A Game of Proof (The trials of Sarah Newby)

by Vicary, Tim

  ‘The police are desperate, Simon, that’s exactly what they are. But so far they’ve got nothing that fits. Until you. So if they find this hood in your shed ...’

  ‘You’re not going to show it to them, Mum? You can’t!’

  ‘No, I can’t. But Simon, I need to understand ...’

  ‘Time’s up, everyone! Come on now, hurry along!’ The warder was coming towards them. Only a few seconds left. Simon leaned forward earnestly.

  ‘You chuck those things away, Mum, right? Get rid of ‘em quick!’

  ‘Yes, Simon, but ...’ The warder had his hand on Simon’s shoulder.

  ‘You sort it, Mum, please. I trust you. You’re a lawyer, you know what to do.’

  No I don’t, Sarah thought, watching him led away. I haven’t got the first idea.

  Chapter Twenty

  THE COFFEE slopped into the tray as Sarah put it down on the Formica topped table. She had stopped at a transport café on the way back to York. She slumped into a seat, sipped the lukewarm, viscous looking liquid, then pushed it away in disgust. She leaned her elbows on the table and buried her fists in her hair, tugging at it until her scalp hurt.

  What was she to do? Normally she thought of herself as a forceful, decisive person who took a grip on events and controlled them, but not now. What was going wrong?

  She had told herself there was no evidence and then found some. She had confronted Simon with this hood and ring, hoping that he would provide an innocent explanation. But he hadn’t, had he? Not really. He had said he knew nothing of the ring and blustered about the hood but what had really hurt her was his eyes, the way they had avoided hers the whole time. And at first he’d pretended it was a joke, for heaven’s sake!

  If he had been a hostile witness with an attitude like that, she would have crucified him. And that’s the point, she thought desperately. He will be on the stand and this stuff is evidence. I wish I’d never found it.

  ‘Is this seat free, love?’

  She looked up and saw a man in a checked shirt with a tray of all-day fried breakfast grinning down at her. The café was fairly full, there were no spare tables near her.

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  ‘Ta.’ He sat down, propped the Sun against the ketchup bottle, and began to saw his way into the double eggs, fried bread, sausage, bacon and beans. Sarah stared away from him, out of the window.

  The point was she’d not only found it, she’d contaminated it too. Her fingerprints would be all over the ring and although she didn’t think you could get prints off a woollen hood the fact that she’d touched it and taken it to Hull would complicate matters horribly if it ever came to court. She felt an icy wave flow through her as she imagined the scene. ‘Why did you do that, Mrs Newby? You are aware, are you not, that all criminal evidence should be properly examined by the police?’ ‘I did it because he was my son!’ ‘Were you intending to hide the evidence or tamper with it in some way?’ She closed her eyes and shuddered.

  ‘You all right, love?’ The lorry driver was staring at her over his newspaper, a fork full of food halfway to his mouth.

  ‘What? Yes, fine, thanks.’

  ‘You don’t look fine. You went all pale like, I thought you were going to faint.’

  ‘No, I’m OK, really. Just a bit tired and cold, that’s all.’ She took a second slurp of the coffee, or whatever it was.

  ‘Cold, on a day like this? You on a bike?’ He nodded at the helmet and gauntlets on the table, which made the answer obvious. Sarah nodded.

  ‘Wish my missus had the figure to fit in them biking leathers. They suit you.’

  Oh God. Not here, not now, please. ‘Thanks. My husband thinks so too. He’s a boxer.’

  She favoured him with the ghost of smile, letting her eyes dwell on the paunch beneath his shirt.

  ‘Oh, yeah. No offence.’ He carried on feeding while she sipped the vile coffee and gazed into the car park. Even if Bob were a boxer he’d still be useless, she thought bitterly. He got us into this, betraying his own stepson to the police. How could he do that?

  But then what am I going to do with this hood and this ring?

  The ring was still on her finger: it felt unreasonably heavy, like lead. The balaclava was in a plastic bag in the pannier of the bike. Were you intending to hide the evidence or tamper with it in some way? Yes, she thought, yes. I wish I’d never found it, I wish it didn’t exist.

