Joy had pretty much curled up on her mattress for the first fortnight in the wake of the double blow that was Christy’s release and Shay’s request for a divorce. Though slowly but surely, she crawled herself back to her feet. And because Linda had such willingness to have a companion whilst in prison, she pushed Joy to get off her bed and try to take a rein on the Crazies.
Aside from the grey Nancy-shaped cloud that was hanging over her, Joy was starting to gain some semblance of prison normality. Though images of her husband bedding a younger, hotter model sometimes tainted her thoughts.
She was literally thinking of Shay while flicking her way through the previous day’s copy of the Irish Daily Star when he stared right back at her. Her mouth popped open. And she had to stand to soak him all in. A headshot of him was placed below a headline that read:
Stapleton ends engagement
She whizzed through the story, sucked in by the quotes from a ‘close family friend’ who suggested Shay had gotten cold feet not long after asking young veterinarian Jennifer Stevenson to marry him because he was so overcome with a heavy and nauseating sense of disloyalty to his sons.
‘That’s why he hasn’t sent in the divorce papers,’ Joy whispered to herself, ‘he doesn’t need a divorce anymore.’
‘Huh?’ Linda asked, overhearing her friend’s mumbling.
Joy looked at her, then sucked in her cheeks and turned the newspaper around so Linda could see it.
‘I feel so sorry for him,’ Joy said, almost sobbing as she sat back down on the worn sofa next to Linda. ‘Almost as sorry as I feel for myself. Neither of us deserved this mess of a life we got. We were so happy… honestly Linda – the two of us really were so happy.’
Linda threw an arm around Joy and they both sat in silence, Shay’s aged face staring back at them from the newspaper, until the mumbling of voices behind them began to rise in volume. Then a screeching and a howling sounded.
Joy and Linda both turned to look over their shoulder at the gathering crowd, and when the crowd parted, there she stood. Nancy Trott. High-fiving members of her cohorts with a grin stretched wide across her face.
‘Bollocks!’ Joy whispered out of the side of her mouth.
1,805 days ago…
‘Not hungry?’ Linda asked.
Joy shrugged her shoulders, then played around with her spoon, patting it down repeatedly to crush her Corn Flakes.
‘Nope.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Been dreading her coming back,’ Joy said nodding over to the bench in the middle of the dining room to where Nancy had her cohorts in fits of giggles.
‘We’ve just got to keep our heads down like we always have. We don’t need to talk to them or do anything with them. Same as always. Besides, that bitch isn’t going to cause any drama is she? She’s only just back from isolation… she won’t wanna be going back there again.’
Joy sighed, then pushed her bowl away.
She liked Linda. A lot. Linda was one of the Crazies most awed by Christy’s visions. And because Christy had a vision that Oscar and Reese weren’t killed by their mother, it meant Linda truly believed in Joy’s innocence. But she didn’t admire Linda. Not the way she wanted to admire a best friend. Not the way she admired Christy, even though she thought her bat-shit crazy. And certainly not how she once admired Lavinia. Lavinia could be bitchy and judgemental, but she never allowed anybody to control her. Linda was weak in comparison to the types of women Joy liked to be around. And she knew all too well that if Nancy started something, there would be fuck all her new best buddy could do about it.
‘Okay, listen up,’ boomed a voice.
Joy looked up to see Nancy stepping onto the table she had been sat at, before she began to clatter a wooden spoon against one of the kitchen’s soup pots.
‘Get down from there,’ Aidan cut in, ordering Nancy with a wave of his hand.
She grinned at the prison officer, then took one step down so she was standing on the bench she had just been sitting on, and not the table top.
‘Ah… I see you’ve grown some balls over the weeks I’ve been away, Aidan. Heard you got yourself a promotion, too.’ Then she clanged the soup pot again with the wooden spoon before she began to shout. ‘Girls. I am calling a truce in Elm House. There is no need for there to be separate groups among us. We are all one. All in this shithole together. So, let’s get through it together, yes?’
A chorus of ‘yeses’ erupted from around Nancy, but the Crazies table at the far end of the dining room remained mostly subdued, save for some mumbling.
