by Ruth Mancini
I think to myself: Trumped already by Martin’s injuries. Here we go.
The judge continues: “I am of the view that this is an important part of the prosecution’s case against Ms Taylor, and that it is more probative than it is prejudicial. Now, any more applications before we hear the evidence?”
I clear my throat loudly and Dan turns round.
I shake my head at him through the glass window of the dock. I can’t allow him to make a counter-application about Martin’s violence towards Catherine. I know that Dan’s probably right when he says it’s all too long ago to be truly relevant. But, more than that, I can’t force Catherine onto the stand, with Martin and Sky watching her, not this late, not without any kind of warning. I don’t want to ask that of her. Martin has done this deliberately, I’m guessing. He’d still fight me from his deathbed, by the looks of things.
*
Martin takes the stand. He could have asked to give his evidence via video-link, Dan has told me, but, no. In true Martin fashion, he wants to be there in person. Why would he miss the opportunity to see the look on my face as he spins his web of lies? That’s part of his payoff. He’ll gain great enjoyment from it, and yet again, he will be fully aware that I know this about him.
I refuse to look at him throughout his evidence, and focus my eyes instead on the judge and jury. They are surprisingly impassive as they hear the details of Martin’s injuries in full technicolour detail. It’s like an episode of Embarrassing Bodies – and I know, without looking, that Martin’s not just telling them, he’s showing them too.
When he’s finished with his injuries, he gives a long and convincing account of my neurotic behaviour over the past twelve months. He starts with his shock and delight after having found out about Helena just over a year ago, and about Sky’s entreaty that he shouldn’t let on that he knew about Helena, ‘because I was off my head and would go mental,’ – Sky’s words, apparently.
He then details my harassment of him and Lindsay, with the silent phone calls to his girlfriend, my lies to her about Sky’s wallet, my aggressive behaviour towards him when I’d taken the wallet round there, and my descent from jealousy into rage after I’d barged my way into his home, flown at him and scratched his cheek, made threats towards him, and then frightened the life out of him in his own kitchen, by picking up one of his kitchen knives and waving it under his nose. He gives a number of other more recent instances that I’ve never even heard of, times when I’m alleged to have been round to his house and lurked in the garden, or when I’ve phoned him and asked him to stay away from my daughter, none of which Helena has known about, apparently, because he’s had to keep the full extent of my irrational behaviour from her, for her own good. It’s obviously stuff that he’s just thought of, because it’s not in his statement, but, as previously, the judge gives him plenty of latitude because of the state he’s been in.
It’s painful to hear, all of this, not just because it’s all lies, but also because his voice has been genuinely affected by the accident and the tracheotomy scar that still hasn’t healed. His voice is rough and croaky, and he keeps on having to stop to catch his breath, more than one of his ribs having also been broken, and his lung having been pierced, when my car crushed him against the wall.
I glance briefly across at him – just for one snatch of a second when I can tell that he will be appealing directly to the jury – and I can see that he perfectly fits the vivid picture of himself that he has painted: the gentle, broken victim of my crazy obsession. He does indeed look broken. He looks old and thin. He is seated, of course, instead of standing to give his evidence, but I can still see that his back is hunched over awkwardly and that his muscles have wasted away. He is the injured party in so many ways that I am almost convinced for the second time since the trial began that I need to give up now, plead guilty and accept my fate. How can I compete with this? But then I think, once again, of how Helena’s life would be with him, without me, and I even wonder what sort of a person she might become.
So, instead, I take deep breaths and I listen carefully, as Dan has told me to do, while Dan challenges Martin’s account of what I’ve done. Martin is polite and steadfast. He doesn’t get angry, when Dan suggests that he is in fact the obsessive one, the control freak, the liar. He simply sticks to his story and tells Dan that he is wrong.
