Conviction, page 19
I nod slowly.
‘Yes, Mr Viklund.’
‘Are you sure? Because you didn’t seem to hold back when cross-examining my wife this morning.’
‘I’m sure.’
The corners of his mouth rise slightly, followed by a brief nod of his head.
‘Good.’
He looks back to the water and watches it for a while, the violence of the current, the algae on either side of the bank a glimmering emerald in the sun.
‘I want you to know I’m serious about this task, Mr Viklund.’
I slip the file from my bag and pass it to him. He looks down at it suspiciously, before taking it slowly from my grasp.
‘What is it?’
‘The evidence I am sending to the prosecution to sabotage my client’s case.’
His eyes flicker with something I can’t pin down. It’s not quite pride, or amusement. Perhaps he is impressed. He opens the file and begins to read, the pages fluttering in his grip from the breeze.
‘This will ensure that whatever I say in defence of my client, we will lose the case. I will need to keep up appearances, looking to be doing my job while sabotaging it from afar. Just like I had been when I was cross-examining your wife. Do you understand?’
He is silent for a moment as he continues to read of his son-in-law’s history. I see the corner of his mouth turn upwards with a smile, before he shuts the file and returns it to me.
‘Perfectly,’ he replies.
‘Because I don’t want you, or your… colleague, to be concerned if I appear to be going against what we’ve discussed.’
‘Message received.’ He drops his eyes to the file. ‘When will you be delivering this evidence?’
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I long for it to be from Hannah, to put my mind at ease. I slip it out and peer at the screen. It’s the errand boy. He has arrived at our meeting place, on the corner of Carter Lane, a small winding back street close to the Bailey.
‘Now.’ I clear my throat and look about me. ‘I’m doing everything you’re asking of me, Mr Viklund. I really hope you’ll keep your word, about not harming me or those I love.’
‘You’ll remember the agreement, when all of this began,’ he says. ‘You were told it was a trade of sorts, correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well then. Fulfil your part of the agreement, and the trade is complete.’ He takes his eyes off the view. ‘We’ll be watching to make sure you do.’
* * *
The errand boy is perched on his bicycle, waiting for me on the corner of Carter Lane, occasionally looking about him for my arrival before returning to his phone screen.
I stop in the nearest doorway and slip the file in a large envelope, with Niall’s name written on the front of it in large black capitals, which I had scrawled in the Bailey’s de-robing room the moment I found myself alone.
I still have time to do the right thing. I could turn around now and be done with it. Face the consequences of my crimes. Sacrifice my freedom for my client’s right to a fair trial. But Mr Viklund’s words whisper in my mind, my heart rate climbing at the sound of his deep, crackling voice. You will lose loved ones, as I have lost mine, and you won’t be able to do a thing about it.
A bout of panic ripples through me. This task Mr Viklund has laid at my feet goes against everything I have ever known as a barrister. It is everything that our society deems wrong. And yet, I have no other choice. If not for my sake, then for Hannah’s. For Maggie’s. I have put them through enough. But beneath the duty to protect them whispers my own selfish greed. If the truth of what I have done was exposed, I would lose the only family I have ever known. Clinging onto the family of the man I killed, to keep them as my own. The twisted nature of it makes my stomach lurch with shame.
I check the time, trying to concentrate on the ticking hands while my pulse drums loudly. The break is almost over. If I don’t do this now, I will lose my chance. Any later and the judge may well refuse to admit the evidence out of principle.
It’s now or never. Us or him.
I take a steeling breath and walk towards the boy. He looks up at me with a smile and the casual nod of his head.
‘All right, miss?’
‘Hi Johnny. Thanks for this.’
He gives me another of those boyish nods.
‘It’s going to the Old Bailey, right?’
‘Yes. The recipient’s name is on the front. You remember what I said?’
‘It didn’t come from you.’
‘That’s right. That part is really important.’
I pass him the envelope of cash first. A tip larger than his fee, paying handsomely for his discretion. He knows I’ve paid him more from the thickness of the envelope, and breaks into a beaming smile.
‘Whatever you say, miss.’ He shoves the envelope of cash inside his jacket before zipping it shut. ‘You got the package?’
I hold the top of the envelope, just poking from my bag. I still have time to change my mind, to choose another path. But time is forever against me. I can practically hear the seconds ticking away, matching the beat of my heart.
It’s now or never.
I lift the envelope free and pass it to him, my heart jolting as the paper parts from my fingers.
‘Cheers miss. I’ll drop you a text when it’s delivered.’
He cycles off, standing on the pedals to build momentum, before zipping down the street.
It’s done.
29
As the trial recommences and the judge enters the courtroom, I stand at my end of the bench feeling sick with anticipation. The prosecution will have had the new-found evidence for just fifteen minutes before we returned to courtroom one. Fifteen minutes to read through the file and gather their argument to add it into evidence for the case against my client. Johnny confirmed the package had arrived before I had even returned to the Bailey. I can see it in the way Niall stands restlessly at his side of the bench. When he peers down towards me, he smiles knowingly, no doubt anticipating his surprise reveal, with no notion that I was the stranger who planted the information. Antony catches his triumphant glare where he sits before me at the solicitors’ row and turns to face me with a questioning expression. I shrug my shoulders to feign ignorance and look down at my files.
