Cuckoo (aka Claire, Darling)

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Three

We’re in the consultation room and Grosvenor has been preparing for the next witness while I’ve tried to block out intrusive memories of my terrible school days and Laura Thorpe.

‘Listen, don’t worry about that witness. It was bullshit, just Dodgson trying to fill a quota,’ Grosvenor assures me. ‘Nobody gives a shit about some childhood bully from however long ago. We all have a Laura in our life.’

I wonder who Grosvenor’s Laura is, and try to imagine the strong woman in front of me being picked on as a child. It’s impossible.

‘Who’s the next witness?’ I ask.

‘Sukhi Dhillon.’

I close my eyes in relief.

‘Have you spoken to her much? Heard anything from her?’ Grosvenor asks me.

Guilt floods through me. ‘We’ve written a few letters. She’s tried to visit but… I can’t bring myself to see anybody while I’m locked up on remand. Least of all her. It’s embarrassing. I’m so ashamed of being in this situation,’ I admit.

‘Claire, I just want to make clear and remind you… Sukhi is being called in by the prosecution, not us. So just be aware that you may not like what you hear,’ Grosvenor tells me, gravely.

‘Sukhi wouldn’t drop me in it. She’s my friend,’ I say firmly.

Grosvenor says nothing.

Sukhi Dhillon

‘How long have you known Miss Arundale?’

Sukhi glances at me, chewing on her lip. ‘Around fifteen months.’

She’s wearing one of the suit dresses that I’ve seen her in at the office for client meetings and looks good in it. She gave me a warm smile when she walked past me to the witness stand, her eyes filled with sympathy. It made me want to weep, the fact that my friend was here, had been dragged into all of this, and was still offering me her support and not turning her back on me.

‘And you work with her?’ Dodgson asks.

‘Yes. I work in PR, Claire is on my team, which is how we met.’ Sukhi throws me a brief, supportive smile, and I bow my head to her in silent thanks.

‘Mrs Dhillon, is this the CV Miss Arundale included with her job application?’ A copy of my CV flashes up on-screen. Sukhi frowns down at her own paper version, before nodding. ‘Yes, I believe it is, though it was a while ago so I can’t be certain.’

‘We can see here that the last job Miss Arundale claims to have had was another role in PR, at Baker Rise Public Relations?’ he says.

‘Yes. That is where she worked before she joined us.’

‘Because I rang the HR team at Baker Rise PR, and they have no record of a Claire Arundale working for them in this time period. In fact, they had no record of a Claire Arundale ever having worked for them.’

Sukhi frowns at me and I feel my skin begin to itch with shame. It was such a stupid thing to lie about, but I had so wanted the job and didn’t want to embarrass Noah after he went to all the trouble of helping me apply.

Sukhi turns back to Dodgson, her voice hard. ‘Is that a question?’

‘No, merely an observation.’ He smirks back at her.

‘Lying on a CV isn’t a crime, is it? If that is what you’re implying. PR is competitive and hard to break into. I won’t comment on how she got her job, that is for HR to look into,’ Sukhi adds.

‘So you acknowledge Miss Arundale may have lied? May indeed be a chronic liar?’ Dodgson thinks he has the way in he was angling for. But Sukhi will not give an inch of ground.

‘No. I will not comment further on this, not having spoken to Claire about her CV nor personally hired her. In our personal interactions, I have never known her to lie.’

Dodgson raises his eyebrows at the jury, stopping short of rolling his eyes.

‘You have never caught her out in a lie?’ he pushes again.

‘No.’ Sukhi’s voice is unwavering.

Dodgson allows a painfully long silence to drag out, and for one crazy moment I want to burst out laughing as I watch Sukhi glare at him, refusing to back down.

‘Thank you, Mrs Dhillon,’ he drawls eventually. ‘No further questions.’

‘What a waste of her time,’ Grosvenor whispers to me, giving my shoulder a tiny squeeze as she stands and takes Dodgson’s place.

