by Lily Harlem
‘What?’ I stared at him, widening my eyes.
‘I said, you’re going to pack a bag.’
‘What for?’
‘Because you’re coming to stay with me.’
Chapter Four
Then
I was taken up some stairs and along a corridor to a room that reminded me of those on TV, a place where police interrogated witnesses. It seemed at odds with the building — one that was opulent and erected in days gone by, all dark, carved wood and high ceilings. I wondered if this was where prisoners were kept before being taken into the courtroom but dismissed it, because hadn’t I heard somewhere that those rooms were below the ground floor? It didn’t matter where they were anyway. What mattered was that I was here, in this austere room, being led towards a chair reminiscent of one from school — orange plastic with grey metal legs — and a table with chipped white Formica and tea-stain rings.
The security guard pressed me down with a hand on my shoulder — unnecessary, I thought — my back to the door. I glanced up at him, hoping he’d be forthcoming with reassurance. He wasn’t. He just looked at me impassively, then went to stand against the wall to my left, hands clasped in front of him. This wasn’t on, but who was I to just get up and leave? For all I knew I had to stay here due to some law or other. If they suspected I’d been with that man, maybe they had every right to do this.
‘I don’t know why I’m here,’ I said. ‘What am I here for?’
‘Not for me to say, really,’ the guard said.
His grave expression got on my nerves, and I wanted to jump up and shove him, poke him in the chest and demand answers. Except from what I’d gathered so far he wouldn’t give any and it would be a waste of my time.
‘Who are we waiting for?’ I asked, thinking I had a right to know.
‘Not sure.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe the police.’
I held back a reply burning to come out — the police? — as it would have been a squeak. I frowned, wondering how it had come to this. All I’d done was join a trial in session. Had been squashed between a woman and that man, minding my own business. And then that man had said what he’d said and everything had gone tits up. I wouldn’t be coming back tomorrow, I knew that much. Even though the man had frightened me, now that he’d gone I felt braver. I’d have done anything he’d asked five minutes ago, but now, when I was safe from the likes of him, I decided that no, I wouldn’t be returning.
With the guard staring at an oblong, frosted window opposite that let in meagre light because it was so dirty, I had nothing to do but think until whoever was due to see me arrived. I was frightened, no doubt about it, my legs a bit wobbly and my stomach rolling over, but at the same time I was angry. I was an innocent here, taken out of that court as though I’d done something wrong, and I thought I deserved the pleasure of being pissed off about it. Would they let me ring someone to let them know where I was?
I drummed my fingertips on the table and gazed around at the pea-soup-coloured walls with darker scuff marks where maybe someone had kicked out or struggled. My mind went into overdrive then, and I entertained scenarios where people were manic to get out, to prove they hadn’t done what they were being accused of.
A bit like me, really.
The sound of the door opening had me jolting, and I turned to see the questioning solicitor from the courtroom. Brown hair, handsome face, a man out of a fantasy. He smiled tightly, studying me as if he wondered whether I needed studying like that — all narrowed eyes and lips a thin, tight line. From the looks of him he’d already come to a conclusion about me, and it didn’t seem to be a good one.
‘Look,’ I said, the unfairness of the situation rising inside me. I twisted around further. ‘I don’t know who you think I am or what I’ve done, but I’m just a gawker. I came in to be nosey, all right? I was bored, had always wanted to watch a court in session, and that’s it.’
He broadened his mouth into a smile that could only be taken as condescending, and closed the door, then walked to the chair on the other side of the table. He sat, placing a thin blue file on the desk, and took an expensive silver pen from the outside pocket of his black suit jacket. He leaned back, lifted one leg to rest his ankle on his knee, and put the end of the pen in his mouth. Ran it along his bottom lip. A mouth made for kissing if ever there was one.
I thought I knew what he was up to, trying to put me under pressure, staring at me like that. Yet he nodded as if confirming something to himself, shook his head, then abruptly sat upright, both feet firmly on the floor. He leant forward, forearms on the table, one covering the bottom half of the file, and smiled. This time it appeared genuine. Reached his hazel eyes — the same colour as that man in court.
