The Unsound Sister

by Lelita Baldock

  June’s jaw dropped. It was as if the world suddenly stopped around her, like she was caught in a void.

  ‘We know about the abortion, June,’ Robert said, grim. ‘What Grant did to you. And now, he was planning to take Jacob away too. So you were angry. It’s understandable, natural even. Wracked with guilt. Afraid to lose Jacob, you had to do something. By your own testimony you left the house with a knife and a plan to visit Grant. Later that night he was found dead.’

  ’But…’

  ‘The knife only has your blood on it, not Eloise’s.’

  ‘I explained that…’

  ‘Forensics say the attack was frenzied. That the use of two weapons is highly probable.’

  ‘No…’

  ‘You are the stronger sister, Ms Lane. And Grant was not a small man. And June, you had a motive.’

  ‘So did Eloise! Jacob is her son.’

  ‘Eloise didn’t know about the custody application.’

  ‘She did. I told you, the letter had been moved.’

  ‘Originally you said she hadn’t seen it, then you changed your testimony. And her finger prints are not on the letter. Yours are.’

  June’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish, a tight whine coming from low in her throat. Weight settled over Robert. He’d been wrong. So, so wrong.

  ‘The reason Eloise can’t remember killing Grant Huxley, is because she didn’t do it, did she June? She didn’t even know that Grant would be in Beesands that night. She just went for a walk.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I suggest to you, Ms Lane, that on the night of 15 November, driven by your fear of losing Jacob and your own guilt over your affair with your sister’s husband, you left the house with both Eloise’s crafting scissors and the fishing knife with the intent to murder Grant Huxley and frame your sister for the murder.’

  June’s head was shaking violently side to side, her eyes filling with tears.

  ‘This action assured Jacob would remain in your care, and the fortnightly payments by the Huxleys would continue to come in, to you.’

  Glistening cheeks, face mortified, hand clamped over her mouth in horror.

  ‘Ms June Lane,’ Anita’s voice crisp and clear, ‘I’m charging you with the murder of Mr Grant Huxley…’

  ‘No,’ June breathed. ‘No, I didn’t kill him. I didn’t do it. I just wanted to protect my sister. No, Robert! Please!’

  Robert turned away, closing his ears to her cries of innocence. Anita finished the recording and June was taken away. Robert didn’t move.

  He didn’t know what made him feel worse: that he’d trusted the wrong sister, or that he’d overlooked the inconsistency in the evidence regarding the jacket. The doubt was there, right from the first day, reason to at least further interrogate June. And he missed it. But Harriet, she hadn’t stopped looking. She had been thorough. Even without the knife…

  ‘Want me to call Stephanie?’ Anita asked.

  Robert looked up sharply, he’d been miles away.

  ‘No, I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘But thank you.’

  Anita smiled down at him, pity writ across her features.

  ‘It’s a win, mate,’ she said. ‘We’ve finally got the right one.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Robert said. ‘Yeah, it is.’

  25: Absolution

  ‘They arrested June?’ Eloise’s eyes widened in honest shock. ‘But she… I…, oh god! Where is Jacob?’ A hand flew to her month, her body tensing as if to rise in action.

  Swiftly Harriet spoke, ‘Jacob is safe, Eloise. Family Services placed him with your parents. I give you my word, he is safe.’

  Eloise nodded and gulped down the emotion that had constricted her throat. Harriet waited patiently, watching as Eloise’ initial fear for her son was replaced by the understanding of what Harriet had just told her.

  The tears that had threatened from the moment Harriet started talking spilled down Eloise’s face.

  ‘You mean, I didn’t do it?’ She stared at Eloise, blue eyes wide and hopeful. ‘I really didn’t do it?’

  Pity flooded through Harriet. Swiftly it hardened to anger at the grave injustice Eloise had endured. So graceful, so gentle, so wronged. She reached across the table and took Eloise’s hand in hers.

  ‘No, Eloise, you did not kill Grant Huxley.’

  Choking up from deep in her throat, Eloise let out a sob. Fresh tears coursed down her cheeks as she gripped Harriet’s hand tight as though her life depended on it. Perhaps it had.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered softly. ‘No one else believed… I didn’t even believe. Thank you, Harriet.’

