The Girl Who Came Back

by Susan Lewis

“Only once or twice when she said things to humiliate me in front of other people, or she’d call me a stalker who needed to get a life.”

  From the public gallery Stephie yelled, “Because you are a stalker, you lying bitch.”

  Stephie’s mother yanked her back to her seat as the judge called for order.

  “One more interruption like that and I’ll have you removed,” he warned Stephie.

  Everyone turned back to Amelia, whose eyes were swimming in tears.

  Very gently, Samia Henshawe said, “I won’t ask you to repeat any more of the things Daisy Bright said to humiliate you, or how you felt when she accused you of being a stalker. I’ll just ask if you forgave her for this cruelty?”

  “Of course,” Amelia whispered, “because mostly she was lovely and kind and I really, really wanted to be her friend.”

  “Why? What was it about her that drew you to her?”

  “Well, I suppose because she was popular, there was always something going on around her….She had this performing arts society, and everyone always wanted to be involved.”

  “Was that Daisy’s only attraction for you?”

  Amelia appeared flummoxed for a moment until, apparently catching on, she said, “There was her mum too. She was always really lovely to me. I used to think, if I had a mother, I’d want her to be just like Daisy’s mum.”

  “So you came to think of them as a second family?”

  “Yes, definitely.”

  Appearing moved by that, Samia Henshawe allowed a moment for it to sink in with the jury.

  Jules was staring hard at Amelia, willing her to look her way, but Amelia simply kept her head down in her convincing whipped-puppy way.

  “She’s told so many lies already,” Em murmured, “that I’m almost afraid to hear what’s coming next.”

  Feeling much the same way, Jules glanced along the line to Kian again. His eyes came to hers and he shook his head, clearly as stunned as she was by the false and yet appallingly believable picture being painted of their innocent daughter.

  Resuming, Samia Henshawe said, “Let’s return to July fourteenth and how Dean Foggarty came to be in the stable with you and Daisy.”

  Joe growled, “She hasn’t even asked how come they were in the stables.”

  “It’ll be taken care of on the cross,” Jules assured him, confident that it would be.

  “Did you invite Dean to visit you that day?” Henshawe asked.

  Amelia shook her head. “Not exactly. I mean, I’d told him before that he was welcome at any time, but I had no idea he was planning on coming that day.”

  “So what happened? Did he just show up?”

  “Yes.”

  “You hadn’t sent a text telling him you had a surprise for him?”

  “No, definitely not.”

  Jules glanced at Dean, and the bitter look on his face was enough to convince her that Amelia was lying about that too.

  But where was the text?

  “What happened when he arrived?” Henshawe asked. “What were you and Daisy doing?”

  “I was sitting on a straw bale, crying, and Daisy was telling me to grow up and pull myself together. Dean came in and asked what was going on, so Daisy told him I was making a fool of myself over my mother.”

  “And what did Dean say to that?”

  “I can’t remember him saying anything. He just kind of looked at me, and then at Daisy.”

  “Did you ask him why he’d come? Or even how he’d got there?”

  “I didn’t get the chance, because he called Daisy outside to talk to her. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but when he came in he told me Daisy was on the phone to her dad saying she didn’t need a lift home because I would take her later.”

  “Were you OK with that? She’d been pretty horrible to you, so I expect you were keen for her to go.”

  “I was and I wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t want her to go on being horrible to me, but I still really wanted to be her friend, and I thought that if she stayed we could work things out.”

  “But that isn’t what happened?”

  Amelia shook her head miserably. “No, it isn’t.”

  “So tell us what did.”

  Her breath shuddered on a sob as she said, “It was while Daisy was on the phone to her dad that Dean started saying that she shouldn’t have been so mean to me. He said she always got away with things, and it was time she got her comeuppance. I didn’t know what he was talking about at first, but when Daisy came back he suddenly grabbed a ball of raffia string and twisted it around her hands. Then he pushed her onto the floor and attached the string to a hook in the wall. Daisy was screaming at us that we were both crazy and we should let her go, but Dean was already tearing off her jeans. She tried to kick him away, so he told me to grab her legs. I didn’t want to, but I was afraid of what he would do to me if I didn’t.”

  “So you held her legs?”

  “As best I could, but she was going berserk and I wasn’t strong enough.”

  “So you threatened her with a knife?”

  Amelia nodded dolefully.

  “Where did the knife come from?”

  “I ran back to the house to get it.”

  “With the intention of using it?”

  “No, definitely not. It was only to make her lie still for Dean.”

  “And did it work?”

  “Yes, it did.”

  “Did you cut her before he raped her?”

  “Yes, but only by accident. She moved suddenly, and the knife went into her face.”

  “So you didn’t purposely injure her?”

  “No.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Joe seethed.

  “What happened next?” the lawyer asked.

  “She kept shouting and screaming and calling us names, especially me. She said I was a waste of space and I should do everyone a favor and stab myself because no one wanted me as a friend. Dean kept telling me to shut her up. They were both shouting at me, so loudly and angrily…I didn’t know what to do…I was so scared and confused…I just…It was like I wasn’t myself anymore….”

  “This is when you started to stab her?”

