A Song of Isolation

by Michael Malone

  ‘Yes.’ Claire was staring straight ahead of her as if she couldn’t wait for this to be over.

  ‘And at his trial did you appear as his witness?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what was the outcome of that?’

  Claire looked at the judge again, an appeal in her eyes.

  ‘Please answer the question, Mrs Brown.’

  ‘I was found guilty of perjury.’

  ‘Not at that point, that came later as a consequence of the trial during which you perjured yourself, is that not correct, Mrs Brown? You provided an alibi for your brother that was a down­right lie.’

  ‘Your honour.’ Melville got to his feet. ‘Mrs Brown is not on trial here, and might I remind my learned friend that she has done her time for her crime and has since proven to be an upstanding citizen.’

  ‘Goes to show previous character, your honour. I’m thinking of her attempts during her testimony with my learned colleague to characterise my client in a demeaning way. If the witness has previously been convicted for lying in court for a family member, she is more than capable of doing it again for her daughter.’

  ‘I’ll allow it for now, Mr Bain, but don’t chance your luck with this witness.’

  ‘Yes, Your Honour.’

  He turned to Claire. ‘How much time did you serve for perjury, Mrs Brown?’

  ‘Ten months.’

  ‘Now, if we could go back to your job, Mrs Brown. I assume it is one you can do from your laptop at your kitchen window?’

  ‘I have a breakfast bar in my kitchen. I sit there and work and I can keep an eye along the open-plan lower floor, and out into the garden.’ Claire sounded a little relieved the previous line of questioning was over.

  ‘And during all those working sessions when you sat there at your laptop, with a view down the garden – too many times to mention,’ he pretended to read his notes, ‘is what I think you said. Did you ever see David Robbins do anything other than play harmlessly with your little girl?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In all those times from your breakfast table in the kitchen, while you watched over your daughter, Mrs Brown, did you ever see David Robbins act in any way towards your daughter that was illegal, improper or immoral?’

  ‘No,’ she replied in a small voice.

  ‘Thank you for your testimony, Mrs Brown. You may leave the stand.’ Bain, Norma realised, was using his tone and inflections to tell the jury that he had Claire Brown’s number, and with hope a light flare in her stomach she assessed the two rows of people who were sitting in judgement on the man she loved.

  She saw nothing in their faces but a need for more answers.

  Chapter 27

  It was day two, and before they took their seats Joseph Bain had a quick word with Norma and Peter.

  ‘I thought you should know that today we’ll be hearing testi­mony from Damaris. She’s in another room and we’ll be able to watch through a live feed. Depending on how well she presents herself, this could be our trickiest day.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Norma, while suspecting she knew the answer. A small girl talking about such things, about what a grown man allegedly did to her, would be difficult to hear.

  ‘We can’t risk the jury turning against us, which they will if she responds badly to me. I can’t question her the way I would, say, an adult or even a teenager. I will have to be gentle with her then get her mother back on the stand and have another go at her.’

  A couple of men wheeled a giant TV in front of the stand, rousing Norma from her thoughts. It came to life and a little girl appeared on the screen. She was sitting behind a table and from her posture it was clear she was sitting on her hands.

  A woman was sitting to her right and she spoke first.

  ‘Now remember, Damaris, we can stop anytime you feel un­comfortable, alright?’

  Damaris bit her lip and assented with a nod.

  Dear God, she looked so young, thought Norma. Poor wee soul. Then she checked herself. This poor wee soul had made some terrible accusations against her son.

  ‘Now if you would just go through the events of Good Friday this year. You were on school holidays. It was a lovely, sunny day. Probably one of the first proper sunny days this spring after a long winter.’ The woman paused. ‘None of your friends were about so you went out into the garden…’

  When the interview finished a court official paused the feed. The screen was frozen on an image of Damaris’s face, her eyes looking up from under her fringe. Eyes that displayed a world of sadness. Not one person in the room could tear their gaze from her, and while the little girl’s testimony filtered into everyone’s minds, a hush as heavy as a shroud fell over the court.

  Norma looked over to her son and saw his open mouth and a look of utter disbelief in his eyes. From there she looked at the faces of each of the jury members, and saw nothing but condem­nation.

  The girl had spoken with a quiet, chilling certainty and for a moment – just a moment – even Norma, a woman who was assured of her son’s innocence, wondered about it.

  ‘Where did that come from? She’s lying through her wee teeth,’ Norma hissed to Peter. Then she turned to assess the jury again. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘They’re buying it.’

  The woman who’d spoken to Damaris indicated that she was finished, and Joseph Bain stood up to ask his questions.

  A few minutes in and most of Bain’s questions were aimed at seeking clarification around Damaris’s answers, and despite his ex­perience he was clearly finding it difficult to strike the right tone. A couple of times it looked like Damaris was going to start crying, so he stopped and suggested she take a sip of water.

  ‘This must seem weird to you, Damaris. I can see you but you can’t see me. I’m just a voice in the room, eh?’

