The Secrets You Hide

by Kate Helm

  ‘There.’

  I glance at Niall: perhaps he’s short-sighted.

  But when I turn back towards the green, the boy has gone. How? There wasn’t long enough for him to reach the pavement or disappear behind the shrubs that fringe the gardens.

  Niall says, ‘There’s a fox down there. Maybe that’s what you saw.’

  The animal stares me out.

  ‘I’d seen the fox already, but . . .’ I stop. There really is no one else there. ‘You’re right. My hangover must be worse than I thought.’

  ‘Long night, eh? I really should go, before it’s light.’

  He reaches out to touch my hand and I feel his blood, pulsing. I am lonely, suddenly, at the thought of him being gone.

  I take a deep breath.

  ‘You know, you get a great view of the sunrise from the bedroom, on a clear morning like this.’

  His eyes widen. ‘Really? Well, I wouldn’t want to miss out on that, would I?’

  I take his hand. However hard I try to convince myself, there are still times when I really don’t want to be alone.

  4

  ‘When he asked you if you wanted to have sex, what did you say?’

  ‘He didn’t ask. It . . . Things were moving faster than I wanted them to. But when he was about to . . . When I realised what he was about to do, I said no.’

  ‘And that’s the word you used?’

  Oliver Priest, for the prosecution, leans in towards the young woman, his voice kind and courteous. It’s one of his tactics. He already knows the defence will try to portray her as a slut or gold-digger who knew exactly what she was doing when she went into the footballer’s bedroom. It’s Oli’s job to make the jury remember that she is somebody’s daughter, somebody’s friend. Somebody like them.

  ‘Yes. I told him to get off, that I didn’t want that.’ His witness speaks softly. She’s brave, this one. No TV link, no screen to prevent her having to see the accused. ‘And when it . . . happened, when he forced himself . . . I said no. Three times.’

  Her cotton dress is demure, neckline high, hemline below the knee. Tea roses, I write, flesh-tint pink, with viridian leaves. No thorns. Her name is Julie Tranter though, of course, the law bars journalists from identifying women making an accusation of sexual assault. The reasons are sound, but the ban does mean the public can struggle to see victims as real people.

  Perhaps I might use a blur of that floral fabric to suggest how vulnerable she must feel.

  ‘You said it out loud? You didn’t just think it?’

  ‘I screamed it the third time. He heard me. But . . . his expression didn’t change at all.’

  I glance up at the footballer in the dock, his face flinty. He hasn’t looked at the witness box since the girl took the stand. That must tell its own story.

  I write: in denial. Try to commit him to memory, because while the court is in session, I’m not allowed to sketch a single line. Instead, I have to rely on my notes, jot down word portraits of the characters I must bring to life after the court adjourns. Court artists are yet more proof that the justice system is a relic, unfit for the twenty-first century. But then again, if the judges ever do decide to let the cameras in, I’d lose my job, and the little power I have to make the guilty pay.

  ‘Why did you feel you had to shout?’

  ‘Because he wasn’t stopping. I was . . . terrified but still, I had to try to make him hear me. To stop it. To stop him.’

  ‘And do you think he did hear you?’

  ‘Your Honour.’ The footballer’s barrister is on her feet. ‘My learned friend is asking the witness to speculate on things she can have no knowledge of.’

  The defence barrister is petite, with silky blonde curls poking out from under her wig. I know what the jury will be thinking: surely no woman could defend a guilty man?

  But ‘Cruella’ gained her nickname for playing dirtier than any male lawyer would dare. She will dwell on intimate details – contraception, underwear, periods – that mean nothing, but taint the young woman for the rest of the trial. And I bet she’ll hint at a fondness for rough sex, to explain away the bruises mentioned in Oli’s opening address. By the time she’s finished her cross-examination, Julie Tranter won’t even be sure herself if she consented or not.

  ‘I agree,’ Judge Ronaldson says. ‘Do tone it down a little, Mr Priest. But I think we’ll leave it there for today in any case.’ He stifles a yawn. ‘Ten tomorrow, members of the jury. Thank you for your attention today.’

