Justice Mirror

by Simon Hall

  CAFFEINE NIGHTS PUBLISHING

  Simon Hall

  Justice Mirror

  Fiction aimed at the heart

  and the head…

  Published by Caffeine Nights Publishing 2017

  Copyright © Simon Hall, 2017

  Simon Hall has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998 to be identified as the author of this work

  CONDITIONS OF SALE

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher

  This book has been sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental

  Published in Great Britain by

  Caffeine Nights Publishing

  4 Eton Close

  Walderslade

  Chatham

  Kent

  ME5 9AT

  www.caffeinenights.com

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-910720-76-9

  Cover design by

  Mark (Wills) Williams

  Everything else by

  Default, Luck and Accident

  For Dad, for everything.

  Justice Mirror was previously published under the title: Shadows of Justice

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  At last, it was time. The moment of justice.

  The door in the corner of the overly warm room, lit bright with yellow autumn sun, creaked open and the twelve began filing through.

  They had taken the same, familiar walk so many mornings and afternoons. But this time was different. The procession was slower, footsteps measured. Heavier with the knowledge of expectation and the weight of such a judgement to be delivered.

  As one, the eyes of those packed into the room found the foreman, as he politely held the door for his fellows. Each stare studied his expression, waiting to see and wanting to be the first to know.

  The story started with one veteran newspaper reporter, cynical as acid; inevitable for a hack who had spent fifteen years covering the courts. He passed it on to a young, sharp-suited detective, who told a friend of the victim’s family, who in turn handed on the golden nugget.

  So the ripples of knowledge ran. Like all such insights, each wanted to claim it for their own, and the whisper had spread fast.

  Want to know the verdict before it’s announced? Keep your eyes on the foreman. If he can look at the defendants, it’s not guilty. If he can’t…

  And so each gaze was set upon this middle-aged, middle-class man, as ordinary as air. His skin was a little flushed, his shirt off-white with wear. His beard sprouted a hint unkempt, his fashionless glasses shone in the sunlight. And, as if he too was aware of the whisper, his own eyes were set away, upon the door, waiting as his eleven peers passed by.

  Through one of the skylights, a gang of seagulls screeched a contemptuous call. Sunbeams floated in the still air as the footsteps of the jurors echoed across the old court’s aged boards.

  And the moment drew nearer.

  ***

  Every seat of the public gallery was full, just as they had been for every day of the hearing. Billboards carried the headlines of the daily developments. Countless thousands of excited words were cast into the ether by radio and television reporters and the web buzzed with theory and speculation.

  Each day, there was a queue outside the court for seats. And as the days went on, the disciplined line, so beloved of the British, would form earlier and earlier and grow longer and longer.

  Only two seats were always reserved; those in the front row at the very centre. And around them had grown a hierarchy of ghouls. The proudest of a bore’s boasts, be it at dinner table or bar, was to neighbour these seats. To feel the reactions of their occupants played out, so close, so very intimate, as each sting of evidence was aired.

  For here was the victim. Someone who had to suffer, wherever they went, the reflex scrutiny of pure notoriety. As subtle as an earthquake, however much they might think otherwise, people would nudge each other and stare.

  But at this moment, unique in all the time that had passed here, one seat was empty. The only one in the entire court to be that way; the sole domino missing from the long line, and the most important by far. The reason all were here, the focus of every attention, even in her absence.

  A weary man rested a father’s hand across where she had sat. He leant forward, almost doubled, face flushed, sweat beading on the baldness of his crown. His eyes were a boxer’s: lined, wearied, pummelled and reddened by the repeated blows of the suffering he had endured.

  And there had been so much. In the drowning, whirlpool hours of the crime itself, in the long weeks of this trial and in all the onerous days between.

  But still, as with everyone else, his sight was set upon the jury box.

  And now five were settled.

  ***

  At the back of the court a woman sneezed and muttered an apology, but no one turned. On the bench, high at the head of the court, the judge tapped a hand on a pile of papers.

  It would be his last case after sixteen years as the resident judge, a career spent dealing with the most notorious crimes the south-west of England had known. He would retire by Christmas, a decision the official announcement put down to a ‘desire to explore other avenues in life’.

  There was no quote from the judge himself, a silence interpreted as more eloquent even than the laser words he reserved for the criminals who appeared here. Or perhaps it was a result of the eccentricities which, the rumours had it, the learned judge had been showing lately. Something the kinder sorts put down to the fraying of human sanity so often seen in grief.

