Rauf is waiting for me outside, and I tell Mira and Jody I will see them back at home. His expression makes my heart sink into my shoes. Silently, he leads me back to the witness room and closes the door behind him. I collapse onto the sofa, in dire need of whatever caffeine is left in the rat’s piss the machine provides.
And then his face splits into a grin.
I stare at him. “What? How was that not bad for us?”
He laughs, and I want to hit him. “Seriously, Rauf. What the hell is so funny?”
“Ah, come on, Miss Mackenzie, you’re the lawyer!”
I fold my arms and glare at him.
“They’ve introduced bad character reference for you, trying to make out that you like rough sex. And good character reference for him: all that shit about Granny Elsa. So?”
“So, what?” I still want to slap him.
He grins. “So we get to introduce rebuttal evidence.”
My heart lifts, just for a moment, until I remember that I don’t change my gran’s diaper every weekend and my friends are not about to hop on a plane to tell the court what a truly saintly corporate lawyer I am.
“Do we have any?”
His infuriating smile becomes sly. “Leave it with me.”
So I do. I leave him to it and go off to enjoy my weekend, which is all the time the seriously pissed-off judge has given us to patch holes in our case. We should have given him warning in the prosecution case statement that we intended to do this, and he’s within his rights to refuse to allow it. But Rauf and the CPS lawyer somehow work their charms on him, to the disgust of the defense lawyer, who’s spitting blood as we file out of court.
Jody, Mira, and I head straight for the station, and by five o’clock, we’re lying by the pool in a spa hotel in the middle of Kent. Mira, who must have sensed what the trial is taking out of us, has banned all conversation to do with the case, and we simply read, eat good food, drink decent wine, and watch videos of a laughing Flori, smeared in fruit puree.
Arriving back at St. Jerome’s on Sunday night, my mood has lightened enough to gift me an unbroken night’s sleep, but when my alarm goes off on Monday morning, the dread descends once more. Aside from whatever rebuttal evidence Rauf has managed to dredge up, we are left with the summing up and my victim impact statement. I must somehow manage to make myself cry. I have to. Or he walks.
On the way to the station, I buy a pack of tissues—I can press them to my face to hide any lack of tears.
The courtroom is quieter this morning. The rubberneckers have heard all the titillating stuff and moved on to the child murderer in the court next door.
The first few minutes are taken up by the CPS lawyer’s creeping apology to the judge, who laps it up like a fat, cantankerous cat. All the while, the defense lawyer twitches in irritation, tapping her pen on the desk, and Rob sighs and shifts in his chair.
Finally, the CPS lawyer is ready to proceed.
He clears his throat, waiting for his audience to give him their full attention, and I remember the thrill of power this part always gave me. I can’t wait to get back to work. I hope Jackson has a decent case lined up for m—
“I’d like to call Daniel Stillmans.”
There’s a moment’s silence, then white noise fills my head, so loud that I don’t hear the clip of his footsteps as he walks past me to take the stand. The chair creaks as he sits down, his blond hair catching a bar of light slanting in from the high windows.
No. Oh no. He’s going to tell them everything I told him in the café. He’s been biding his time, waiting for the perfect moment to blow the case apart.
“Would you please tell the jury how you met Miss Mackenzie?”
Wait. Calm down. The prosecution has called him, not the defense. And there’s no way they could have known about him unless Daniel got in touch with them. Which means he’s on my side. Isn’t he?
“On the plane from McCarran.” His voice is clipped and professional.
The court is completely silent. All my attention is fixed on his face, willing him to turn and see the desperation in my eyes. Just get up and walk away. Please don’t do this to me.
“We hit it off straightaway and over the ensuing weeks became close.”
I blink. He’s making it sound like we had a relationship. His handsome face is drawn. The fat girl in the wraparound dress can’t take her eyes off him.
“And what happened after the night of the New Year’s Eve party?”
This is it. I wince. Please, I think. Please don’t tell them…
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I’d planned to go with her, but Mags insisted I spend the night with my children.”
I stare at him.
“They love New Year’s Eve and, well, it’s been a long time, what with my divorce.”
Rauf glances at me, and I can almost feel him thrumming with excitement. Leave it with me.
One of the jurors shifts in his seat. Perhaps I’m not such a hard bitch after all.
“If I’d gone, it would never have happened. She would never have been…raped.”
For the first time, he looks across at me. His eyes are shining. Christ, he’s good. Though I know it’s all an act, my heart balloons in my chest.
His head drops in an Oscar-worthy demonstration of shame, and when he speaks again, his voice is soft. “After that, things were different. She didn’t want me anywhere near her. What happened to her made her afraid to be close to someone again. She doesn’t trust anyone anymore. She’s built a wall, I think, to protect herself.”
I feel the eyes of the court fixed on me, and for the first time since I set foot in the musty-smelling building, the emotion that blurs my vision is genuine. I let my eyes well up and over before dabbing the tears away with my sleeve.
The defense lawyer sighs at this cheesy attempt at emotional manipulation and, in one fell swoop, alienates the whole courtroom.
“So you noticed a definite change in Mary’s character,” my lawyer says, “before the attack and after?”
