Cath Staincliffe - Split Second

‘How was it?’ Andrew said. ‘You okay?’

‘They were there,’ she said, ‘looking like butter wouldn’t melt. All scrubbed up.’

They had both been advised not to discuss their evidence, which seemed preposterous to him, given that they were man and wife and must have relived the events they had seen together many times in the months since it happened. Even so, Andrew asked her what it was like.

‘His barrister’s a right bitch.’ Val gave a swift shake of her head. ‘You know what she said?’

The volunteer returned with her drink and Andrew warned Val with a look. Val got the message and kept quiet. The woman told Andrew that he’d probably be called after lunch now. When she’d gone, Val said quietly through gritted teeth, ‘She had the audacity to suggest that Jason assaulted one of them. Jason!’

‘What?’

‘Because he hit Thomas Garrington with the lantern.’ She gave a humourless laugh. ‘The bloody gall of it.’ Her anger twisted into sadness and she pressed her fist to her mouth, squeezed her eyes shut. Andrew put his arm around her, hoping she’d accept the comfort, lean into him, but she was stiff, unyielding. He could smell her hair, her perfume. He reached his hand to cover hers, stroking her fingers, her wedding ring.

Val straightened up, leant forward for her drink. He moved his arm. ‘She’s there,’ she said.

‘Who?’

‘Louise Murray. I assume it’s her, at the front, with a teenage daughter.’

‘Of course she’d be here.’ He didn’t know what Val expected him to say. Any further discussion was prevented by the arrival of three elderly women, witnesses in another case.

After the stifling wait over lunch, it was his turn to go into the witness box. Val left to find a seat in the public gallery.

He took in the court with a sweep of his eyes as he entered the box, feeling slightly giddy. The place looked full. In the public gallery he could see his parents, Val with Colin and Izzie, and Louise and Ruby in front of them. Other families too. The glimpse he got of Garrington in the dock sent a spike of adrenalin through him. He and the girl looked ridiculously young. Callow was the word. They were young; she was younger than Jason, he a few months older.

He turned to face ahead – to face the jury – and was sworn in. It was bearable at first, describing Val hammering on the shower door, and chasing them away. Less so as he related Jason’s desperate pleas about Luke: ‘I think they’ve killed him. Get an ambulance!’ Tasted again the raw desperation in Jason’s voice.

Andrew could hear the tremor in his own voice as he spoke about Luke. ‘His face, you couldn’t really make the features out, there was a lot of blood but he was still breathing.’

‘Did you notice the lantern?’

‘No.’

‘And then Jason went inside?’

‘Yes, there was a policeman who wanted to speak to Val. Jason… I could see something was wrong, the way he looked.’ Andrew took a breath. His hands clasped together rigid. If he’d known Jason was wounded at that point? If he’d got the paramedics to stop the bleeding straight away, could he have been saved? The treacherous thought, torturous, slithered through him.

‘Then he collapsed.’ Andrew clenched his jaw, damming the tide of emotion that threatened to engulf him. He cleared his throat, answered the remaining questions about the hospital, the death with short, practical replies, in a dry, flat tone.

Mrs Patel began with an expression of sympathy for his loss and a comment about how difficult this must be. On his guard after what Val had said, Andrew didn’t trust a word of it. She confirmed that he had given identifying information to assist in the drawing up of the e-fits.

‘You didn’t see the beginning of the altercation?’ she asked.

‘No, I was upstairs.’

‘You didn’t see Jason hit Thomas Garrington with a cast-iron lantern?’

‘No, but Val told me-’

‘Hearsay,’ she barked, and the judge asked him to confine his testimony to those things he had witnessed directly.

‘You didn’t see anyone use a knife?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘When you went into the garden, where were the defendants?’

‘By the gate, near the pavement.’

‘And Conrad Quinn?’

‘He was with Jason, Jason was pushing him.’ The figures in the spiralling snow.

‘Pushing or pulling?’

‘Erm…’ Andrew pictured the scene. ‘Pushing, pushing him away.’

‘You’re certain?’

‘I think so,’ he said.

‘You’re not sure?’

His stomach flipped. ‘That’s how it looked,’ he said. But he felt she had scored a point. He had to be clear, he knew that; he had to be convincing, rock solid, not waver, allowing different interpretations.

‘What were Thomas Garrington and Nicola Healy doing at that time?’

‘Shouting.’

‘What were they shouting?’

‘I don’t know, I think-’

‘We don’t want your thoughts, Mr Barnes, we want the facts.’

‘Right.’ He ground his teeth together. He could feel sweat on his palms, on the sides of his chest. He was here to tell them what had happened to Jason, but it was a trap, a false trail. She was leading him down it, away into marsh and bog, places where the sun didn’t shine, where shadows lurked and shifted shape. And he was stuck. Sinking sand. He blinked, his eyes losing focus; saw Jason, just leaving the courtroom, slipping out and glancing back but distracted. Distracted and not seeing Andrew.

‘Mr Barnes.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Shall I repeat the question?’

He couldn’t do it. He had come here for justice, to bear witness, and he couldn’t even do that properly. He was diminished. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. He dared not speak; his jaw ached with the tension, his heart felt as if it would burst. The usher stepped towards the witness box. But he would not give in. He held up one hand. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘I want to carry on,’ but he couldn’t control the way his hand trembled.

‘Very well,’ said the judge.

Mrs Patel resumed her questioning. ‘What was Thomas Garrington shouting as he stood at the other side of the fence?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘So he may well have been remonstrating with Conrad Quinn?’

He stared at her. ‘It didn’t look like that, it looked like-’

‘But you’ve just told the court you don’t know-’

‘Their body language,’ he interrupted. ‘They were excited, high, wild. Ready to run. They were waiting for him.’

‘Speculation,’ she rapped.

‘That’s what I saw.’

‘Your Honour…’ There was an interchange between the lawyer and the judge. Andrew took a sip of water. He could do this, he had to do this. It was all that was left to him.

Mrs Patel resumed her cross-examination and he answered her few remaining questions with as much clarity as he could muster.

Mr Floyd, the barrister for Nicola Healy, appeared to take up the same thread. Implying that Nicola Healy and Thomas Garrington had fled the scene and wanted Conrad to come too. ‘Conrad Quinn was still struggling with Jason, am I right?’ he asked.

Andrew agreed.

‘Conrad Quinn had persisted even when his friends had run off?’

‘Only for a moment,’ Andrew said.

‘A moment?’ Mr Floyd scowled. Could he be more precise? ‘One second, two seconds, five?’

Andrew counted in his head. ‘Three, no more.’

‘How long would you say you were outside in all? Until you returned after the chase?’

‘It’s difficult to say. It was all very quick.’

‘When you first came out of the house, was Conrad Quinn kicking Luke Barnes?’

‘No, he was struggling with Jason.’ They kept coming back to Conrad, to what he was doing, but Conrad wasn’t up there in the dock, the other two were.