I know my QC is making the points well. We have discussed over and over how Boyd planned to conclude the case, and Harriet has told me repeatedly that he is the best. I have to believe her, so I have to trust him. And I know she wants to win as much as I do.
‘Evie North has the scars of previous injuries on her body – some caused by North, some by her uncle. Imagine, if you can, how it must feel to believe that you have escaped a life of violence, and now – through no fault of your own – you are plunged back into a similarly impossible situation. Do you not believe that, rational as you may consider yourself to be, you might for just one moment lose control? Imagine your arms and chest have been cut, small slices into your flesh, and as you heard from Miss Clarke’s statement to the police, the hairs on your partner’s chest are rubbing into them as he moves over you, making love, excited – thrilled, maybe – by the pain he has caused. The knife is still there in the room. Imagine a partner saying to you that he is about to give you something to remember him by, and all you can see is the blood from the injuries he inflicted running down your arms and your chest.’
Boyd takes a sip of water, and I want to look at the jury, but I can’t. If I meet their eyes, what will they see there? A guilty person, or one who was forced to kill this man? I don’t know, so I keep my eyes either fixed on the high point of the wall, or on Boyd. I don’t want to look down. It might signify shame, and I shouldn’t be ashamed. I’m not ashamed, but neither do I feel the way I expected to.
‘Evie Clarke has never denied killing Mark North. She called the police – initially to ask for help – and then she stayed in the bed with Mr Clarke, holding him as he died. She was sobbing, distraught, failing to understand how she had so completely lost control. She showed clear remorse for her actions. Only the crying of her child – a child who would soon be old enough to walk in and witness her father hurting her mother – brought her back to reality, and immediately she admitted to the police that she had killed him.’
I’ve stopped listening. I have to block this out of my mind and imagine myself somewhere else before I shout out something inappropriate about how Mark wasn’t a bad man. Confused, struggling with his own demons, but not bad. And I can’t tell them that. I mustn’t.
Instead I imagine myself with Lulu, playing on the beach in the winter when it’s deserted and the sand is clean, swept free of all footprints apart from ours. I don’t know when – or even if – that will happen. But once, just once, is all I ask.
Harriet has warned me that when I am allowed to go free – whether after this trial or when I have served whatever sentence is imposed – I will have to be assessed before I am allowed to keep Lulu, to make sure that I am a suitable parent. But I know that anyone who sees me with her will never doubt my love for her. I need Lulu to know it, to feel it, to remember it.
Cleo has sneaked back into the gallery after her earlier outburst, and I can sense her eyes piercing the glass that separates me from the court, wishing she could send poison darts to my heart, praying that I am jailed for life for what I have done so that she can keep Lulu.
Was it worth killing him? Did I do the right thing?
My brain suddenly explodes with a memory – the sea pounding on the rocks, the cry of a gull as it skims the surface of the water. And a child’s scream of terror.
And then I know.
Yes. It was worth it.
54
Harriet was summoning up every ounce of her positivity. Each muscle in her body was taut and she prayed that the jury would see sense. This had to go Evie’s way. It was such an important case for women. It was time the world woke up to the fact that anyone could crack when placed under enough pressure, and while she would never condone cold-blooded murder, there were times when a normal, rational person would lash out as the dam broke and all the pent-up fear, pain and anguish exploded.
Now that the trial was over and the judge had completed his summing-up, explaining to the jury that the onus was on the prosecution to prove the case and it was not up to the defendant to prove her innocence, Harriet had to trust in the process and believe that the jury were capable of understanding the trauma Evie had endured.
The judge had summed up the key points fairly, giving no indication of his personal view in relation to the charges. He had explained the two counts against Evie, the first being the murder of Mark North, the second a count of voluntary manslaughter.
