‘Click on the tab that says, “Judge for yourself”,’ she said.
Mr Justice Frenchay praised Jamie’s accuser in court for her strength of character in coming forward, and in his summing-up painted her as a shrinking violet. The judge also glossed over her history of mental instability. Whilst we sympathise with anyone who suffers from mental illness, we feel that the jury did not take into consideration that this makes her an unreliable witness.
I couldn’t resist looking at Beth.
‘D’you want to know about my history of mental illness?’ she said. ‘When I was sixteen my grandparents were killed in an accident. I was heartbroken.’ She looked at me, appealing to my own loss, and my heart went out to her. ‘I couldn’t sleep, so my GP gave me a couple of weeks’ Valium. That’s literally it. Just good old-fashioned grief. In the witness box, they made it sound like I’d been in and out of asylums ever since.’
These photographs show Jamie’s accuser out ‘partying’. We have of course disguised her identity in accordance with the law. Is this the sober, conservative girl who appeared in the witness box? Or is this a free spirit, a hedonistic, party-loving girl who is open to all experiences, for whom casual sex at a music festival is all part of a weekend’s fun? We believe that, had the jury been allowed to see these pictures, the verdict would have been very different. Who do you believe? The diligent, studious young man with no record of violence, or the girl with a history of mental illness, who allows herself to be photographed like this?
In the pictures, Beth’s face was pixelated but the hair was clearly identifiable. One showed her licking a male friend’s face in a nightclub; not the most elegant photograph, but everyone our age had done worse. The other had blacked out her whole head but showed her whole body; she looked great in a black bustier, hotpants and cowboy boots, with a bottle of tequila between her breasts. She was photographed side-on, with one shoulder turned towards the camera. The angel wing tattoo had not been disguised.
‘This is bullshit,’ I said. ‘Anyone who knew you could recognise you from that.’
‘You don’t need to tell me,’ said Beth bitterly. ‘They might as well have taken out a front-page advert in The Times. You should’ve been there when I went shopping with Mum yesterday. It was like the parting of the Red Sea, just backs and shoulders in every aisle.’
‘Who gave them the pictures?’ asked Kit.
‘One of my oldest friends, can you believe it? The first one’s in a club in Nottingham, the second one was a summer job selling tequila shots at a local festival. I remember Tess taking the pictures. She’s the last person I’d have thought would do something like this. She’s broken my heart.’
She started to cry and something inside me lashed out at Tess.
‘Oh, Beth, that’s shitty.’ I remembered a picture Ling had once taken of me; raving in jeans and a bikini top, mouth open, pill on my tongue, a gift to anyone who wanted to smear me. We’d had it stuck on the fridge in our old flat, taken down when parents came to visit. When you’re young, you don’t think about consequences.
‘You said they can’t libel an anonymous person but you’re not anonymous in these, are you?’ said Kit. He was speaking almost to himself, chewing over the legal ramifications. ‘They must be in contempt of court, identifying you like this. This is a massive own goal, surely. Have you got legal representation?’
‘Yes,’ sighed Beth. ‘My dad’s geriatric solicitor is on the case. He reckons he can get them to take it down, but the damage is done. People know.’ She flopped down suddenly. ‘The ripples just keep coming and coming at me. I don’t just mean the appeal hanging over my head although that’s bad enough, but the things people say. Yesterday, in the Co-op, a girl I’ve known since I was four said that if I went on my own to a festival what did I expect? And this woman’s our age, she’s normal, she drinks, she’s no virgin. She’s the last person you’d think.’ She looked around our flat, at the eclipse map, at me, at Kit, and then fixed her eyes on the view across the common. ‘Right now, this flat feels like the only place in the world where I can be believed. I need to get the fuck away from there. I can’t bear to watch my parents staying strong for me when they’re falling apart over all this. And I can’t make a life there, not now.’
‘Stay here,’ I said. ‘For a couple of nights. Till it dies down.’
‘Do you mean it?’ she said. You’d have to know Kit as well as I did to tell what he was thinking: the closer you get to this girl, the more dangerous it is at a retrial. But quickly, before Beth could see, he flicked on a grin and I knew he wouldn’t rescind the invitation. He was doing it for me, not her.
‘Sure,’ Kit said, closing the laptop with a bang.
‘Oh, thank you,’ said Beth. Her tears stopped abruptly, like her stopcock had been turned off. ‘What would I do without you both?’
Chapter 31
LAURA
30 May 2000
‘What are you doing?’ whispered Beth, as I tiptoed up the stairs and tried to sneak past her. It was a Saturday, and we’d all slept in. I thought I’d heard the clatter of the letterbox from my pillow. Since Jamie had starting writing to me, I’d got into the habit of being first down to the doormat in the mornings. I couldn’t risk Kit intercepting a letter from prison. I sat on the edge of the futon, a bank statement and a pizza leaflet in my hand.
‘I just like to be the first one to pick the letters up,’ I said. ‘It’s just a thing I do. Like a routine. A sort of comfort thing.’ I was over-explaining it, while not explaining it at all.
‘Oh,’ said Beth. ‘That’s . . . nice.’
‘Morning.’ Kit hovered awkwardly in our bedroom doorway. I’d tried to shut it behind me but it had bounced on its hinge as usual. ‘God, it’s late.’