The Fall (36 page)

‘Then what happened?’

‘I proceeded to the defendant’s residence, cautioned him, and made the arrest.’

‘Did the defendant reply to the charge?’

‘Mr Stockbridge said, “It’s that guy from the club.” ’ Hegarty read from his notebook.

‘Was anyone else there?’

‘Yes. Miss Miller – his, er, his fiancée. She was upset. She said, “I don’t even do drugs”.’ He held his tongue to keep from defending Charlotte, and did his best not to look over to where she sat. ‘Mr Stockbridge was taken to the station where he gave fingerprints, and was questioned. He admitted punching Mr Johnson, but said he then left. I then showed him pictures taken at the scene of the death.’

‘And what was his reaction?’

Hegarty cleared his throat. ‘It was my opinion that he was genuinely shocked to learn the victim was dead. He said, “But it was only a light punch”.’

‘Interview transcripts are available in your packs, my Lord, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, Officer, was the defendant protesting his innocence?’

‘Yes. He appeared to be very surprised by the arrest.’

‘And did he continue to protest so?’

‘Er, not entirely. He said he might have had some kind of blackout.’

Here the judge interrupted. ‘Mr Hunt, it would be useful here to clarify what is medically meant by “blacking out”. As I understand it, this term is rather meaningless.’

There was then a lot of talking and shuffling of papers. Hegarty stopped listening, looking the whole time at Charlotte’s bent fair head. She looked miserable; so did Stockbridge. The man stared at his feet but his hands were visibly trembling.

The judge was still talking. ‘So we can enter that the defendant had some kind of stress-induced memory loss, can we describe it so? Miss McCausland?’

He was speaking to Kylie. She blinked calmly. ‘That is acceptable to the defence, my Lord.’

Hunt finally came back to Hegarty. ‘You took statements from the defendant’s former place of work, I believe. Could you please summarise these for us, Officer?’

Bloody hell, he wished he couldn’t. ‘Well, there was a complaint on record from a former colleague.’

‘And the nature?’

‘Bullying,’ said Hegarty reluctantly. ‘Racist bullying, was the claim. But it was the team, not—’

‘Just a brief summary, please, Officer. No further questions. Thank you.’

Fuck. Charlotte must hate him. He looked around for her, but couldn’t see her face.

Next Kylie stood up, pulling her too-big robes round her like a little girl on Bring-your-daughter-to-work Day. ‘Officer Hegarty,’ she said softly, and tipped him her quick wink. ‘You found prints on the bottle. This was the drink that Mr Stockbridge was trying to pay for with his declined credit card, was it?’

‘I believe so, yes.’

‘Wouldn’t his prints be on it from that, then?’

‘Yes, of course they would be.’

‘My client was at the scene, obviously, that is not in dispute. He touched the bottle, obviously – it was his drink. He got into a row, picked up the drink, and followed Mr Johnson to his office. He then came out several minutes later, and was captured on CCTV exiting and meeting his fiancée. Taxi records show they then went home. Is that an accurate summary of the facts?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘You said there was a lot of blood, Officer.’ Her voice was soft. ‘Would you expect the perpetrator then to be sprayed with it?’

Hunt stood up. ‘My Lord, the witness is not forensically trained.’

Kylie looked innocent. ‘He is an experienced police officer, my Lord.’

‘Proceed.’ The judge didn’t look up.

Hegarty said, ‘In my experience, yes. Usually.’

‘Did you find any on my client’s clothes?’

‘A small drip on his sleeve.’

‘Which might be consistent with the sort of light punch my client admitted to?’

‘Objection! This is not the witness’s area of expertise!’

Kylie just smiled. ‘Withdrawn. You yourself contaminated the defendant’s home, did you not, Officer?’

‘Yes, I inadvertently tracked in some blood during the arrest, but it was catalogued and disregarded.’

‘My Lord, you will find in your pack a statement from the taxi driver who took the couple home. Like Miss Miller, he also noticed nothing odd, certainly not the copious sprays of blood that the scene shows came from the victim.’

‘Get on with it, Counsel.’ The judge was tetchy.

She smiled. ‘R-i-i-ght. The HR report you found, Officer. Was this against my client only?’

‘No, it was more about the atmosphere in the bank generally.’

‘Where is this report you refer to?’ The judge was leafing through his papers.

Oh,’ said Kylie, mock-innocent. ‘Did the prosecution fail to include this paper?’

