by Simon Hall
Annette glanced over at her father with fast, frightened eyes. She grabbed for the glass again and drank hard at the water. Munroe waited, let the words echo from the old wooden panels of the court.
Raped. Strangled. Beaten. Murdered.
‘Finally Ms Newman, we’ve seen the video of how you were rescued. Can you tell us what you went through then?’
And now, for the first time, the answer came instantly. Annette’s voice was breathless, but stronger.
‘I knew I was going to die. I could smell the petrol. I heard the match being struck. I could hear the flames. They were roaring, all around me. Even through the blindfold I thought I could see the fire. I could feel the heat. I could hear the house starting to collapse. Every second, I was waiting for the flames to touch my skin. Melt my body. I was waiting to die! I was helpless, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t cry out and I knew I was going to die in agony. That’s how it felt! Ok?’
Once more Munroe waited, allowed his gaze to roam over the Edwards and to the jury before turning back to Annette.
‘That’s all I need to ask, Ms Newman,’ he said.
***
Wishart rose from the bench. He oozed empathy for the distress Annette had suffered and apologised for having to question her, before picking up on the first of his points.
‘Would you mind taking us back to the moment you were abducted?’
‘In the street?’
‘Yes.’
‘I had some sandwiches and I was walking towards this tramp who was sitting in a doorway. I bent down, and he pushed a—’
‘I’m sorry,’ Wishart interrupted. ‘Did you say he?’
‘Well, I—’
‘You did say he, didn’t you?’
‘Well—’
‘Because it’s the prosecution’s case that it was Martha Edwards dressed as a tramp. And that Brian was waiting in the van.’
Annette hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. I say he, but it could have been a she. I don’t really remember properly.’
Wishart nodded understandingly, but glanced towards the jury. ‘Now, regarding the van. You are of the opinion there were two people involved in your abduction?’
‘Yes. One driving and one in the back with me.’
‘Could it have been more than two?’
‘Well, I—’
‘Because you didn’t actually see anyone for the whole of the time you were kidnapped, did you?’
‘No, but I just thought it was two people.’
‘But it could have been more? Again, you see, it’s the prosecution’s case that it was just Martha and Brian Edwards working together. But it could equally have been someone else, couldn’t it? There could have been anyone in that van. And later, in the house where you were held.’
Annette gripped hard at the wooden rail. The sunlight fell into the lines of her face, far too scored for someone of her age.
‘Yes, I suppose there could.’
Wishart picked up one of the folders on the desk. ‘You’ve told us of your fears about what might happen to you. But, just to be absolutely clear – you were never actually assaulted, were you?’
‘It felt like it! All the time! That it was coming.’
‘I understand. But in actual fact – you were not?’
‘My back. The top of my chest. My neck. And the breathing on my face.’
‘And you think that it was a man who touched you?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just – thought it was.’
‘Why?’
‘I assumed it was a man.’
‘Assumed?’
Annette’s eyes again shifted to her father.
‘Ms Newman, look at me please. Why did you assume it was a man?’
‘I just thought it was.’
‘But you have no evidence for that.’
‘I just—’
‘No evidence?’
‘No, all right?! No bloody evidence!’
‘Thank you.’
In the jury box the foreman adjusted his glasses, pushing them up to the bridge of his nose. Roger Newman’s hands were knotted tight together. Adam’s face was set hard, a finger pulling tetchily at the collar of his shirt.
The unyielding wood of the witness box was shifting, closing in on Annette, trapping, squeezing and crushing her. With the brightness of the sunshine pouring onto her, the small square of space had become a crucible.
Once more, Wishart checked through his file. ‘Let me bring you on to the matter of the phone call you made, the ransom demand. You were reading from a script which had been prepared for you?’
‘Yes.’
‘But still you saw nothing of who kidnapped you?’
Annette stared down at the floor. ‘I… I don’t know if I can do this.’
‘Please, take your time.’
‘It’s bringing it all back!’ she yelled. ‘I can’t, I don’t want to, I can’t go back there again!’
Few are the fathers who could sit through such suffering of their own flesh. Roger Newman leapt up from his seat and was striding forwards. A security guard tried to grab him, but Newman was too quick, too intent, and dodged past.
Annette jumped down from the box and into his arms. The usher was following, his black gown billowing, trying to stop Newman.
Munroe was on his feet. ‘Your Honour, is this questioning really necessary?’
Newman was hugging Annette tight. Adam was rising, Katrina standing too, reaching out for Annette’s hand. The court was filling with noise, hubbub and melee growing into cacophony.
‘Order!’ Templar called from the bench. ‘I’m calling a recess for lunch. We shall reconvene in one hour.’
***
Dan’s hopeful suggestion of something to eat earned only a derisive look from Adam. He spent almost the entirety of the lunch hour stalking the corridor, muttering unpleasantries about the law. Even the coffee Claire brought him remained untouched.
Annette was taken to a waiting room, to sit with her father and try, as best she could, to find some calm. Katrina joined them for a brief chat. Through the gap in the door, before it closed, Dan saw Annette give Katrina a long hug.
