t rain during those three days. Also, the traffic police at that time weren’t aware that this car was part of an even bigger case. But that’s beside the point. The point is that this car had been abandoned off-road in the forest. Its model is a Silver Jaguar GTX3, and Defendant Lee’s hair and clothing fibres were found inside the car.”

Several photographs flashed on the wide holographic screen in succession. The car body was filthy, caked with dried mud, and the wheels were even worse. 

“Okay. I end my examination here.” Lawyer Gaunt finished off and sat back down.

He leaned back in his seat, gazing sedately at the defence table.

This round of evidence didn’t involve Defendant Chia; Lawyer Dane immediately rose and was glad to say, “I have no questions.”

Thus, all lines of sight trained on Gu Yan again. 

The judge gestured to him, and Gu Yan stood up.

On the holographic screen, the abandoned Silver Jaguar GTX3 was not put away, still openly displayed like a nagging reminder to everyone: This car belonged to Horace Lee, and it was on the scene at the time of the crime.

When Gu Yan got up, his gaze coolly lingered on those photos for a moment before calmly averting.

He looked at Matthew Claude, politely nodding in greeting, then said tepidly, “You mentioned just now that your job scope includes staying in the guard post and keeping an eye on the mountain pass all day long, am I correct?” 

“Yeah.”

“On a shift basis?”

“Yes, with my other colleague. Half-day shifts.”

Gu Yan, “What is the exact time that you change shifts?” 

“Usually one comes in from morning until evening, and the other one takes evening until morning. The exact timing isn’t fixed. It depends on a number of factors, after all, it’s often raining over there, and there are also frequent earthquakes.”

“Then, what were the hours of your shift that day?”

“From two in the afternoon to six in the morning on the next day. The weather forecast said that it would rain, so I got there early,” said Claude.

“During the shift, were there others around?” 

“Nah, just me alone.”

“Your shift was long that day. During which, did you fall asleep from fatigue?” Gu Yan asked.

Matthew Claude’ rejection was almost instantaneous. “No way!”

“You don’t sleep at night, either?” 

Again, Matthew Claude was swift to deny, “No, I didn’t sleep.”

Gu Yan regarded him quietly for a while, then turned his gaze away.

“It has been more than three months since September 19 to now. Can you be certain that your memory of that day is still complete and clear?” He changed the subject, continuing to ask, “Is it possible that you would remember the wrong date or time? Or confuse it with the day before or after?”

Matthew Claude guffawed. His eyebrows flew up. The perpetually listless look in his bulging eyes actually turned imperious. “Mr Lawyer, you might have some kind of misunderstanding about the traffic conditions at Emerald Valley. Hardly anyone passes through it in a year; I can count them on my two hands!” 

His tone of voice was mocking, infuriatingly so. “Let me throw the question back at you. If you stare at the same thing day in, day out and only see a living person once every other month or so, would you get the date wrong? If it’s been several decades, maybe we can talk. But it’s only been a few months, how can I not remember? Or do you think I have goldfish memory?”

Despite the vitriol shoved down his throat, there was not a rise from Gu Yan, who simply nodded to express his understanding.

He was, as always, calm and collected. He dropped his gaze, opened to a page in a report, and then calmly asked the next question. “The previous witness, Mr Gerold, as well as you, both attest that it was raining on the day that the crime took place?”

“Yes,” Matthew Claude replied. 

“I also checked the weather report for that day. Records show that there were two downpours that day?” Gu Yan asked.

Claude was briefly startled, but he quickly replied, “The first one started around four in the afternoon until night. It stopped soon after that car left, around nine-twenty? It rained again in the middle of the night afterwards.”

“Was the rain heavy?”

“Very heavy. The wind was strong, too. It whipped from an angle, beating down on the glass windows of the guard post for five hours straight. I was even worried that the windows would crack.” To prove that his memory was crystal clear, he gave a more detailed description. 

Gu Yan finally looked up from the document. “In that case, I have a question.”

“What?”

“You claimed with unusual certainty just now that the car you witnessed on the day of the crime was a white Silver Jaguar, even being so exact as to identify the model as a GTX3. Please explain to me how you saw the model through the downpour during the seconds that the car sped by?”

Matthew Claude went rigid for a moment before raising his voice. “It’s my job to watch the road! I have close to sixty years of experience, sixty years of staring at the passing cars every day; frankly speaking, I don’t even need to rely on my eyes to tell any more! I can tell the model just by listening to the sound of its engine and combining that with the general silhouette, that’s how much experience I have.” 

Gu Yan listened and didn’t refute him.

He simply tossed away the page in his hand, looked at Matthew Claude, and said, “That being the case, you may need to explain a little more.”

“Explain what?” Claude was almost driven to a panic by his questioning.

Gu Yan projected the trial transcript that was being updated in real-time on the holographic screen, pulled it back to several lines ago, and underscored one of the sentences. “Three minutes ago, you just said that I might have some kind of misunderstanding about the traffic conditions of Emerald Valley. Hardly anyone passes through it in a year, they can be counted on two hands; you only see a living person once every other month or so. Based on this frequency, with all due respect, most people in court today would have seen more cars than you have in your sixty years of work.” 

“May I ask, then, where your wealth of experience comes from?”