‘You need only decide whether you believe Michelle Evelyn Clarke to be guilty of murder. Miss Clarke has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and there is no doubt that she killed Mark North. She has never denied it.’ The judge’s deep voice resonated throughout the court, and not a soul moved. Neither a rustle of clothing nor a discreet cough intruded as they hung on his every word. ‘It is also clear that Miss Clarke suffered painful injuries, although it cannot be proven that these were caused by any act of the deceased. You, the jury, need to consider what prompted Miss Clarke to kill Mr North. Was it planned? Even if not, did she decide on the spur of the moment to kill him as an act of revenge for the pain he allegedly inflicted on her? Or was the fear of further injury the trigger that caused her to lose control?’
Finally the judge concluded his remarks and the jury retired. His points had been succinct, and Harriet knew it was never sensible to second-guess a jury. The next few hours – or maybe days – were going to be hard as they waited for the verdict.
Evie was returned to the cell of the courts, and Harriet made her way to meet with her client. The sound of her heels clicking on the concrete floor seemed to reverberate around the corridor, and she walked with her head high. There was no way that Evie should see any signs of concern. She needed confidence, and Harriet was determined to give it to her.
As she pushed open the door she saw Evie standing with her back to the door looking upwards, out of the high window at the cloudy sky, her arms tightly folded. Harriet forced her voice to sound upbeat.
‘That all went well, Evie. Didn’t you think so?’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll do my time, if I need to.’ There was a hint of resignation in the low, modulated tone of her voice.
‘Come on, let’s be positive about this. The judge had to say there is no absolute proof that Mark was hurting you, but those jurors have listened to the evidence and they won’t be in any doubt. We have to trust them.’
Evie turned round and the light hit one side of her face, the other remaining in shadow. The one visible eye glinted with something that Harriet took to be determination and there was no sign of the weakness she had suspected.
‘You don’t get it, Harriet – and why should you? Even if I get a life sentence, I’m in no doubt at all that I did the right thing – the only thing. I’ll accept my punishment, whatever it is.’
There was something going on in Evie’s head and right now Harriet didn’t know what it was, nor was she sure she wanted to.
‘I think it’s admirable that you’re taking this attitude,’ she said, although inside she was confused.
‘It’s not admirable. I killed a man. I don’t think I had a choice, but there are many who would disagree with me, and maybe twelve of them are out there right now in that jury room.’
Harriet felt a shiver run down her arms to the tips of her fingers.
She turned to Evie to offer more reassurance, but she had shut down. She had closed her eyes, and Harriet had the feeling she would get no more out of her until the jury returned.
55
Cleo felt sick. This couldn’t be happening. Twelve people were about to walk back into the courtroom and pass judgement on the woman who had killed Mark. How could anyone in their right mind believe Evie Clarke’s wicked lies?
For a moment, a worm of doubt wriggled itself into Cleo’s mind. She’d been doing her best to ignore it since the trial began, but there had been one moment – just one – when she had wondered about Mark and Evie. It had been after Evie hurt her hand. There was something about the way she had related t
he story of her accident to Cleo that hadn’t rung true, and for just seconds Cleo had experienced a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as if she was being dropped from a great height. But back then she had dismissed the thought as quickly as it came, convincing herself that Evie’s slightly odd behaviour was down to embarrassment at being such an idiot.
She pushed the other thought from her head too, the memory of a time before she knew Evie. She didn’t want to lose faith in her brother – she had to believe in him, as she always had. He was a good, kind man. Yes, there were times when he had been slightly obsessive and lacked confidence, perhaps acted impulsively, out of fear. But she blamed that on their childhood.
She focused on the man she knew. The man who had wanted Cleo to make a beautiful present for the mother of his child, who had seemed deeply concerned when he saw how seriously Evie’s hand had been injured. None of this was the man that Evie had described.
Who or what had the jury believed? Evie, or the truth?
Evie was back in the dock, and the jury had moved to their seats. The court rose to its feet as the judge entered.
Cleo looked away. She couldn’t bear it. She rested her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands.
