The Hung Jury

by Robert Innes

  Reluctantly pulling herself off the sofa, she pulled her clothes off and dropped them on the floor as she walked towards the bathroom. One thing she liked about living alone was the fact that walking around with very little on was acceptable.

  She flicked the radio on that was resting on the bathroom window and turned the shower on to the hottest setting she could stand, her mind returning to the case and to Rebeca Winters. Even with a busy night at the restaurant, she had been unable to prevent the day at court swimming round her head. She could not understand why Rebecca would give herself such a weak defence unless she was telling the truth. The way she had told it meant that there were no other witnesses to account for her. The only person who would be able to confirm or deny her story was dead. As the water began running over her body, relieving the aches and strains of the day, and the batter mix from Alex’s bowl ran down the plug hole, Nicola wondered if there was more to Rebecca’s story. Maybe she was protecting someone.

  She managed to shake the case out of her brain for a few moments, wondering instead how she would begin trying to put it all together for her online blog. She loved the idea of writing a blog for a living, and crime seemed to be all the country ever spoke about, other than the weather. She had always imagined thousands of people flocking to her website, desperate to hear her thoughts on the murders in the press, but as it was, all she had received since she began was a lukewarm reception. Nicola knew persistence was key, but she was also hoping that the Rebecca Winters case, which seemed to have been in all the papers for the past few months, would be enough to really get the site moving.

  As Nicola stepped out the shower, feeling much cleaner than she had a few minutes before, the music she had been listening to turned to the news. She started drying her hair as the familiar jingle of the local radio news began to play.

  “It’s midnight, twelve AM, good evening, I’m Rowan Simpkins. The trial of Rebecca Winters has continued today, with evidence pertaining to the murder of her husband, Simon Winters being examined before the jury.”

  As she towelled her hair dry, Nicola could not help but feel, as part of that jury, slightly more famous than anybody else who might be listening to the same radio channel at that moment.

  “The trial continues tomorrow, where it is believed the jury will be reaching their verdict as to whether Rebecca Winters is guilty of murdering her husband.

  In other news, a man has been rushed to hospital after being found hanging from a rope by the neck in his home, near Eventide Bay. The man, in his sixties, who has not yet been named, is believed to still be in a critical –”

  With her hair dry and her moment of fame apparently over, Nicola switched off the radio and walked into her bedroom. She spent the night tossing and turning, her mind buzzing. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamt of murder, of an anguished woman furiously stabbing her husband to death, all while standing in a room filled with fishcakes.

  4

  Nicola knew she was late before she had even opened her eyes. She felt far too rested, the light was streaming in too brightly through the gap in her curtains, and she had no memory of her alarm going off at all. As her eyes shot open, she immediately became aware of something hard nestled underneath her. Realising that she must have fallen asleep with her phone in her hands, perusing through social media as she did most nights, she pulled it out from where she had clearly rolled over it in the night, and gingerly looked at the screen. She had ten minutes till she had to be in court.

  Leaping out of bed, she threw the clothes on that she had been wearing the previous day and rushed to the mirror to try and do something brief, but effective with her hair, before screaming in annoyance when she realised that the clothes she was wearing were still covered in fishcake batter.

  Once she had changed into an outfit that she was sure probably wasn’t suitable for court, but the only thing she could find in her wardrobe that matched, a bright pink vest top and a pair of slightly crumbled blue denim jeans, she ran out of the apartment, taking the stairs two steps at a time. She sprinted across the car park to her crimson Ford Fiesta and jumped in, before speeding out of the car park and onto the main road, through the town.

  It was going to take her at least twenty minutes to reach the court at this pace, and as she was speeding through Eventide Bay, she rapidly began to think of excuses as to why she was late. She honked her horn furiously at a couple of boys playing football in the road as she zoomed through the town. She was just constructing a story in her head about a car crash blocking the road on the way when she suddenly cried out in panic and slammed her foot on the brake. She had been approaching the restaurant and suddenly found herself hurtling towards a car reversing out of the carpark. She quickly pulled on the steering wheel to swerve around and as the car began to slow down, she collided with a huge pile of rubbish bags that were waiting for the rubbish men to pick up, the only thing stopping her from crashing straight into the brick wall behind them.

  She sat, dazed for about a minute before she was quickly snapped back by a loud knocking on her driver’s side window. It was Alex, the new chef. She furiously spun her window down.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing, hurtling along at that speed? You could have killed us both!”

  Nicola stared at him, annoyed by him shouting at her, before realising it had been his car that she had nearly collided with. “Yes, well!” she exclaimed, trying to think of a way that she could make herself sound less in the wrong. “I’m late for court, aren’t I? I overslept.”

  “You do realise the speed limit is forty?” Alex replied, waving his arm at the road she had just skidded off. “You must have been doing at least double that, what the hell were you doing? You’ll find yourself properly in court if the authorities catch you driving like that!”

  “Yes, alright!” Nicola replied hotly. “But did you not see me coming? Reversing out like that. What are you even doing at the restaurant anyway? It doesn’t open for hours yet!”

