by Ros Carne
He didn’t ask why. The old rule which Alisha had broken so defiantly and successfully yesterday. Never ask a question if you don’t know the answer. But he didn’t stop her when she carried on.
‘I had a hunch and I was proved right. Not only was Natasha wearing one of my mother’s vintage designer outfits, she also had on some of my mother’s valuable jewellery. A ring, a brooch and earrings. I asked her to leave and she went upstairs to change. I followed her. I needed to be sure she was leaving empty handed.’
‘And Miss Baker took off the jewellery.’
‘Yes.’
‘But the jewellery, the vintage costumes, they weren’t the main cause of the row were they?’
‘I wouldn’t call it a row. More of a spat.’
‘You had never liked Miss Baker.’
‘Liking is not the issue. I was cross with her for inveigling her way into my mother’s house.’
‘Despite entering at your mother’s invitation?’
‘Natasha sought her out. She never told my mother she was my pupil. That sounds pretty duplicitous to me.’
‘The truth is you were envious of Miss Baker.’
‘Not at all.’
‘She was clever, popular, she had been attracting work from your solicitors.’
‘That’s ridiculous. Why would I be envious of her? She didn’t even get the tenancy.’ As soon as she had said it she wished it unsaid. It sounded arrogant. And which was worse? Envy or arrogance?
‘Miss Baker met your son at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, didn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘When you met again at your mother’s house, she asked if he was OK?’
‘That’s not true.’
‘She said she had enjoyed meeting him.’
‘I don’t remember her saying that.’
A couple of jury members were taking notes. Mel looked over to where Natasha was sitting behind the CPS solicitor. Their eyes met but Natasha’s gave no hint of acknowledgement. She wore the same blue pinafore dress, this time with a cream silk blouse, buttoned to the neck. Her hair was tied back neatly. There was no sign of a scar. She reminded Mel of an antique doll. And at that moment Mel realised that despite everything she had said to Alisha, despite her horror at hearing her son’s name tossed around in court, she could no longer stay silent. The jury needed to know what kind of woman had brought this complaint.
Digger paused to look at his notes. Mel was conscious of the low buzz of the air conditioning, the occasional scrape of feet on the wooden floor, bodies shifting on benches, fingers tapping on devices. The wordless sounds were soothing, and she leant against the side of the witness box. Then, quickly, she pulled herself straight, needing to call on what buried strength remained. Before Digger could lob another question, she turned to face the jury and spoke.
‘She said he had a nice body.’
‘Miss Goddard, she did not say that. She merely asked if he was all right,’ interrupted Digger.
‘My son was sixteen years old at the time.’
‘Miss Goddard, there was no mention of Jacob in your defence statement.’
‘No. Because he has nothing to do with my defence.’
‘And so you mention him now in an attempt to malign the character of the complainant, Miss Baker?’
‘My sole intention is to tell the truth about her. Natasha is a thirty-year-old woman. She flirted with Jacob online. Got him to send her pictures. Texts. I didn’t want to mention him but my mother did, so you might as well know the whole story.’
McDermid was staring at her. Mel was amazed he hadn’t stopped her. Her glance shifted from the Bench to the public seating area. On this final day of the hearing it was almost full. Alongside the law student and the self-appointed court expert, were Georgie and Farouk and several members of her own chambers and others she had no time to register because her attention was drawn to her mother, upright, elegant, perfectly turned out and sitting in the back row. Next to her, to Mel’s amazement, sat Claude, looking stern, and next to him, his face bleached white, dark eyes wide, sat Jacob. Mel clutched the side of the witness box.
‘None of this was put to Miss Baker,’ said Digger.
‘No.’
‘Even though she was called back and Miss Mehta had the opportunity of cross-examining her once more.’
‘I didn’t want my son brought into it.’
‘Yet you bring him into it now. Isn’t the truth of the matter, Miss Goddard, that you have made up this allegation?’
‘Why would I make it up? It only gives me a motive for hurting her.’