Daniel nods, and the transcriber’s fingers fly.
“And prior to this, you never saw any evidence of mental health problems or this ‘hatred of men’ my opposing counsel implied?”
“No. Of course not. That’s nonsense.”
“The defendant has tried to convince us that Miss Mackenzie liked rough sex.” He speaks the words with distaste. “I’m sorry to have to ask such an intimate question, but did Miss Mackenzie ever ask you to hurt her in any way during your lovemaking? To beat or scratch or bite her? Anything that might have caused the injuries you see here?”
He walks across the room and hands Daniel a sheaf of photographs. For a moment, I’m glad Rauf didn’t tell me, because I’d never have allowed Daniel to see me that way.
He gives a sharp intake of breath.
Now that he knows how far I have gone in this deception, the depths I have stooped to, will he be disgusted? Will he feel he has to speak out?
He isn’t looking back at me.
Not the merest rustle of paperwork or murmur of breath disturbs the silence. It’s so quiet, we all hear the slap of the photographs as he tosses them onto the floor. They fan out, facedown with shame.
“That,” he says softly, “isn’t making love. It’s torture.”
The lawyer walks over, picks them up, and tucks them back into the file. Then he turns back to Daniel. “So that we can all cast these unpleasant aspersions aside, I must ask you to confirm whether Miss Mackenzie ever asked you to…hurt her in the ways depicted in the photographs.”
Daniel’s lip curls. “No. She did not.”
“Thank you, and my apologies, but it is, alas, all too common in these cases, even in the twenty-first century, to see the victim branded as a liar, or crazy, or an indulger in ‘rape fantasies.’” His air speech marks per
fectly communicate the contemptibility of this idea. “My commiserations that what happened that night destroyed this fledgling relationship, a normal, healthy relationship based on affection and respect, not sadistic torture fantasies.”
“Thank you. I still hope that”—Daniel swallows—“that one day, after all this is over, maybe we can start again.”
I can’t look away, even as I hear the fat girl sniffle. The defense lawyer is muttering to her client. Jody’s knee glances my own. The sun through the thin window is a blade of light bisecting the room between us.
And then tears are spilling down my cheeks. I fumble in my bag for the tissues, but it falls to the floor with a clunk. I am stripped bare in front of all these people. Eventually, Jody hands me a handkerchief, and I press it to my face, letting my hair fall like a curtain.
“Thank you, Mr. Stillmans,” the lawyer says. “Your witness.”
“No questions, Your Honor.”
At the end of the day, there’s a delay as both counsels speak to the judge about something. I have arranged to meet Rauf in the coffee bar around the corner, and to his credit, my thunderous expression when he walks in does not give him pause. He stands by the counter, taking his own sweet time stirring his latte, letting me stew.
“Why the hell,” I hiss as he slides into the booth, “didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugs. “Worked, though, right? You looked one hundred percent human for once.”
“Quite a risk, don’t you think? He might have said…anything. And how could you have predicted my response?”
He sips his coffee, then licks the froth from his shapely top lip. “Mr. Stillmans and I had a long conversation, from which I gleaned that your feelings for him might be worth exploiting.”
“You’re a shit, Chaudhry. Don’t ever do that again.”
He inclines his head, smirking.
“I’m glad you find my discomfort amusing.”
Now he grins openly. “I can make it up to you.”
I place my own cup down on the sticky table and fold my arms. “Please try.”
As he speaks in his quiet, silky voice, I realize I was wrong about him. He isn’t going to be good. He is good.
But before I can think of a way to respond that doesn’t exacerbate his unbearable smugness, my phone rings. Its position, face up on the table, means that both of us can read the name on the display.
Rauf waggles his ridiculously bushy eyebrows. “My pleasure,” he says and gets up and walks out of the café.
I hesitate for the briefest moment, then draw my finger across the name to take Daniel’s call.
42.
Rob
Kathy says it’ll be time for the summing up soon, and then the jury will retire to try to reach a verdict. She says our chances are fifty-fifty. The bitch doesn’t seem to give a shit either way, mind, and she’s started taking calls about other cases, as if I don’t matter a bit.
I’ve been making eyes at the fat girl, and it was going quite well until that cheesy bastard with the perfect teeth opened his mouth. Kathy said that was a bad moment, that the lying slut’s tears looked genuine enough to convince the jury. I tell her that maybe she decided to make it up because otherwise he’d have thought she was screwing around on him. Not that I should have to come up with this stuff. That’s her job. My parents are paying her enough.
Without looking at me, she gives a noncommittal “hmm,” and I know she’s not convinced by my version of what happened at New Year’s. That’s probably why she’s not giving it one hundred percent. After all this is over, I’m going to complain about her to the lawyer’s association or whatever. Maybe I’ll sue her.
Their bloke walks in, bald head shining under the lights, heels clicking against the wooden floor. Smart shoes. Expensive. Another couple of years at the firm and I’d have been able to afford shoes like that. Course that’s never going to happen if we lose. I glance at Kathy, but she’s looking down into her lap. The bitch had better not be texting someone.