  Their eyes meet. Affection, raw and deep, flooded Harriet’s heart. This woman, this beautiful woman, she would go free. Justice would be done. Finally. Harriet couldn’t give back the months of freedom Eloise had lost, the weeks in The Orchard, away from her son, missing his first birthday. But she could give her the peace of the truth. And her future. The anger at the injustice that had overwhelmed her emotions cooled with the realisation. Eloise had a future now. Long and open and free.

  Eloise squeezed Harriet’s hand and withdrew her own. Wiping the tears from her face, she sniffed and gathered herself together. Shortly she sat up straight before Harriet, more or less composed.

  ‘And they are sure it was June? I mean, they got it wrong with me…’

  ‘It was June,’ Harriet confirmed. ‘The second weapon proves it. And the inconsistencies and lies in her testimony.’

  Eloise was shaking her head. ‘She always protected me,’ she said. ‘Would do anything to make sure I was safe… But this? To take a life for me? How could she?’

  A heavy frown pulled down Harriet’s brows. Had she really protected her sister? Or had she tormented her, exploited her vulnerability for her own ends.

  ‘I’m not so sure it was for you at all,’ she said.

  Genuine surprise flitted across Eloise’s face. ‘But she’s my sister. Why else would she do something so terrible?’

  Harriet paused, deciding. Eloise had to know sometime, it was all going to come out now anyway. Steeling herself against the hurt she was about to inflict, she plunged into the truth. ‘June terminated a pregnancy during her final year at Exeter University. It was Grant’s. He left her just after the termination.’

  Eloise’s mouth dropped open in shock.

  ‘The DPP will allege she never got over the loss of the baby. Then Jacob came along and she bonded with your son,’ Harriet paused, braced herself for Eloise’s reaction. ‘I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Eloise. While you and Grant were working to reconcile, he and June were having an affair,’ she said gently.

  ‘No,’ Eloise breathed.

  ‘Yes, she was betraying you. They both were. So when the custody application arrived June felt it was against her too. She took it personally. She’d already lost one child to Grant, she didn’t want to lose Jacob too. So she killed him and framed you, leaving herself as the sole guardian of Jacob. It was a theory I toyed with myself, but without the knife, there just wasn’t enough evidence.’

  Eloise’s face drained of colour. A trembling hand covered her mouth. ‘Can it be true?’ she said.

  Harriet fixed Eloise with her eyes, ‘Time will tell. But the facts fit the theory. Facts don’t lie, Eloise. It’s a strong case. It will play well with the jury. Will they find June guilty? I can’t say. What I can say, however, is that your sister isn’t the woman you thought she was.’

  Eloise swallowed audibly, nodding slowly. Harriet watched Eloise absorb all she had said, sympathy swelling in her chest. Suddenly she remembered Paul Lane’s explanation of why his younger daughter had been committed to a psych ward as a teenager. The conviction that June was trying to hurt her. Not so ridiculous after all… Perhaps it never was?

  ‘Do mum and dad know?’ Eloise whispered, interrupting Harriet’s thoughts.

  ‘Yes, I phoned them before coming here to you.’

  Eloise was shaking her head, ‘Poor mum,’ she s
aid, ‘she’ll be shattered. To think her daughter did such a thing.’

  Harriet blinked in surprise, then suppressed a wry smile. So very Eloise, to be worried about others before herself. To think of the sorrow her mother would feel over the guilt of June as something worse than the sorrow over her own guilt.

  ‘She will come to terms with it, Eloise. The truth is always better than lies.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you are right,’ she smiled weakly. ‘So, what happens now?’

  ‘Now, we wait. The Attorney General has applied for what is called ‘Nolle Prosequi’. It basically means to end the trial because they have charged another with the crime and know you are innocent. Tomorrow morning you are due in court. The judge will read the evidence and assess the accuracy of the application. He will find in favour. Then you will be officially cleared and free to go.’

  ‘To go?’

  ‘To go home, Eloise. Home to Torcross.’

  ‘So I don’t have to stay here at The Orchard? Because of my brain?’ She tapped her forehead with one finger.

