The Guilty Wife

by Elle Croft

‘No,’ she sighed. ‘We’ve been over this. We don’t need to know who did it, we just need the jury to believe that it wasn’t you. That’s all that matters.’

  I was speechless. How was finding Calum’s killer so unimportant to her? I thought lawyers were all about justice, but she seemed completely oblivious to the fact that there was still a murderer on the loose who knew far too much about me, and who was framing me for his crime.

  ‘How can you be so flippant? We’ve been looking in the wrong direction for months! Who knows what the killer’s been up to this whole time?’

  ‘Mrs Reston,’ she said gently, refusing to use my first name, as always. ‘I’m really sorry about Vincent. I honestly am. I thought about telling you, but I needed you to be focused on the trial, not trying to investigate a murder from behind bars. And I’m sorry that you found out like that. I wasn’t sure if the prosecution would reveal his alibi, because it just ended up discrediting him all the more. But I guess they didn’t want a potential alternative suspect on their hands. Whatever their reasons, today was a win for us. We completely discredited the prosecution’s only witness, and then they went and cemented his unreliability. People don’t believe drug addicts. And they certainly don’t believe drug addicts who rob pharmacies to get their next fix.’

  ‘But now there’s no other suspect,’ I argued.

  ‘He was never under suspicion,’ Adler said. ‘He didn’t do it. He might not be an upright citizen, but when it comes to Calum’s murder he’s as innocent as you are, Mrs Reston. You can’t sit there and tell me you want the jury to think it was Vincent when you know it wasn’t?’

  My shoulders dropped. She was right. I hated that she was right, but I couldn’t argue.

  After Shannon left, I closed my eyes and tried to fend off the panic that was closing in around me. Adler had seemed pleased with herself – confident, almost – that the day had gone better than planned. I couldn’t share in her triumph. I was rattled, scared and confused. I couldn’t focus on anything. Should I be worrying about what the killer might do to me and my loved ones if I did get acquitted? Was I meant to be feeling guilty that I’d placed the blame on Vincent all along when he’d actually had nothing to do with it? Should I be pleased that the prosecution’s only witness was now considered completely unreliable?

  I hardly got a moment’s sleep. When I woke up in my stark cell, familiarity settling over me as the details of my tiny room came into focus, it took a few seconds to remember. Vincent was innocent. So was I. And the killer was still out there.

  Skin crawling, I forced myself to swallow my fear and make myself look presentable for trial.

  When I was finally led into court for a new day of facing the unknown, I couldn’t look Shannon in the eye. I knew she was on my side. But I also knew that she wasn’t the one facing an unpredictable killer when all of this was over.

  We only had one play left. It was the reason I had been told in no uncertain terms that I could not wear heels to court.

  The balding man on the stand with the small, wire-framed glasses introduced himself as Dr Carl Hadaway, a forensic pathologist with so many academic suffixes I couldn’t keep track.

  He’d been called to the scene of Calum’s murder and had performed the autopsy that same day. I doubt he’d needed a fraction of his lengthy education to know that the cause of death was stabbing.

  Adler began by asking general questions to assert Dr Hadaway’s level of expertise, but moved on quite quickly to make her point.

  ‘And after you determined the cause of death, what other information did the autopsy tell you about Mr Bradley’s assailant, or the manner in which he died?’

  ‘I could determine a number of details about the crime based on the wound inflicted on Mr Bradley.’

  ‘Could you tell me specifically,’ said Ms Adler, ‘what Mr Bradley’s wound could tell you about the height and build of the assailant?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Dr Hadaway, his lips so close to the microphone that his consonants sounded like gunshots. ‘Although I must first clarify that this is not an exact science. Due to the elasticity and strength of human skin, stab wounds are almost always distorted and are therefore difficult to analyse when compared to, say, blunt force trauma.’

