by M. R. Carey
Jess ate in a side room in the restricted area behind the court, underneath a fly-speckled print of the William Yeames painting “And When Did You Last See Your Father?” with just the two Fellside guards for company. The guards traded gossip and operational minutiae and mostly left Jess to her own devices. She chewed her chicken salad sandwich without tasting it, then sat in silence waiting for proceedings to resume. She hoped Levine might come by to see her, but he didn’t. Let him do his job, Pritchard had said. But she and Pritchard probably didn’t altogether agree on what Paul Levine’s job was.
Through the window, faintly, she heard the protesters chanting something that had her name in it. She couldn’t make out the whole of the rhyming couplet, but the rhyme words were “dead” and “instead”. She got the gist.
The afternoon session began with the judges’ decision on the issue Pritchard had raised – the question of whether it had been right to try Jessica Moulson for murder when the death of Alex Beech had never been a project she entertained. They decided that it had, notwithstanding the apparent contradiction. A plot to kill, they said, was in itself mens rea, the intent that was needed in law to distinguish murder from mere manslaughter. The fact that the plot had killed the wrong person should not and could not be offered in mitigation.
Brian Pritchard took the bullet with the very slightest of bows and moved on to the next matter on his extensive list, which was the presentation of the prosecution evidence in the original trial.
Once again the ins and outs of what was being said were hard to follow and, for the most part grindingly dull; until out of nowhere the debate suddenly became a little more intense. Pritchard was talking about the duty of disclosure and questioning whether – for example – a continuous CCTV feed (such as the one from the street in front of the block where Jess and Alex Beech used to live) counted as a single piece of evidence. He seemed to be suggesting that the prosecution should have identified specific segments of video to be entered into the proceedings. The judges, at considerable length, disagreed.
“The presumption then, Your Honours,” Pritchard said, “is that the entirety of this video feed, from the creation of the world until the present day, can now be considered as having been entered into evidence for an act which occurred at a very precisely defined moment.”
“Mr Pritchard, please don’t belabour the point,” Judge Macclehurst told him sharply. “Remember that time is infinitely divisible. If you want to open this particular can of worms, it might be difficult to close it again.”
“I’m merely establishing, Your Honour, whether a body of evidence that is potentially of infinite size can be considered to have been adequately disclosed.”
“Then I believe you may take that as a yes.” Pronounced in a dry tone, this got a small chuckle from some of the reporters and a half-hidden smile from the clerk of the court. Pritchard didn’t join in the laughter but he seemed pleased rather than put out. He glanced across at Paul Levine – a look that Jess caught but didn’t really understand. “I am grateful for the clarification, Your Honours,” he said mildly.
And on and on. Pritchard held forth on one technicality after another. Jess tried for a while to stay abreast of what was being said – it was her life that was in the balance, after all – but in the end it defeated her. She defocused her eyes and her mind and wandered away from it.
Her body stayed where it was. The other part of her, the part that walked at night with the ghost of Alex Beech, climbed cautiously out and stretched itself. All the noises in the courtroom died at once – not just Pritchard’s booming voice, but the sounds of breathing, the rustling of paper, the million-fold noises of bodies just being bodies and never quite being still.
She felt an immediate and dizzying sense of relief. Nobody could pursue her here and bring her back. Nobody would even realise she was gone. It was like the scene you saw in old movies sometimes where someone left a pillow or a wadded coat stuffed down under their blankets so it looked like they were in bed asleep while they slipped away unsuspected for some crazy adventure.
Jess circled the court, staying out of the shafts of sunshine that came in through the skylights above. Alex had said that light hurt him. Jess felt it not as pain but as pressure, the bright beams beating against her insubstantial body like a tide, so that she had to push against them just to stay where she was.
