Mr Jackson sighed and looked at his watch, making it obvious that he had much better things to do than babysit me. I ignored him. There wasn’t anything I could do about that. After about ten minutes, the door to the lawyers’ room opened and a prison officer who I’d not seen before showed Laura in. There was no sign of Paul.
“Hi, sorry I’m late,” she said, out of breath. “I got caught up in traffic. There was an accident between a bus and a learner driver on Kett’s Hill. They've closed the whole road, and it’s an absolute nightmare.” She was dressed a lot less formally than normal, wearing a pair of jeans and a dark grey sweatshirt with a North Face logo embroidered across the front. Laura had jammed her briefcase under her arm and not for the first time I wondered what was wrong with the handle.
Mr Jackson got to his feet, and Laura took a small a step backwards. He towered over her.
“Right then,” he said. “I’ll leave you to it.” He looked at Laura and pointed to one of the top corners of the room where there was a small camera with a red flashing light. “We’ll leave that on, seeing as you’re here on your own with him. There’s no sound, but we’ll be watching.” He stared at me to make sure I got the message.
“Paul is on his way. He texted me a minute ago to say he was held up in the same jam.” Laura looked at Mr Jackson. “Mr Dewar. He’s my boss at the law firm.” Mr Jackson nodded and turned to leave the room. As he walked through the doorway, he had to angle himself a touch to fit through it.
“He’s a big lad,” Laura said with a smile as the metal door banged behind Mr Jackson. I smiled back at her.
“He is, yes,” I replied. “Fine if you like the strong, silent type.” Laura laughed, covering her mouth and dimples with her hand as she did so. She sat down in the chair that Mr Jackson had been sitting in and put the briefcase on the floor next to her.
“So, Gareth,” she said. “Are you happy to be back in Norwich?”
“I am, yes,” I said. “There seems to be a problem with my visitors’ list, though. I spoke to Andy last night.” Laura frowned, and I realised that she didn’t know who Andy was. “Jennifer’s dad,” I explained. Laura’s frown disappeared, and she reached into her briefcase to pull out her notebook and a pen.
“What’s his full name?” she asked.
“Andy Elliott,” I said. “Can I give you the list of all my visitors?” Laura nodded in reply, and I gave her the other names. It was a short list. As well as Andy and Jacob, there was only Tommy and David on it. Laura dutifully scribbled down their names.
“I’ll ask Paul to sort it out for you,” she said. “He should be here in the next few minutes, anyway.” I didn’t tell her I’d already handed in the paperwork in three times to Mr Jackson. I couldn’t see the point.
“So, Laura,” I said. If she noticed that I was copying her standard opening words, she didn’t give it away.
“How have you been? How’s Seb?” I asked her.
“Sorry, who?”
“Sebastien,” I replied. “Your boyfriend?” I could have imagined it, but was sure I saw a look of irritation flick across her face.
“He’s fine, we’re fine,” she said. Perhaps I was seeing what I wanted to see?
We chatted for a while, waiting for Paul to arrive. I told Laura about the journey from Whitemoor to Norwich and enjoyed watching her laughing as I told her about the Big Mac and fries. I liked it when she laughed. It wasn’t just the dimples, it was the way that her whole face lit up when she did. One thing that was in short supply both in Whitemoor and Norwich prison was people laughing, let alone a woman laughing. She was the only female contact I’d had since I’d been arrested, so she could have been twenty stone and a right munter and I’d still have enjoyed watching her laugh.
The sound of the heavy metal door behind her opening made Laura jump. She put her hand to her chest as the door swung open and Paul came through it. I could just see Mr Jackson over Paul’s shoulder. The prison officer was staring at me as he pulled the door closed behind Paul.
“My God,” Laura laughed. “I nearly jumped out of my skin.” I got to my feet to shake Paul’s hand, and to my surprise, he pulled me into a bear hug.
“Gareth, my dear boy,” he said, slapping me on the back. “Good to see you.” Paul smelt of soap and cologne. He released me, stepping back and putting a hand on each of my shoulders. “You’re looking well,” he said. It was nice of him to say that, but I didn’t think I was looking particularly well. Paul, by contrast, looked great. His face was tanned, despite the fact it was November.
