The Coincidence (The Trial Trilogy)

by David B Lyons

  Joy had hoped Mathilda at least, who she had known for eight years now, would have melted her hard exterior somewhat, seeing as Joy’s retrial had been granted and many of the national newspapers were now beginning to lead with stories suggesting her innocence. But Mathilda still treated Joy the same way she treated every other prisoner inside Mountjoy – with an evident air of superiority that she almost thought it beneath her to converse with her.

  Joy’s spirits had been further dampened when Aidan paid her the only visit she had had from him in all the months she was in isolation. He had been allowed to come see her, to let her know face-to-face that he was leaving the prison. The catering business he had started with his brother had finally taken off – enough for both of them to move into it full-time anyway. Besides, his relationship with Joy had been, for years, too much of a concern among the staff of the prison, and his insistence on backing her after drugs had been found in her cell was the final straw for the Governor. Although he informed Joy that he was standing down to concentrate on his catering business, she knew it was more likely a mutual agreement with the prison’s board. While she painted on an excitable face for Aidan as he revealed his new business plans to her, her stomach was tossing and churning like a washing machine. She knew in that moment, more than any other over the years, that she had to win this retrial. There was no going back to Elm House for the rest of her life. Not without Aidan there.

  Though it was Elm House she had been led back to last night. But for the first time since she’d arrived in Mountjoy she wasn’t holed up in E-114, but E-108 – the cell right next to Nancy. She taped the photograph of her two boys to the wall, hoping that she’d be taking it down in a few weeks’ time once her retrial had granted her her freedom, then she left her cell to go to the dining-room, flanked by Mathilda.

  The atmosphere fell silent as she walked to the counter and took a plateful of lasagne from the prisoner serving it. Then she turned around and looked about herself, wondering where she should sit, feeling like the new girl all over again. Those eleven months had seemed a hell of a lot longer than eleven months, even though nothing on the wing seemed to have changed.

  ‘Over here,’ Nancy shouted from the middle of the largest pack of prisoners. Then she stood up, showing her shock of red hair, before waving her hand, beckoning Joy towards her.

  Joy wandered over, slowly and uncertain, as Nancy ushered some prisoners to move along the bench so that there was room for Joy next to her.

  ‘Great to see you,’ Nancy said, wrapping both of her arms around Joy while trying to avoid the plate of lasagne she was gripping with both hands. ‘Sit down. Sit down.’ Nancy patted the bench next to herself. Then she immediately began asking Joy about isolation until they were finally conversing as if no time had passed at all. As Nancy repeated how much she missed Joy, all Joy could think was, ‘You set me up, you devious cunt’. But she didn’t tell her face what she was thinking. Because her face smiled and frowned along with whatever it was Nancy was saying.

  Although Joy’s pleas to the Governor, that her drugs bust wouldn’t leak outside the prison walls, were adhered to, she couldn’t keep the punishment from her lawyer. Gerd Bracken was initially fuming, but Joy was keen to put his mind at rest.

  ‘I swear I was set up. I was set up. Believe me. Please.’

  Bracken made her undergo a urine test, just to prove that she hadn’t been using, which did return, thankfully to him, a negative result. He needed those results in case the story ever leaked out and was brought up in the retrial. That way he’d have some proof of her innocence with regards use, at least. Though he doubted it would be brought up in the retrial. He only knew the Governor of Mountjoy to be a man of his word.

  She took a seat opposite Bracken and let him know that her reintroduction to Elm House the night previous had gone as smoothly as she could have imagined.

  ‘It’s as if I hadn’t been away at all,’ she said, shrugging her shoulder.

  And then they got down to the business Bracken had called in to the prison to discuss.

  ‘Okay, it’s less than a month until the retrial starts,’ he said, ‘and my assistant and I have finalised the layout of the case we’re bringing to the court.’

  Joy’s knees began to bounce under the table.

