Chapter 12
Matthew is there with him in the shed as Angus Macpherson describes it.
By the intent way that the other jurors around him are listening, sitting upright, shoulders straight, he’s not the only one finally to be enthralled by the case.
This is what they were waiting for. Blood. Guts. Actual entrails.
A series of images flash up on the screens that sit between each couple of jurors. Matthew can’t get his head round the incongruity of it, the juxtaposition of the formality of the proceedings with the fact that they’re looking at what’s effectively the set of a Hammer House of Horror film.
Fully lit as they are, Matthew knows the photos can’t possibly convey the atmosphere that the police officer will have sensed, fresh from the scene of discovering the corpse, picking out each detail by the beam of torchlight.
But even illuminated, it’s still chilling.
The dead bird, the pentagram. Scattered around it are various cards with runes and images on them which Matthew imagines might be from a tarot deck, though he can’t zoom in and check properly.
There’s burnt-down candles, a couple of black rocks, some incense.
And over everything, small white feathers, some of them also burnt round the edges.
It must have stunk.
The police officer is a big man, red-faced.
Burly. He looks like he could face down any number of joyriding teenagers or feral youth.
But Matthew is struck by the hesitant way he describes the scene, the way his face pales when he describes first entering the shed.
He’s shook. And it’s having the same effect on Matthew.
The man’s evidence is winding up now. He hadn’t gone to the school to speak to the headmistress – that job had been delegated to others.
He had taken details from the owner of the allotment in question, but the jury would be hearing from her directly themselves later.
He had waited with the body until all relevant work had been done in situ; he’d instructed a fingertip search of the surrounding scene; he’d watched as they’d zipped her up into a body bag and taken her away.
Cross-examination doesn’t take long. Miss Brodie asks a couple of questions about how sure he is that there was no one else on the scene other than the jogger when he first saw the body. And one final question.
‘You said that when you first saw the body, you were struck by an expression of terror on her face?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s only your interpretation of it, though.’
‘Yes.’
‘It could as likely have been an expression of pain, or even an involuntary spasm at the moment of death?’
The police officer pauses before he answers.
‘I know what it looked like to me.’
‘It’s a yes or no answer, officer. Let me break it down for you. You don’t know what the girl was feeling in her last moments, do you?’
‘No.’
‘So when you say it was an expression of terror, that’s only your opinion, isn’t it?’
There’s a mulish set to the man’s jaw, but he nods.
‘Yes, it’s my opinion.’
‘Not a matter of fact, though?’
‘No.’
Miss Goodly gets to her feet, says again that she has no further questions. Sits down. Matthew’s starting to wonder why she’s even bothered to turn up.
This concludes the evidence of the scene of crime officer. The man walks out. His shoulders look lighter as he leaves the court-room, his back straighter. He does not look back.
The photographs of the dead girl had been handed to the jury earlier in the policeman’s evidence, in a brown paper folder.
No one has yet opened this, perhaps too nervous to do so.
Matthew himself hadn’t felt the need to look at that point, given the vivid description that was given by the officer.
But at this challenge, all sense of decorum goes out of the window.
He picks up the folder – by the sound of rustling paper around him, he’s not the only one.
There are three photographs inside. One shows the girl lying on her side as the officer described, the second the same but giving the back view.
The third is a close-up of her face. Matthew’s seen some bodies in his time.
He’s dissected them, sewn them back together, cut holes in some of the most diseased limbs you could imagine.
But he’s never seen an expression like this; forget subjectivity, the rictus of the lips, jaws at full extension – the defence advocate can say what she likes, this is terror. Pure and simple.
The images of the shed are still on the screen in front of Matthew and he scrolls through them again as he waits for the next witness to be called, his heart racing.
Dead pigeon, tarot cards, candles, pentagram; all the nonsense.
Matthew might have felt shaken as the police officer described it but the memory of that fades as he takes in all the ridiculous props.
He suppresses a snort of derision as he looks at it.
It offends his clinical mind that people could actually fall for this nonsense.
He remembers how the policeman’s face paled as he gave his description and shakes his head – people are far too credulous these days.
Thank goodness he’s had a scientific training – Matthew would never be taken in by anything as silly as this.
Other than the trappings of occult mischief, the rest of the shed is tidy, almost obsessively so.
Hooks and nails on the wall support a wide variety of garden tools, and there’s pastel coloured bunting pinned up across the ceiling.
