Chapter Three
Rebecca
What the hell was I thinking? What the hell had I just done…here in Oxford Crown Court? Seriously. And, and I’d agreed to meeting his brother? As if I could handle that multiplied by two. Him multiplied by two.
I hurried down the corridor, my robe swishing behind me. I checked my periwig, and yep, it was at an angle. And my cheeks were hot, likely pink, too, and my lipstick would be…fucked.
I dived into a restroom, relieved when it was empty, and plonked down my notes. Hurriedly, I swiped away my smudged red lipstick, and then beneath my eyes, neatening my eyeliner.
My eyes were glistening, the result of an orgasm, unexpected it was true, but still it had been swift and satisfying. The man was good with his hands.
“Hey, Rebecca, how is your day going?”
I spun around.
Melanie, one of the court secretaries, stood there.
“I…er good thanks. You?” I straightened my robe.
“Same old. I heard your closing went well.”
“Fingers crossed.” I tapped my periwig then licked my lips. Finn’s taste lingered there. I closed my eyes, and my heart gave a silly extra beat.
“You okay?” Melanie asked and narrowed her eyes.
“Yes, of course. Fine…just anxious, I guess. Prison will destroy her just as much as her husband did.”
“He was a nasty bit of work by the sound of it.” She shuddered then stepped into a cubicle.
Hastily, I grabbed my notes and headed out again.
Soon I was walking into the communal office. There was a hum of conversation, and the kettle was boiling. I waved hello to a few colleagues then went to the desk I’d claimed earlier in the day.
“What the…?” I stopped in my tracks.
A huge bunch of blood-red roses clouded with white baby’s breath stood on my desk wrapped in great folds of cellophane dotted with tiny scarlet hearts and cupid arrows.
“Came for you,” Joseph said. “A while ago. Secret admirer, huh?”
“Not that I know of.” I frowned. Finn? Really? I didn’t know him well, but this didn’t seem like his style. Being where he bloody well shouldn’t be, taking crazy risks, that was his MO.
I plucked the printed notecard positioned between two stems and tore it open.
You’ve been on my mind every minute, every hour, and every day for the last four years, and now it’s time.
“What the hell?” A cold chill shuddered through me.
At Christmas I’d received a card with an angel on saying the same thing, only that one had said three years and six months.
The flowers were from the same anonymous person, and the only people I knew who measured every minute, hour, and day were inmates.
I had a bad feeling about this and felt the color drain from my previously flushed cheeks .
Now it’s time, what the fuck did that mean?
“You okay?” Joseph asked, leaning back in his chair and tapping his pen on his chin.
“Who delivered these?” I snapped.
“I don’t know. They were here when I came back from closing. But I expect security brought them up. Why?”
“Yes, of course, security.” I gabbed the phone and called downstairs. “Hey, Fred, its Rebecca Saunders, did you see who brought these flowers?”
“The red roses, sure, it was the woman who owns Bees Knees, the florist down the road. Brought them herself, she did.”
“Oh, okay, thanks.”
“Problem? We scanned them.”
“No, it’s fine.” I put the phone down and keyed in the number of Bees Knees that was written on the back of the card. It was answered on the fourth ring by a female. “Hello, I’ve just had a bunch of roses delivered to me at the courthouse, can you tell me who ordered them, please?”
She laughed softly. “I bet they were a lovely surprise, my best stems, they were, fresh from Columbia Road Market this morning.”
“They were unexpected, and I’m not sure who they’re from.” I paused and took a deep breath. “Were they ordered in person or online?”
“In person, dear. Tall chap, stubble, big gold signet rings.”
Fuck. This was not good news. “And he paid with a card?”
“No, he paid cash, had a great big wad of it in his wallet, I tell you.”
“Did he leave a name?”
“Oh no, he was in and out quick. Said he had things to do and people to see.”
An image flashed up in my mind, Mick Stone, an asshole I’d defended four years ago.
I hadn’t won his case. It didn’t bother me, he was a piece of work and deserved to go away.
And then I thought of Reg Jacks, another bastard who’d been convinced he’d get off scot-free with his crimes but didn’t.
Was one of my past clients blaming me for their time behind bars?
“Miss, anything else I can help you with?”
“Er, no thanks…”
“A verdict has been reached,” Melanie called into the room. “Everyone on the Crown versus Tippin case back into court.”
I ended the call and slipped my phone away. I then picked up the flowers and dropped them into the nearest bin, petals down. They landed with a metallic whump .
“You don’t want them?” Joseph asked as he stood.
“No I do not.”
“Why? They are—”
“We have to go. Judge Jenkins doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” A bitter taste in my mouth had replaced Finn’s sweet kiss, and I marched ahead of everyone else toward the courtroom. My stomach was tense, taut, and a knot of anger was forming.
How dare someone think they could pester me like this, attempt to make me feel vulnerable and threatened. As soon as I had a little more information, I’d be making a visit to the police station.
Walking in, I spotted Emma back behind her glass partition with her usual two prison officers. She was pale with red-rimmed eyes, and I reminded myself why I did my job.
“This is good,” I mouthed, hoping I wasn’t giving false hope at the speed in which the jury had deliberated and come to a verdict.
Her bottom lip trembled, and she knotted her hands beneath her chin.
I gave her a small smile and glanced at the public gallery—no Finn this time—then I sat at my desk. The jury had been quick, very quick, which meant they were all either certain Emma was innocent or certain that she was guilty.
They came in, all twelve, giving nothing away with their expressions, though one middle-aged woman did glance at Emma with a hint of a smile.
I took that as an encouraging sign.
“Thank you all,” Judge Jenkins said. “For your deliberation. I trust your foreperson is ready to speak for you all.”
“Yes, Your Honor.” A young man with bright-orange hair and matching glasses stood. He took a deep breath and set down his shoulders.