  She picked up her helmet and gauntlets and walked out, past the man who was polishing the sauce from his plate with a crust of fried bread. She felt strange, light-headed and slightly foggy in her mind, yet she had decided exactly what to do. She walked to the bike, opened the pannier, and took out the plastic bag. She glanced inside to reassure herself that the hood was still there; a crumpled eye slit seemed to wink at her conspiratorially. She slipped the ring off her finger and dropped it in. The weight disappeared; swinging the bag lightly from one finger, she walked across the car park to a large litter bin just outside the café entrance. It was shaped like a post box, with a slot near the top. She pushed the bag in the slot, and posted it inside.

  Then she took a deep breath, turned away, and felt a smile twist her face. She took five strides towards the bike, hesitated, and burst into tears. The tears were totally unexpected and utterly uncontrollable. Sarah never cried like this: she didn’t know what was happening to her. She leaned over the metal bike rail, sobbing so hard she was nearly sick. The tears overwhelmed her like a flash flood in a desert, and through her mind like sticks in the flood came memories. Simon as a baby sucking her breast; Kevin telling her parents he’d marry her; Kevin leaving, with baby Simon in her bruised arms; her first kiss with Bob, so gentle and different to Kevin; herself studying inside the playpen while the toddler Simon trashed the house outside; herself carrying Emily on her hips while Bob clumsily played football with Simon; opening her exam results - O Levels, A Levels, degree; going into court in her wig and gown for her first case, so proud; Simon arguing with Bob, their faces red, his school report torn on the floor between them; Emily’s empty bedroom only a week ago, teddy bears on the bed and books still open on the table; Jasmine’s pale bruised face on the mortuary slab with a twig embedded in the waxy skin; Simon in prison this morning, frightened and evasive; Simon maybe four years old, hitting his sister Emily over the head with a stick so that her forehead had to be stitched by the doctor; the contempt on the face of a judge she had once seen, sentencing a solicitor to jail for conspiring with his client to destroy evidence in a drugs case.

  And then the pictures were gone and the tears with them, as suddenly as they had come. She clung to the bike rail in the car park, cold and trembling but able to stand upright again. She felt a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Can I help you, love?’

  She turned and saw the man from the café. He was big, rather flabby, with a round friendly face in which her clear washed out mind detected no sign of malice or danger.

  ‘You were crying. I couldn’t help but see. Is there owt I can do?’

  She let go of the rail and swayed. His hands grasped her shoulders as though she might break. ‘Nah then. Steady does it.’

  ‘Yes. Just hold me like that for a moment, if you wouldn’t mind.’ She smiled at him faintly, clutching his arm to balance herself. ‘It’s all very silly, it’s just ... I can’t really say why.’

  ‘Would you like to come inside and sit down? Cup of tea maybe?’

  ‘No, it’s ... there is something you can do to help me, though. If you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘No problem, love. Just tell me what it is, and it’s done.’

  ‘It’s over here.’ She summoned up her strength and began to walk, rather slowly, towards the litter bin. He kept his arm round her shoulder and she leaned against him, this complete stranger, drawing warmth from the human comfort.

  ‘I put something in here a few moments ago, in a plastic bag.’

  ‘You did. I saw yer actually, from the window.’

  ‘D
id you? Well, it was a mistake. There’s something sentimental inside ... private ... a ring and something else ... I shouldn’t have thrown it away.’

  ‘You want it back? I’ll get it for you then.’ He reached inside the bin but his arm was too big, it was stuck. She tried too but although her arm was smaller she couldn’t reach far enough.

  ‘It’s got a lock on, look. You stay here and I’ll go and get the key. You okay now?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks. I’m fine.’ This is ridiculous, she thought when he’d gone. I could do this for myself, I don’t need a man to help. But he was so eager and the truth was that just now she was finding standing up and being polite quite enough to manage on her own.

  He came back with a spotty young man and a key. This is a dangerous moment, she realized, I’ve made enough of an exhibition of myself already. When the boy unlocked the lid she pulled out the bag herself, forestalling him, and took out the ring.

  ‘That’s it. It was my mother’s. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

  ‘Sentimental value, like?’