‘For the past three years, we’ve had two separate factions on this wing. That ends today!’ Hurrahs and applauses rippled around Nancy. ‘Some of you only have a couple of months to serve, some of you a couple of years… some of you gonna be here the rest of your lives.’ Joy looked up through her curls at Nancy, assuming she was talking not only about her, but to her. But Nancy barely looked her way. ‘Wherever you are in your sentence, whatever time you have left to serve, you are going to serve it in a peaceful wing. No more Nancy’s Cohorts. No more Christie’s Crazies… not now that Queen Crazy herself is no longer with us. We are Elm House. That’s the only group name we need. Though having said that, every group needs a leader. And while I believe in democracy, I also believe in power. So, ladies – and gentleman,’ she said, eyeballing Aidan with a grin as he stood looking helplessly up at her, his hands on his hips, ‘I will be the leader of prisoners in Elm House and I promise to represent each and every prisoner in here equally. I will represent the guilty, the innocent, the thieves, the murderers.’ Joy glanced at Nancy again. But Nancy still hadn’t looked her way. ‘Don’t matter who you are or how you got here. We are all in this together, and we will all get through this together. But…’ she said, before pausing and sucking on her lips, ‘I can’t do it alone. I can’t keep track of ninety women all by myself… so I need me a deputy.’ The hurrahs roared from the benches around Nancy, lasting so long she had to calm them down with a wave of her hands. ‘Now, I’ve had a long time cooked up in an isolation cell to think about this. And I know who my deputy should be.’ The raucous chanting around Nancy died, and there seemed to be a synchronized sucking in of breaths. ‘So, without further ado, I give to you, Elm House, your new deputy leader. The one. The only. Missus Joy Stapleton.’
This time, when Joy looked up through her curls, Nancy wasn’t only staring at her, but pointing her wooden spoon at her. Then Nancy started to clank the spoon against the soup pot again, generating louder cheering from those all flanked around her that created such a raucous noise that Aidan had no choice but to squeeze at the button of the walkie talkie on his shoulder and frantically ask for assistance.
❖
‘Judge Delia, you’re due back in court now – it’s two-thirty.’
Delia rises to her feet and stabs a finger at the standby button of her computer monitor, all in a bit of a fluster, knocking over the already-smashed photo of her family again.
‘Coming, Aisling,’ she calls out.
She picks up the photo, rests it on the table, then sweeps away teeny glass shards from her desk with her hand before eyeballing the two men standing opposite her.
‘Protect the verdict, Delia,’ Eddie grunts.
She doesn’t respond. Instead, she spins around, pulls at the bottom drawer under her library shelves and takes out a fresh robe.
‘Mum, we need to sit down and talk this through,’ Callum says as she yanks the robe over her head where it gets caught on her glasses that she had, once again, forgotten she’d combed back into her hair.
‘In case you haven’t bloody noticed, Callum,’ Delia whisper-shouts through the robe, ‘I’m in the middle of one of the biggest trials in the history of these courts.’ She frees herself, by yanking the robe fully down, revealing her face again. ‘I have to sit down and listen to everybody. The witnesses. The lawyers. And now you want me to sit down and listen to you, Callum. And you Eddie. Over what… st
upid bloody blackmail games? How dare you. How fucking dare you, Eddie Taunton.’
She swipes her door open, startling Aisling, and begins to pace down the corridor.
‘Mum, Mum,’ Callum calls, racing until he catches up with her just as she’s turning on to the long corridor.
‘He’s right. We’re all in a mess,’ he says. ‘And you’re the only one who can clean the mess up. You can’t let that video get out. It’ll ruin my career. I’ll never be seen as a serious contender in the courts.’
Delia keeps pacing, saying nothing, her breathing heavy. She notices the young woman dressed in black up ahead open the courtroom side door and nod into it. Then the call goes up.
‘All rise.’
‘Mum, please.’
Delia stops, grabs her son by the collar of his shirt and pins him against the wall.
‘Shut up, Callum,’ she says. ‘I have a trial to judge.’
She stares into his eyes before releasing her grip. Then she turns around and smiles at the young woman dressed in black before she paces into the courtroom and up the three steps that lead to her highchair.