  “No, no. I didn’t stab her. It was Dean. He grabbed the knife from me and just went berserk.”

  “But the wounds were caused by a left-handed person. Dean is right-handed.”

  “I don’t know about that. I only know that he did it with his left hand.”

  “You noticed at the time that he was using his left hand?”

  “I think so. I mean, yes, I did.”

  “And you didn’t try to stop him?”

  “I couldn’t. He was too strong for me and I’d never been in a situation like that before. It was terrifying…I couldn’t think straight…I just knew I wanted him to stop, but I didn’t know how to make him.”

  “So when did he stop?”

  “It must have been when he realized Daisy wasn’t shouting or fighting anymore.”

  “Did he say anything to you then?”

  She nodded. “He looked at me and said, “What the fuck have you done? You’re a bloody mental case.’ ”

  “And what did you say to that?”

  “I don’t think I answered. I was so shocked. I couldn’t believe what had happened.”

  Unable to take any more, Jules collected her bag and went to find the nearest ladies. Never in her life had she imagined having to suffer anything like the scene she had just witnessed. That the girl could be allowed to stand there lying through her teeth, twisting one fact after another, trying to turn herself into the victim rather than the manipulating, cold-blooded killer that she actually was, was enough to turn Jules herself into a killer too, if it was the only way justice could be done.

  Em found her as she was splashing cold water on her face. “It’s over for today,” she said, handing Jules a wad of paper towels. “I’m not sure what we’re going to do now, we’re all so shell-shocked by that pack of lies. Surely to God the jury saw through i
t.”

  “I don’t know that they did,” Jules answered roughly. Her throat was parched; her face was so white and strained across the fine bones it seemed likely to tear apart with grief. “Where’s Kian?”

  “He was talking to Andee as I left. We should probably go and find him.”

  Much later that evening they were all sitting in the pub bar sipping the drinks Misty had served, and picking at the food rustled up by Marco. Everyone was there: Daisy’s friends and their parents, the entire Kesterly contingent of Kian’s family, Joe, Em and her husband, even Andee Lawrence and Dougie, the mayor.

  They talked over everything that had been said that day, how easy it was going to be to pick holes in it, how certain it was that Dickon Bruce would show Amelia and her father to be nothing but liars.

  “What that girl hasn’t told us yet,” Andee said quietly to Jules as she was leaving, “is why, when she had a knife in her hand, didn’t she use it on Dean to save Daisy? In fact, nothing she said is adding up, from how Dean just happened to turn up, to running off to the house to fetch a knife. Why didn’t she just raise the alarm while she was gone? If she knew what Dean was intending, and she’s already said that she did, any normal person would have gone straight for the phone. So, whatever the jury might be thinking tonight, I’m fully confident that by this time tomorrow everything will have turned on its head.”

  —

  The following day’s cross-examination didn’t follow the pattern anyone was expecting. To begin with, Jules and Kian had imagined Dickon Bruce tearing Amelia’s lies about her friendship with Daisy to shreds, but it wasn’t even he who asked the questions, it was Laura Cosgrove.

  “Where did you meet the deceased?” she asked.

  “At the Kesterly gym.”

  “Did you become friends right away?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “And how long ago was this first meeting?”

  “About two and a half years.”

  “So roughly eighteen months before Daisy was brutally hacked to death?”

  As Jules flinched and Amelia’s eyes narrowed, there was a protest from the defense that the judge seemed to ignore.

  Directed to answer the question, Amelia dropped her head and spoke so softly that the judge asked her to repeat it. “That’s correct,” she said, managing to sound shaky and picked on.

  From there Laura Cosgrove moved on to the afternoon of July 14, when Amelia had sent the text to Daisy. Apparently she had no interest in the dates or details of the fictitious shopping sprees; saw no importance in how often Daisy had stayed over at Crofton Park, which was never; nor did she ask Amelia to tell the court exactly what she and Daisy had discussed during their conversations about Amelia’s mother. Jules knew very well that the conversations had never taken place; if they had, Daisy would have told her.

  Lies, lies, and more lies. How could anyone do it? Clearly swearing an oath means nothing to that family.

  “When you sent the text about finding your mother,” Cosgrove asked, “did you expect Daisy to reply right away?”

  “Yes, I thought she would.”

  “Because she was a kind and sensitive friend?”

  “Most of the time, yes.”

  “So she did reply and she came to see you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “When she arrived, did you go into the house first, or straight to the stables?”

  “Straight to the stables.”

  Why did you go to the stables? You have to ask her why.

  Cosgrove said, “I believe the stables are some distance from the house. Did you drive Daisy there, or did you walk?”

  “I drove.”

  “And had Daisy ever been to the stables before?”

  “Yes, a few times. We even camped out there once, after my dad had sold the horses.”

  As Jules’s mouth fell open Stephie shouted, “You are such a liar!”

  The judge’s head came up. “I’ve already warned you once,” he said crossly, and moments later a bailiff was escorting a fuming, crying Stephie from the court.

  Jules was watching Amelia, wondering how it felt to lie with such a flagrant disregard of the fact that people in the room knew she was lying, including her father. There had never been any camping out, and as far as Jules was aware there had never been any horses either—or none that had ever been mentioned to her and Daisy.