When Dan suggests that he has jumped into the road in front of me, in order to set me up and get me arrested and away from Helena, he shakes his head and goes into a coughing fit that lasts so long that more than one person in the court room, including a nurse, is moved to jump up to help him. His evidence is perfect, as I’d known all along that it would be. He has the stage, he has captured the audience and now, of course, he has all of the props.
On day three, when Martin has finally finished, Helena takes the stand. She looks terrified and speaks far too quietly as she takes the oath and gives her name to the court, so that the judge has to ask her to raise her voice. Suddenly, she looks across at me, standing there in the dock, and she bites her lip and gives me a hint of a smile. This encourages me. She is about to give her evidence against me, like the good truthful girl I have always taught her to be and she is, no doubt, confused as hell. But it seems she doesn’t hate me. It’s the first good thing to have happened, so far.
Her evidence, when it comes, is unbiased. She simply describes what she saw, what she heard, how she felt on finding her bleeding father lying in the street. She recounts to the court several of the things that I’ve said or done in the past year or so which make me sound undeniably crazy, along with many other things that I am alleged to have told Martin since then, that make me look crazier still. But her evidence isn’t dressed up or dramatised for an emotional reaction, in the same way that Martin’s was, and when Dan gently challenges her as to the truth of some of these ‘conversations’ (“You didn’t actually hear your mother say that, though, did you Helena?”), she readily agrees that that is correct.
When she steps down from the witness box and walks past me to the back of the courtroom, I am able to see just how tired and pale and thin she is, thinner than I have ever seen her in her life. We’ve all suffered so much, because of him, I tell myself angrily. Every one of us, because of him – him and Sky.
Sky is something else altogether. Much of his evidence is made up of hearsay and speculation, and Dan pulls him to shreds with ease. I feel mortified for Catherine, who is sitting just a few feet away from me, but I am inwardly jubilant, knowing that Sky’s constant interruptions of Dan’s questions and his emotional outbursts when challenged are scoring him no points whatsoever with the jury. He comes across as an angry and rebellious young man who is prepared to bend the truth to please his father – and, of course, he is all of those things. Dan’s cross examination is excellent, and on a personal level I feel more than vindicated for all Sky’s past unpleasantness towards me. But I know that there is no cause for celebration just yet; the case against me remains strong. Martin’s evidence was elaborate and compelling, and I know that the prosecutor has yet to get her claws into me.
There are several statements from police officers, hospital staff and civilian witnesses who had come across the scene following the crash. Some had heard the impact when I’d hit the wall, some had seen both Martin and me, laying there injured, but nobody had witnessed how it had happened – at least not the crucial moment, the moment of Martin’s kamikaze leap of faith. These statements are therefore simply read out to the court, uncontested by Dan. The prosecution case is nearly over. It’s gone quicker than I’d expected but I’m exhausted. It’s completely draining. If the jury have been concentrating as hard as I have, they must all be shattered too.
As Zara and I leave the court building on the Thursday evening, my attention is drawn to a small woman in a coat and headscarf, who is almost running through security and out of the doors ahead of us. She looks incongruous. It’s August; why is she wearing a coat? Some instinct makes me hurry out after he
r and look to see which direction the woman is taking. Zara runs to catch up with me and I grab her arm and pull her in the direction the woman has gone. I can see her; she’s just disappearing round the corner into Battlebridge Lane, and up towards the Thames. She must have, literally, run to get there that quickly. I want to follow her, but I decide not to run after her. The door is open and the security staff are watching. I’m a defendant in an attempted murder trial and any sudden movements on my part might create the wrong impression.
As we round the corner, I scan the path next to the river for a glimpse of the woman, but she’s gone. There are hundreds of people milling around, but she’s nowhere to be seen. She must have run pretty fast.
“Did you see that?” I ask Zara. “That woman?”
“The one in the coat and scarf?”
“Yes. It was a bit odd, don’t you think? Her running like that?”
“Yeah. She must be baking. It’s a bit hot for what she was wearing.”
I nod. “Very strange.”