Courtrooms are normally silent, save for the hum of the air conditioning machines. But there certainly seems to be a stretched sense of eeriness in this courtroom today. Maybe it’s because the trial is at the half-way mark and minds are working overtime – soaking in the entirety of the defence’s arguments. Though the eeriness is most likely down to the impact of Shay Stapleton’s testimony this morning. It had cast a huge wave of emotion right through the room. And it doesn’t seem as if that wave has fully receded. Not yet anyway.
Delia gulps when she finds the correct hymn sheet she is supposed to be singing from and when she pulls the page out from the middle of her pile and stares at the name on it, she lightly gasps. She hadn’t realised such contrasting testimony would follow Shay Stapleton’s. Had she been paying more attention to the trial, instead of getting caught up in Eddie Taunton’s games, she likely wouldn’t have allowed the next witness. Not today. Because whatever emotional wave Shay had tsunamied over this courtroom this morning was about to come right back the other way.
‘Mr Ryan,’ Delia calls out. ‘The trial turns to the evidence the prosecution will argue. Can you please call your first witness?’
‘Of course, thank you,’ Ryan says, standing and straightening the knot of his tie. ‘Your Honour, we call Lavinia Kirwan to the stand.’
The back doors of the courtroom sweep open and in the large doorframe, silhouetted, stands a tiny figure. Lavinia can’t be much taller than Joy, if at all. But she’s not ‘all hair’ like Joy is. Her hair, fine and mousy brown in colour, is swept back into a tight bun.
Delia notices as the witness walks up the aisle that she doesn’t once acknowledge the defendant. Lavinia stares straight ahead as she is sworn in. Then she sits her boney frame into the oversized square witness box and tilts the microphone lower.
‘Ms Kirwan, thank you for taking the time to be with us here today,’ Jonathan Ryan says. ‘You met Joy Stapleton when you were… how old?’
‘We were four, I guess. First year of primary school.’
‘And you are now aged… if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘Thirty-six… I just turned thirty-six earlier this week as it happens.’
‘Well… many happy returns, Ms Kirwan. So… even with my bad maths, that tells me you have known Mrs Stapleton for thirty-two years, correct?’
‘Even with my bad maths, I believe you are correct, Mr Ryan, yes.’
‘Okay. So, you have known her much longer than Shay Stapleton has known her, right?’
‘Your Honour,’ Mr Bracken shouts, scooting himself to his feet. ‘This is not a competition between witnesses.’
‘I agree. No need,’ Delia says turning to Jonathan Ryan. She knew what he was getting at; knew he just wanted to point out that this testimony was just as worthy, if not more so, than the emotional heart-tugging testimony offered up by the defendant’s husband this morning.
‘Okay… well thirty-two years, nonetheless. And you were best friends all that time?’
‘Yeah. I mean everybody in primary school was best friends so I’m not sure I had one best friend at that stage. But by the time we got to secondary school, me and Joy used to walk with each other to and from school every day and we became really close. We shared most of our teen years in each other’s bedrooms listening to boybands.’
‘So, you know her as much as anybody, it’s fair to say.’
‘I would say so, yes,’ Lavinia replies.
‘Well then, let me ask this question: do you believe the jurors in the original trial in which Joy Stapleton was convicted for the murder of her two sons, Reese and Oscar Stapleton, got their verdict correct?’
‘Objection,’ Bracken calls.
‘Ma’am,’ Ryan says, ‘I am not asking an independent witness. I am asking the opinion of a witness who we have just proven has known the defendant for over three decades.’
‘Not allowed, Mr Ryan. Be careful with your line of questioning,’ Delia says.
Ryan stares back at the judge, his eyebrow creased. She knows she’s already been harsher with him than she has been with Bracken though this trial. But that’s because it’s justified. Bracken is better at skirting around the legalities of what is and what isn’t appropriate when it comes to lines of questioning. Ryan’s turn of phrases in trying to get his witness’s points across aren’t quite as subtle or mastered. She understands what he is trying to do; open up by having Lavinia explain how close her and Joy were, then hitting the judge with the whopping gut-punch that Lavinia has believed all along that her best friend is guilty of these murders. But he’ll have to go about it another way.