Time seemed to stand still, a collective holding of breath—the defendant, the journalists, the lawyers, and secretaries—and then the jury foreperson gave the verdict.
“We find the defendant not guilty.”
I blew out a breath, sagging forward. Thank the dear Lord above the jury had common sense.
Emma gasped behind me.
I turned and saw the tears streaming down her face.
“Thank you,” Judge Jenkins said to the jury with a smile.
“For your time over the last two weeks. I know some of the evidence has been difficult to hear, and the fact remains a person is dead. The judicial system is not perfect, I know, and there are some who would get rid of it, but it is the best we have, and I believe that in this case it has worked the way it should. The defendant, Emma Tippin, is free to go.” He banged his hammer. “Court dismissed.”
Everyone stood while he left the courtroom, and then the volume level rose. I dashed to the glass partition and reached it the moment it was opened.
Emma flung herself into my arms.
I held her close. “It’s over. It’s over now.”
“I can’t…believe it…I…”
I stroked her hair and hugged her. “You can get on with your life now, with your children. You have a bright future ahead of you.”
“I’m going to go and live with my mom, up in Scotland,” she managed. “As soon as I get the kids back.”
“That will be very soon, and if it isn’t, you call me, I’ll hurry it along.”
“Thank you, thank you for everything.” She pulled back.
“Is your mom here now?”
“Yes, she’s up there.” She gestured at the public gallery.
A woman with Emma’s striking curly blonde hair was sobbing yet smiling. She stood and made a heart sign at Emma.
A sense of a job well done filled me. We’d got the right verdict, the asshole husband was dead—we didn’t have to worry about restraining orders or him coming out of prison—and Emma and her children were about to embark on a new life in Scotland, hopefully a place where they could put the past behind them and make new happy memories.
“Come on, Emma, let’s get the paperwork done and then you can be on your way.” The prison officer at her side smiled. “And without being mean, let’s hope we don’t meet again.”
Emma laughed, a high-pitched, slightly hysterical sound. “I agree, not that you’re a horrible person or anything, I just…”
The prison officer laughed. “Don’t worry, I understand.”
I left them to it and gathered my things.
“Well done,” Joseph said to me.
“Thanks.”
“It was the right outcome.”
I paused and looked at him. “It’s hard, though, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve defended people who I know have been guilty. And I’ve battled to have evidence disregarded, found new witnesses or alibis to create doubt, you know, and they’ve got off. They shouldn’t have, they were guilty. They should have been locked up.”
“You’re good at your job, Rebecca.”
“And you’re good at yours which had me anxious back there. What if she’d gone down for murder? Got ten, fifteen years, missed out on seeing her kids grow up? How would you have felt?”
“I’d have done my duty to the CPS the way I’m paid to.”
“They should never have brought this case to court, you know that as well as I do.”
He sighed and shook his head. “I agree. It was a complete waste of taxpayers’ money, the whole thing. But let’s just be thankful that it came out well in the end.” He nodded at the door. “Fancy a drink?”
“Er, no, thanks.” His sudden invite surprised me. “I have somewhere to be, I’m meeting a friend.”
“The friend who sent you the flowers?”
“They went in the bin, remember.”
“Ah yes. I remember.”
I didn’t linger and headed out of the court to collect my handbag. I needed a drink, a glass of wine, and I needed a good old natter with my best friend in the world, Amy.
Two hours later, I had my feet tucked up beneath me on the sofa and was nursing my second glass of wine.
“Have I got this right?” Amy said and set her blue gaze on me. “You agreed to a date with this hot Irish criminal and—”
“He’s not a criminal. I got him off, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all.”
“A sex den wrong place, correct?”
“Sort of, yes.”
“And he was there for what? Sex?” She raised her perfectly arched eyebrows.
“No, he was there with a couple of friends gathering evidence to take to the police. These girls were horrifically treated, illegal immigrants, too. Slaves. Drugged.”
“And that’s the story he told you.”
“It’s not a story. I believe him.” It sounded nuts now, but when Finn had explained to me what he’d been doing in that warehouse, I’d believed him. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who needed to pay for sex, and his story added up. Of course it had, that’s how I’d got the charges dropped.
“I don’t doubt that he can flirt with the law,” I admitted, thinking of him sneaking into the back corridors of the courthouse, “but nothing nasty, not like the shit that was going down at that warehouse.” I shuddered and thought of the poor girls. I hoped they were doing better now.
“Yeah, it was in the Oxford Mail . So close to the city, too.”
I nodded.
“So,” she said again and twirled her finger in the air, “you’ve agreed to a date with him, and now he wants to bring his twin brother, right?”
I sipped my wine.
“You have! A threesome date.” Her eyes widened with glee. “How exciting.”
“I guess.”
“And the brother is an Irish hottie, too?”
“So I’m told.”
A smile balled Amy’s cheeks. “Well, in that case, good luck to you, girl.” She held up her glass. “Cheers to twice the fun.”
I giggled and for a moment considered telling her about the fun I’d had in the stationery cupboard that day. But I decided against it. It was my erotic little secret and I liked it that way. “So what’s going on in your world, Amy?”
“Ah, this and that. Work, work, work.”
Amy worked for a sports marketing company, and there was always some big event that was taking up her time.
“You not seeing anyone? What about the guy with the beard the other week?”
“Ah, that was just a one-night stand, was never going to be more.”
I frowned. I wished Amy would find someone to have ‘more’ with. One-night stands had always left me feeling empty, and I was sure they did her, too. “It’s good to have fun,” I said. “But maybe someone to spend time in daylight hours with would be nice.”
She laughed. “I’ve just got new batteries in my vibe, that’s all the fun I’ve got time for at the moment, and he comes out to play day or night.”