The Verdict

by Nick Stone

  When I’d known Vernon, I’d never seen him lose his temper. He’d never been violent, never thrown a punch or a kick. He never even raised his voice. His anger was glacial and controlled, all contemptuous stares and loaded silences. Sure, people changed, but not that much.

  Yet what did I know? I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in almost twenty years.

  Pressure was starting to build up behind my eyes, the thoughts swarming too thickly to isolate and break down. There was Vernon and our history. There was me defending him. There was the looming office battle with Bella. And, on top of that, the case itself. Four separate serrating headaches, one head.

  I got off at Clapham Junction station and headed for Janet’s house, via St John’s Road. It looked like every other main street in London. A McDonald’s and a Starbucks, then several mobile phone shops, two supermarkets, a bank and an electronics store – all links in those long predictable chains that dragged the guts and soul out of every British town and city.

  I passed several pubs, all busy. I walked faster. Pubs reminded me of hell.

  Janet lived on Briar Close, off Northcote Road. It was a different kind of environment there, almost genteel, thanks to gentrification and the money that follows it. She was waiting outside her house with her motorbike driver. That was how she got around London, to and from meetings, on the back of a Suzuki GSX-R600. KRP had a firm of riders on call, mostly for deliveries and collections, but Janet used them as a chauffeur service.

  ‘Here you go,’ I said, handing her the pen.

  ‘You didn’t touch it, did you?’ she said as she put the pencase in her rucksack. She had her raincoat on and flat shoes.

  ‘How do you think I got it here?’ I joked.

  She chuckled as she put her helmet on. She was a good foot shorter than me, with medium-length brown hair and sharp pale-blue eyes. She was older than I was by a decade and change.

  ‘Any more info on the case?’ I asked as the rider kick-started the bike and she clambered aboard.

  ‘The victim’s a woman,’ she said. ‘A blonde.’

  3

  The place I called home was half an hour’s walk and a whole different world away from Janet’s house.

  We lived in a three-bedroom flat in a place called the Garstang Estate, near Battersea High Street – the ‘we’ being yours truly, my wife Karen, and our two children, Ray and Amy, who were then eight and five respectively.

  The estate was a human battery farm – a regimented sprawl of identical brick blocks the colour of toxic factory clouds and bad-tempered skies, consisting of sixty-two apartments and maisonettes, spread over five storeys with communal walkways. Laundry flapped from every other balcony like the sails of a wrecked galleon; satellite dishes clustered at the corners of the walls in an upward creep, reminiscent of an advance of mutant toadstools; and, in the car parks between blocks, a quartet of CCTV cameras were perched atop twenty-foot-high metal shafts, as ineffective against urban evils as church gargoyles.

  Dozens of different nationalities lived here, side by side; a regular melting pot, the metropolis in microcosm. There were few friendships on the estate, mainly acquaintanceships. Everyone coexisted peacefully enough, as long as they managed to avoid each other, which most did or very quickly learned to do.

  I hung up my coat and went to the living room. The light and telly were on, but there was no sound. Karen had paused whatever programme she was watching because Amy had fallen asleep in her arms. She’d taken the opportunity to snatch a few moments’ rest, but conked out herself.

  I gazed over them, lying there together on the couch. Karen had her arms around our daughter, who was snuggled up to her, face buried in her mother’s armpit, just like she used to when she was a baby. I wanted to kiss them both, but I didn’t want to wake them and spoil the perfect image before me. Instead I committed the sight to memory, every nuance – the way their bodies lay, facing each other on their sides, almost, but not quite touching; how they’d both folded their legs up, as if in mid-jump; Amy grasping the sleeve of Karen’s T-shirt tight in her little fist.

  I tiptoed past them to the kids’ bedroom and rapped on the door with my fingertips.

  ‘Come in,’ a young voice beckoned imperiously.

  My son was sitting in the upper tier of the bunk bed reading The 39 Clues.

  ‘Good evening, Ray,’ I said.

  ‘Hi Dad.’ He smiled and put down his book.