‘Okay, well, let me put it to you this way, Ms Kirwan… Since Reese and Oscar Stapleton were reported missing, you have gone on record to say you felt Joy was acting differently to how she normally acts, is that correct?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Can you elaborate?’
‘There wasn’t any standout moments where I thought, “Wow, Joy is losing it.” I don’t have absolute proof. It’s just small things. Things that maybe only a best friend would notice. She was off schedule in different ways. She used to obsess about time… she’d never be late, would Joy. But in the months leading up to Oscar and Reese going missing, she just always seemed to be late. She’d never turn up to anything on time. And she got more forgetful.’
Joy lets an audible sigh erupt from the back of her throat. The only time she’s made a peep throughout the entirety of this retrial. And it stuns the court into a silence.
Lavinia Kirwan
He nods at the judge, then readjusts his standing position to face me again.
‘Okay, well, let me put it to you this way, Ms Kirwan… Since Reese and Oscar Stapleton were reported missing, you have gone on record to say you felt Joy was acting differently to how she normally acts, is that correct?’
‘Yes, it is,’ I reply, without hesitating. Just as we’d rehearsed.
‘Can you elaborate?’
I sit more upright.
‘There wasn’t any standout moments where I thought, ‘Wow, Joy is losing it,’ I say. ‘I don’t have absolute proof. It’s just small things. Things that maybe only a best friend would notice. She was off schedule. In different ways. She used to obsess about time… she’d never be late, would Joy. But in the months leading up to Oscar and Reese going missing, she just always seemed to be late. She’d never turn up to anything on time. And she got more forgetful.’
There’s a beat of silence before she gasps. Loudly. Like, loudly enough for everybody in the courtroom to hear. It makes me instantly snap a stare at her – the first time I’ve seen those eyes in over a decade. She’s aged. Definitely. Her skin is a lot paler – almost like milk. And her hands look really wrinkled. Much more wrinkled than mine. I might even be prettier than she is now. If we went out to some pub or club tonight, maybe I’d be the one w
ho got all the attention.
The court has stayed silent since her gasp. I don’t really react but to stare at her. I’m not going to let that murderous bitch intimidate me while I’m up here. Typical Joy though. Trying to steal the limelight from me.
‘Okay,’ the judge calls out. ‘Mrs Stapleton, if you could refrain from making any noises.’
Then the judge nods back at Jonathan Ryan and he readjusts his feet to face me again.
‘Can you give the court any specifics on Joy Stapleton getting more forgetful and not being herself in the lead up to Oscar and Reese being reported missing?’
‘There was one time that I was supposed to meet her and the two boys in Dundrum shopping centre. We were supposed to meet at one p.m., so we could have lunch together. She didn’t get there till gone two… about ten past two. I ate alone. Other times she would phone me and then we’d be on the call for a few minutes and when I asked why she’d rung, she’d say she’d forgotten. I could tell her mind was going a bit… a bit different. She was tired all the time.’
‘Tired?’
‘Yes. She wasn’t getting much sleep. She’d do all the night feeds. Shay was rarely there and on the rare occasion he was, it was still all left up to her. I think Shay’s idea of having kids was old-school and traditional. He thought his role as a father was to genuinely just assume that the mother did everything.’
‘Objection.’ Bracken shouts.
‘It’s pertinent,’ the judge says, staring down at me again. I can understand why Bracken objected to that; I’m not here to testify about Shay’s parental abilities, and he’s not the one on trial. I don’t hold anything against him. Never have. So, he wasn’t a great husband or a father… big deal. Neither was my father. But that never turned my mother into a killer. Truth is, I never really got close with Shay. I would have liked to, and in fact I actually fancied him long before Joy happened to bump into him in town one night, but he was the type of guy who didn’t really hang out with his girlfriend’s best friends; the type who wouldn’t even make the effort to. He was a lad’s lad. As most sports stars are. He’d spend his time either hanging out with his teammates or being away in some plush hotel for work. Sure, if he rarely had the time for his wife and kids, how could he ever have had the time for his wife’s best friend?
The Coincidence (The Trial Trilogy) Page 14