  ‘No, Eloise, you don’t have to stay here, or anywhere else unless you want to. Your brain is fine. Distressed, overwhelmed, yes. But not criminally ill. You suffered a double trauma. You discovered Grant’s plans to take Jacob and that triggered a fugue state, which caused you to regress into automatic. You went for your regular walk.’

  ‘I left my baby…’

  ‘Doctor Taylor says that is an expected reaction. You went into routine, a normal response to extreme stress. Then you suffered the even greater horror of seeing your sister covered in blood and of believing you had perpetrated such a terrible crime. I think, considering the facts, your amnesia is quite understandable. Doctor Taylor says, given these exceptional circumstances, you have done really well. After the six months of intensive treatment you have received here and the implementation of your new medication and treatment plan, he is confident you are stable enough to go home and take care of Jacob. He does recommend that you see a psychologist, though, to help you deal with all this. But you get to choose who and when and how. You are not a criminal, Eloise. You are a free citizen. Your life will be your own again.’

  Eloise blew out a heavy breath. ‘Okay, it’s just a lot to get my head around after…’ She gestured to the walls of The Orchard.

  Harriet nodded, ‘You will get there. And you will be with Jacob.’

  Eloise smiled, lips trembling. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And no one will take him from me again.’

  26: Nolle Prosequi

  Eloise cried. Gentle, controlled tears of relief, grief and freedom.

  She was sitting in the dock of the Crown Court of Exeter. Judge Bradford had just dismissed the case against her, accepting the Prosecution’s application for Nolle Prosequi. For the first time in six months, Eloise was a free woman. Harriet watched her in private awe; gentle woman, yes, but also strong. She had faced the most horrible possibility, that she was a murderer, and she had stood up. Now, she was absolved.

  Behind her in the public gallery sat her parents Dorothy and Paul, faces drawn tight over their ageing bones. They looked exhausted. A difficult day for them, Harriet realised. The joy of a daughter freed, the sorrow of another in prison. However much seeded from parental care, hopefully they would now learn that Eloise was not one to so easily dismiss. She was ready to be her own person, outside of June’s shadow and their control.

  Stephanie Emmetts stood stiffly beside DS Robert Fields, both tired, defeated. Harriet felt a flash of pure righteous rage burn through her mind as Robert looked up and saw her staring at him. Shame flashed across his face. This time he was the one to quickly turn away.

  In the dock Eloise was now crying freely, tears of vindication and relief flooding her cheeks.

  Harriet blinked back the answering moisture that glistened threateningly along her eyelids. Their eyes met across the court room, and Eloise smiled. A light of promise.

  Randell Dawes tapped Harriet’s arm gently.

  ‘Well done, Harriet,’ he said.

  Harriet turned from the crying Eloise and faced the QC. His old eyes shone with an unexpected light, his diminutive frame pulled up straighter than she’d ever seen. A smile hovered on his lips.

  ’40 years in this business,’ he continued, ‘I’ve worked every case imaginable. Tested every angle. But never, not once, have I seen the like of this. You have reminded me of one of my favourite axioms, ‘do not confuse knowledge with the smell of cold stone.’’

  He paused, curled fingers tapped Harriet’s folder of case notes.

  ‘The facts were clear. Our defence was clear. Open and shut. An easy win, Automatism and hospitalisation. But you,’ he stared at Harriet, ‘you worked the facts. Took them out of the office and into the world, walked the grounds of the crime, spoke to the people of the towns. You dogged the evidence, kept up the question of the car, discovered the inconsistency with the jacket, and you didn’t settle. We are here, she,’ he nodded towards Eloise, now being led out of the court room, ‘she is free, in large part because of you.’

  Pride swelled up in Harriet. She felt her shoulders straighten, her posture lengthen. She fought back the flood of emotion, working to remain composed and professional.

  Dawes gave her a knowing smile, ‘If ever there was a time to express how you feel honestly, it is now,’ he said gently. ‘You have done a great thing here today Harriet. The full realisation of it may take a while to settle over you. Allow yourself to feel it. All of it. You are an excellent lawyer, Ms Bell. I am honoured to have worked beside you.’

