Chapter 34
Cross-examination. At last. This nonsense is finally being put to the test. Matthew thought he’d be excited to see it, but now Sasha is being put through her paces it’s more uncomfortable than he anticipated. Miss Brodie is doing an excellent job at demolishing everything that she’s said.
‘This idea that you’re some kind of victim is complete rubbish, isn’t it?’
‘No. I . . .’
‘You were in this up to your neck, weren’t you?’
Sasha is reduced almost to tears by the questioning.
It’s all so brisk, Matthew can barely keep track, but the gist of what he can gather is that everything that Sasha has accused Eliza of doing is in fact Sasha’s own fault.
She faked the Ouija board, back at the start of the bullying campaign, pushing the planchette to the letters DIECHRIST together with Isobel.
She helped Isobel make the poppet that looked like the classmate Freya.
She helped Isobel set up the tarot cards so that they would spell out Christian’s doom.
Anytime that Sasha said that she was being excluded, she was lying.
She and Isobel were tight throughout, working to cause havoc with the other girls.
‘You said that when you visited Christian’s country estate, it was Eliza and Isobel who were keen to visit the taxidermy museum?’
‘Yes,’ Sasha says.
‘It was you, though.’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
Miss Brodie goes through her file. Pulls out a photograph.
‘This is a photograph of you, isn’t it? From your Instagram account?’
Matthew looks first at Sasha, her face flushed dark red.
Then he looks at the photograph now shown on the screen.
It’s indisputably Sasha. She’s a little younger, happier, smiling proudly next to a black cat that’s curled up on a velvet cushion.
But there’s something off about the cat, an awkwardness to its pose, its head at an unnatural angle.
‘Please can you read out the caption that you wrote underneath this photograph.’
‘This isn’t fair,’ Sasha says. ‘You’ve got no right to go through my Instagram profile like that.’
‘It’s in the public domain,’ Miss Brodie says. ‘Anyone can see it. Please will you read the caption out to the court.’
‘“Farewell to my familiar,”’ Sasha says, her voice tight. ‘“And thank you to Frozen in Time for their brilliant taxidermy course. They helped me preserve my beloved Carbonel so that he can be with me forever.”’
‘Carbonel is your cat, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you.’ A delicate pause while Miss Brodie waits for the Instagram post to take full effect.
Matthew feels slightly stunned, unsure how to react.
He tries to imagine telling Daisy that she was going to learn how to stuff their old tabby cat Archy for posterity when he died a couple of years before – even in his imagination Daisy’s response is an appalled fuck off.
‘At the beginning of Year Nine, before Christian joined the school, you had a conversation with Eliza in which you told her all about your love of roadkill, didn’t you?’
‘I . . . no . . . well, yes, but . . .’
‘You told her that when you were a child you were obsessed with keeping a record of everything that you saw that had been killed by cars on the road, didn’t you?’
Head hung low. ‘Yes.’
‘You particularly liked it when you saw a dead cat, that’s what you said to her?’
‘I . . .’
‘My lady,’ Mr Alexander interrupts. He has risen to his feet very hastily, so much so that he has knocked his wig slightly askew. ‘I would remind the court that cross-examination needs to be relevant to the case at hand. Not just dredging through childhood reminiscences, however eccentric.’
Miss Brodie makes a harrumphing noise. ‘Given the nature of the evidence that this witness has made against my client, I would argue that it is entirely relevant to show that she has a propensity towards activity with dead animals. The case I am seeking to put, as I have made very clear, is that far from being a victim of Isobel and Eliza, she was involved in the nefarious activities up to her eyeballs.’
The judge pauses for a moment, nods. ‘Very well, Miss Brodie. Carry on. But keep to the point.’
‘Thank you, my lady.’ Matthew can almost discern the triumph in her voice as she gets one over on the advocate depute. She then turns back to Sasha. ‘Let us return to the chapel. You say that it was Eliza and Isobel who made a mess of the place, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s not true, though, is it? You were the main instigator of this, weren’t you?’
‘No.’
‘And it was you who climbed on to the altar and turned the crucifix upside down, wasn’t it?’
‘No, it wasn’t. It was them, all them. I’m not lying.’