‘She made an innocent remark about your son and you have twisted it for your own purposes.’
‘I don’t see how it helps me. On the contrary.’
‘It wasn’t put because it didn’t happen.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Is all this relevant, Mr Diggory-Brown?’ asked the judge. ‘It is, as Miss Goddard herself concedes, relevant as to motive.’
‘Yet these purported photographs and text messages have not been put in evidence.’
‘No, Your Honour. Because they don’t exist.’
The judge turned to Mel. ‘Miss Goddard. You have raised certain allegations concerning the complainant. If you wish to pursue these allegations, the jury will need to see the documentary evidence to which you refer.’
‘I understand, Your Honour.’
‘And do you propose to disclose this evidence?’
‘Your Honour, I cannot do that. My son has deleted the texts and photographs.’
Mel glanced at Natasha. Her expression was unchanged. Though she must be relieved, must have realised the risk she had taken in bringing this prosecution. In some perverse way, Mel found herself admiring her enemy.
‘I think that answers your question, Mr Diggory-Brown. I will address the jury on the issue in my summing up. Please proceed.’
‘So, Miss Goddard, you admit you felt aggressive towards Miss Baker.’
‘I didn’t feel aggressive. I’m not an aggressive person. I was upset. I may have felt angry. That’s not the same as aggressive.’ Wasn’t it? When she hurled herself at Natasha it had felt more instinctive than aggressive. Could anyone hear the blood pulsing through her veins as she spoke? Was this what they picked up on lie detectors?
‘That’s not what your own mother said.’
‘We’ve had our difficulties.’
‘This is not the first time you’ve been violent.’
‘You mean the cat. It was awful. I know how much my mother loved that little creature. I told her how sorry I was…’
‘You have been violent towards people too.’
‘I deny that.’
‘You used to be married to a member of the Bar. Your son’s father, Claude Villiers.’
‘What has he got to do with anything?’
Alisha jumped up. ‘Your Honour, the defendant’s relationship with Mr Villiers is not in issue here.’
‘Continue, Mr Diggory-Brown,’ said McDermid.
‘Miss Goddard, did you not, on at least one occasion, hit your husband?’
It was clear in her memory, sharp as a well-defined etching. Claude was shouting. She could see his face, heavy-featured, broad and unshaven, contorted with anger, bellowing. Jacob had been a baby. His cries resonated from the next room, as loud as his father’s. What had the row been about? She couldn’t recall. But she could recall hating Claude at that moment, wanting to hurt him, slapping him hard across the face. And now he was sitting in the public gallery. Here to support her.
‘I hit Claude once. I regret it.’
Where had Digger got hold of this? Claude wouldn’t have said anything. Or would he? They were friends now, but it had not always been friendly. She might even have told someone herself, confessed it drunkenly over too many drinks in Daly’s. The Bar was a small place. Word got around. Digger carried on questioning.
‘Anyone else?’
She couldn’t lie about Jacob. N
ot with his eyes burrowing through her.
‘I once smacked my child. I regret that too.’
‘Where did you smack him?’
‘In a swimming pool changing room.’
‘Where on his body?’
‘His face.’
Digger waited. There was an aching silence. A woman in the front row of the jury coughed. After that, only the hum of air conditioning.
‘How old was Jacob at the time?’
‘About four.’
She stared at the jury, avoiding individual faces, allowing her vision to blur, conscious of Jacob’s silent presence on the other side of the court room.
‘You have a short temper.’
‘Sometimes. I mean, if provoked.’
Bugger. Why use that word? Provocation. She might as well dig her own grave.
‘You were provoked on that Sunday in Dulwich.’
‘No.’
‘You believed Miss Baker was stealing from your mother.’
‘Yes.’
‘Betraying her trust as your mother’s guest.’
‘Yes.’
‘You accused her of deception, and she countered with your affair with a married man, Paul Freedman.’
It was not a question. And it was impossible to speak.