  ‘We’re going to start with the cadaver dog, bring its owner to the stand and have him admit to the judge that the dog never had the pedigree to determine the presence of decomposing bodies. But even if he’s arrogant enough to not openly admit that on the stand, we’ll easily be able to get him to say that the dog had been found as a fraud in another case – and that will make an instant impact on Judge Delia. She’s a stern judge, but one of the finest in the country. So, what we’ve been working on for the past months is a strategy of trying to convince her that a lot of doubt exists in this case, which is totally different than trying to convince a jury of twelve.’

  Joy nodded her head, then muttered, ‘go on.’

  ‘Then we’ll bring Mathieu Dupont to the stand. I’ve mentioned the name to you before… he’s the French guy whose technology may or may not have a huge impact on the judge. We’re taking a small risk in that we’ll be comparing the height he deems the woman in the CCTV footage to be against the height you are on all of your prison records… which is out of sync when we look at them. But I’m confident his testimony will go over well. If it does, you’ll be a free woman in a matter of weeks. If it doesn’t, the whole retrial could go either way.’

  ‘Well, just make it go well,’ Joy said, her two knees bouncing now.

  ‘We’re going the best way we can, Joy,’ Bracken said. ‘And then… and then… listen, because this might make you happy, or upset in some way or… I don’t know what…’

  Joy’s knees stopped bouncing and her nose stiffened.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘It’s great news, I want you to know it’s great news.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Shay is going to testify. For you. He’s going to say on the stand that he doesn’t believe you murdered his boys… your boys.’

  ‘Really?’ Joy said, her eyes widening.

  ‘We think it’ll win the judge over. This could be the game-changer, Joy. Depends on how well Shay does up there.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Joy said. And then she puffed out a laugh that produced both snot and tears. Bracken had to rise from his to lean over and rub her back in consolation.

  ‘I should also say, in opposition, that the prosecutors have a big bullet in their gun, too,’ he said, sitting back down. ‘Lavinia Kirwan. She’s still convinced you did this, Joy. And she’s been added to the witness list for the prosecution. We just need to hope Shay’s testimony outweighs hers in the eyes of the judge.’

  Joy wiped the tears away from her cheeks, using the sleeves of her sweat top, then shook her curls at Bracken.

  ‘It’s crazy… my life in the hands of all these people… husbands, friends… detectives… bloody dog handlers. I mean… ahhh, I actually don’t know what I mean.’

  ‘I understand what you’re trying to say,’ Bracken said, placing his hand on top of hers. ‘It can’t be easy.’

  ‘I mean why can’t I get up there? Why don’t I get to defend myself? If Lavinia is gonna get up there and call me a child killer, then surely I have a right to let the court know that she’s just a jealous bitch who has always envied me.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Bracken said, shaking his head and taking his hand off Joy’s.

  ‘Why? Why can’t I defend myself?’

  ‘I’ve told you, Joy. It just gives the prosecution too many opportunities to trip you up. Even though you’re innocent, their job will still be to get you to act on impulse. And if they wind you up on the stand, it could go horribly wrong for you. It’s never a good idea for the accused in any murder trial to take the stand… trust me.’

  ‘It’s just so unfair. The whole nation has had a say on whether they think I’m guilty or innocent. I seem to be
the only one who never gets a say. That’s just… it’s just…’

  ‘Listen.’ Bracken placed his hand on top of hers again. ‘We would consider putting you on the stand at the very end of the trial,’ he said, ‘but if we do, it’s only because we’ll be feeling things haven’t gone as well as we would have liked. If you do end up on the stand, Joy, it would literally be a last roll of the dice kinda thing.’

  Joy Stapleton

  I comb my fingers through my hair, then retighten the scrunchie around my heavy pony-tail. Gerd Bracken said it’d be a good idea if I removed all the hair from my face, so that it doesn’t look as if I am trying to hide.

