Justice Mirror

by Simon Hall

  Munroe half turned to the jury. ‘Pretty bitter, then?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Disillusioned with society?’

  ‘Just a little.’

  ‘Angry?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So… that was when you decided to take revenge?’

  Martha glared at him, briefly closed her eyes as if to cage the animal of her anger. ‘I’ve never taken any revenge on anyone.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘So, the forensics degree – the computing too – they weren’t to provide the knowledge you’d need to be an efficient criminal?’

  ‘No.’

  Munroe absorbed the setback. He turned a couple of pages on his notes and ran a hand over the smoothness of his chin. Now the pace of his voice changed. It became quicker, sharper with a new angle of attack.

  ‘What do you think of Annette Newman?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What do you think of her?’

  ‘I – I don’t think anything of her. I don’t know her.’

  ‘You don’t pity her for what she’s been through?’

  ‘I…’

  ‘You don’t feel anything for her? After her tears in the witness box? The nightmare of the ordeal that still haunts her?’

  Martha glanced at the jury. She might have been searching for a hint about the right answer. For the first time, there was discomfort in her voice.

  ‘I suppose I… feel sorry for her.’

  ‘Suppose?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You just suppose?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And feel sorry?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Just sorry?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘For the torment you inflicted?’

  ‘Yeah… no! You bastard, you’re trying to catch me out.’

  Munroe said nothing, just settled on the ground he had won. He let his eyes run along the twelve expressionless faces in the jury box. And now his tone changed again. He had become an uncle, helping a favoured child with some homework.

  ‘What kind of an outcry was there about you, and thousands of others, being infected with hepatitis and HIV?’

  Martha studied him, unsure where she was being lured this time. ‘You know damn well.’

  ‘Tell us.’

  ‘Just about none.’

  ‘None?’

  ‘No. None. Not a bit. Zip. Absolutely zero.’

  ‘That must have struck you as rather unfair?’

  ‘No shit.’

  ‘That no one seemed to care?’

  ‘Yeah… no one cared.’

  ‘Society least of all?’

  Martha snorted unpleasantly. ‘Not a bit.’

  ‘So, you took Annette to demonstrate the contrast. The very different reaction to what happened to her?’

  The forced calm was back. ‘Don’t bother trying that. I did not take Annette.’

  Munroe accepted the block to his parry. He pushed the silvery wig back a little from his brow, gave himself thinking time. ‘A final question, if I may?’

  ‘If you must.’

  Munroe didn’t react, instead he unfolded a large sheet of paper. It looked like a map. He made a point of studying it, and with obvious affection. Then his expression changed and he focused upon Martha’s eyes.

  ‘So then – Great Mis? Vixen? Cox? Sheep’s?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bellever? Pew? North Hessary? Gutter?’

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Leeden? Yar? Laughter? Leather?’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  Munroe waved the map. ‘Tors, Ms Edwards. They’re all Dartmoor tors. What’s your favourite tor?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re a Dartmoor lover, according to your evidence. That which you swore was the truth – remember? You delight in the moor’s natural beauty, or so you say. I just wondered which tor was your favourite?’

  ‘I… I…’

  ‘You have no idea, do you?’

  ‘I do – I like… Hay Tor.’

  ‘Hay Tor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hay Tor – Dartmoor’s most visited. The one that probably anyone could name. That’s your favourite?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You said you love seclusion. Peace and tranquillity. Is that why you like Hay Tor?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Despite it being a tourist honeypot? Having two large car parks, a visitor centre and an ice cream stall?’

  Martha glared at Munroe. Her hand clutched at the polished wood of the witness box. Behind her, in the dock, Brian was leaning forwards, agitated. He looked as though he was in pain.

  ‘I like the views,’ she said finally.

  ‘You are a liar, Ms Edwards. You kidnapped Annette Newman and you and your brother held her in a cottage in East Prawle.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘You did so because you wanted money for drugs which might help your condition, but most importantly as part of your crusade for revenge.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Annette was an embodiment of the establishment, so you took her and delighted in making her suffer.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Because of the attention given to her abduction and the lack of interest in your own plight.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘It was your personal version of justice, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You are a liar, Ms Edwards. Despite what you might believe of your lofty purpose and perverted morals, you are nothing more than a common criminal.’

  Martha’s face had flushed an angry red. ‘I am not a common criminal!’

  Munroe lowered his voice once more. ‘And that’s exactly how you see yourself, isn’t it? No common felon, but an avenger. Bringing justice to a world that can’t manage to find its own. But I can tell you, Ms Edwards, that you are a criminal. Perhaps not common, maybe even rare, but a criminal nonetheless.’

  ‘No! No, no, no!’

  The barrister held her look. ‘No further questions, Your Honour.’

  Dan finished a final note and quickly looked to the jury. The eyes of every man and woman were fixed on Martha Edwards. He thought he could sense a change in some of the expressions. It was nothing easily perceptible, nothing that could be written down, but perhaps the beginning of an understanding about what truly stood before them.