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘The first thing I noticed was that the assailant had to have been left-handed. The stab wound that killed Mr Bradley was delivered by someone who was standing directly behind him. So for them to reach around him, and deliver a wound of such force as to sever his left anterior descending artery, they could only have done so if their left hand was dominant. They stabbed him, then pushed him forward so violently that he was knocked unconscious, so the assailant must have also been extremely strong, probably of athletic build, to have murdered Mr Bradley in this manner.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Adler said, turning to the jury. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, my client, Mrs Reston, is indisputably right-handed, as our next witness will verify.’

  She faced the doctor again. ‘Was there anything else?’

  ‘Yes. The attacker had to have been quite tall to be able to carry out an attack such as this one. The wound on the victim’s chest was deep, and delivered in a downward motion, which means considerable force must have been used to create the incision I observed during the autopsy. What this tells us is that the assailant had to have been around five feet and eleven inches or so, and as I mentioned before, very strong, to carry out an attack of such force.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Hadaway. I’d like to invite my client, Mrs Reston, to stand up so the jury can observe her height.’

  I stood.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, Mrs Reston is five feet and five inches tall, a far cry from the five eleven of Mr Bradley’s attacker. Even if she were wearing heels, she wouldn’t even come close to this height. She is also of slim build, and unlikely to possess the strength to push a man like Calum Bradley hard enough to render him unconscious.’

  She motioned for me to sit again.

  ‘My Lord, I’d like to introduce to the court a series of photographs from the autopsy to illustrate what Dr Hadaway is testifying to,’ said Adler. ‘But I must warn the members of the jury and the ladies and gentlemen in the public gallery that these images are extremely disturbing. However, they are all highly relevant and necessary to the case.’

  The judge nodded his assent, and suddenly the courtroom crackled with a new-found energy. Jurors craned their necks in order to get the best view. The room buzzed with a sort of guilty excitement. Everyone wanted to see the grisly details of the Bradley murder, but no one would admit to it.

  This wasn’t their choice. They had to look. It was their duty, and they revelled in it.

  My guts coiled tightly as I anticipated the images of Calum’s punctured body flashing up onto the screen above me. I’d asked Shannon to show me the forensic evidence before the trial, so I wasn’t faced with the horror of his lifeless and bloodied corpse for the first time while so many eyes were on me. She refused, saying that it would be good for the jury to see my grief, to know that I was just as devastated by the graphic images as they would be. I knew she was right, but it didn’t stop me from screaming a number of highly offensive names down the phone line at her.

  I heard gasps and a ripple of murmurs from the jury; a wail and a slammed door from above me in the gallery, and I dared to look up at the screen to my right.

  I’d pictured it in readiness for this moment; tried to find a way to dull the impact of what I knew this image would do, but the grief hit me like an iron poker through my ribs. I pulled my cuffed hands to my face to shield myself from the court and wept into the sleeve of my dowdy white shirt.

  My Calum. He was dead. His flesh was white and lifeless, his chest and forehead smeared with dark blood. He looked nothing like the Calum I knew. He was nothing but a broken body.

  As my shoulders heaved uncontrollably, I realised that I hadn’t ever fully absorbed the reality of what had happene
d to the man I’d loved. Almost since the day he was found it had been about me, about my secret, about trying to maintain my life just the way it was. But there was no escaping it now. I forced myself to look up. As each new image was presented and examined, a fresh wave of grief hit me like a punch, the force temporarily blinding me.

  It was our biggest weapon against the prosecution, but by the end of Dr Hadaway’s testimony, I felt like I’d been the one it had been used on. I hardly heard another word the forensic expert said, or the handwriting expert who took the stand after him, but I knew the gist of it anyway. Only someone whose left hand was dominant could achieve such a deep wound, and I was right-handed. It was someone much taller than me who had killed Calum; someone who could have stabbed in a downward motion to his chest. I’d have to stretch a long way, and use an unbelievable amount of force to have the same effect.

  Science. That was our slam dunk.

