The Fall - By Claire McGowan

Hegarty

‘But I don’t understand!’ Stockbridge’s girlfriend was wearing old jeans now, a baggy sweatshirt with the name of some Oxford college on it. Her face looked tired and confused, but she was still sexy. Very sexy.

‘I’ll try to explain again. We’ve charged your fiancé with the murder of Anthony Johnson, owner of the Kingston Town nightclub.’

The crosser she got, the rougher her voice became. Was that a northern accent creeping into her posh tones? ‘It’s ridiculous.’ She folded her arms. ‘To say that Dan might have killed someone – well, you don’t have a clue, obviously. Listen, I know he can seem kind of – sort of closed up, but I promise you he’s not, he’s just under so much pressure, and that’s how he goes when . . . It doesn’t mean anything.’

Hegarty bit back the urge to tell her about the mothers he’d interviewed, tearful and loving except for the dead toddler in the morgue, the favourite teacher and what you found on their laptop. You never knew. That was what he’d learned, if anything, from being in the police. ‘Let me ask you again, miss. When you came out of the ladies’, your fiancé was arguing with Mr Johnson?’

‘I didn’t say arguing!’ She sighed and rubbed her face. ‘Oh, I suppose they were. But it doesn’t mean—’

‘Then you saw the two men go into his office, yes? You waited outside the club, you say for just a few minutes, and then you went home? Did you get a taxi?’

‘Yes.’ Her eyes flicked away.

‘You’re sure?’

‘I – we must have. I don’t remember.’

He made a note. ‘You’ve already told us you took drugs that night. Is that correct?’

She nodded slowly, staring at her feet. ‘I wouldn’t normally.’

‘Where did he get the drugs?’

‘How would I know?’ She sat up suddenly. ‘Look, am I under arrest?’

‘No, miss. Not at the moment.’

‘Well then, I’ve already told you everything. I really don’t know any more.’

Hegarty clicked his pen. ‘Does Daniel have a problem with black people?’

She gaped. ‘What?’

‘It’s just a question, miss.’

‘Are you trying to say he’s a racist or something? Just because the guy was— Dan’s not racist, for God’s sake. He was the one who wanted to go to the bloody club in the first place. It’s so stupid.’ He thought she was about to say they even had black friends, but she seemed to think better of it.

‘There were a number of witnesses to the argument. You say you saw a group of people, possibly two black girls. Anyone else?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Recognise this man?’ He slid over a printout of the picture from Rachel Johnson’s phone, the mystery white man. She stared at it with a hunted look on her face. ‘Any idea who he could be?’

‘Of course not. This is all crazy.’ Her face was pale.

‘Hmm. OK, I suggest you go home, Miss Miller. You look tired.’ He saw her bristle. ‘I meant, you might like to have a rest. Nothing will happen today. The hearing will be at ten at the Magistrates’ Court. It’s on Holloway Road – they’ll give you the address outside.’

She tried to take this in. ‘So, tomorrow he can come home? That’s the bail hearing thing, is it?’

‘You should talk to the duty lawyer about it. Do you have your own lawyer, you and Mr Stockbridge?’

‘Of course not, why would we?’

‘Best get one soon. They’ll give you some numbers at the desk.’

‘He was a judge, you know.’ She got up with admirable poise. ‘Dan’s father. High court, for twenty years.’

Hegarty forced a smile. ‘Then I’m sure he’d advise you to get a lawyer as soon as you can.’


Charlotte

When Charlotte could finally leave, it was getting dark. She emerged into a quiet, rain-washed Camden, the May skies darkening with clouds. After waiting twenty minutes for a bus, shivering with tiredness, she got home to the ransacked flat and washed her hair free of the smell of the police station, immediately feeling better. Then she picked up the phone and listened to the dial tone. Imagined the cut-glass tones of Dan’s mother, Elaine: ‘Good afternoon, 54372.’ Saying hello wasn’t polite, apparently. Or his father, Justice Edward Stockbridge QC: ‘Pardon? Pardon? Speak up, will you, Charlotte.’

