43. Fatal Mistake
Fatal Mistake
Elias
To everyone in the room, Sophie Sutton-Knight is a world-famous prosecutor. To me, she’s the living echo of someone I know and love all too well.
Despite the fine lines around the eyes and mouth and the dark hair streaked silver at the temple like a flash of lightning, the resemblance is unmistakable.
She has Desdemona’s same clever brown eyes, the same proud line of the neck, the same captivating mix of stubborn pride and underlying ferocity. The same beauty, too.
For a moment, no one dares to move or speak. Desdemona’s mother strides into the room, gaze brushing coolly over lawyers who are now scrambling with their papers and folders, filing things away. The newspaper has already disappeared from view. Funny, that.
“Thank you, Mr Smith,” she says to my solicitor without looking at him. “I’ll take it from here.” To the rest of the room, as if throwing a bone to a bad dog, she adds, “I’ll be representing Mr Lennox from here on out.”
The lead Hastings lawyer, glancing at his colleagues, stammers, “We weren’t made aware of—this meeting, you see, was prearranged, and Mr Smith—”
“Is no longer involved in this matter,” she cuts in. There’s a scratchiness to her voice like her vocal cords are rimed in frost. “You can direct all correspondence to me from now on.”
Her shoes crack briskly against the tiled floor as she steps closer. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like a moment alone with my client.”
Her tone isn’t raised, but she doesn’t need it to be.
Her gaze is enough to slice through every protest like a guillotine blade.
The lawyers exchange glances, and I can see the Pearsons bristling at her arrogance, but nobody dares to argue.
Even the superintendent straightens, glancing uneasily around.
One by one, the vultures shuffle awkwardly out—the Hastings lawyers first, then the Pearsons and their lawyer, muttering amongst themselves, the police following after. The door shuts behind them with a final metallic click.
And then, it’s just me and her.
Sophie Sutton-Knight sets down her things—a cup of coffee, a brown paper bag, and a thick satchel—and leans back against the table, folding her arms.
“Hi, Elias.”
She’s dressed more casually than I imagined, given her fearsome reputation.
Loose-fitting black trousers and blazer over a white T-shirt, chunky loafers that give her an oddly dorky air I didn’t quite expect.
Her dark hair is tied back in a messy bun, and her accessories are simple: small gold hoops, a simple watch, big tortoiseshell glasses. She grins when she sees my expression.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Your kids look the spit of you,” I tell her.
I don’t sound like my heart is hammering in my chest—but it is.
“You think?” she says, sounding pleased. “My husband says the same, but I think they look like him.”
I’ve met Desdemona’s dad: his kids, like him, are all tall and athletic and glowing with good health and sunshine. But they have their mother’s presence, her essence, that vibrating strength and hint of arrogance that makes Desdemona such an awe-inspiring figure.
“Eat,” Sophie says, gesturing at the table. “I’ve brought some food and good coffee—help yourself.”
The smell of the coffee and the greasy paper bag mingles with the smell of her perfume, which is unexpectedly sweet and pleasant.
I don’t know why, but I expected her to smell like hot iron, like machinery. Maybe I expected her to be made of steel and adamant, a being of pure metal instead of flesh, like it’s not possible for someone like her to have a heart as fragile and fallible as the rest of us.
“You’re kind of the last person I expected to see,” I tell her finally, leaning back into my chair.
“Really?” she says, tilting her head. “I feel the opposite. I was scared you’d be wondering why I hadn’t shown up earlier.”
“I didn’t think you’d show at all,” I tell her frankly.
She lets out a soft laugh.
“Trust my daughter to fall in love with a pessimist.”
She pushes off the table, pulls up a chair and sits down, right next to me, one elbow hanging over the back of her chair. I can’t stop staring at her, like I’ve been given a rare opportunity to glimpse a mythical creature.
She meets my gaze head-on.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier, Elias.”
I squirm in my seat, dropping her gaze. For some reason, her apology is a thousand times more unsettling than anything I expected her to say.
