And that was another first, she realised. She’d never used those two words to him before about anything.
“Anyway,” he went on, “assuming these wider arguments fail, which I am very much assuming – not because they have no merit but because I can see which way the land lies – then the appeal proper will start tomorrow. With that in mind, I’m going to be having a lot to say today about evidence, and the disclosure of evidence. Re-examining evidence isn’t normally part of what the appeal court does. It’s meant to restrict itself to matters of legal interpretation. But we’re going to try very hard to break that rule because we’d like – very much indeed – to call John Street back to the stand. And we believe we have a chance. So some of what I’ll be doing today will be laying down ground rules that we can use to our advantage later. I’d like to say more, but I’m frankly afraid to.”
“Afraid?” Jess echoed. “Afraid of what?”
Pritchard made an equivocal gesture, perhaps trying to take some of the sting out of the words. “Of you, Ms Moulson. The last time we spoke, you were a hostile witness, even though I was defending you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. You cared more about paying for your sins than about establishing what those sins actually were. My priorities ran very much the other way. But I suppose that by telling you this I’m giving you the right to choose. If you insist, I’ll unpack our whole strategy to you. I’m obliged by law and by the ethics of my profession to do so.”
Jess thought about this. “But you’d rather I didn’t know? You think that me knowing would make things worse rather than better.”
“Yes. I do think that.”
Jess shrugged. “Then I don’t insist.”
“Very good,” Pritchard said. “Excellent.”
“But… there’s one favour I’d like to ask you. Can I talk to Paul? Please?”
Pritchard pursed his lips. “Would what you have to say to him concern the appeal?”
Jess could see that there was no right answer to that question. If she said yes, Pritchard would tell her she should say what she had to say to him. If no, he’d refuse and tell her to focus on what was relevant.
So she said nothing at all, and finally he stood. “Later,” he said. “Before the end of the day. For now, let him focus on his job.”
“But I thought you were going to be the one presenting the case.”
“Oh yes, I’m the big gun.” Pritchard said this with neither arrogance nor false modesty. “Mr Levine and Ms Sackville-West are my spotter and my…” – he made a vague gesture – “… the, um, person who loads the shells, or feeds the bullets through the magazine. I’m afraid I lack the technical vocabulary. In any event, I need them to be focused. I believe you have a defocusing effect on Mr Levine. Tell me if I’m mistaken in that.”
Jess said nothing. Pritchard acknowledged her tacit admission with a nod. “I don’t judge,” he said. “Someone in your position has to use every small advantage she has. Someone in his needs to learn the exacting habit of objectivity. Good day to you, Ms Moulson, and… good luck.” He took his leave. No handshakes this time.
As soon as he was gone, Ratner and Corcoran emerged from wherever they’d been hiding and laid claim to Jess again. They led her along the corridor and through a wood-panelled door into the courtroom.
Jess’s first trial had been at the Old Bailey, which had had a cold grandeur to it. This room, by contrast, was just a box. It reminded Jess of the classrooms in her secondary school: places you inhabited temporarily but never owned or felt at home in, their divisions and the rules that applied to them worked out by other people to whom you were always beholden. Now that she thought about it, most of the rooms she’d known since she left her mother’s house had been like that.
There were three judges. Mr Justice Foulkes, whom Jess had met at her hearing, was there along with two strangers, a man and a woman. There was no jury. On a bench to her right sat two lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service. In the corresponding position on her left, Brian Pritchard sat between Paul Levine and a very young, very attractive woman in a pinstriped dress. Ms Sackville-West, Jess presumed. Paul gave her a smile of encouragement but there was no way he could speak to her. The woman appraised her with cool interest, then looked away. Pritchard didn’t acknowledge her at all.
The public seats were more sparsely populated than Jess had expected. Only a handful of reporters with notebooks and sketch pads sat there, looking bored. Presumably the public was excluded from these preliminary submissions. At least that meant there’d be a little peace and quiet.
For the first few minutes, the three judges just talked in low voices among themselves, while everyone waited. Then one of the three – the woman – signalled to the clerk of the court. The clerk stood up and declaimed. “In the case of the Crown versus Jessica Laurel Moulson, this court of appeal is now in session. His Honour Mr Justice Foulkes, Her Honour Ms Justice LePlastrier and His Honour Mr Justice Macclehurst will jointly preside. The court will hear an appeal against conviction and an annexed appeal against sentencing. Prior to proceeding, counsel has requested summary review and judgement on several heads, as submitted to Your Honours in affidavits.”
“Very well, Mr Pritchard,” LePlastrier said. “Let’s speak to that.”
Brian Pritchard stood up. “Your Honours, thank you,” he said. “I believe there are a number of outstanding procedural issues relating to the handling and presentation of the prosecution’s case in my client’s trial.” He picked up a document from the desk in front of him – the top one in a sizeable pile – and held it up. “I refer you, in the first instance, to our prepared brief 1(a).”
He read aloud from the document, which soon branched into subheadings and sub-subheadings. Some clauses called on other clauses. Statutes were referred to by number and date, precedents by the names of principals in cases Jess didn’t know. The overall topic was the legal distinction between murder and manslaughter, but the arguments were so abstract and involved that it was easy to forget what murder meant. The blood had been drained out of the word.
The judges interrogated every sentence, sometimes asking Pritchard to go back three or four times to a point already covered. Jess tried to follow the arguments at first, but soon gave up. She didn’t speak this language.
After more than two hours of discussion, the judges conferred again. “Well,” LePlastrier said, “there’s a great deal of food for thought there, certainly.” She turned to the CPS lawyers. “Mr Anson, Mr Carlisle, do you have anything to add?”
The two men shook their heads, not quite in unison. “Not at this time, Your Honours,” one of them said. “We disagree, obviously, with counsel’s substantive point about motive. However, we feel that this was adequately addressed at the original trial. You have our submission. We won’t rehearse those arguments again in this courtroom unless Your Honours are minded to reopen the wider discussion of mens rea.” The judges went into a brief huddle, then declared a recess for lunch.
Jess ate in a side room in the restricted area behind the court, underneath a fly-speckled print of the William Yeames painting “And When Did You Last See Your Father?” with just the two Fellside guards for company. The guards traded gossip and operational minutiae and mostly left Jess to her own devices. She chewed her chicken salad sandwich without tasting it, then sat in silence waiting for proceedings to resume. She hoped Levine might come by to see her, but he didn’t. Let him do his job, Pritchard had said. But she and Pritchard probably didn’t altogether agree on what Paul Levine’s job was.