  ‘Court rise.’

  The timing of the adjournment is a small victory for Oliver: the jurors will fall asleep tonight with the woman’s testimony in their minds.

  As soon as the judge leaves, I quickly sketch the defendant’s sharp suit, the full pout of his lips, before he’s taken back down to the cells.

  ‘Get my good side, will you, Georgie?’

  Oli passes alongside the press bench as the court empties.

  ‘Wow,’ I say. ‘I think that’s the first time you’ve admitted you even have a bad one.’

  He smiles. ‘OK, my better side.’ He leans in, so no one else hears. I smell the sharp, grapefruit tang of his moisturiser, the one he has sent specially from America. ‘How are we doing with this one?’

  ‘Bribing the judge is working,’ I whisper.

  ‘Shh.’ He leans in even further; his wig has slipped and I glimpse a fresh crop of white along his real hairline. He’ll be happy with the added gravitas. ‘Seriously, how are we coming across?’

  I smile at the barrister habit of calling their witness we.

  ‘She’s likeable. Believable.’

  I put my notebook in my bag, and we walk out of court together. Of course, I won’t tell him how I plan to give the prosecution a helping hand.

  Oli frowns. ‘You think? Allowing yourself to be groped in a steam room, without knowing who was doing the groping? It’s not exactly Jane Austen.’

  I sigh. ‘She knows what to expect from Cruella?’

  ‘As much as any of them do.’

  We’ve spent hours discussing this. Despite his single-sex public-school upbringing, Oli is one hundred per cent the feminist when it comes to rape trials. He specialises in cases where the victims need someone to speak on their behalf, and the Crown Prosecution Service instruct him because he is bloody good at it.

  ‘How’s Imogen? Can’t be long now.’

  The frown on his face melts away.

  ‘Three weeks. Maybe. They say first babies are always late.’

  ‘Yours will be bang on schedule, I bet you.’

  ‘I’m bloody terrified, Georgie. Control issues. You know.’

  I smile. ‘Fatherhood will suit you. You’ve waited long enough.’

  It’s one of those rare moments when Oli doesn’t seem to know what to say.

  ‘Georgia! I need to talk to you about your ideas for the six.’

  Today’s TV producer, Toby, shouts at me across the corridor. Neena Kaur, the reporter, is already heading outside to do a live broadcast for the rolling news channel. My sketch of the afternoon’s proceedings will go into a more polished report for the flagship bulletin at 6 p.m.

  ‘Duty calls, I see,’ Oli says. ‘My best side, remember? And when the jury’s finally out, let’s grab a coffee.’

  ‘I’d love to.’ I remember something. ‘Actually, it’d be great to chat through some of your old cases. I’ve been asked to do a commission for an art book. I might need some contacts.’

  ‘A book, eh?’ Oli’s eyes light up. ‘I always knew it was only a matter of time until your talent was recognised—’

  ‘Georgia, we really do need to get this in the bag,’ Toby says, pushing himself into the conversation.

  Oli raises his eyebrows at me.

  ‘Can’t stand in the way of the public’s right to know. We’ll make a date, right? Toodle pip, Georgie.’

  ‘Cheerio, old thing,’ I say, watching him as he heads towards the robing room. He
turns at the last minute to blow me a kiss.

  Toby is staring.

  ‘Are you chummy with all the barristers?’

  ‘Only the ones I nearly married,’ I say, walking out of the courtroom, down the grand staircase. ‘What’s the hurry with the sketch?’

  ‘They’ve a lot of late-running stories tonight. Want our package sent asap. What are you planning? We want Sam Carr in it, obviously.’

  It takes me a moment to remember that Carr is the footballer’s name. I had stopped thinking of him as a person. But I already know what I want to draw.

  ‘Did you catch the moment when he scowled at the prosecutor over the evidence about the girl’s clothes being ripped?’

  ‘So long as it doesn’t imply he’s guilty.’

  I shake my head. ‘I’d never do that.’

  ‘You must have a hunch, though?’ He smiles. ‘All these years staring at crims in court. Can’t you tell whodunnit?’