Charlotte knew she should get a lawyer, of course, but the thought of ringing the Stockbridges made her feel even more sick than before. Wouldn’t it all blow over after the hearing? Dan had only been gone a few minutes, not long enough to kill someone, for God’s sake, even if he was capable of it. Which he wasn’t.

Slowly she put the receiver down. After all, what could his parents do today? Maybe they would never need to find out.

There was no food in the fridge except for what she’d bought on Friday, a lifetime ago. She ate three olives, making her stomach churn. The clock kept up its insistent tick, stringing out her nerves, so she got up and turned on the stereo, but it was playing the last CD she’d had on, the song for their first wedding dance. She turned it off, resisting the urge to chew on her nails. No point in spoiling months of careful maintenance. Tomorrow it would be over and she could forget all about those head-spinning facts.

The witnesses. The row. The drugs . . . All of it was true, but she’d kept opening her mouth to say, ‘Yes, but . . .’ There was always an explanation when it was you they were accusing. Meanwhile that young policeman, the one who’d seen her boobs, kept whipping out more and more evidence. Like Paul bloody Daniels.

Charlotte hated that policeman. He had an answer for everything. And he’d left a large footprint on her cream carpet. Red-brown and sticky, she knew what it was. It was blood, that Johnson guy’s blood, smeared on her living-room floor.

Charlotte went to the hall cupboard where their cleaning lady kept supplies, and rooted about until she found a cloth. She never did her own cleaning, so she wasn’t sure what they had.

She scrubbed it until just a red tidemark was left, then poured away the bloody, brackish water. Her hands smelled of old metal pipes. Tomorrow she would get up, fix her hair, go to court and bring Dan home, then put this behind her as one of the worst weekends of her life. And maybe by the time their first anniversary came round she’d be ready to think of it as a funny occurrence in the past, but she doubted it.





Monday

Keisha

‘Jesus! You scared me.’

He was sitting on the pile of dirty clothes by the bed, watching her. She sat up, head and heart pounding, and felt for her bottle of Coke. ‘What you doing up? It’s what – eight? Christ, are you sick still? I only got in at four.’

He said, ‘We’re going to court.’

‘Court?’ She pushed down her hair; that bloody woman had diddled her on the chemical straightener, lasted two months her arse.

‘That’s what I said. Come on, shift it.’ He tugged the duvet off her and she gathered up her gangly limbs.

‘F*ck! It’s cold. Is the heating not on?’

‘Meter’s run out.’ He was leaving the room. That meant he hadn’t put the money in, spent it all on booze for some club owner. And why were they going to court? Must be one of his loser mates in trouble again. For f*ck’s sake.

When Keisha had come home before light earlier that morning, Chris was bedded down on the sofa with his coat over him. The microwave was back, she’d noticed. Trying not to wake him she’d brushed her teeth and got into bed in the almost-dark, and next thing she knew he was shaking her awake.

She rubbed her face, trying to wake up. ‘Why are you going to court? F*cking hell, I got, like, three hours’ sleep.’ She looked at the clock on the newly returned microwave. ‘Is that right? Jesus, why’d you wake me up so early?’

‘’Cos you’re coming with me. So get dressed.’

‘But . . .’ She tried to catch his eye but he looked away and made a sort of jerking movement.

‘Stop asking questions. You’re just coming, OK?’

‘Why?’

He turned, met her with a hard stare. ‘’Cos I don’t trust you here on your own.’

Keisha’s mouth fell open. What could you even say to that? She just stood there, saying nothing.

Chris pulled his jacket off the chair. ‘Get a move on. I’m leaving.’

Keisha didn’t look at the papers or go online, and if she watched TV it was only E4 or MTV. They didn’t show the news in the old folks’ home in case it upset them. So it wasn’t until they went to court that morning that she even knew Anthony Johnson was dead.


Charlotte

Charlotte had dressed carefully for the hearing. Somehow she was expecting it to be like courtroom dramas she’d seen on TV, with a judge and jury and a last-minute bit of evidence to change the whole thing.