  Ray was actually my adopted son. He was mixed race, the product of an on-off relationship Karen had had with a black Brazilian. He’d split for good shortly after he found out Karen was pregnant.

  I owed my family and the life I now had to Ray.

  I met him first, before Karen, one bright Sunday afternoon at a fête on Clapham Common in 2004. I was working as a part-time ‘children’s entertainer’ then, the Blue Clown – blue of costume, wig and mouth. I wasn’t a big draw. My audience averaged one or two kids plus their parents an hour. They’d gawp for five minutes and leave without laughing. Then Ray waddled up to me, on his own, barely two feet tall, all frowns and curiosity. I did my routine for him, which involved walking into a nearby lamp-post and falling over. Ray was as unimpressed as everyone else. Except he stayed put, determined to be entertained. So I repeated the routine with variations, bumping my foot against the post, hitting it with my head, and even twirling around it, but to no avail. I couldn’t get a rise out of him. Finally, I resorted to the only other trick I knew, the thing I did at children’s parties – animal sounds. He didn’t respond to my horse or donkey, my miaowing made him cover his ears and my barking made him cry. But when I did my seal noises – Ar-Ar-Ar-Arrrrr-Ar-Ar-Ar – I hit paydirt. Ray’s face lit up and he laughed and clapped his hands… for all of a minute, before his frown returned.

  Then Karen appeared. Frantic and tearful, she had a steward and a cop at her side. It turned out Ray had been missing for an hour. He’d wandered off while Karen was buying him a balloon.

  I didn’t talk to Karen then. She grabbed Ray in her arms and carried him away, sobbing with relief.

  That should have been the end of it, but, later the following week, I was working my other job, stacking shelves in Asda, when I spotted Ray sitting in a half-full shopping trolley. Karen was nearby, choosing fruit. Ray stared at me hard, and I swore he recognised me.

  It was one of those moments where your life turns on a decision. In my case it was whether or not to make a crappy seal noise. So I did and Ray started laughing and clapping.

  I introduced myself to Karen. ‘I didn’t recognise you with your clothes on,’ she said.

  And that was pretty much how it started.

  ‘What did you do today?’ I asked him.

  ‘I got 85 per cent in maths.’

  ‘That’s great,’ I said. Maths had never been my strong suit.

  ‘It’s very good, but not great,’ he corrected me, after a moment. ‘Great is 90 per cent or more. Do you know maths is the only subject you can score 100 per cent in?’

  Typical, I thought. Not even nine and he was a glass half-empty guy. He was a bright spark, much cleverer than I’d been at his age. He was a quick study and a voracious reader, one of those natural intellectuals who find out everything there is to know about something that interests him.

  I looked at my watch. It was almost 9 p.m.

  ‘Can I tell you something?’

  ‘If you want,’ he said.

  ‘You won’t understand this now, but in time you may,’ I said, looking at him. ‘Always finish what you start. OK? Every beginning deserves an end. There’s nothing worse than unfinished business.’

  Ray wasn’t one of those kids who simply nodded along to everything you said to make you happy and go away. He liked to think things through. And he was thinking now, furrowing his brow as he tried to make sense of what I’d said. When he couldn’t, his brow relaxed.

  ‘I know you’re not talking about my dinner,’ he said, eventually.

  I laughed and tousled h
is hair – or tried to, because it barely yielded to my fingers.

  ‘Your bedtime’s looming. You cleaned your newtons?’

  ‘Newtons’ was Manchester slang for teeth. That came from Karen, a proud Mancunian. She kept talking about moving back ‘home’ at some unspecified point in the future, but every time we went there to visit her parents and she found that another part of the city had changed or disappeared altogether, she started missing London.

  Ray shook his head.

  ‘Off you go, then,’ I said.

  I sat down on Amy’s bunk. I was exhausted but knew I wouldn’t sleep tonight. Too many thoughts leapfrogging around in my brain. And I didn’t have the first clue how I’d face tomorrow, let alone get through it. I needed a plan.

  Ray had left his laptop open on his desk and forgotten to turn it off, as he often did. I checked what he’d been looking at. Karen and I made a point of doing that at least twice a week, just to be on the safe side. We were discreet about it.