‘I will see that the report is submitted, my Lord,’ said Hunt quickly.

‘Do so. And in future kindly do not call on a report which the court has not seen.’

Slight titters. Hegarty smiled, but lost it quickly when he caught a glimpse of Stockbridge out of the corner of his eye. The man was swaying; he looked as if he might collapse at any moment.

The last kid had already come streaming out of the primary school, but there was no sign of Ruby. The bushes were dry, half-dead compared to when Keisha had hidden in them back in June. Covered in the dust of a long London summer.

Well, the kid wasn’t there today. Was she sick? Had they moved her? Keisha had no idea. She pushed her way out from the wall and walked away from the school. Where to go now? She didn’t want to go home – there was too much she was hiding from Charlotte. The club door, and – well, other things.

Where else? She couldn’t go to work; in fact, she’d rung in sick the last few days. Afraid to see Ron and have to explain what she couldn’t even understand herself. Afraid he’d kiss her again, afraid he never would if he knew what she’d done.

Shit, coppers! Keisha flattened herself into a shop doorway as on the other side of the road two officers went by. Yellow vests. Community Support, but still. She was staying well away. They could get you too, Chris had said. She didn’t want to think about that, or anything he’d said. Best to lie low.

Keisha walked on, and after a while, she wasn’t really surprised to find herself opposite the Church of Holy Hope. Maybe it was the last place that reminded her of Mercy, with the house gone. She slipped in the open doors – they left churches open, it seemed – and sat down at the back on one of the plastic chairs. The building hummed round her, empty and quiet, homemade God-bothering posters peeling off the wall.

She thought about Charlotte, how she was spending all her time rushing round with Dan’s parents, doing interviews, swotting up on what happened at court each day. Keisha hadn’t even gone yet. She’d stopped asking how it was going. She heard Charlotte crying at night; that told her pretty much everything she needed to know. Meanwhile all the shit in the papers went on, even though the judge had told them to stop. They didn’t stop.

‘Mum,’ she whispered. ‘I need some help.’ Of course, nothing. Then she heard a noise and nearly jumped out of her skin. ‘Jesus!’

‘No, only myself, I fear.’ It was the pastor. He had slippers on his feet. ‘It’s young Keisha, is it? Sister Mercy’s child.’

‘Yeah, that’s me.’ She wanted to explain what she was doing there, but realised she couldn’t.

He sat down beside her, joints creaking. She stared up at the altar, glowing slightly with security lighting. ‘What’s it for?’ she said out loud. ‘Why do people come here?’

He rearranged his empty sleeve. ‘Many reasons – comfort, company. Why have you come?’

‘Dunno.’

‘For answers, perhaps? For help?’

‘I want to know what I should do.’ She was speaking quietly in the silent room. ‘You see, there’s this thing – a thing people want me to do. But I don’t know if I should do it or not.’

‘But I think you already know what the right thing is. We always do.’

She stared hard ahead. ‘I’m scared.’

‘It’s normal.’ He held up the sleeve. ‘You have seen this? This hand was taken from me because I did what I thought I should. Yes, I said, not, No. I was scared then, when they brought the machete.’

She wanted to say, Yeah, but, you were probably in a war or something, not North London. ‘I can’t be brave like that.’

‘You don’t know if you can be brave until you have to. I promise you, there is no way to know.’

‘Oh,
great
.’

He laughed quietly and got up, laying his good hand on her shoulder. She smelled his fusty smell.

Keisha sat for a while in the cool dark of the church, then got up and ventured out to the noise of the thundering traffic. If she got there before six it would be OK, she thought.

The library was still open when she arrived, the windows glowing warm and orange. She’d been worried Julie mightn’t be in, but there she was, stamping books behind the desk. It was a sign, if you believed in things like that. ‘Ah, it’s you! “Shondra.” ’

‘Yep. Back again.’ Keisha grinned nervously.

‘Don’t tell me, you wanted to read Jordan’s next autobiography. How you doing?

‘I’m all right.’ She realised that she still had no real home, no proper job, and no Ruby, but somehow she was better than when she’d last seen Julie. She wasn’t sure how, but she was. ‘Surviving.’

Julie peered over her glasses. ‘Course you are. What can I do you for?’

‘Well.’ Keisha leaned over the counter on her elbows. ‘You got any legal books?’