‘Sorry about this,’ he said, extending a hand and offering it to me.
I didn’t know whether to shake it or not. Whether if I did it was some form of trap where he’d lull me into a false sense of security, pretending to be friendly then swiping it away with a nasty barrage of questions. To be polite I took his hand in mine, his firm grip unsurprising, his skin soft and warm. He held on for a moment too long — a moment that had me blushing and cursing myself for being so lame, so taken with him — then released to spread that hand on top of the file. I stared at his long fingers, at the webbing in between, and his perfect nails.
It looked like he’d had a manicure, and for some reason I wanted to laugh at that. Not that there was anything wrong with a man having a manicure — I mean, they were all the rage these days, plus men having facials and whatnot, weren’t they — it was just that I didn’t know any men who actually indulged. Or any who would admit to having had one. The men in my circles were brash, loud, and thought a woman was just someone to hang out with when they fancied sex. Like John. I’d needed to broaden my horizons, to meet other people, ones on the other end of the spectrum to those I knew, which was why I’d stopped going down The Wheatsheaf. Stopped seeing John. Stopped going out to clubs with Cara and Lynne. They’d wet themselves now if they knew what I’d got myself into.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked, needing to break the silence, to stop myself staring at his hands. I lifted my head to look at him, trying to show him I had nothing to hide.
‘I can’t go into too much detail, obviously, due to legalities and being mid-trial, but there’s a concern for your safety.’
My stomach clenched and I wanted to be sick. My arms and legs felt boneless, and my head…it seemed to be empty for a second or two.
‘What?’ I managed.
I wanted to rage that I’d just walked in off the street, that I’d planned to watch the session then go home and write about it, not be up here, being told I was in danger. That was what he’d meant, wasn’t it? A concern for my safety translated to me that I was in danger, and even a dim spark would realise it was in relation to that man.
‘The gentleman behind you in the courtroom,’ he began, rolling his pen between finger and thumb, ‘has been known to…cause problems. Now, I don’t wish to alarm you but —’
‘Alarm me?’ I blurted, ready to get right up and walk the hell out. ‘Bloody alarm me? Of course I’m alarmed. What problems? What am I meant to be in danger of?’
‘Please, calm down.’ He reached across and covered my hand with his. Curled his fingers so one of the tips brushed the underside of my wrist. ‘Let me just explain.’
‘I think you f— ought to,’ I said, pleased that I hadn’t said the rest of that word. In the circumstances it would have been understandable if I had, but he was so refined I didn’t want to appear the common-as-muck woman he undoubtedly saw me as. A twenty-something slung up not brought up.
He looked at me for a moment before shifting his attention to the guard. ‘Would you mind bringing up some tea? Perhaps some lunch?’ He returned his gaze to me, tilting his head in question.
‘What?’ I asked, unsure if he was asking me if I wanted a sandwich.
‘Lunch?’ he asked. ‘I have an hour before court resumes and
really must eat. Would you like anything?’
I shook my head yet answered, ‘Yes. Please. Anything will do.’ Then wondered if, knowing my luck, I’d be brought an egg sandwich and wouldn’t be able to eat it. Or one of those so-called All Breakfast efforts that made me want to gag. ‘Cheese,’ I added. ‘Or ham and pickle. Or just ham. Please.’
He nodded, and the guard left the room. It felt different with him gone, less threatening, and I supposed that was because I’d seen him as my jailer, the one who’d had the unfortunate job of being the messenger, the one I shouldn’t want to shoot but did. I swallowed, smiled an embarrassed smile at the solicitor, and shifted, uncomfortable under his gaze.
‘I haven’t done this quite right,’ he said, his accent telling me he hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth but that he didn’t hail from my neck of the ravaged woods either. ‘My name is Michael Jacobs. And you are?’
‘Rebecca,’ I said. ‘Rebecca Matthews.’
‘Right then, Rebecca Matthews.’ He smiled, another genuine one. ‘Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?’ He opened the file and took out a legal notepad. Poised his pen over it and looked at me, waiting for me to speak.