  “I came in early because, if you remember, I have to make a new batch of fishcakes because you sent the lot I made last night flying, like you almost did me and my car this morning!” Alex replied sharply, flicking his straight brown hair out of his eyes. “And what do you mean, ‘reversing out like that?’ Reversing out like what? Like a normal, considerate road user? Someone who doesn’t expect to suddenly be confronted by someone driving like they’re on Brands Hatch?”

  Nicola was not a sports fan, and appreciated references being thrown at her even less when her car was currently wheel deep in rubbish. She threw Alex, who she was quickly growing to dislike intensely, a sarcastic smirk before aggressively wrenching the gear stick into reverse and driving off down the road, a trail of bin juice following her from the wheels.

  ***

  Finally, Nicola arrived at the courtroom without any further mishaps. As she ran into the building, nearly losing a shoe in the process, she bumped into Dorothy, who had been sat next to her in court the previous day.

  “Oh, there you are!” she exclaimed, taking in Nicola’s dishevelled appearance with a slightly disdainful expression. “Where have you been?”

  “I had a bit of trouble on the road,” Nicola panted. “How come you’re out here anyway? They have started, haven’t they?”

  “Not yet,” Dorothy replied, glaring at her watch. “Nearly half an hour late starting. Something to do with one of the barristers being ill apparently. Still, they’ve said we’ll be making a judgement today, so I don’t think it should be much longer.”

  As if on cue, a booming voice rang out over the tannoy. “All parties in the case concerning Winters, that’s Winters, reconvene in court number one please.”

  Relieved that she had got away with her tardiness, Nicola followed Dorothy and the other jury members into the courtroom.

  Once they were all inside, Nicola noticed a man she had not seen all week sitting in the place where the prosecution barrister, Dennis Tate, had been since the start of the
trial. “Who’s that guy?” Nicola whispered, leaning over to Dorothy as they all stood up as the judge entered.

  Dorothy shrugged. “Presumably a late replacement. Maybe Tate’s the one who’s ill. I hope it doesn’t affect the outcome of the trial though. If we’re making our judgement today, then that woman will be behind bars. I just hope the judge isn’t too lenient.”

  Nicola rolled her eyes. It felt like she was the only one with any doubt whatsoever.

  “Thank God, I say,” murmured a voice behind her. “He looked like a demented walrus with that moustache flapping about.”

  Nicola turned and smiled, so much so that she had to stop herself from giggling. Also on the jury was a man who she had her eye on from the start of the week. Gary Urmstone smiled back at her, his chiselled cheekbones, perfectly manicured beard and ponytail sending Nicola’s stomach flipping. She had always been a fan of the ‘hipster’ look and Gary was one of the most perfect examples of it she had ever seen.

  Once they had sat down, the judge stood up, a grave expression on his face. “Ladies and gentlemen, as I’m sure you’re aware, today is where the jury will make their decision in this case. That will not change, we will have a summing up of the evidence shortly and then you will go away and come to this decision. However, I do have some rather sad news, as some of you will be aware, Mr Dennis Tate was rushed to hospital last night, having been found by his wife. I’m very sorry to say that Mr Tate was in a critical condition throughout much of the night and in the last hour has sadly passed away.”

  There was a buzz of shocked murmurings and gasps throughout the room. Some of the staff around the court seemed horrified and a couple of them burst into tears.

  “Order,” the judge said quietly. “I’m sure I speak for the whole court when I wish my deepest condolences to Mr Tate’s family and friends at this tragic and difficult time. He was an excellent barrister, at the very pinnacle of his career, and a very fine colleague.”

  Nicola too was stunned. The judge had not specified exactly how Tate had been found by his wife. Her mind wandered to the news on the radio she had been listening to the night before. A man had been found hanged in his living room, in his sixties, which was certainly the age bracket in which Tate belonged.

  Before she had a chance to consider the matter any further, the summing up of evidence began. The defence barrister, Sugars, spoke for quite a long time, attempting to repute everything that was against Rebecca, and in a similar vein to how Nicola had been thinking. “Why has she given herself such a weak defence? A woman with no previous record of violent or criminal behaviour, suddenly stabs her husband to death at the discovery of an affair,” he stated. “Where does this come from? Are we to believe we have here, in Rebecca Winters, a woman with such an erratic temperament, that she would be blind to what she was doing to not only her own life, her children’s lives, and ultimately the life she was ending? We have heard from a highly respected psychologist, a professional in his field, who has said to us that the idea of a woman just snapping in a heartbeat, and stabbing her husband to death in a frenzied attack, with no evidence of any other form of psychological build up beforehand is completely unsound. Not unheard of, granted. But rare.” He held his hands out, as if the point was obvious. “I implore you then, members of the jury, to come to the only logical conclusion in this case. That Rebecca Winters is not guilty of the death of her husband.”

  He sat down, and the new prosecution barrister stood up and faced the jury. He had none of Tate’s gravitas, but by the time he had finished detailing the case, Nicola was left in no doubt which way the verdict was likely to swing.

