‘She’s stopped with the Joy is Innocent campaign, haven’t you?’ Nancy said, joining the group. Joy slowly nodded her head while still staring at the concrete floor. ‘Okay… I need you, Joy. C’mon with me.’
Like the sheep she had morphed into, Joy followed Nancy out of the TV room and down the narrow landing that led to the laundry room at the back of Elm House.
She wondered, as she walked, how she had allowed Nancy to distract her from the Joy is Innocent campaign. While that candle was still burning on social media channels and in pockets of the outside world, Joy had pretty much given up the ghost. Nancy had tried to convince her that the lawyers were only looking out for themselves; that there was no chance of Joy’s sentence ever being overturned, simply because the justice system wouldn’t allow it. They couldn’t allow it. It would make them look inept.
‘You’re fucked no matter what you do,’ Nancy had told her repeatedly. ‘They ain’t never gonna acquit you, it’d bring the whole system down. There’d be outrage around the whole country if they thought an innocent young mother had been put behind bars for killing her own kids. You just keep focused on spending your time in here and forget about those scum lawyers, ya hear me?’
So intimidated by Nancy, Joy had even begun to turn down meetings with her lawyers and resigned herself to being inside for the rest of her life.
‘What’s this?’ Joy whispered after Nancy had led her behind the tumble dryers. Barbara and Rosemary were sat on the ground, their backs against the wall, their knees up by their ears.
‘This is… this is introduction class,’ Nancy replied.
‘Introduction… an introduction to who?’
‘Mr Crystal.’
‘Huh?’ Joy replied. What are you talking…’
She tailed off her sentence because she noticed Barbara was crunching tiny crystals into rizla papers that were resting on her crotch.
Joy shook her curls.
‘No. I can’t. I’m not—’
‘Oh yes you are, girl,’ Nancy said, gripping Joy by the back of the neck and squeezing hard.
When the meth joint had been rolled, Nancy took it from Rosemary and held it in front of Joy’s face.
‘I, eh… I don’t even know what to—’
‘It’s just like smoking a cigarette, Joy. You’ll be fine. If you’re gonna be shifting this for me, you need to know what it’s all about.’
Then Nancy took a lighter from her trouser pocket and sparked it.
❖
Callum sits in the corner of Delia’s office, his back against the wall, his arms hugging his bent knees.
‘You can’t deny that was convincing,’ he says.
‘Callum, for goodness sake – can you just, please, go home?’
‘I’m just saying… that was convincing testimony, that’s all.’
‘I don’t need telling what is and what isn’t convincing testimony, Callum.’ Delia is pacing from side to side on the small square of carpet to the right of her desk.
‘Shay’s testimony was all emotion, Lavinia delivered much more analytical proof—’
‘Shut up, Callum!’ Delia shouts, holding a flat palm to her forehead. ‘I don’t need you to analyse the witnesses in a trial only I am presiding over. And I don’t need your input on a trial only I am experienced enough to judge.’
Callum scrambles himself to his feet and dusts down his numb bum.
‘I’m only trying to help. This is more than just a trial. Lavinia said that was definitely Joy in that CCTV footage. And nobody knows Joy better.’
‘Not even her husband?’
‘Mum… women know women best. You think a sports guy like Shay Stapleton could read the signs of some sort of post partem depression? Or do you think a woman could do that better?’
Delia shakes her head while holding her hands to her hips.
‘Callum, let me just point out that, right now this moment, you are in the midst of explaining to me how women work. Let that sink into your mind. What’s the phrase… mansplaining… yes. You are mansplaining women to a woman.’ Callum holds his eyes closed, then releases a long, slow sigh. ‘This is my trial, Callum. You need to take yourself out of it.’
‘I’m right in it. My bloody whole career is on the line.’
Delia swipes her coat from the standing rack to the side of her office door.
‘You sound like a petulant little boy,’ she says as she throws her arms into the sleeves.
Callum just stands there, staring at his mother, his eyes heavy, his hair all tossed from the countless times he has run his fingers through it.
