chapter Seventeen
An hour later, Honey’s protective shield was wobbling under the direct onslaught of resentment and even anger from ten of the other jury members.
They’d entered the jury room after being counselled by the judge to concentrate on the matter at hand—namely whether Sarah Green was guilty of intending to do James Hill serious harm on the night in question. The judge directed them to focus on the facts and only the facts—in other words to leave their emotions outside of the jury room.
Honey couldn’t do it. How could she? Sarah had turned distressed eyes on the twelve men and women as they’d shuffled from the courtroom, worry written all over her face. Would she be able to tell how each of them would vote just by looking at them? Honey had an idea how the decision would go, and her suspicions—and fears—had been confirmed when they seated themselves at the table and Tom, the foreperson, suggested they start by taking an initial vote to see where everyone stood.
She and Alice, an older woman with grey hair, had voted Sarah innocent.
The other five women and all the men voted her guilty.
And so here she was, sitting at the table, being glared at by the majority of the jurors who were fed up and wanted to go home.
“Shit.” Matt—the aggressive investment banker—stood and slammed his chair under the table. “I knew it. What a f*cking waste of time this is going to be.”
“There’s no need for that sort of language,” Tom said. “Everyone is entitled to their opinion. We’re here to talk about the evidence and make sure we all come to an agreement.”
Honey was determined not to let the brash suit browbeat her. “This is a woman’s future we are deciding here,” she said as calmly as she could manage. “Surely it warrants at least a small amount of discussion before we come to a decision.”
“That’s true,” one of the women said. “It’s fair that we at least talk about it for a little while.”
Matt leaned on the workbench where there were coffee-making facilities and biscuits, and his eyelids lowered as he surveyed Honey.
She could guess what he was thinking, because he was like a carbon copy of Ian. That she must be having her period because she was being obstreperous. That she was doing it just to annoy him. And that she was the worst sort of woman—opinionated, un-charmable and stubborn.
As she lowered her gaze, intimidated by his hard stare, she knew he would also think of her as a challenge, someone he could bully into doing what he wanted.
Her fists clenched in her lap. She forced her fingers to unfurl, poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher on the table and drank it slowly.
There were two Peters in the jury. The one they’d all named Peter1 wore scruffy workman’s clothes and had stated he worked in the building trade. He had a devil-may-care attitude and Honey suspected that he probably had half a dozen girls on the go who didn’t know about each other, but she found herself liking him nevertheless. He leaned forward and also poured himself a drink before saying, “So do you two really think Sarah didn’t mean to take that knife to James?”
Honey glanced at Alice, who sat a few chairs down from her. The older woman looked flustered, and Honey thought maybe she had voted Sarah innocent because she couldn’t bear to be responsible for sending someone to prison.
Alice glanced back at Honey and shrugged. “I don’t know. I just think it’s worth talking about.”
“He was a bastard,” said Babs, a mutton-dressed-as-lamb blonde, pursing her red lips, “and he deserved it. He’d obviously been asking for it. But I don’t think I can say hand on my heart that she didn’t do it on purpose.”
“But he’s proved himself to be manipulative,” Honey said. “Sarah’s counsellors testified that she’d been under his thrall for years.”
Peter2 snorted. The owner of a small computer store who obviously thought himself an expert on the law because he read legal thrillers, he wore a suit he’d clearly worn for every smart social occasion for the last ten years that stretched a little too tight across his stomach. “What do you mean ‘under his thrall’? This isn’t Twilight. He hasn’t hypnotised her.”
“Some people are more easily influenced than others,” Honey said. “Sometimes in a relationship, it’s easy to end up doing the things your partner wants because you like to please them, or to keep the peace. If one partner realises that by sulking or making the atmosphere unpleasant they can get their own way, it can easily develop into manipulation.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that she knifed him,” Matt said.
Tom cleared his throat and leaned forward. He reminded Honey of her grandfather, Cam’s dad, who had died a few years before they moved from England. Thank God he had stepped forward to take on the role of foreperson.
“I suggest we get ourselves a cup of tea or coffee, then sit down and go around the table,” he said. “Each of us should take a few minutes to give our point of view. Everyone should have a say as to why they think Sarah Green is guilty or innocent. After that, we’ll take another vote and see where we stand.”
Everyone agreed that was a good idea. A few people got up to get themselves a drink, Honey included. She chose a hot chocolate from the machine in the corner, more for comfort than because she was thirsty.
As she returned to the table, she heard Peter2 asking Matt how long he thought the process was going to take. “Who knows?” Matt said in a voice just loud enough to be heard. “Depends how long it takes to convince these two.”
