by Kate Helm
Judge Ronaldson sighs.
‘Yes, I think we ought to leave discussions of the steam chamber before we become even more overheated.’
The defence barrister nods.
‘Of course. So let us move on to when you accompanied Mr Carr to the bar, alone . . .’
Oli sits down again. I feel for him – of course, he had to put the young woman on the stand. Without her, there is no case. But it’s always a risk.
Cruella is smiling.
‘What did you say to your friends? When you left?’
‘I said . . .’ The young woman hesitates.
‘Remember, you’re under oath.’
‘I said not to wait for me. I said . . . I was going to have some fun.’
*
I lean over the long line of porcelain basins, putting in eye drops. The fierce heating in court makes everything dry out, and my head throbs.
‘Georgia. Are you OK? I’ve been worried about you, after last night.’
Maureen Lomax is behind me in the mirror, face set in an expression of fake concern. But her bifocals magnify her gleeful eyes.
‘Hello, Maureen.’
‘Your producer was in a real tizzy. And, artist to artist, you won’t mind my saying, the sketch did lack finesse. Sam Carr would never have got all the sponsorships and modelling jobs if he looked like a rabid bulldog.’
‘I’m not in the business of vanity portraiture.’
‘Just constructive criticism!’ Maureen takes a tissue; her damson lipstick has feathered into the smoker’s lines around her mouth. ‘Take my advice, make them prettier.’
‘So I can flog them to the criminals when they walk free?’
‘They pay for a couple of good cruises every year.’ Her thin lips stretch across her teeth as she reapplies her make-up. ‘I’m hardly going to hang them on my walls. No wonder you look so tired if you take your work home with you.’
I look away. ‘I study them. I want to get better.’
‘Oh, darling. Tomorrow’s chip paper, that’s what our work is. Though this Art of Justice book will have a slightly longer shelf life, eh?’
Bloody hell.
‘I didn’t realise they’d asked you too.’
She laughs. ‘I gave them your name, actually, Georgia. I like to support young talent. Even when it is still a tad . . . raw.’ She pats my hand, her fingers dry as snakeskin. ‘You just need to stop taking it all so seriously.’ She zips up her bag and tip-taps out across the tiled floor.
I wait a few seconds before following her out into the stuffy corridor, where the press pack waits for the afternoon session to begin. I stand slightly apart, hearing laughter, knowing the hacks will be swapping some sick joke or other. Neena insists the graveyard humour keeps the nastier evidence at arm’s length, so it doesn’t contaminate our ‘normal’ lives.
I realised when I was eleven that there’s no such thing as normal – at least for me.
I turn my back on the journalists, and head for the window, for a last glimpse of daylight before we go back into court.
Shit.
A boy in a bright-red shirt is standing on the other side of the road.
That boy, the one I saw in the square. His bare feet teeter on the edge of the pavement, his arm swinging a purple soft toy so high it almost hits the passing cars.
It’s a Teletubby. Tinky Winky, I think; that show had a cult following when I was an art student.
The kid stares straight up at the window. Straight up at me.
There’s something familiar about him: could he be one of the barristers’ kids, off sick from pre-school?
No. Because barristers’ kids don’t generally hang around in garden squares in the middle of the night.
Still, at least I know I wasn’t imagining him.
Did he follow me from the square?
But I saw him there two nights ago. Where has he been since?
I wave frantically at him, trying to signal that he should get away from the edge of the pavement. But he keeps staring, his toy lifted into the air by the side wind from speeding cars.
No one else is helping him.
I push past the clusters of lawyers and witnesses, run two steps at a time down the marble staircase, through the metal detectors, launch myself at the wooden doors, out into the street.
Thank God. He’s still there, on the other side of the road, his back to me now, so I can read the back of his crumpled pyjama top.
11 REDKNAPP
Redknapp hasn’t played for years.
The kid turns back and sees me. There’s something wrong with his face. A birthmark, or a scar, runs down his cheek, red as a ripe strawberry.
