Lisa Ballantyne - Guilty One

Daniel was surprised that Sebastian could hear. If it had been in open court, Jones would have had to speak louder.

Sebastian shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Blood … is natural,’ repeated Jones. ‘Everyone has blood … When you had Ben’s blood on you, you felt fine. Had you ever had anyone else’s blood on you, Sebastian?’

‘Well … my own … if I got hurt.’

‘I see, anyone else?’

Sebastian was pensive for a moment, green eyes to the side and looking upwards, remembering. ‘My mum’s blood … I don’t mean when I was born, because being born there is a lot of blood, and it gets on to the baby, but afterwards if she got hurt and she touched me, sometimes it would get on to me.’

‘I see. Have you ever caused another to bleed?’

Irene rose to her feet. ‘My lord, I must question the relevance of this line of questioning.’

Baron nodded and cleared his throat loudly. ‘Yes, Mr Jones, if you could try to stick to the point.’

‘Very well, my lord. Sebastian – did you tell the police – and I read now from the transcripts of your interview:

‘Do you know whose blood might have been on your shirt?

‘A bird’s?

‘Why, did you hurt a bird?

‘No, but I saw a dead one once and I picked it up. It was still warm and its blood was all sticky.’

Again Irene rose to her feet. ‘My lord,’ she began, but Baron silenced her with a hand.

‘I will hear the answer,’ he said. ‘But Mr Jones, Miss Clarke is correct, you must make your question clear.’

‘Yes, m’lord.’ Irene sat down.

‘You remember telling the police that, Sebastian?’ said Jones.

‘Yes.’

‘Why did you think the blood on your clothes belonged to the bird and not to Ben?’

‘I got confused. The bird was another day.’

‘I see, another day. Did you hurt this bird?’

‘No,’ said Sebastian, but then he paused. His eyes turned up and to the left of the screen as he considered. Daniel thought he looked like a young boy saint, persecuted. He pulled his lower lip into his mouth and sucked it. He released it with a sound that was almost like a kiss. ‘I helped it …’

‘Tell me about the bird, Sebastian. What did you do to it, to cause its blood to transfer on to your clothes?’

Again, Sebastian’s eyes rolled upwards as he remembered. The eyes of the boy seemed enormous on the big screen.

‘Well … there was a bird I found in the park one day. It had a broken wing. It was a pigeon or something. It was turning round and round because it couldn’t fly. It was going to die, you see. It would get eaten by a fox or dog or a cat, or it would just starve to death …’

‘I see, so what did you do?’ Jones had his body turned towards the jury, but each time he addressed Sebastian he would look in the direction of the camera.

‘I stamped on its head; I had to put it out of its misery, but it didn’t die. Its claws were still moving.’ As if the words were not enough, Sebastian raised both hands up before his face. He held his hands like claws and made them twitch. ‘So I had to end it.’

‘What did you do?’ asked Jones.

‘I pulled its head away from its body, and then … it was still.’ Again Sebastian looked upwards and to the left, remembering. ‘But I had the bird’s blood on me then.’ Sebastian turned to look into the camera again. He rubbed his hands together, as if washing them.

Daniel clasped his hands tightly together, under the table. They were damp with sweat.

‘Why did you decide you needed to kill the bird, Sebastian?’ whispered Gordon Jones, still turned from the boy.

‘I told you. It would have died anyway. I had to put it out of its misery.’

‘You could have taken it to the vet. Why did you not want to help the bird? Why did you decide to murder it?’

‘I don’t think vets help pigeons with broken wings,’ said Sebastian. His tone was authoritative, condescending. ‘The vet would have killed it too, only with a needle.’

The word needle seemed to pierce the skin of silence in the room. There was a rustle, as the people in the court shifted in their seats.

‘How did you feel when the bird was dead?’ asked Jones.

‘Well, it was only little and it had to die, so that was a shame. But it was better that it didn’t suffer.’

‘Ben Stokes was only little. Were you upset when he died?’

Sebastian blinked, twice or maybe three times; he turned his head to the side, as if in anticipation of Charlotte’s fingers coursing through his hair.

‘Well … I’m only little too,’ he said. ‘Why is everyone so interested in Ben? He’s dead now, but I’m still here.’

The room was unnaturally silent.

‘No more questions for this witness, m’lord,’ said Jones.

‘Miss Clarke?’ Baron asked.

Daniel almost could not breathe, but he watched Irene stand up. Despite the evidence, she seemed strong, valiant.

‘Sebastian,’ Irene called.

Her voice was clear and awakened the room. Sebastian turned anew to the camera, blinking.

‘Ben Stokes was your friend. What did you like about him?’

‘He was funny and … he could do very good backward rolls. I can’t do them. They hurt my neck.’

‘You had known Ben for nearly four years. In all that time had you fought physically, so that either of you had to visit the hospital or even have first aid?’

‘No, but we sometimes played wrestling and we had a few fights, but we didn’t really get hurt.’

‘I see. Did you kill Ben Stokes on 8 August this year?’

‘No.’ Sebastian was quiet, chin down to his chest.

‘Did you hit your friend Ben Stokes in the face with a brick in the adventure playground on 8 August?’

‘No!’ Sebastian’s mouth was round, his eyes turned down in distress.

Daniel could feel the energy in the room change. The jury, even the gallery, seemed shocked that Irene should confront the child in this way. But Daniel was proud of her for it. The bird might now be forgotten.

‘No further questions, m’lord.’

Without voice, the video buzzed. Sebastian stared at the camera, his eyes shining and a slight smile on his still-pink lips. Sebastian wiped each eye in turn and then looked upwards. His white face captivated the court one last time, and then the monitor was switched off.

Daniel stepped outside because he needed air. He would have to go down and see the child before court convened again.

It had been hard for Daniel to watch Sebastian testify. He turned up his collar and looked at the clouds which pressed down on the buildings. His mind was a confusion of recent and distant memories. He saw Sebastian’s face enlarged on the screen; heard the clatter of the pail and the spade in Minnie’s yard; he watched Minnie fall again – losing her footing and falling on her bad hip when he pulled away from her.

He had hurt her, he saw that now.

His own pain over the lie she had told now seemed less important than the pain that he had caused to her. She had always known what was best for him. He had not understood it at the time, but she had protected him. He thought of her dying, wanting to see him one more time but knowing that he would not come. She was the only person that he truly believed had loved him. He closed his eyes, remembering the warm weight of her hand on his head when she said goodnight. Even during the years of anger, he had not doubted that she loved him. He hoped she had known that he had loved her too. Years he had denied her, but now he acknowledged all that she had done for him.

Daniel went to check on Sebastian, who was again playing games with the police officer in his cell. He was talkative and energetic, standing up on his bunk and reaching for the ceiling. He seemed unaffected by cross-examination, unaware of how he had done badly and how he had done well.