Chapter 5
There was never a doubt that he’d do it. The only uncertainty was whether he would be called. But here he is.
Relief, that’s his biggest emotion. The die cast, he can be honest with himself. He’s been desperate for this. A get out of jail free card to send someone else down, nothing else for him to do. Better than a holiday. They’ll have to leave him alone here.
The woman who gave him the creeps – Emma – is sitting in front of him.
He’ll have to do his best not to look at her.
At least she won’t be able to see him, though she keeps turning her head, checking everyone out.
They’re all looking round though, heads turning left and right, fifteen meerkats on high alert, doing their best to avoid each other’s eyes.
He glances down his row – the four people sitting along from him all seem normal, at least, no one overly gleeful.
Nothing like the sharp look he saw from her.
A number of people in the public gallery are staring straight at the jury, weighing them up – they might not be sitting that close but Matthew can tell they’re being evaluated.
Not by the teenage girls – they aren’t paying any attention.
They’re restless, flicking their hair, their heads moving from side to side.
One of them is chewing gum, her jaw moving constantly.
Matthew is restless too, his curiosity building, desperate to know what the accused girls are supposed to have done.
He peers at the advocates sitting in front of the judge.
The advocate depute accompanied by a man in a suit, the defence advocates with two younger women next to them also wearing wigs and gowns, men in suits sitting behind them.
There are piles of papers and laptops open before them, though Matthew can’t make out any details from where he’s standing, squint as he might.
He doesn’t know much about court proceedings, but his gut tells him that the more lawyers are involved, the more serious the matter.
They’re so young, though, the girls sitting in the dock.
Younger than Daisy. Vulnerable, up there between the security officers who are each twice the size of the girls.
One would be enough to take them both down.
He checks himself at the thought. He’s no idea what the girls are capable of, pathetic as they may seem.
Matthew knows this is how the system works.
Some of the most serious cases in the country are heard in this room.
He can imagine a row of beefy men sitting up there charged with multiple robberies, murders.
But these children? Daisy always bollocks him when he calls her a kid, but nineteen or not, that’s how he sees her, and these girls are clearly younger than her.
‘I will now read out the indictment,’ the court clerk says. A ripple through the jury. At last he’ll find out.
The girls stand.
‘Please confirm your name for the court.’ He points at the girl on the left, the one with fair hair.
‘Eliza Lawson,’ she says. Her voice is quiet but clear. There’s a firmer set to her jaw than Matthew anticipated from the meek expression on her face. Perhaps not so pathetic, then.
‘Date of birth?’
‘The eighteenth of June, 2001.’
2001. Matthew was right. She’s seventeen. A couple of years younger than Daisy. The hairs on his scalp lift.
‘Your address is Ardvulin, Longniddry Road, North Berwick.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Please be seated. Will the second accused please stand and give the court her name?’
Eliza sits down, still confident in her movements, her head held high.
Isobel, the dark-haired girl, is not the same.
She gets to her feet slowly, her shoulders still hunched, her arms hanging loose at her sides with her hands hidden by the sleeves of her hoodie.
Unlike Eliza, whose face was bare of make-up, she’s wearing heavy black eyeliner and there’s a ring through her nose as well as the stud under her bottom lip.
Looking more closely at her hair, it’s clear that it was dyed some time ago, the ends nearly black while the roots are greasy and mouse-coloured. She’s not very prepossessing.
‘Isobel Smyth.’
‘Date of birth?’
‘The fourteenth of November, 2001.’
‘Your address is 14 Cluny Gardens, in Edinburgh. Is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
Cluny Gardens. That’s somewhere out Barnton way, Davidsons Mains.
Near the supermarket. Not that it matters now – he needs to pay attention.
He pulls himself together, looks at the judge.
She has a notebook in front of her, a pen in her hand, businesslike.
The grey of her wig matches the grey of her hair, the two seamlessly blended together.
The clerk speaks again, her words blurred at first, then razor sharp as Matthew tunes in ‘. . . that on or about first May 2018, in Inverleith Park, Edinburgh, you did assault Christian Shaw and did threaten her with a knife, thus causing her to believe that she was at risk of imminent attack, and you did so knowing that this action would result in her death or were wickedly reckless as to that risk given your knowledge of her pre-existing heart condition, in consequence of which assault she sustained a heart attack whereof she died; and you did murder her.’