  I took the tissue Adler handed me when she returned to her seat, blew hard and prayed that at the end of this, Calum really would get the justice he deserved.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  It was time.

  Weeks of wishing hours away in the cells beneath the Old Bailey, of sitting through slanderous accusations, and my trial was finally coming to an end.

  I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to endure another day of court proceedings. It was draining, periods of exhaustion followed quickly by adrenalin-boosting moments. I’d catch myself drifting away and then, with a start, remember what was happening, and how serious my situation was.

  Perhaps it was a form of denial. After all, I still couldn’t quite believe that I, Bethany Reston, a painfully middle-class photographer who had never been in trouble with the law, always paid my taxes, and who only overindulged occasionally, faced the possibility of going to prison for a murder I hadn’t committed. It was beyond comprehension.

  I wanted to shout it from the rooftops – I’M INNOCENT! – but no one wanted to hear from me. No one cared what I had to say. My fate was in the hands of twelve people, who were currently contemplating my past, and my future, in a room somewhere above this cold, stark cell.

  The fact that it had taken more than the minimum two hours and ten minutes was a good sign, apparently. It meant they didn’t unanimously agree that I was guilty. Although they weren’t collectively convinced of my innocence, either.

  I tried to imagine the conversations that were happening as the jury deliberated everything they’d heard. As much as I hated to admit it, the prosecution’s argument had been compelling. If I’d seen that CCTV clip and believed that the shady woman in black was the victim’s lover, and then an image was released of her holding a bloodied knife, well … it certainly wasn’t a stretch.

  But there was still no real evidence. The prosecution’s whole case seemed to be based on a foundation of maybes.

  Maybe I’d been having an affair with Calum. Maybe we’d argued about something that wasn’t related to work. Maybe the knife I was holding was the murder weapon. Maybe someone else had done the actual stabbing and I’d just instigated it. Maybe I was proficient enough with video-camera equipment to disable a CCTV camera.

  But none of these maybes changed the fact that I didn’t do it. And unlike the prosecution, my legal team had presented facts. Real evidence, straight from the mouths of professionals. I couldn’t have murdered Calum, it was physically impossible. Reasonable doubt. Shannon had said that was all I needed.

  But what I really needed was for this to be over. To go home, and to start putting together whatever shreds of my life still remained, to find out who really did this to Calum and make sure they faced the consequences of what they’d done.

  I leaned against the cool tiles of the wall and closed my eyes, focusing on a pinpoint in my imagination, trying to clear my mind. I inhaled slowly and waited.

  And suddenly my name was being called and I was being led on unsteady legs back towards Courtroom Number Four, as a flutter of hope came alive behind my ribcage.

  The jury foreman was one of the middle-aged ladies who had been so attentive throughout the trial. She looked pleased with her position of authority, and fussed over her hair, her collar, the hem of her pink skirt, as I tried not to stumble into the seat I’d occupied every day for the past few weeks.

  The anticipation in the room was so tangible it ached. Shannon leaned her body slightly towards mine.

  ‘Hang in there,’ she said. ‘It’s almost over.’

  We stood as the judge walked in, his wig wobbling, and when we were given permission to sit again, all I wanted was to scream, Just get on with it. The judge cleared his throat and shuffled some papers. I wondered if he was stalling on purpose, enjoying torturing me.

  ‘Will the jury foreman please stand,’ he requested, and she complied, her twitching hands visible to everyone except the judge.

  ‘Have you reached a verdict upon which you are all agreed? Please answer yes or no.’

  ‘No.’

  There was a murmur that started in the public gallery and wove its way down into the docks. My heart flipped over, once, sharply, and then settled with a thump. Was that hope? Or despair?

  ‘Have you reached a verdict upon which at least ten of you agree?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I could taste the silence in the courtroom. It was cold and metallic, clinical. The judge spoke again.

  ‘What is your verdict? Please answer only Guilty or Not Guilty.’

