I wanted to talk to him, to ask about the money we found in Jodie’s locker, but now isn’t the time. Instead I follow, watching from a distance. This is how I learn things about people. I study the way they walk and talk and interact with the world. When a structural engineer looks at a bridge or a building, he automatically thinks about axial forces, load-bearing points, and tensile strength. I look at how people use their bodies, faces, and voices; what they wear, how they drive their cars and relate to each other. Without trying or wanting to, I learn things about them—not the details of their lives but the shape of their personality and what influences their behavior.
I’m not far behind Felix. I half expect him to notice me and turn, but he’s too busy flirting with the girls. He’s reached his Lexus. My aging red Fiat is parked opposite. That’s when I make the decision. I cross the road and open the car door, while Felix says good-bye, bumping fists and shoulders. One of the girls whispers something in his ear. He brushes her off.
I’ve never tailed a car before. It’s not like following someone home from the pub or to a picnic spot in the countryside. Felix drives impatiently, accelerating hard between lights. Twice I think I’ve lost him, but the traffic is so heavy that he can’t get too far ahead of me. We cross Trent Bridge and follow London Road past Meadow Lane Stadium before turning left into Queen’s Road. He pulls into a multistory car park near the Nottingham railway station and drives to the rooftop level. He parks and locks the Lexus, twirling the keyless fob around his forefinger as he walks quickly down the stairs. I can hear his footsteps echoing below me, masking the sound of my own progress.
I emerge thirty yards behind him, watching him enter the station concourse, past the taxi rank and through the automatic doors. He stands beneath the arrivals and departures board but isn’t studying the timetable. Instead he seems to be looking for someone. Maybe he arranged to pick them up.
He walks slowly along the concourse, checking out the cafés, the booking hall, and the men’s room. Beside a row of vending machines, he stops and studies two backpackers who are lying on the floor with their heads resting on their rucksacks. Felix says something. A baseball hat is lifted. A shake of the head.
Leaving the main entrance, he crosses Station Street to a Jobcentre Plus on the opposite side of the road. The automatic doors open to reveal a queue of job seekers waiting for interviews. Felix loiters near the access ramp, watching people arrive and leave. Occasionally he approaches one of them, but the conversations are brief.
Another youth emerges, hands in his pockets, and a hooded sweatshirt covering his head. Felix greets him, his face full of boyish good cheer. A cigarette is offered. Accepted. Lit. Exhaled smoke mingles and dissipates in the cool air. They don’t know each other. This is a first meeting.
They chat for a few minutes before Felix reaches into his pocket and takes out a pen. He motions for the teenager to pull up his sleeve and then writes something on his forearm. A phone number? An address? I’m too far away to see.
They separate. The youth doesn’t look back. Felix checks his phone. Types. Two-handed. Seemingly satisfied, he turns away from the Jobcentre and heads back to the railway station. I’m not exactly sure what I’ve just witnessed. Some sort of recruitment or business arrangement.
I still want to ask Felix about the money in Jodie’s locker but not now, not yet. I don’t want him to know that I’ve followed him. He’s passing a homeless man dozing beside a dog. Felix pauses and takes a ten-pound note from a money clip and tucks it into the man’s pocket before walking away with a lightness to his step, as though all is now right with the world.
20
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
Wednesday morning and the wind hints of winter. Mottled clouds are being driven across the sky, heading towards the Peak District and beyond to Ireland. I had planned on going for a run but quickly went off the idea when I saw the temperature outside. The central heating didn’t trigger again. The pilot light had gone out. It takes twenty minutes and a sore thumb before the spark becomes a solid blue flame.
I order a cab for nine o’clock and slide into the back seat. The driver is listening to the radio. I can only see the back of his head, which is shaved and oiled and the color of an old leather football.
A hospital porter has been charged with the rape and murder of Nottingham schoolgirl Jodie Sheehan, whose body was found a week ago beside a local footpath. Craig Farley, aged twenty-six, was arrested on Sunday at his Bainton Grove bungalow, which is less than a mile from where Jodie’s body was discovered.
At a press conference held late yesterday, Detective Chief Inspector Lenny Parvel said that Farley had made a full confession and would appear in Nottingham Crown Court this morning.
I hear Lenny’s voice take over the commentary.
“By choosing to cooperate with the police, the suspect has spared Jodie’s family added heartache. I would like to thank my team, who have had very little sleep over the past week. This quick arrest is down to their professionalism and hard work. They did it for Jodie and for everyone whose life she touched. We cannot bring her back, but we can make sure she’s not forgotten.”
The driver is talking to me.
“Sorry, did you say something?” I ask.
He nods towards the radio. “Me and my mates got it wrong.”
“About what?”
“Jodie Sheehan. We figured it was going to be family, you know. Someone close to her.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Normally is, eh? Eighty percent of the time.”
Where do people get figures like this?
He’s waiting for me to agree with him.
“Do you know the family?” I ask.
“The old man. He’s a cranky prick.”
I want to say the name Dougal Sheehan but leave it unsaid.