Finally the foreman of the jury stood, clutching the piece of paper on which the verdict was written.
‘Have you reached a verdict on which you are all agreed?’ the judge asked.
‘We have, Your Honour.’
‘On the count of murder, do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?’
Cleo held her breath and whispered, ‘Please, please.’
I’ve been told to stand. The jurors have made their decision. I have closed my mind to the verdict, just as I have closed my mind to any feelings of remorse for Mark’s death. I don’t know where my thoughts will go to when this is all over. For so long I have had only conviction – one all-encompassing goal – and I’m not sure what I will do with the empty space that will be left behind. Maybe I will grieve – for Mark, for Lulu, for my life. But there will be nothing left to cling to, to aim for.
The chairman of the jury is looking at me. He slowly unfolds the paper and prepares to respond to the judge.
It feels as if the whole court is holding its breath, and I drop my gaze so that I don’t have to see the look on his face as he announces my fate.
‘Not guilty.’
I don’t move. I don’t react, but I can hear a sound from the gallery, a soft scream of distress, and I know it must be Cleo. I don’t turn to look at her, but I hear a scuffle. She must have pushed past other spectators and run from the gallery again, not waiting to find out more.
I should feel relief. But I feel nothing – not even the sense of satisfaction that I was hoping for.
Maybe I’m not done, after all.
Harriet felt a huge rush of pleasure, and threw an unresponsive Evie a wide smile of satisfaction. Boyd turned to her and raised his eyebrows a fraction – his signal to say that it had gone the way he had always known it would, even though they both knew that wasn’t entirely true.
This was the right result. Harriet wondered whether any abusers reading about this trial in the newspapers or watching it unfold on the rolling news channels would quake in their boots, thinking twice before doling out their brutal acts. She had to admit that it was a personal success too, and hoped a rather sombre-looking Evie was more pleased than she appeared to be.
Evie’s future would ultimately come down to the sentence, and if the judge believed the jury had made the wrong call he could still impose life imprisonment for manslaughter, so in real terms she would be no better off. All they could do was hope that he would take into account the mitigating factors that Boyd had tried hard to demonstrate.
There was no point in trying to predict the outcome, though, so for now Harriet was going to focus on a sense of elation that justice had been done.
For Stephanie, it was all over. Not just the trial, but her brief stint in CID. She would return to uniform immediately and say goodbye to Gus. What a day to choose. He’d had a face like thunder since the verdict was read out, and unless Evie was given a significant custodial sentence, he was going to be even more frustrated.
He hadn’t said a word when the foreman uttered the words “not guilty” on the count of murder, and had remained seated until the court had emptied.
‘It’s the wrong decision, Steph. I know you don’t agree with me – but I’m sure it’s wrong.’
He sounded discouraged rather than irritated, and Stephanie didn’t know what to say. She knew Gus felt that there was rarely an excuse for one person to take another's life, except in a clear case of self-defence. Even then he asked why a serious wounding wouldn’t have been more appropriate than death. She blamed his Presbyterian upbringing, but she could see from the tight line of his mouth that he was anything but happy.
‘What more could we have done?’ he asked. ‘It had all the hallmarks of a premeditated attack to me.’
She didn’t want to end their time working together with an argument, but this was ridiculous.
‘Oh come on, Gus. We’ve been over this so many times, and still you’re obsessed with her guilt. The man committed ruthless acts of violence on her.’ Stephanie could hear her voice rising, and struggled to get it back on a level. Gus was so adamant, and so bloody bullheaded. ‘Mark wasn’t drunk, he wasn’t on drugs – so what kind of a psychopath holds their partner’s hand over the sink and tips boiling water over her arm? Jesus, if you had ever done that to me I would have beaten the shit out of you.’
That brought the ghost of a smile to his face.