  Tonight he’d browsed Wikipedia and two history websites for a homework assignment.

  I turned off the computer.

  Moments later Ray came back, followed by Karen carrying Amy.

  We tucked them in and kissed them goodnight. Then we went to the living room, where I kissed Karen and gave her a hug, as I always did at the end of the day, when we were alone.

  We sat down on the couch. Karen looked ready for bed.

  ‘Your dinner’s in the micro,’ she yawned. She was wearing a faded New Order Technique T-shirt two sizes too big for her.

  ‘Not hungry,’ I said. ‘I need to talk to you about something.’

  She sat up, looked at me a little closer, read trouble the way only she could. A little of the sleepiness left her face.

  ‘Shall I make us some tea, then?’ she asked. By tea, Karen meant one of five herbal varieties. They were all supposed to do wonders for you, but I never touched any of them. When they tasted of anything, they tasted horrible.

  ‘Coffee for me. Not decaff. And definitely not instant either. Real coffee.’

  For the first time in God knows how long – what I really wanted – no, craved – was a drink. A tall cold Guinness Export: 8 per cent alcohol, a kick in every sip. That’s how I’d always started my benders. Five of those, then the spirits…

  I choked the urge.

  ‘That kind of talk, is it?’ she said.

  ‘’Fraid so, yeah.’

  4

  There’s no such thing as a wholly truthful person. Everyone lies. That’s a given. Liars come in two forms – fibbers and omitters; storytellers and editors. I’m the latter, ‘economical with the truth’, as they say – a rationer of facts. Too much truth can be complicated.

  So while Karen was making the drinks, I sat at the living-room table trying to work out how to proceed – what to tell her, what not to tell her; how far to go, and where to stop.

  I’d been here before, literally, at this table, in this position. When we’d started getting serious – as in meeting each other’s families and talking about cohabiting – I made an executive decision about what to tell Karen about my past. As a single mother raising a young child she deserved to know what she and Ray were getting into. And I didn’t want her finding out about me from other people.

  That was when we had the first of our coffee talks. Long, serious and all through the night.

  I’d told her about my lost years – aka ‘The Dark Ages’, as we’d come to refer to that period. I’d been open with her – more so than with anyone – but only to a certain extent.

  Which meant I hadn’t told her about Vernon James and what he did to me. There wasn’t any point. But just because he didn’t exist in our life, it didn’t mean my hatred for him had diminished. If anything it had intensified, because I’d nurtured it in secret. I’d never talked about him to anyone. I didn’t like it, not one bit. I wanted to be rid of it, but in the right way. With him paying for every wrong thing he’d done to me.

  Karen came in with the coffee and tea and sat down. I looked at her for a moment, mousy blonde hair, eyes the colour of faded jeans, and thin lips she’d finally learned not to try and hide under over-applied lipstick.

  ‘So what happened?’ she asked.

  I told her about Janet’s phone call; the new client – wealthy, high profile and a murder suspect.

  Her eyes lit up.

  ‘She called you…?’

  ‘She actually called Adolf, but there was no one around so I answered.’

  ‘Adolf’ was our name for Bella – full name: Arabella Hogan. Same initials as Der Führer. Bella hated me, and the feeling was mutual.

  ‘That’s great, though, Terry!’ Karen said. The way she pronounced my name sounded like ‘terror’ – Terruh. ‘That could set you up. The promotion, the degree… We might finally be able to get out of here!’

  ‘Yeah. That’s what Janet said. In so many words.’

  On average it took a clerk with a law degree about two years to become a paralegal, as long as they didn’t mind taking an industrial dose of shit. An unqualified clerk like me, however, rarely got a look-in – unless a law firm sponsored their degree. Few firms did, but KRP was one of them.

  ‘Hold up,’ Karen said. ‘You haven’t even told me this fella’s name yet – the murderer.’

  ‘Alleged murderer. Innocent until proven and all that,’ I reminded her.

  ‘Sorry, Your Honour.’

  ‘That’s American. Here it’s “My Lord”.’

