The Outcast Son

by Jacobo Priegue

  They stopped looking when the usher walked Mark to the witness stand. He wore a black suit. An expensive one. He moved with his characteristic confidence, addressing short but firm glances to the judge, the jury, the prosecution, the defence and myself, as if he didn’t want anything in that court to escape his control.

  “Where were you when your son was killed?” the prosecution barrister asked.

  “I was in the living room, sitting on the sofa,” Mark answered.

  “Were you able to see both your sons from your position?”

  “Yes, I could clearly see the both of them.”

  “When did you realise Jaime was holding a knife?”

  “Soon after Laura went to the toilet,” Mark answered after a short pause.

  “What did you do when you saw him?”

  “I shouted at him. I asked him to put the knife away.”

  “Did you try to take the knife from him?”

  “No, I was afraid he could hurt Marcus if I moved closer.”

  “When did the defendant approach the victim?”

  “As soon as she heard me shout.”

  “Did she try to convince the victim to put the knife away?”

  “Yes, she asked Jaime to stop. She was very nervous, and so was I.”

  “Why do you think she attacked the victim?” Attacked. That was the precise word the barrister used. He stressed it. Attacked, making clear he hadn’t chosen it at random.

  Mark glanced at me for a few seconds. In silence. At that moment, it almost looked like hesitation. “She was frustrated because he wouldn’t do as she said,” he answered. “She tried to protect Marcus.”

  “Did the victim intentionally stab her?” the prosecution barrister carried on.

  “No, it was completely unintended. He tried to protect himself from the impact with both hands, and the knife accidentally met Laura’s belly.”

  “What happened to him after the impact?”

  “He lost balance and fell on to the floor, and his head hit the table.” Mark’s description of what happened looked pretty accurate up to that moment, although there was a trace of cold in his voice that made me restless and uncomfortable.

  “Was he unconscious?”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “Was the defendant unconscious?”

  “No. She was wounded and bleeding badly, but she was lucid for quite a while before fainting,” Mark said. I stared at him, but his eyes wouldn’t dare find mine. He wasn’t telling the truth.

  “What did she do when she saw the victim unconscious on the floor?” I saw that question coming, and I knew what Mark’s answer would be, but for some reason, I hoped for a different one. If he still loved me, he’d find a way.

  “She stood up and jumped on Jaime, grabbed him by the neck and hit his head multiple times on the table.” His inevitable response was a violent mallet smashing my face. He hadn’t hesitated. His voice wasn’t quivering. His eyes stuck in the jury. Firm and dry and straightforward.

  “Didn’t you try to stop her?”

  “I did stop her. She would’ve continued beating Jaime’s head if I didn’t.”

  “Would you say she was of sound mind?” That was the question I feared the most.

  “Clearly not. She was very nervous and distressed. She had lost control of her actions.”

  “Why do you think she did this?”

  “As I told you, both of us were scared of Jaime. I think she panicked. She thought Marcus wasn’t safe anymore, and fear made her act as she did.” I couldn’t even look at Mark anymore. I was floating adrift on the sea, indifferent to the waves rocking my boat. I wanted everything to finish, to get out of that horrible place, to get rid of all those disapproving faces staring at me and despising me and wishing me ill for being such a wicked person.

  “What makes you think she was scared of Jaime?”

  “She…” Mark hesitated. “This isn’t easy to say, but bad things happened to people when they were near Jaime.”

  “What do you mean? Would you mind explaining what sort of things?”

  “Well, his classmates were scared of him. He almost beat to death a little girl after having pushed her downstairs. And, well, this is obviously just a coincidence, but Laura had a miscarriage the very day we told Jaime he’d have a sibling.” We hadn’t told anybody. It was a painful secret, and he had profaned it. It was the first time I felt hatred towards my husband.

  “Are you saying you blamed the victim for the miscarriage?”

  “No, of course not. It’s just he was, like, surrounded by bad luck. It seemed to affect everybody around him, including us.”

  “But you think the defendant wanted to get rid of him?”

  “Maybe, at a subconscious level. This was obviously very distressing for her. She wouldn’t talk about it to anybody, not even me. She was absent-minded for a long time. It was as if something in her had broken.” Well, that was a pretty good description of how I felt, and to hear that from his mouth was a blow to my guts.

  “Tell us about the defendant’s mental health issues. Is it possible they affected her actions?”

  “I’m convinced of that. Yes. Absolutely. She had a near-death experience when she was in her early twenties.”

  “What do you mean? And why is this related to the case?”

  “She was actually dead for four minutes after having almost drowned on a beach. She had aftereffects, including memory loss and episodes of paranoia. That day, something happened inside her brain. She told me she felt different ever since.”

  “Do you think this traumatic experience could have determined her tendency to act violently?” the prosecution barrister asked.

  “Yes, I have no doubt.”

  “And your son wasn’t her first victim, am I wrong?” What? Was he seriously going to play that card? Did he want to destroy me? What was going on? He was going to bury me alive. My heart was broken. It felt as if it were actually being torn apart. I cried. But that didn’t stop Mark.