He takes a step towards me. One leg of his pyjamas is hitched up, and his knee is black, as though he’s taken a tumble playing football.
He takes another step . . .
‘No! No, stay there, stay where you are.’ I launch myself towards him. An elderly woman pounds on a horn as I miss walking into her car by centimetres. ‘I’m coming—’
A flash of beige and burgundy metal thunders in from my left. The number 7 bus from the County Hospital. So fast. So close.
‘No, stop!’ I hammer on its metal chassis.
The bus is gone. I stare at the pavement, at the empty space where the child was, three seconds ago.
My heart doesn’t beat. The world is silent. I force myself to look down at the road, expecting to see a lifeless form . . .
There is nothing on the tarmac. No child, no toy. No blood.
I run towards where he was standing.
‘Kid, where are you? Come out, I don’t want to hurt you.’
The only place he could have gone is the alleyway ahead of me. But he can’t have run that far, that fast. There’s nothing to hide behind.
Unless he went into Manny’s?
I push the door open, scan the empty tables. Nothing.
‘You still hungry, Georgie?’
Manny emerges from the kitchen, his hands and thick forearms sheathed in camellia-pink rubber gloves.
‘Did you see a kid?’
I push past him, into the back room. Check under the sofa, behind the storage crates, even inside the bloody chest freezer. Frost coats the shrink-wrapped buns, burgers, mince. There’s no room for a child. The door to the yard is locked and it’s crammed with crates full of empties. Nowhere to hide.
‘A kid?’
‘A boy.’ I think about what else I saw. ‘Four years old, maybe? In pyjamas that look like a football strip.’ I remember the old name on the back. ‘A hand-me-down. He was outside and then he disappeared and this is the only place he could have come to hide.’
‘No kids here.’ He pulls off one of his gloves with a sucking sound and places his hand on my shoulder. Fatherly. ‘I worry about you, Georgia. You always look so serious.’
Adrenaline makes my hands shake and my head pound.
‘There was a kid, Manny. I saw him.’
Manny shrugs. ‘Plenty bastards come and use my toilet, without buying nothing, then sneak away. Block my Saniflo. But, Georgia . . .’ He gestures towards the clock on the wall. ‘You late for court now, right?’
Six minutes past two. Toby will be flapping.
‘He was on his own, Manny. A little kid.’
‘Well, if he’s in trouble, he’ll be picked up pronto. Round here’s crawling with police. Here.’ He produces two soft amaretti biscuits from his apron pocket. ‘Sweets, for your blood sugar. Now, back to work, your pictures won’t draw themselves.’
I take the biscuits and head back to court, with one last glance down the alleyway. The kid, whoever he was, is long gone.
7
‘We couldn’t be more thrilled to have you on board.’
The book editor – my editor now – takes me into a room with the best view in London. The window frames the Thames, which shimmers in the late afternoon sunshine.
‘I was thrilled to be asked. It sounds like a fascina
ting book.’
For once, I don’t have to fake enthusiasm. The project features artists in the criminal justice field: those who reconstruct faces from human remains or create scale models of crime scenes. Each one of us will be commissioned to return to a case that stayed with us and create a new piece for a full-colour hardback. The money is terrible, but the prestige can’t be bought.
‘A passion project, for me,’ Benjamin says, making intense eye contact. He’s older than me, but he still thinks he’s a charming boy who can get away with anything if he flirts enough. ‘The bosses let me off the leash occasionally, so long as I keep the reality star autobiographies in the bestseller lists.’
His latest commissions are laid out on the long, glass table. Maybe he expects me to ask about the notoriously demanding singer, or the TV presenter more famous for his fluid sexuality than his talent. I don’t care about either.
Instead, I place my portfolio on the table, feeling unexpectedly nervous. I haven’t had to present my work for years – my reputation brings me all the court gigs I can handle. But this is new.
‘My own greatest hits,’ I say.