  At this Damaris gave a little smile.

  ‘Now. You have a doll on your lap, Damaris, could you once again show the camera where Dave touched you?’

  She held the doll up and placed her other hand over the junc­tion of the toy’s legs. And then withdrew it suddenly as if she had just been burned. An action that led Norma to question if this was any indication of the girl’s state of mind. Retreating from a lie? Or would the jury see it as a reaction to a painful memory?

  ‘You are absolutely sure about this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Damaris, do you know how serious it is to lie in a court of law?’

  At this she said nothing but she pushed her bottom lip out and her eyes grew large.

  ‘On your say-so someone who was a friend to you will lose everything. His home, his relationship, his job, his freedom. He’ll spend years locked up in a small cell, so it’s important that what you say is the absolute truth, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was just audible.

  ‘Did your parents tell you what to say today?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did they tell you to lie?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You have to tell me the truth, Damaris. Isn’t everything you said about Dave a lie?’

  At this Damaris crumpled forward in her seat, her little shoulders heaving. A woman appeared from the side – her mother, Claire – and she pulled her daughter into a hug.

  ‘I think now is a good time to take a recess,’ the judge said and the screen went blank.

  An hour later they got word that Damaris was ready to resume.

  ‘Thank you for coming back to us, Damaris,’ Bain said. ‘I know this isn’t easy for you, but we need to get to the truth of the matter. Do you understand?’

  Damaris’s eyes were puffy. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just to finish up, Damaris. You said earlier in your testimony that Dave was a friend. He played games with you in the garden when everyone else – your parents – were too busy to. Are you sure this story about where he touched you and him showing you his priv
ate parts is the story you want to tell everyone about your friend?’

  Damaris crossed her arms and fixed the camera with a hard glare. At this Norma quailed. It looked like by repeating the ques­tion, but in a different way, Bain wasn’t getting a different response, he was simply starting to annoy the girl.

  ‘I thought he was a friend,’ she replied with a hard pout, her eyes like little black buttons of hurt. ‘But friends don’t do bad things like that to each other, do they?’

  Chapter 28

  There followed a series of experts, who were there to back up the prosecution’s case. First was the police doctor who treated Damaris after the incident. He was a small, lean man with a well-worn weary expression that suggested he’d seen every bad thing that people could do to each other. Melville asked him to point out, on a screen that was displaying the outline of a female child, where the girl’s injuries were.

  ‘Some bruising on the left arm, upper part on the inside. And here, some bruising on the upper inner thigh, right leg and…’ he paused while a medical diagram of female genitalia appeared on the screen; ‘…and on the right side of the mons pubis and labia majora.’ He pointed while he talked.

  ‘Are these injuries consistent with sexual assault, Doctor?’

  ‘Putting words in the doctor’s mouth, M’lady,’ Bain said.

  ‘What might have caused these injuries, Doctor?’

  ‘They may well have been sustained in a sexual attack.’

  ‘Was there any indication of penetration?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

  Bain stood up. ‘Might these injuries have been sustained in any other way, Doctor?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ he answered.

  ‘Any examples?’

  ‘If a girl was to come off a boy’s bike, these kind of injuries would be likely, depending on speed and angle of fall.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Bain sat down.

  Chapter 29

  The next day it would be the defence team’s turn to present their case, and Joseph Bain let Amelie know before she’d gone to her hotel the previous evening that she’d be first on the stand.

  She spent the whole evening and night firstly worrying how she might appear to the jury; would they be looking for the movie star, or would they be able to see past the glamour and simply see a woman who was certain of her boyfriend’s innocence? Then there were the questions she’d face from the prosecution. Would the advocate depute try to trip her up? Try to confuse her? Over and over she imagined herself on the stand and replying to his questions with a polite calm.

  Not to forget that there was the trial by public opinion being hosted all over social media and across most of the TV and print news outlets. In that particular ‘court’ she was aware that she was on trial every bit as much as Dave was.

  But the image that repeatedly pushed those worries from her mind was Damaris’s angry little eyes and the question: Friends don’t do bad things like that to each other, do they?

  Could the unspeakable be true?

  Could Dave have been grooming the little girl? Why else would she be so adamant? No, there must be another explanation. She refused to believe it. This was all a concoction from the parents to try and raise some money off the back of her fame. Dave would never behave like that. He was one of the good guys.

  Wasn’t he?

  Certain that she’d only managed a minute’s sleep she obeyed the alarm on her phone and got out of bed. A shower, followed by a black coffee, and then she faced herself in the bathroom mirror. With a grimace of acceptance she applied some concealer to the shadows under her eyes. Other than that, she thought as she stepped back from the mirror, she was going bare-faced. And if the talking heads on TV didn’t like that they could take a long walk off a short pier.

  When she looked at her phone she saw that she’d had several missed calls from Bernard and Lisa. Both had left messages wishing her luck. No one else in her life even bothered. All those friends she had when she was in that life had faded away as she refused to join in the celebrity merry-go-round, and when the case hit the news those numbers dropped to almost no one. It was as if everyone was distancing themselves from her until they were confident the allegations were found to be untrue.