  “No, he wasn’t her first victim,” Mark said, pretending he was distraught for having to testify against me. “She’d killed a man before.”

  “Do you believe her mental condition had anything to do with it?”

  “Well, I didn’t know her back then, so I couldn’t tell, but there’s a good chance her issues influenced her.”

  I wanted to shout, to stand up and beat him. But I didn’t. It was the last thing I should do if I didn’t want to confirm I was actually insane. So I just stood still and quiet. On my boat. Rocked by waves and currents I couldn’t control. The court felt inhuman to me. It was monstrous, a machine designed to break people into pieces and scrutinise and judge and destroy every piece.

  I was sitting in the dock in a high position so that everybody could see me, scan me, analyse me. The judge, presiding over the court at the opposite end of the hall in her wig and robes, was in complete control of the scene. She was the conductor of the legal orchestra, and the grave expression on her face and her high position in the room made me sweat. At her right was the pack of anonymous zombies who would decide my future. They had a collective mind. Moving at the same time. Looking at the same time. Blinking at the same time. There was no room for individuality. It was a perfect machine ready to judge.

  Right in front of me, facing the judge’s bench, were the four people comprising the prosecution and the defence: the barristers at the front and the solicitors at the back, each one of them sitting in their own isolated desk. It was time for my lawyer to cross-examine Mark.

  “When did you first meet the defendant?” Jake asked.

  “In 2012. I interviewed her for a job,” Mark answered.

  “Did she show any sign of behaviour that made you think she was not a sane person?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “When did you start thinking she suffered from mental issues?”

  “Well,” Mark said. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You wouldn’t know,” Jake said, looking
at the jury.

  “Yes, I mean, I didn’t know for sure, but I was suspicious soon after I met her.”

  “Were you?” Jake asked. “And why was that?”

  “She was very reticent to talk about her past, and she wanted to adopt the child.”

  “So, you suspected the defendant was insane because she left her country and tried to help a child?”

  “No!” Mark said. “It wasn’t only that! Her behaviour was erratic, and she wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to tell her that adopting Jaime wasn’t a good idea.”

  “Why would you think it was a bad idea?”

  “Well,” Mark hesitated. He stopped to think for a few seconds. “The boy…he wasn’t normal.”

  “Normal?” Jake asked sardonically. “What do you mean?”

  “He had behaviour issues, and he was aggressive sometimes.”

  “Aggressive? Remember, we are talking about the moment you adopted him. Had he attacked anybody back then?”

  “No, but…”

  “No, he hadn’t,” Jake interrupted. “Let’s talk about the man the defendant killed. Why do you think she did it?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You wouldn’t know?” Jake asked. “Didn’t she tell you the whole story? Didn’t she trust you with one of her most vulnerable secrets?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Then she did tell you why she was found not guilty, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you please tell the jury?”

  “She…the court determined she acted in self-defence.”

  “In self-defence,” Jake repeated. “That doesn’t even give us the slightest idea of the hell she went through, does it?”

  “I guess it doesn’t, no.”

  “Isn’t it true that she feared for her life?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t it true that her boyfriend had been displaying abusive behaviour for a while before this happened?”

  “That’s what the judge determined, yes.”

  “Isn’t it true that she decided to defend herself only after being badly beaten? That she thought this individual wanted to murder her?”

  “Yes,” Mark said, lowering his eyes, perhaps ashamed of having brought this story up.

  “Members of the jury, we are not judging the defendant for what she did back then. She has already gone through a trial for that and was declared not guilty. It was thoroughly proved that all she did was in self-defence, scared and afraid to lose her own life.”

  The jury had a glimpse at me and followed Mark as he left the witness stand. They couldn’t give my husband any credit after having tried to take advantage of a secret in such a low and twisted way, hiding all the important information and making me look like a lunatic.

  I was expecting no sympathy from them, though. I had been accused of murdering a child, my child, and their eyes told me they wanted to see me suffer for it. It was as if they wanted me to be guilty, as if the verdict had already been decided.

  It was time for Detective Hassan. She looked even colder than usual, determined to act as the flawless professional she was. The sound of her shoes stepping on the carpet felt reassuring and made me get over Mark’s announced treason. She wouldn’t let me down. She wouldn’t lie, at least, even though the truth she knew from the evidence wasn’t very promising. She took her oath and waited for the first question to be asked, looking at me from the witness stand at the other end of the room.

  “You were the first person at the crime scene, except of course for the family Johnson, is that correct?” the prosecution barrister asked after all the introductory questions required by the protocol.

  “Yes, I was.”

  “And why was that? Are not the patrol officers supposed to be called first?”

  “I was near the Johnsons’ on my way home, and I work in their district, so when I heard the call on the radio informing about a murder, I responded.”

  “What did you find when you reached the crime scene?”

  “Mr Johnson opened the door, and the first thing I saw was the defendant sitting on the floor and bleeding profusely.”

  “Would you say she was of sound mind at that moment?”

  “No. She was clearly distressed and incapable of reasoning or answering my questions.”

  “So, it was obvious she had mental issues.”