Julie pushed back her wheely chair. ‘Finally! I told you life was exciting here.’

Jamie checked his watch for the third time. ‘We should just make it. These people don’t hang about, you know.’ The heel of Charlotte’s stiletto caught in the lift door as she got in, it was so long since she’d worn them. Her brother caught her arm. ‘Careful.’

As the lift soared silently up, out of the glass walls Charlotte could see palaces of steel and light, reflected in the rough grey water of the docks. Down below, small figures hurried, tapping into phones, oblivious. Had Dan really been one of them just months ago?

‘You ready?’ Jamie cast a critical eye over her, red-faced from rushing from court, roots growing through. We’re so far away from what we were, she thought, the two of them zooming up this tunnel of light. Dan had always said the higher you went in Haussmann’s, the more important you were. On the very top floor were the executives, god-like, alighting in helicopters. She fidgeted with her hair in the mirrored door.

‘Calm down. You can’t show fear.’

‘But I’m scared.’

‘Well, don’t be. This happens all the time here. It’s routine.’ He was twiddling with his own BlackBerry.

Routine. The rapid collapse of her life and Dan’s, being forced to sue the place where he’d worked for eight years, that was routine? No wonder Dan had gone into shock when he thought all this was falling down: it was like a small city, she thought, as they swished past floors and floors of plush carpet and glass. A city with its own laws. Its own punishments.

The lift voice said, ‘Thirty-second floor.’ If not quite top-floor material, they were certainly up there. Jamie put his hand out to hold the door. ‘This is it. Sure you want to do it?’

‘Of course. Why?’

‘It’s just – it doesn’t sound like the trial’s going so well. And when I saw him at the prison, well, I told you. He’s not looking too good.’

She pushed out. ‘It’ll be fine. He hasn’t had a chance to speak yet. You’ll see. Come on.’

They were ushered into a hushed boardroom by one of the sleek smiling women who seemed to run these places. Charlotte gaped at the floor-to-ceiling views of the city, the sun sinking over the O
₂
dome.

‘Don’t fidget,’ said Jamie, taking out his files.

But she was worried. These people had ruled Dan’s life. Through the glass walls she saw a bald man with a moustache look their way, talking to the receptionist. ‘Oh my God, Jamie, look.’

‘Yeah,’ Jamie whispered. ‘I know. He does look exactly like Phil.’

She couldn’t help but let out a nervous trill of laughter, and Jamie’s tired face creased, and they had to smother their giggles as the man who looked so much like their step-father came towards them.

Just like in court, Charlotte couldn’t follow much of what was being said in the meeting. Yes, she told them, Dan had appeared stressed for months, sleeping badly, snapping easily.

The suits looked unmoved. They’d already talked about the responsibility of employees to ‘manage their own stress’. ‘We don’t require anyone to work more than EU laws state,’ said Moustache Man, pompously. He had the stale breath of the corporate luncher.

‘That’s rubbish,’ Charlotte burst out. ‘Dan knew he’d be fired if he didn’t do at least sixty hours a week.’

‘You will find nowhere that’s stated, Miss Miller.’

‘You don’t have to write it down to make it true.’

Jamie gave her a warning look. ‘Why don’t you go and grab a coffee, Charlotte? We’ll go over some figures here.’

‘Well, OK.’ Glad to get out of the stuffy room, she flounced to the ladies’ and splashed cold water carefully over her make-up. She kept imagining how Dan would have felt, stuck inside this steel box all day, watching clouds dissolve into the water. Maybe prison wouldn’t seem so strange if you’d been locked up here for years. She tried to remember why she was here. Dan needed something from these people, and she had to get it for him. She had to help him.

In the reception area there was a familiar face, leaning over the desk at the girl. ‘Hello, Alex,’ she heard herself say. It was almost funny, how he looked. As if he’d seen a ghost.

‘Charlotte! How are you?’

She stepped back in case he tried to kiss her cheek. ‘Not great, my fiancé’s in jail.’

‘Yes – um, how’s he doing?’ Alex Carter, Dan’s former boss, fiddled with the knot on his tie.

‘How do you think? You can always go and visit, if you want to know.’

‘Yes, well. I must get back.’

She raised her voice. ‘You don’t blame yourself then, Alex?’

‘Me?’

‘I know you gave him the coke in the first place. I know you gave stuff to the police – his HR record, told them all about his blackouts. I know why you did it, too.’