by S. G Mark
Sir Richard motioned towards the glass box, “Mr Lawrence, could you kindly keep your prisoner in check.”
Matthew reached for the intercom again, “Affirmative. It will not happen again.”
Henry Mendell waited for Sir Richard to invite the court to continue. He nodded with dignity and Henry launched into his next question.
“Miss Ross, did you ever imagine that your then boyfriend would have resorted to extremism?” the prosecution asked Jane.
“Call me naive,” she said, “But no. I guess I should have known better.”
“You mean to say in the two years you were together you never once questioned his judgement?” Henry continued.
Jane shook her head, “No.”
“He never spoke or acted out of turn?”
“He... “ Jane looked at her feet for a second, “He became a bit volatile towards the end of our relationship.”
“And why was that, Ms Ross?”
“He was unable to continue studying,” she said, “And I was. It became a real issue. It’s the reason we broke up.”
“In what way did he become volatile?”
“He kept on making me feel bad for staying on at university. When he got a job at a supermarket, he became paranoid that I thought I was judging him. I didn’t, I hadn’t. I loved him at the time, but had I known for a second the monster he would become…”
Jane tailed off, dabbing her eyes with her fingers.
“Thank you, Ms Ross,” he said, “You may step down from the witness box now.”
Jane glanced furtively up at the glass box Jack was in, before being escorted by one of the ushers away from the court.
“A lesson to us all that we cannot predict the actions of others,” Henry continued, “And a suitable point in which to close today’s proceedings.”
“Court adjourned,” The judge snapped his hammer, “Until nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”
The first day of the trial was over. Matthew led a frail Jack out of the glass box, tossing him to the guards as the doors to the public closed behind them. He then gathered his files underneath his arm and strode off down along the corridor in the opposite direction to where Jack was being dragged.
It was hard to taken in. They had recruited Jane, or at least easily persuaded her to act on their behalf. Though her point about how they broke up might have been valid, the rest had been rubbish. He hadn’t ever said anything political back in his student days. Nothing of any consequence at any rate. But he could hardly bring himself to be angry at her. Instead, Jack felt sorry for her. Had she refused, she would be occupying a cell just like his. No matter which way he viewed it, whether he resented Jane or empathised with the position she was in, it all served to tunnel out the last remaining vestiges of hope he had.
Back in the glass box, and the second day of the trial saw his former colleagues shed light on his character. Jack was shocked to the depths the prosecution would plunge to attempt to carve out a history of a dangerous man. He thought they had surpassed themselves with Jane, drumming up Jack’s past like a cheap parlour trick. But when he saw his old boss from the post office, Eric, take the stand he questioned exactly how far they might go.
“Can you clearly articulate the reasons for terminating your employment of Steven Lennox?”
“He became very unreliable as a worker,” Eric explained, “Consistently late and interfering with other employees work. And of course he was in the local paper a few times, which didn’t help matters.”
“In the local paper?” Henry asked, feigning surprise, “For what reason?”
“He was arrested at a Democratic Demolitioners rally in Cowgate,” Eric said, “They let him go without charges, but mud sticks. I had many of my workers complain to me that they weren’t comfortable working with him.”
“So what exactly led you to fire Steven?”
“I caught him stealing Rations,” he said, “From the mail.”
“Why would he need to steal Rations, was he not already receiving his allowance?”
“Apparently they had banned him,” he said, “For using a fake identity.”
“Ah yes, this fake identity being Jack Blackwood,” Henry recited from his notes, “And tell me, were you aware that the man you employed, Jack Blackwood, was indeed the same man - Steven Lennox - standing in court today?”
Eric looked up at Jack and nodded vehemently, “Yes.”
“That is all,” Henry continued.
Jack simply sat in his chair, barely raising his pulse to the accusations against him. It was as fixed as the laws of physics.
Day three and four followed the same logic, with experts recounting how he had led the terrorists to killing thousands over the years. With intricate - and false - detail, they explained how Jack evaded the system and recruited figures of evil throughout the country. According to the experts, Jack used a combination of threats and murder to obtain information from government officials.
Between court events, Jack would overhear the conversations the guards were having, repeating the witness statements and drawing their own conclusions. It incensed Jack at how little they empathised for another human being, or even how little they acknowledged the presence of their prisoner at all. Under their protection, Jack was barely alive. He was a mutt at the pound, waiting to be destroyed.
As court reconvened for its tenth day, Jack sat in abject disinterest until he heard sobbing from the witness stand.
“I loved my dad,” the girl’s voice was haunting, “I miss him so much.”
Tears were streaming down her face and for once he felt genuine guilt. He deserved this: every minute of it. It was Julian’s daughter. Saskia. Another sting in the heart from Emma - this girl would not be standing here had that woman not relayed Julian’s intelligence back to the government. Equally, Jack should have been sure of Julian’s innocence. Instead of killing him, he should have brought him under Resistance protection. The poor man didn’t deserve the fate he’d been dealt. He was a victim as any other, a casualty of a war he should never have been brought into.