After welcoming everyone back to court, Judge McConnell looks to Niall to call back his witness to the box. Only the prosecution and I know what’s to come next.
‘Your Honour, before we begin, there is a matter I would like to address.’
I feel Antony’s eyes as he turns back to me. I don’t look back at him, but keep my focus on the judge, my face poker-straight.
‘And what matter is this?’
‘Fresh evidence has come to light, Your Honour, which we wish to have admitted so the jury have all the relevant facts.’
The judge raises his hand, silencing him instantly. ‘I would like the jury dismissed before you go any further, Mr Richardson.’
‘Yes, Your Honour.’
The jurors file out, an air of confusion and intrigue about them, as they glance to one another and head for the door. The public gallery seems to have woken up, talking to each other in hushed whispers. I look towards them, and find Mr Viklund staring back at me.
Once the jury has been dismissed, the judge returns his attention to Niall and me.
‘You’re aware you had the chance to submit your evidence prior to this trial, Mr Richardson? This is how proceedings are set for every trial. I can’t think why this should be any different.’
The adrenaline must be surging through Niall at this moment. A piece of evidence that, if admitted, will land him the trial has just fallen into his lap without him lifting a finger. I can imagine he feels like the luckiest barrister in the world. And me, the unluckiest.
‘Yes, Your Honour. Unfortunately, we were not made aware of this evidence until this afternoon. We cannot disclose evidence to the court in advance if said evidence isn’t available.’
The judge sighs and slips his spectacles from the bridge of his nose, and begins to rub them clean with the sleeve of his robe.
‘And what is this evidence you speak of?’ he asks.
‘It is to do with the defendant’s medical history.’
‘You were given this by the defence during the preliminary proceedings, were you not?’
‘Not this evidence, Your Honour. This was not featured on his medical file; the health matter in question was dealt with privately, which one can only assume was to keep the evidence from his medical records—’
‘You can save your assumptions, Mr Richardson. I am quite capable of forming my own judgement without your assistance.’ He sighs again, before replacing his glasses upon his nose. ‘I would like to see this evidence.’
‘I would also like to see it, Your Honour,’ I say from my side of the bench.
The judge nods dismissively, reaching out for the file as it is brought to him, and begins to read while another copy is brought to me. I look down, scanning it as if I wasn’t the person to drop the file into the prosecution’s lap, before passing it to Antony. I watch his shoulders tense up as he reads, and look with bated breath towards the judge. His eyes follow the words on the page, reading the history that will inevitably damn my client to a life in prison. All done by my hand.
The air in the room thickens, and the time creeps on, the faint ticking of a clock or a watch being the only backdrop to the judge’s turning of the pages. He closes the file, exhaling deeply through his nostrils.
‘Court will be adjourned for the day so I can consider this matter. I will have my decision on admission by the morning.’
The judge stands, and Niall and I follow suit, the creak of benches and squeak of chairs sounding through the room. Antony looks up at me, wide-eyed with confusion.
‘Don’t worry until we have to,’ I say quietly. ‘We will have a conference in the morning after I meet with the judge and go from there.’
I look towards my client in the dock, taking in the grey-pale skin of his face, and give him a deceptively supportive nod.
He doesn’t know it, but I have just sacrificed his future for my own.
* * *
I return home to find myself alone, and yet I still feel that unfamiliar thrum in the air; there’s a sense to the place now that I’m not the only one living in it, finding Hannah’s presence wherever I look: her coat on the peg, a pair of shoes that aren’t mine, a mug left on the coffee table, sticky at the rim with tinted lip gloss; the subtle, lingering scent of her girlish perfume in the air.
I need to see the train tracks.
I stride through the house without removing my shoes, and as I step into the kitchen, I spot a note on the breakfast table from Hannah: she is out with a friend and will be home for dinner.
So much for being ill.
I stand at the back door and stare through the glass past the garden, which is dark with the evening’s shadows. Even from here, I can see the progress the workers have made. The trees at the bottom of my house are still standing, but by the long line of those felled before them, they will undoubtedly be the next to go.
I’m not sure how much time I have until Hannah returns. But I do know that if I want to retrieve the spade I used to bury Matthew without being seen, this is my window to do it.
When I was dealing with the aftermath, covering my blood-stained tracks, I knew that if I wanted a good chance at getting away with the murder, I needed to keep each damning item apart. The body at the bottom of the garden. The murder weapon hidden in storage. I wonder what Hannah would say if she knew that the spade I used to bury her father was hiding directly above our heads.
I head up the stairs and cross the landing, taking the long hook from the airing cupboard as I pass and using it to open the loft hatch, guiding the door open until it dangles on its hinges, its squeal echoing up through the hatch and into the darkness.
