30. Guest v. Finbow Day Six
GUEST V. FINBOW: DAY SIX
MONDAY
“Augusta? Ready? It’s time.”
The usher guides me into Courtroom Six. One foot in front of the other as I bow my head, unable to meet the eyes of dozens of people, all of whom, it feels, have read my private diary.
I am only called into court when the recording of my session with Jean has concluded.
The judge has been kind, at least, to spare me that torture.
Approaching the witness box, I think of the words the lawyers, members of the gallery, and press have just heard me speak: I feel that there is something wrong with me, deep down inside…
that if people really knew me, they would leave .
Today, standing on the raised platform, there is no hiding from it.
For most of today, proceedings have been halted, as the judge considered the admissibility of some evidence.
There were agonizing hours of waiting in corridors and side rooms and cafés.
There were last-minute pep talks from Bernard.
The sickening, unsettling sense of waiting to go into theater, laid flat and put under.
Now, in the final thirty minutes of the day, I am sworn in, only to confirm the pieces of evidence which concern me.
Neither Jean nor Anna is present. Only their barristers stand together, checklists tucked into their open folders.
The most frightening part is still to come tomorrow: my cross-examination.
Ms. Carr guides me first to the transcription of the recorded session with Jean. My vision blurs as I scan the rambling and stuttered sentences, rendered ridiculous now in typed text, framed by legal jargon.
“Do you confirm your identity in this video?” she prompts impatiently.
“Yes,” I say, my voice thin and regrettably girlish as I keep close to the microphone. “Witness H is me.”
After the transcript, Ms. Carr moves on to a series of images, which were sent as email attachments.
“Do you confirm that you composed and sent these emails?”
“I do.”
“And that the email inbox you sent them to was accessible by Ms. Guest?”
“I believe it was.”
“We’ll go through them, chronologically. Please provide the context of each image, just briefly if you can. First, Image A, do you have it there? Sent on April third of this year?”
“It is a photograph,” I murmur, my fingers lightly tracing the page. “Of Anna Finbow’s front door.”
“Did you take this image?”
I pause, remembering those journalists who Jean must have coordinated. That pair of weasels who ransacked Anna’s bins. I remind myself: You were no better.
“I took it, yes.”
We turn the page. Two other images follow. I confirm that I captured them both: correspondence between the Finbows and their private investigator, a letter from Anna to Oriel’s mother, Lucy. Then, finally:
“It’s the pages of a notebook,” I explain.
“Who did the notebook belong to?”
“Someone in Mrs. Finbow’s legal team.”
A stirring sound, a frown from the judge. Anxiety crawling like ants across my chest. Ms. Carr gestures over her shoulder.
“The people sitting over there?”
“The people sitting there.”
Ms. Carr nods, blank and businesslike with the stark facts of my deviancy. “Thank you. That’s all I have for today.”
There is hardly time to take water before Ms. Ibrahim guides me through her evidence. She points me toward a page in the evidence bundle with the title: CALL LOG BETWEEN WITNESS H AND JEAN GUEST.
Lowering her file, Ms. Ibrahim asks calmly, “Ms. Bird, is this your mobile phone number?”
“Yes.”
“Are you the caller making these unanswered phone calls?”
“I am.”
She asks me to keep turning the page. Then again, and again. Hundreds of missed calls, night after night, spanning at least a year. Longer.
“Who were you trying to reach?” Ms. Ibrahim asks, her voice full of derisive pity.
My throat narrows. Of course, this is not the full picture. Jean would call me, about once a week, always careful to use a private number. “Ms. Guest.”
The lawyer then moves to screenshots of my text messages. “Did you write and send these text messages to my client, Ms. Guest?”
I hesitate as I scan the pages. It’s not the first time I am viewing this evidence, but I still struggle to recognize myself. The frantic desperation, the repeated requests for news of her that went unanswered.
Did you send Mary my number?
What’s this I heard about a painting exhibition that Mary held?
Why didn’t you tell me?
Will you tell Mary I say hello?
Despite my hounding, Jean was careful not to reply. But here, for the sake of balance, an exchange is provided to the court.
No news from Mary, Gussie. If there was, I’d let you know x
“Do you confirm that this message from Ms. Guest is genuine?”
