The Fall (39 page)

Kylie then re-questioned Dr Smith and was now worrying at another detail like a dog with a bone. ‘Doctor, you re-examined the police findings, I believe. The glass bottle – in the prosecution’s theory, in order to be used as a weapon, it would have been smashed somewhere in the office, we assume? Aside from the shattering that occurred after the bottle had been used, was any glass found in the room?’

‘It wasn’t,’ said the doctor. ‘But it could have been disturbed, of course. There was considerable disarray at the scene, suggesting several people had been in and out. I believe the staff had tried to help the victim when they discovered him.’

Kylie let that sink in; she knew they wouldn’t win by avoiding the sad central fact of this case, that a man was dead. ‘And was broken glass found anywhere else in the building?’

‘Yes, outside in the corridor. The defendant could have smashed it going in. It could also be that Daniel Stockbridge simply dropped the bottle outside the room – on his way
out
, crucially – and some other person picked it up and used it on the victim.’

Someone gasped. The doctor continued, ‘We just can’t tell from the forensic evidence.’

‘Meaning we can’t tell if Daniel Stockbridge struck the fatal blow?’

‘Not for certain, no.’

The room exploded into murmurs, the judge called for order, and Hegarty caught Kylie’s eye, and the flicker of her almost unnoticeable wink. ‘My Lord,’ she said. ‘The defence calls DC Matthew Hegarty again.’

Bloody hell. This was it.

Kylie shifted on her feet at her desk, her robes almost trailing on the floor. ‘Officer Hegarty, as we know, no one else went into the corridor
from the club
. Can you tell the court how many exits there are from this corridor?’

Oh, crap. But he’d agreed to it, hadn’t he? No going back now. He cleared his throat. ‘There’s the main door, and there’s also a back door, to an alley.’

She let this sink in. ‘To confirm, there are
two
main doors leading into and out of the corridor? Could you indicate on the diagram, please?’ She even had a floorplan of the club, the office marked in a red cross, the staffroom and storeroom there, and at the back the fateful door. ‘Please describe this door to us, DC Hegarty.’

What a daft question. It was door-shaped? In the wall? ‘An iron door,’ he said carefully. ‘A fire escape sign on it, and an alarm warning.’

‘The door was alarmed, to be clear?’

He hung his head. ‘I don’t know if we checked.’

‘I’m sorry, can you repeat that?’ Kylie, who had perfectly good hearing, was all sweetness and light.

‘I don’t know if we checked if it was definitely on an alarm or not, that night. The sign said it was.’

She let that one sink in, too, a little smile playing round her mouth. There was Charlotte, behind a fat man. She was pale. Her eyes locked on Hegarty.

Kylie said, ‘So, to confirm, Officer, there is a back door, which may or may not have been alarmed on the night in question.’

He stammered, ‘I think I made a mistake. Yes. I didn’t check.’

Murmurs spread out through the room and the judge tutted again.

‘Thank you. That’s all.’ Kylie sat down abruptly.

Hunt got up. ‘You recently took yourself off this case, did you not, Officer?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

Shit.
Shit
. ‘I, er . . . I felt I was not as impartial as I should be.’

‘How would you describe your relationship with Miss Miller, Mr Stockbridge’s fiancée?’

Hegarty glanced at Kylie to see would she yell out, ‘Objection!’ like they did on telly, but she just sat there calmly. ‘We got to be friends, I suppose.’

Hunt turned over his papers. ‘Isn’t it true, Officer, that, according to your own statement, you visited her in Singapore over a month back?’

‘Well, I was in transit, but . . .’

‘Yes or no, Officer?’

‘Yes, I did.’

Hunt pointed. ‘I put it to you, DC Hegarty, that you have fallen for Miss Miller, to the serious detriment of this case and your investigation. Is that correct?’

‘I . . . I . . .’

‘Is that correct, Officer? You have developed unprofessional feelings for Miss Miller?’

‘I . . .’

‘Answer the question!’

There was a sliding sound, a chink of metal off wood, and all heads turned. Daniel Stockbridge had fallen forward, hitting his head on the glass of the dock. His eyes rolled, a bubble of spit foamed at his mouth. The courtroom exploded in noise.

‘Can someone call a doctor?’ said Kylie in clear tones, over the hubbub. ‘Mr Stockbridge is having a seizure.’

‘There you are!’ Ron was in the office when she showed up, staring at his computer again. It made her sad to see how he looked up when she went in. Like he’d missed her. ‘Haven’t seen you for ages, missus. Where you been?’