‘Do you not understand how much this would damage me?’ he says. ‘I can’t believe you are even contemplating listening to the evidence of this trial… just protect the original verdict, Mum. She’s guilty. Stop playing games.’
‘Callum, when you calm down, come home and have some tea. Perhaps go for a long walk, get some fresh air before you decide to come home though, huh?’
Delia pulls her office door open, but she doesn’t get much further, not without her son’s fingers gripping her shoulder.
‘Mum. I want to be just like you. I want to be a judge. I want to preside over the biggest trials these courts have to offer. If I don’t get to be you when I’m older, my career will mean nothing to me. My life will mean nothing to me. I’ve been working up to being a trial judge… hell, you’ve been working me up to being a trial judge ever since I was a teenager. It’s been all laid out for me. A Law degree from Trinity College. A job guaranteed at Wincott & Abbott before I’d even graduated. I am still the youngest ever board member of the Law Society. I’ve been walking the corridors of these courts for almost twenty years. I’ve always been taking the roads that lead to one of these offices. But I’m not going to get here if there is a video on the fucking internet of me pulling the fuckin’ mickey off myself!’
Delia stares over the rim of her glasses at her son. Then she removes his hand from her shoulder and lets it drop.
‘Like I said, Callum… when you calm down, come home and have some tea.’
Delia opens and closes another cupboard and moves on to the next one before slamming that one shut too. Then she sweeps her slippers back to the fridge. Back to where she started.
She shrugs her shoulders, grabs at the bruised apple from the top shelf and takes a large bite from it. Then she chicanes herself around her island, lifts a bottle of Massolino Parussi Barola from her cubed kitchen shelving unit, as well as a long-stem glass, and potters herself down her narrow hallway and into her living room.
It’s an unusual living room. No TV. Instead, in each corner, stands floor-to-ceiling library shelves, filled with books of all sorts; from law manuals and non-fiction psychology, to classical works of fiction going as far back as Aristotle. The shelves reach all the way up to the eleven-foot high ceilings of her Georgian home and come with a sliding ladder. The room is always fully lit and is decorated, in its entirety, in the subtlest of pastel colours – the total opposite of her office in the courts, where it may seem to some visitors as if she is rationing electricity.
She rests the bottle and glass – with the apple gripped between her teeth – on to the drinks tray to the side of her large fireplace, then wrestles with the corkscrew until the cork releases with a pop. And just as she’s about to pour herself a well-earned glass, the key crunches in the front door. She pauses, her eyes squinting, her mouth pursed… until the scent of Black Bean sauce wafts towards her.
‘Thought you might be banging around in the kitchen looking for something to eat,’ Callum says, holding a bulging white plastic bag aloft as he stands in the door frame of the living room.
He winks, then disappears into the kitchen where he makes a racket of himself, before arriving back into the living room with two trays.
Delia stifles a smirk, then she sits on to her floral-patterned couch, and allows Callum to remove the small cartons of food from his plastic bag before placing them on to her tray for
her.
‘So, you took my advice… you came home for some tea after you’d calmed down?’ she says.
Callum snorts out a laugh before racing back into the kitchen. When he returns, he hands his mother a knife and fork before sitting down himself and taking a tray to his lap.
‘How calm am I supposed to be when you are being blackmailed by a video of me masturbating?’ he says. Delia cocks her head as she shovels a forkful of rice into her mouth. ‘But yeah… I’m a little calmer. I, eh… had heard about this sort of thing before. Guys being hacked and caught masturbating when their own laptop camera records them. An old client of mine had told me about it a while back. He’s put me in touch with a private investigator who might have a few answers for us.’ Callum raises his eyebrows, then in the silence that follows, picks up a forkful of rice himself and shovels it into his mouth.
‘Yes. Well… although I have a trial to judge, I want you to know that I am sympathetic to the plight you – we – find ourselves in. But no matter what, I will be judging this trial fairly. How we deal with Eddie Taunton is a separate matter entirely. But I have to judge this trial as I see it in that court room, Callum.’