He unzips it, leafs through a few of the pages, then gives me another lingering look.
‘I love your style. And your colour palette is so vivid. It’s much more expressive than the other court artist’s . . . What’s her name? Marjorie?’
‘Maureen.’
I wonder if he pretended to forget my name when he spoke to her. She’d have liked that.
‘Are you friends or enemies?’ he asks, with a twinkle.
‘Neither. She’s my main competition. When a case is big enough, we’re usually hired by rival organisations, though these days she tends to be hired by the Press Association, to serve the papers, and I’m mostly exclusive to the BBC.’
‘The BBC made the right call,’ he says. ‘You’ve got way more talent – your colours sing . . . Would you consider oils for this commission?’
Goosebumps form on my skin and I can smell the tarry stink of turpentine.
‘I prefer pastels for my sketches. Acrylics for something longer term.’
‘OK. Let’s see how it balances out.’
‘Who else is involved?’
‘There’s a guy who does e-fits as the day job but draws Manga in his spare time. And a forensics boffin who rebuilds corpses but trained as a sculptor. People love to know about the people behind the investigations. Who is the real Georgia? What motivates her?’
I bristle. ‘I thought the focus was on our work. Not us as people?’
‘Oh, the art is definitely what will sell the book,’ he backtracks seamlessly. ‘We all remember the best courtroom sketches – they have a way of working their way into the public consciousness. Far more than photos, I’d say. But readers will love to get a window into that world, and the minds of the artists themselves. When did you first realise you had a gift?’
‘I wouldn’t call it a gift . . .’
‘Come on. There must have been a moment when a teacher spotted your talent in a sea of dreadful stick men?’
Miss Hamilton.
I haven’t thought about her for years.
‘I started to get serious about my painting at secondary school. I certainly wasn’t a prodigy.’
He nods. ‘And did you consider other careers in art before focusing on the underbelly? Maureen told me she came to the courts because she had a thing about men in uniform.’
I pull a face. ‘Really?’
‘Disturbing, right? But what about you? Do your parents work in law?’
‘My parents are dead.’
‘Shit. I’m sorry.’ Benjamin flinches. ‘Well, of course, it’s not just your story. It’s the stories your images tell. Which cases would you like to revisit?’
‘The Daisy Moritz case was my best known.’ I lean across to show him the sketches I did of a film actress accused of paying two thugs to attack a rival and destroy her looks. ‘A real Hollywood tale. She got out last year. I’d love to see how prison changed her. She’ll do it, I’m sure. I bet she’s missing the spotlight.’
But Benjamin is shaking his head.
‘Maureen got in before you, I’m afraid. Two peas in a pod, her and dear Daisy. Any other ideas?’
I take the portfolio back and point out some of the more notorious figures I’ve sketched: a drummer accused of supplying drugs that killed a groupie; a political power couple convicted of blackmail; a miserable coward who shot seven students but lacked the guts to turn the gun on himself.
‘Hmm. Perhaps.’
‘Is there a case you have in mind, Benjamin?’
He smiles. ‘Am I that transparent? We did have a thought, actually. Remember the Christmas Eve arson case? I believe it was quite early in your career. We might see a real change in your style, between now and then.’
‘Daniel Fielding?’ His name makes the goosebumps prickle up again. ‘Yes. He was my first big case. But no one wants to see a portrait of him, surely?’
‘No, we’d want you to paint his father, Jim. Between you and me, we’re even considering it as a possible cover. What he did really resonated with people. Unless you prefer painting villains to heroes?’
‘I can make an exception.’
Instantly, I see Jim Fielding more clearly than the man across the table from me. Bulky, rough around the edges, but a hero for sure. He’d fought his way through his own burning house to rescue two children he’d been babysitting. But he was too late to save his wife from the fire his own son had started. It was the cruellest act with no clear motive.
‘He was an unforgettable witness.’