  “Members of the jury,” he began. “There are times in law when the question you are left with is difficult. There have been many times throughout my career where I watched juries agonise over a decision because the evidence presented to them is so complex, so utterly beguiling, so clouded by different points and factors, that a resounding choice seems impossible to come by. This, however, is most certainly not one of those cases. We have before us Rebecca Winters, on the outside, a woman of high morals and impeccable character. But nobody is the same once their front door is closed. And behind the front door of Rebecca Winters, a dark force was at work. Her husband, Simon Winters, was murdered, that is not the dispute here, but the fact is he was murdered, stabbed to death, when there was nobody else in the house apart from him and his wife.” He glanced across at Rebecca, who was looking down at the floor, and held his hands out. “What more do you we need to know? Rebecca says herself that the door to her house always locked from the outside, so when, as she so stringently claims, she went out to purchase a bottle of wine, as a form of reconcilement with her husband, he was alone in his house, with no way of anybody else getting to him. Now, unless he opened the front door himself, from the inside, and allowed a knife wielding maniac into his home, who apparently possessed the ability to leave not a single scrap of evidence or DNA behind him before he fled, that means that the only person who was able to murder Simon Winters, was his wife, Rebecca.”

  There was a murmur of agreement around Nicola. She glanced around at the other jury members. Dorothy appeared to be trying to stare Rebecca out, even though Rebecca was not looking at her, clearly delighted that she would soon be able to deliver justice.

  “The police have found no evidence that would point them towards another assailant,” the barrister continued. “Nothing has convinced them that the woman in front of this court today, is anything other than a cold-blooded murderer. It was a crime of passion, it was frenzied, it was the result of her discovering that most callous of betrayals; that of adultery. So, I ask you, members of the jury, to come to the only decision that makes any logical sense. You must find that Rebecca Winters is guilty of the murder of her husband.”

  He bowed at the judge and resumed his seat. Nicola glanced across at Rebecca’s family, all of whom had been interrogated at some point during the week. Her two children, Estelle and Ross, were sat, looking hopeless. Behind them, Bernice Stockport sat with a content look on her face, the trial clearly heading in the direction she had hoped.

  The judge dismissed them and soon, Nicola and the other members of the jury were sat round a table in another room, a large jug of water in the middle. For a moment, all was silent. Then Dorothy leant forward. “So, let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  5

  The courtroom was silent. Weeks of build-up, gossip, media scrutiny and wild accusations had brought them all to this moment. Dorothy stood up proudly, relishing her position as the one to announce Rebecca’s fate. Nicola looked out at the public gallery. Estelle and Ross were clutching hands, and somewhat strangely Nicola thought, Estelle had her mobile phone out and seemed to be recording the events. Above them, Bernice Stockport was sat with her head held high, an expectant look on her face.

  The foreman of the court addressed Dorothy. “Have you reached a verdict of which you all agree?”

  Dorothy glanced down at Nicola who rolled her eyes and shrugged. The deciding meeting between the jury members had lasted the grand total of about ten minutes. Nicola’s suspicions that she was the only one who did not believe Rebecca was guilty had been quickly clarified, and from what she had been told, one person was not enough to prevent the outcome.

  “We have,” replied Dorothy smugly.

  “On the count of murder, do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?”

  Dorothy paused impressively. “Guilty.”

  There was a mixed response from the rest of the court. Estelle let out a cry of anguish that somehow managed to drown out the cheer that seemed to emanate around the room.

  Nicola looked across at Rebecca whose expression was impenetrable. Not a flicker of emotion crossed her face as she stared at the judge.

  “Rebecca Winters,” the judge said once the noise had died down. “You have been found guilty of murder. One which was cold and calculated in not only it’s execution but in it’s aftermath. Due to your previous
ly unblemished record, I therefore have no hesitation but to sentence you to life imprisonment, with a minimum term of fifteen years. Take her down.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Rebecca shouted up to her children. “Please never forget that! I didn’t do it.” She was soon being escorted away. Nicola watched her, more convinced than ever that she had just witnessed an innocent woman be sent to prison.

  “Still not happy then?” Gary asked, popping his head round the door of the cloakroom with a dashing smile on his face.

  Nicola sighed, half because of Rebecca and half because, even in the space of a week, Gary’s smile seemed to make her weak at the knees. “No, I’m alright. I just think that everyone already had decided she was guilty before this trial had begun.”

  “That’s because she was!” Dorothy announced from behind her, tying a plastic rain bonnet round her head. “You only had to look at her. I will sleep better tonight knowing that I played a part in taking another murderer off the street. Sort of gives you a proud sense of duty, doesn’t it? Knowing that you’ve made the public just that little bit safer? Anyway, nice meeting you.”

  She tottered away, leaving Gary and Nicola alone in the cloakroom.

  “Silly old bat,” muttered Nicola. “I wouldn’t want to face her across a courtroom if I was on trial for a parking ticket, never mind a murder.”

  “So,” Gary said, putting his arm against the wall and looking at Nicola intently. “I guess we won’t be seeing each other again now.”