Tim Vicary: A Game of Proof

‘And so, members of the jury, the guilt or innocence of this defendant is entirely a matter for you. It is a heavy responsibility which I am sure you will approach with the utmost seriousness. There is no hurry; you should consider the evidence thoroughly, and take as long as you need. Your verdict should be one on which you all agree. Now, the usher will conduct you to a room to begin your deliberations.’

As the jury left, Turner caught Sarah’s eye. ‘That’s us finished. No hard feelings, I hope?’

‘They’re all hard, Phil. Always will be.’ She turned away, cutting him dead. It was not the way barristers were meant to behave but then barristers were not meant to defend their own sons. She understood why now, better than she’d ever done.

As the court emptied, she walked back to the dock. ‘I’m sorry, Simon. I blew it.’

‘What? No, Mum, you were great.’ His face, was tense, but not downcast.

She frowned at the security guards. ‘I’ll talk to you downstairs, then.’

‘Yeah, OK. We’ll have one of those five-star lunches.’

The fact that he was cheerful, even hopeful, hurt her more. She watched him go down to the cells below, the way he would go when he was convicted in few hours time. Then, dragging her wig from her head, she walked disconsolately out of court, with Lucy at her side.

At last the traffic cleared, and with some risky, assertive driving from Terry they reached the street. They parked a few spaces behind Tracy’s blue Clio. Terry called her on her mobile. This time she answered.

‘All right, Trace, we’re here. What’s happened?’

‘Nothing much, sir, since I phoned in.’

‘Nobody gone in or out?’

‘No, sir. Like I said, Sean if that’s who it is went in there about ten, fifteen minutes ago, and Gary’s still in that van …’

‘Not now he isn’t,’ Harry broke in, looking over his shoulder. ‘He’s got out, look! He’s going up to the house.’

Terry looked, and saw Gary disappear through the front door. Now what, he asked himself. ‘Do you think he’s seen us?’

‘Could well be, sir,’ Harry suggested. ‘After all he knows you and me well enough.’

‘Damn,’ Terry muttered. What to do now? It was bad enough Sean being in that house with Sharon and her kids, but Gary too? The question was, should he wait for them to come out, call for back-up, or go in straight away? If they didn’t know they were being watched, he could wait, but if they did there was no sense just dithering about here any longer.

‘Come on,’ he said, opening the door as he spoke. ‘We’re going in.’

But as he did so Gary came out of the house, quickly followed by the other man, Sean. Gary pointed up the road, directly at Terry, and sprinted for the van, followed by Sean, who seemed to have something long, a stick or a knife in his hand.

Terry began to run, his long legs stretching over the ground as fast as he could make them go. But the van was twenty yards away, maybe more, and the two men were already inside it. Fifteen yards.. ten … the van shuddered as the engine started and smoke came out of the exhaust. Terry knew Harry would be far behind him but he didn’t care. He ran up to the van as it started to move, and with a final lung-heaving stretch grabbed the driver’s door handle. He could see Gary’s face inside. He pulled the door open, but he was still running and the van was accelerating faster, pulling him off his feet as it swerved deliberately close to a parked car which swept Terry’s legs from under him and sent him slithering over the bonnet into the windscreen and down, loose and crumpled like a rag doll, onto the road.

There was a lime tree at the side of the road. Its leaves fluttered prettily in the breeze beneath a clear blue sky. It’s funny I never noticed this before, Terry thought, it’s such a nice picture on a lovely day. There was a ringing in his head and a face appeared between him and the tree, looking down.

‘Sir, are you okay?’ the face asked anxiously, in the voice of Harry, whom it resembled.

‘Yes, I … what happened?’ Terry heaved himself up on his elbows. The road pitched and heaved like a ship out at sea. He staggered to his feet and clung onto a parked car whose windscreen was, for some reason, shattered. There was blood on his hands where he had grazed himself and the sleeve of his jacket was torn. He remembered.

‘Get after them, Harry. Call a squad car. Get their number.’

‘Tracy’s doing it now, sir. She’s phoned in. I think … we should go into the house.’

As the ringing in his ears faded and the road settled down to something like normal behaviour Terry noticed a crying, a screaming like that of a child in distress. It seemed to be coming from Sharon’s house. He walked as steadily as he could towards the front door.

The crying came from the top of the stairs. As Terry climbed them, following Harry, he saw a little girl inside a bedroom to the right. She was howling, her mouth wide open, tears streaming down her face, pointing with her pudgy right hand at something further inside the room. Harry walked straight past her. Terry stopped to pick her up.

Inside the room there were clothes strewn across the floor and on the bed, sideways across the pillows at the top end, lay a naked woman. It was Sharon. She lay face up, her long blonde hair spread out, her breasts flopping sideways, blood streaming from a wound in her stomach just below her ribs. One hand twitched and fluttered feebly near the wound, as though trying to find the blood to staunch it and take away the pain.

‘Sharon?’ Harry bent over her, swept the hair from her face, looked in her eyes and felt her wrist. ‘There’s still a pulse, sir.’

‘Stop that bleeding, then.’

Terry fumbled for the phone in his pocket, but with the child on his hip, clinging to him with all the ferocious strength of utter terror, he couldn’t reach it. Then he noticed a phone by the bed near Sharon’s feet, only the receiver was off the hook, on the floor somewhere. He bent to pick it up and to his surprise heard a voice on the other end.

‘Caller? Caller, are you there? Answer me if you can. Do you need police, fire, or ambulance?’

‘The police are here already,’ said Terry. ‘Send an ambulance. Quick!’

‘I thought it was unfair. After all, Turner talked about Brodie in his own speech, didn’t he? That was what he closed with.’

Lucy’s voice echoed strangely from the concrete walls of the corridors below the court. This place, which she knew so well, today seemed weird to Sarah, almost dreamlike. Perhaps they were taking her to be locked away, she thought. She was sure she deserved it.

‘You’re right,’ she replied, with the part of her mind which was still functioning. ‘I should have noticed that.’

‘He took you unawares, that’s all.’

‘He did. But I should be ready for ambushes, damn it! That’s my job.’

‘Never mind. You did your best.’

‘No!’ Sarah stopped, while the warder opened the door of Simon’s cell. ‘That’s just it! On this one occasion when it really mattered, I didn’t do my best, Lucy! I let him down!’

As they went inside, Sarah saw that Simon had heard. He stood, pale and dismayed, as the door clanged shut behind them. ‘What do you mean, Mum? How did you let me down?’

‘I … didn’t end as well as I could, Simon, that’s all. You must have noticed.’

‘Your speech, you mean?’ She saw fear in his face as the blow hit home. ‘You said everything, didn’t you? I thought you did.’

‘I said everything, yes. It was just … he tripped me up at the end with that reference to Brodie. I should never have made it. The rest was fine.’