  ‘Yes. You’ve both been very kind. I’m really grateful.’

  ‘You’ll have that cup of tea now?’

  ‘No. Really, thanks.’ She caught his hand and squeezed it. ‘You’ve been very kind but it’s best if I get home. I’ll feel better there.’ She began to walk away.

  ‘You sure you’re strong enough to ride that bike?’

  ‘Yes. Oh yes, I’m used to it, I’ll manage.’ She needed to reassure herself as well as them. I’ll have to manage, she thought. I can’t make a fool of myself again. She felt them watching her as she put the bag in the pannier, unlocked the bike, sat astride and strapped on her helmet.

  ‘Well, get that boxer husband to make tea when you get home, then!’ the man shouted.

  Sarah smiled and raised her hand in thanks. ‘I’ll do that,’ she said.

  As if.

  When she got home Emily was in her bedroom revising. With a sense of disorientation, Sarah remembered that her daughter had sat her first GCSE exam that morning. In the midst of mayhem, other people’s lives go on as normal, she thought. She remembered a poem by Auden in which Icarus plunged from the sky to his death while a farmer ploughed his fields below, impervious to the tragic drama above his head. She went upstairs to her daughter’s bedroom.

  ‘Hello. How’d it go?’

  ‘Awful, thanks.’

  ‘Why? What went wrong?’

  ‘Fat lot you care.’ Emily hadn’t turned round. Sarah was forced to stare at the back of her daughter’s head, rejected. She sat on the bed.

  ‘What was it? Geography?’

  ‘German - see what I mean? And if you really want to know, I couldn’t understand the listening or translation either. So I’ve cocked that up. Anyway, why weren’t you here last night? The night before my first exam, of all nights.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Emily, really. I slept at Simon’s house, I told you. I went to see him again.’

  Emily turned, examining her mother intently. ‘Are you and dad breaking up?’

  ‘What ... no, I don’t think so. What makes you ask that?’

  ‘You running off. He seemed pretty cut up about it. It didn’t help me.’

  ‘Emily, I’m sorry.’ Sarah thought she should probably give her daughter a hug but the girl sat so stiffly that she feared a rebuff. ‘All this business with Simon, you know ... it’s going to be hard for a while.’

  ‘It says in our social science textbook that families often break up when they’re under a lot of strain from some - what do they call it? - traumatic event. Like that Lawrence family whose son was murdered. They split up.’

  ‘Yes, well, you shouldn’t believe everything you read in social science textbooks.’ This time she did manage to reach out and hold her daughter’s hands. It was the right thing to do; Emily leaned forward earnestly, listening for once to what she said.

  ‘When I split up with Simon’s father Kevin before you were born it was nothing to do with strain from a traumatic event. He caused the trauma himself by finding another woman - there wasn’t one before. And ... of course it’s awful about what’s happening to Simon but it’s no good if we don’t support him. That’s what ...’ She hesitated, uncertain how to finish.

  ‘That’s what you were arguing about with Dad. Is that what you were going to say?’

  ‘Well, yes, in a way ...’

  ‘There you are then. That’s probably what the book means.’

  ‘We’re not living in a school textbook, Emily! This is your brother Simon, he’s remanded in custody charged with murder!’

  ‘I’m not a child, Mum. I don’t need a lecture!’ Emily snatched her hands away.

  If I’m not careful I’ll wreck this too, Sarah thought. I’ve got to get something right today. ‘All right, I’m sorry, Emily, OK? You’re right, this is a big strain for all of us. None of us needs it - especially not you with your exams.’

  A sort of calm returned. Then Emily asked her big question. ‘Do you think he did it?’

  Sarah tried not to avoid her daughter’s eyes. This was no time to lie. But how to answer?

  ‘I suppose there’s a difference between what I think and what I believe,’ she began slowly, wondering if she understood herself. ‘If I start out by thinking, as the police and their lawyers will, then yes, there’s plenty of evidence to make it seem he’s guilty. He was the last person to see her, he hit her, he ran away to Scarborough the night she was killed ... and other things.’

  Including the contents of a plastic bag in the pannier of my bike, she thought despairingly. I can’t tell Emily about those; they’re my burden.

