Chapter 16
Rebecca Waites doesn’t want to give evidence.
She wants to be in her classroom, wiping down the whiteboard, setting up the room for discussion about Shakespeare or Miller, not facing all these strangers, forced to talk about one of the worst days of her life, support a cause she thinks is intrinsically wrong.
She can’t think about it without crying, let alone explain it to anyone new.
She’s going to make a complete fool of herself, burst into tears in front of everyone.
Word’ll get back to the school that she’s a total incompetent, a hysterical idiot, and then she’ll lose her job, and the accommodation that comes with it.
Even worse, she might lose her temper, tell them all what she really thinks. De mortuis nil nisi bonum, sure, but the high-minded Roman who came up with that dictum clearly hadn’t encountered a teenager as difficult as Christian.
‘You need to come in now,’ the macer says. He’s been very kind to her, allowed her a few extra moments to pull herself together, but his patience is wearing thin. She’s got to sort herself out. She’s a grown woman, shouldn’t be behaving like such a child.
‘OK,’ she says, barely audible, and she follows him.
At least the courtroom isn’t exclusively filled with men.
That’s what she feared, when she allowed herself to imagine it.
All men in black, like crows, pecking the flesh from Eliza Lawson’s bones, witch prickers in their hands.
Though she minds less about the idea of Isobel suffering .
. . Rebecca risks a glance over at Eliza – the co-accused, she’ll have to get used to saying.
The girl looks well enough, pale but not more than you’d expect, but Rebecca knows what a torment this case will be to her.
She refuses to look at Isobel. She’ll never look at her the same way again.
Jurors might not be allowed to read about cases online, but no such rules apply to Rebecca.
She’s been on internet forums since the day that they were arrested.
She hopes Eliza knows how much support there is out there for the girls in witchy subreddits and WitchTok hashtags.
Persecuted for their beliefs, no less, though Rebecca’s sure that Eliza was never truly sucked in to all this rubbish. Isobel’s the one with the problem.
‘Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?’ Rebecca nods.
She needs to concentrate now. Hold herself together.
Now she’s here, her mind is focused. It’s not about keeping up appearances, not making a fool of herself in front of the court.
She’s fighting a more important battle than that.
She might have been summoned as a witness for the prosecution, but that is not why she’s here.
One more glance at Eliza and this time the girl’s eyes meet hers.
I won’t let you down. I’ll defend you. It’s beating in her brain, the words repeating over and over.
She wants to scream it out loud but the intensity of her stare will have to do.
A small movement of Eliza’s head, almost imperceptible, but a knot loosens in Rebecca’s chest. The girl’s seen. She knows.
‘Can you repeat that, please?’
She’s missed the first question the prosecutor has asked her.
Not a nice-looking man, all spiky and aggressive.
He’ll do his best to catch her out. She may be a witness for the prosecution but only because they made her do it.
She won’t say anything to get Eliza into trouble.
This is all Isobel’s fault. Christian’s too, for bringing it on herself like that.
‘Can you tell the court what happened on the morning of first May last year, please?’
‘Yes. I don’t think I’ll ever forget.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘It’s the day I had to identify the body of Christian Shaw.’ Another deep breath, shudders running through her.
‘Please take us through the events of the morning.’
This bastard. He’s going to make her say it all, the way the girl was huddled on the ground, her hands stretched out as if to ask for help.
The terrible expression on her face. It was almost enough to make Rebecca pity her.
Though not quite enough. She knew how unpleasant Christian could be.
She hopes she can make the court understand that, too.
‘Christian hadn’t turned up for register that morning,’ Rebecca says. ‘She was often late so I didn’t worry particularly, but I did need to inform the office of her absence. Someone needed to check the boarding house, dig her out of bed.’
‘Why were you taking the register?’
Does she have to spell everything out? ‘I’m her form teacher – sorry, was her form teacher.’
‘Did you know Christian well?’
‘I tried. She wasn’t very forthcoming. I made an effort to form a bond with her like I do with all my pupils, but she didn’t want to engage. It could be difficult.’ Her head tilted, her voice sweet. Everyone knows what teenagers are like.
‘Please could you look at the photograph in front of you.’ A pause before a headshot appears.
Rebecca swallows, repulsion running through her.
Christian. Large as life and twice as ugly, the photograph overexposed, light glinting off the grease on the girl’s forehead, reflecting off the whiteheads that littered her cheeks.
Her hair, overdyed, too black, the roots growing through mouse-coloured, piggy eyes a washed-out blue, lined inexpertly with black kohl.
God, Rebecca had wanted to take the girl and scrub her down, wash all the crap out of her hair and off her face, get her on to proper acne meds and applying make-up properly.
She couldn’t bear to look at her. Like Isobel. If anyone’s to blame, it’s her.
She glances over at the photograph again, trying to suppress a shudder.
Her ears are prominent in the picture; probably Christian’s worst attribute, though the competition was tough.
God, Rebecca hated Christian’s ears. Over-full of piercings.
Five hoops in one, seven in the other, studs through her tragus and cartilage and God only knows what else.
She’d have had a face full of metal too if the school rules had allowed – as it was, the girl had stretched them further than Rebecca herself considered at all acceptable.
‘Can you identify the person shown in the photograph?’
Rebecca draws her cardigan close around her.
‘Yes. This is Christian Shaw.’
Such a selfish child. Typical that she’d be the one to end up dead, kick off all this trouble for everyone. Even from beyond the grave.
‘Returning to that morning, you said that you needed to inform the office of her absence. Did you do that?’
‘I did.’
‘Were Isobel and Eliza in the same form as Christian?’
‘They were, yes. They were in class as they were supposed to be, though. Both seemed totally normal. That friend of theirs, Sasha, she was there too at register. I saw them all at breakfast, too. There was nothing weird about their behaviour. Nothing weird at all.’ She shivers, chilled at the memory.
‘The only person missing was Christian.’
‘What did you do after reporting Christian’s absence to the office?’
‘I returned to my classroom and got myself ready for classes later that day. Then Mrs Hall came along – the school secretary – with a police officer and he asked me to go to Inverleith Park with him. That’s when I saw her. On the ground.’