Cath Staincliffe - Split Second

‘A foetal position?’

‘Yes,’ Val said.

He slept like that, Louise thought. And now he can’t even do that any more. Instead he lies stretched out, and when they turn him, to avoid bedsores, they never curl his limbs close to his body. She remembered him as an infant coiled like a comma on her grandad’s lap. A little sea horse.

‘Please carry on,’ said Mr Sweeney.

‘Conrad Quinn was by his head, near his shoulders.’

‘And Nicola Healy?’

Louise saw the girl in the dock look down, studying her hands.

‘She was the other side of Luke, near his middle,’ said Val.

‘And you clearly saw them all kick Luke?’

‘Oh yes.’ Her tone firm.

‘What happened when you returned?’

‘I was on the phone in the hall, the door was still open. Andrew ran outside. Thomas Garrington was at the gate, and Nicola Healy too. Jason had his hands on Conrad Quinn, on his shoulders, pulling him away. As Andrew went out, he pulled away from Jason and ran off as well. And Andrew went after them.’

The courtroom was almost silent, tight with concentration. Louise felt brittle; her pulse was thrumming hard.

‘I went to Jason, to try and get him to come in, but he was worried about Luke. Andrew came back then, and Jason shouted to get an ambulance.’

‘At this stage, did Jason appear to be hurt?’

‘No,’ Val said quietly.

Louise looked up at the ceiling, at the fine plaster mouldings and the pendulum lights. Ruby wiped her eyes. Louise heard someone in the rows behind her stifle a sob.

‘Andrew sent Jason in. We could hear the ambulance coming and Andrew waited outside for them. Jason was trembling.’ She swallowed.

Louise felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

‘Then the police came in,’ said Val, ‘and Andrew too. He said he thought Jason was in shock and he’d make a hot drink.’ Val stopped talking abruptly. She pressed her fist to her mouth and closed her eyes.

‘Mrs Barnes?’ the barrister enquired softly. Val raised her head, moved her hand to grip at the necklace she wore. She was shivering now, her face quaking, her voice uneven as she spoke. ‘Then… erm… Andrew saw… Jason looked so pale… He fell forward, he was sitting down and he fell forward, and then… he was hurt, there was blood on his coat, on the chair.’ Louise’s neck tingled; her heart felt too big, swollen in sympathy.

‘Jason was taken to hospital then?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he was declared dead on arrival?’

Val nodded vigorously, tears spilling. ‘Yes, but we didn’t know for a while.’

‘And you were told that he died as a result of a stab wound in the back?’

‘Yes,’ she said simply. She was amazing, thought Louise. The strength in her as she relived that dreadful night. Her dignity.

The barrister thanked her and the judge ordered a recess before cross-examination.

‘You okay?’ Louise asked Ruby as they filed out.

Ruby nodded.

‘Hungry?’

‘Always,’ she said wryly.

‘We’ll grab a sandwich.’

The area near the courts had a spooky, science-fiction feel, Louise thought. Skyscrapers, gleaming in the pale sun and windy open spaces between. Most of the people wore formal work suits. They fitted the setting: polished and glossy, expensive. Louise felt out of place by comparison, and dazed, emptied by the strain of the trial.

When they got back to court, Val was already being questioned by the defence barrister. A current of mutual dislike seemed to crackle between the two women as Mrs Patel tried to undermine Val’s account. Val appeared to grow stronger, surer under the barrage. Asserting again, clearly and confidently, what she had seen. Never wavering. Then Mrs Patel focused in on some of the detail.

‘When Jason hit Thomas Garrington with a cast-iron lantern, what position was Thomas Garrington in?’

‘He was by Luke Murray, by his feet, kicking him.’

‘His back to Jason?’

‘Yes.’

‘So Thomas Garrington was not expecting the blow?’

‘No,’ said Val.

‘He wouldn’t have seen it coming?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Did you see anyone produce a knife?’

The sudden change of topic startled Louise and she sensed the same reaction in Val as Val’s head jerked up and she blinked before she replied. ‘No.’

‘Did you see anyone use a knife?’

‘No.’

‘Did you hear anyone speak of a knife?’ Mrs Patel asked.

‘No.’

‘You saw Jason arrive in the garden when you first went to the door. You observed everything up until he assaulted Thomas Garrington with the lantern?’

Val hesitated. Louise knew it was the word assaulted. There like an obscenity in that context. Laying blame on Jason. The same way the papers had smeared Luke.

‘Yes,’ Val replied in a steely tone.

‘Did Jason appear to be sober?’

Val blinked. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Was his speech slurred? Was he weaving about?’ said Mrs Patel.

‘There was a fight going on,’ Val protested.

‘He had been out drinking with his friends?’

‘Yes,’ Val said briskly.

‘For several hours?’ the barrister added.

‘Yes. He wasn’t drunk,’ Val said.

‘How could you tell?’ Mrs Patel said. Val didn’t reply.

‘And when you came back to the doorway, only Conrad Quinn was still fighting Jason?’

‘Yes,’ Val said.

‘Mr Quinn was the last to leave the garden?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did he appear? Mr Quinn?’

‘Erm… out of control, enraged, like a madman. They all did.’

‘Mrs Barnes,’ the judge said, ‘please restrict your replies to the particular question. Members of the jury, please disregard that last reply.’

‘Mr Quinn appeared enraged? Did he seem at all frightened?’

‘No,’ Val said.

‘Or upset, or anxious?’

Louise saw that Mrs Patel was shifting attention from her client on to Conrad Quinn, casting him as the real villain. He was a villain; he had after all confessed to wounding Luke, but what his role had been in the murder was in dispute.

When Nicola Healy’s barrister began, he concentrated on trying to get Val muddled up about Nicola’s role in hurting Luke. How many times had Nicola kicked Luke? Which foot had she used? Where had she kicked him?

Again Louise barricaded herself against the tide of images, substituted a rag doll, a mannequin for Luke, refused to contemplate the visceral terror her son must have suffered. Distancing herself from the details, the jagged facts that were all the more horrible for the steady, workaday way in which they were laid out for the court.

Some of the questions were impossible to answer, and Val glared as she gave her replies, aware that the barrister was succeeding in inducing some doubt into the proceedings. Louise knew that it was all they needed. Enough doubt, enough uncertainty and the defendants would walk away scot free.

The final question for Val was about the weapon. ‘Did you see Nicola Healy with a knife at any point?’

‘No,’ Val answered, as everyone knew she would, and closed her eyes.

Louise understood that establishing who had stabbed Jason was crucial to the murder case; that the only people who had seen the fight, Andrew and Val, had no idea a knife had been used. That left the three attackers as the only witnesses. One of them had stabbed Jason. Conrad Quinn claimed he was innocent of that, and Thomas Garrington and Nicola Healy, too, were pleading not guilty. Someone was lying, one of the three was the killer, and Louise felt a wash of unease at how uncertain the outcome now felt.

Andrew

Val came back into the witness suite and sat beside him, looking shattered. She accepted the offer of a cup of tea from one of the volunteers.