Rope of Sand

by C F Dunn

  Horatio wound himself and the jury up to an attack. He had patently disliked being interrupted yesterday and had lost momentum as well as his audience’s interest. Now he had to recapture both.

  “Are you promiscuous, Ms D’Eresby?”

  Wow, that made some opening gambit, but it didn’t shock me as much as it might have done a few days ago. It did the trick for the jury though; they craned forward to hear my reply.

  “No, I am not.”

  They sat back almost with a sigh of disappointment. What on earth did they think I would say? I quelled the rising irritation I felt at his blatant attempt to discredit me.

  “No? Is it not true that you had a relationship while at the University of Cambridge?” He had been doing his homework. Duffy had warned me he had been digging around in my past, but I hadn’t thought he could make much of it. I was wrong.

  “Yes.”

  “And it was a relationship prohibited by the university, but in which you blithely proceeded to indulge nonetheless, and one that nearly ended the career of your unfortunate lover, is that not the case?”

  This was so embarrassing with my father sitting here listening to all this guff and worse – blast, it’d only just dawned on me – and worse still, so was Matthew’s family. Talk about hanging out dirty washing for all to see. The media were lapping it up.

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “But you knowingly flouted the rules of the university, did you not?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “So you think you are above the law, is that it, Ms D’Eresby? You knew the rules but chose to ignore them, intent only on indulging your own desires.”

  “No!”

  He smirked, making his view on the matter clear to the jury. “By your own admission, yes, I think, Ms D’Eresby! No more questions at this point, Your Honour,” he announced with a dismissive wave of his hand, intended to make me feel insignificant. It worked. He turned to go to his table.

  “Can I have that in writing?” I muttered under my breath.

  Duffy flashed me a look that warned me I should have stayed silent. Horatio hadn’t yet reached his table and he swivelled on one foot to face me again.

  “Did you say something, Ms D’Eresby?”

  The judge leaned over the bench and looked down at me. “Repeat what you said for the jury please, professor.”

  Ugh! Humiliation or contempt of court? What a choice. Humiliation carried the lesser penalty.

  “I said, ‘Can I have that in writing?’”

  The judge’s mouth twitched as the room descended into laughter. She thwacked her gavel on the bench hard enough to dent the wood. “Counsel will please advise her client that such comments are not for this court.”

  “Thank you, Your Honour,” Duffy admonished me with a look that was meant more for the judge’s appeasement than for my contrition. “Professor D’Eresby, can you please tell the jury how old you were when you entered into the relationship you had while at Cambridge?”

  “I was nineteen.”

  “Only nineteen. And how old was the man with whom you had this relationship?”

  It seemed so seedy now that I looked back at it. “He was thirty-six.”

  A low murmur wove through the courtroom, but I couldn’t tell whether from sympathy or disapproval.

  “Let me get this straight: he was a 36-year-old senior lecturer and you were a nineteen-year-old student just out of school. That sounds more like an abuse of trust by a man who should have known better. Was it a serious relationship?”

  “I thought so at the time; it lasted just under a year.”

  “And tell me if you will, professor, how many relationships have you had since then?”

  My hand gripped the nutmeg. Forgive me. “None.” I didn’t waver as I answered, because what Matthew and I had didn’t count – couldn’t count – not if we wanted what we had to remain undisclosed for as long as possible.

  “So much for promiscuity, hey, Horatio? Thank you, professor.”

  I felt like hugging her.

  Staahl’s counsel circled like a shark. He took his time until the judge began to shuffle impatiently. I peeked at my watch; it was already after eleven.

  “Ms D’Eresby, yesterday you gave evidence about how you were allegedly saved by Dr Lynes, although you were unfortunately injured in the process as you were thrown to one side. What did you say when you saw Dr Lynes attack my client?”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained. Do I even have to say why, counsel?”