  He picked at the purple blaze of his robe a
nd let a slow stare slip across the cast of the law. Barristers adjusting wigs and gowns in poor impersonations of indifference. Solicitors, clerks, detectives. All waiting, all preparing for victory or defeat.

  A pen fell from a bench, rolled an unseen percussion across the wooden floor and rested unclaimed. At the far end of the tight knot of police officers, a tall, well-groomed detective pulled a distracted finger at the pure white of his shirt. His neck was red, and he scratched at it before turning the irritable habit to the thick gold band of his wedding ring. The worth of six months of investigations would be decided in just a handful of seconds.

  Decided by not even a sentence; a mere one word, or two.

  On either side of the Chief Inspector sat a woman, one dark haired and a few years younger, the other with auburn hair and a little older. Each was working hard to show the other a thin façade of calm, professional composure, even if they were far from the feelings pumping in their blood.

  Now eight of the jurors were settled. And the ninth, a young man with a tussle of blond hair, was shifting a thin and threadbare cushion ready to join them.

  Behind the plate glass of the secure dock a woman sat back, her legs crossed in serenity. Her face was unreadable, unreachable, remarkable for a lack of emotion in this tightening moment. What little expression there might be hovered aloof and detached. It was as if she were a scientist who had set in play this curious experiment, and who merely had to observe the triviality of its conclusions.

  One hand rose and a long finger shaped a curl of copper hair. The sunlight fell on the sprays of freckles which patterned the paleness of her face. Beside sat a man, in step but a pace apart in looks. He was leaning forward, the pull of a T-shirt stretching across the inflated muscles of his chest. His hair stood short and spiked, a cleft pitting his chin. It was the director’s look of a classic star, but here to play no hero.

  So often had it been said, amongst those who filed daily into the public gallery, how very unlikely they looked to be accused of such a crime. She 30, a landmark age that should be lived amongst career and family, him a year and a half older. And if all the claims and charges were true, such venomous bitterness was hidden within the two siblings.

  And some said, so very quietly and always checking over their shoulders to be sure of the confidence, if indeed it was true – how they had come to be this way – then perhaps it was difficult to wholeheartedly condemn them.

  ***

  Outside the courtroom, along an unseen corridor, a door banged shut. On the press benches a couple of court artists sketched at notebooks. The reporters around them were poised, ready to break the news for which they had been waiting.

  Ten jurors were seated now. There was just one more before the foreman would have to turn to the court and all would see where his look fell. But, as if whimsical fate could never resist one final tease for the earthbound fools of the human race, the last juror was an older lady. She, of course, had to fuss with her jacket and smooth down her skirt before she could lower herself to the wooden bench.

  A stifled groan rose from the public gallery. The father raised an arm and rubbed at his chest, massaging circles around his heart. The black gown of an usher floated over and, with practice born of experience, passed across the platitude of a glass of water.

  Overhead, the thundering clatter of a low helicopter beat across the clear blue of the sky. The judge’s eyes flickered upwards with a look that, if it had physical force, would surely have been enough to shoot down the aircraft.

  And the stillness settled once more.

  On the press benches, at the far end, ready to burst out and break the story, Dan Groves inked and fattened the heading on his notepad.

  Verdict – At bloody last.

  For every day of the six weeks of the trial, Dan had sat here. And for each of the five long days the jury deliberated he had waited. Like everyone else, drinking too much coffee. Trying to read a newspaper or magazine and always failing. Jumping every time the tannoy crackled.

  How many calls for barristers, solicitors and witnesses to attend a different hearing had they endured? Or routine reminders of fire safety procedures and requests not to leave bags unattended? How many before finally came the awaited words.

  Verdict will now be taken in Court Three.

  Eleven of the jurors were eventually, at last, in their seats and settled. The foreman was finally turning towards the court. And Dan couldn’t help himself from reaching out to grip the fat folder, burning with the menace of those melting pot days, six months ago.

  The days that had brought them here.

  To the silent, resonating roar of this moment of justice.

  Chapter Two

  It hadn’t been a day to bother the mythical creatures who would be his biographers, but it felt all the better for that. The simple pleasure of a whole day off, a species so rare it could outdo a cross between a unicorn and a yeti.

  And that, Dan reflected as he paced across the classical Devon hillside of the springtime, was the result. His mind was skipping on the treetops. It was as if it had overdosed on the relaxation and was throwing up even more bizarre thoughts than usual.