‘Don’t I know it, although I very much doubt you would have brought a fucking knife into the bedroom! It’s not that. I’m still struggling with the fact that we never had cast-iron evidence that Mark did hurt her. There’s something that doesn’t feel right to me. If I could have put my finger on it, nailed it for the prosecution, I would have done. I’m just bloody frustrated that I didn’t.’
Gus stood up and shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers and turned to look at the empty courtroom. Stephanie pushed herself up from the chair.
‘I’m going to go now, Gus. I don’t agree with you and whatever you say, somehow or other domestic abuse has got to be curbed. But I don’t want to argue with you. Not today.’
He turned back towards her. ‘I know you think I’m a dinosaur, but I’m not. Over a million women reported incidents of domestic violence last year and we’re still not doing anything like enough to help. So if Mark North really did everything that Evie says he did, then he was a monster and should have been locked up for it. I know it has to be stopped, although not necessarily by killing any bastard that raises his fist. We can’t open the floodgates to everyone thinking it’s okay to kill in order to make it go away.’
‘I said I didn’t want to argue, but you’re making it bloody difficult. My final say on this: you fear that Evie being found not guilty could pave the way for other women to feel they have the right to fight back. I say that making her serve a life sentence for murder means that abused women – and men – have to lie back and take what’s being doled out. I’m not entirely disagreeing with your view, but you’re going too far.’
‘Okay, I accept there are two ways of looking at it,’ Gus said, lifting a hand to touch Stephanie on the shoulder. ‘Although personally I’d rather not attend too many more scenes like Mark North’s death again. But we’re confusing two things. I don’t want to argue the rights and wrongs of fighting back. It’s not the issue here. It’s whether that’s what actually happened. I can’t help thinking that there is something staring me in the face, and I just can’t see it. Ignore me, Steph.’
Stephanie tried her best to smile, and took a step back. Gus’s hand fell back to his side.
‘Well, that’s not going to be difficult from now on, is it? Look, I’d better be off. I’ve got a couple of days’ leave and then I’m back in uniform, so thanks for everythi
ng. It’s been good working with you.’
She turned and started towards the door. Gus shouted after her.
‘Is that it, then? Is that all you’re going to say?’
Stephanie held her breath. ‘What do you want me to say?’
‘I want you to say, “Come to dinner on Saturday, Gus – I’d love to see you.” How about that for a radical thought?’
Stephanie carried on walking and raised her hand. She couldn’t let him see her face.
‘Bye, Gus,’ she said as she let herself out of the courtroom.
PART THREE
Every cut, every broken bone, every second of pain stokes the fire of revenge. The more brutal the attack, the deeper bores the canker of hatred.
56
‘Come on, my little love,’ Cleo said as she picked Lulu up from where she was sitting on her play mat and kissed her soft cheek. ‘There’s a lady who wants to talk to me and she wants to see what a good girl you are too.’
The lump in Cleo’s throat was growing bigger by the moment. This was it. The judge had given Evie a two-year prison sentence, but he had suspended it and she was free. Cleo had been certain Evie would come racing round to collect Lulu on the very first day she was out, but she hadn’t. For days Cleo had been waiting, dreading the knock on the door, knowing it had to come sooner or later. It felt as if Evie was making her suffer by not letting her know when the axe was going to fall.
Finally Social Services had explained to her that it wasn’t quite as simple as Evie picking up her daughter. She was guilty of manslaughter and it was their job to assess her, to be certain she wasn’t going to have any further episodes of loss of control – this time affecting her child. Their evaluation up to now had been very positive, so Cleo had to accept the fact that Lulu would be returned to her mother soon. She had considered inventing stories of Evie’s poor mothering skills, but it didn’t make sense to alienate either Social Services or Evie. Cleo was going to have to bite the bullet and pretend to be supportive. She couldn’t lose Lulu completely – not after the months they’d had together – so Evie had to see Cleo as a caring aunt who could be relied on to look after the child, perhaps while Evie worked. Surely everyone would benefit from that arrangement?
And So It Begins Page 23