The rain had let up overnight, leaving the sky washed-out, the colour of nothing. She’d carefully checked the route to the court, terrified of being late, and taken the Northern Line to Euston, changing on to the Victoria to get there.

She sat in the third row of the public gallery, boxed in by windowless walls and veneer benches. She was the only person there who wasn’t a reporter, by the looks of it. It had come at the perfect time for them, a banker lashing out at a black man. Most were middle-aged women, slightly harried. One even had M&S shopping bags under the bench. Then, just as it was about to start, a group of people came in late and noisy – all black. ‘Where’s the bastard?’ she heard someone hiss. She didn’t look round.

Charlotte looked straight ahead, twisting the band of her engagement ring. She wouldn’t meet their eyes. It would all be over soon. The court doors opened and then everything was moving. There were three judges, not one – magistrates, was what Mr Crusty, as she called the duty solicitor, had tried to explain. There was Mr Crusty and some prosecution lawyer, a young woman with glasses and a sharp nose. Then there was Dan, dragged out by officers, pale and blinking, unshaven. She suddenly couldn’t look at him and stared hard at her feet. Around her, the reporters were scribbling so fast she thought their notebooks might catch fire.

It all seemed to be over so quickly.

First the clerk read out something to Dan, and he mumbled back, ‘Yes.’ She couldn’t hear what was going on, the CPS woman spoke so quietly. ‘Your worships, we are here to consider bail in the matter of Regina versus Daniel Stockbridge. Mr Stockbridge was arrested on Saturday morning for the murder of Anthony Johnson, owner of the Kingston Town nightclub in Camden. The arresting officer, DC Matthew Hegarty, is present and willing to answer questions on the evidence if the court requires.’

She paused, adjusting her glasses, which gleamed in the dull strip-lighting. Charlotte found she was squeezing her hands together so tightly it was cutting off the blood. There was more murmuring. ‘The court calls DC Matthew Hegarty.’

Then the policeman was leaping up to the stand. He couldn’t have slept much at the weekend either, but he seemed perky as could be, whereas Charlotte felt like she’d been hit by a truck.

He took the affirmation with loud northern tones and the lawyer said, ‘Officer Hegarty, can you connect the defendant with this case?’

The officer smiled, leaned forward. ‘We believe so, yes.’

‘Will you be recommending bail in this case?’

The policeman leaned forward further. ‘Your worships, this is a serious case of brutal and possibly racially motivated murder. The defendant has shown signs of violent and unstable behaviour, which may pose a risk to the public.’ He paused to take a breath. Murmurs went round the courtroom; Charlotte tried to block her ears. She wanted to turn to them, shout, say, I’m sorry he’s dead, but Dan didn’t do it! You’ve got the wrong person!

‘Furthermore, the defendant has access to considerable resources, and therefore, represents a high likelihood of absconding. There has also been a large degree of public interest in the case, and as such, bail could represent a danger to the defendant’s own safety.’ The policeman smiled. So he was saying Dan had to be in prison for his wellbeing? Charlotte gaped.

More chat, and the lawyer sat down, rearranging her papers neatly. The three magistrates, a woman in the middle and two men on either side – one Asian, one white – scribbled furiously.

Dan’s lawyer, Mr Crusty, got slowly to his feet and at this point Charlotte got lost in his wavering tones, interrupted by loud sneezes into his cotton hankie. He asked various questions of the policeman. Had Dan said he was innocent? Did he deny the charges? Did he waive his right to have a lawyer present? Was it true Dan did not fully remember the incident? The policeman answered them all with the same confident smile.

It dragged on. Mr Crusty was citing point after point of procedure and kept saying, ‘Your worships, the evidence is highly circumstantial.’ He didn’t even bring up what Charlotte thought was the most obvious point, that Dan had no blood on him when they’d left the club that night. Wouldn’t he have blood on him, if he’d stabbed someone?

After a while, Charlotte stopped listening. Her knuckles were white from gripping her hands together, trying not to leap up and shout how stupid it all was. Of course Dan didn’t do it. He was a banker, for God’s sake. He bought his ties on Savile Row. In a few years he’d be softening in the middle and losing his hair. He didn’t go around getting in bar fights over declined credit cards.