  For a moment, I feel like telling him the truth – who I really am, what I’m trying to do – just to see his reaction. But instead, I scoff.

  ‘Of course I can’t. You can’t judge a book by its cover.’

  5

  Daylight blinds me as I step through the courthouse doors.

  A few steps ahead, the footballer and his entourage punch their way through the paparazzi. He’s headed for the limo parked on double yellows.

  Whirr, click, whirr.

  The cameras flash and the pack members call out. ‘Over here! Mate, mate, look this way. Play the game!’

  The footballer blinks in the glare of the sun, gropes for his Aviators. Arrogant? Tick. Obscenely wealthy? Tick.

  Guilty? Almost certainly . . .

  ‘How’d it go today, mate? You in the clear?’

  Above us, the flat blue sky fills with flapping wings. The gulls plunge down from the Gothic turrets, their eyes focused on the swelling crowd, looking for food.

  I cross the busy road. When I look back, more people are piling out of court: lawyers too rushed to remove their raven-black robes; scruffy, plain-clothes detectives; finally, the spectators, swapping notes after their free day out.

  Neena is brushing her hair in the satellite truck mirror, ready for the live two-way. She’s the only reporter I consider a friend – the rest are chummy enough, but they’d sell their granny for a front-page lead. I wave, and she waves back, and then I shoulder my way into the Barely Legal Cafe.

  ‘All ready for you, Georgia.’

  Manny, the owner, greets me with a smile and a double espresso.

  ‘Cheers.’ I yawn, think of last night. ‘I need it!’

  The beaded curtain flicks across my face as I walk through to the storeroom. Whenever there’s a trial in Brighton, I use Manny’s as an impromptu studio. My pastels case lies open on the chest freezer. The aluminium easel has a sheet of 360 gsm card pinned to the board, angled to catch the light from the yard.

  I sharpen my pencil, test the point of the lead against the flesh of my little finger. Sharp enough to pierce the skin. I step back from the easel and . . .

  The fear makes me freeze.

  Fear of the blank page, fear of getting it wrong, fear that a guilty man will walk. I am always scared of failure, but some cases feel more personal than others.

  ‘Got all you need?’

  Toby steps into the room. He clearly thinks he should be in a war zone, not slumming it at a seedy sex case in the provinces.

  ‘Yup. Except peace and quiet.’

  ‘Remember. It doesn’t have to be great art. Just has to be there on deadline,’ he says, as though it’s him, not me, that has spent the last thirteen years on the press bench.

  I’m not an ‘artist’ to the people that hire me – I’m just another hack. So long as my drawing of the footballer is cartoonishly recognisable, it’ll do.

  Toby is waiting for me to reply, but I turn sharply back to the easel and he slopes away.

  Anger fuels me. Pencil touches paper. In a first, fast movement, I sketch in the oak boundaries of the court, then the shapes of the defendant, the prosecutor, the judge.

  I could draw the regulars in my sleep. Oli, still too bloody handsome for his own good. The eternally tetchy Judge Ronaldson, whose eyebrows resemble little hamsters scrabbling up his forehead. Cruella, girlish, but pulsing with bottled-up venom.

  Now the accused. The reason I do this.

  As my hand sketches his shape, I replay the evidence in my head.

  Once I’ve made a man look guilty, there is no way back. Jurors are told to avoid news coverage when they’re on a case, but most can’t resist a quick google during the big trials. And the cliché is true – my pictures paint a thousand words, none of them good. Facial expression, composition, even the vividness of the pastel colour I use can create an impression of evil, if that is what I intend.

  Have I ever changed a verdict? There’s no way of knowing. But I try my best to see justice done. And it’s a consolation to know that even if a guilty man is acquitted, my picture – and the question marks it seeds in people’s minds – will follow him for the rest of his life.

  ‘You’re late.’ Toby pokes his face through the curtain. ‘I’ve promised to send it by half past, and if there’s a problem, I need to know now!’

  ‘I never miss a deadline.’

  He tries to push past me to see the picture.

  ‘Where’s his bloody face?’