On the wall opposite the door is a large framed poster with a motivational message, This is our Happy Place. Matthew tries not to roll his eyes.
‘Annetta Worth, please,’ the advocate depute says, calling for his next witness.
A short, dumpy woman is brought to the stand, her dark hair youthfully long with a centre parting, although Matthew reckons she’s way north of fifty.
Then he thinks about the music festivals he still attends despite being out of his teens – she’s not the only one not acting her age.
Once she’s sworn in, she gives her name. As Matthew suspected, she’s the owner of the allotment. Totally the sort to have motivational posters on her wall.
‘We’d been away for a few weeks,’ she tells the court.
‘I asked the owner of the neighbouring allotment to keep an eye on the place for us, cut back anything that became too obtrusive. Mike, that’s his name.
But we left it in good shape so he didn’t need to do much.
Plus he had all his own tools, so he had no reason to go into the shed. ’
‘What steps did you take to secure the premises before you went away?’ Mr Alexander says.
‘I locked it as usual. There’s a bolt on the door and then a padlock.
It’s very safe. I left the key as I normally do underneath a rock at the back.
No one knows about it, only Mike. It was just in case he needed it.
He says he didn’t open it at all though.
And of course he didn’t. He was nothing to do with this.
I just can’t believe that it was our shed that was being used to drive that poor girl to her death. ’
‘I’m going to stop you there,’ the advocate depute says. ‘Please stick to what you know yourself directly. Did you give permission to anyone other than Mike to unlock your shed or use the premises?’
‘I most certainly did not,’ Annetta says, crossing her arms firmly underneath her substantial bosom, an aggrieved look on her face.
‘It’s a very special place for us as a family.
I’d never agree to allow anyone to use it, especially not for something as dark as this.
I still haven’t got all the blood off the floor.
’ She shivers, a theatrical movement which fails to convey fear, at least to Matthew’s eye.
Even though she’s wearing dusky pink, a fluffy scarf, Matthew gets the sense that underneath the soft exterior is a core of steel.
Her mouth is shut like a trap in a tight, straight line.
Few other details of relevance emerge from her evidence in chief.
She and her husband had arrived back from Spain the day before and they were planning on going down to the allotment in the morning, when Mike called them to tell them that a body had been found in the area.
They’d rushed down, and then they’d found the shed in this unpleasant condition.
Miss Brodie stands up, all elbows and sharp cheekbones.
‘Just a couple of questions for you, Mrs Worth. You said you were away for a few weeks, but it was actually six months. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Well, I . . . I suppose that’s right.’ She shifts from foot to foot in the witness box.
‘And you’ve kept the key under that rock for many years, haven’t you?’
‘I have, yes. It’s all very secure there.’
‘Hmmm,’ Miss Brodie says. ‘Yes. Well. It’s right to say that any number of people could know about its being there, isn’t it?’
‘No. Well, yes. I suppose. But I bet they don’t. I’m very discreet about it.’
Is she? Is it? Questions are running through Matthew’s mind.
‘You have two teenage children, isn’t that right?’
‘I do, yes, though I fail to see what that’s got to do with anything.’
‘Just answer the questions, please, Mrs Worth. It’s correct to say that they are aware of the whereabouts of the key?’
‘Yes, I suppose they are,’ the witness says sharply. Any softness in her demeanour is fading fast.
‘And there would have been nothing to stop them telling their friends about it, would there?’
‘Why would they do that?’
‘Answer the question, please.’
‘Yes. I suppose they could.’
Miss Brodie nods, as if it confirms what she’s been thinking all along. ‘So, in reality, you’ve got no idea who knew that the key was kept there. It could have been anyone, couldn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Mrs Worth says, through lips now so tight they’ve almost disappeared.
‘And given you were away for six months in total, not just a few weeks, anyone could have let themselves in at any point. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose so,’ Mrs Worth says. Her eyes have narrowed now too and her cheeks are flushed a dull pink that clashes with her top.
‘So the shed could have been used at any point in the last six months, couldn’t it? Not specifically the night before the body was found?’
‘I suppose that’s right,’ Mrs Worth says.
‘No further questions—’
Before Miss Brodie can finish her sentence, Mrs Worth turns to the judge. Her poise has returned. ‘It was close to then, though. It must have been. The pigeon blood was still wet. I know this, because I tried to mop it up.’
Unlikeable witness or not, Mrs Worth has won this point.