  He placed a hand over his heart. “My apologies, Your Honour. Ms D’Eresby, when you saw Dr Lynes with my client, whom he held by the throat against the back wall of the porters’ lodge on the night of October 31st, what words did you use?”

  “I said, ‘No! Matthew, no!’”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure, Ms D’Eresby? Because my client says that you said: ‘No! Matthew, no! You’ll kill him.’”

  “No.”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. You saw Dr Lynes forcefully restrain my client and you told him to stop. Why?”

  “No.”

  “Is it perhaps because you didn’t want to see your lover, whom you had arranged to meet that night, hurt?”

  “I was dying. I wasn’t in any position to say anything to anyone.”

  “Ms D’Eresby…” he began, holding back to build up the tension. “How often did you meet Kort Staahl for sex?”

  “Never!”

  “Let me put it another way. How many times did you meet with my client?”

  “Intentionally – none.”

  “That’s a lie, isn’t it, Ms D’Eresby?”

  “Ob-jec-tion!” Duffy leapt to her feet, face scarlet. “Counsel is attacking my client, Your Honour.”

  “Yes, yes – counsel, might I remind you to try not to use such a contentious line with the defendant?”

  He inclined his head to the judge in acknowledgment before turning back to me.

  “I shall rephrase my question. That is untrue, isn’t it, Ms D’Eresby? On at least one occasion – and we can only guess on how many others – you invited my client to meet with you.”

  “I did not!” I said vehemently.

  “Oh, I think you will find I am perfectly correct in my assertion.”

  He held up something small and pale lilac in a little evidence bag; it looked familiar. “Have you seen this before?”

  I squinted, but I couldn’t make it out. He brought it closer so that I could see through the plastic film some elongated, sloping handwriting in blue. My stomach crunched: it was mine.

  “If you would care to examine the exhibit, Ms D’Eresby.”

  I took it from him. Without opening the bag I smoothed the crinkles from the plastic until I could read what it said. I felt all colour drain from my face as I now realized its relevance.

  “Ms D’Eresby, do you recognize this note?” A hush had descended on the entire room. “Well?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Louder for the court, Ms D’Eresby.”

  I cleared my throat. “Yes.”

  “Read it out loud, if you will.”

  I continued to hold the bag with the lilac Post-it note in one hand, the nutmeg in the other.

  “Now, if you please.” Except for a ticking noise coming from one of the water-filled radiators, the room was silent.

  I chewed my lip. “This wasn’t meant for him,” I said, too quietly.

  “Read it to the jury, Ms D’Eresby.”

  “I did not write this for Kort Staahl.” My voice had risen higher than I intended, making it sound shrill and defensive and guilty.

  “Ms D’Eresby…”

  “All right!” I snapped, feeling cornered and at bay with his teeth at my throat.

  I heard Duffy’s sharp intake of breath and the judge peered at me over her spectacles. “Read it as directed by counsel, professor.”

  I nodded mutely, miserably. “‘M
eet you at 10 at A re: S & M as promised.’”

  I kept my eyes lowered and my head down, avoiding looking at people’s faces in case I saw the condemnation I fully anticipated there. There were a few murmured remarks that sounded like questions, but nothing more.

  “I’m sorry,” Horatio swaggered, “some of the jury didn’t quite catch what you said. Repeat it so that they can all hear it this time.” The look of satisfaction on his face said it all, like a playground bully with his heel in his victim’s face.

  I slowly raised my head and turned to look directly at the jury, some of whose knowing, disgusted, riveted faces told me only too clearly that they had heard what I said perfectly well the first time. I rallied what courage I had left and, in a loud, slow clear voice that defied any of them to comment, I reread the note: “‘Meet you at 10 at A re: S & M as promised.’”