‘Had to go to prison.’ She was standing in the doorway, still in her jacket.

He smiled. ‘Been doing armed robbery again?’

She didn’t laugh. ‘Had to visit my ex. Chris, you know.’

‘Oh. What’s he done?’

She had to tell him. There was no more time left. ‘Stabbed someone in a bar.’ She saw his open face slide into confusion. She had to tell him. Had to tell him now.

Keisha took a deep breath. The filing cabinet was digging into her back. ‘You know I was here that night, yeah? When your brother . . . Chris, he had some business with your Anthony. Dunno what it was. Anyway, when it all kicks off, Chris scarpers, leaves me at the club on my own. And when I get home, he’s there in bed. So I’m thinking, That’s a bit weird. Then I see his shoes. All covered in red. Stepped on a kebab, he says, but I’m thinking, That don’t look like ketchup to me.’

She could see his hands, gripping the desk. She went on. ‘So then Monday comes, he wants to go to court – this bail hearing. That’s when your Rachel gave Dan’s girl a kicking – Charlotte, that was.’

‘Charlotte?’ His face creased in confusion.

‘Yeah, so I says to Chris, Why’d we go, why’d you set those girls on Charlotte? He asked that Mel to steal her purse, you know. And when I ask him, he hits me – see?’ She pointed at the faint scar over her eye. ‘Then he puts me out, and next I hear he’s after me and Charlotte. So I went to Char’s, to warn her, like. And, you know, I ended up staying. Didn’t have nowhere else to go.’

Ronald was staring at the computer like it was a really hard Sudoku. ‘You’re saying you think your fella, this Chris, had something to do with our Anthony? But – they got the guy for it.’

‘I dunno, do I? I’m not on the bloody police, am I?’

She saw it spread through him, the shock, until he was rigid. ‘You been here all this time, and you never told me? They maybe got the wrong fella and you never said?’

‘I dunno! How’m I meant to know?’

‘You should of told me.’ He looked up at her. ‘Thought you was different, Keesh.’

‘I’m sorry! What was I meant to say? “I saw my ex and his shoes were red all over”? Doesn’t prove anything, does it?’

‘You should of said something.’

She was still standing at the door. Last time she’d been there he’d kissed her. When she was finished with what she had to say, he’d never want to see her again. She was sure of that, but she had to say it anyway. ‘They want me in court,’ she said desperately. May as well tell him everything. ‘They want me to say about Chris, but I went to see him, and he asked me not to, he said we can start again and we’ll get Ruby back . . . You ever wonder why the kid doesn’t live with me, eh? You wonder why? Well, it’s ’cos he broke her arm. Comes home one day, he’s been fired ’cos of the recession, and she’s just trying to give him a hug, make him feel better, but she spills his beer. So her own dad broke her little arm, and this guy, this guy still asks me to help him after that. So what’m I meant to do? How do I know they won’t come after me too, and then what’ll happen to my Ruby?’ She was crying. ‘What’ll I do, Ron? Tell me and I’ll do it.’

‘You’re asking me? For fuck’s sake.’ Ronald hardly ever swore. He went to church, for God’s sake.

‘Yeah, you tell me. He was your brother. I don’t know nothing any more. You tell me. Will I do it?’

He was staring at his hands, saying nothing. She felt it all rising up in her, desperate, spilling over, like she was going to scream or something. ‘I never even told anyone everything. There’s more.’

He looked up. His face was terrible but she kept going. ‘I
saw
. You see? I was in the loos that night, when they had that row – your brother, and that banker. When I come out I see Chris is gone, left me, the twat, and there’s still shouting. So I just wait there by the loos.’ She pointed through the wall to where she’d waited in the dark, that night when everything had gone so wrong. ‘And I see him come back out, Dan Stockbridge. You saw it on the CCTV – all swaying, like he’s drunk, yeah. No blood on him. I wrote it all on this here computer, when I was here.’

Ronald made a quick movement like he was going to lash out, and she backed away. ‘Listen, wait. Everyone saw that, I know, but I saw down the corridor, from where I was. You know? I was right beside the door, and it swings open, and I see Dan Stockbridge drop the bottle and smash it there in the corridor. Not in the office.’ She pointed again. ‘Out there, in the corridor.
After
he comes out. You see? I saw it.’

There was a long pause. His voice was awful, choked. ‘Did you see my brother? Did you see him, still alive?’

Keisha tried to remember, the dark of the club, the flashing lights, someone glimpsed down a corridor in the time it took for a door to swing shut. How could she know then how important it was going to be, how many lives would depend on that split second?

