Lisa Ballantyne - Guilty One

‘Might suggest,’ said Sebastian.

‘Excuse me?’

‘The blood might suggest that I had hurt him. Suggest means you don’t know for sure …’

Daniel watched a ripple of anger cross Turner’s face. They wanted to break the boy – that was the point of the lengthy questioning – but Sebastian was proving stronger than they were.

‘You know for sure, don’t you, Sebastian. Tell us what you did to Ben.’

‘I told you,’ Sebastian said, lower teeth protruding above his lower lip. ‘I didn’t hurt him. He hurt himself.’

‘How did he hurt himself, Sebastian?’

‘He wanted to impress me, so he jumped off the climbing frame and hurt himself. He banged his head and his nose was bleeding. I went to see if he was all right, so I suppose that would have been when his blood got on to me.’

Despite the temper, this new information seemed to please Sebastian. He sat up straighter and nodded a little, as if to confirm its authenticity.

At seven o’clock on Wednesday, they brought dinner to Sebastian and his mother, which they ate in the cells. It depressed Daniel to watch them. Charlotte ate little. Daniel followed her when she stepped outside for a cigarette. It was raining again. He turned up the collar on his jacket and put his hands in his pockets. The smell of her cigarette smoke turned his stomach.

‘They just said they’re going to charge him,’ said Daniel.

‘He’s innocent, you know.’ Her large eyes were imploring.

‘But they’re going to charge him.’

Charlotte turned from him slightly and he could see her shoulders shaking. Only when she sniffed did he realise that she was crying.

‘C’mon,’ said Daniel, feeling almost protective of her, ‘shall we tell him together? He needs you to be strong right now.’ Daniel was not sure why he said that – he kept a distance from his clients – but part of him kept on remembering being a young boy in trouble with a mother who was unable to protect him.

Charlotte was still shaking but Daniel watched her straighten her shoulders and take a deep breath. Her ribcage became visible through the V of her sweater. She turned and smiled at him, the skin around her eyes still wet with tears.

‘How old are you?’ she said, her long nails on Daniel’s forearm suddenly.

‘Thirty-five.’

‘You look younger. I’m not trying to flatter you, but I thought you were in your twenties still. You look good; I wondered if you were old enough for this … to know your stuff, I mean.’

Daniel laughed and shrugged his shoulders. He looked at his feet. When he looked up he saw that her cigarette was getting damp. Warm raindrops clung to the stoic lacquered curls of her hair.

‘I like a man who looks after himself.’ She wrinkled her nose at the rain. ‘So they charge him and then what?’ She sucked hard on her cigarette and her cheeks hollowed. Her words were harsh but Daniel could still see her trembling. He wondered about the husband in Hong Kong, and how he could leave her to deal with this on her own.

‘He’ll appear in youth court first thing tomorrow morning. The case itself’ll probably go to the Crown Court so there’ll be a plea and case management hearing in about two weeks …’

‘Plea hearing? Well, he’s not guilty of course.’

‘The only thing is that they’ll ask for him to be taken into custody through all of this, probably a secure unit. It will be a few months until trial. We’ll obviously ask that he be granted bail, but in murder cases the judge tends to rule for custody, even for a child.’

‘Murder. Cases. Murder. We can pay, you know? Whatever it costs.’

‘Like I said, I’ll get a good barrister for you and they’ll argue, but we have to prepare ourselves for him being in custody for some time before the trial.’

‘When will the trial be?’

‘It all depends. I would think by November …’

Charlotte covered her mouth as she gulped. ‘And his defence?’

‘We’ll be contacting potential witnesses for the defence, and instructing expert witnesses, in this case psychiatrists, psychologists …’

‘Why on earth?’

‘Well, they’ll assess Sebastian – whether he’s fit or sane enough to stand trial.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. He’s perfectly sane.’

‘But they will also talk about the crime itself and assess whether Sebastian is mature enough to understand the offence he is charged with committing.’

She sucked hard at the last of her cigarette. It was a stub tweezered in her manicured nails and yet she sucked at it. Daniel saw the lipstick stains on the butt and the cigarette stains on her fingertips. He remembered his own mother’s yellow fingertips and the line of her skull appearing when she inhaled. He remembered the bite of hunger, watching as she swapped a tenner for drugs. He remembered lollipops for dinner: crunching them too fast.

He closed his eyes and took a breath. It was the letter, he knew, not Charlotte, which had provoked these memories. He shook his head as if to release them.

It was seven o’clock in the evening. The interview room was calmed by the sweet smell wafting from Sebastian’s hot chocolate.

Sergeant Turner cleared his throat. Written notice of the charge was given to Charlotte and Daniel, as Sebastian’s appropriate adult representatives.

‘Sebastian Croll, you are charged with the offence stated below: murdering Benjamin Tyler Stokes on Sunday 8 August 2010.’

‘Fine,’ Sebastian answered. He held his breath, as if he was about to take a dive.

Daniel felt his throat tighten as he watched the boy. Part of him admired the boy’s gall but another part of him wondered what it was masking. He glanced at Charlotte and she was rocking gently, holding on to her elbows. It was as if she was to be charged instead of her son.

Turner faltered for a moment at the boy’s response. The boy turned to his mother. ‘I didn’t do it, Mummy!’

Charlotte put a hand on his leg to calm him. He began to pick at his fingernails, his lower lip out.

‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention now something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

‘I didn’t do it, you know. Mum, I didn’t,’ said Sebastian.

He began to cry.

Daniel was there at 08:55 the next morning when the Reliance van drew up and opened its doors to receive Sebastian. Daniel stood with his arms folded as the boy was led from his cell, his thin wrists cuffed, into the cage in the back of the van. Shades on, Charlotte cried. She gripped Daniel’s forearm as the cage doors were closed and locked.

‘Mummy,’ Sebastian called from inside. ‘Mummy!’ His screams were like a nail coursing along the metal casing of the van. Daniel held his breath. He had watched this happen to so many clients: people he was willing to fight for, people he admired; people he despised. This moment had always been calm for him. It signalled the beginning. The beginning of his case; the beginning of the defence.

Watching the doors close on Sebastian, Daniel heard his own childhood cries in the boy’s desperate pleas. He remembered being Sebastian’s age. He had been troubled. He had been capable of violence. What was it that had saved him from this fate?

When the doors were locked, Daniel and Charlotte could still hear Sebastian crying inside. Daniel didn’t know if the little boy was innocent or guilty. Part of him believed that Sebastian had told him the truth, another part of him was concerned about the boy’s strange interest in blood and his tantrums that seemed worthy of a younger child. But Sebastian’s innocence or guilt was inconsequential. Daniel did not judge his clients. They were all entitled to a defence and he worked as hard for those he disliked as those he admired. But juveniles were always difficult. Even when they were guilty, as Tyrel had been, he wanted to keep them out of the prison system. He had seen what happened to juveniles inside – drug dependency and re-offending. The help that Daniel felt they needed was considered too expensive; politicians used the criminal justice system to win political points.