  I lowered the note and waited. First there were a few disbelieving gasps, then some sniggers, and finally – as one by one the audience worked out the significance of the note – the room broke down into a clamour of conjecture. Horatio cast a told-you-so look in Duffy’s direction. Just behind her, my father sat forward on his seat with his head in his hands, and next to him, the Lynes family were stony-faced and completely still, neither looking in my direction nor at each other. There would be no point in trying to explain the note to them, to the court, the media – anyone. No point at all. They would all come to their own conclusions based on the evidence presented to them and the innate prejudices of the human condition. I hadn’t a chance. I felt my skin blaze crimson under the lurid, sleazy eyes of the courtroom as they sat in judgment on me.

  The judge hammered on her bench, but it took minutes for the racket to die down enough for her to make herself heard. “I will not have my court turned into a circus,” she boomed across the heads of the crowd. “Any repeat of this behaviour and I will hear evidence in closed court.” Silence fell as the room settled rapidly into order. “Now, counsel?”

  “No more questions, Your Honour,” he said with a self-satisfied smirk.

  “Counsel for the defense?”

  “Thank you, Your Honour.” Duffy rose slowly, giving everyone time to adjust to her being there and for me to gather my wits. She retrieved the evidence wallet with the lilac Post-it note and held it up high. “Professor D’Eresby, counsel would have us believe that this note was sent by you to Kort Staahl as an invitation to meet him. Was this your intention?”

  I swallowed to loosen vocal cords that were so tight they hurt.

  “No.”

  She leaned forward slightly. “There was no name on this note; who did you intend it for?”

  “I wrote the note for Professor Smalova. I left it in her pigeon-hole in the history faculty, but she didn’t get it. The…” I stopped suddenly as I realized what must have happened. “He must have taken it,” I accused Staahl, remembering how he had known where I would be when I went to collect the posters from the porters’ lodge earlier in the term. Increasingly jittery as the lack of sleep began to take its toll, my raw nerves were made more ragged as they were dragged back and forth between prosecution and defense like a dry loaf of bread on a cheese grater.

  “Please explain exactly what the note means, letter by letter,” Duffy prompted me back into line.

  “The note meant ‘Meet me at 10 p.m. in my apartment to talk about Sam and…’” I barely paused, “‘Matias’, as we had promised.”

  “Please explain to the jury who the people you have referred to are.”

  “Professor Elena Smalova is a friend and colleague of mine from the history faculty, Professor Sam Wiesner was a mutual friend of ours, and Professor Matias Lidström is Professor Smalova’s fiancé.” All very normal, very respectable.

  “And why were you going to meet to discuss Sam and Matias?”

  I thought quickly. “It was just girls’ talk – I can’t really remember what about.”

  “Please try, professor.”

  Duffy was attempting to paint a different picture, one of an ordinary young woman doing ordinary things with ordinary people.

  “I think that we were going to discuss them because Elena thought that we might all go out together and she wanted to know what I thought.”

  “About what, exactly?” she probed.

  “Professor Wiesner.”

  “Was he your boyfriend?”

  “No, but I think he wanted to be.”

  “Why do you believe that Professor Staahl took the note?”

  “He had done something like that before.”

  “Is that one of the reasons why you thought he was following you?”

  “Yes.”

  Such boring, mundane, everyday, trivial stuff. Who would want to believe it, when the spicy bits were so much more titillating?

  “Professor D’Eresby, have you ever invited, agreed to meet, or have gone out of your way to meet Kort Staahl at any time since joining the college in September of last year?”

  “Never.”

  “Thank you, professor. I have no more questions for the defendant, Your Honour.”

  I hoped that a few of the faces looking at me from among the jurors might be less judgmental now that Duffy had given me a chance to explain the note, but nothing in their expressions made me think they viewed me as anything other than a black-hearted whore, and a perverted one at that.

  My arm ached. Although the fracture had healed perfectly, just occasionally it throbbed where the bone had broken, reminding me – if ever I needed reminding – that the attack wasn’t so very long ago, and that some of the scars I bore were still rough-edged and new, even if the physical ones had mended. I rubbed and kneaded the area, but it continued to niggle.