I didn’t, just smiled stupidly instead.
‘How about,’ he said, ‘you tell me exactly what happened from the moment you decided to enter court until you were brought up here.’
I told him while staring at his stiff white shirt collar, and once I’d finished I idly wondered if that collar was uncomfortable, whether it rubbed and he couldn’t wait to take it off at the end of a long day. Couldn’t wait for a woman to run her hands across his bare chest. Lick it. Graze her teeth over it. I shook my head to clear it of stupid thoughts and smiled a bit, hoping I could go now that he’d heard my little story.
‘Repeat that again, what he said after he’d asked where you were going.’ Mr Jacobs pulled his eyebrows together and drew a circle around a sentence of his notes.
‘He asked me if I saw the woman on the stand, then said she’d be next.’ A shudder went through me at having to remember it yet again.
‘What do you think he meant by that?’
‘It sounds mad, but I took it to mean she’d be killed. But I didn’t want to think that because it sounds silly, doesn’t it?’ I fiddled with my fingers in my lap.
‘Perhaps to some it might. Go on. What else did he say?’
‘He said…’ I swallowed. ‘He said that I’d be back here tomorrow and if I wasn’t he’d find me.’
Now that I came to think of it, Mr Jacobs telling me there was a concern for my safety brought all the fear I’d felt in that courtroom flying back. I’d taken what that man had said as the truth, that he’d meant what he’d said, and then, once I was safe, I’d shoved it to the back of my mind as though I’d imagined it. But I hadn’t, and now I began to realise that there was cause to worry. Why had he picked me to talk to, to grab hold of? Had I just been in the wrong place at the wrong time? He could have chosen the woman next to me, but saying that, she was older, maybe less likely to believe him. Me, being younger…yes, he’d chosen well.
‘And then?’ Mr Jacobs asked.
I sighed out of frustration and fear. ‘Why do I need to tell you again? You wrote it all down; it’s right there!’ I pointed at his pad.
‘Please, just one more time.’ He smiled.
I knew what he was up to then. Re-questioning me to see if I said the same thing as before. ‘He said the woman was lying, and I think he meant that she was lying about not knowing what her son had done. Then he said ‘Tomorrow. Here. Right here.’ And I knew I’d have to come back because otherwise he might find me. Then the rest happened and I was brought up here and I didn’t think I had anything to worry about except you thinking I was in on something with him and that I’d say I wasn’t and you’d believe me and then I could go home and —’
‘Take a deep breath, Rebecca.’ He nodded. ‘That’s it, nice and deep.’
‘But I can’t go home now, can I? Not if he’s got someone out there waiting. That’s what they do, isn’t it? Wait? Then follow? Oh, God. Fucking hell!’ I blushed. ‘Sorry.’
‘That’s perfectly fine. Okay, I think I’m going to need to bring the police in on this matter.’ He held up the hand holding the pen so I didn’t speak. ‘Just so I can be assured you’re going to be all right. They’ll know how to handle this.’
Far from being upset by what he’d said, I was relieved. Yes, I wanted the police, needed the police, because if that man had been telling the truth… ‘Oh, God. This is something horrible, isn’t it?’
Mr Jacobs grimaced. ‘I’m afraid it might well be, Rebecca.’
The door opened, cutting off my reply, my questions. It seemed to have been pushed hard on purpose, in annoyance, and I jumped. Turning to see the guard coming in, I relaxed my shoulders and gave him a smile as he walked over and lowered a tray onto the table. I felt awkward, out of my depth, and scared shitless that my day had turned into such a nightmare. Yes, after abandoning the nights out and choosing to spend more time alone I’d wished for a bit of excitement in my life, but this? And now here we were, sandwiches in cardboard containers with transparent plastic windows, cups of hot tea with steam puffing from them, and two packets of shortbread biscuits beside them, making everything seem so normal.
But it wasn’t normal, was it, and I knew things would never be normal again.
Natalie Dae also writes as Sarah Masters, Geraldine O’Hara and Charley Oweson. She creates cover art as Posh Gosh. Her website is www.emmyellis.com