The facts were like a crossword puzzle she couldn’t make fit. The club. The row. The arrest. Even with the drugs, which had seemed to change them both, she knew Dan just wouldn’t do this. No. No. He wouldn’t. It was like some awful dream, like one of those nightmares where she forgot her bouquet or no one turned up at the wedding. But even if it took a while to explain all these damning facts, he’d still go home on bail, still be able to marry her. Wouldn’t he? Maybe he wouldn’t be allowed to leave the country, maybe they’d lose the honeymoon. Would travel insurance cover it? But still, even if they couldn’t go to Jamaica, she would try to be good and brave about it. She would rise to the occasion, so long as he could come out from behind that screen and grip her hand in his strong one, so long as she could breathe his smell over the varnish and lino reek of this place. She tried to shut her ears to the calls and whistles. ‘Ra-cist! Ra-cist!’ The guards made half-hearted attempts to shush the gallery. She sat there with her head down and in the dock Dan did the same.

They were coming to an end, the judges and lawyers talking in low voices. One of the reporters coughed loudly. Dan had a strange look on his face, as if he was about to cry.

‘F*cking send him down! Bastard!’

Dan was trying to speak. Again the courtroom exploded with murmurs and she heard herself say out loud, ‘What? What?’

‘Order, please.’ The lead judge was irritable. ‘Mr Stockbridge? Do you have a statement to make? Please be aware that anything you say now may be admissible in your later trial.’

Dan stood up slowly, his height filling the dock. The metal on the jacket he wore rattled against the glass walls. He stared right ahead, looking anywhere but at Charlotte, it seemed. His throat moved.

‘Mr Stockbridge? Please proceed. Could the guards please silence the gallery?’

‘Ra-cist! F*ck him!’

‘I’m sorry,’ Dan said, over the din. ‘God, I’m so sorry. I just don’t remember. I don’t remember what happened.’ And then he burst into tears, sobs rasping like sandpaper. He tried to put his hands over his face but the guard held his arm, so he hung his head, tears running unchecked to the floor.

Charlotte’s mouth fell open among the racket. What the f*ck? Did he have some kind of plan?

Mr Crusty was talking over the noise. ‘Mr Stockbridge has been provoked, your worships, and so anything he has said cannot be taken as an admissible confession of guilt . . .’

A woman was screaming, ‘Racist! F*cking racist!’ Charlotte couldn’t see who it was. A volley of murmurs swelled and rose. ‘Send him down! Send him down!’

The head judge called out over it: ‘Order, order, please! Bail is denied in the case of Regina versus Stockbridge. Case committed to the Crown Court for trial. Please remand the defendant into custody.’

Charlotte was going to be sick.

Over the chaos of the judge calling order, and the bailiffs trying to quieten the screaming woman, she ran out, hands over her mouth, searching for the ladies’ sign. She leaned over a basin, her stomach heaving, and choked up a small bit of bile. There was nothing else in her stomach to throw up. That was when she saw the faces in the mirror, blurred through a lens of tears.

The first kick came as such a shock she couldn’t even cry out. She might have even said, oh sorry, assuming they’d bumped into her by accident. It took her a few seconds to understand that people were behind her, hitting. Girls, two girls, with the heels of their shoes and points of their nails, a smell of hairspray in the air. Black girls, she could see, through her tears. One had a purple scarf over her face. The blows were coming from all over. A kick to her legs. A scratch at her face. F*cking bitch, one said.

She felt one tug at her bag as the other pulled her hair. Her things clattered onto the plastic floor; her head jerked back.

Then the door opened, and someone was saying, For f*ck’s sake, leave it. And then something hit her, heavy and swinging, her own bag maybe, and she stumbled and the sink was coming at her teeth, and then the endless blue of the lino and she just had time to think of Jamaica in the turquoise sea, that they would never get there now, and then she was going under. This was it. This was rock bottom, she knew it for sure.