  ‘But if you ask me what I believe, then that’s a different question. Do I believe that Simon - I mean we all know he has faults because we’ve lived with him, but ... do I believe that he could have killed that girl - raped her and cut her throat with a knife, then the answer has to be no. Doesn’t it, Emily? Whatever the evidence seems to say, there must be something wrong with it.’

  Emily considered the answer she had been given. ‘You have to think - I mean, believe - that, don’t you, because you’re his mother?’

  ‘Yes. And you’re his sister.’ How often have I seen families in court, Sarah thought. With no idea how it must feel.

  Emily nodded. ‘I don’t want him to be guilty either. But ...’

  ‘But there’s a lot of evidence. That’s what Lucy, his solicitor, is looking at right now. And when it comes to court he’ll have the best barrister we can find - a QC I hope. That’s what lawyers are for.’ They sat for a while in silence, then Sarah got up. ‘You get on with your revision, now. Be grateful these aren’t decisions you have to make.’

  But as Sarah reached the door, Emily said: ‘If he did do it, though, I’d want him to be locked up for ever. He’d deserve that, even though he’s my brother. I wouldn’t want any clever lawyer to get him off when he’s guilty, like you do sometimes.’

  Sarah went out and shut the door behind her. Outside in the corridor, she leant her back against the wall, and slid slowly to the floor, until her hands clasped her knees in a foetal position. I can’t cope with this, she thought, this isn’t supposed to happen to lawyers. This is the sort of things clients’ families go through. Now I know why so many of them go crazy. It hurts too much.

  Much, much too much.

  Bob showed no surprise to find her at home. She was slumped in an armchair, staring out at the weeping willow in the garden. There was a plastic bag on the carpet beside her. Classical music was playing softly, and she had a glass in her hand, as she occasionally did after a hard day at work. He crossed the room and poured a small whisky for himself.

  ‘Where’s Emily?’

  ‘Upstairs, working. She’s going out with Larry in half an hour.’

  ‘In the middle of her exams? Is that wise?’

  Sarah shrugged. ‘She’s been working all afternoon, Bob. Anyway there’s something I need to talk to you about and it’d be
better if she weren’t here.’

  Bob frowned. ‘Sounds ominous.’

  ‘What isn’t, these days?’

  ‘I’ll go up and talk to her now, then. See how she got on.’

  ‘OK.’ As he went upstairs Sarah took her drink into the garden. At the end of the lawn was the gate leading into the field by the river. Only a few days ago, she thought, I was out there wondering if Emily’d thrown herself into the water. Now I can imagine doing the same myself. How do people drown themselves, anyway? Do you just dive down and breathe water instead of air? It wouldn’t work. You might want to die, but your body would panic and resist. You have to fight on, however bad you feel. That’s just the way it is.

  When Bob came down, she told him what she’d decided to say.

  ‘Emily said something earlier that made me think. She said that families often split up because of the pressure of some traumatic event from outside. She’d read it in a book, poor kid, but it might be true for all that. The other day you told the police about Simon hitting Jasmine, and I said you’d betrayed him. But ...’ She paused; it was so hard to admit this. ‘You had to do it, I see that now. You had no choice.’

  It was not what Bob had expected. All day he’d been thinking, this is how marriages end. First with a row about something fundamental in which both partners think they’re right, followed by a physical separation, then a fight for the affections of your children, ending if you’re unlucky with a complete loathing and hatred of the person you once loved. And it must be so lonely. So when he’d seen her there with a drink in her hand he’d been sure she had come to make a formal beginning of the process. Now this instead. He was hugely relieved.

  ‘What ... makes you say that?’

  ‘I’ve thought about it. And - something’s happened.’ She picked up the plastic bag, and told him - about the hood and ring in the shed, Simon’s response, and the decision she had made at the transport café. It was hard for him to take in at first.

  ‘And this is why you came back?’

  ‘Yes. Well, not the only reason. But you see, I thought the right thing to do - to protect Simon - was to chuck it in the bin, just as I thought the right thing for you to do was to keep quiet about that old man. But then when I tried ... I couldn’t do it. It’s harder than I thought; it must have been like that for you too. So one thing is - sorry.’