She sat on Tom’s right, feeling he was supportive even though he’d voted different than her, and cupped her hands around the mug, keeping her gaze fixed on the drink. She knew she shouldn’t let the others intimidate her, but with such a small advantage it would be natural for the others to think their role lay in convincing herself and Alice to think their way.
Inside, she burned with resentment. A decision should be made based on a majority vote. She’d heard that it happened occasionally, but in this case the judge had specified that he wanted everyone to agree. It put huge pressure on those in the minority. Decisions that affected people’s lives were based on whether the jurors had strong enough personalities to stand their ground. The system sucked. She’d never realised how much before.
Everyone gradually took their places and the group settled. Tom indicated the person on his left, a middle aged woman called Sue who’d spent most of her time staring out of the window, obviously wanting to be somewhere else.
She shrugged. “I think she did it.”
“Can you explain why?” Tom asked.
“I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it,” Sue said. “He was a shit to her. That much is clear. I think he told her he was coming to collect his CDs and she had the knife ready.”
“Why would he collect his CDs at eleven o’clock at night?” Honey asked.
Sue shrugged. “It’s late and he said he was returning from Auckland. It’s not right that he came into the house when they’d broken up though.”
“It was his house,” Peter2 pointed out. “Once they’d split, she had no right to stay there.”
“Even so. He walked out—I think he should have knocked on the door and waited for her to answer, not barged in. But I think she expected him, which means she knew it was him and she went for him with the knife.”
Sue had nothing more to add, so they went around the table. Everyone seemed to have the same view. Everyone thought Sarah had known it was James and had attacked him with the knife with the intent to harm him.
When it came to Alice, Honey could see the older woman’s convictions fading in light of everyone else’s words. “I think it was self-defence,” she said. “He’d been so horrible to her and he even hit her.”
“He denied that,” Peter2 said.
“Well, he would,” Alice said. “But it wouldn’t surprise me that he’d do it. I think they argued, he got angry and went for her, and she lashed out to stop him.”
“What bothers me,” Tom said slowly, “is that the wound is on his face. That says to me that he didn’t have time to see the knife coming. If they were arguing first, he would have seen her pick up the knife and the wound would have fallen on his arms or hands as he tried to protect himself. It suggests to me that the attack came in the dark, without him expecting it.” Most of the others nodded.
“There’s also the point about Sarah not putting the chain across the door,” Babs said. “Apparently she did that every night when they lived together. Why would she not do it when she was on her own, unless she was waiting for him to come in?”
“Perhaps she forgot,” Alice said, although the excuse sounded weak, even to Honey’s ears.
“I don’t get why she stayed with him so long,” Peter1 said. “If he was a shit, why didn’t she leave him ages ago? That, to me, means she’s a victim—that she got something out of the drama of the relationship. She didn’t want it to end, and when he did bring it to a close, she wanted to punish him for leaving her.”
Honey felt sick and had to take deep breaths to keep the nausea down.
Tom glanced at her. “Let’s move on,” he said, and so they continued around the table.
When it came to Honey, she fixed her gaze on the pitcher of water as she spoke. “Nobody can know what it’s like to suffer from an abusive relationship unless they’ve been there,” she said quietly. “Most don’t start abusive, or you’re right, why would you stay in them? They begin like any other relationships, with promises of love and happiness and forever. And we all want to please our partners. We start off thinking ‘I’m never going to let a man tell me what to wear,’ but then as time goes by, you think ‘He always says I look nice in the pink jumper,’ so you start choosing the pink jumper more and more, because sub-consciously you want his approval.”
She glanced around. The room had fallen quiet, everyone watching her, even Matt, a frown between his eyebrows.
She looked back down and cleared her throat. “Often, the abusive partner—usually the man, although I know it can be the woman too—has a strong personality and some kind of ‘hold’ over the other partner, who may just not be as strong as them. It’s not about being a victim—none of the unfortunate women would ever class themselves as that. But we all want to be loved. And nobody likes a relationship to fail. We all work hard to put things right when they’re going wrong, especially when you’ve been with that person a long time.”
She poured herself another glass of water. Her hand shook, but she was past caring. “Sarah loves James, even now you can see it on her face. And he knows this. He used it to control her, to manipulate her into living her life for him and only him, and then when he tired of her, he dumped her. And now he wants to punish her even more because she tried to stand up for herself. She’s been to hell and back. And I can’t sit here and declare that I believe she should be sent to prison for one second for what she did to that bastard.”