She studied the sketches some of the journalists were making of her. They were mostly very good, although some of them turned her bored, blank look into something belligerent and sinister. She read the notes the reporters were taking too, where they weren’t written in shorthand. Most of them were descriptions of her, or rather fragments, impressions, odd words and phrases to be slotted into descriptions later. Glassy-eyed, cold-eyed, flint-eyed, one had written. Another one had unnatural stillness, underlined twice. Well, that was probably fair. Some hadn’t written anything at all yet – presumably keeping their powder dry for when things got interesting, if they ever did.
Jess was tempted to go further afield, but that was probably a bad idea. It was always possible that Pritchard or one of the judges would speak to her, ask her a question, and she didn’t want her catatonic state to be discovered.
Could she still move her body when she was outside it? She tried, flexing the fingers of her ghost hand and willing her real fingers to move. Nothing at all happened. That didn’t surprise her, but it frightened her a little to realise how helpless her body was when she abandoned it like this. She crept back and climbed inside her own flesh with a prickling sense of relief.
The experience left her exhausted, but glancing up at the courtroom clock she realised that much less time had passed than she’d thought. Her out-of-body experience, which had felt like an odyssey, had taken up no more than a couple of minutes.
She was emotionally drained too. Ghost-walking had given her a feeling of freedom, and re-entry made her painfully aware that this feeling was totally illusory. However far she let her mind roam, it would always be tethered to her body.
She was tied to other things too. In the toilet next to the room where she’d eaten her lunch, taped behind the cistern of the middle cubicle, Grace’s package waited for her. Jess could take it or leave it, but she couldn’t escape the consequences either way.
Pritchard sat down at last, and the judges once again asked the CPS lawyers if they had anything to say for themselves. This time they did, and another hour or so passed while they rebutted Pritchard point for point. And on each point the judges finally agreed with them.
Pritchard had made more than a dozen separate submissions in the course of the day, and every single judgement had gone against him. He seemed completely at ease with that. Presumably getting a mistrial declared had always been a long shot.
But the last time he stood up, his manner seemed different. Jess thought she saw him gather himself. He stood more erect, his posture and his tone more combative. “Your Honours,” he said, “there remains the question of witness evidence.”
“We’re not minded to allow it,” LePlastrier said. “We’ve read your submission, Mr Pritchard, but it would be an enormous departure from the structures in which we work. The courts of appeal concern themselves with substantive points of law, not with matters of evidence, however hotly contested.”
“Yes, Your Honour,” Pritchard agreed. “But I’m not talking about contested evidence, I’m talking about evidence that was never heard. On the twelfth day of my client’s trial, her boyfriend John Street – the only eyewitness to any part of the relevant events – was called to give evidence. Towards the end of that day, I began my cross-examination. But I was never able to complete it, because Mr Street went in for surgery the next day. Complications relating to the skin grafts on his hands, I believe. It was not possible to recall him to the stand during the remainder of the trial.”
The judges looked grave. So did the CPS lawyers. Jess had the sense of the same penny dropping in many minds.
“So,” Pritc
hard resumed after a slight pause, “it seems to me that the defence should be allowed to question Mr Street again. The only alternative would be to declare a mistrial and begin again from the opening chorus.”
The judges conferred once more. Pritchard waited with an impassive face, but his posture was tense. Paul Levine had his chin on his fist, the knuckles pressed up against his mouth.
“And is your thought, Mr Pritchard,” Judge Foulkes asked, “that if anything arises from Mr Street’s testimony that materially affects the safety of your client’s conviction, a mistrial would be declared at that point?”
“And the conviction therefore overturned. Exactly, Your Honours.”
“Do you consider that a likely outcome?” Judge Macclehurst asked.
Pritchard shrugged. “Evidence is evidence, Your Honour. Like water, it finds its level.”
The judges went into another huddle, but only for a few seconds.
“Yes,” Foulkes said at last. “It’s unorthodox at the very least, but this is a highly unusual situation and there’s little likelihood of establishing a wider precedent. We’ll allow it.”
