‘But you can’t be sure, can you? Daniel’s death was recorded as suffocation, could this not have been accidental after being left on the mattress with injuries rendering him immobile? Therefore, not directly at the hands of my client.’
‘No, I don’t think so. I’m not sure.’
‘There seems to be a lot you aren’t sure about today. I wonder what you would say if I asked you about the spare key to the room where the children were kept, the key my client claims you had access to.’
‘Objection, your honour, again, the witness is not on trial here,’ Fatty counters.
‘Sustained, could the defence focus on questioning the witness rather than wondering out loud or providing the court with a commentary.’
The lawyer nods, walks towards me.
‘When you last saw Daniel, where was he?’
‘On the bed in the room she called the playground.’
‘Can you describe what position he was lying in, please.’
‘On his back, I mean on his front, he was on his front. Lying face down on the mattress.’
The jury’s eyes pierce through me. Scribble, scribble. Liar, liar, they’re thinking. Pants on.
‘Which one was it? On his front or on his back?’
I’m holding the crystal Saskia gave me, my knuckles crack as I clench my fist round it. All I can think is that June was right to play devil’s advocate: what if she can’t cope. What if the reality of being on the stand is too much for her.
The judge speaks again, asks as he did yesterday, does the witness need a break?
If it’s lucky, yes please.
‘No thank you.’
The lawyer continues.
‘So just to clarify, what position was Daniel lying in?’
There are eight little somethings hidden in the cellar and if the ninth little something also dies. Whose fault is it?
‘On his front, face down,’ I reply.
‘And you’re sure this time?’
I nod.
‘Please can the witness answer the question out loud.’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
In the same way my silence unnerves Phoebe, yours unnerves me. Confident. That’s how you feel. You expect me to mess up but secretly you’d like me not to, I expect. A testament to how well you taught me, able to hold my own while expert lawyers try to unravel me. Loosen my fingertips on the edge of a building. A long way to fall.
‘My client claims that the day after she brought Daniel home, a Thursday, she went to work and stayed there late unexpectedly.’ He turns to me. ‘You got the school bus home, the driver confirmed this, he remembered because as you said yesterday your mother usually drove you, meaning you were home alone for over two hours before your mother returned to the house. Is that correct?’
The nod of his head yesterday, in your direction, when I said you usually drove me. Heat being turned up. Can’t breathe. Very well. You. Me. Both witnesses, we were there. I saw you. My chest feels tight. Head, busy. I ask him to repeat the question.
A lady in the second row of the jury circles something in her notepad, looks up, her eyes locked on me. I look away, try to focus on what he might ask next but there’s no point, these aren’t questions we prepared for. I never told my lawyers I was alone in the house, they never asked, it’s not me who’s on trial, there was no need to check whether she drove me home that day or if I took the bus. The faces of my lawyers are stony, not at all at ease. I’m not doing so well today, and I’m sorry to say, things could get worse, a lot worse, if I tell the truth. Release the carrier pigeon trapped in my chest, let it do its job. Deliver its message.
The defence lawyer asks me again if I was home alone with Daniel on the Thursday afternoon when he was still alive and in the room.
‘Yes,’ I reply.
Skinny and Fatty exchange glances, I know what they’re thinking, they’re thinking this is news to us, really bad fucking news and now is not a good time to be finding out new information. The defence lawyer smells it from me, the urge, the need to disclose. He’s seen it before, massage the back while he continues to go for the throat. He lowers and softens his voice, reassures me, tries to reel me in.
‘Did you try to open the door to the room Daniel was in?’
I’m about to say yes, yes, I did, but somebody coughs. You. I know it was you, I know how your everything sounds. But why did you? Are you worried about what my answer might be, worried that the game will be over in minutes if I can’t hold on any longer, if I crumble under the pressure. You’d be so disappointed. An anticlimax. And a reflection on you, my teacher. Don’t worry, I won’t, though I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it. The temptation of telling the truth, how that might taste. How that might feel. And whether it would be worth it, or whether I’ll still have to live with a snake and the ghosts of nine little somethings playing at my feet. Regardless.
‘The witness looks distracted, I’ll repeat the question. Did you try to open the door?’
‘Yes, I tried, but it was locked.’
‘So at no point did you enter the room where Daniel was?’
‘No.’
‘You never went into the room, you never touched Daniel, tried to comfort him?’
‘I did, yes.’
‘You did which? You entered the room or you tried to comfort him?’
‘I tried to comfort him.’
‘In what way?’
HELLO, ANNIE.
The crystal drops from my hand, lands under the table where the glass of water sits, the sound reverberates off the wood of the stand. Too many eyes to count now, all focused on me. I look over at June, she signals for me to leave it but I want to bend down, pick it up, so I can hide, never come up.
‘In what way did you comfort Daniel?’
A pit bull, the lawyer is. Teeth latched on to flesh. On to anything it can.
‘I spoke to him through the peephole.’
‘He was alive at this point then, when you were talking to him through the peephole?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you say to him?’
‘That I was sorry and it would soon be over, that everything would be okay.’
True.
‘What would soon be over? How could you know that, you’re not your mother, are you? You had no idea how long he would be kept there for.’
‘I wanted to make him feel better.’
True.
‘What was Daniel doing at this time?’
‘Crying, asking for his mummy.’
True.
‘And at no point while Daniel was in the house did you touch him?’
‘No.’
‘If I told you the forensic expert we consulted found evidence of your DNA on Daniel’s clothing, what would you say to that?’
‘Objection, your honour, the witness had prior contact with the victim at the refuge. DNA could easily have transferred on to the clothing then.’
‘Agreed, sustained.’
Without whistling or warmth, my nose begins to bleed. A red droplet rolls down over my lips, my chin, lands on the wood of the podium. Everybody’s staring, look, there she is, the daughter of a murderer covered in blood. Take her away, take her down, is what they could say. I hear Fatty asking for a recess.
‘Does the witness require one?’ the judge asks.