  “I didn’t say that. I said she wasn’t of sound mind. She had lost a lot of blood and had been through a very traumatic situation.”

  “Yes. Right,” the barrister said. “When did you discover the victim’s body?”

  “When I had my first sight at the scene.”

  “Could you describe what you saw?”

  “Yes, of course,” Detective Hassan answered. “The boy was lying on the floor motionless, resting in an unnatural position. He looked dead even before I inspected his body. His neck was broken.”

  “Did you check if he was dead?”

  “Of course I did!” she said. “Do you think I just left the academy?”

  “When you came upon the scene, what did you think had happened?”

  “Well, I had to ask the defendant’s husband to be quiet,” she said. “He wanted to tell me what happened right away, and I couldn’t focus on the evidence I had around me.”

  “Did he do as you said?”

  “Yes, but by the time he had calmed down, the ambulance was already there and the defendant had fainted.”

  “So, you couldn’t analyse the scene properly?”

  “No,” she said abruptly, “I did analyse the scene properly, as I always do.”

  “All right,” the barrister said. “Please carry on.”

  “The boy’s body was next to the table, and he had a thread of blood coming out of his ear. The table had blood stains, too, and so did the carpet and the victim’s clothes. I wouldn’t know how much of it was the defendant’s and how much the boy’s. He looked clearly dead – as I told you, his neck was broken – and I came closer to check his heartbeat. It surprised me he was already cold. A few feet away was the baby’s pushchair. Empty. The defendant’s husband had taken him in his arms and was holding him. When the ambulance came and took the defendant to the hospital, I talked to Mr Johnson and he explained to me what he had seen.”

  “Was Mr Johnson’s version consistent with the scene you saw?”

  “Yes, although there wasn’t anything that proved the defendant had hit the victim’s head or intended to kill him.”

  “Do you have any reason to doubt Mr Johnson’s testimony?” the barrister asked.

  Detective Hassan looked at me, then at the jury, and then at me again. She knew what she had to say, and yet she hesitated. She believed I was innocent. She had spent hours interrogating me and analysing me and my answers, but she had to tell the truth.

  “No,” she finally said, lowering her head. “There’s no reason to think he’s lying. But there’s no evidence to prove his version to be true, either.”

  “Please stick to my questions, Detective Hassan,” the barrister said. “I will ask you once again: do you have any reason to think Mr Johnson is not telling the truth?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  By the time Jake had the chance to question Detective Hassan, I didn’t harbour any hope. It was impossible for me to think about a positive outcome of this trial.

  “I will start by reminding the jury of something very obvious but sometimes forgotten: in this country, everybody is innocent until proven guilty,” Jake said, “and if you have any doubt about the defendant’s involvement in this atrocious crime, you are obliged to absolve her.” It wasn’t much, but at least Jake’s statement made the members of the jury look at each other. Perhaps they weren’t so convinced after all.

  “Detective Hassan,” he continued, “would you say there is enough evidence to prove Mrs Johnson guilty?”

  “No,” she answered. “As I said before, the evidence places her at the time and the scene of the murder,
but apart from that, we only have her husband’s testimony.” Her intervention was firm and concise.

  “Members of the jury,” Jake said. “The prosecution’s case rests only on one man’s testimony. There is no proof or evidence whatsoever, just the testimony of the defendant’s husband, the only adult who was at the crime scene along with her at the time the victim was murdered.” He made a short pause for the jury to digest what he had said and to prepare them for the point he’d try to make. “Detective Hassan, with all the evidence we have and after having examined the crime scene first-hand, do you think there is any reason to think Mr Johnson couldn’t have killed the victim himself?”

  The question stunned the court. But the prosecution barrister reacted very quickly and interrupted the flow of questions just before Detective Hassan had the chance to answer.

  “Your Honour,” he said, “I must object to this line of questioning. My learned friend is openly accusing the witness without evidence.”

  “Yes,” the judge said. “Mr Davies, change your line of questioning. We are not here to try Mr Johnson.”

  Chapter 28

  No case to answer

  I wasn’t surprised that Jake’s application of no case to answer was rejected by the judge. I was at the crime scene when the murder was committed, I had admitted to having pushed Jaime and made him fall on to the floor, and my husband had testified against me. If there was a way out, it wouldn’t be so easy.

  The worst was still to come. My lawyer was to call me to the stand. I was sick of it. Sick of everything. Nothing mattered to me anymore. None of them knew Jaime. Despite all the mistakes and all the bad choices I made, I was the only one who actually cared about him in his short life, and I was standing there, in front of strangers, being judged for murdering my little boy. They didn’t have the right. He was my child, and I loved him, and listening to them talking about me like that, implying I was a bad mother, a murderer, enraged me more than anything I’d ever felt. Their very faces were disgusting. Their voices stung my brain. They were snakes hissing and twisting their poisonous bodies around me, waiting for me to fall on to the floor to feast on my flesh. Even Jake meant nothing, and the fact that I had to rely on a stranger to defend me, the fact that he was the only person in the court who didn’t wish me ill, was worse than depressing.