  Playing with my hair seems to have stopped my hands from shaking. And my heart doesn’t seem to be thumping as much as I thought it would as soon as I sat up here. Maybe I can do this. Maybe I just might be able to turn this whole trial around.

  ‘Mrs Stapleton,’ Bracken says.

  ‘Call me Joy, Mr Bracken, please,’ I say, snapping the scrunchie tight and then bringing my hands to rest on my knees.

  ‘Of course… Joy.’ He smiles his big teeth at me. ‘Your world turned upside down on November third, 2008, correct?’

  ‘It did, Mr Bracken. That’s the day my boys were taken.’

  ‘Can you tell the court when you first realised they were taken?’

  ‘Where I live – lived – there’s a green patch of grass straight across from the house. I often brought the boys over there. Reese would kick a football around and Oscar would bundle about after him. It’s all very safe. It has a rail around the edges of it. Well, most mid-mornings the three of us would potter over and have a bit of play time there. It’s literally thirty yards straight across from the house… Well, on this particular day, we were there playing and then I realised I hadn’t put the dinner on. I was going to do a chicken, and wanted to oven-roast it for a couple of hours. So, I went back to the house… which is the biggest regret I’ll ever have in my life… to baste the chicken and throw it in the oven. I was four or five minutes. Four minutes. That was all. And I left the hall door open.’

  ‘And when you came back outside?’

  ‘They were just gone. They weren’t there no more. I knew instantly somebody had taken them.’

  ‘And what happened next?’

  ‘I called out their names. But there was nobody around. Nothing. I knocked into my neighbour – it’s the only other house that overlooks the green – but he wasn’t in. Then I panicked and…’ I sob. My first sob on the stand. Only one minute in. Shit. I need to get my act together. ‘And then I rang the police.’

  ‘That’s correct, Joy. Almost immediately upon noticing your children were gone, you made this phone call.’

  Bracken points his finger to the ceiling and there’s a click sound, before the ring tone starts.

  ‘Hello’

  ‘Somebody took my boys. They are gone. They are gone.’

  ‘Your children are missing, ma’am, is that what you said?’

  ‘Yes. They were on the green in front of my house. And somebody took them. My boys have been taken. They’re gone.’

  ‘Give me your address, ma’am.’

  ‘Yes… yes… It’s ninety-three St Mary’s Avenue, Rathfarnham… please get here as quick as you can. My boys! My boys!’

  Every time I hear that recording even I find myself listening out for my acting skills. As if I can’t even convince myself that I didn’t kill them.

  ‘Joy, it is the prosecution’s claim that you are acting during that phone call. Given that I’ve now heard that recording about two hundred times, I’m a little baffled that they would suggest you were acting, because it sounds so legitimate to me. So raw. So emotional. For the record of the court, you weren’t acting, were you?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You’ve never studied acting, never did an acting course?’

  I sniffle up my nose, then remove a tissue from the pack Bracken had promised he’d place in the witness box for me.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No amateur dramatics… nothing like that? You weren’t part of the local theatre group?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The prosecution have argued, during this retrial and indeed at your original trial, that you were too keen to suggest your boys had been taken, but that’s easily explainable, right?’

  ‘Well, I was right. Wasn’t I? They were taken. Two years later their bodies turn up, so I was right all along. They were taken. Somebody took them. It’s not as if a four-year-old and an eighteen-month-old went on walkabouts and ended up in a shallow grave, is it? I never quite understood why they fixate on me saying they were taken. It’s obvious they were taken. It was obvious at the time. There was nowhere else for them to go.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Bracken says, pursing his lips at me. He told me he’d do that every time he felt I needed to take a sip of water. So, I do. He’s planned this all out. Well, apart from the fact that I’m up here in the first place. He said to me two days ago that he needed me to take the stand, that he felt the judge would really benefit from hearing from me. I’m not sure I believe him, though. Because he told me only a few weeks ago that I shouldn’t testify; that if I had to it’d only be because the trial wasn’t going so well. But I’m gonna turn this around today. I have to turn it around. I have to convince Judge McCormick that I didn’t do this; that the only reason I’m in this mess in the first place comes down to a stupid fucking coincidence.