  ‘Whatever. What’s his name?’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘Vernon James,’ I mumbled, looking down at the coffee I hadn’t touched, meeting my eyes in the cup.

  ‘Sounds like a hairdresser,’ she said.

  ‘Have you heard of him?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Should I?’

  I could’ve left it there, carried on pretending I didn’t know him. But I was in deep trouble. And Karen was great in a crisis. Never lost her cool. Plus she was a company accountant, as good at solving puzzles as creating them.

  ‘There’s a problem with me and the case. A big problem,’ I said and looked at her. A long, lingering look. This was the moment right before our old life disappeared. Going…

  Going…

  Gone.

  ‘I knew Vernon. A long time back. We were friends.’

  ‘In Stevenage was this?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How come you never mentioned him before?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him in eighteen years. Half my life ago. That’s as good as never seeing someone again. ‘

  ‘Yeah, but if I’d known someone who’d become rich and successful…’

  ‘Things didn’t end well between us. In fact, they ended about as badly as they possibly could.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He fucked my life up.’

  ‘How?’

  Then Karen started working something out. She and Ray both frowned their brows into the same walnut furrows when they were thinking hard.

  I let her do the basic arithmetic.

  2011 AD minus 18 years, equals 1993 AD.

  ‘This have something to do with the Dark Ages?’ she asked.

  ‘Just about everything.’

  Karen pondered in silence.

  The Serbian couple downstairs were rowing. Or at least they might have been. It was hard to tell. When they’d first moved in a year ago, all they seemed to do was argue, shouting at the top of their voices, sounding hysterical. We’d gone down to complain – and to make sure the woman wasn’t getting battered. Turned out they weren’t arguing at all. They were on the phone to their respective families back home. The lines were so bad they had to shout.

  Karen clicked into gear.

  ‘Let’s isolate the problem, shall we?’

  ‘There’s more than just the one problem,’ I said, taking a sip of coffee. ‘As you know, I’ve lied on my CV. That’s a sackable offence anywhere, but in a legal firm it’s ca
stratable. It’s all right to represent liars and lie on their behalf, but you can’t be one yourself. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere. As far as KRP are concerned I left school after my A levels. I haven’t mentioned my year at Cambridge, the law degree I never finished. I was at Cambridge with Vernon. All he has to do is tell Janet and that’s me out on my ear.’

  ‘Why don’t you say you can’t take the case for personal reasons?’ Karen said.

  ‘I could do that. But then I’ll have to explain why. And Cambridge’ll come up one way or another, whether I tell Janet or he does. And if she hears it from him it’ll be even worse: “Yeah, I knew Terry Flynt. He got kicked out of Cambridge for theft.”’

  ‘Theft?’ Karen started and almost stood up.

  I hadn’t meant to say it the way I did, abruptly like that. I’d intended to build up to it slowly. But it came out anyway.

  Karen looked at me like I’d turned into a complete stranger.

  ‘I thought you told me you got kicked out of Cambridge for failing your exams.’

  ‘And that,’ I said.

  She sat back and glared at me. Her eyes had lost their clarity, gone a milky turquoise. If this was a police interrogation, I’d be screwed about now, caught out contradicting my statement; fair copped, guv.

  I couldn’t hold her stare, so I looked away at the digital photo frame on the mantelpiece. There were pictures of the four of us over the years, going back to when we’d first met, our wedding, me in my clown suit on Ray’s third birthday, Ray holding baby Amy, the four of us at Ray’s prize-giving. It felt like I was watching the best part of my life flashing by.

  ‘Why don’t you start again, from the very beginning?’ Karen said.

  5

  ‘I called him VJ. We were at the same school. He was the only black kid in class.

  ‘We didn’t become friends immediately. Though we lived on the same road, the only time I saw him outside school was every other Saturday morning. Him and his sister Gwen would help their mum do the shopping. They didn’t have a trolley, so they used this rusted old pram that didn’t have a canopy. It was a strange sight, them pushing that thing down the road. The wheels squeaked something terrible. You’d hear them coming a mile off.’