‘Objection!’ Bracken stands up.
‘Fair question,’ the lawyer says, turning to judge Delia.
I stare at the judge… and wait…
‘You may answer,’ she says to me.
I look back at the lawyer, through new tears that have just snuck up on me.
‘If you are suggesting she may have suffered some mental health problems to an extent that she would kill our two sons, then I am already on the record of saying I don’t believe that to be the case. I testified ten minutes ago to Mr Bracken that I did not witness Joy suffering any depression after our boys were born. She was happy. We were happy.’
The lawyer looks about himself, and as he does I turn the photo of my boys’ smiling faces towards me and stifle a smile back at them. Though all I manage to do is blink more tears down my cheeks.
‘Mr Stapleton, I cannot possibly comprehend the amount of emotion you must be feeling. But I must do my job properly… so forgive me. But you are here today testifying that you do not believe, after all these years, that your wife is guilty of this crime, yet you have only visited her two times in eight years. And we also know that the second time you visited her was to seek a divorce… wasn’t it? Because you had just got engaged to another woman, correct?’
My chins quiver.
‘Please,’ I sob. ‘Please… can you not just let me move on? I came here to say what I had to say so I could move on… please.’
❖
Delia remains upright in her highchair, her two arms folded and resting onto the desk, her lips ever so slightly pouted. She had learned, many years ago, how to refrain from showing emotion inside the courtroom. A turning out of her lips is about as much as she has ever skirted the lines of what is deemed appropriate for a trial judge. Though she is holding up well, especially in comparison to those in the gallery; some of whom are dabbing at their eyes, most of whom haven’t bothered and have decided, instead, to just allow the tears to flood down their cheeks.
‘Mr Stapleton,’ she says, intervening, ‘the question is pertinent. Given that you have come here to testify, I would like you to answer it. If you need more time, I am happy to adjourn the court and allow you to—’
‘I’ll answer the question,’ he says, sitting more upright and sniffling up his nose. Delia’s lips pout even further and her brow dips, heavy with empathy. ‘Yes, I was engaged to Jennifer a few years ago. I met her at a charity do one Christmas, we hit it off… we were going to restaurants on dates. I was finally getting back out there. Living myself a life. Then after I asked her to marry me and the media got wind of the story, they started to follow us about. They wanted a picture of Jennifer’s ring, and me and her all cosy or something… I don’t know. But it frightened me. It made me want to stay home and I started to suffer with more grief and… and… eventually, I just told Jennifer that she needed to move on. That is the truth of it all. I don’t understand what this has to do with the trial. Yes, I once asked Joy for a divorce, but I never went through with it. There was no divorce.’
Jonathan Ryan coughs, unsure whether his line of questioning is working. He wanted to display Shay as somebody who couldn’t possibly have thought Joy was innocent all these years, not when he had only visited her twice and had since got engaged to another women. But the witness’s raw and emotive responses seem to only have endeared him more to the gallery.
‘Okay, Mr Stapleton,’ Ryan relents, ‘I just want to ask you three more questions, to re-establish some points, then you are free to leave. Firstly, you say you are not convinced by your wife’s guilt in this case, but you have only visited her twice in prison in the past eight years, correct?’
‘Yes, I’ve already confirmed that.’
‘Okay, Mr Stapleton, we are just re-establishing some points. Secondly, you got engaged to another woman in 2016, correct?’
‘Yes,’ Shay says, before allowing a frustrated sigh blow through his lips.
‘And whilst you are not convinced of your wife’s guilt, you are also not convinced by her innocence, yes?’
Shay shrugs his shoulders.
‘I guess so,’ he says.
And then Ryan turns to Delia and nods at her before returning to his desk.
‘Mr Stapleton,’ Delia says sombrely, just as the witness is getting to his feet, ‘I don’t often break protocol in the court, but feel it’s warranted to add an extra thank you to the one already offered up by Mr Bracken. Your time is really appreciated.’
