Beyond the Realms

by Gill Mather

  “I’m afraid not. I’ve just come to see if there’s anything I can do to help.” He watched Orielle rocking, head down again, gently back and forwards.

  “So let’s get this straight, Miss Banks. Miss Banks,” the plain clothes officer said to try and get her attention. “You met Mr. Banks in the park last autumn, he came to live with you. You gave him the name Tristram and then let him use your surname and even your date of birth. He had no job, no identity documents, he didn't claim any benefits. He seemed to be very clever. He spent time at the university. He also worked for a short time for the Solicitors Patterson Watts and Trimble on an informal basis.” He waited for a response from Orielle but there was none.

  “Right.” The officer looked at the others and shook his head. One of them shrugged back at him. “So. We’ll try and have a word with, what did you say his name was?” He looked at his notes. “Seb Ferguson. You said Mr. Banks worked under him, didn't you.”

  Orielle gave a small nod.

  “I don't think you’ll find he’ll be any help,” said Hugh. “I arranged for Orielle to go there initially myself and she arranged for Tristram to go there. He was there informally specifically because he had no documents, no NI number. Nothing. None of us knew where he came from or how he got here.”

  The officer frowned. He doesn't believe us, thought Hugh. He thinks it’s some elaborate hoax.

  “Thank you sir but this man can't have simply appeared from nowhere. From thin air.”

  “Well he apparently vanished into thin air.”

  “Yes, well that’s the story. In fact it’s the only reason we’re here because of all the fuss this has created. There’s no body, no accident specifically, no violence, no evidence of foul play. If anything it’s a case for the health and safety executive really but….” he stopped. “Ms. Banks did he leave a Will? Did he have any life insurance?”

  Assurance, Hugh wanted to say. He couldn't see her face but he knew Orielle was crying. He could see her body heaving.

  Georgie cut in. She was obviously starting to get tearful and agitated herself. She was a little scary.

  “He barely owned the clothes he stood up in," said Georgie. "Listen. He was a really good person. He….did things for us. Helped us when it was needed. And you’re implying that he was a fraud! Well he wasn't. He loved Orie. He did. He did….” She stopped. Her face was screwed up and her fists clenched. She sniffed back more tears and shook her head.

  “He had nothing as far as we know,” said Hugh. “This isn't going to get anywhere. You can see how distressed Miss Banks is. They both are. Can this not be put off to another time? Perhaps we can make an appointment to come to the station. I’ll come with you Orielle.” She made a small gesture of gratitude.

  “Well I suppose it’ll have to. Perhaps we could take your contact details as well sir.” He indicated to another officer to take them down and they left soon after.

  Hugh sat down beside Orielle.

  “You can come and stay with us if you want to.”

  Orielle shook her head and swallowed. “Thanks Hugh.” She looked forlornly out of the window. “I want to be here. He might come back,” she said with no conviction whatever.

  He had no idea what to say to her. What could you say in such a situation. “Well you must take whatever time you need away from the office. But also come in or call me or Amanda whenever you want to.

  “Orielle. I know it’s no consolation but the media frenzy will die down soon enough. It always does. Especially if they’re ignored and they can't get any answers. And I don't suppose there will be any answers.” He sighed and looked at Georgie who shook her head slowly and almost as forlornly as Orielle herself appeared.

  “Oh why did this have to happen?” said Georgie. “We were all so happy. Orie and Triss. Me and Jack. Jack’s my boyfriend. Oh!” And she collapsed onto the settee on the other side of Orielle and caught her in a bear hug. Orielle more or less disappeared from view.

  “If you’re sure you’ll be OK, I’d better go,” said Hugh.

  “I’ll look after her,” said Georgie. “Thanks for coming.”

  Well, thought Hugh, looking at his trainee Solicitor, at least I hadn't disappeared completely from her. From her. From her.