‘Hello, Mrs Dhillon. Can I just confirm Miss Arundale’s role within the team?’ she asks.

‘PR assistant. An entry-level role.’

‘And your position?’ Grosvenor asks.

‘Her senior– a senior executive. But she doesn’t report to me or anything. We’re on different accounts; she is lifestyle, I’m in literature.’

‘Did you interview her?’

‘I didn’t, no. Our boss, David, hired her but I did have some input about the candidates at CV stage. He said she interviewed well so I vouched for her as a good option. It’s important in PR that you leave a good first impression.’

‘And did Claire?’ Grosvenor asks.

‘Yes, she did. She’s knowledgeable and a hard worker, shows initiative, and was always last to leave the office and first to arrive. She’ll be a brilliant publicist one day.’

I feel a small glow of pride at being defended so warmly.

‘And outside of work, did you spend much time together? Or speak about things unrelated to the office?’ Grosvenor asks.

Sukhi darts her gaze at me again, and I’m finding myself mortified that one of the only people I might be able to call a friend has been dragged into this mess, forced to speak up for me in front of a bunch of strangers. I give her another little smile, as though trying to thank her telepathically for being here, to apologise for involving her in any of this.

‘We spent most lunchtimes together and spoke a lot about our personal lives. I would consider Claire Arundale to be my friend and not just a colleague,’ Sukhi says, looking directly at me. For some reason, I feel my eyes begin to water.

‘Good to know.’ Grosvenor pauses to let this sink in and then resumes. ‘And what did you know of Miss Arundale and her personal life?’

‘She is a kind, caring person,’ Sukhi replies.

‘Did you ever see her lose her temper? To use the previous witness’s phrase, “lash out” at all?’

Grosvenor turns to the jury, raising her eyebrows to demonstrate the importance of this question.

‘No, never. I never heard her raise her voice, even after everything that happened with Noah,’ Sukhi replies firmly.

‘And what did you know of Miss Arundale’s and Mr Coors’s relationship?’ Grosvenor asks.

‘I knew they were engaged.’

‘She told you this?’

Sukhi doesn’t falter. ‘She spoke about him daily. Just little things: mentioning going home to him, what they were doing at the weekend… She had a photo of him as her phone wallpaper, I saw it once when she was ordering a takeout lunch and asked to take a closer look. She was happy to show it to me. I knew he had a fancy job, that they had been on holiday together, and that they had hopes of travelling some more.’ She tails off. ‘Lots of things, really. It was lots of little things that would come up when we chatted, which sort of built up a picture of her life, rather than one big conversation about her time outside of work.’ I’m nodding along. It’s true, I don’t speak about myself often. All that Sukhi knows of me is probably from her paying attention and picking up bits and pieces from different conversations and comments made.

‘And did she have an engagement ring?’ Grosvenor pushes.

‘Yes, she wore a ring that he gave her,’ Sukhi confirms.

‘So you got the picture that Miss Arundale was overall a very kind, caring person who was in love with her fiancé and in a happy relationship?’ Grosvenor summarises.

‘That’s correct,’ Sukhi says.

‘And can you run us through Miss Arundale’s reaction when you visited the Pulitzer Haas office on the nineteenth of September last year?’

‘Well, obviously, it was all a horrible surprise for Claire, finding out her fiancé didn’t work where she thought he did. She basically went into a state of shock, I had to get her some water and sit her down… It was a lot to take in.’

‘We have CCTV footage of this whole interaction,’ Grosvenor states, and grainy footage from the Pulitzer Haas foyer begins to play. My face heats up.

‘She looks quite distressed,’ Grosvenor comments, shooting a glance at the jury.

‘Well, yeah, anybody would be,’ Sukhi exclaims. ‘I couldn’t believe it myself, and I’m not engaged to the guy! I felt awful for her, the poor thing.’

I stare at the ground, embarrassed to be reliving this terrible moment in front of so many people, so many strangers.