“I met him about a year before my dad died,” she continued at the urge of the Judge, “He was waiting for me, told me that he had seen me before… I thought he liked me.”
“You went on a date did you not?” Henry asked.
Saskia nodded, “That day, he was insistent that it was that same day.”
“And what happened then?”
“We… went to a bar, and we talked. He told me about himself - well, it’s all lies now.”
Henry coaxed the story from her moist lips, “He introduced himself as Harry Kirk, is that correct?”
“Yes,” she said, steadying herself.
Jack knew what was coming next. It picked away at his brain like a scab.
“And do you feel up to telling the court what he then did next?”
“I…. I liked him…. I took him… I took him home,” she wiped her eyes with her polished fingers, “And after… after he got what he wanted, he left. I… I never saw him again.”
“But it is true that he continued seeing your father?”
“Yes,” she said, “They were good friends, or so my mum thought. I didn’t know anything of their friendship.”
“So how did you feel when you discovered that he had murdered your father?”
Saskia paused, clearing her throat and dabbing her damp eyes with a tissue, “Sick. I thought it was my fault. I thought it was something I had done.”
“But it was nothing to do with what you had done, was it? Is it true that the police investigation into your father’s death discovered that he was being blackmailed for large sums of money?”
Saskia nodded, wordlessly.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great disgust that I reveal that Steven Lennox sought to extort money from Mr Julian Syme by sleeping with his daughter. For reasons unknown, the relationship snapped and Steven took Julian from his home and murdered him in the middle of Richmond Park. Ms Syme, how d
id that make you feel?”
“I felt violated. Harry - Steven had played me in order to get what he wanted from my dad. I felt so stupid to fall for his trap. Had I been wiser, my dad might still be alive,” she said, “Steven Lennox essentially raped me.”
Jack hung his head shame. It was an accusation he couldn't justifiably deny. He had lied his way into taking advantage of her, the poor girl. All for her father to end up dead, for no reason at all. A whole family destroyed: over nothing, and for nothing.
The gathered audience hushed with despicable undertones. Saskia was led from the stand with the aid of a female usher. Jack leant over until his forehead pressed against the glass. He wanted her to look up, for them to make eye contact and for his deepest regret to be communicated to her somehow. But she kept her gaze strongly ahead, defiant that she would not accept his redemption.
Over the course of three weeks the trial played out, with each day as painful as the last. Everything was being dredged up. All the old stories from his past. It wasn’t so much as a trial as a character assassination. The prosecution had delved into his life so religiously that they were retelling stories that Jack only had vague recollections of.
The only respite he had during the trial was that he was left in peace during each session. No one came to lunge punches into his kidneys. No one tied electric cables to his palms. Somehow it felt worse, though, to return to his cell each night remembering a little more of what he had done in the past. Maybe the guards knew it was torture after all, for somehow it felt more painful to recall seducing a young girl to blackmail her father than it ever felt to have a hot spike pierce through his skin.
Weeks, months had passed since he had been taken from Kyle’s dying body. It felt like one long journey, where every time his eyes sagged he was prodded awake by the sharp realities of his mistakes. If there was no sleep for the wicked, then society was going to let him die of exhaustion. It was a daily reality that Jack struggled to absorb. Most nights he relieved his last moments of freedom. Most nights he could still hear Kyle breathing.
Kyle must have known what was coming. Having spent many hours in the dark calmly reviewing the betrayal, Jack realised that Kyle knew what Emma had done months before, and had gone underground. It was the reason he was unreachable, the reason why the rumour that he had died carried its way up to headquarters. When Kyle realised that Emma had tricked Jack into meeting her, Kyle stepped in to try and save him. It was a story that Jack chose to believe, at any rate. It gave him hope - hope that his friend hadn’t died for nothing, even though he had. Kyle had tried to save Jack from this fate, and yet he had died and Jack was still here, suffering at the hands of the government he had fought for so long to destroy.
The trial almost became monotonous, it went on for so long. Every morning the same scenario: the guards dressing him in a suit, his docile lawyer accompanying him to his seat. The television cameras would point to him and the court would jeer in the minutes leading up to Sir Richard appearing and ordering everyone to silence. Jack would be discreetly injected with drugs and his head would slump against his shoulder as if he were a tranquilized animal. Maybe he deserved it, maybe he didn’t. Jack was through with passing judgement on himself. He had a whole court that was more than willing to take on that task.
And so it was that Jack began to phase out during the court sessions. Occasionally he would be awoken from his daydreaming by the odd recognisable voice and he focussed for a fraction of the testimony so as to identify them. It was always some old colleague or friend he hadn’t seen in years. It seemed that Jack’s worry that the trial witnesses were going to intensify emotionally was unfounded, until he heard the man’s deep voice.