  “You told us yesterday,” Laura Cosgrove continued, “that Daisy wasn’t as sympathetic to the discovery of your mother’s whereabouts as you’d expected her to be.”

  “No, she wasn’t.”

  “Could this be because you hadn’t actually found out where your mother was?”

  Amelia’s face hardened. “I thought I had,” she stated coldly.

  “Because you’d tracked down someone living in Cornwall with the same name and who was the same age?”

  “That’s right.”

  Jules waited for Cosgrove to tell her that the police hadn’t found anyone who’d met the criteria when they’d carried out their own search, but all she said was, “I believe you knew from the age of nine that your mother was dead, but you decided, perhaps in your teens, maybe even later, that a mysterious disappearance would evoke more sympathy and interest than the plain truth.”

  Amelia’s eyes flashed as she stiffened. “That’s not true,” she replied, glancing at her father.

  Cosgrove moved on. “Dean Foggarty claims that Daisy was already tied up when he arrived at the stables. Is that true?”

  “No, it isn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to do that. Daisy was taller and stronger than me. She could easily have fought me off. Anyway, I had no reason to tie her up.”

  “You had plenty of reason if it was your intention to kill her.”

  “My Lord…”

  “Quite.”

  Unapologetic, Cosgrove said, “She wouldn’t have been able to fight you off if you were threatening her with a knife.”

  “Where’s the question?” Samia Henshawe demanded.

  “Were you able to tie Daisy up because you were threatening her with a knife?” Cosgrove rephrased.

  “I didn’t tie her up. Dean did, when he came.”

  Jules looked at Dean. The intensity of his loathing as he stared at Amelia made it clear to Jules, and maybe the jury, that the girl was still lying, but it was her word against his.

  “OK, so let’s go back to the text you sent Dean telling him you had a surprise for him. Would I be correct in thinking that Daisy was the surprise?”

  “No. I mean, I didn’t send Dean a text.”

  Cosgrove said, “Did you know about Dean’s Facebook page, the one we’ve seen here in the court?”

  “No, that was the first time I saw it.”

  Cosgrove appeared surprised. “Really? Are you sure that previous knowledge of this page wasn’t what persuaded you to urge Dean to rape Daisy Bright?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “But you knew from reading the page, didn’t you, that it was what he wanted?”

  “Yes, but…I mean, I never saw the page, so no.”

  “Yes or no?”

  “No.”

  Surely to God someone checked her computer.

  Jules asked Andee during a recess, “Wouldn’t someone have checked her computer?”

  “Yes,” Andee assured her, “and apparently she did view the page, several times.”

  “So why didn’t the prosecutor pursue it?”

  Andee shook her head in bewilderment as she said, “It’s a question I’d like answered myself. Perhaps she’ll get round to it this afternoon.”

  —

  “You say,” Laura Cosgrove declared, “that you went to the main house to fetch a knife.”

  Amelia simply looked at the lawyer. Clearly she’d been schooled only to answer if there was a question.

  “I know I’m asking myself,” Cosgrove continued, “and I’m sure the jury is too, why on earth you didn’t seize this opportunity to raise the alar
m?”

  Amelia’s eyes went down as her breath caught on a sob. “I—I don’t know,” she stammered. “I wish I had….I just wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “But you claimed to know that Dean was about to rape your friend; that seems pretty clear to me. So why didn’t you raise the alarm?”

  “I—I’m sorry. I know I should have. I wish I had.”

  “So we’re agreed that you didn’t put a stop to what was happening when you could have? Instead, you held a knife to Daisy’s face while—”

  “No, no I didn’t do that.”

  “But you’ve already told the court that you did.”

  “But not in the way you’re making it sound. I didn’t want her to be hurt….”

  “So what did you want?”

  “I don’t know. I— It all happened so fast….”

  “Isn’t it true that you tricked Daisy into coming to see you with the sole purpose of seeking revenge for the way she and her mother had rejected you several months before? You planned the whole thing, Amelia.”

  Amelia was throwing panicked looks her father’s way. “I know how it must seem,” she protested, “but I swear it’s not how it happened. I really cared for Daisy. I’d never want anything bad to happen to her….”

  “And yet according to your own testimony you stood by while she was stabbed no fewer than fifteen times.”

  “I didn’t stand by….”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I—I can’t remember. I—I was shouting at him to stop. I tried to grab him, but he was too strong.”

  Cosgrove eyed her coldly.

  Amelia eyed her back.

  “It was you who carried out the stabbing, wasn’t it?” Cosgrove said quietly.

  Amelia’s eyes flashed. “No! It was him,” she cried, pointing at Dean.

  “With his left hand?”

  “I don’t know. If you say so.”

  Cosgrove’s manner remained chill. “What I say, Amelia, is that it was your left hand that carried out the stabbings. It was you who lost control, not Dean Foggarty…”

  Henshawe was on her feet, but Laura Cosgrove was already saying, “No more questions, my lord,” and with a flourish of her gown she retook her seat.

  —

  The other part of the trial that had always remained in Jules’s mind was the judge’s summing up.