Хилари Боннер - A Kind Of Wild Justice

On the steps of the court she was confronted with the nauseating sight of O’Donnell giving one of his impromptu press conferences. His father was by his side as ever. Frail in body Sam might be, but his toughness and strength of character had not left him — as much of his earlier weariness seemed now to have done. Still leaning heavily on his walking stick, he used his free arm to clap his son on his back, beaming, openly triumphant. Extraordinary. Joanna continued to find it hard to accept that he could really believe in his elder son’s innocence, because she genuinely thought that Sam the Man would find this kind of crime as repugnant as would almost everyone else. Surely the only explanation could be that Jimbo really was the old man’s blind spot and that when it came to his favourite son he truly couldn’t see what everyone else could so clearly. She knew that was what Fielding thought. Fielding. All she wanted to do was get away as quickly as possible, but the crush of bodies on the steps impeded her progress. She looked around for the detective. He was right behind her, as desperate to escape as she was, she suspected. Their eyes met briefly again. There was a blankness in his. His mouth was set in a firm, hard line. Come to think of it, he looked pretty much the way she felt.

Apart from anything else, O’Donnell had made certain that the link between them was public knowledge. And under privilege in open court too — which meant that the papers could print what they liked free from the restriction of the laws of libel.

With half an ear she was aware of O’Donnell’s slightly whining voice. She could catch only snatched phrases above the hubbub of the crowd but it was enough to know he was repeating yet again the now familiar story: ‘...I’m an innocent man. I’ve been persecuted... harassed... set up...’

Suddenly the pitch of his voice changed. ‘There they are, there they are now,’ he shouted, and this time neither she nor anyone else within a half-mile radius could have any difficulty in hearing him. ‘There they are!’

To her horror, she realised Jimbo was pointing at her and Fielding, his face screwed up in hatred as he spat out the words.

The gathered hacks and snappers turned as one and surged forward towards them. Jo was about to learn the hard way what it felt like to be on the receiving end of this level of press attention. Suddenly a flash exploded in her face and she was dazzled, momentarily blinded. At almost the same moment someone lurched into her side. She stumbled, almost fell. A strong hand grasped her elbow, supporting her. She looked round. It was Fielding. He was half smiling, a wry, resigned sort of smile. She smiled her gratitude back. More cameras flashed.

Joanna Bartlett and Mike Fielding were no longer just a journalist and a policeman who had worked on the case. They had become an important ingredient in the whole Beast of Dartmoor saga.

All Joanna wanted to do was go home and hide. And for perhaps the first time in her marriage she quite desperately wished that she did not share her home with her editor. The large, impeccably furnished and decorated house on Richmond Hill was going to be no hiding place at all.

She had no idea where Nigel Nuffield had disappeared to so swiftly after the devastating verdict or, indeed, exactly how, but in any event she did not really want to see him. Not yet. She was too angry. Too defeated.

On autopilot she filed what story she could. The Comet ’s news editor was a woman now, virtually unheard of twenty years earlier. And Pam Smythe’s measured approach was a far cry from that of the bombastic McKane and Foley, who had been traditional Fleet Street newsmen of a very different mould, but Pam was razor sharp and could be quite cutting enough when it was called for. On this occasion she actually sounded embarrassed. Banter was not what it was any more, but even the old guys would probably have held back in this situation. Joanna had screwed up big time and back in Canary Wharf they damn well knew it.

When she had finished her call to the office there was something else she felt she had to do before she could head home to the dubious reception which inevitably awaited her. She set off across the moor to Blackstone to visit the Phillips family. They too had managed to make a quick getaway, somehow getting past the press pack and presumably driving off back to Five Tors. Jo didn’t really want to see them but she felt she could not just walk away from them on this dreadful day. The pack were gathered, just as they had so long ago, at the end of the farm lane, having no doubt already knocked several times on the farmhouse door and been sent away.

Joanna drove straight past them, swung her BMW into the yard and parked right outside the kitchen door, which was opened almost immediately when she knocked on it. They would have heard her arriving, of course, and recognised her car.

Rob Phillips beckoned her into the big kitchen where the entire family were, yet again, gathered round the kitchen table. Without being asked she pulled back a chair and sat down. Just as before. Nobody spoke to her. But at least they had allowed her in.

She glanced around her. Bill Phillips sat head down with his hands clasped round a mug of tea as if drawing comfort from the warmth of it. She could see that his fingers were shaking. He did not look up and for that she was quite grateful. She did not want to see how much more pain there was in his eyes.

Lillian Phillips was sobbing quietly. Joanna thought she had probably been in tears ever since the verdict was announced. Her daughter-in-law had her arm round her but had obviously given up trying to comfort her. What comfort could anyone give this woman, Joanna wondered. Lillian stared at her through her tears, a stare which was a mix of accusation and pleading.

Mary was tight-lipped. Eyes bright in their folds of flesh. She was deceptive. The fat made her look like a West Country version of jolly Ma Larkin. Her voice was a gentle Devonshire burr, but it had a hard edge when she broke the silence. She was, of course, as damaged as the rest of the family by the legacy of the terrible twenty-year-old murder and in reality her personality could not have been further removed from that of the carefree Ma Larkin.

But how could it have been any other way? How could anybody in this family ever be carefree again? As his mother began to speak she glanced at Les, the youngest of them, Angela’s nephew. The lad looked as if he was carrying the cares of the world on his shoulders. Unlike the others, he had not gone through anything like this before. This was his first taste of it. She thought the look of panic in his eyes came from the grim realisation that this had been the family’s one chance to put an end to it all, finally to bury Angela, as he had put it. Now he must know that there would be no end, that Angela’s ghost would probably haunt him for the rest of his life. Joanna couldn’t imagine the bleakness he must be feeling.

Mary Phillips’s words washed over her: harsh, deserved, expected. ‘What was the point of it all? What was the point of dragging it all up again? There is no justice in this country. We should not have listened to you, Joanna Bartlett. Look at the state mother is in, look at her. You did this to her, you and your precious policeman boyfriend. We trusted him before and he let us down. Now we’ve been let down again. By you. By everyone.’

Joanna did not reply. What was there to say? She wondered a little at even Mary referring to Fielding in this way.

Young Les spoke up then. ‘I don’t understand it,’ he said. ‘You promised us we’d get him this time. You promised us it would be all right...’ There was a catch in his voice.

Joanna sighed. ‘Les, I’m not the chairman of the bench. I’m as sorry as you are, as sorry as any of you.’ Even as she said the words she knew they were a mistake.