  For the first time in the weeks of the trial, Dan found himself starting to believe the distant land of a guilty verdict might just be within reach after all.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The great labyrinth of the legal maze had at last been navigated.

  Evidence and testimony, speeches and learned arguments, all finally exhausted. Now there just remained a choice of the two doors.

  The moment of justice.

  The foreman was still standing, head a little bowed, one hand fingering a wisp of beard. In another place, another life, he could have been a geography teacher patiently waiting for a class to quieten.

  All eleven of his peers had settled for the final time on these inhospitable wooden benches. All were looking to him, first among equals of this randomly assembled dozen.

  And all the rest of the court looked, too. The judge, high up on the bench, framed by the dancing lion and unicorn. The opposing ranks of the law, the barristers and solicitors of each side. The Newmans on the front row of the public gallery, the Edwards in the dock, awaiting their fate.

  All in the gift of this man’s voice. And now it was time.

  The foreman was drawing himself up with every inch of his height. The whole court could see the rise of his chest. His hands were gripping hard at a small piece of paper and his look was lifting. Upwards, degree by degree, taking in the wooden bench before him, and heading for the well of the court.

  He had closed his eyes, just a brief blink, as if in anticipation of what was to come. And now he was looking direc
tly into the court.

  Straight at the Edwards.

  ***

  Templar nodded to a woman, sitting below him. The Clerk to the Court rose, her black robe flowing to the floor in waves.

  She was young, perhaps no more than thirty, but had nonetheless donned a pair of half-moon spectacles more typical of a woman double her age.

  ‘Mr Foreman of the jury,’ she called. ‘Have you reached a verdict upon which you are all agreed?’

  ‘We have.’

  Solicitors looked to their colleagues. Detectives did the same. Strangers in the public gallery nudged each other. Annette cuddled into her father, face buried in his shoulder. Behind the glass of the dock the Edwards held hands.

  And so came the question, the answer and the moment.

  ‘Mr Foreman – do you find the defendants guilty or not guilty?’

  Just one more hesitation. A final tease, a last procrastination, as the man took another deep breath.

  ‘We find the defendants… not guilty.’

  An instant’s freeze seized the courtroom. A rushing, tumbling, beating, battering silence. So loud it could have drummed on the wood and blown out the skylights.

  One, sole, single second, the time for synapses to click and nerves to react. Time to understand, to realise and to know.

  The Edwards began hugging each other. Beside Adam, Katrina patted his shoulder and Claire laced around a comforting arm. At the front of the court, Wishart and Munroe shook hands.

  A babble filled the room. Unleashed, it echoed and amplified from the old wooden boards. Amongst the hacks there were final scribbled notes and fast fingers on keypads, flashing the copy to newsrooms and on to the world.

  And in the public gallery sat a middle-aged man and a young woman; the only two unmoving in the growing melee. Locked together, as though trying to shelter, to protect each other from yet another torment railed upon them.

  To their side Ivy, the usher, was waiting, a single ally in the uproar. A reporter approached, but Ivy pushed the man away.

  By the dock, the security guard was searching for a key. The steel that would unlock the plate glass and open it to the Edwards’ freedom.

  Amid all this, Templar was unmoved. Sitting aloft, scrutinising the court. In his face was something distant. It was in the lines worn of experience and the knowing of his eyes. Perhaps a regret at this ending to the trial, his last. A farewell to all the years of his career? An empathy for the Newmans, a distaste for the Edwards? And pride or disillusionment with this profession which he had served for so long?

  But he was watching, observing, as a voice struggled to penetrate the whirl of noise.

  ‘Listen! Please! I want to say… There’s a but! A but—’

  It was the foreman. He was trying to shout above the crowd with the thinness of a voice that was never designed for such a task. The woman beside him pushed at his arm, urged him on.

  ‘But!’ he called again. ‘There’s a but!’

  And now people were noticing. Turning. Hearing him.

  Templar banged his gavel on the bench, the crashing harshness of the sound a shock, stopping the courtroom in a second. ‘Order!’ he called. ‘This case has not yet reached its conclusion.’

  The judge let a slow look fall upon the foreman. And once more, however unexpectedly, the attention of all was set upon this nondescript man.

  Emboldened, he gripped the piece of paper, the one he had held so tightly. And now came the reason why, as he read aloud its extraordinary contents.

  ‘We, the jury, believe we have carried out our duty as demanded by the law. We have tried the accused on the evidence put before us and have decided that we cannot, beyond reasonable doubt, find them to be guilty.’

  He studied the sheet one more time.

  ‘However,’ the foreman added, ‘However – that is not to say we believe the defendants to be innocent.’

  ***

  In a rundown of the most vocal species of the earth, lawyers and journalists must surely rank amongst the highest. So it was that the foreman’s words, remarkable in themselves, received an additional accolade. They reduced the creatures of the law and media to a puzzled silence.

  Barristers looked to their solicitors for opinions, or the guidance of precedents, but got only shrugs. Reporters did the same with their rivals. And the sole answer was more vacant looks.