‘You also decided, either wilfully or mistakenly, that Miss Baker, a woman of almost thirty, was stalking your teenage son.’
‘I wasn’t mistaken.’
‘You were furious with Natasha.’
‘Yes.’
‘Without thinking, just as you lashed out at your husband, your son, a defenceless cat, you grabbed hold of Miss Baker’s arms and threw her backwards.’
She must deny it. For Jacob’s sake she had to deny it.
‘That’s not true.’
‘Causing her to hit her head on the glass edge of the dressing table.’
‘No.’
Mel was shaking. She looked at Alisha, seeking rescue, but Alisha could not rescue her from her own untruth.
Digger looked satisfied with his morning’s work. ‘Thank you, Miss Goddard.’
‘Any re-examination, Miss Mehta?’ asked the judge.
‘No, Your Honour.’
It was time for speeches. Digger went first. He set out the background, the difficult relationship, Mel’s resentment of her successful pupil, the allegations of theft and lying. He seemed about to wind up when to Mel’s surprise he referred to the online stalking.
‘Members of jury, I ask you to consider the defendant’s allegations regarding Miss Baker’s purported contact with her son. The evidence itself is not in issue. That has been made clear by the judge. There are no photographs or texts for you to consider. So what are you to make of these groundless allegations? Ladies and gentlemen, they are but a ploy to besmirch the good character of the complainant. Moreover, even if they were true, which is denied, how could they possibly help the defendant’s case? All they could do would be to paint the complainant in an unattractive light. Indeed, as the judge will no doubt out confirm in his summing up, even if true, they would not give rise to a criminal offence. No, members of the jury. You are not here to give a judgement on the character of the complainant on hearsay evidence. You are here to decide on how Miss Baker sustained serious injury on that summer afternoon. The defendant relies on self-defence. But even her own mother was unable to give evidence of any hostile action on the part of the complainant. The medical evidence is uncontested. Miss Baker could only have sustained injury as a result of an aggressive push on the part of the defendant. For those reasons, members of the jury, I ask you to find the defendant guilty of this offence.’
Alisha came next. She focused on the layout of the room, the shoes on the floor, Natasha’s antagonism towards her supervisor. Mel felt herself drifting off. Alisha had not impressed her. Was it because she had not believed her from the outset? When Alisha had finished all Mel could hope for was that there must be a doubt. But the climate was changing in the justice system. The defendant-led culture was shifting to focus on the victim. Juries had become readier to convict.
They reached a suitable moment. The judge would address the jury after lunch. Mel was granted bail. Alisha came over and suggested they have a snack in the coffee bar. She looked for Jacob, Claude and Isabel. They had disappeared. As Alisha went up to buy the sandwiches Mel took out her phone to text Jacob. There was a message from Paul.
Hi Mel. I’m in London for a couple of days. Fancy lunch? Paul x.
Mel felt a lurch of distress or anger, she could not tell which. He had forgotten her trial date. She deleted the message and texted Jacob.
I’m sorry, darling. Forgive me.
The judge spoke from two p.m. to two thirty. The words rose and faded as if someone were fiddling with an amplifier, raising and lowering the volume. He outlined the medical evidence, the details of the alleged assault, the lack of evidence to support the contention of self-defence, the geography of the room, the shoes on the floor, the breakdown of a relationship of trust. Mel heard the words ‘ancillary matters’ and it was as if the volume had been turned up as he mentioned Jacob, the photographs, the texts, only to dismiss them as irrelevant. The jury were reminded of the need to reach their verdict on evidence, not on speculation or inference. McDermid told them they needed to be satisfied so they were sure of the defendant’s guilt. His tone was grave. And though he avoided clear obvious bias, his emphasis on the pupil–supervisor relationship left her with a powerful sense that he was asking them to convict.
