Chapter 8
The judge is getting into the minutiae of the law now, throwing around words like credibility and corroboration with abandon.
Matthew has given up all pretence of listening.
He’s transfixed by the woman sitting at the side of the court.
She doesn’t look up again – all he can see is the soft wing of pale blond hair, the curve of the top of her red lip.
With an effort, he pulls his eyes away from her, looks at the accused girls instead.
Eliza is looking down, her hair still across her face, but Isobel is alert, the rage still crackling off her as she turns her head slowly to look around the court.
Matthew freezes, a rabbit about to be caught in a headlight.
He wants to look away, he can’t move his head, a moment of paralysis where any minute she’s going to see him, fix him with her eyes and then— the girl coughs and it breaks the spell.
Matthew looks down, sinking back into his chair.
Relief courses through him at the close escape.
One glance more at the woman with the notebook then he forces himself to look back to the judge. She must be winding up by now; the modulations in her voice have an air of finality to them. Though that might just be wishful thinking.
She’s explaining reasonable doubt: the sort of doubt that would make you pause or hesitate before taking an important decision in the practical conduct of your own lives.
Is that all it needs? The sort of doubt that would make you pause?
He thought it would be more than that; a crushing sense of apocalypse, more like, a presentiment of certain doom.
Matthew’s doubted every decision he’s made, in his personal life at least. Proposing to Rosalind, that was nothing but doubt, the strongest desire he’s ever had to run to the hills and not look back as she sat there, hand extended, waiting for the ring she had no doubt that he’d provide.
You must be certain so that you are sure.
Familiar territory again, but only in work.
When he’s poised with the scalpel, about to cut open a patient’s chest, Matthew’s always sure.
He knows exactly where to cut, making the eight-inch incision with total certainty, pulling the ribs apart and connecting the heart–lung bypass machine, breath held for the moment that the patient is clinically dead until the mechanical pump takes over.
He never doubts that. Fixing the accused girls with a stare, Matthew promises himself that he’ll only convict them if he can feel that sure, powerful as the cut made by his obsidian blade.
But the doubt faded about Rosalind. He needs to remember that.
The moment of panic followed by a lifetime of happiness, his partner in everything that he does.
If he puts Olivia to one side, that is, the other Olivias who came before.
But temporary doubt doesn’t mean doubt enough to acquit someone, not when it’s murder . . .
More of the about-turns. He blinks, dizzy for a moment, disorientated by the sense that this is not his world, these are not his rules. He doesn’t even know enough to break them. He needs to pay more attention, however hard it feels.
Everyone is standing now, and Matthew realises that the judge is leaving the courtroom again.
He jumps up to his feet, catches the eye of the woman with the notebook who smiles at him, striking straight to his core.
Who is she? A pause. The question repeats itself, this time more ominously.
Who the hell is this woman? Why does she keep looking at him?
The notebook in her hand – he’s assuming she’s here to cover the trial.
But what if she’s got another agenda? What if Dominic’s sent her? The hospital?
Matthew’s head is about to explode. He rubs his eyes hard. He’s being neurotic now, uncertain of himself in this new environment. He mustn’t let his paranoia go out of control. He looks over again at where she was sitting but she’s gone now, her seat empty.
He’s got to stop being daft, hold on to what he knows for sure. No one is here to spy on him – she’s just a pretty girl and there’s a mutual attraction. That’s all. Rules against speaking to people outside the jury or not, he wouldn’t say no if the opportunity presented itself to talk to her.
The jury files back to the room to find that lunch has been laid out on the table for them.
Matthew selected the sandwiches earlier, meat variety, and picks at the chicken salad on wholegrain he’s been served.
He’s not hungry, even though he had no breakfast. The emotion of the morning is catching up with him, the knowledge that his phone is burning a hole in his pocket, waiting to start yelling at him the moment that he switches it on.
As he was last into the room he has no choice about where to sit – there’s only one space left, next to the dreadful woman.
She’s That Emma in his head now, the contrast between her badly bleached, straw-like hair and the silken, Hitchcock blond of the woman with the notebook hitting him with such force that he almost recoils from her.
She’s eating a jacket potato with tuna and sweetcorn in mayonnaise and the smell only reinforces his revulsion.
She must sense his movement, though, as she turns to him, smiling with a bit of corn stuck to her front tooth.
