Clare Mackintosh - I Let You Go

You must remember that he was a boy. That he had a mother. And that her heart is breaking.

The only empty area of the court is the jury box; its twelve seats redundant. I imagine the rows filled with men and women, hearing the evidence, watching me speak, deciding on my guilt. I have spared them that; spared them the torment of wondering whether they’ve made the right decision; spared Anya the pain of her son’s death spread across a courtroom. Ruth Jefferson explained this would work in my favour: judges look more leniently on those who save the courts the expense of a trial.

‘Court rise.’

The judge is old, the stories of a thousand families written across his face. His sharp eyes take in the full courtroom, but don’t linger on me. I am just another chapter in a career full of difficult decisions. I wonder if he has already made up his mind about me – if he already knows how long I should serve.

‘Your Honour, the Crown brings this case against Jenna Gray…’ The Clerk reads from a piece of paper, her voice clear and matter-of-fact. ‘Ms Gray, you are charged with causing death by dangerous driving, and with failing to stop and record an accident.’ She looks up at me. ‘How do you plead?’

I press my hand against the photo in my pocket. ‘Guilty.’

There is a muffled sob from the public gallery.

Her heart is breaking.

‘Please sit down.’

The Crown Prosecution barrister stands up. He lifts a carafe from the table in front of him and he pours slowly and deliberately from it. The sound of water filling his glass is the only noise in the courtroom, and when all eyes are on him, he begins.

‘Your Honour, the defendant has pleaded guilty to causing the death of five-year-old Jacob Jordan. She has admitted that the standard of her driving on that night last November fell far below the standard expected by a reasonable person. In fact, police investigations showed that Ms Gray’s car left the road and mounted the pavement immediately prior to the point of impact, and that she was travelling at between thirty-eight and forty-two miles per hour – far in excess of the thirty-mile-an-hour speed limit.’

I squeeze my hands together. I try to breathe slowly, evenly, but a hardness has formed in my chest and I can’t take in air properly. The sound of my heart seems to echo inside my head and I close my eyes. I can see the rain on the windscreen, hear the scream – my scream – as I see the little boy on the pavement; running, turning his head to shout something to his mother.

‘Furthermore, Your Honour, after hitting Jacob Jordan and – it is believed – killing him outright, the defendant failed to stop.’ The barrister looks around the courtroom; his rhetoric wasted with no jury to impress. ‘She did not get out of the car. She did not call for help. She did not offer any remorse, or practical assistance. Instead, the defendant drove away, leaving five-year-old Jacob in the arms of his traumatised mother.’

She leaned over her son, I remember, her coat almost covering him, protecting him from the rain. The car headlights picked out every detail, and I covered my mouth with my hands, too frightened to breathe.

‘You might imagine, Your Honour, that such an initial reaction could be attributed to shock. That the defendant may have panicked and driven away, and that minutes later, perhaps a few hours – maybe even a day later – she would come to her senses and do the right thing. But, Your Honour, the defendant instead fled the area, hiding in a village a hundred miles away, where nobody knew her. She didn’t give herself up. She may have entered a guilty plea today, but it is a plea born from a realisation that there is nowhere left to run, and the Crown respectfully requests that this be taken into consideration when sentencing.’

‘Thank you, Mr Lassiter.’ The judge makes notes on a pad of paper, and the CPS barrister bows his head before taking his seat, flicking his gown out behind him as he does so. My palms grow damp. There is a wave of hatred from the public gallery.

The defence barrister gathers her papers. Despite my guilty plea, despite the knowledge that I have to pay for what has happened, I suddenly want Ruth Jefferson to fight my corner. Nausea rises in my stomach at the realisation that this is my last chance to speak out. In another few moments the judge will sentence me, and it will be too late.

Ruth Jefferson rises, but before she can speak, the courtroom door flies open with a bang. The judge looks up sharply, his disapproval evident.

Patrick seems so out of place in the courtroom that for a moment I don’t recognise him. He looks at me, visibly shaken to see me handcuffed in a bullet-proof glass box. What is he doing here? I realise the man with him is DI Stevens, who nods his head briefly towards the judge, before making his way to the centre of the courtroom and leaning over to speak in a low voice to the CPS barrister.

The barrister listens intently. He scribbles a note, then stretches an arm across the long bench to pass it to Ruth Jefferson. There is a heavy silence, as though everybody is holding their breath.

My barrister reads the note and gets slowly to her feet. ‘Your Honour, may I be permitted a short recess?’

Judge King sighs. ‘Mrs Jefferson, do I need to remind you how many cases I have this afternoon? You have had six weeks to consult with your client.’

‘I apologise, Your Honour, but information has come to light that may have material bearing on my client’s mitigation.’

‘Very well. You have fifteen minutes, Mrs Jefferson, after which time I fully expect to sentence your client.’

He nods to the clerk.

‘Court rise,’ she calls.

As Judge King leaves the courtroom, a security guard steps into the dock to take me back down to the cell block.

‘What’s going on?’ I ask him.

‘God knows, love, but it’s always the same. Up and down like a bleedin’ yoyo.’

He escorts me back to the airless room in which I spoke to my barrister less than an hour previously. Almost immediately Ruth Jefferson comes in, with DI Stevens behind her. Ruth begins talking before the door has closed behind them.

‘You do realise, Ms Gray, that perverting the course of justice isn’t something the courts take lightly?’

I say nothing, and the barrister sits down. She tucks a stray dark hair back beneath her wig.

DI Stevens reaches into his pocket and drops a passport on to the table. I don’t need to open it to know that it’s mine. I look at him, and at my exasperated barrister, then I put out my hand to touch the passport. I remember filling out the form to change my name ahead of our wedding. I tried out my signature a hundred times, asking Ian which one looked the most grown-up, the most me . When the passport arrived it was the first tangible proof of my change in status, and I couldn’t wait to hand it over at the airport.

DI Stevens leans forward and rests his hands on the table, his face level with mine. ‘You don’t have to protect him any more, Jennifer.’

I flinch. ‘Please don’t call me that.’

‘Tell me what happened.’

I say nothing.

DI Stevens speaks quietly, his calmness making me feel safer, more grounded.

‘We won’t let him hurt you again, Jenna.’

So they know. I let out a slow breath and look first at DI Stevens, and then Ruth Jefferson. I feel suddenly exhausted. The DI opens a brown file on which I see is written ‘Petersen’; my married name. Ian’s name.

‘Lots of calls,’ he says. ‘Neighbours, doctors, passers-by, but never you, Jenna. You never called us. And when we came, you wouldn’t speak to us. Wouldn’t press charges. Why wouldn’t you let us help you?’

‘Because he would have killed me,’ I say.