As if she were on the brink of death, her life spooled before her. The quiet, dull days in Dulwich which now seemed days of peace and even joy, her mother’s lack of interference offering a freedom for which she was now grateful. She re-imagined those long afternoons, stretched across the carpet, reading magazines, comics, romantic novels. It had been a safe place. There was little control, but neither was there threat nor fear. It had not been an unhappy childhood.
Her teenage years had been turbulent, but whose had not? Then came the joy of study when she had learnt to love the order and symmetry of law. It gave shape to a life otherwise undisciplined, and after she had befriended Kath, they were ready to take on the world.
Everything went wrong after Kath’s death. The relationship with Claude was turbulent; baby Jacob was difficult. He had health problems, minor, but enough to make him scratchy and discontented: ear infections, eczema, asthma. Work had carried her through. And now Jacob’s love, and her love for him, was carrying her through this trial. She had messed up. Given another chance she would act differently, she would hold back, learn to wait.
The jury went out and bail was granted again. Mel was to stay in the precincts of the court. She looked back and saw Jacob, Claude and Isabel, but did not feel she able to join them. Alisha gave her a copy of The Times and she studied each page assiduously, though she would not have remembered anything she’d read if asked. At 3:30 p.m. they were called back into court. A verdict in an hour would be unlikely. They would be asking for a direction, perhaps looking for a majority verdict or querying some point of evidence. The forewoman stood up, the one who had coughed when she mentioned slapping Jacob.
McDermid spoke. ‘Members of the jury have you reached your verdict?’
‘We have.’
‘What is your verdict?’
Mel gripped the ledge at the front of the dock. If she could hold on tight, all would be well. She closed her eyes. A voice rang out across the courtroom.
‘Not guilty.’
She was rigid, unable to move or breathe. It was too much to take in. She must have misheard. Something wound tight inside her began to unwind. There was air in her lungs, and she opened her eyes. Through the glass of the dock she saw people moving. Alisha was standing, asking something of the judge. And now what had been taut grew soft, her bones were jelly and she was falling into herself, melting. The jury were standing up, walking slowly out of the back of the courtroom. One of the men turned to look at her. She
caught his glance. Reasonable doubt. Not enough to convict.
The usher was standing next to her, taking her arm, raising her up, leading her back into the world. Like an old woman she steadied herself on the ledge as she walked towards the door of the dock. She heard the words, ‘Court Rise’ and a clatter of bodies pulling themselves up as the judge left the courtroom.
Familiar voices reverberated around her as she stepped into the well of the court. Through them all one stood out, Isabel’s perfectly modulated ‘Darling!’ There were pats on her back, chatter she could not follow, congratulations from friends: Georgie, Jess, even Jeremy. Then she heard the deep, resonant tone she knew so well.
‘Well done, Mel. Spot on.’ It could only be Claude.
It was overwhelming. It was what she had longed for, but now it was happening she felt shaken, troubled, torn inside. She had done wrong and these people should know. But they were smiling, oblivious to the truth. She wanted to hug Jacob, but he had disappeared. Panic hit. Her breathing became rapid. Where was he? Had he been devastated by what he heard? Briefly she wondered about Natasha and Luke, smothering some mad instinct to apologise. They were nowhere to be seen.
The usher was asking the public to leave the court so that the next case could be brought on. Mel was hovering, uncertain where to turn, when she felt a pressure on her arm, gentle but determined. It was Georgie, and he was leading her out of the court room. She should be ecstatic, but everything felt unreal. Had they made a mistake? Then she heard the gleeful voice she longed to hear.
‘Mum!’ Jacob was waiting by the door. Relief tore through her as the tears broke and she fell against him, uncertain if she was sobbing or laughing.
Chapter Forty-seven
Natasha
Natasha had been unable to settle all evening. Her skin felt as if it were crawling with mites. After dinner, which she struggled to eat, Luke stood behind her chair and started to massage her neck. His touch made her wince and she stood up and walked to the sofa, craving movement, too heavy and exhausted to move. The only thing that might pacify the turmoil inside her was a run. Would she ever run again? She lay down, shifting to her side to ease her aching back.