Cath Staincliffe - Split Second

The defence barristers made a meal of that. Mr Floyd, representing Nicola Healy, focused on how Conrad had tried to evade the police up until his arrest and would probably have remained at large if a member of the public had not helped identify the suspects. Going on about how he only began to co-operate when he faced the most serious of charges. And the other barrister, Mrs Patel, kept repeating that Conrad Quinn was playing the system to save his own skin.

Emma grew tense again, her stomach churning, their hectoring reminding her of the way the lawyers had grilled her about who said what on the bus and how she could possibly tell.

Even the inspector got ruffled, raising his voice a couple of times as they kept on trying to make out that Conrad Quinn was unreliable and an opportunist who had fooled the police.

Finally Mr Sweeney announced that there were no more witnesses for the prosecution, and the judge said the defence case would open in the morning.

On the way to the train, Emma saw the newspaper sandwich board: JASON TRIAL: FULL COVERAGE. On Monday, the trial had been headline news everywhere. And she had been mentioned. Fellow passenger Emma Curtis, 23, told the court that Garrington had bragged about having a knife before punching the teenager. At which point Jason Barnes first intervened.

It had been in the Express ; her mum had texted her and then rung after tea. ‘Your dad saw it before I did. And it was on the six o’clock news too.’ She sounded thrilled, as if Emma had done something clever. She heard her mother mumble, ‘Just a minute, Roger.’ Listened to the rustling as he took the phone, and his voice: “‘Visibly shaken”, that’s what it says here. I can just see it, hah hah! “Claims adviser”, it says. Must be in a sorry state to let you advise anyone. Eh, Emma? Cat got your tongue? Here, I’ll get no sense out of her.’ Malice delivered, she heard him return the phone to her mum.

‘You’ll have to tell us all about it,’ her mum said.

You must be joking, Emma thought. Was she on another planet? Had she not just heard him?

‘When are you home again?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Emma said.

‘Okay. Bye for now. Byeee.’

Emma stared at the fish in her aquarium very hard. She watched a little tetra winnow through the weed in the corner, past the conch shell. She stared and stared but the hot, angry lump in her chest would not melt away.

Andrew

The defence case began with Thomas Garrington taking the stand. He swore on the Bible. Andrew had worked out by now that the couple who always sat near the back were his parents. He was a huge man, bald, with the look of a boxer, the broken nose. She was tiny, nervy, red-faced.

As Thomas Garrington gave his account, prompted by questions from Mrs Patel, Andrew quickly realized that he was contradicting all the salient facts of Conrad’s story. According to Thomas, it was Conrad who drew the knife, Conrad who first kicked Luke, Conrad who stabbed Jason. Garrington admitted to calling Luke names and pushing him on the bus. ‘I didn’t punch him, I just pushed him.’

And when he realized Conrad Quinn had used the knife?

‘I got out of there, I couldn’t believe it. We didn’t even know the guy.’

‘How would you describe Jason’s actions in the garden?’ Mrs Patel asked.

‘Well he was really pumped up, you know, screaming. I think he was drunk. He hit me from behind with something, broke my rib.’

Andrew was stunned; he heard Val gasp. He could see the image they were trying to construct: Jason raving and pissed, wielding a weapon. A million miles away from the boy he was.

‘We’d like to show the court the exhibit,’ said the barrister. The judge agreed. A still photograph was projected on to the screens. It was dated four days after the murder and showed Thomas Garrington stripped to the waist, a bruise the size of a plate on his lower back. Someone murmured in sympathy; Val made a sound of disgust. Andrew sucked in a breath, could hardly believe the cheek of it.

‘This is the injury you sustained?’

‘Yes.’

Val shook her head, made to move. Andrew feared she’d shout out, risk the judge’s displeasure and get the public gallery cleared. He put out his hand to restrain her. She turned to him, her face alive with outrage. He nodded; he understood.

‘And you visited the GP with this?’

‘Yes. He said it was a broken rib,’ said Garrington.

‘Why do you think Conrad used the knife?’

‘Speculation,’ protested Mr Sweeney.

‘Trying to establish cause,’ Mrs Patel said.

‘Rephrase the question,’ decided the judge.

‘Did Conrad tell you why he used the knife?’

‘He’d seen Jason hit me; he thought he had a knife an’ all. He wanted to defend himself,’ said Garrington.

‘Did Conrad Quinn believe he was in danger from Jason Barnes?’ said Mrs Patel.

‘Yeah, the way he was carrying on: like he was off his head.’

This from someone who’d been drinking, snorting coke and had chased down Luke Murray to deliver a beating, thought Andrew.

‘You refer to Jason Barnes?’

‘Yeah.’

Andrew heard Val groan, and the judge looked across at the public gallery.

Thomas Garrington went on parroting Conrad’s evidence, but in his version it was Conrad who had thrown the knife in the river and Conrad who had sworn them to silence.

‘What do you say to the allegations Conrad Quinn made in this court that you had a knife and that you stabbed Jason?’ Mrs Patel sounded stern, unsympathetic as she put the question.

‘It’s not true.’ His eyes were big and blue and it looked like he was close to tears.

‘Can I remind you that you have sworn an oath to tell the truth and only the truth. Who stabbed Jason?’

‘Conrad did.’

‘Is there anything else, Thomas?’ she said quietly.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell the police. But Conrad was a mate and well… I knew he’d done wrong but I couldn’t turn him in.’

During the break, he and Val were waiting by the windows overlooking Crown Square, going over and over the bare-faced cheek, the audacity of Garrington’s story, decrying the exploitative shock value of the photo, all in hushed whispers.

‘What if they fall for it?’ she said. ‘The jury. Think Jason was the aggressor.’

‘They won’t,’ he said. ‘They’re intelligent people.’

Val baulked, ‘We don’t know that.’

‘They’ll believe you, Val,’ he said, ‘what you say happened, not this garbage.’

She pulled a face. Still worried. ‘I’ll just go to the loo before they start back.’

He nodded.

A couple of minutes later, he saw Louise and Ruby coming up the nearby stairs.

‘Louise,’ Andrew said as she reached the hallway. She stopped. She nodded, polite, a little guarded.

‘You remember Ruby.’

‘Hello,’ he said. Bizarre, the stilted introductions, when they had sat in court only a few feet away from each other hearing about their sons, sharing the aftershocks from that terrible night all over again.

He was going to carry on, talk about Garrington’s testimony, then he sensed rather than saw Val returning. He twisted round: she was standing across the foyer; she shot a look of such loathing their way that Andrew almost recoiled. He felt she would misinterpret this, weave it into whatever false picture she was composing of his relationship with Louise. He noticed Louise follow his glance. Then Val pivoted on her heels and stalked towards the court.

Louise stood there, red spots of colour blooming on her cheeks.

‘I’m sorry,’ Andrew said, heartsick and hurting. ‘I’d better go.’

He wanted to reassure Val, to explain, to make her believe that Louise was no more than a friend, but then perhaps being just a friend was too much for Val to take. She still blamed Luke, clung to her belief that he was the bogeyman, that he deserved no pity or concern and that by extension his family was to be shunned. Even after all they had heard in court. Sometimes he thought Val’s strength, her conviction, was a flaw rather than a virtue.