The Hung Jury

by Robert Innes

Nicola stared at him over her already half empty wine glass, Kath’s words about not getting too drunk quickly becoming a distant memory. “You’re a police officer? No, I didn’t know that!”

  “You must have done,” Gary replied. “I told everyone when we first started, think back. Right at the start of the week on the lunch break.”

  Nicola thought back and quickly remembered taking in very little from that first day as it had been her first eight AM start in about five years. It had taken her till about two in the afternoon to become lucid as she had spent any available working braincells listening to the evidence. “Oh, I do vaguely remember you saying. My mind must have been elsewhere.”

  “Your mind was in the middle of that massive prawn mayo baguette,” chuckled Gary. “You ended up with half of it down your top.”

  Nicola coughed with embarrassment. That part she remembered all too clearly, so she tried to move the conversation along. “How come you were allowed to serve on the jury then? Didn’t you know all about the case anyway? I thought there wereKa rules about that sort of thing.”

  “We’ve been allowed to serve since 2004, if I remember my studies. Anyway, I’m not very high up,” Gary confessed. “I’m still in my first four months. The investigation started way before I was around, and even if I had been in the force then, I doubt I’d have been allowed to see much of the evidence. More likely, I’d be standing outside the crime scene in the pouring rain with police tape all around me.” His eyes flicked to behind Nicola and to the front door of the restaurant. “Hey, she looks familiar. Isn’t that the woman from the case?”

  Nicola turned around in her chair. Kath was in the process of greeting a couple, one of which was Bernice Stockport. “Oh my God, it is!” Nicola exclaimed. “She was the one Simon Winters had the affair with!”

  “She’s not looking too distraught now, though,” Gary noted as they watched Bernice laugh cheerfully at something her accomplice had said as she idly passed Kath her coat without acknowledging her. Nicola chuckled at the dark expression on Kath’s face as she flung the fur coat onto a hook and grimly led them to a table not far from her and Gary.

  “Is that her boyfriend, do you think?” Nicola whispered.

  Gary shrugged. “Who knows?” But their question was soon answered as Bernice flicked her straight blonde hair over her shoulder and interlocked fingers with the man across the table. “I guess so,” Gary said. “She doesn’t hang about, does she?”

  “Urgh,” Nicola exclaimed. “I can’t stand women like that. I mean, look at her. Dripping in bling, fur coat, probably fake. She’s a little gold digger, isn’t she? I wonder if she gained anything from Simon’s death?”

  “The bit on the side?” Gary replied. “I doubt it. Anyway, enough about that. I want to hear more about you.”

  Nicola drained her glass and smiled at him. “In that case, I think we’re going to need another bottle.”

  ***

  An hour later, Kath was standing over them with the bill in one hand and Gary’s credit card in the other. “Thanks very much,” she said, before looking down at Nicola. “Are you alright?”

  Nicola smiled up at her, quite the worse for wear. “Yes, thank you, waitress,” she slurred. “I have hadda simply delightful evening. Good food, good company and frankly excellent wine.” To enunciate her point, she banged the now empty bottle onto the table.

  Kath shook her head at her. “Please forgive her. She can handle her drink, I promise. She’s had a long week.”

  “No need to apologise to me,” Gary said, grinning at Nicola who was busy trying to work out exactly how many Dominics were currently mincing around the restaurant before settling on two. “I like a woman who knows how to let her hair down.”

  “Oh, well that’s our Nicki,” Kath replied as she placed his card into the machine. “Never one to turn down a drink. Or seven,” she added as Gary put his pin into the machine. As it started whirring and spitting out the receipt, he took the card back and put it into his wallet. “I’ll call us a taxi, if you want. Just nipping to the loo.”

  As he walked away, Kath sat in his vacated chair and looked at Kath with an expression of exasperation. “Look at you. Two bottles. I told you not to get too drunk!”

  “Oh, shush,” Nicola told her, tapping her on the nose with her finger. “You heard what he said. He loves me. Worships the ground I walk on. He thinks I’m a party girl. He knows a good time girl when he sees it.”