“Have you been away?” I asked him.
“Only for a few days,” he replied. “I’m just back from a short golfing trip to Spain.” Very nice, I thought as we both sat down. I knew absolutely nothing about golf, and the idea of chasing a little white ball around a gold course didn’t appeal to me in the slightest.
“I do hope you two youngsters haven’t started without me,” Paul said, looking from Laura to me and back again.
“No, we haven’t,” Laura replied. “We’ve just been catching up.”
“Excellent,” Paul said. “Have you got the file?” Laura reached into her briefcase and pulled out a thick brown file. Written in large capital letters on the top of the file were the words ‘Crown versus Dawson’. Seeing those three simple words written that way brought home how important this all was. It also highlighted the fact that it was me versus a very large system. I looked at Paul and Laura for a few seconds. It wasn’t just me. It was the three of us and the other two members of my team were quite something, even if it was in very different ways. Laura opened the file and took a couple of sheets of paper from it, handing them across to Paul.
“Thank you, Laura,” Paul said as he straightened the pieces of paper on the edge of the table. “Right then,” he said in a businesslike tone. “Let’s get cracking.” I shuffled forward on my chair, eager to hear what Paul had to say. “I thought we would start with the batting order if that’s okay with you?” He looked at me, eyebrows raised.
“That’s fine by me,” I replied.
“So, prosecution goes first, as always. In this case, the first few days of the trial will be a re-hash of the original trial. The jurors will all have to be brought up to speed on the case, and that’ll take a while.” Paul paused, rubbing his hand across his widow’s peak and smoothing back an errant strand of white hair. “You won’t be directly involved in that part though, you’ll only come in to play when the prosecution’s done.” Paul looked across at Laura, who flashed him a brief smile. “It will be very, very tedious. I warn you now. I’ve been through a few of these, and they are as dry as anything. The prosecutor’s main challenge is usually keeping the jury awake.”
“Will there be witnesses, stuff like that?” I asked.
“No, nothing. It’s a read through of the trial,” Paul replied. “The second week is where it will get much more interesting. I’ll lay out my case and start with the first witness. That’ll be you.” I must have looked surprised at this news as Paul asked me whether I’d been expecting that.
“Not really,” I said. I wasn't called as a witness in my original trial, as Toby had thought there was no point. I explained this to Paul.
“Yes,” Paul sighed. “I might have done it differently, but I can see his rationale.”
“I’m not sure I do,” Laura said. Paul glanced at her before replying.
“Well, Wainwright was found dead with head injuries. Gareth had admitted lying in wait and hitting him around the head with a baseball bat. Based on the apparent circumstances at the time, the only difference was between murder or manslaughter. We’re back to the premeditation argument again.” Paul looked at me with a sad expression. “And there was no doubt it wasn’t premeditated, was there Gareth?” I avoided Laura’s eyes as I replied.
“Not when you put it like that, no,” I said.
“And of course, whether or not you intended to kill him is irrelevant. You attacked him in a premeditated manner, int
ending to do him harm, and he died as a result. Saying ‘Yes Your Honour, I did lie in wait and hit him with a baseball bat but didn’t mean to kill him’ isn’t a defence against a murder charge. Hence the murder conviction.” I looked at the floor, still avoiding looking at Laura. It was stupid really, she knew exactly what I’d done, but hearing Paul speak in such blunt terms in front of her made me ashamed.
“The question they would have asked themselves was what benefit they would get from putting Gareth on the stand. They obviously thought there was nothing Gareth could have said that would have helped their case. Have I got that right, Gareth?” Paul asked me.
“Yes, that’s a fair summary, I guess,” I said.
“But this trial is completely different,” Paul said. “This time the question is whether Gareth is innocent of both murder and manslaughter, and in order to prove to the jury he is innocent, we need them to not only see him but to listen to him. To believe him. To believe in him.” Listening to Paul talking that way made me wonder what he would be like in a courtroom, talking to the jury. I had a sneaking suspicion that he would be very good indeed.