  The fast scampering of padded feet landed the dream-weaver back in the park. Dan wheeled round, although not quickly enough to evade a whack in the side of the legs. Rutherford had kindly brought one of his traditional gifts, a sizeable stick. The master dutifully grabbed one end, but the Alsatian locked his teeth and hung on more determinedly than a shipwrecked sailor to a lifebelt.

  ‘How many times have we had this conversation now? What’s the point of you bringing me a stick if you don’t let it go?’

  As always, the logic made no headway. Dan fished a treat from his pocket, threw it, picked up the discarded stick and hurled it across the field.

  ‘Stupid dog!’ he called after the lolloping canine. ‘A couple more throws and it’s time to get home.’

  They headed back towards the mansion of Saltram House, its Georgian angles stark in the day’s falling sun. The silver stud of Venus, gatherer of the night, had begun to rise in the southern sky. The fields were filling with flowers, a dotted pallet of yellows, blues, purples and whites.

  Down in the valley, the Plym had fattened with a seasonal high tide, the silver curl of the river spotted with the odd boat and its shard of a wake. A couple of magpies hopped and chattered a courtship jig beneath the boughs of a veteran oak.

  ‘It’s that time of year,’ Dan told Rutherford, who had finally deigned to walk at something like heel. ‘Maybe we should give Claire a call, eh?’

  Early in the years of their relationship, Dan came to understand that Rutherford possessed a vocabulary, albeit limited. In order of popularity, it ran; food, walk, cats, brush, bedtime. The entry of Claire into their lives had added a new word, and one which achieved the unimaginable feat of rivalling items one and two.

  Rutherford dropped the precious stick and let free a run of excitable barks. Dan patted his head and coaxed a couple of phantoms of floating hair from the dog’s coat.

  ‘Don’t get too excited,’ he soothed. ‘I’m not saying we’re getting back together. We’re just seeing how things go.’

  Dan stretched, turned his face to the sky and added quietly, ‘Or should I say, still seeing how things go.’

  There were only a few cars left on the gravel outside the house. Most people had finished their walk and returned home for the Friday treat of a takeaway, a night on the town, or just a welcome chance to unwind. The sun was slipping fast towards the horizon and the evening air setting with a chill.

  Dan’s mobile began to trill in his pocket. ‘Maybe I started to relax too soon,’ he told Rutherford. ‘I bet it’s work.’

  It wasn’t. Not official work, anyway. The name Adam Breen was flashing on the display.

  ‘Evening, Chief Inspector,’ Dan answered, with some relief. ‘Are you still on for this beer then? I’m just—’

  ‘This is urgent,’ came the ruthless interruptio
n. ‘We’ve got a kidnapping. I need your help.’

  ***

  Dan bundled the reluctant Rutherford into the car and bounced it over the speed humps to the main road. The traffic was sticky, tailing back along the embankment, a sweep of red brake lights stretching around the bend of the river. There were rat runs, but they would probably be clogged too. A woman on a bike picked a careful path through the cars, and was making much faster progress than her competitors.

  Dan swore to himself and called the newsroom. The duty journalist, Phil, keenest of the young trainees, began asking questions, but only very briefly. A sharp voice in the background interrupted and the phone was duly passed across to the Mark XIII editor of Wessex Tonight.

  ‘Tell me everything,’ Lizzie commanded, and Dan did. ‘I want a live broadcast,’ came the instant reply. ‘I want a report. I want her parents. I want the cops. I want the lot.’

  ‘Ok.’

  ‘And absolutely no disappearing into the investigation – again.’

  ‘Never, naturally.’

  From behind, a siren wailed. Cars started easing aside, clearing one of the lanes.

  ‘I mean it this time,’ Lizzie continued. ‘I’m fed up with your Sherlock Holmes act—’

  Dan rubbed a finger over the car microphone and the line produced a satisfactory crackling.

  ‘Sorry, you’re breaking up,’ he said, and cut the call.

  The siren was growing louder. It was a cop car, heading for town. Dan waited for it to edge past, then stamped on the accelerator, pulling hard into the slipstream. Now they were shifting, cutting through the traffic and almost at the end of the embankment.

  The policeman was eyeing his mirror. Dan rummaged in the glove box and found the ‘Police Forensics on call’ sign. He’d once borrowed it from a scientist, and had stupidly and repeatedly somehow forgotten to return it. He placed the sign in the windscreen.