She stopped as the phone began to ring. ‘I will go,’ said Mamma.
But Carla was there first. She would ask Larry about the dishwasher for Mamma and the dressing table for her.
‘Hello?’
This time, there really was someone breathing but saying nothing.
Quickly, she slammed down the receiver.
21
Lily
Late January 2001
Everything that’s been going on since September last year has been heading towards this. Only a few weeks to go now. The tension is mounting. Not just in my chest, but in the office too.
Even if I’d wanted to see more of Ed after the Christmas break, it wouldn’t have been possible. From the second I returned to my desk, it was full-on. Phone calls. Letters. Visits to the prison. Joe Thomas apparently kicked up a fuss when Tony visited without me, and refused to see him. ‘I want to see Mrs Macdonald too,’ he’d said.
So I went, my insides a mixture of excitement and apprehension. I barely even noticed the crisps, sugar, Sellotape and sharp implements routine.
Telling myself that I must be mad, I handed Joe a pile of legal papers to sign. Under the second folder was one of the other sticker albums from my brother’s collection.
‘Thanks.’ Joe’s eyes drilled into mine like one piece of metal clicking into another.
So easy! Yet the buzz was instantly followed by a crashing sense of terror and self-recrimination. Why did I keep doing this?
Luckily, Tony was too busy scribbling down notes at the time to notice the handover. He’d been distracted since the holidays, I’d noticed. Every now and then he asked Joe the same question twice. ‘I’m not going to push our man any more about how he got those boiler stats,’ he had told me before the meeting, in what seemed to be a complete U-turn. ‘I think we’ll get more out of him by being less confrontational. Besides, I’ve had the stats checked out again and they definitely stand up. We really could be on to something really big here, you know.’
I let him get on with it. He’s the expert.
As he spoke, he ran his hands through his hair – a frequent habit of his. I couldn’t help noticing, too, that there was a bluey-mauve bruise on the side of his neck. Did couples who’d been married for thirty years (one of the few personal facts I’d gleaned from Tony) still give each other love bites?
After the case, I told myself, I’d address my own marital issues.
But right now I have the perfect excuse to be working late; coming home just as Ed goes to bed. No doubt leaving yet another empty wine bottle on the side.
The pressure from the media is increasing too. ‘Another call from the Daily Telegraph,’ says one of the secretaries, with a more respectful manner than a few months ago. She’s also burning the midnight oil. ‘Do you want to take it?’
No. As always. For a start, it’s sub judice. We can’t discuss an ongoing case. And even if it’s one of those features about prisoners who win their appeals and then get on with their lives, I’m not having any of it.
We aren’t quite at that stage yet.
My fingers tingle with excitement as I go over and over the arguments and the figures and the witness statements.
‘You do realize what a key case this is, don’t you?’ said my boss the other day. Like the secretaries, he has finally begun to treat me with more courtesy. ‘If we win this, everyone is going to want to come to us. No pressure, Lily. But this might not just be the making of the firm. It could be the making of you too.’
The press and my boss aren’t the only ones who are getting excited. So, too, is Joe Thomas, however hard he tries to disguise his emotions. ‘Do you think we have a chance?’ he asked on our last visit – in fact, our final one before the court hearing.
Tony nodded tightly. ‘As long as you do what we’ve rehearsed. Look the jury in the eye. Remember that one of our key arguments is that you’ve been officially diagnosed as having Asperger’s, as well as a need to check things and stick to certain rituals and patterns. It’s also why you came across as cold and unemotional when the police arrived. One in four people in the UK has some kind of mental health issue at some point. It’s likely at least some of the jury will be sympathetic. And the rest we win over with the boiler facts, pure and simple.’
But Joe is frowning. ‘I don’t see my checking as a problem. And I wasn’t cold or unemotional. I just told them what happened. You make me sound like some kind of freak.’
‘He doesn’t mean to,’ I butt in quickly. ‘Tony just wants you to tell the truth. Explain that Sarah was late for dinner, which you always had ready on time. That she vomited because she’d had too much to drink. You hate mess. So you suggested she had a bath. But she wouldn’t let you run it for her like you normally did, as part of your rituals. It made you upset, so you went and did the washing-up, to get control. After half an hour, you got worried when you couldn’t hear her splashing. You went into the bathroom to make sure she was all right. You saw her in the water. She was all blistered … It was a terrible accident.’
I stop. Both men are watching me.
‘It’s almost as if you were there,’ says Tony slowly.
A picture of the stables comes into my head. The smell of hay. The frost on the rafters. Merlin’s hot breath on my cold neck. Mum’s agonized cry: No! This can’t be true. There’s got to be a mistake.
‘Let’s move on, shall we?’ I say sharply.
If only it was that easy.
March 2001
‘This case, as Your Lordship knows, is of some importance and sensitivity: not only for the defendant, who has always remained consistent in maintaining his innocence, and of course for the family of the deceased, and for the wider public; but also for a member of my defence team, who has been subjected to a campaign of serious harassment. The Crown Prosecution Service, and of course my learned friend, has been made aware of this; and should anyone present in this courtroom have any contact with the culprits, they should know that any repetition will have grave consequences.’
Tony Gordon pauses, to allow the full force of his words to sink in. I have to hand it to him. He’s quite the defender of justice, striding around, waving his hands and eyeballing each member of the jury in turn. I’d be convinced if I was them. What would it be like to be married to a man like Tony? I get the feeling that our barrister is quite capable of making the truth suit him – and convincing himself that he has the perfect right to do so.
The prosecution has already had its say. The opposition put forward a strong case against Joe, claiming he was a controlling abuser and a cold-blooded killer. But it ran out of luck when it came to the ex-girlfriend who had once accused Joe of stalking her. Turns out she had died a year ago from lung cancer. So young! I’m shocked to feel relief. But that’s the law for you. Someone else’s misfortune can strengthen your case.
‘It should also be stated at the beginning,’ continues Tony, ‘that although the matter of the harassment of a member of my team is serious, it seems to have no relevance to the issues in the case. But if that should change, I shall be making an application to introduce it in evidence before the jury.’
I find myself going beetroot. Tony hasn’t prepared me for this.
Despite his point about ‘no relevance’, Tony continues to spell it out. Is this part of his stragegy?
‘Threatening letters have been sent. A bag, containing vital documents, was grabbed in the street. But, worst of all, a horse belonging to one of my colleagues was poisoned in an attempt to make us drop the case.’
My name isn’t mentioned – neither is the fact that the first letter came from Sarah’s uncle – but it’s clear who the ‘colleague’ is from my red face and Tony’s swift but meaningful glance in my direction.