I turn the word over in my mind. “Her words were not in the least bit genuine, but she sent the message, yes.”
Ms. Ibrahim snaps her file shut.
“Thank you, Ms. Bird,” she says, avoiding my eye. “That’s all I have. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
Just as she goes to sit down, an anguished sound comes from the gallery.
Coughing or crying, I can’t tell which. I turn toward the balcony.
The door upstairs swings open, then slams. The footsteps fade.
Whether I’m guided by instinct or blind hope is unclear, but the knowledge is there, lodged in my chest. Those sounds were her.
She must know it now, she must have seen it in those messages.
I didn’t just disappear on her. Those footsteps belonged to Mary.
Outside, in the atrium, I go and look for her, but it is too late, Mary has already gone.
Instead, it is Anna’s team which now approaches.
They move like a many-headed animal, their biscuit-tan stockings sparkling officiously in the streaming sunlight.
As Anna draws nearer, I look away at my phone, wondering if it would be better to avoid her, but when I glance up again, I have mistimed it entirely.
Anna’s group is parallel to where I am standing.
Our eyes meet. Just briefly, her gaze widens. I realize that this might be my only chance to address Anna directly and apologize in person. Her footsteps falter. My armpits prickle with fear. I attempt a smile, but Anna grips the strap of her handbag as though I might snatch it.
“Anna,” I hear myself stutter. “Please… please can we talk?”
I want to tell her about Sunnymede. The state of Mary’s home and her mind, but also the moments when I thought I might have broken through to her. I want to tell her how sorry I am.
Anna stands there, rooted. Her eyes narrow and she opens her mouth as if to say something, but then she suppresses it.
Her face goes blank, and she looks beyond me.
Of course, she knows that treating me like a stranger will hurt more than any confrontation.
It was a weapon Anna used time and again, reducing others to worthlessness, dismissing them as irrelevant.
It was the bitter understanding of an ostracized woman. A lesson learned from estrangement.
I linger, justly discarded, as Anna climbs into the waiting car and speeds away. From behind me, Ms. Carr approaches. She assures me that despite the hostilities, the Finbows are actually very grateful for what I’m about to do. She tells me they think I’m brave. Pathetically, my heart lifts.
“You’ll be fine tomorrow, Gus. Ibrahim’s pretty formidable, but just keep in mind everything we’ve discussed and we’ll be okay.”
I nod, but my mind lingers miserably on Mary’s filthy cabin.
Bonamy was right about the trial: Neither outcome guarantees his daughter back.
My appearance in court tomorrow will make no difference to Mary’s welfare.
Even if it goes well and the judge rules in Anna’s favor, it only plays into Jean’s hands, fueling her claims of family conspiracy, pushing Mary and her baby further away.
I feel the hopeless weight of everything then. There is no way to win.
Ms. Carr notices my expression and smiles gently.
“It’s a mild evening. If I were you, I’d take a walk.
Escape the zoo for a bit. Clear your head.
Then do your best to get some rest. Bernard will be at your hotel first thing in the morning.
One more day and you’re free of all this.
” She lays her delicate hand on my shoulder, and a surge of warmth spreads through me.
“You know, you were incredibly lucky to get out of this mess when you did, Gus.”
When we part, I take her advice and follow a longer route back to my hotel, through a narrow park alongside the river.
Victoria Embankment Gardens is small, at least by London’s standards.
A curved pathway, lined with benches overlooking two wide strips of lawn and some ornamental flower beds.
As I pass through it, I reflect on Ms. Carr’s words.
In her view, tomorrow I’ll be free, but I haven’t got out of anything at all.
Not when Mary is still festering alone in that hut.
I pause on a bench, staring toward the river, then in envy at the office workers sprawled leisurely on the grass, scrolling their phones and drinking canned cocktails.
I imagine them reading the highlights of the trial to each other, laughing at its salacious details.
It’s hard to remember a time when I felt such lightness.
For years now, my life has been shaped by Jean’s presence or absence.
This was why Ms. Carr was wrong when she said, One more day.
Despite everything Jean has done to me, there is no chance that my evidence tomorrow will simply spell our ending. Jean always found a way to claw back.