  ORIELLE BRAVELY RETURNED to work the next Monday, small and pale, diminished and distracted which hadn't actually made the situation any less evocative for Hugh. Just as he had earlier in the year, he had to bite his lip and try not to think about Ali returning to PWT after he had finished with her apparently for good. He had to focus selflessly on the fact that Orielle needed everyone’s support, she had nothing to do with his past, with his ghosts and his…obsessions.

  The return to work had been awkward. Everyone knew about Triss and no-one had a clue what to say to her. Even clients knew having heard about it on the local news though it had soon made its way into the national news as well. People were `phoning up for unnecessary appointments just in case they might chance to get a look at the "spaceman's girlfriend". There was some door-stepping of her home and the office for the first few days. She stoutly ignored it. It wasn’t difficult. She felt utterly remote from everything about her, numb and detached. Her lack of reaction seemed to put off all but the most determined who weren't going to be deterred by anything. To avoid them she drove into the car park at the rear every day and asked for a key to the ground floor fire escape door at the back of the building and got in that way so that she wouldn't have to make an entrance through the grand front door and parade her misery in front of the world or so it seemed. Then she stayed in the office all day until it was time to leave or if she had to go out she went back to the car park through the fire escape and that seemed to fox them for a few days. But eventually as Hugh had predicted the furore died down and the press became more interested once again in the doings of the Katie Prices of this world and the misdemeanours of politicians than the mishaps of young men allegedly from another world and their girlfriends.

  Unusually Hugh was the most sympathetic and natural with her, the rest of The Chambers being apparently lost for words. No doubt they were curious but far too well-mannered to say anything about the central issue and consequently there was very little they could say at all. The most she got was:

  "Sorry Orielle. I heard."

  "Yes we heard. So sorry."

  Hugh and Amanda offered more practical and emotional support. Amanda especially. It wasn't quite the return to work from maternity leave that she'd expected, but she knew how Orielle must feel in a general sense; losing such a loved one in any circumstances was desperate. Orielle spoke to her a lot about Triss though she still mostly mechanically steered clear of his most unusual aspects and abilities. These she felt were hers, not anyone else's. He had made himself fully known to her. She wasn’t going to break such a precious confidence.

  At Amanda's invitation, Orielle often accompanied her to Gray's nursery where Amanda went to feed him and play with him and a camaraderie developed between them although Orielle paid scant attention to the baby herself. He was a dear little boy, but it was dawning on her that she was never going to have a small child of her own to love with a partner of her choice. She watched mother and child with a sad smile.

  "You know it will get better some time," said Amanda seeing her look.

  "Actually I really doubt it," Orielle had replied wanly.

  "But having a child is completely absorbing. It really does overcome just about any previous hurt or disappointment. I thought getting together with Hugh was wonderful enough, but having this baby, well it's….I mean, I know I'll never be miserable again. It's just eclipsed everything else. At one time I really thought I'd never ever get over the death of my husband Graham. It was so unfair. But I have. If one day you find someone else you can be happy with and then if you have a baby as I've been lucky enough to do, I'm sure it'll make your life full and complete again."

  "But. But Triss was such a….unique person. He could….." Orielle sighed. Images of ho
w he had entered her mind assailed her. She could have had no secrets from Triss. He had been inside her all the time. How could she ever explain without breaking that confidence. So she'd just lapsed into silence on these occasions and become lost in her own thoughts until Amanda said she'd finished and it was time to go back to the office. And indeed, Gray would be sleeping peacefully in his carry cot so Amanda bore it back to the baby's room and left it there making sure she let the staff know she was leaving.

  HER EXPERIENCES WITH Amanda made Orielle think quite a bit about childlessness. She read books on the subject and listened to documentaries. But the people featured often had loving partners. It was just that they found they were unable to have children. What, she wondered, would children of her and Triss have been like. Would they have inherited any special qualities? Perhaps one day if this other person she was supposed according to Amanda to meet and be happy with never in fact materialised, she'd have a child on her own by some means or other. But she couldn't abandon all hope just yet that Triss would return. She had to keep herself for him in case he did. For how long she wasn’t sure. Not at all.