  So much for being innocent until proven otherwise.

  There was more than the usual pack of reporters and news crews at the entrance to the court than on previous days. Of course, she thought, word would have gotten out that she’d be giving evi­dence.

  Norma and Peter were waiting in the car park, and they walked to the front doors together. As they approached the crowd at the entrance, Norma took Amelie’s hand and walked tight by her side, sending a very public signal of her support.

  Too soon, Amelie’s name was being called and she was walking towards the stand, where she was sworn in.

  Bain asked her to recall the events of the day and in a calm, clear voice she did so. Once she had finished Bain asked:

  ‘How would you characterise David Robbins’ interactions with Damaris Brown?’

  ‘She was a lonely wee girl. I could count the number of times I saw her playing in the garden with either of her parents on one hand. Dave was kind enough to give her the time of day when she was bored. That was it.’

  ‘Did Dave ever instigate any of these games, to your knowl­edge?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you think it strange that a grown man would play from time to time with a young girl?’

  ‘Not in this situation, no. We’re neighbours. Dave is out in the garden a lot. So’s Damaris. Interaction in such a situation is what human beings do. Also, Dave is an only child and I think that in those moments Damaris was like a substitute for the little sister he never had. There is nothing more sinister in this whole thing than that.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Hart.’ Bain sat down.

  Melville got to his feet, ‘You are a resident at 2 Mews Cottages, Bishop’s House Estate, Thorntonhall?’

  Amelie replied, and was pleased to hear that her voice was even. Before Melville asked his next question she shot a look at Dave. He was sitting as stiffly as she was. And his face was giving abso­lutely nothing away.

  ‘You have been living there for how long?’

  ‘Three years.’

  ‘Next door to the victim?’

  ‘Your honour.’ Bain jumped to his feet.

  ‘Apologies, your honour,’ Melville said before the judge remon­strated with him. ‘Alleged victim.’

  ‘Yes, next door to Damaris and her parents.’

  ‘According to the newspapers today you’re thinking about moving.’

  ‘Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers, Mr Mel­ville,’ Amelie replied, and several people in the court laughed out loud.

  ‘The papers also say that you were about to dump your boy­friend, the defendant, David Robbins, before he was arrested. Is that true?’

  ‘Your honour.’ Bain got to his feet. ‘Is my esteemed colleague going to regale us with gossip from the tabloids all morning?’

  ‘Stick to ascertaining the facts, please, Mr Melville. There’s enough of a circus outside the building. I don’t want it to enter my court as well,’ the judge said.

  ‘Apologies, your honour.’ Melville gave a stiff bow in her direc­tion before turning to Amelie.

  ‘In your testimony you talked about Damaris pestering David Robbins. Did you actually see Damaris pester Mr Robbins that day?’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘So that would be hearsay, Miss Hart.’

  ‘I witnessed it on plenty of other occasions. It happened almost on a weekly basis.’

  ‘Quite,’ Melville replied as if he didn’t believe her. ‘You are adamant that nothing untoward happened between Damaris and David Robbins in all the time since you moved into that house.’

  ‘Absolutely.
Dave is one of the good guys.’ She could hear the doubt she had experienced through the night in her voice and worried she was being less than the adamant support Dave needed. So she coughed, then forced some energy into her voice and added, ‘He would never hurt a fly.’ Crossing her arms she tried to rein in her emotions.

  ‘A good guy that you were about to throw out of your house.’

  ‘That’s enough, Mr Melville,’ the judge said. ‘Jury members, you will disregard that last remark.’

  During recess Amelie had a strong coffee to try and recalibrate her nerves. Both Norma and Peter thanked her for her efforts, and as she smiled her appreciation of their thanks she wondered if it might all be in vain.

  She plucked her phone from her pocket and switched it back on. More from habit and a need for temporary distraction. There were three missed calls from Lisa and a text:

  I’ve got info that might help Dave. Call me asap. xxx

  Chapter 30

  Dave watched Amelie give her testimony, feeling hugely thankful for her support. Their gazes met for the briefest of moments while she was being questioned and he held a hand over his heart in thanks as she watched. Then he dropped his arm, worried that the jury might see and think it was some kind of signal. He was rewarded, however, by the flash of warmth in her eyes as she caught his gesture.

  She could have been anywhere in the world, but despite the risk to her reputation she had stood by him, and for that he would be eter­nally grateful. But while he basked in the sight of her he knew that their relationship would never recover, regardless of how things might have been before Damaris’s accusations. Whether he was found guilty or innocent, there was simply no way back for them, he was certain.

  With a twist deep in his gut he realised he was due to give evi­dence next.

  Bain previously told him he didn’t need to do so. That there was no legal requirement for the defendant to speak at their trial. But he couldn’t not speak. He had to assert his innocence in this place, before that great seal of justice carved in to the wall above the judge’s seat.