‘I saw you,’ she says. ‘I was watching.’
‘You saw me what?’ he replies, after a moment. He doesn’t want to engage but despite himself he wants to know what she’s talking about.
‘You were staring at that pretty journalist. Couldn’t take your eyes off her.’
‘You think she’s a journalist?’ The question slips out despite himself.
‘Notebook? What else would she be?’ Her smile has broadened. More knowing. He’s going to have to be more careful. Even sitting in front of him this woman’s eyes are out on stalks.
The woman sitting on Matthew’s other side is clearly listening in because she interrupts. ‘I didn’t think journalists were allowed to sit in court. What if we get identified?’
Matthew moves his chair back a little so he can take a proper look at her.
Someone else with fears, too. She’s young, probably the youngest member of the jury by some years.
Jasmine Lewis. Not long out of her teens.
Her eyes are close together, a greasy fringe of dark hair clumped across her forehead.
‘Those wee girls hardly look like mafia dons.’ It’s Neil Mackay, another man in his fifties. He looks like he’s trying to control a smile.
‘Someone might hex us,’ Jasmine says. Matthew looks at her intently – it’s hard to tell from her tone whether she means it, though he thinks he can discern a note of sarcasm under the comment. She points at Emma. ‘She said the girls are witches.’
‘No one is going to hex us,’ Matthew says. ‘There’s no such thing.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Emma says. She’s leaning forward, both elbows down on the table. Matthew breathes through his mouth to avoid the tuna stink. ‘Lots of people believe it’s true. The co-accuseds, for one thing.’
Roderick holds up his hand. ‘I don’t want to know what you’ve read in the papers about this case already,’ he says. ‘You heard what the judge said. We’re going to hear everything that they want us to know. We shouldn’t talk about anything we know from outside.’
‘Stop being such an old woman,’ Emma says. ‘I’m entitled to say my piece. Just because I’m the only one who bothers to read the newspaper round here.’ She looks around the table. ‘Come on, everyone. Don’t you want me to tell you what this is all about?’
Roderick shakes his head. ‘Enough. Do you want to get us all kicked out before this has even begun?’
‘They’re not going to do that,’ Emma says. ‘How would they know?’
A deep voice from the end of the table. Dharam Singh. ‘Because I will tell the court officer myself that you keep trying to talk about what you know about the case and I will ensure that you are kicked off this case if you don’t shut up now.’
Matthew leans back to take a look at the man.
He’s in his sixties, dark turban, gold-rimmed glasses, silver beard.
Another foreman contender. Dharam catches his eye and the two men nod to each other.
Matthew has no doubt that Dharam will do exactly what he’s threatening to do if Emma doesn’t shut up.
The humphing noise then silence from Emma suggests that she’s realised too that he means what he says.
‘This isn’t a game,’ Dharam says, quietly but with such command that the whole jury turns to look at him, their jaws ceasing chewing for a moment, their phones ignored in their hands.
‘This isn’t a witch trial, either. It’s a murder trial, and it’s serious.
We need to do what the judge says, listen to the evidence, and reach a verdict.
That’s it. No more of this tittle tattle. ’
Emma opens her mouth.
‘I said, no more of this. Do you agree?’
She closes it again. Gives one nod, such a slight movement of her head that it might not even have happened. But the whole room sees her back down.
Matthew heads out with the smokers after they finish lunch to skulk round the side of the court building.
Not to have a cigarette – he’s seen too many blocked arteries for that to hold any appeal – but because he can’t bear to stay in the stuffy room another moment, inhaling the stale tuna fury that’s emanating from Emma.
Also (though he is barely admitting it to himself) he’s hoping to get a glimpse of the blonde woman.
He’s with Neil Mackay (roll-ups), Jasmine Lewis (a bright pink vape that gives off the smell of fake strawberries) and Nicola Wilson (Marlboro Gold).
The latter is in her thirties, Matthew estimates, a sensible-looking woman with brown hair and a strong jawline.
Could be a teacher. Certainly doesn’t look as if she’ll take any shit.
A third contender for foreman. They’re adding up.
She takes a long drag of her cigarette and exhales, an expression of so much concentrated enjoyment on her face that Matthew finds himself momentarily desperate to ask if he can have a drag, though he squashes the thought.
‘If it’s like this now,’ she says, ‘what the fuck is it going to be like when we get to discussing the verdict?’