  “That’s what worries me,” Kath replied, with a concerned expression.

  Nicola had turned her attention to Bernice, who was still sitting a few tables away, deep in conversation with her male companion. “Who is that woman with? Did you get his name?”

  “Who, the blonde one with the attitude problem?” Kath replied grimly. “I think his name was Charles or something. Why, do you know him?”

  “I don’t know him,” Nicola said. “But she was at the court all week. She was the one Simon Winters was having the affair with.”

  Kath snorted. “Some men have no taste. She’s got her nose that far in the air…Nicki, what are you doing?”

  Before Kath had even finished her sentence, Nicola was making her way towards Bernice’s table. Bernice did not break her eyeline with Charles, but seemed to notice someone was standing at the table. Without looking up to who it was, she picked up an empty bottle of wine from the table and held it up. “Another bottle, waitress.”

  Nicola laughed humourlessly. “Oh, I’m not working. But, I recognise you. Aren’t you Bernice Stockport?”

  Bernice tutted at the interruption of her conversation and stared up at Nicola. “And you are?”

  “Nicola Golding. I’ve been in the court all week, regarding the death of your ex – Well, how would you put it? Your ex-boyfriend?”

  “Simon was not my…” Bernice began sharply, before composing herself. “Ah, yes. I remember you. You were on the jury, weren’t you? The scruffy one.”

  “Nicola,” Kath said warningly. “Leave the lady alone.”

  But Nicola ignored her. “So, you’re pretty confident that the right person went to prison today, then? I mean, you certainly looked happy about it.”

  “Excuse me,” Bernice snapped, glancing at Charles, who looked bemused by the whole thing. “I don’t know who you think you are, coming over here and just butting into my evening!”

  “I’m terribly sorry,” Kath put in, grabbing the empty wine bottle. “I’ll get you a new one, on the house, of course.” She grabbed Nicola’s arm and attempted to pull her away from them. “Move!”

  But Nicola stood firm. “It’s just that you were having this affair with Simon, weren’t you? The victim? He was going to move out, leave his wife, leave his whole life behind for you?”

  “Can you please get rid of this woman?” Bernice shouted at Kath. “What sort of an establishment are you running here?”

  “I’m so sorry,” Kath said. “Nicki, that’s enough!” She looked around helplessly at Dominic who was leaning across the bar, apparently enjoying the show. “Dominic, will you help me?”

  “And yet here you are, with some other bloke, holding hands, giggling like a school girl,” Nicola continued, feeling like she was on to something. “Didn’t take you long to get over Simon’s death, did it?”

  “Is this true?” Charles said to Bernice, looking shocked.

  “Of course not,” Bernice snapped. “This woman is delusional.” She stood up and looked at Nicola, her face red with fury. “For your information, and not that it’s any of your business, but Simon and me weren’t all that serious.”

  “Oh, come on!” Nicola scoffed. “He was leaving his wife for you!”

  “Yes, but he didn’t, did he?” Bernice exclaimed shrilly. “I could have given him anything he wanted, a better home, a better life, away from that harridan and those strange children, but he chickened out at the last minute! Anyway, everything that woman said in court was a lie. Simon and me finished long before his death! I had nothing t
o do with any of this!”

  “Then why go to his court hearing?”

  “Because, I still cared for him, obviously! I don’t know how much experience you have in relationships, but wouldn’t you do the same in my shoes?”

  “What’s going on here?” Gary had returned and was watching the proceedings with bafflement.

  “Bernice here was just saying how angry she was about Simon wanting to stay with his wife,” Nicola replied triumphantly. “What would you say, Bernice? Angry enough to murder him?”

  “Right, that’s it,” Kath said loudly. “Nicki, go home. Now. Otherwise, you won’t have a job to return to tomorrow, and I mean that.”