The usher who had intervened to try to stop Newman introduced himself as Jonathan Ivy. ‘It happens sometimes, that,’ he told Adam. ‘It’s not surprising, given what people have to go through.’
‘You’re not wrong there,’ Adam grunted.
‘Anyway, thanks for helping to calm it all down. Judge Templar is no fan of disruptions I can tell you, particularly lately.’
Katrina emerged from the waiting room, looking flushed. ‘Annette’s struggling, but I think she’ll just about get through,’ she said in response to Adam’s look. ‘I told her there’s not much more to come.’
‘Bloody lawyers,’ was the detective’s sullen response. ‘As if she hasn’t suffered enough.’
‘Templar’s a decent judge,’ Katrina soothed, to little effect. ‘He looked after Annette as best he could in there. I know him from his days as a barrister in London. He’s one of the good ones.’
‘Didn’t know there was such a thing as a good lawyer,’ Adam snorted. ‘From what I hear, Templar’s going off the rails. It’s no accident this is one of his last cases.’
A line of solicitors filed past, all dressed in identikit suits and carrying regulation leather briefcases. Claire looked to Dan, and without hesitation reached out and gave him a cuddle. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised, disengaging. ‘I just needed that.’
Katrina muttered something about getting herself a drink and walked away.
‘Maybe we could catch up later?’ Claire whispered. ‘I could do with a chat.’
‘Me too,’ Dan said. ‘But it’ll depend on work. And given what’s been going on in court, I suspect I’m going to be busy.’
‘There’s no pressure, as ever,’ Claire replied, her voice tinted with sadness. ‘But if you do have an hour, it’d be great to see you. We are going t
o have to talk sometime.’
She smiled and Dan managed to find a passable imitation in return. The tannoy announced the resumption of the case and they paced back towards the court. Katrina stood by the doors, finishing the remains of her coffee, with an expression as aloof as the highest mountain top. She didn’t once look at Dan.
***
For a woman who was diminished enough at the start of the trial, Annette had shrunk further with each day.
The clothes she wore enveloped rather than fitted, as though they were bought for a different person. There was no colour to them, no personality, no spirit or sparkle. She wore no make-up or jewellery, no detail, no adornments. It was as if she wanted to fade from sight.
And now she stood once again, in the tomb of the witness box, waiting for the final assault.
‘The last matter I must raise is the ransom demand,’ Wishart began, when the court had settled. ‘Can you tell us how that happened?’
The break had brought none of the life back to Annette’s face. She was sickly pallid. Her voice, quiet throughout, was now close to imperceptible.
‘I heard a door. And feet behind me. Then these hands grabbed the sides of my head and held me so I couldn’t move.’
Annette stopped abruptly and reached for her ear lobe in that reflex, comforting twitch. The microphone thudded dully with the movement.
‘Ms Newman?’ Wishart prompted.
‘I thought I was going to be killed! I thought they were going to take a knife and slice my throat open. Ok?!’
‘And then you saw the note?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘This hand pointed to it. There was a phone. I heard a voice answering. Something tapped me on the back of the head and a finger pointed to the note again. So I started reading.’
‘And then?’
‘The phone disappeared and my blindfold and gag were put back on.’
‘And you saw no one?’
‘No.’
‘Did you not try to look around?’
‘My head was being held so I couldn’t. And—’
‘And?’
‘I didn’t dare to! Ok? I was too scared. I thought—’
‘Thought what?’
‘That I’d be killed. From that note, I knew – knew they were serious. What they said they’d do to me. I thought I was going to die.’
Wishart smoothed his robe. ‘It is the case, is it not, that throughout your ordeal you caught no sight of the person, or persons, who had taken you?’
Annette was struggling to form the words. ‘I…’
‘You didn’t see anyone, did you?’
‘No.’
‘So these two people in the dock. You can’t possibly say they were in any way implicated in this crime, can you?’
‘I… I think—’
‘I’m not asking for an opinion, Ms Newman. I’m asking for a fact.’
‘Careful, Mr Wishart,’ intervened the judge.
The barrister paused. ‘Let me rephrase the question. I’m putting it to you that you can in no way connect these two people in the dock with your abduction? Can you?’
Annette’s lips were trembling. The sunshine which had surrounded her faded as a cloud drifted over the courthouse.
‘It’s a simple fact, is it not?’ the barrister continued. ‘You, the subject of this crime, you can in no way link these two people to it? Can you?’
And now Annette leaned back in the witness box and slowly lowered herself onto the seat. Torment upon ordeal, bombardment upon barrage had taken their toll. All fight was extinguished, any remaining spirit broken. When she answered, her voice sounded exhausted.
‘No. I can’t.’
Several of the jurors had been taking careful notes. Now, in unison, they rested their pens.
Chapter Eighteen
Thursday threw up a dilemma for Dan. Usually he’d see it as a gateway to the weekend and pop out for an evening beer. A drink or two to relax, ready for the welcome embrace of Friday.
This particular Thursday, like Janus, he faced two ways. One instinct was loud and insistent: to head straight out and get drunk. Only such numbness could ease the emotion of the day in court.