Delia was genuinely moved by Shay Stapleton’s testimony, not because he got so emotional discussing the unfathomable murder of his two young sons, but because he was willing to support his wife after all these years. Delia knew next to nothing about sports, but even she could tell why Shay had been such an outstanding athlete for his county. He was strong. He was brave. And he was undoubtedly loyal. But as he was stepping down from the witness box, Delia was trying to filter through her mind whether or not Shay being all those things truly counted towards her judgement.
As the witness walks his sizeable frame down the aisle of the court, Delia’s eyes burn again towards the bushy v-shaped eyebrows in the back row.
She waits until Shay, in total silence, sweeps open the double doors and disappears out of them before she twists her wrist towards her face.
‘It’s just gone one p.m.,’ she calls out. ‘We will take nigh on ninety minutes for lunch. Court will reconvene at 2:30 p.m. precisely.’
She hammers down her gavel once and then stands abruptly, her eyes fixed once again on those eyebrows.
Eddie squints back at her, then rises to his feet as a sea of heads pass him to rush towards the same double doors Shay Stapleton had exited just moments ago.
‘Edward Taunton!’ Delia calls out as his eyebrows get lost in the crowd.
There is no answer to her call as those attempting to exit swivel their heads back and forth from the judge to the double doors.
‘Eddie!’ Callum, standing on the other side of the courtroom, shouts. The crowd stop in unison, and stare. But Callum just waves them on, and as they finally disperse through the double doors, Eddie’s obese frame comes into view, his hands in his pockets, his tiny eyes squinting under the arch of his bushy eyebrows.
‘I need to have a discussion with you in my office. Now!’
‘I, eh… I need to—’
‘Now!’ Delia shouts.
Then she takes the three steps down from her highchair and storms out the side entrance of the courtroom. She whips off her robe as she paces down the corridor; the emotional gut-wrench she had felt during Shay’s touching testimony well and truly replaced by a fierce doggedness.
When she snatches open her office door, she tosses her bunched up robe to one side and wiggles at the mouse of her computer as she sits into her leather chair.
‘How the hell am I going to deal with this?’ she says to herself as she waits on her monitor to blink back to life.
She stifles a yawn, only because she is so mastered in the art of doing so that it has become her usual yawning practice. She’s spent twenty-five years as a criminal judge, overseeing many, many a dour hour of needless interactions in the midst of trials, and has therefore grown accustomed to mastering the stifling of a yawn. She is tired, but not just mentally today. She hadn’t slept last night. Not much, anyway. She kept tossing and turning in her bed, the images of her son masturbating flashing in front of her eyes every time she tried to concentrate on the specifics of the retrial. Then Eddie’s eyebrows would make their way into her thoughts and her fists would form into a tense ball under her duvet. She gazes around her desk, while waiting on the screen to blink to life, and looks at her son’s proud smirk in the cracked photo frame, then the monitor hums and the screen blinks on at the same moment footsteps make their way to her door. She anticipates a knock, but none comes. The door just sweeps open.
‘Where is he?’ Callum says.
‘You beat him to it.’
‘Mother fucker better get here.’
�
�Callum McCormick, mind your language.’ Delia snaps at her son as if he’s a teenager again.
‘How you going to approach this, Mum?’
‘Oh, good afternoon, Mr Taunton,’ Aisling calls out from the hallway, before heavy footsteps thud closer and knuckles rattle ominously against the door.
‘Come in, Eddie,’ Delia shouts.
He walks in, stares at Delia, then at Callum, before he ever so slowly glances around the dimly lit office.
‘You need to talk?’ he says.
‘Sit down, Eddie,’ Delia orders.
Eddie puffs out a snigger, then shuffles around Callum and takes a seat opposite the judge.
‘I thought Shay’s testimony was very touching—’
‘Shut up, Eddie. And listen to me.’
‘Excuse me, Delia,’ he protests, sitting upright and pointing his finger. But Delia slaps her hand to her desk, causing another thin shard of glass to fall from the cracked photo frame.
‘You are listening to me now,’ Delia says. She leans more forward in her chair, mirroring Eddie, her eyes wide over the rim of her glasses. ‘Tell me about the video.’
‘The vid…. What? The CCTV footage of Joy?’
‘Wise up,’ Callum says from behind Eddie. ‘And grow up. You know what my mother is talking about.’