I drag down the ladder and climb up into the cold, dark loft, shivering as the draught greets me. I turn on the torch on my phone and clamber up.
The last task I had to cover my tracks was to hide the spade I used to bury him. I knew the police would search my premises. So, I found the next best thing.
I make my way towards the brick wall separating next door’s property from mine and crouch down towards the right-hand side where I’d loosened the bricks. I begin lifting them free, stacking them beside me until my fingertips are gritty with orange dust. Lucinda’s loft is filled to the rafters with boxes and bin bags of belongings heaped on top of one another; old files stacked bare and speckled with damp. She can’t know half the things she has in there. Which works in my favour.
When the gap is big enough, I reach in, feeling blindly in the darkness, my fingertips collecting dust and cobwebs, until I feel the rustle of the black bin bag hidden behind a tower of boxes, and the cold metal of the spade within. I drag it forwards, edging it bit by bit so as not to send Lucinda’s things toppling down upon me, and guide it through the gap. I sit with it in my lap, breathing heavily as dust tickles my throat.
Even through the bag, I can smell the earth that once coated the spade. It’s impossible of course, after scrubbing it as thoroughly as I did, and the amount of bleach I used. But the weight of it in my hands instantly reminds me of all the gruesome details that haunt me to this day.
I am just putting the last few bricks back into place when I hear my name called from beyond the hatch.
Hannah.
I cock my head, and hear her footsteps on the stairs.
‘What’re you doing?’ she asks from the foot of the ladder.
‘Looking for something, I’ll be down in a minute.’ I blow a lock of hair from my face with a hot huff of air. ‘Pre-heat the oven for me, would you?’
‘Okay.’
I stay deathly still, listening as she heads back down, not daring to move again until I’m sure she’s out of sight. When I hear the sound of the television downstairs, I crawl across the boards with the spade rustling in the black bin bag, dangle my legs over the open hatch, and slowly reach out for the first rung of the ladder. The metal creaks beneath my weight. I try to think of a place to hide it until nightfall, a place where Hannah won’t find it. The longer she stays here, the more comfortable she seems about the place. It wouldn’t surprise me if she spent her time alone in the house finding all of its nooks and crannies, looking for things her father left behind.
I’ve just reached the landing when I hear Hannah on the stairs again.
‘Neve?’ she asks.
I impulsively bolt into my bedroom, scanning furiously for a place to hide the spade, before dropping to my knees and thrusting it beneath the bed. Hannah appears in the doorway as I get back to my feet, and I pretend to collect something from the bedside drawer.
‘What’s up?’ I ask. I find a Lipsol inside the drawer and play the part by running it across my lips.
She nods towards the ladder. ‘Do you have anything of Dad’s up there?’
She looks and sounds so childlike as she says this. It fascinates me how she can flit between a child and a young adult with just the flick of her lashes, the variable tone of her voice.
‘What sort of stuff?’
She shrugs.
‘I don’t know. Photos, maybe? Of him as a kid, me as a baby, that sort of stuff?’
My heart sinks. I have been so caught up in my own dilemma that I hadn’t considered how big of a deal this temporary move must be for Hannah. She stayed at weekends of course, and school holidays, but this was very much mine and Matthew’s space that she came to visit, rather than a place to call her own.
‘I’m sure I do. How about you make us dinner and I’ll have a look up there.’
Her face softens, and a smile slowly curls the corners of her lips.
‘Okay. What would you like for dinner?’
‘Surprise me.’
She nods, the smile still firmly on her face, and turns back for the stairs.
‘You’re feeling better then?’ I ask.
Right on time, she coughs.
‘I had to meet a friend to collect homework, still feel rough. I feel worse at night.’
‘Right,’ I say, not buying it for a second. ‘Well, we’ll see how you feel in the morning then.’
She nods and heads for the stairs, and as I listen to the reassuring creaks of the floorboards, I sit down on the edge of the bed with a sigh and close my eyes, trying to calm my racing heart.
* * *
I sit in the armchair in my living room, watching the clock on the wall approach midnight. Once Hannah had gone up to bed, I snuck out of the house and moved the car to the church car park, closest to the wire fence separating the grounds from the tracks, ready to transfer the body to the boot. All I need to do is collect the spade from beneath my bed, and make my way towards the tracks.
I watch the seconds pass on the clock, my nerves jumping with each tick. If I’m going to do this without being caught, I need to do so in the dead of night, where there is less chance of being spotted. I have dressed in black from head to toe to blend into the shadows.
I have dreaded this day from the moment I buried him. Now I have no choice: it’s time to dig up the past and face what I did.
The clock nears ten seconds, nine… My chest grows tight. As the clock strikes midnight and the church bells sound, the memories hit me.
Gong.
Thwack.
Gong.
Thwack.
Gong.
Thwack.
They say you can’t outrun trauma, that you must deal with it. But what might be a possibility for other people isn’t an option for me; I cannot go to a therapist without confessing my crimes. In a strange way, I have accepted the notion that this will stay with me forever. That this eternal prison I have made for myself is the consequence of my actions. The punishment for my sin.