  Seconds or milliseconds; I will never know. That’s all I had to prepare myself, while the foreman smoothed a strand of grey hair off her face and returned her hand to my view.

  ‘Guilty.’

  The word hung in the air for a few seconds, just out of reach. Then it clattered down on me, stopping my pulse, crushing my lungs.

  Time ground to a halt, giving my brain time to catch up. I gasped, and then the scene sped forward once more.

  ‘NO!’ I yelled, only it came out as a barely audible whisper. Like one of those nightmares where you try to scream for help but nothing more than a rasping breath escapes your lips.

  It was beyond cruel. My life had ended, and yet I wasn’t given time to mourn, or even process what had just happened. Murmurs rose and fell, and the court went on.

  ‘How many of you agreed to the verdict and how many dissented?’

  It didn’t even matter. It meant nothing that one person argued in my favour while the rest casually sealed my fate with their assumptions. I was guilty. I would be sent back to prison with all hope of escaping from this nightmare extinguished. And the person who killed Calum would carry on as though nothing had happened.

  I was powerless to stop it. All I could do was sit, silent, blood lining the inside of my mouth, and wait to learn how many years of my life would be stolen from me.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Calum had told me, moments before he died, that I needed to choose.

  ‘It’s time for you to make a decision,’ he’d said. I’d needed to decide whether I loved Jason or not. Whether I wanted my marriage to be riddled with lies, or whether I wanted to make it work with the man I’d promised to be faithful to forever.

  I’d known he was right, but I’d been a coward.

  For so long I had been waiting for life to make the hard choices for me. I’d let myself fall in love with someone who wasn’t my husband, I’d betrayed the man who I’d always adored. I’d become restless, and I’d thought the answer was to find the grass that looked greenest and roll around in it for a while.

  Turns out it wasn’t the answer. It was just a distraction.

  I had loved Calum. As much as I wish I could look back and say that it was just a meaningless fling, I’d fallen in love with him, a man I hardly knew. I was charmed by his charisma, his dry humour, the way he made me feel like no one else even existed. I’d never know how he really felt about me, but for a while it seemed like we had a rare connection, the kind that makes you giddy and foolish.

  But I loved Ja
son, too. I’d completely broken our trust, and yet somehow he still believed in me, still stayed by my side, still did all he could to prove my innocence. There was nothing confusing about that.

  It had taken the death of a man I loved, the terror of being stalked and a trial for a crime I never committed, but I finally knew what I wanted. And I’d finally made my choice.

  It was Adler who helped me make it, actually.

  She came to visit me the day after the jury found me guilty and my life sentence was passed. I hadn’t cried yet. I just didn’t have it in me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d done enough.’

  I stared into her hazel eyes and watched the bottom of her cheek pulsing as she worked her jaw, her face stony. This must be devastating for her, too, I realised. Mine was the highest-profile case of her career, and she’d lost. I wondered what that would do to a lawyer’s reputation.

  ‘Shannon,’ I said, and she didn’t even flinch at the informality. ‘I sold my business to be able to afford you. We spent all our savings. Jason had to take out a loan and our families have even had to pitch in for all this. I’m not paying you a fortune to lie to me, OK?’

  I waited for a response, and she nodded slowly.

  ‘Jason keeps going on about appeals, and I’ve been telling him we can’t just appeal without grounds. But he’s insistent, and as much as I want to believe him, I can’t bear any more false hope. Is there any way of fighting this?’

  My lawyer opened her mouth and then quickly shut it again.

  A pause.

  ‘Look, Bethany …’ she began, and my heart plummeted.

  Shannon Adler never used first names. This wasn’t going to be good.

  I barely listened to her lawyerly response. The way she danced around any kind of straightforward answer told me all I needed to know.

  I called Alex that night. Now that I was officially guilty, I had the same phone privileges as everyone else, which meant conversations took place in a public hallway, noisy and intimidating, snatches of conversations between my cell and the dinner line.