“Thank you, Your Honours,” Pritchard said. “Then I’ve nothing more to add. If my learned colleagues have no issues to raise…”
They didn’t. The judges stood, the clerk called, “All rise!” and the day’s proceedings were over.
Jess was led out of the courtroom through the same door by which she’d entered, and back into the short corridor behind it. It smelled strongly of disinfectant now, where before it had smelled of dust and floor wax. She wondered if someone had scoured and disinfected the place where she’d sat to eat her lunch.
She could just walk away. She should. But another day or two… It might be enough. Paul Levine might already have the answers that she needed. And she could buy that time just by doing what she was told.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said. Her voice shook a little.
“Go on, then,” Ratner said. “Make it quick.”
“I might as well pay a visit too,” Corcoran decided. She pushed the door open ahead of Jess and went into the bathroom. By the time Jess followed, Corcoran was already heading for the middle cubicle.
Jess took the left-hand one and waited in silence with her back pressed against the door. After a long interval, she heard the sound of Corcoran running the tap, and then the rumbling blast of the drier. She waited for the bathroom door to slam shut again so she could come out and go into the middle cubicle. But it seemed that Corcoran was waiting too.
“When you’re ready, Moulson,” she said from just outside the door.
“I might be a while yet,” Jess said. “I think I’m a bit constipated.”
“Oh please, spare me the details!” The door creaked as it opened, boomed as it closed.
Jess quickly swapped cubicles, locking the door behind her.
She reached up and groped behind the cistern. The bag was right there, but for a moment as she tugged at its bottom corner, it refused to give. Then it came free all at once and she almost dropped it into the toilet bowl, saving it with a frantic fumble.
She turned the bag in her hands and examined it. It was fairly bulky, but lighter than she would have expected given its size.
The disinfectant smell was fresh and strong, almost overpowering. Someone had been through this place while the court was in session. A caretaker or cleaner with a cart full of brushes and bags and cleaning products and total freedom to come and go between the restricted area and the rest of the building. Jess would have bet good money that that was how the bag had got there.
Now what? It came down to three choices. Tape the bag to her stomach as she was meant to do, and rejoin the guards outside. Put it back where she’d found it. Or rip it open and flush the contents down the toilet.
“Prisoner, get a bloody move on. Now!” Jess started violently. Ratner’s voice was so loud that for a second she thought the guard was right in there with her.
“I’m just coming,” she called. There was no time to think. Certainly no time to get rid of the package’s contents. And if she tried to tape it back up behind the cistern, she’d probably make a fair bit of noise. The training she’d been given by Loomis and Earnshaw kicked in. She slid the package inside her tracksuit top and smoothed the loose ends of the tape down on either side of her abdomen.
She remembered to flush the chain before unlocking the door.
Ratner was standing right outside with her arms folded and her face set. “I don’t get any overtime for this,” she said.
“Sorry,” Jess mumbled.
The guard herded her back outside with shooing motions of her hand. Corcoran ambled along behind, raising an eyebrow to show that she didn’t see any need for all this haste. In convoy they walked down the corridor and out into the little yard, where the van was already waiting.
Paul Levine was waiting too. “Could I please have a word with my client?” he asked Ratner.
“We’re on a tight schedule,” she told him coldly. “You’ll have to do it through channels, during proper visiting hours.”
“Oh, a few minutes won’t make any difference,” Corcoran said. “Just keep it short, okay?”
Ratner gave her a disapproving look, but she didn’t argue. The two of them withdrew to the rear of the van.
Paul turned his back on them, speaking too softly to be overheard even though they were only a few feet away. “How did you find today?” he asked.
“It was fine,” Jess said. She shrugged. “It didn’t feel like anything very much happened.”
“You’d be surprised,” Paul told her. “Anyway, tomorrow will be different. And I’m afraid that parts of it might be hard for you. But there’s no getting around it.”