“You don’t owe me anything,” I say, glaring at the floor, mortified to feel my cheeks getting hot, my heart lurching in my chest.
“I do. I owe you quite a lot, in fact, but you should know that even if I didn’t, I would still have come.
” She smiles, a rueful expression that makes her seem suddenly more human and weary than I could imagine someone like her to be.
“It would seem that you, Elias Lennox, have made quite the impression on my family.”
I shake my head. “Not for the reasons you think.”
“No?” She glances down at her nails: they’re short and painted black. “In the past forty-eight hours, my youngest daughter has come to me confessing to a secret she’s kept all year, just because you agreed to help her with the problem and she feels responsible for your arrest.”
My heart lurches. Ophelia told her mother about Birnam?
It was the last thing she wanted to do.
“She told me you were the only person she knew who could help her,” Sophie continues, “and she begged me to save you. She told me things I’m certain she would have taken to the grave, had it not been to help you.”
A shadow passes over her face. I wonder what she really feels about what Birnam did. If I were her, I would want vengeance—but she’s a creature of justice. How do you reconcile the two?
“As for my foolish sons,” Sophie says with a long-suffering sigh, “they’ve both admitted to their crime, just because they can’t bear the idea that you’re paying for what they’ve done.
I’ve never seen them so upset. Until you’re a parent, you can’t imagine what it’s like, to see your children in distress. ”
I stare at her and realise she’s a sight I’ve never seen before.
A mother.
There’s a thick lump in my throat, and I know I couldn’t speak if I tried, but Sophie doesn’t wait for me to do so.
“And if I ever expected all of them to get themselves into this kind of situation,” she says, her voice softening, “then the last thing I expected was for my eldest daughter, the apple of mine and her father’s eyes, my firstborn, beloved child, who’s only ever been a paragon of virtue, to get herself suspended from school right in the middle of her exams.”
My heart sinks. I finally speak, squeezing my voice through the lump in my throat.
“Desdemona’s been suspended?”
“Oh, yes, and she’s probably going to get expelled, and she’s certainly going to fail all her qualifications.
She’s already lost her opportunity to attend the law programme she’s worked for years to get accepted into.
” Sophie shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest. “I love my daughter, but I cannot defend her this time. She deserves all of this.”
“She doesn’t,” I snap.
“She absolutely does, given all the things she very publicly admitted.”
I swallow hard. I feel sick, my stomach lined with acid.
“What things?”
“Admitting to beating Birnam Hastings, for one. Threatening to kill him. Revealing that she bribed you to take the fall for what she did.” Sophie Sutton-Knight raises her eyebrows and gestures in a crisp, professional manner.
“In legal terms, we’re talking… well, assault occasioning actual or grievous bodily harm.
Perverting the course of justice. Bribery, criminal damage, intent to harm.
And the Hastings, knowing them, would probably even throw in damages, defamation and emotional distress. ”
My heart is beating so hard it hurts. What the fuck did Desdemona do?
“So, I mean—expulsion is pretty generous,” Sophie concludes. “All things considered.”
“She’s going to get arrested?” I ask hoarsely.
Sophie laughs, and there’s that familiar edge of cruelty in her laughter I know so well from her daughter.
“They would have to be on an entirely different level of stupidity and recklessness trying to go anywhere near my daughter.”
Goosebumps ripple down my back at the tone of her voice, a ferocity so intense it feels like it could melt iron.
There’s a knock at the door, and Sophie calls out, “We’re ready!” without even looking. She doesn’t seem intimidated by the army that’s about to pour back in, by the fight she’s decided to take on. The opposite: her eyes sharpen, and a strange smile is on her face.
“They’ve already made a fatal mistake; they won’t make another one.”
I stare at her.
“What mistake?”
“They tried to come for one of mine.”
I blink. Behind me, I hear the door opening, people pouring back in, murmuring amongst themselves. But my eyes stay on Sophie. Is she talking about the twins, or Ophelia?
My stomach churns. I can’t bear the thought that she might be talking about Desdemona.
“Who?” I force myself to ask.
Her gaze is steady and warm.
“You, of course.”