Eddie stares over his shoulder at Callum, then fills his cheeks with air before slowly exhaling through tightly pursed lips, producing a rasping sound.
‘Shay Stapleton’s testimony, whilst tragic and touching, was largely a nonsense, right… you know that…’
‘We’re not talking about Shay Stapleton, Eddie. We’re talking about the video,’ Callum says.
‘Calm down, little boy,’ Eddie replies, turning in the chair again to eyeball Callum. Delia keeps her eyes wide. Then Eddie turns to her and continues. ‘He’s just a grieving father who’s never been allowed to grieve. And now he’s just happy for his wife or ex-wife or whatever she is to him to be free… regardless of whether or not he thinks she had anything to do with it. He’s been asked about his sons and his wife every day for twelve years. The man is sick of it. He’s testifying so Joy can get out of prison, because he thinks it may end his pain, too. Yes, his testimony was touching. Yes, his testimony was emotional. Heck, I almost cried. He used to be a hero of mine, y’know? I used to cheer him on from the Hogan Stand. But you don’t need to view his testimony in any way other than testimony from a grief-stricken father who is not a professional in any line of investigative work. Nor judicial work. You – Delia – are one of the best trial lawyers this country has produced. You know that. You know you can’t let the emotions of a grieving father change your mind. Joy Stapleton did this.’
‘The reason we called you here was not to discuss Joy Stapleton—’
‘Calm down, Callum,’ Delia says, dropping the curtness in her tone. ‘Keep talking, Eddie.’
‘Well, what more do you want me to say? This retrial has offered up tidbits of interesting anecdotes, but nothing should change your mind on this, Delia. You need to protect the original verdict. It’s as simple as that.’
‘And that’s why you sent me a video of my son in a private moment? To blackmail me into protecting the original verdict?’
‘Have you any idea what a not guilty verdict would do for the whole judicial arm of our nation? The whole house would come crumbling down. They’d totally drain the swamp. A not guilty verdict here would be detrimental not only for the judicial system, but our nation as a whole.’ Delia gets to her feet and begins to pace the small square of floor to the side of her desk. ‘C’mon Delia… You know Bunny the dog had fuck all to do with the guilty verdict in the original trial anyway. So, it shouldn’t have anything to do with this retrial. We have Joy, for crying out loud, on camera walking away from the scene of where her boys’ bodies were dumped.’
‘That’s not what Mathieu Dupont’s testimony suggested. The height of the person in that footage doesn’t compute to Joy.’
‘That’s bullshit testimony, Delia. Dupont is a fit-to-type witness. You know it. I know it. Anybody who knows law knows it. Gerd Bracken wanted to find somebody who could throw doubt on the figure in that footage and he found it in Dupont. He had to get to France before he could find somebody who might pour cold water on the fact that that is – without doubt – Joy Stapleton in that CCTV footage. This trial doesn’t come down to coincidence, Delia. You told me that yourself years ago. Joy Stapleton is guilty. I don’t care what fit-to-type testimony the court has heard over the past week. Besides… you’ve only heard the defence arguments so far. You can’t let your head get swayed. What you have to do here is simple. Protect the original verdict. And let’s all move on from this.’
‘Drain the swamp? You think this whole place is a swamp just because you yourself happen to be a sloth? Don’t lump me and all the other great judges in these courts in with the likes of you, Eddie. You think I’m dirty? You think I play dirty? Don’t you dare…’ She continues to pace the small square of floorboards. ‘Y’know, I was lying in bed last night wondering why you picked on Callum. And you know what I realised? It’s because you could get nothing on me, isn’t it? You would have worked trying to find dirt on me so you could blackmail me into delivering a guilty verdict, but you found nothing… right? You looked at my exemplary work record… nothing dirty in that. You would have hacked into my computer as you did Callum’s. No dirt in that. So, you had to turn to my son. And even then, you got nothing. What? An innocent man masturbating? Think about it. That’s the worst you could find on me… The fact that my son masturbates? You think that’s a sin? I masturbate too… we all masturbate, Eddie.’
‘Mum!’
