I arrived panting at the court five minutes later. Knowing what to expect this time, and without the delay of the morning rush hour, I was through security in seconds. I bought a coffee to give me a sense of purpose but I hadn’t even had a chance to blow on it before the doors burst open without warning and the court spilled back into the atrium.
The Balcombes were out first, swooping on Jamie as he emerged through a side door that I surmised must lead straight to the dock. The horsey woman I’d seen earlier confirmed herself as the defence counsel, wearing her gown and carrying her wig, talking not to Jamie but to his father. Their voices, bred to carry along corridors of power, echoed long after they were out of sight. Through the double doors emerged a harried-looking man in a brown suit. The tatty file in his hands was tied with red ribbon. He was walking almost sideways in his haste to get away from someone behind him. Hot on his heels was Carol Kent, arms folded, and behind her, at last, was Beth. Instinctively I pressed myself behind a white column, the better to look at her. Her appearance had been tamed – her curly hair and curvy body were in a tight plait and a tailored jacket respectively – but she was as vocal now as she had been mute at our first encounter.
‘Are you fucking joking me?’ she said. I couldn’t quite place her accent. She turned to Carol. ‘Can he do this?’
‘I didn’t say you weren’t allowed,’ said the lawyer. ‘I said we don’t advise it.’ He was reaching for sympathy but grasping condescension. A red-faced man and a red-eyed woman joined the knot. His dark hair and her figure, heavy about the hips and the breasts, marked them as Beth’s parents. She was dumpy and he was dowdy; they looked like the Balcombes’ country cousins, or the serfs who worked their land.
‘What’s up, love?’ said her father.
‘They want me to go home now they’ve finished with me,’ said Beth. She and her parents turned as one to Kent.
‘I’m sorry, Beth, he’s right,’ said the police officer gently. ‘Legally, you have the right to sit in the public gallery. But the thing is, juries don’t like it. Especially in cases like this, where it’s your word against his, it can look . . . vindictive.’
‘I fucking am vindictive! I want to cut his dick off!’ Beth gave a harsh, cynical laugh. Her father looked mortified; Carol Kent and the lawyer shushed her in unison, while her mother tried to put a comforting arm around her shoulder. Beth shrugged her off and pushed imaginary air downwards, visibly gathering herself, then continued at a normal register. ‘I’ve just had to relive what he did to me while he sat there giving the jury Bambi eyes. Don’t I get to watch your lot do the same thing to him?’
‘I do understand,’ said the lawyer. ‘I’m sorry; it does seem weighted against you. I hate having to advise it. I can’t stop you if you really want to attend. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t tell you that we stand a better chance of winning the case if you’re absent. It’s just how juries behave.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
Carol turned away from me and said something I couldn’t quite catch.
‘You thought it would put me off my stride?’ Beth looked suddenly punctured. ‘Well, maybe you’re right, maybe you’re—’
She broke off mid-sentence and walked away, her back artificially straight; in the single spasm of her shoulders I recognised a proud woman trying not to cry. Her parents bore her off down one of those mysterious hallways, one at either shoulder.
‘Fuck,’ said Kent to the lawyer. ‘That backfired.’ She puffed out her bottom lip. ‘I’ll sort this.’
Across the room, almost hidden inside the little grove of leaves, I saw the blonde journalist from the morning, punching numbers into her phone. Even though no one was watching, I circled the whole atrium before pressing myself against a pillar. She was just visible between two huge ferns.
‘Hi, it’s Ali. Good news. I can definitely place this. It’s going to be a classic he said/she said, textbook case decision by jury. Half the female jurors are already in love with him. Mm, mm.’ She nodded into her phone. ‘Bit weepy but holding it together. She made eye contact with him, which they don’t always, so she’s a feisty one. Reckons he chatted her up the night before, she gave him the knock-back and he wouldn’t take no for an answer, yada yada yada.’ I wanted to knock the stupid phone out of her hand. ‘The usual. It always sounds convincing until the defence cross-examine the victim and they shredded her.’ I was left to imagine the distress this Ali had witnessed, and with physical effort I kept a lid on my fury at the way she was boiling it down to the stock of a story. She looked through her notes. ‘There’s a history of depression, which is never good. Yeah. About the only good thing you can say for the poor cow is that she hasn’t got form for casual sex. Defence couldn’t even pull an old one-night stand out of the hat.’ There was a question on the other end. ‘Well, we’ll find out about that when he goes into the box, won’t we? But, you know, I’ve seen dark-alleyway rapists get off scot-free, so . . . Anyway, tell the boss that this is me for the week. I’m grooming the fiancée for the story. If he walks, she’s a heroine, standing by her man. If he goes down, she’s a wronged woman. It’s good copy either way. She’s very pretty, too, front-page pretty. Make sure the picture desk call in some good shots of her.’
My indignation bubbled like lava; to stop the eruption, I went to the toilet to run my wrists under the cold tap, a trick my dad had taught me to keep my temper. In here the ceilings were abruptly lower. The court bathroom was shabby and had seen better days. One cubicle was occupied but the other was swinging wide and vacant; people don’t hang around a courthouse, I was fast discovering. It empties as quickly as it fills. I put my hand under cool water and waited for my anger to die down.
The cubicle door behind me swung open with a creak, and I found myself locking eyes with Beth.