Chapter 41 The Trial
The Trial
The worst day of the trial coincided with Miles’s thirtieth birthday.
In any other circumstances he would’ve been celebrating, but once more fate conspired against him and served up a wretched experience.
On the morning he was due to give evidence, Eleanor visited him in the side room he had sequestered due to the public’s interest in the case, and gave him a birthday card in a jolly yellow envelope.
‘I’m sorry this is how you’re spending your birthday,’ she said.
But, in truth, he was so deep into his nightmare that birthdays and celebrations of any kind had become meaningless.
There was barely time to open the card before they were heading upstairs to the courtroom for the day he’d been dreading.
As he was a witness in his own defence, Eleanor addressed him first, gently delivering the questions he knew she was going to, and he gave his preprepared answers.
And then, the moment he had hoped would never arrive.
William Cox KC rose to his feet, acknowledged the judge, and locked his eyes on Miles.
The courtroom fell so silent that every cough cracked the air like artillery.
And Miles experienced a triple dose of pre-exam nausea, his shirt damp and sticking to his back under his suit jacket.
‘Mr Deverill,’ Cox said. ‘On the date of her murder, you say you were at Ms Kennedy’s flat for a total of around five minutes, is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
Cox looked up from his notes and shot Miles a withering look over the brim of his glasses, as if surprised by his answer. ‘I put it to you that five minutes is a peculiar duration for such a visit. Why go in at all?’
‘It was cold,’ Miles said. ‘She invited me to come in while I waited for an Uber.’
‘But you didn’t call an Uber, did you, Mr Deverill, because’ – he studied his notes, as if he needed reminding – ‘your phone was out of battery?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Did you ask Ms Kennedy if you could charge your phone at her flat?’
‘She didn’t have the right charger. I think she had an Android phone.’
Cox’s eyes stuck on him for a moment, then slid away. ‘What kind of phone was yours, Mr Deverill? What make and model?’
‘It was an iPhone 15.’
He checked his notes again. ‘An iPhone 15 Plus?’ – waiting for confirmation from Miles – ‘and how new was this phone? Months, years?’
‘A few months old.’
Cox nodded. ‘And do you know what the battery life is for this particular model?’
‘No.’
‘According to the manufacturer’s technical specifications, which are available in your bundle on page forty-three, the battery life for this model allows for video playback of up to twenty-six hours. Does that sound about right?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘How was it then, Mr Deverill, that on that date, you had managed to use up the entire life of that battery?’
Miles touched his collar, under which heat was spreading across his neck. ‘I’m not sure. Maybe it hadn’t been charged properly. I can’t remember.’
Cox let his answer hang in silence as he pretended to find something among his notes. ‘According to the statement you gave, you then walked to a flat rented by your friend, Mr Elis Pritchard-Jones, is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Earlier in this trial, you’ll recall the jury being shown a map which plotted the quickest route from Ms Kennedy’s home to Mr Jones’s flat. It showed the most direct route, yet you elected to go a different way – along some smaller residential roads and through the park. Is that correct?’
‘That’s correct.’
Cox raised an eyebrow. ‘As you said yourself, it was a very cold night. Freezing, in fact. You must have been in a hurry to reach the warmth of your friend’s flat, yet you took the longer route. Why?’
Miles’s heart thudded urgently. ‘I didn’t intend to take the longer route. I was disorientated. I’d been drinking.’
‘Let me see if I’ve got this right.’ Cox talked slowly, as if deep in thought, considering it all for the first time.
‘The data from your phone can’t confirm where you went, because it was out of battery, and you weren’t seen on CCTV because you took the long route to your friend’s flat.
’ Another pause, and Cox set down his notes.
‘I put it to you, Mr Deverill, that you’re lying.
I put it to you that you stayed at Ms Kennedy’s flat for much longer than five minutes. ’
‘I’m not lying.’
‘This wasn’t your first date arranged on the Hinge app, was it?’
‘No.’
‘How many Hinge dates have you been on, Mr Deverill?’ Cox had gone up several gears, firing questions more rapidly.
‘Maybe ten.’
‘And how many of those dates have resulted in sexual intercourse?’
‘One or two.’
‘Please be specific, Mr Deverill, was it one or was it two?’
Miles’s cheeks burned, and he became acutely aware of his parents’ presence in the public gallery. ‘Two.’
Cox chose to pause in that moment, his lips pursed in consideration, as if he needed time to digest what Miles had just said.
It created an excruciatingly long silence.
‘Let’s return to your departure from Ms Kennedy’s flat.
Given your history of romantic success, it must have come as quite a disappointment that she didn’t invite you to stay longer? ’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Did you expect her to put out?’ Cox put the emphasis on those last two words in a way that suggested he was talking Miles’s language rather than his own.
‘I didn’t expect anything.’
‘But you would’ve been happy if she’d made a move, asked you to stay over?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did it make you frustrated that she didn’t?’
Miles’s temperature rose at that, and he tried to slow his breathing to suppress it. The last thing he needed, in response to that question, was to appear frustrated. He took a deep breath. ‘I wasn’t at all frustrated.’
‘Mr Deverill,’ Cox said, his speech simultaneously slowing and increasing in volume. ‘I put it to you that you’re a young man who is accustomed to getting what he wants, and when Ms Kennedy rejected your advances, you reacted with anger and violence, isn’t that right?’
Cox thumped out those last three words like a slow drum. Isn’t. That. Right. And despite his subsequent protestations and denials, Miles left the witness box with a vile feeling in his stomach. There were people in the room who were ready to believe Cox’s version of events. He was sure of it.