  AS THE YEAR WORE on, a diversion came in the form of the prosecution of a woman called Petra Anderson coming to trial. Hugh had told Orielle about her at the bash at his home after announcing that he and Amanda were going to have a baby. The memories of that party were mixed for Orielle. Triss had left her at that time but was soon after to return. If she could only go back to that time. But that of course is what she thought about any time past when Triss was with her or about to come back to her or when they were just house mates last year or even before that when she had yet to meet him at all. All those times would have been preferable to now.

  Hugh had kept his difficulty over his children and his former employee to himself. Seemingly Orielle was the only person he had confided in at all which was quite something when she thought about it. He had been pre-occupied for some weeks before the trial and had been trying to keep his diary free. His secretary Sheila was driven mad by this as she had no idea why. Suddenly he had gathered everyone in the "conference" room (Hugh hated such exaggerated terms but they had to call it something and they did hold meetings there) and had told them that he would be away for several days from tomorrow and at last why. Because this woman Petra Anderson had threatened to harm his children in some way and as an example she had abducted a girl from his children's school and kept her for several hours. That was the gist of the case he said but it promised to be a difficult case and the outcome uncertain.

  Orielle stood and listened with the others and went back to her room where she would try and remain for the next few days to await events.

  CHAPTER 20

  IT WAS THE second day of Jim Bolton’s trial and Orielle was outside the courtroom in the corridor with Jim having a cup of coffee before the day’s proceedings started. She had suggested it, knowing how nervous and fraught Jim was and Hugh had agreed. Jim’s daughter wasn’t there. He hadn't wanted her to be. She had enough on her plate he said, with a small baby and having gone back to work so soon as young women seemed to have to these days.

  Hugh had wanted Orielle to be there to take notes and in case he needed anything and because she had got so involved with the case. Sharpe had never come round and had died two months ago so the charge was murder with alternative charges of manslaughter and assault occasioning grievous bodily harm. They had discussed with Jim pleading guilty to manslaughter due to provocation or to assault but as expected he had vehemently refused.

  After the opening speeches the prosecution had given their evidence the previous day consisting of Jim's interview formally brought before the Court by the SIO and evidence that enquiries at the pub, in the vicinity of Sharpe’s house and the pub and in between the two locations had failed to produce any evidence of what had happened that night apart from the neighbour opposite, Madge's own testimony. There was forensic evidence and a neighbour Selwyn Harris who claimed to have heard Jim say to Sharpe about three weeks before Sharpe's injuries were suffered that he wished Sharpe would disappear off the face of the earth. Jim couldn't remember this but wasn't going to outright deny it either. Under cross-examination Harris admitted that he hadn't got on with Sharpe either and had also argued with him from time to time about Harris's dog having cocked its leg up against Sharpe's gate and having defecated in the road outside, something which Harris said he always cleared up but that hadn't appeased Sharpe in the least. To Hugh's satisfaction, Harris got quite heated about his encounters with Sharpe. Hugh had fanned the flames and had continued with the line of questioning until the prosecution objected that another neighbour's relationship with Sharpe was not the point at issue in these the proceedings and the Judge had agreed, telling Hugh to finish his cross unless he had anything further to ask which would be useful and relevant to the case.

  Madge also agreed that she had disliked Sharpe a great deal and hadn't in fact known anyone who had claimed to like him ever even though she had lived in the road twenty years and Sharpe much longer. This line too was halted by the Judge as being irrelevant.

  The forensic evidence was that Jim's torch was not the instrument of Sharpe's head injuries which had been caused when Sharpe's head hit the edge of his top step. Accordingly, the prosecution case was that Jim had deliberately pushed Sharpe over or had tussled with him recklessly causing him to fall over and hit his head and either way had then done nothing to raise the alarm or assist Sharpe thereby supporting the conclusion that Jim was responsible for Sharpe's injuries and ultimately his death.