Callum washes a hand over his face.
‘She’s guilty, Mum. You know she is. You told me before that you’ve always felt she was guilty.’
‘Callum, in case you haven’t noticed, there is a fresh trial on-going with fresh evidence.’
‘The fresh evidence is bullshit, Mum. You know it. I know it. Shay Stapleton’s testimony was nothing more than that of a broken man who just wants this entire nightmare over and done with. Mathieu Dupont is a fit-to-type witness who didn’t even get his measurements right. And Bunny the Dog… I mean, c’mon… This trial was granted on the basis of new evidence… well, we’ve all heard the new evidence and it’s nonsense, Mum. All you have to do is protect the original verdict. Deliver guilty. And we can all move on.’
Delia sighs her nostrils into her glass of wine as she takes a sip, fogging it up.
‘Your father would be ashamed listening to you now, Callum McCormick.’
‘My father would beat the shit out of Eddie Taunton, that’s what he’d do.’
Delia scoffs.
‘Your father never hit a man his whole life.’
‘Well… he would have sorted this mess out in some way.’
Delia heaves a heavy breath, then takes the tray from her lap and places it on the couch next to her; her appetite waning.
‘I’m not sure you know your father as much as you think you do, Callum. He was a superhero alright. But only in the sense that he was a fine trial lawyer. One of the best ever.’
‘He’d certainly have found Lavinia Kirwan’s testimony interesting today, that’s for sure,’ Callum says.
Delia picks up her glass of wine and takes another sip.
‘It was powerful testimony… nobody could deny that. But I’m not going to be deliberating this trial with you, Callum. Not after everything that’s happened. We have to remove ourselves from this. Our fate must be separate from the fate of Joy Stapleton.’
‘But, Mum—’ Callum gets distracted by his phone vibrating in his pocket. He reaches for it, stares at the screen, then stabs at the green button.
‘Hello,’ he says. ‘Callum McCormick speaking.’
His eyes squint as he listens to the voice on the other end of the line, then he places a hand over the receiver.
‘It’s the private eye I was telling you about,’ he whispers.
1,477 days ago…
Joy no longer moved when her cell door clicked open first thing in the mornings. She didn’t have the energy. It’d take her an age to roll over on her mattress before she’d eventually mope herself to her feet. And by the time she’d drag herself into the dining room, all of the best cereals would have been eaten up and only the deformed slices of toast were left. But she’d munch on a crust or two while swigging a glass of water, then head back to her cell to curl into a ball atop her mattress again. Mornings had turned grey for her. It was only in the evenings when she would come alive – because that’s when she’d share a joint with Nancy.
She’d been taking an almost daily hit of meth for nigh on six months; only failing to get her high when Nancy’s source couldn’t follow through with delivering into the prison. Though it was rare when that happened. The majority of the ninety prisoners in Elm House were getting involved and were, like Joy, often walking around like zombies; jaded and fatigued. The screws had picked up on the eerie change in ambience on the wing, but it was pretty much impossible for them to put their finger on why, simply because each and every person under the influence of meth experiences different symptoms; different highs and different lows. Whereas Nancy was chatty and talkative, Tina sat there quiet, with a huge grin stretched across her face. And whereas Linda would go on a spring clean, helping with all sorts of maintenance around the wing, Linda liked to lie on her bed and get lost in a book. Joy, well, she would float around the landings of the wing, sometimes checking in with Nancy to laugh at her jokes; sometimes annoying Linda by asking what her book was about. She liked the evenings, did Joy; liked the airy sensation her mind would float into as soon as she sucked an inhale of meth to the back of her throat. But the mornings – the hangovers – they were tough for her to handle. Her head would be heavy, and her posture would slouch. And she couldn’t care to summon up enough energy to engage with any of her fellow inmates. Nor any of the prison officers. Her and Aidan had long since been buddies. He would drop by to talk to her, but not as frequently as he used to do. Joy certainly felt safer when he was with her, but there was always the nagging feeling that Nancy would catch them talking and then have to deal with Joy later by slapping her or kicking at her shins.