Before we came in this morning, she told me to prepare myself for a worst-case-scenario custodial sentence. Which means I might go to prison. Apparently they’ve got a new witness. Kathy tried to stop it, but because we’d already called witnesses to my good character, they’re allowed.
Across the aisle, in the public gallery, the lying slut sits down. As she tucks her skirt under her arse, she catches my eye, just for a moment, and gives me a flicker of a smile. I look at the jury to see if they’ve noticed it, but they’re looking at their papers.
It was this smile, when someone handed her a glass of water on the first day, that made me finally recognize her as the girl from the bleachers. It was a horrible moment, and I’m not ashamed to admit that my balls shrank right up into my pelvis. I didn’t understand it then and I don’t understand it now, but I’m not going to feel sorry for myself. She’s a fucking nutcase, and Kathy’s bit about it being inherited from her nutcase family should work if the jury’s got a single brain cell between them.
Baldy stands up. “I’d like to call my next witness.”
The door opens behind me, and footsteps shuffle up the aisle. I’m expecting a geriatric. Some old cow whose car I scratched or whose mailbox I shat through, but it’s a skinny guy of about fifty or sixty who takes ages to clamber up to the stand. When he turns around, people grimace. He looks like he’s got terminal cancer.
I have no idea who he is, but a smell that fills the court makes me gag. I swivel in my seat and give Kathy a look. Seriously? But her eyes stay fixed on the cancer guy.
“Felix Goddard, you were a childhood friend of the accused?”
There’s a high-pitched gasp behind me, as if someone recognizes the name, but for a moment, it doesn’t register with me. Then it’s like being hit by a train.
Felix?
Felix?
A prosecution witness?
“Yes.” His voice rasps, like it hurts to talk. I guess his vocal chords have been shredded by crack.
“We were mates since, like, four or five, right up to… I don’t think I’m allowed to say, am I?”
“Correct. Please stick to answering the questions I ask you.”
Kathy shifts in her seat. Her jaw’s tight. She looks like she’s about to jump up and shout “Objection!” but she stays put.
“How old were you when the friendship ended?”
“Seventeen.”
“That’s very specific. Clearly, you remember the incidents surrounding the breakup very well.”
“Objection! Counsel is encouraging the jury to make negative inferences toward my client.”
“Sustained. Change your line of questioning.”
“Don’t worry,” Kathy says as she sits down. “They’re not allowed to bring up the other rape trial because you were acquitted.”
“Tell me about the nature of your friendship up to that point, please, Mr. Goddard.”
I lean back in my seat, staring at him as he lists all the shit we got up to as kids. It sounds bad when you put it the way he’s putting it. He’s suggesting that that guy’s heart attack was solely caused by us playing our music on his front garden wall and dropping rubbish onto his lawn. He mentions the caution we got for squeezing the au pair’s tits at the bus stop, and I whisper to Kathy to see if he’s allowed to bring it up. She nods tightly. The fat girl on the jury has stopped looking over at me, and the stocky tattooed bloke’s just staring at the ceiling, as if there’s something nasty playing on the TV and he doesn’t want to watch.
“From what you describe, am I to understand that the pair of you had little respect for women, seeing them only as objects for sex?”
Felix nods.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever feel remorse for these acts, Mr. Goddard?”
Felix looks down. “Yeah. Later
on. After we did some…worse stuff.”
Kathy huffs and taps her pen on the table.
“I felt really bad. I wanted to blot it out, and drink seemed to help that, and then drugs did too, and now”—his voice cracks—“look at me.” He holds his arms out like a broken Jesus on the cross.
“Your witness.”
Kathy stands up. “Perhaps we could spare the self-pity, Mr. Goddard, and stick to the facts.”
Over the next half an hour or so, she tries to make out that it was all Felix’s fault, leading me astray, using the fact that he became a junkie while I straightened out. But even I can see it’s not enough.
It’s coming up to lunchtime when Kathy wraps up.
“Thank you, Mr. Goddard. No more questions.”
But he doesn’t go anywhere. My eyes burn into him, willing him to feel the hatred I’m firing in his direction, the fucking Judas. His hollow eyes are scanning the court. Then his body gives a jolt.
“Jody,” he says, his voice cracking.
I turn around, following his gaze. And whatever bullet just passed through Felix now passes through me, making my heart judder to a halt.
Jody Currie is sitting in the back row of the court.
“I’m so sorry, Jody. So very, very sorry.”
“Strike that from the record,” the judge snaps. “Leave the stand now, Mr. Goddard.”
He walks past me, but my vision has fuzzed over like someone’s just tackled me too hard.
Finally, I get it.
The lying slut with the dead brother. The brother who didn’t kill himself, like the papers all said. Who lived next door to Jody. She and Jody, somehow…to get back at me…
I need to tell Kathy.
But how can I? Actually, I’m not a rapist, only a murderer.
I’m trapped.
43.
Mags
Jody, Mira, and I waited for the verdict in the rose garden. The plants were still just dry-looking stalks, but at the end of each twig was a tiny, tight bud, as hard as wood but already snaked with the fault lines from which the blooms would detonate. By June, the place would be glorious.
The Girlfriend Page 28