“He’s one of us—a cabbie,” says the driver. “Had some trouble a while back. This woman complained that he assaulted her. He’d driven her all the way out to Calverton before she told him she couldn’t pay. Said her purse had been stolen. Dougal threatened to call the cops, but she got in first and accused him of holding her hostage. She had bruises on her arm. Could have been Dougal did it. Could have been her boyfriend.”
“What happened?”
“Never went to court.” He glances into the rear mirror. “That’s why I got myself one of these.” He points to a small box on the dashboard. “You’re on Candid Camera. Say cheese!”
We’re heading along Derby Road past Lenton Abbey and the university. Taking the first exit on a roundabout, we cross the River Leen, little more than a concrete culvert, and follow Abbey Street. The plane trees form a golden tunnel that is crumbling in the wind, and between the branches, I get a glimpse of Nottingham Castle perched on the aptly named Castle Rock. Having been conquered, razed, rebuilt, and conquered again, it now looks more like a grand house than a fortress with turrets and battlements.
The cab drops me outside the Crown Court, a modern building with an arched glass entrance. TV crews are sheltering inside the main doors, away from the wind. They have set up their cameras in front of the large coat of arms, ready for reporters to cross live to the studio with news of Craig Farley’s first court appearance.
High Court hearings are in a different part of the building. Evie Cormac’s case has been listed for ten thirty. I try to imagine her being anxious, but it’s not an emotion I associate with Evie.
The corridors are bustling with lawyers and clients. This part of the precinct handles family law matters—divorces and child custody applications. I recognize the couples because they avoid eye contact, while their respective lawyers mingle with each other, chatting and smiling. Marriages that began with heartfelt promises “to love and honor and respect” have been reduced to ring-bound folders that detail who gets what and when and where. The arguments have led to here, a hearing before a judge, who will undo what God put together and no man was meant to put asu
nder.
I spot Caroline Fairfax. She is wearing her “court clothes,” a matching skirt and jacket, both black, over a white collared blouse. As I draw nearer, I realize that she’s not alone. Details slowly register—the freckles, birdlike skeleton, and upturned nose. Evie has been transformed. Her hair is dyed to a more natural color and she’s wearing a dress and cardigan buttoned up to her neck. Ankle-length boots give her another few inches in height. She looks great, yet miserable, as though forced to wear sackcloth or a hair shirt.
I smile.
“What are you looking at?” she snaps.
“Doesn’t she look great?” says Caroline.
I nod. Evie tells me to fuck off.
“You have to stop doing that,” says Caroline.
“What?”
“Swearing. It can’t happen in the courtroom.”
“I’m not a complete moron,” says Evie, who tugs at the collar of her cardigan and adjusts the elastic of her knickers in a less than ladylike manner.
Caroline must have helped her with her makeup, which is understated and subtle rather than plastered on with a trowel.
I hear someone call my name. Guthrie waves to me, wanting me to join him. He’s standing with two men who look like lawyer types in charcoal-grey suits. By comparison, the social worker is his usual slovenly self in baggy corduroy trousers and a tweed jacket with a canary-yellow fleck that makes him look jaundiced.
The taller of the lawyers introduces himself as Derek Hodge, QC, the barrister representing Nottingham City Council. His colleague is the instructing solicitor, Stephen Carter. Hodge has a finger-mangling handshake and a way of leaning forward, as though trying to intimidate or establish the pecking order. Carter has his arms full of ring-bound folders and can only nod a greeting.
“It’s good that you’re here,” says Guthrie. “Mr. Hodge wants to call you as a witness.”
“Me?”
“Evie Cormac wouldn’t agree to see a court-appointed psychologist, but I told him that you’d spoken to her.”
“I’ve met her twice—not in a clinical setting.”
“But you were there during the knifing incident,” says Hodge, looking at me straight and steady, as if to say, “no pretending, no ducking out.”
“What difference does that make?”
Hodge answers. “Evie Cormac asked a highly agitated adolescent to stab her?”
“That’s not what happened.”
His right eyebrow arches up his forehead as though trying to join his hairline.
“I’ve seen the CCTV footage. She points the knife at her heart and pulls it towards her chest.”
“She disarmed him.”
“She asked the young man to stab her.”
“She knew he wouldn’t do it.”
“And you know this because . . . ?”
“She told me.”
Hodge chuckles without warmth or humor, and I realize that I don’t like him.
“I’m not comfortable giving evidence,” I say. “I only came to observe.”
“On whose behalf?”
“Mine.”
Guthrie looks embarrassed for me. “I thought you wanted to help Evie.”
“I do.”
“Don’t worry about it,” says the barrister. “The judge has Evie’s history and the written submissions, which should be more than enough.” He glances towards Caroline. “And we’re not facing the big guns.”
I like him even less.
A loudspeaker interrupts us. The case is being called. Hodge nods at the solicitor. “This shouldn’t take long.”
The hearing is closed to the public to protect Evie’s identity and the details of her past. I’m allowed to sit in the small public gallery because I’m a court-accredited expert witness, whether I give evidence or not.
Caroline and Evie take chairs at one end of the bar table, while Hodge and Carter are at the other. Guthrie sits close behind them, ready to consult or pass notes. Judge Sayle enters through a side door. Middle aged, with tea-black hair and strangely grey eyebrows, he smiles and welcomes everyone, making a note of their names, before addressing Evie directly.