  The judge finished conferring with the court clerk and announced an early break for lunch, and we let the room empty before making any attempt to leave. My father hung back but Henry, Pat, and Harry left as soon as they could without looking at me. I waited in abject misery, rolling the nutmeg between my palms.

  Duffy didn’t say anything until we were alone. “Emma, there’s going to be reporters and such waiting for you out there, so use my office if you like and you can send out for some lunch.”

  “Thanks,” I said quietly.

  “Aw, don’t take it so bad. Horatio’s just clutching at straws to blacken your reputation. It’s all in the game.”

  “Yes, well, he seems to be doing a pretty good job of it,” my father groused, his jutting jaw making him look more like a bulldog than ever. Duffy didn’t disagree.

  “You believe me, don’t you, Duffy?” I asked, watching her evasive movements as she sorted out papers before putting them into her briefcase.

  She avoided looking at me. “It doesn’t matter what I think, only what the jury believes.”

  “I know that, Duffy, but it matters to me what you think. How can you fight my corner if you don’t trust that what I say is true?”

  She stopped fiddling and swivelled to face me, one hand on her hip as she inclined her head to consider me thoughtfully. “Hun, I don’t rightly know if everything you have told me is true, wait…” She held up her hand as I began to object. “Especially when it comes to Dr Lynes – you two look as if you should be together, if you get my drift. But Staahl is as guilty as a ’gator with its mouth full, and you sure don’t strike me as a kinky type, so, whatever you’re not telling me, I don’t think it’s relevant to this trial. Now, go get some lunch and some rest before this afternoon. The judge is real eager to wrap this up and ship it out, so you’ll need to be on your toes in case you’re called again. You want me to take you to my office, or can you find it by yourselves? No, scratch that, I’ll take you round the back way so you’ll avoid them flesh-stripping vultures out there.”

  She took us via the door to the courtroom that the judge used though the various offices until we came to her own. She left us there in the comparative peace of the empty room. I slumped into the chair behind her desk.

  “Emma…?” Dad
said tentatively. I glanced up and my heart tugged. He looked so miserable, his shoulders sagging and his gruff face worn and despondent. “I know what was said was untrue – every last, sick, twisted word of it – and it doesn’t matter what anybody else says about you, you’re still my little girl, and I’ll defend your reputation to the grave, if that’s what it’ll take.”

  I sprang out of the chair and hugged him hard until I could speak without my voice wobbling.

  “Thanks, Dad. Don’t worry about my reputation. I reckon I’ll be able to sell a few more books with all the attention this will bring me; just think of the royalties.”

  He gave a little hurrumph of a laugh, more, I thought, because of the sheer ridiculousness of what I had said than because he found it funny. My tummy rumbled unexpectedly, and he smiled fondly. “Well, that’s a good sign. Let me get you some lunch before we have to face the enemy again, shall we?”

  Lunch was a hurried, silent, and tasteless affair, washed down by the deli’s approximation of tea. We returned to the courtroom as sleet started to fall sullenly from the sky.

  “I don’t know what he’s at,” Duffy said as we finally resumed our places, “but Horatio’s sure playing unconventional.” She wouldn’t be drawn further, except to say that we were up next, and the general shuffling of feet and of comments exchanged ensured I didn’t hear her murmured afterthought, as the courtroom prepared for the next player.

  Now mid-afternoon, the room had become overly warm. With their stomachs still full after lunch, time began to drag and the onlookers were getting bored. A juror – the woman in her fifties with cheeks made of gently sagging skin – yawned. As her mouth opened wider, her hand barely covering the aperture, she suddenly stopped and nudged the younger woman sitting next to her. Together they stared as an awed hush flowed through the room. Duffy turned and winked at me as Matthew walked with lithe grace to the witness stand to take the oath. He passed within a foot of where I sat, the movement of air he caused brushing my skin. He could have been on the other side of the planet for all the comfort it gave me, and I didn’t dare give him more than a cursory glance in case our bond showed on my face.