‘Sorry, Callum,’ Delia says without looking at her son.
Callum audibly shivers.
Eddie remains seated, the two McCormicks gazing down at him, as his grin turns into a chuckle.
‘Delia, if you don’t mind sitting. Please,’ he says trying to compose himself. A silence settles between them before Delia finally relents and takes the seat opposite him. ‘We’re a country of what… ninety-nine years of age? Our judiciary system is much younger than that. It was only born in 1961, for crying out loud. It’s a baby. It’s younger than you and I… And it’s vulnerable. You know it’s vulnerable.’
‘It’s only vulnerable because you’ve been running it for over twenty years.’
‘Delia, please,’ Eddie says as Callum begins to pace back and forward behind him.
‘It’s true, Eddie. The system’s a mess because you allowed it to become a mess on your watch.’
‘That is ridiculous to suggest,’ Eddie snaps back. ‘This nation is growing at such a rapid rate that it is nigh on impossible for any sector to grow with it. We do the best we can here in the—’
‘Is bribing the judge of the biggest retrial in the system’s history “doing the best you can”, Eddie?’
Eddie snorts.
‘If Joy Stapleton is to be acquitted, everything falls down. Have you any idea what the newspapers are speculating her pay-out will be if she gets out?’
‘I don’t read the newspapers, Eddie.’
‘Fifty million.’
‘That’s why I don’t read the newspapers, Eddie. They’re full of shit.’
‘It will collapse us. The nation would lose total faith in the judicial system. Heads will roll. A whole review will be done. It will regress the whole progress the judicial system has made over the years. We’d be set back a hundred paces.’
‘You keep saying that, Eddie. What you seem to be missing is the fact that you are willing to keep an innocent mother behind bars for the rest of her life just because you want to protect a system you have failed.’
‘She’s not fucking innocent, Delia! Listen to me. You know she’s not. You told me that before.’
‘I am looking at this trial—’
‘Yeah, yeah… with a fresh pair of eyes. I get it. But that’s what’s worrying me. The evidence this retri
al was granted on is bullshit. We can’t afford to lose this one. That’s her… that is Joy Stapleton in that CCTV footage. It’s no coincidence. Just do the right thing, Delia. Let this whole mess go away. For everybody involved. All you have to do is protect the original verdict.’
Callum stops pacing, and places the tips of his fingers onto Delia’s desk.
‘Eddie’s right, Mum,’ he says.
1,806 days ago…
Joy was pretending – not just to everyone around her, but to herself too – that she was finding solace in the responsibilities she and Linda had undertaken in the wake of Christy’s release. They had tried, hard, over the past two and a half months, to ensure Christy’s Crazies were maintained as a functional and, more importantly, peaceful group within Elm House. They followed pretty much the same routine they always had done when Christy was around; they assembled at the same bench for breakfast as soon as the cell doors clicked open – to begin their day with prayer, even though Joy wasn’t sure any members left in the group actually believed in God anymore. Then they’d laze around the worn sofa at the back of the games room after work or school, catching up on prison gossip, by often exaggerating stories they’d heard about prisoners in the other Houses. Or sometimes the Crazies would all sit together in the TV room, watching reruns of old British quiz shows and giggling along because their attempts at answers were often so terribly wide of the mark. Their days pretty much ticked by in much the same way as they had when Christy was there, only this time the group lacked leadership, no matter how hard Joy and Linda had tried to take a reign on affairs. Neither of them had the gravitas Christy had; they certainly didn’t have her presence, nor her voice. Two softly spoken south Dublin accents couldn’t compare to a brash and husky Texan/Nigerian drawl. And so, despite Joy and Linda’s efforts, all the twenty or so members of the Crazies did on a daily basis was follow each other around in packs like lost penguins during the seven hours they weren’t locked inside their cells.
Though despite the Crazies’ lack of direction, they still managed to remain peaceful and unharmed, even though Joy kept repeating that a grey cloud was hanging over them. Nancy Trott had been sent to isolation not long after Christy was released ten weeks ago having been caught with three mobile phones in her cell, and would be due back on the wing any coming day.
The Coincidence (The Trial Trilogy) Page 13