  So now on the second day before the defence case was opened, Orielle was outside with Jim administering coffee and sympathy while Hugh stayed inside the Court arranging and looking at his notes and the statements and trying not to think about another young assistant who had similarly accompanied him to Court many times those years ago, the beautiful girl who had become his wife and then left him. It wasn't so hard he was finding. The case was shaping up reasonably and with the evidence they would be producing and provided Jim wasn’t provoked into blurting out anything damning about wishing Sharpe a good riddance or the like, Hugh was very hopeful that Jim would be acquitted.

  Before calling Jim, Hugh called the landlord of the village pub to give evidence of Sharpe's liquor consumption on the night in question. He had kept a tab since Sharpe usually paid at the end of the evening. He produced a little book in his own hand-writing and that of different serving staff which went back several years with dates, numbers of bottles consumed and totals. He gave evidence that Sharpe had drunk more than usual that night as the book showed and was moderately inebriated, a fact that hadn't become apparent he assured the court until Sharpe paid up otherwise he would certainly not have allowed Sharpe to buy so much. Sharpe had tried to leave without paying. He also said that Sharpe had bought an extra bottle to take away which he'd put in his pocket after assuring the landlord who had quizzed him about it that it was for drinking with his lunch the next day.

  The timed video evidence of Sharpe leaving the pub at twenty two twenty five was played. The prosecution would have been prepared to agree the time as a matter of fact but Hugh wanted the video evidence seen by the jury for the impression it would make and indeed they sat up and took notice, watching it closely. The old man could even be seen helpfully turning back and grimacing rather fiercely into the pub in the general direction of the camera before meandering off through the car park.

  There was evidence by an accident investigator, a former police officer himself, of the time it took him to walk himself between the pub and Sharpe's front door at an amble. It had taken the witness less than five minutes. The same witness gave evidence of a range of times it had taken him to drive at different speeds from the branch of Barclays Bank at Manningtree to Jim's home during the evening when there was little traffic about. Maps and distances were produced. The range of times was from fifteen minutes to about twenty five minutes. The evidence was barely challenged.

  A te
chnical expert from the bank gave evidence of the time of Jim's cash withdrawal from the ATM at the Manningtree branch as three minutes past eleven on the evening Sharpe was injured. He confirmed that the time was accurate and that the machine was working correctly.

  There was also some evidence of the weather conditions that night with a heavy cloud covering, and no moonlight. It was also cold and damp for the time of year. There were no street lights in the road, nor anywhere in the village.

  Hugh had wondered whether to call Jim at all but he thought he would come over as an honest down to earth man and there was nothing to impress a jury more than a heart-felt declaration of innocence by an accused. If you didn’t call the defendant, the jury would always wonder why and whether Jim himself felt he had something to hide.

  Orielle sat biting a nail as Jim took the oath and realised that she hadn't thought about Triss once in the last hour and a half, a rare event. She had been rapt in concentration at the proceedings. It was then more than at any other time in her legal career that she had felt that criminal practice could be a way of life in itself and, even more so now, the thing that would save her or at least enable her to keep going. The buzz, the avid attention of the jury and the press, the way Hugh addressed the witnesses and conducted his cross-examinations, his very phraseology, almost subliminally insinuating things, things that would sway a jury without them necessarily even realising. She wanted to be able to perform this minor miracle, this manipulation of events and influencing of people opinions and actions herself. She couldn't, Hugh couldn't, no-one could do what Triss had done and actually make people carry out actions and put thoughts and feelings directly into peoples' brains. But at least with the sort of subtle innuendo Hugh was so adept at using, she would be able to, if she could master it, have control of and over events. If she couldn't have peace and love and stability in her private life, then she would exist on the drug, the stimulant that advocacy injected into its operatives as Hugh must have done during his most unhappy periods.