Dan and Sarah have asked me to wait for them as we need a further conference and Zara persuades me to wait at the bar next to the court and to have a drink while we’re there. I’m only drinking orange juice; I need to keep a clear head. Dan comes in with Sarah after a short while and we sit at a table in the corner. Zara sits up at the bar across the room. I’m not allowed to discuss the case with her before she’s given her evidence, nor is she allowed to be party to my conferences with my lawyers.
“How are you feeling?” Sarah asks.
“Scared,” I tell her.
Dan nods. “We’re calling the experts tomorrow. That should take us into the weekend. I think you’ll be up on Monday, so we need to go over your evidence in relation to the ‘knife incident’ again.”
“The ‘knife incident’,” I repeat. “It just makes me sound so guilty.”
“It doesn’t help us,” Dan admits. “Martin’s the ultimate victim. He’s weak and wasted. His legs don’t work and his back’s broken. It’ll be very hard for the jury to picture him as the strong, muscled man who pinned you to the ground and tried to remove your jeans.”
“I know,” I agree. “You did a great job with Sky, and Helena was about as fair as she could be, given the bullshit that he’s fed her, but Martin was excellent. He was totally convincing. I knew he would be. I’d believe him myself if I didn’t know different.”
Dan nods again. I look up at him and wonder if he’s been taken in too, by Martin’s lies. I want to ask him what he really thinks, whether he believes in me, but I know he’ll give his stock answer: that it isn’t his job to make judgements – he’ll be leaving that to the jury – that it’s his job to test the evidence and to put my case across in accordance with my instructions.
Instead, I ask, “Be honest, Dan. What are my chances?”
Dan tips a sachet of sugar into his coffee and stirs it. “It’s hard to tell.”
“If you were going to place a bet, though? What would you say?”
Out of the corner of my eye I can see that Zara has been approached by a man in a suit, who is buying her a drink. She’s giggling a little and swinging her legs on her stool. Dear Zara. She’s deeply concerned about me, I know, but she’s torn. A big part of her just wants to get on with her life without the sadness and misery I’ve brought into it. I’m her best friend in the whole wide world, but there’s only so much she can take. If I’m convicted, her life without me will carry on. I’ll be spending beautiful sunny evenings like this in the prison yard or the laundry, or in a cell, playing cards with a tattooed stranger, while Zara continues to walk around London in the sunshine, going to art exhibitions, volunteering at the hospital, and sitting in bars like this, being bought drinks by handsome men. I’ll be missed. I won’t be forgotten. But I’ll be gone, all the same.
I look back at Dan. I’m still waiting for his answer.
“You haven’t given your evidence yet,” he says. “A lot depends on that. But, as things stand, I’d say the jury are undecided.”
“So, fifty-fifty?” I ask.
Dan isn’t promising anything. “Maybe,” he replies.
The experts give their evidence via video-link on the Friday. I can see that Helena and Sky have now arrived and are seated in the public gallery behind the dock. They’ve clearly decided to follow the rest of the proceedings, which they are entitled to do now that they’ve taken the stand. Technically, Martin could have been there too, and he’d probably have been itching to be. But sitting uncomfortably at the back of a courtroom for a week waiting for me to be convicted wouldn’t have been consistent with the portrait of the broken, injured victim that he’d wanted to portray. I’m grateful for that, at least, and hope to God that he won’t come along later. The thought of having his eyes on me from behind for the remainder of the trial is not a pleasant one.
The expert evidence isn’t favourable towards me. Although the manner of my driving before the point of impact had been careful, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing, it seems. The prosecutor manages to extract an agreement from the engineer that, given I’d already driven all the way from Clerkenwell to Southwark (and, indeed, from Paris to London, albeit some seven months earlier), mistaking the accelerator for the brake wasn’t a very likely thing to have occurred.
“After all,” she says, sweeping her arm round the courtroom and resting her eyes on the jury. “As experienced drivers, most of us are able to switch from driving a manual vehicle to an automatic without too much difficulty, are we not?”