The more thoughtful side whispered caution. Another busy day loomed tomorrow, with more of the case to report. The end was nearing, the tension growing. A hangover would be a highly unwelcome companion.
To help him decide, Rutherford was placed on his lead and together they walked into Hartley Park.
The light was beginning to seep from the sky. The trees rustled with the sound of roosting birds. Dan performed a couple of quick stretches and began running, Rutherford keeping an easy pace alongside. They had the park to themselves and delighted in it.
There was one irritant, an annoying thought which kept popping uninvited into Dan’s mind like an unscratched itch. It was a memory of an unanswered question, one which had needled him for six months. That elusive PP in the ransom demand.
In the police interviews, the Edwards had looked blank and refused to answer questions about it. Despite all the inquiries, all the detectives who had worked on it, the meaning of the two letters had never been discovered.
Dan had come to wonder if it ever would be, if even perhaps it signified anything. It could just have been a game, a taunt, the reddest of herrings. But that had never struck him as the Edwards’ style.
He distracted himself with other thoughts. The report of the day’s proceedings was the lead story on Wessex Tonight, and rightly so. Dan felt he had done Annette justice in showing how she’d suffered, no matter what doubts the defence may raise.
‘So, it wasn’t a bad day,’ he told Rutherford, as they completed a lap. ‘It was just the little issue with Katrina which tarnished it. I don’t think I’ll be getting anywhere with her now, after that hug from Claire. Not that I probably should, anyway. It really is about time to have that talk with Claire, don’t you think?’
At the mention of the sacred name, Rutherford jumped up and wheeled his paws in the air.
‘That’s a deal then dog,’ Dan panted. ‘We’ll sort it out by Christmas, ok? Assuming she’s still interested in us. And who could blame her if she wasn’t? What sane woman would want to take on you and me?’
They managed to hit the target of ten laps before heading home. As they left the park, Dan said, ‘So, what am I doing? Having a beer or not?’
Usually, when they went for a run, Dan took his mobile along. Long experience had taught him a call was most likely when it was least wanted. But on this occasion he’d left the phone in the hallway.
Its little message light was flashing a welcome. Dan sighed and picked it up, ready for a call to a breaking story.
But it was a text message, and from a number the phone didn’t recognise.
Fancy a drink tonight? K
***
The bus dropped Dan off at Royal Parade, in the midst of the city. He could have travelled on a couple more stops, but the time was only twenty to nine. He had already breached the etiquette of cool texting and didn’t want to compound the sin by arriving early.
The message from Katrina was ten minutes old by the time Dan saw it. He managed to make himself wait the five minutes of a rushed and agitated shower before suggesting Leo’s Bar, on Sutton Harbour, for nine. It was twenty-five long minutes before the answer came back.
Fine.
Dan was on the bus a few seconds later. As he sat, rumbling along Mutley Plain, home to the unholy trinity of students, cheap bars and kebab houses, he realised the favourite shirt he wore was the one Claire bought last Christmas.
The night ran by. The streets were milling with people, a parade of colour wending its way to the bars, clubs and restaurants. Cabs trundled along Royal Parade, stopping to unload their laughing, tumbling cargoes. Music pumped from open doors, lights flashing in time. Bouncers eyed those passing with all the suspicion of the experience of a thousand drunken fights.
The Parade is
a sharp divide, almost a tarmac river in the city centre. To the north, the glass fronts of the rows of stores form the start of the shopping district. Opposite lies the open promenade to the Hoe and the view to the red and white hoops of Smeaton’s Tower, the old lighthouse which once guarded the treacherous rocks of the Eddystone reef.
At the eastern end stands one of Plymouth’s most iconic landmarks. As much of the city was razed in the bombing of the Second World War, St Andrew’s Church was not spared. Only the walls and tower were left standing, six hundred years of history largely destroyed in a single night.
The following day, amidst the rubble and debris of a once proud city, laid low in a few hours of barbarity, a headmistress nailed a wooden sign above the remains of the door. Upon it was carved simply Resurgam.
I will rise again.
To this day, the entrance is known as the Resurgam Door, a granite plaque now replacing its wooden ancestor. Dan crossed the road and, as was sometimes his habit in this city which had become his home, stood thinking.
***
A zig-zag walk through the narrow backstreets brought Dan to Sutton Harbour and the cobbles by the Three Crowns pub. A line of fishing boats had moored along the wharf, dark shadows of men moving over the decks. The smell of fish filled the still air.
A couple sat on a wooden bench overlooking the water, eating from bags of chips. A pair of swans glided towards them, necks arched in an elegant begging.
Dan walked on, past a café and the drifting notes of a saxophone, then on to a couple of pubs and a discordant karaoke. The doorman wore a thickset grimace. ‘I’d rather be scrapping with drunken louts,’ he grunted.
Ahead loomed the Citadel, the great block of the Napoleonic fort, built to protect Plymouth from the invading hordes gathering across the channel. And just beside it, as if sheltering, was Leo’s Bar, the windows dim with suggestive lights.
Beneath a yellow streetlamp, in the mirror of a parked lorry, Dan checked his hair, shirt and brushed off any possible dust. He started walking again, then stopped, started again, and hesitated once more.