“Okay, thanks, Paul,” Laura said. I finally looked up at her to see her looking at me with a wry smile on her face. I attempted to smile back, but my heart wasn’t really in it. Paul continued.
“So, we put you up first. That’s a chance to introduce you to the jury, and to set—”
“Sorry, jury?” I interrupted him. “I didn’t realise that there would be a jury?”
Paul looked at Laura, and I realised that I’d probably dropped her in it again with Paul.
“But it’s a trial, Gareth,” he said. “You can’t have a trial without a jury.”
“I thought judges heard appeals?”
“Well they do, but this isn’t an appeal anymore. It’s a retrial. Has Laura not gone through this with you before I got here?” Laura opened her mouth to reply but I cut her off.
“No, no, she did. But I wanted to wait for you to get here. She started to tell me stuff about the trial, but I asked her to wait until you got here. I just didn’t realise it had gone straight to a retrial, that’s all. Sorry.” Paul looked at me, and it was impossible for me to tell whether or not he’d fallen for it. Despite my time in prison, I was still a sucker for a damsel in distress. To my relief, Paul seemed to swallow the lie.
“Okay, Gareth,” Paul said. “Now Laura here will go through some things with you before the actual trial. Things like body language, the way you speak. When you look at the jury and when you don’t look at them. She’s quite the expert.” He smiled at Laura before continuing. “In terms of what I’m going to ask you, we’ll start off with your relationship with Jennifer. How you met, your life together, that sort of thing. It’s important for the jury to see you in context.” I knew that part would be difficult, but I would have to get through it. “Then, we’ll move onto the night that Jennifer died. I’ll try and make it as painless as possible, but it will be hard for you. We have to do it, though.” Paul paused and looked over at Laura.
“The jury has to see you, Gareth, for who you really are,” Laura continued, and I wondered if they were tag teaming me. “The only thing they know about you when you step into that courtroom is that you’re a convicted murderer. That’s the opinion we need to change so they see you as a victim.” I nodded, staying silent. I understood where they wanted to go, but it would be very painful.
“So, what else?” I asked. Laura opened her mouth to reply, but Paul got there first.
“Next, we’ll go into your state of mind after Jennifer died. What led you to decide to attack Robert Wainwright.” He shuffled the papers in his hand, looking down at the text on them. “Finally, we’ll go through the attack itself, almost in slow motion. That’s the crucial part as it will build the scene for the following witnesses.”
“Won’t that have already been done by the prosecutor?”
“It will, yes,” Paul replied. “But not from your perspective.”
“The only goal that the prosecutor will have had was to prove that you attacked Robert,” Laura chipped in as Paul nodded in agreement. “It’s not about the result of the attack, but the fact you attacked him in the first place.”
“Then when I’m done, it’ll be the prosecutor’s turn to ask you any questions she wants to,” Paul said. This was the first time I’d heard the prosecutor referred to as a woman.
“She?” I asked. “Is it the same one from my original trial?”
“Yes, it is,” Laura replied with a sideways look at Paul. “It makes sense, seeing as she was the prosecutor back then.” I understood what Laura was saying, but that didn’t mean that I had to like it. The thought of coming up against that witch, especially on the witness stand, was not an appealing prospect.
“What sort of things is she likely to ask me?” I asked.
“Well, to be honest, I don’t think there’s a great deal she can ask.” Paul glanced at Laura as he answered. “Correct me if I’m wrong Laura, but as long as we keep it to you, your experiences, and your feelings, there’s not much left for them.”
“As long as you’re one hundred percent honest, Gareth,” Laura said. I looked at her, surprised. What did she mean by that?
“Yes, of course, there is that,” Paul said. He looked at me with a frown. “But there aren’t going to be any surprises, are there Gareth?” I wondered if now was a good time to tell them I used to be a burglar, but I decided against it. I’d never even been under suspicion back in those days, so there was no way that my previous career could come back and bite me.