“I don’t have a son.”
The words stung him with an echo of repugnant familiarity. Jack gathered all his strength to look up and out through the glass box. A sullen man stood in the witness box, his hair matted with grease and his gaunt face was a patchwork of tears and crimson pores. A stubble beard, greying now more than ever, protruded from his chin and Jack noticed just how alike Jess and her father were.
“Why do you feel that way?” Henry prompted, leaning triumphantly on the edge of his desk.
“Because I had a daughter, and now I don’t,” he said, “Because she ran away and when she came back Steven kept her from us, from my wife and I. And then she died… and there was just an empty hole where she was.”
“Your daughter, Jessica, ran away at age fifteen, is that correct?”
Ray nodded.
“And for four years you never heard from her?”
“No, nothing at all. My wife… she couldn’t cope,” he said, “Neither of us could.”
“So when Jessica returned, she immediately sought out her brother, Steven, and he, despite knowing how much it would mean to his parents, kept her from you? He didn’t mention anything at all to you?”
“No.”
“And why was that?”
“Steven… Steven was always a jealous boy. Though we tried to make him feel differently, he always believed that we favoured Jess over him. When she disappeared he elected to leave the family home, because he was convinced we weren’t paying him enough attention. He abandoned us when we should have been a family.”
“So you believe it was jealousy that prevented Steven from telling you Jessica had returned? Did he fear that he would once again be cast aside?”
Ray nodded, “That’s what we suspected.”
Jack could do nothing but stare in abject horror.
“Is it true that your son, caused the accident in which your daughter, Jessica, died?”
Ray nodded, “He got off on a technicality, but we both knew what he had done. He was driving the car. It’s his fault my little girl is dead.”
“And it is true that this sent your wife into a turbulent decline - one that she never came out of?”
“Drank herself to death,” he said, bitterly, and caught a glimpse up at Jack, who sunk against the window pane, tears pouring from his eyes. “Not that I blame her. Our son put us through so much.”
“You disowned Steven after the accident, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And is it true that your wife was so disgusted with his behaviour that she never saw him again?”
Ray nodded solemnly.
“But it is correct that you did? That you yourself sought him out many years later?”
A nod returned from the witness box.
“And is it true that he was now living under another name, lying to a family who had taken him in out of pity?” Henry waited for the appropriate nod before continuing, “Steven Lennox was living as a Jack Blackwood, a man who paid for a fraudulent ID, lied his way into a family home and abused their position of trust?”
Jack pulled at his chains. Anger splintered inside of him; he slammed his fist against the glass and screamed at the crowd below. They couldn’t do this to him. His own dad couldn’t do this to him. Why couldn’t Ray see the good in Jack? Could he not bring himself to remember exactly what was said in their last meeting - how he wanted to make amends? But Jack had called and left a voicemail and then no one had heard of him until Quentin’s murder. Could he really blame his father for passing judgement when all the evidence was against him?
“Well there you have it, ladies and gentlemen,” Henry said, “The story of how the accused, Steven Lennox, tore his family apart from the inside and caused the death of not only his sister, but his mother as well. It must be noted that close friends have noted that he has shown no remorse, with many not even aware that he had a family. Indeed, there are many accounts of the pseudonym, Jack Blackwood, recounting his parents were dead. All acquaintances to the Jack Blackwood do not recall him ever mentioning a sister. So, it appears that he not only sought to exclude himself from his parents’ lives, but to actively seek to deceive others and to completely deny all blame for the deaths that he caused. I think the important crux of this story, is whether or not Steven�
��s actions originated out of guilt for an accident or for intent. Either way, this man denied his parents a chance to see their daughter again.”
From the witness stand, Ray wiped his cheek from a single tear.
“I’d now like to call Charlotte Crescent to the stand,” Henry announced, inviting the usher to escort Ray Lennox from the court. His own father didn’t even look up at him, but just kept his gaze resolutely to the ground.
The guards grabbed Jack by the shoulders and threw him back into his chair, but what little fight Jack had left in him was suspended. He had no idea who this woman was.
The door opened and a young girl in a smart black dress walked timidly up to the stand, staring around the court as her cheeks tinged scarlet. Severe fringe and smothered in makeup, Jack failed to recognise her. There was a chance she was another expert witness, someone specialising in criminal psychology like the last one, but he felt by the way she held herself that he should know who she was.
“Welcome Ms Crescent,” Henry smiled insipidly, “Can you please explain, in your own time, your relationship to the accused?”
Jack knitted his eyebrows in confusion; he stole a look at Matthew Lawrence, who was quietly flicking through a newspaper.
Charlotte bit her lip and shuffled nervously on the spot.
“I understand that this is a very difficult situation for you,” Henry expressed sympathy.
After a few seconds, Charlotte stammered and eventually a few words emanated from her rouge lips, “Steven Lennox raped me.”
Slamming his fist against the glass, Jack yelled his lungs out.