“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Cormac. I know this place may seem intimidating, but we’re not here to punish or repudiate anyone. This is a safe space, where you can speak freely and honestly.”
He then addresses the lawyers. “I’m sure you all appreciate the strict secrecy provisions that apply in this case. I have read all the relevant submissions and will give each of you an opportunity to present closing arguments before I make my ruling. I would also like to hear from Evie—if that’s all right with you.”
Evie doesn’t react but seems to be holding herself in check.
“Perhaps you’d like to begin, Miss Fairfax,” says the judge.
Caroline gets to her feet and gives Evie a fleeting look. She consults her notes and pulls back her shoulders.
“Evie Cormac became a ward of this court six years ago after all attempts to establish her identity and find her family proved fruitless. It was hoped that eventually somebody would come forward, or that Evie would be successfully fostered or adopted, but none of these things have occurred.
“Normally care orders are put in place because a child is believed to be at risk of suffering significant harm. In Evie’s case, that harm had already been done. She was discovered in a house in north London, hiding in a secret room. She was dirty, malnourished, and suffering from rickets, among other ailments.”
Hodge gets to his feet. “Your Honor, I hope my learned friend isn’t planning to give us a complete history lesson. None of these facts are in dispute.”
“But they are,” says Caroline. “The most important fact. Evie’s age?”
Judge Sayle motions her to continue.
“Your Honor, the duty of care exists in common law, derived from the historic judgments made by the courts, that places an obligation upon an individual or organization to take proper care of a child or to avoid causing foreseeable harm. In the case of Evie Cormac, the local authority has done that job and she is now asking to be released because she is eighteen.”
“She could be sixteen,” interrupts Hodge, twirling a pen across his knuckles.
“Or nineteen,” counters Caroline. “My client is an adult and wants to be treated like an adult.”
“She can’t have it both ways,” says Hodge. “She is trying to divorce the local authority like a child divorcing a parent.”
“What case law can she use to seek redress?” argues Caroline.
“Perhaps if she’d acted more like an adult,” says Hodge, who has stayed on his feet. Caroline tries to object, but Hodge ignores her. “Setting aside the issue of Evie Cormac’s age, we cannot ignore her mental fitness and her propensity for self-harm and violence. On twelve occasions, she has been fostered by safe, stable, loving families, but each time she has chosen to fight the system. She has run away from care at least twenty times, going missing for weeks at a time. Stealing, taking drugs, gambling, drinking, abusing police, resisting arrest . . .”
“Now who’s giving a history lesson?” asks Caroline.
“A very pertinent one, Miss Fairfax,” chides Hodge. “Evie Cormac has spent the past four years in a high-security children’s home because of her refusal to obey the rules or, dare I say, to act her age. She has abused staff, her peers, mental-health-care workers, therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists—many of whom have provided submissions to Your Honor. Evie’s case officer is in court today and he regards Evie as the most damaged child he has ever encountered. Only last week she was involved in a malicious wounding incident at Langford Hall where she grabbed a knife, pointed it at her heart, and asked a highly disturbed young man to kill her.”
“Evie disarmed the man,” says Caroline.
“By offering herself as a victim.”
“It was a ploy.”
Hodge snorts and waves his hand dismissively, as though Caroline were resorting to semantics.
“Evie Cormac is not mature enough or stable enough to be released from care. She has no means of support, no job training, or anywhere to live. I should also point out that crime figures show that children in care go on to make up a disproportionate percentage of our prison population.”
“Hardly a glowing endorsement of local authority care,” says Caroline.
“The onus is not on the council to prove Evie Cormac’s age,” says Hodge.
“Whose job is it?”
“Her own. It is Mr. Guthrie’s submission that Evie Cormac knows her real name and her age but refuses to cooperate. She is her own worst enemy. She is not ready to be released from care, and even if she were deemed to be an adult in this court today, the local authority has instructed me to immediately seek to have her sectioned under the Mental Health Act and sent to a secure psychiatric hospital.”
“That’s outrageous,” argues Caroline.
“You can’t fucking do that!” yells Evie, leaping to her feet. Her chair topples over with a bang. She is on the bar table, crawling towards Hodge, as though ready to rip out his throat. Caroline has to pull her back, holding her around the waist. Evie is so small that Caroline lifts her easily but has to avoid her kicking feet.
Hodge has backed away. “I think that proves my point.”
“You’re a fuckwit!” screams Evie.
“Please be quiet,” Caroline pleads, glancing helplessly at me.
Judge Sayle waits until Evie is back in her chair before warning her, “There can be no more outbursts.”
Evie’s shoulders are shaking with rage, or maybe she’s crying. I can’t see her face.
The judge opens a folder and turns the pages. I glimpse notes scrawled in the margins and paragraphs that are underlined.
“I’d like you to approach the bench, Miss Cormac,” he says. “Come up and take a seat.”
Evie stands awkwardly, slightly pigeon-toed, and looks over her shoulder as she makes her way forward. The judge points to a wooden chair, which has been positioned to be on the same level as his own seat.
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