  Her words landed in Nicola’s head like a ton of bricks. She had been so distracted with her train of thought that had lead her to the conclusion that Bernice was the real murderer, that she had failed to notice that the entire restaurant had gone silent and all the diners and staff were watching her with a mixture of horror and shocked amusement. Dominic was still leaning across the bar, convulsing in silent laughter, and Alex’s head was visible through the window where the food orders were placed.

  “Our taxi is here,” Gary said awkwardly. “We should probably go.”

  The victorious surge that she had experience mere moments ago quickly vanished and Nicola now felt like she wanted the ground to swallow her up as she realised that she had just derailed the first and best date she had had in too long to remember by drunkenly accusing a complete stranger of murder. Unable to say anything, she merely nodded and staggered towards the exit. Unfortunately, the wine she had consumed was not quite finished with her. She stumbled as she walked towards the glass doors, pushed forwards on the wrong one and smacked her face into it. Her cry of pain and the ‘clang’ from the door echoed around the still silent restaurant. As she grabbed the right door handle and pulled it open, she heard peels of laughter start to form behind her.

  Once outside, she leant against the wall, her nose throbbing from her collision. She nervously glanced at Gary who was staring at her in disbelief.

  “What the hell was that about?” he asked her.

  Before Nicola could think of a response, the sound of sirens filled the air. Both of them turned to see an ambulance followed by a police car rocketing towards them. In a flash, they were out of sight, the sirens echoing far into the distance.

  “I’m sure that was Charlie in the front of that car,” Gary murmured.

  “Who?” Nicola asked as she fell into the back of the taxi.

  “My colleague at the station. I wonder what’s happened?” His phone rang in his pocket and he answered it, walking away out of earshot.

  Nicola groaned as she tried to sit up straight in the back of the car.

  “You look drunk,” the taxi driver grunted, tapping a sign warning of a charge for soiling the vehicle.

  Before Nicola could try and pretend she was not as drunk as she looked, Gary returned and poked his head into the car. “I’ve got to go. Look, this should cover the car.” He placed a ten pound note in Nicola’s hand. “I’ll ring you.”

  “Wait, what? Who was that on the phone?” Nicola inquired.

  “Work. I promise, I’ll call you. Speak soon.”

  He slammed the car door shut and set off down the road briskly, his hands in his pockets.

  “Just you then, love,” the driver said.

  Nicola sighed as she watched her date disappear around the corner. “Yeah. Guess so.”

  7

  Nicola awoke the next morning to the sound of her flat buzzer being continuously pressed. She had fallen asleep face down on the bed and for a brief moment panicked when she opened her eyes and saw nothing. She moaned as she sat up, the buzzer drilling into her head.

  “Alright!” she exclaimed, more to the buzzer than the person pressing it. “I’m coming. Leave me alone!”

  She managed to prevent herself falling flat on her face as she started walking towards the phone in the wall with one high heel still on her foot, and picked up the receiver, her head throbbing and her eyes shut. “Oh my God, who are you and what do you want?”

  “Oh, good morning,” came the flat and cold reply of Kath in her ear. “May I come up?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “You have the choice of opening the door or me breaking in, yes.”

  Her mind fast-forwarding through the previous night’s events, Nicola sighed and pressed the button on the intercom. A few moments later, there was a loud knock at the door. Nicola opened it to find Kath standing there holding an envelope in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other. “Hello. Two things.” She held up the envelope. “One, because I’m your boss, and frankly your behaviour last night was nothing short of mental, I am issuing you with a formal warning. I had to not only refund their meal, but I had to give that woman two bottles of wine before she stopped threatening to sue the restaurant for slander. Anything like that, or anything even close to it for that matter, happens again, you’ll be looking for another job.”

  Nicola nodded, too hungover to argue her case.

  “And two, because I’m your best friend, I brought you a bacon sandwich from Jerry’s Café because God knows you look like you need it.”

  Nicola gratefully took the bag and walked into her kitchen area with Kath close behind.

  “On your own, then?” Kath ventured as she watched Nicola flick the kettle on.

  Nicola sighed and nodded, holding her hands up to perform an air quote. “He received a ‘phone call’ and had to leave. He just threw me in the back of a taxi, and then left. So, we can add him to the list of my monumental screw ups, I suppose.”