“Until the day I was arrested for murder, I’d not had a single brush with the law,” I said confidently. Laura was looking at me quizzically. “I promise you, there are no surprises.”
“I would think this will take a morning or an afternoon to go through everything,” Paul said. My heart sank at the thought of being on the witness stand for that long.
“Don’t worry, Gareth,” Laura said, as I shuffled uncomfortably in the chair. “I’ll work with you on everything,” she said.
“Thank you,” I replied. I was going to need all the help I could get.
“So, after you, I’m going to put the policeman on the stand.” He peered at the paper in front of him. “Griffiths, isn’t it? Yes, that’s the chap. I’ll go through the crime scene with him, why he went straight to you, that sort of thing.”
“It’s pretty obvious why Malcolm came after me though, isn’t it?” I said. This struck me as stating the obvious. “Wainwright had killed my wife, and I was on CCTV leaving the alleyway where he was found dead.”
“Hmm, yes, well there’s a little more that I can pull out of his testimony than that,” Paul replied. “I can use him to describe the scene you see and set up some interesting bits and pieces for later on.” Paul sat back in the armchair and waved at the camera in the corner of the room. “I wonder if they’ll be able to sort us out with a cup of tea,” he said to no-one in particular. We all sat for a few seconds before he waved at the camera again. “Perhaps they’ll be along in a minute.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” I muttered. Mr Jackson was probably sitting in his control room waving back at the screen he was watching us on.
Paul returned to his papers, turning the top sheet over and folding it back. He squinted at the text, and I wondered if he’d forgotten his glasses even though I couldn’t remember him ever wearing any.
“Next up will be my investigator, Alfie Nesbitt. The ex-policeman I told you about. Very, very good he is. We will need to get his history past the prosecutor, though. This worries me, because if we can’t use the evidence he’s gathered, then we’re in real trouble.”
“What evidence?” I asked.
“Oh, all sorts,” Paul replied, dismissing my question with a casual wave of his hand. “Laura, we need to work on this element more back at the office. I can’t risk not being able to include what he’s uncovered.” Laura nodded, scribbling on her notepad. I thought
this was supposed to be a collaborative effort between Paul, Laura, and me, but Paul seemed more than happy to keep me in the dark about a lot of things that I’d like to know about. I decided to try to talk to Laura about it if I got the chance to speak to her again on her own.
“I think at this point we’ll probably be drawing stumps by Thursday afternoon,” Paul said. “Assuming we start on a Monday morning, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t, that is. Opening arguments until lunchtime on the Monday, you in the afternoon.” He pointed his index finger in my general direction. “The policeman and Alfie on Tuesday, and then the first of the big hitters on Wednesday.”
“Doctor Klein?” Laura asked.
“Indeed, the lovely Doctor Klein,” Paul smiled as he said the name. I’d never heard it before. “She’s my wound specialist and absolutely charming.” I saw Laura smirk.
“She should be, she’s costing us enough,” she said. Paul made a shushing sound, wagging his finger at Laura.
“Now now, dear. Don’t be like that.” If anyone else had said that it would have sounded rude and patronising, but Paul managed to get away with it. “I think she’ll be on for a day at least, if not more. It depends on how brave the prosecutor’s feeling.”
“Who is she?” I asked.
“She’s a pathologist, retired now. Well, almost retired. Her area of expertise is blunt force trauma and injury patterns, with a particular interest in cranial trauma. She’s superb, and you know what the best thing is about her?”
“No, what?” I replied.
“She looks like she’s just walked off the set of Miss Marple.”
“All rise.”
The courtroom stirred into life at the barked order from the court usher. The quiet murmur of conversation died as people rose to their feet. At the front of the courtroom, the door behind the judge's desk opened and Judge Watling stepped through. He’d not changed much at all since my previous trial. I was half expecting him to look much older than he did, or to stumble in on a walking frame or something, but he looked pretty much the same. Mouldy looking wig with grey hair sticking out from underneath it, and the same flowing red robes. Judge Watling examined his empire over the top of his glasses for a few seconds before sitting on his ornate chair.
Blind Justice Page 21