‘Did she reach out to Mr Coors to find out where he was?’ Grosvenor asks.

‘She was in a state of shock, as I said, but I know that once she had recovered enough to try to call him, she did. I believe she also sent a text, if I remember rightly. But I mean, you never go looking for bad news, do you? I was there and she could barely speak to me, let alone the man who caused all this. She didn’t deserve to have this to happen to her,’ Sukhi says quite sharply, with a fierce glance over at the jury.

‘And then later you were there when she confronted Mr Coors in a club?’

‘Yes, I was there, and once again, all things considered, she acted more calmly than I would have done,’ Sukhi replies, and I am taken aback by the defensive tone of her voice. This woman is protecting me. I have the urge to grab her in a huge hug, apologise to her for not being a better friend. This is a loyal woman, who is standing by me, despite only knowing me for fifteen months. A tear rolls down my cheek and I brush it away with my hand.

‘We had discovered Noah was at this club by searching on Facebook: I found his page and he’d been tagged at that location.’

‘And you told this to Miss Arundale?’

‘Yes, I went round to her home and showed her his profile. And it was awful– she was blocked from his Facebook so she couldn’t see it. Her own fiancé had blocked her, so she couldn’t find out what he was up to. He was clearly living some sort of dirty double life that he was trying to hide!’ Sukhi sounds so outraged on my behalf, I feel another pang of love for her.

‘Objection! Speculation,’ Dodgson drawls.

‘Sustained,’ the judge confirms.

Grosvenor continues. ‘So you showed her the page that you found, and accompanied her to the club?’

‘Yes, and we saw him there, with Lilah Andersson. There was no denying it– they were all over each other. Well, Claire was very dignified in the situation, much more than I would have been! She took off her ring, told him it was over– and then I threw water over him for good measure. Not Claire, me. There are witnesses, I’m sure, who can corroborate that. I don’t want her to get the blame for his soggy suit.’ She folds her arms as though daring the jury to disagree with her, and I hear a few muffled chuckles. I’m starting to think Sukhi should have been a lawyer, too.

‘And how did they react? Mr Coors and Miss Andersson?’

‘Well, as you’d expect! Noah looked like he’d seen a bloody ghost when she walked in, couldn’t believe he’d been caught out. He even asked what she was doing there, I couldn’t believe the audacity of it! As for Lilah, she looked pretty ashamed of herself, but I wasn’t really concentrating on her. The other woman usually gets the blame, but in my opinion it was all on Noah. He was the one cheating, after all. He sat there gaping like a goldfish, didn’t argue or anything, even when I threw the water.’

‘And Miss Arundale just… left the club?’

‘Yes, I took her home. I believe a glass was thrown, but I don’t know who did that.’

I blink. Sukhi has just lied on the stand for me. She knew I threw the glass and she’s betting on the fact that the CCTV footage was too frenetic for the precise sequence of events to be visible. I cannot believe she has just done this! I look at the floor, unable to stop the thumping in my chest. It’s one thing to defend me, another to put her own liberty and reputation on the line and outright lie for me.

‘Yes, we can’t make that out on the footage clearly, a lot of people move in after the drink was thrown and obstruct the camera,’ Grosvenor agrees. ‘So you left after that?’

‘Yes. She was in a terrible state, shaking the whole way back in the cab, and when we got home she was just crying and crying. I was really worried about her,’ Sukhi admits.

‘So you saw her in a state of significant distress?’ Grosvenor asks.

‘Yeah, definitely. She was hurt and upset,’ Sukhi says.

‘But still showed absolutely no violent tendencies, made no threats or gestures that might be found intimidating, such as a shake of the fist?’

‘No, nothing like that. She seemed broken and sad.’

Grosvenor gives a small smile and nods to her. ‘Thank you, Mrs Dhillon.’

‘Claire is a good person,’ Sukhi adds, and I have to swallow the lump in my throat.