  Kath shook her head. “What was going on in that little head of yours last night?”

  “It’s all this about the case,” Nicola replied. “I’m convinced that Bernice woman had something to do with Simon Winter’s murder.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Kath exclaimed “That case has been going on for months, police, some of the county’s best detectives found Rebecca Winters to be the only suspect, so they sent her to court. Now you’re telling me, what exactly? That Sherlock Golding has got other ideas? Why do you even care? You’ve never met any member of their family!”

  “It’s not about them,” Nicola insisted. She picked up her laptop from the table and pulled the screen open. Kath stared at the word document on it, empty except for the title: ‘A Winter’s Tale.’ She rolled her eyes and groaned. “That’s what all this is about? That bloody blog?”

  “Kath, the Rebecca Winters case hasn’t been out the news for months. People have been absolutely gripped by it. Imagine if the police got it wrong, and I was the one to expose it. My blog would explode!”

  Kath sighed and shook her head as Nicola took a large bite of the bacon sandwich. “You do realise you’re mad, don’t you? And how do you expect to expose anything? What are you going to do?”

  Nicola chewed thoughtfully. The idea had been swimming around her head since the court case had finished and now she was sure that it was her best first step. “The address of the family was mentioned in court. I wrote it down. It’s not far from Eventide Bay. I could go and talk to the family. They don’t seem to think that she did it either.”

  “Well, of course they don’t.”

  “See what I can find out. I bet there’s loads of stuff about Bernice Stockport that didn’t get brought up in court. The police don’t investigate evidence they don’t know about. Maybe they just need someone to find it for them.”

  The expression on Kath’s face would have discouraged most people but Nicola was convinced, and Kath knew better than to try and dissuade her when she was like this. As she poured the boiling water from the kettle into mugs for them both, Nicola was already rehearsing what she was going to say to the Winters children.

  ***

  Nicola’s work schedule was her first obstacle. The next few days at the restaurant were some of the busiest she could remember since it opened, and all the staff were rushe
d off their feet, so much so that Nicola found herself working from what felt like dusk till dawn. One positive that could be gleamed from the workload was that the embarrassment of her date was soon forgotten about, and by the time the fifth day of her working an open till close shift had arrived, even Nicola had stopped cringing whenever she thought about it.

  It also seemed that she was the only one still thinking about the Rebecca Winters case. The local news had stopped reporting on it, and Nicola had grown so used to hearing the customers talking about it, that it seemed strange to hear them sharing gossip among themselves that did not revolve around it. But still, Nicola was thinking about how she could talk to the Winters family, and satisfy the hunger she had for finding out the truth.

  One afternoon, she was behind the bar as usual, enjoying a lapse in the surge of diners when Kath appeared from the kitchen and approached her, looking stressed. “We’re nearly out of potatoes. We have half a sack left. Three hours before the dinner rush and we have half a sack of potatoes!”

  “Alright,” Nicola said soothingly. “I’ll go and grab some from the market. If I go now, I should make it before it closes.”

  “Good. Take Alex with you,” Kath replied, her stress seeming to disappear immediately. “Just so he knows where to go. I’ve not had time to take him myself this week.”

  Dominic, who was cleaning out a fridge beneath the bar looked up at Kath, a pleading look in his eyes. “Can I not take him? Please?”

  “No, you bloody can’t,” Kath replied flatly. “I want him back here in one piece, not traumatised.” She turned away from the pouting Dominic and walked back towards the kitchen. “I’ll tell him. Make sure you get a big sack!”

  Nicola leant against the bar and looked down at Dominic. “Still no luck with your latest project then?”

  “I’m biding my time,” Dominic replied, a smug expression on his face. “But you should prepare to pay up. I heard him talking on the phone earlier and do you know what I heard him say? ‘I got your photo. He’s absolutely gorgeous’. Sounds like I might have some competition. Some tall, dark haired stranger no doubt, with the personality of this cloth. I can handle that.”