She read concern in his face. It crossed her mind to tell him about Grace, but how could she? Willing or not, she was part of a drug ring. She had drugs taped to her belly right then. Bringing the roof down on Grace would bring the roof down on herself too, probably blowing her appeal sky-high in the process. And a lot of other things with it, since most of the Goodall inmates who’d been roped into Grace’s shifting, non-consensual workforce were women with appeals or retrials pending. No. Definitely not. If there was a way out of this trap, Paul wasn’t it.
He was still talking – explaining what he’d meant when he said the next day would be hard. “We want to go over everything you and John Street said in your original depositions. The sequence of events on the night of the fire. We’re going to put it under the microscope. I imagine some of that stuff will still be painful to you.”
“I’ll be fine,” Jess assured him. That was almost certainly a lie, but she thought she could stand it. Her relationship with Alex Beech wasn’t a one-off atrocity any more. It was ongoing. She was working out the terms of her atonement.
With some backsliding. The drug package clung to her flesh like some ghastly parasite. She could feel it moving, could almost imagine that it was burrowing into her.
She pulled her thoughts away with an effort. Alex. Alex was what mattered now. “The letter,” she said to Paul. “Did you manage to…?”
He breathed out hard. Almost sighed. It wasn’t an encouraging sound. “Yes, I did. You asked me to find out whether Alex Beech had been transferred from a different school to Planter’s Lane. I couldn’t get direct access to the relevant records, but there seems to be no reason why he should have been. The Beeches were long-term residents in Orchard Court – they moved in about eight years before you did, when Alex was still a toddler – and that would put them dead centre in the catchment area for Planter’s Lane school.”
“That’s not evidence though. It doesn’t prove Alex never went anywhere else.”
“I’m a lawyer, Jess. Believe me, I know what counts as evidence. I haven’t finished yet.”
“Sorry,” she said. “Go on.”
“Well, you said you were interested in one specific school – a school that had a goat and a flag on its crest an
d dum spiro spero as its motto. I found the school, after a lot of effort. It’s a lamb rather than a goat, obviously – the Lamb of God. But it’s real. It’s called Bishop Borley. It used to be a Catholic school, then went all-comers in the eighties. But there are a couple of good reasons why Alex Beech couldn’t have gone there. For starters, it’s not in London. It’s in Nottingham.”
“Why couldn’t Alex have relatives in Nottingham?”
“Have had relatives, you mean? I suppose he could.” Paul shook his head, as though he was disowning his own words. “But it’s in the Bridgeside. A really broken-down estate. Almost a slum.”
“Do the Beeches strike you as upwardly mobile?” Jess regretted the comment as soon as it was out, but something about the way this conversation was going had unnerved her, and she was responding with aggression. She smiled and shrugged, trying belatedly to turn the crude jibe into a joke.
“I think they’re what politicians call the squeezed middle,” Paul said mildly. “But that’s not the clinching argument.”
“Good.”
“The clinching argument is that Bishop Borley is a girls’ school.”
Jess blinked, caught out. “But… then…” she floundered. “Isn’t there…?”
“What?” Paul’s tone was still neutral, but there was weariness and maybe resignation in his face. “Any evidence that it used to be mixed? Or that Alex had had a sex change? No, Jess. I didn’t find anything like that. And since you’ve never really been honest with me about what it is you’re looking for, or why, there wasn’t much else I could do at that point.”
Jess cast around for an answer. It was no more than the truth. From the moment she’d detected Paul’s interest in her, she’d used him to get what she needed. She’d barely given a moment’s thought to him outside of that. I believe you have a defocusing effect on Mr Levine.
Impulsively and suddenly, she hugged him. He was the only person she knew besides Alex who might actually welcome her touch, but in that first second he stiffened, taken by surprise. A shudder went through him. Then he melted into it, pressed his cheek against hers – against her bad side, where the flesh had been rebuilt – and made a sound that was like a sob.