‘I – I think so,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I never knew for sure – didn’t know what I was looking at, did I? I didn’t know it’d matter. But I think so. There was someone standing there . . . You know, I might go to prison too, Ron. And Ruby – what’ll happen to her? Who’ll look after her? She’s got no one. So you tell me now, Ronald Johnson, you tell me, will I do it?’

He got up, scraping his chair back. ‘What, tell the fucking truth for once? Yeah, you do it, Keisha. But don’t come back here after, yeah?’

‘I’m sorry!’

He shook his head. ‘Just go.’

She backed out. ‘You’re the one with the bloody computer. What you got on it? You never gave that to the police, did you?’

Ronald froze.

‘Yeah, Rachel told me. Said he was into everything, your brother, up to his bloody guts in the gangs. You really think it was some City banker knocked him off?’

He sagged. It was awful to see, such a tall, strong man. ‘He was my brother.’

‘Yeah, well, Chris was my boyfriend.’

Ronald looked at her. Neither of them said anything for a long time. ‘Oh, fuck it.’ She went out and slammed the door behind her.

She couldn’t help it any more, not since she’d cried that night over stupid Ian Stone. The tears were running over her face and into her mouth as she packed up her staff locker, taking out an empty can of Impulse, a picture of Ruby.

‘What’s this then?’ Dario burst in, preening at his cropped hair in the mirror. ‘You’re late.’

‘Been fucking fired, haven’t I? You’ll have to get Rachel back on tills.’

‘Crap,’ he muttered. ‘You OK?’ He looked at her full on, no sympathy.

She swallowed down the tears but they didn’t stop. A week ago it’d have killed her to cry in front of Dario, but now it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing did. ‘I’ll be fine, OK? Just sick of this – always moving on, leaving people. Even when it’s a rubbish job. You get used to people, don’t you?’

Dario looked in the mirror again, rubbed down one of his eyebrows. ‘There’s always more people, babes. You don’t need the ones you think you do, not always.’

But Ronald. How did you find another Ronald? A six-foot-four brick shithouse who made curry, was nice to his mum.

‘Look at me,’ Dario pointed to himself. ‘Whole family kicked me out, said I was an offence to God.’ He turned to go, clapping her on the arm with more real feeling than any of his air-kisses. ‘There’s always more people. You’ll be OK, Keisha Collins.’

For a second she wanted to ask him if his name was really Dario. But maybe it was better not to know. As she went out into the early dusk of London streets, bars crowded on the warm autumn night, buses rumbling, it was a funny thought to know that Chris couldn’t be near. For once she knew exactly where he was, and there was no need to look around and look back again as she set off home.

Keisha went to Charlotte’s. No one was there; Charlotte had gone out for dinner with Dan’s folks. That was pretty much all they did, eat out, and the mother was always complaining things were ‘too rich’.

In the quiet flat, Keisha picked up the phone and listened to the dialling tone, before keying in the number on a scrap of napkin she’d dug out of her purse. She stood there with her tongue out, listening to it ring for a long time. ‘Hi,’ she said, clearing her throat. ‘This is Keisha here. Keisha Collins. You said you’d help me, if I needed it. Well, I do need it. I really need some help.’

Then suddenly, it was all coming to an end. After Dan had a seizure in court, there was an adjournment. There were meetings between the prosecution and defence. There were mutterings, rumours in the press. There’d be a mistrial. There was new evidence. No one had a clue what was going on. In the few days of adjournment, she waited. She tried to call Kylie, didn’t get through. She stayed inside and watched. Finally, there was a call from Hegarty.

All he said was, ‘There’s a new witness.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘I don’t know, couldn’t find out. They’re still wrangling over it.’

‘Must be some new Forensics person.’ But what was the point? They’d already had so many, and it was just like chucking wet paper at the brick wall of the facts. The camera. The prints. The row. Even the door, it hadn’t been enough. There was a heavy weight in her stomach.

‘Aye. Most likely.’ His voice was very tired. ‘I’ll see you, Charlotte.’ He hadn’t called her by her name much. The sound of it made her sad. She didn’t know why.

The day before the trial started again, Charlotte woke up very early. She sat in her window watching the light come up pink and grey over Parliament Hill. Keisha hadn’t come home the night before, and Charlotte no longer knew where she was or what she was doing. The certainty she had, that the girl knew more than she’d said, it would probably never go away. It lodged in Charlotte’s chest like a ball of lead. She’d done her best for Dan, she’d given up everything she could. But maybe it just hadn’t been enough. Because whatever she did, those facts weren’t going away.