  It was too much. The months of self doubt, the sense that something wasn’t right with the case, her belief in Eloise. And now to be proved right. To have seen justice done. Harriet glanced down, ostensibly gathering her notes and whisked a stray tear from her eye. ‘Thank you,’ she croaked without looking up.

  Dawes patted her arm. ‘Let’s go. Just the final paperwork to go over with our client and then she leaves this court a free woman.’

  Now composed, Harriet met his steady gaze. ‘Yes, let’s go. She has waited long enough.’

  They were walking together down the main corridor of the Crown Court when he called to her. Harriet paused, looked to the ceiling and heaved a sigh. Dawes turned. Seeing Robert Fields approaching fast he frowned, then flicked his eyes to Harriet. ‘I’ll catch you up,’ she said.

  The aged QC paused. For a moment Harriet thought he would argue to stay, then he nodded.

  ‘Don’t be long.’

  Harriet nodded gratefully and turned to face Robert.

  ‘Thank you for stopping,’ Robert began. He paused, hovering before her, uncertain.

  ‘I wanted to say…’ a swallow, he cleared his throat, ‘You were right. And well done.’

  Surprised, Harriet gaped a moment. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting him to say. But it wasn’t that.

  Robert continued, ‘June blindsided me. She seemed so, honest. I let myself be conned by her manner and didn’t properly review the facts. It seemed so clear cut.’ He paused, nodding to himself. ‘You brought justice here today, Harriet. Thank you.’

  Stunned, Harriet stared at Robert.

  He looked exhausted. His dark eyes, normally sparkling with the promise of joy, were dull and defeated. All the words of indignation and blame that had surged to her lips at the sound of his voice, dissipated on her tongue as she took in his despondent posture, the shame on his face.

  ‘The evidence seemed obvious,’ she found herself saying, comforting. ‘I think you did what any detective would have done. It’s your job to investigate and charge. It’s mine to raise doubt.’

  He smiled ruefully, ‘I’m meant to charge the right person, Harriet. It’s about justice, remember?’

  She smiled wryly, remembering their conversation on motives in the work place. It seemed a lifetime ago.

  Gently, she said, ‘Cut yourself a break, Robert. You work hard, we all know it. You just got this one wrong, yeah?’


  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Besides, we can’t all be perfect,’ she quipped, offering him a sassy smile and tossing her brown locks over one shoulder.

  He huffed a laugh, ‘True, true.’ A small grin played on his lips. His eyes lit a little. Harriet felt that familiar pull towards him, the desire to just share space with him and talk. To flirt and joke.

  ‘I should go.’

  ‘Of course. Harriet, thank-you,’ his warm eyes held hers. Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded, feeling awkward. Neither of them moved. Both standing as if frozen on the steps of the Crown Court, caught between emotions; the challenge of now, the possibility of the future. The silence stretched between them. Harriet felt her resolve waver.

  But no, not today. Too much had happened today. It was time to go.

  Over Robert’s shoulder Harriet spied Eloise’s parents, Dorothy and Paul, coming out of the courtroom. Dorothy’s eyes caught hers and she visibly stiffened. Grateful for the excuse, Harriet’s mask of professionalism snapped back up. She bid Robert a quick good day and hurried over to the Lanes.

  They stopped at her approach. Paul’s face was drawn, emotions pulled in, tucked safely out of view. Dorothy, on the other hand, wore open malice on her face.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Lane,’ Harriet began. ‘I am glad to have this opportunity to speak with you both in person. This must be a very difficult day for you. I can’t imagine what you are going through…’

  ‘No, you can’t,’ Dorothy snapped, cutting Harriet off.

  Harriet turned to Dorothy. The small woman was seething with a passion unlike any Harriet had ever seen in her before.

  ‘We hired you to defend our Lou. Not convict Junie.’

  ‘Dotty…’ Paul started, laying a gentle hand on his wife’s arm.

  ‘No, Paul,’ she said, ‘I am going to say it.’

  She rounded on Harriet, eyes fierce. ‘Do you think this is what we want? One daughter jailed for life for murder and the other removed from the help she needs?’

  ‘Mrs Lane,’ Harriet began, ‘Eloise is innocent. Regardless of her need for help she should not be convicted of a crime she did not commit.’