Murder. He blinks. So much for schoolgirl high jinks.
At the mention of the victim’s name, there’s a loud sob from the public gallery.
Matthew looks over; one of the girls in school uniform is covering her face with her hands.
He turns his head to see that Isobel is looking up at them too, her dark hair pushed back from her face as she tips her head towards them.
Her expression is set, stern, a line between her eyebrows.
A shimmer in the air. The lines around her eyes deepen, darken, her brows knitted together. Her hair seems to move, writhe, twisted in dull hanks that stir around her head, snake-like. Her lips are thin, tightly pressed together. A cold rage beats out from her.
She shakes her head once, twice, glancing over at the jury box, catches his gaze. Holds it. Freezes him to the spot.
One beat, two. The air shimmers again. Matthew blinks, rubs his eyes. He’s still looking at Isobel but she’s herself again. A girl in her late teens, similar age to his daughter.
Only a child.
The air’s shifted. A cold breath on Matthew’s face.
Run away, get away before it’s too late, a voice says in his head, so clear it’s as if someone’s whispered to him.
It is too late, though. He’s in for the ride.
A murder trial – less escapism to be found here than he hoped.
Not an escape from the pressures of his day job – different sandpit, that’s all.
The middle-aged man in the public gallery looks as tense as any relatives waiting outside one of his operating theatres.
At least no one can say that he’s in charge of anything, though.
Or that he’s to blame if it all goes wrong. Not like . . .
The judge coughs, clears her throat.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, you have had the indictment read over to you. Shortly you will be asked to take the oath, but before—’
The oath. He’d forgotten about that. He’s been flipflopping for days about what he’d do, take the Bible or affirm. He’s still undecided, agnostic to the core. What would carry more weight? Does he even believe in God any more? The judge is still speaking and he tunes back in.
‘Do any of you know of any reason why you could not impartially serve as a juror?’
Matthew looks over at the girls in the dock. Eliza at least is indistinguishable from many of Daisy’s friends, centre parting, head bowed low. That’s not a reason not to do it, though.
The clerk takes over, briskly asking all the jurors to raise their right hands.
They’re all still standing. Before Matthew has fully clocked what’s happening, the clerk has rattled through asking if they swear by Almighty God that they will well and truly try the accused and give a true verdict according to the evidence.
A mutter of I do, the words barely leaving Matthew’s lips, before the clerk gestures to them to take their seats.
Is that it? His solemn promise? It doesn’t feel very binding.
He looks sidelong – the woman next to him is rigid, her lips a tight line.
The words of the oath ring in his ears. He’d have liked to have sworn on the Bible, after all.
There’d have been a comfort in the grip of the book in his hand.
It would have felt more sincere, somehow. Laden with more meaning.
He shakes his head, dismissing the thought. He’s too rational to need a prop. Matthew believes in facts, in experts. He seeks the opinion of scientists, making a point of walking under every ladder he sees.
Perhaps something of his childhood lingers.
Christened, confirmed, Sunday schooled. His family’s God sawest all, although it’s been years since he went inside a church, turning his back on it all the moment that he went to university and started to study medicine.
Matthew’s gods took on human form – it would only be a few years before he could join their ranks, weighing life and death in his own hands, as soon as he was allowed to wield a scalpel.
He measured everything in numbers, peer reviews and blind testing his new testaments.
This way of swearing in a jury should appeal to him. But instead he just feels small.
Before he can brood more on it, the judge starts speaking again.
She’s adjourning the court, giving them the chance to go to their room, take off their coats.
Choose their lunch. ‘One final matter before you do that. I shall mention this in more detail on your return, but even at this stage, you must not, even out of idle curiosity, carry out any investigation about anyone or anything relating to this case. I say this in recognition that by means of mobile phones it is now very easy to use these devices to gain almost instantaneous access to information on almost any subject, and some people are very adept at doing so.’
Matthew shifts from foot to foot. He feels seen, the God of his childhood suddenly replaced by this woman in a wig with dark, piercing eyes.
He wants to protest immediately. He wouldn’t dream of looking anything up.
He knows how serious it is. But his fingers are itching to type the words Isobel Smyth Eliza Lawson murder in his search engine all the same.