‘The jury will be the judge of that. Now, you say that you knew nothing about Christian’s pre-existing heart condition?’
‘I didn’t, no.’
‘But that isn’t true, either. You were with Isobel when Christian’s mother told both of you that you needed to be careful with her, that she was unable to withstand stress of any kind, weren’t you?’
‘That’s just not true! If she told them, I wasn’t there!
They never told me!’ Sasha has pushed herself upright in the witness box.
Her face is still red, her voice raised.
She bursts into tears. Matthew can see a woman in the public gallery who has the same profile as Sasha – she’s also mirroring the girl’s distress.
Not so Miss Brodie, who stands poised, ready for the attack.
‘So from that moment, you knew that if Christian was put under too much emotional pressure, it could have a very detrimental effect on her health?’
‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t know. I tried to stop them.’
‘I would suggest to you that you are lying. You and Isobel were in a conspiracy together to bully Christian in the most unkind way possible, knowing that it was dangerous to her health. You actively wanted to cause her harm, didn’t you?’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Let’s turn now to a conversation that you had with Eliza after that ill-fated visit – you told her how jealous you were of Christian because of her close relationship with her father, didn’t you?’
Sasha sobs. ‘I . . . yes. I did say that. But I didn’t mean . . .’
‘I put it to you that the jealousy you felt then festered, and grew, so that when you came back from the Christmas holidays, you made a decision that you were going to start the whole bullying campaign up again.’
‘It wasn’t me!’
‘And it was your suggestion that the so-called coven became active again?’
‘No, it was Eliza. Or Isobel. I can’t remember.’
‘You can’t remember.’ Miss Brodie says the words slowly. Each one a hammer blow. ‘Convenient. As it was convenient that in your version of events, you had your eyes shut so that you couldn’t see who it was wielded the knife that you say was used to threaten Christian. You’ve just made that up.’
Sasha stares at the woman, shakes her head. ‘I’m not lying. That’s what happened.’
Matthew nearly shakes his head. The advocate has done a comprehensive number on Sasha, the girl left ashen and shaken in the witness stand. He feels sorry for her, but he’s putting that to one side. What’s important here is justice. Not protecting people from the consequences of their actions.
Defence advocates are clever at twisting things, though.
He needs to remember that, too. Looking round the rest of the jury, he’s not sure whether they’re going to be able to see through manipulations as well as he can.
Not that he means to brag, but his experience in the world of medicine has given him a unique insight into psychopathy in action.
He knows that he can take no one’s honesty at face value.
Not even a weeping girl who reminds him of his daughter.
The advocate has been consulting a document in front of her. She asks the macer to hand her one of the items on the exhibits table, which she inspects before having it delivered over to Sasha.
‘This is your book, isn’t it?’
Sasha looks at the book. She’s shaking her head. ‘No.’
‘Open it, please, and read out what’s written on the first page inside.’
‘“Sasha’s book HANDS OFF”.’ She sounds strained, as if the shame that’s staining her cheeks with red is strangling her voice, too.
‘This is your book, isn’t it?’ Miss Brodie is not going to let her off the hook.
A long sigh. ‘Yes.’
‘Will you please tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury the title of the book?’
A longer sigh. ‘It’s called Of Blood and Bones: Working with Shadow Magick and the Dark Moon.’
‘Can you tell the jury a little more about what this is about?’
Sasha tries to speak, but all that comes out is a groan. She seems to be in a lot of distress. Miss Brodie steps in.
‘I will read an extract from the description of this book that I took from the website: “Within these pages, you will also discover methods for hexing, scrying, sex magick, and working with dark deities in addition to the magickal use of graveyard dirt and performing spells to assist the crossing of a dying loved one.”’ A pause while the description lands with the jury.
‘It might be said that this is also an accurate description of your activities in relation to Christian, isn’t it? ’
‘Yes.’ A mutter from Sasha. No more.
‘It’s not unreasonable to suppose that if this is your book, you will have read it?’
‘I’ve read it, yes.’
‘And that you are the person who generated all the ideas for the ways to torment Christian that you’ve tried so hard to blame on my client, aren’t you? You were the one who planned the progression of events that were visited upon your poor victim.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ Sasha says.
Miss Brodie clears her throat, straightens her sleeves.
She’s only just begun.