‘Where you off to?’ Mathilda asked as Joy was slouching her way back to her cell, munching on the last of her crusts.
‘Just gonna lie back down,’ Joy said. ‘Is that a crime?’
‘It’s not a crime,’ Mathilda said, ‘but that’s not where you’re going.’
‘Huh?’ Joy creased her brow into a vertical wrinkle; though she was starting to do that so often that the crease was becoming a permanent fixture.
‘You’ve got a visitor. He’s been here bright and early, demanding he talk to you. He’s up in the Governor’s office right now. Been told to bring you to him.’
‘Who is he?’ Mathilda shrugged. ‘S’not my husband, is it?’
Mathilda shrugged again.
‘I’ve told you all I know. Now, come on, follow me.’
‘I’m, eh… really not feeling up for a visitor. I’ve got a splitting headache and I—’
Mathilda scoffed and scowled.
‘I’m not asking you. I’m ordering you. Now come on, we’re heading to the Governor’s office. And may I just say, Joy, if you don’t mind, but,’ she sniffed up her nose, ‘you look and smell like shit.’
Joy looked down at herself, taking in the stained tracksuit bottoms she hadn’t bothered to wash for months, even though she was literally working in the laundry room five days a week. Then she heaved out a depressing sigh, before pacing after Mathilda. She knew she looked like shit; knew she was wasting her life by feeling so shitty for the first half of every day, then high as a kite for the second half. But she couldn’t help herself. The gravitas of meth was, as it is for most, too alluring. Once she’d felt the high of the drug for the very first time, she couldn’t help but keep coming back for more. They all did. Nancy let slip to Joy once that she was taking in over five grand a month; all distributed through outside channels. If the prisoner couldn’t have somebody on the outside transfer money into Nancy’s account for them, then they simply didn’t get their fix. Though some desperate inmates would do Nancy the odd finger favour every now and then, just to get their high. But only the ones she fancied. Joy was told her fix of the drug in the evenings was payment enough for her distribution of the drug. Though she really didn’t care. Money was insignificant to h
er. She was never going to experience the outside world again. Whereas Nancy, despite being inside for attempted murder, would have a chance of parole at some stage… whenever that time would come.
Joy would spend some mornings, with her head and heart heavy, wishing Nancy would disappear one day, just like Christy had. But that day never seemed to come around. And it didn’t look as if it was going to come around any day soon. Not with the multiple misdemeanours Nancy kept getting picked up for in prison.
It wasn’t all bad. Some of the times she spent with Nancy could be fun. They had a smart phone hidden at the back of the laundry room and would spend their time, while taking their hit of meth, doubled up in laughter while watching random YouTube videos.
When they first realised they could access the prison’s Wi-Fi, they spent their time watching epic fail clips; giggling away at models tripping over on catwalks, or toddlers getting hit on the head with footballs. As inevitably happens when granted access to the internet, their searches eventually took them down the rabbit hole everybody ends up going down. It was Nancy who had suggested it. She was horny – one of her side effects of meth. And Joy agreed. Because she was suffering the same side effect. They’d giggle along as they watched middle-aged men with oversized cocks fuck young women with bald pussies until they returned to their cells to bring themselves to their own climaxes. But one night Nancy didn’t want to wait until she got back to her cell.
She shuffled herself out of her tracksuit bottoms and pulled down her stained knickers, revealing a fiery-red bush. Then she began to play with herself while Joy giggled along, high as a kite. The night after that, Nancy didn’t bother to do the work herself; instead, she grabbed Joy’s hand and pushed it against her pubic bone, then began to roll it around in a circular motion. Joy held her eyes closed, while still grinning from her high, and only really reacted when Nancy curled one of her fingers against Joy’s and slowly began to enter it into herself.
The Coincidence (The Trial Trilogy) Page 16