Dan objects to this rhetorical question – a matter of subjectivity and speculation, he insists – and the judge agrees. But, yet again, the seed of doubt about my motives has been planted in the minds of the jury – who are all, no doubt, adept drivers of both manual and automatic cars – and I know that Dan will have to pull something incredible out of the hat to remove this question mark from their minds.
As we leave the court building I switch on my phone and there is a short drum roll and a burst of high pitched music, which is the jingle that always precedes the BBC headlines on the TV. My BBC news app has alerted me to the breaking news that the barristers in the Oscar Pistorius trial have finished summing up.
Zara grabs my arm. “Is it...?”
I peer at my phone. I’ve finally got myself some reading glasses and I reach into my handbag and put them on.
I look up at Zara’s eager face. “No verdict, I tell her. Not yet. They’re adjourning yet again. Until September.”
“Oh my God,” she says. “This is ridiculous.”
But is this good news or bad news for me?
Zara and I spend a miserable weekend at the flat. It’s hot and stifling and we’re both tetchy. We’re both petrified, in truth – scared of giving evidence the following week, and scared of me being convicted and going to jail. But neither of us can voice this, for fear of making the other feel worse. I know that this could be my last weekend of freedom, my last weekend with my best friend, and I’m wasting it, holed up inside the four walls of Zara’s tiny flat, being grumpy with her, when all we both really want to do is cry.
Monday arrives and I take the stand. My evidence is alright, as Dan takes me through it, but the prosecutor gives me a hard time. She ridicules my suggestion that I was in the least bit afraid of Martin when I’d gone to his house last September, and is dismissive of my account of his attack on me, insisting that it was me that was doing the shouting, hardly the actions of someone who was scared.
“I was angry with him,” I agree. “I did shout, yes. We were arguing, but I was scared of him too.” It doesn’t sound convincing, even to me.
“If you were so scared of him, if he’s this maniac that you’d have us believe, why did you even set foot inside his house?”
“I needed to talk to him about my daughter. I didn’t know he was going to attack me.”
“So why were you scared?”
“I... I know he can be violent.”
“And you went int
o his house knowing that?”
“I... yes.” She’s tying me up in knots.
“It’s not Mr. Brown that’s the violent one, is it, Ms. Taylor? It’s you. You flew at him like a madwoman and scratched his cheeks.”
When I tell the court that I’d been defending myself after Martin had grabbed me and forced me to the ground, the prosecutor actually rolls her eyes. “Your injuries?” she asks, matter-of-factly.
“My wrists... my knees... the police took photos,” I stammer.
She nods, and reads from the police custody record. ‘Bruising to wrists from restraints, bruising to shins. DP – Detained Person – restrained by police after resisting arrest. No further injuries noted.’ So the injuries that the police photographed were consistent with having been restrained, is that right?”
“Yes,” I admit.
“After you gave them a bit of a fight.”
“I didn’t fight...”
“You put up quite a fight according to the officers.”
“Not really. They were just justifying the way they treated me...”
“And the very same day, you attacked the complainant in his own home, and he had to restrain you, too.”
“No, it wasn’t like that...”
“Quite a little fireball, aren’t you, Ms. Taylor?”
“Not really.”
“Not really,” she repeats. “But, you have gone round to his house, and you’ve followed him inside, even after he’s asked you to leave.”
“He said that deliberately, to...”
She rolled her eyes again. “To set you up?”
“Yes.”
“In the same way that he jumped into the road – to set you up?”
“Yes.”
She sighs heavily and puts her pen down, pointedly, on the table in front of her. “Ms. Taylor, your daughter, in court last Thursday, described you as paranoid, do you recall?”
Dan jumps up. “Objection,” he says, “Helena Taylor is not an expert in psychology.”
The judge agrees. “Where are you going with this?” he asks the prosecutor.