  ‘Almost two years passed before you realised you were a person of interest for investigators. Can you tell me when you first realised you were being investigated yourself for the disappearance of your sons?’

  ‘At first, I knew I was a suspect, so was Shay, so was my father, our best friends. We weren’t stupid. We knew they always look closest to home in investigations like this. I just wanted them to question me, then get out there to go find out who had actually taken Oscar and Reese. So, I thought they had moved on, after ruling all of our nearest and dearest out. I thought they were looking for their kidnapper. Then they started playing silly games by bringing the dog into our home and pretending he could sniff evidence of dead bodies… I mean…’ I shake my curls and then gulp.

  ‘Yes. And as a reminder for the court, that dog has since been found to be a fraud when it comes to investigations like this.’

  ‘I knew he was a fraud at the time,’ I say. ‘Well, either that or somebody who used to live in our house before us maybe died in that bedroom or something. I really didn’t know. I still don’t know. All’s I know is that I had nothing to do with this. But they fixated on me because everybody else had alibis… whereas I was just home with the boys until…’ I sob. ‘Until they were taken.’

  I snatch at another tissue and press it into my eyes.

  ‘A lot of time passed without any progress in the investigation, then a dog walker came across the bodies in a remote part of the Dublin mountains… what happened then?’

  ‘After their bodies were found, they started bringing me into the police station again, asking if I knew anything about the place where Reese and Oscar had been buried.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I say. ‘I knew nothing. I still know nothing. I still don’t know who buried my boys in that shallow grave. And neither do the police, because they haven’t looked past me.’

  ‘And soon after the bodies were found, you were arrested, correct?’

  ‘Yeah – five weeks later. But only because of a coincidence. I swear, Your Honour,’ I say, turning to the judge while balling up the tissue in my hands, ‘it’s just a coincidence. That’s not me in that footage. That is not me. That is not my hoodie. I swear.’

  Her face softens a bit, probably to match mine. But I genuinely have no idea what she thinks of me.

  ‘So, you have been through the unimaginable, Joy,’ Bracken says. ‘Your boys are snatched from just outside the house and after two years have passed a detective comes to you to say a dog-walker has
found their bodies. Then within a few weeks of their bodies being found, you are arrested for their murder?’

  I nod.

  ‘If you can answer audibly,’ the judge says.

  ‘Yeah… yeah. I mean, it’s such a big tragedy in so many ways. How can they do this to me? How can the justice system get this so wrong?’

  Bracken purses his lips at me again and I reach for the glass of water, noticing that my hand is now quivering.

  ‘It’s terrible… terrible…. terrible,’ Bracken says holding his chin and shaking his head. I know that he is biding time for me to compose myself. ‘This is the biggest injustice this country has seen, in my opinion. And it all came down to three seconds of CCTV footage that shows a video of what looks like a woman walking past a house wearing the same hooded top as one you happened to own, yes?’

  I place my glass of water, using both hands to hold it steady, back down onto the shelf.

  ‘When they showed me that footage, I knew it couldn’t have been me. But then when they started to suggest it couldn’t be anyone else, I just told them that it was a coincidence that somebody was wearing the same hoodie as me. One of the police started laughing at me when I kept saying that word. Then it was all over the newspapers, that I was defending myself by claiming a coincidence… but it’s true. It is a coincidence. I don’t know what else to call it. That is not me in that footage.’

  ‘I know it’s not, Joy. I do,’ Bracken says. He told me he was going to say that. “An extra blanket of security while I was on the stand,” he called it.

  I take another swig of water, and in the time I do, I notice he has moved closer, glaring up at the witness box from just below.

  ‘Joy, you didn’t suffer with post-partem depression after the boys were born, did you?’