  ‘Toby, I was doing this job while you were still doodling Ginger Spice’s cleavage in the margins of your exercise book. Trust me, it’ll be there.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Just go . . .’

  I pull out my notes, try to focus on them, not the rumble of the coffee grinder, the hum of the post-court rabble. The words swim; either my handwriting is getting worse, or I need reading glasses. I squint.

  Lazy posture, my very first note reads, makes his Savile Row suit look like a sweaty nylon off-the-peg.

  An image comes to me: when the girl first spoke, Sam Carr sat up straight for the first time. He must have realised all that sponsorship money wasn’t going to buy his way out of this. The pout left his lips and . . .

  I saw evil.

  All doubt leaves me. Carr deserves all he gets. I lean in and he comes to life with slick black hair, and lips straight as tramlines, bloodless next to his sunbed tan.

  Two minutes to deadline.

  I position myself so I can work without looking directly at the face I’ve drawn. In court, I never make eye contact; I learned how dangerous that can be in my first ever case. But there’s still something stopping this image coming alive. On instinct, I add two dots of Prussian blue to his pupils, smudge the blue with the black.

  The footballer stares right back, arrogance tempered by alarm.

  I smile: Yeah. You’re not getting away with this if I can help it, you piece of shit.

  ‘Done,’ I call out.

  Toby pushes past me to grab the easel and carry it into the street where the cameraman is waiting.

  As I make my way through the crowded cafe, I feel the weight of what I’ve done. It’s never easy, but it is needed. Outside, the cameraman is zooming in on my sketch. From this distance, I can see it’s not my best work, but at least it’s there on time.

  Neena waits for the tape.

  ‘Cutting it fine, George.’

  ‘What can I say? I’m a perfectionist.’

  6

  Day three, and it’s time for Cruella to cross-examine the alleged victim. I wish I could skip this part, I already know how it always goes . . .

  ‘What was going through your mind when you entered that steam room?’

  The barrister’s robe casts a shadow across the court. She licks her lips: it’s one of her tells, a sign she’s about to go for the kill.

  ‘That it was hot,’ Julie Tranter says, only just managing to stop herself adding ‘duh’.

  I wince.

  ‘That it was hot,’ repeats Sam Carr’s
barrister. ‘Steamy, I presume.’

  ‘Yeah. Because it’s a steam room.’

  I can’t quite see from this angle, but I am pretty sure she rolled her eyes.

  ‘And you were in there with three men you didn’t know.’

  The young woman sighs and straightens the skirt of her crimson dress. The wrong colour. But the jury would have judged her just as harshly for wearing the floral one two days running. She hasn’t been home. Perhaps she is that kind of girl.

  ‘I knew them. We’d been chatting right before. In the spa pool.’ She sounds sulky.

  ‘Ah. So you knew their names?’

  ‘I knew who he was.’ She nods towards the footballer without looking at his face. ‘Not the others. But they seemed like nice lads.’

  ‘Nice lads. Yes. And who left the spa pool first?’

  ‘They did.’

  ‘Mr Carr and his two teammates? And then you followed them in?’

  ‘Yeah. I like steam rooms.’

  ‘You liked the idea of getting close to a famous footballer, too, didn’t you?’

  Silence. The young woman realises she’s walked into a trap. I’ve been where she’s been. In the witness box, you feel like the star attraction in a travelling freak show. And utterly alone.

  Oli is on his feet.

  ‘Your Honour—’

  Cruella gives a magnanimous wave.

  ‘Fine, I’ll withdraw that last question. Now, tell me about this steam room. Can you give me an idea of the space? Was it, say, the size of the jury box?’

  ‘No. Much smaller. A third of that.’

  ‘So there you are, an attractive young woman, wearing virtually nothing, stepping into a very confined space where it’s hard to see anything, knowing there were three male strangers inside. Weren’t you worried?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Is it not the case that by going into the steam room, you were sending the defendant a message?’

  ‘What message?’ Miss Tranter says, defiance in her voice.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Oli has gone very still.

  ‘That you were up for it. That you wanted him.’

  Oli is on his feet again.

  ‘Your Honour, my learned friend is putting words in the witness’s mouth.’