  Unique amongst all this were the Edwards. No longer in the clutches of the court, they would soon be free.

  Initially, they too struggled to comprehend the foreman’s words. Then Martha’s face broke into a smile and a laugh, until it rang with rich contempt. She relaxed back into her seat, placed her hands behind her head and beamed at the confusion. It was the delight in superiority that a child might enjoy from poking an anthill and watching the insects run around in confusion.

  ‘Order!’ called Templar, above the uproar. ‘Order! That concludes these proceedings. Members of the jury, may I thank you for your careful consideration of this case and your verdict – however unorthodox.’

  He turned to address the dock. Martha was still chuckling, playing a hand across the glass in front of her, tracing circles. The guard stood by the door, keys in hand, ready to open it.

  ‘Martha and Brian Edwards, you are free to go,’ Templar intoned. ‘However, before you do, I add this. It may be true that the needs of the law were served here today. But as for the needs of justice, that is quite another matter.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The next hour would return to taunt Dan for the rest of his life.

  The image of what happened never faded with the years, unlike the fragility of so many memories. It stayed sharp and clear, as horrifying as the day they captured it on film. Some ghosts of the mind refuse to rest.

  From the occasional conversation they dared to risk in the times afterwards, he knew it was the same for Nigel and even the normally impenetrable Loud. In any talk about the notorious Edwards’ case, this moment was never mentioned. It had been censored, shamed and hidden. What they saw would stay with them always, but with them alone. It was not for sharing.

  The media pack careered out of the court in their usual disorderly stampede. It was important to get ahead in case any of the main players in the drama, the Edwards or the Newmans, tried to escape before they could be photographed and filmed.

  It hardly mattered if they didn’t want to speak out. Theirs was not the choice. Frenzied questions had to be thrown over the ranks of cameras. Often, mere expressions could tell the story more eloquently than words.

  Nigel had positioned himself at the centre of the arc of the press pack. There must have been forty or so there, the cameras in the middle and reporters clustered around. He held out the microphone to Dan who squatted and shoved himself a space beside his friend.

  Amongst the media, Plymouth Crown Court is popular for a happy pair of reasons. The first is the Pepperpot Coffee Bar on the concrete plaza outside. It’s conveniently close, always refreshing and a guaranteed source of legal gossip. The second, and nominally more important, is that the court has only one public entrance and exit.

  The victims of the press have no choice but to run the gauntlet of the cameras. All they had to do was wait.

  Dan used the time to phone the Wessex Tonight lawyers. Never before had he known a verdict like today’s.

  Judging by the reaction, neither had the duty solicitor. She called back twenty minutes later, having waded into the ancient waters of the law library, checked the electronic vaults of the internet databases and spoken to colleagues.

  The nearest interpretation she could provide was that the jury had effectively adopted the Scottish verdict of Not Proven. In other words we think you’re guilty, but there’s not quite enough evidence to prove it.

  The sun was dipping in the western sky, but the day was still warm. From the tower of the City Council offices, on the opposite side of the plaza, stretched the block of a long shadow. Pigeons paraded the pavements in their
restless search for the joy of a discarded crumb.

  The intensity of the sunlight flared on the glass doors of the court. Each time a figure moved inside the pack tensed.

  The satellite truck was parked just over the road. Lizzie wanted a live introduction from Dan, followed by his report on what happened in court, and a summing up.

  It was half past four, two hours until Wessex Tonight was on air. Time was already growing tight.

  ‘It’s one hell of a story,’ gloated El, who was next to Dan. ‘It’s gonna be worth some wonga from the papers. Hope all our little players come out soon.’

  Nigel asked about what happened in court and Dan gave him a quick summary.

  ‘Those poor Newmans,’ he said, in his fatherly way. ‘The ordeal just goes on and on for them, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Action stations!’ El burbled.

  The doors opened and Adam strode out. He was as immaculately presented as ever, but his face was dour. He looked like a man who had sworn he would never smile again.

  ‘I have a short statement for you,’ he said. ‘Greater Wessex Police respect the jury’s verdict. But I can add this. We will not be looking for anyone else in connection with the case. In the police’s view, the words of the foreman and judge speak for themselves.’

  The usual burst of shouted questions rose from the pack, but the detective had turned and begun walking back into the courthouse.

  He’d reached the third of the six concrete steps when Martha stepped out of the doors. Adam stopped. She stopped.

  ‘Shit, she’s done that deliberately,’ El whispered.

  Claire put a hand onto Adam’s shoulder as if to guide him past, but the detective didn’t move. Martha eyed him, the paleness of her face coloured with a smirk.

  ‘Hello, Mr Chief Detective,’ she chirped. ‘Been explaining to the press how the clever criminals outwitted you?’

  Still Adam said nothing. Now Katrina wound an arm around his shoulders and tried to channel him into the doors. But the detective had become a block of stone. He refused to move.

  ‘It must be really galling,’ Martha continued. ‘All that work to find those terrible people who kidnapped Annette. And then to have a jury tell you that you almost got it, but not quite.’