Benjamin nods. ‘Readers would love to know how a person can survive something so devastating. Have you got the sketches from that case with you?’
I turn to the back of the portfolio and take out the relevant folder. Benjamin inspects them, and my scribbled notes from court.
‘I’d love to include these too. I still can’t believe this is all you have to work from? You must have an amazing memory.’
I shrug. ‘I almost got done for contempt before I knew the rules. I was at art school, doing a project inspired by Lombroso – he was an army doctor who thought you could recognise criminal tendencies from facial features. I decided to go to the Bailey to sketch criminals myself. It was a journalist who saw me drawing and warned me to stop. But he liked what I’d sketched and asked if I could work from memory. That’s how it all started.’
It’s not, of course. But it’s the story I’ve concocted for Georgia.
‘Fascinating.’ Benjamin puts on his reading glasses and squints at a lined page. ‘Looks like a firm but fair chief of police, or a godfather with a heart of gold. I love it!’
‘I don’t know if Jim Fielding would want to do it, though,’ I say. ‘Who would want to revisit the worst time in their life?’
‘You’d think that, but most of the people we’ve approached to sit for the book so far are flattered. There’s something special about a portrait. Especially if the painter looks like you do.’
I don’t react to the smarmy compliment.
‘I don’t know . . .’
‘Look, I’ll get in touch with Fielding, it always comes better from us. People love the letterhead, the London address. Though as he’s not a celebrity, there’ll be no sitting fee. Daisy bloody Moritz has already taken most of my contingency budget. And he’s only in Gloucestershire, isn’t he? Should keep your travel costs down.’
‘OK.’
I smile sweetly, thinking of the huge bouquets in reception, and what this glass palace must cost in rent. I don’t miss the daily deceits London requires of people. I can’t wait to get home.
‘Brilliant, brilliant. And don’t worry about having to reveal too much about yourself. Maureen has already given me chapter and verse on her life story, but you’re the more serious artist and, if you don’t mind my saying, the more talented one. It’ll be a nice contrast to let your work speak for itse
lf.’
8
The train home is quiet, and I find a table to myself, plonking down the heavy bag of free books Benjamin gave me.
‘We can’t pay much, but you’ll never be short of ghostwritten memoirs to gift to people you don’t like at Christmas.’
I pour red wine from a mini bottle to celebrate my first ever book commission. Maybe he was bullshitting about the cover, but I let myself imagine Maureen’s face when she finds out my painting is the one they choose.
Most of the time, it doesn’t bother me that I am alone, but tonight I wish there was someone to join the celebration. I consider calling Oli, but he’ll be home by now, and I don’t want to intrude on the time he and Imogen have left before the baby arrives.
Who else could I call? My foster-parents, maybe, but I cut ties too long ago for things ever to be the same. And no one at art school stayed in touch after I dropped out to do the court sketching full-time.
I wonder if Miss Hamilton would remember me. The image of her in the meeting was so vivid: her eyebrows shooting up past her tortoiseshell specs as I showed her my work in my first art class at secondary school. The first person to notice that I could really draw.
‘Your faces are wonderfully expressive, Suzanne. Such bright colours – you’re going to love using oil paint. Your pictures make me feel happy when I look at them. That’s an extraordinary gift.’
Has she ever seen the miserable sketches I draw now, and felt a sense of déjà vu? Though she wouldn’t have recognised the name – I left Suzanne behind years ago.
My plastic cup is empty already so I pour the last of the wine. Through the window, the shimmer of London gives way to terracotta suburbs, and then the chartreuse glow of Sussex fields. The countryside here reminds me of home.
Don’t go there.
I take the R v Fielding folder out of my portfolio. Inside are copies of the ten finished drawings I did for the Press Association during the trial.
My first image shocks me. It’s thirteen years since I’ve seen it. Sometimes, the papers do use the later sketches when they dredge the case up again, on the anniversary of the fire. But they never use this picture, because in it, Daniel Fielding looks innocent.