It Ends At Midnight, page 12
David’s face is tense. He’s scrawling a note on a piece of paper and thrusting it to the solicitor behind him.
Liam continues. ‘Philip hates Ryan because Ryan’s a better player. That’s why he forced him to play badly. That’s why he wanted to do him over when we saw him on the street. It was just me and Philip. I shouldn’t have gone along with it but I did. I’m sorry. But Ryan’s confused when he says there were three of us there. Daniel wasn’t there. Just me and Philip. Philip was the one with the knife. Philip said we had to deny everything, but if you’re going to believe Ryan, you’ve got to believe that Daniel wasn’t involved. I don’t give a shit about Philip, but Daniel’s my friend and this isn’t fair.’
His words have poured out, one after the other, a relentless indictment of Philip’s behaviour. I’ve been like a rabbit in headlights but now I unfreeze, holding my hand up and telling Monique to take instructions from her client before this evidence goes any further. David stands up and addresses me, ice in his voice. ‘Might I suggest, Ma’am, that you take back control of your court? This is outrageous behaviour. I expect you to put this outburst out of your mind, Ma’am. This is not evidence which you should consider, particularly as it has not been put to my client.’
I nod, though I’m fuming at how patronising he sounds. To be fair, the situation has got out of hand. I tell all three representatives that we need to have a discussion in judge’s chambers once Daniel and Liam’s representative has spoken to them both, given the turn the case has taken. I then retire, relieved to have a break for a while from the high drama of the situation. Something about it has left me profoundly uneasy, more shaken than it ought.
While I’m waiting for them to sort out the mess that’s taken over the trial, I check my phone. Various messages from Tess and Gareth, a juxtaposition of filth and family arrangements that makes me laugh despite the stress I’m feeling, and a message from Marcus suggesting we meet for a drink after work this evening. We have things to discuss, the message says ominously. I text back. El Vino’s 6 p.m. and receive a thumbs up in return. I don’t ask what. I don’t want to know. There’s enough to deal with here.
The QC’s scorn of me has got under my skin a little, the thought of my application to the Crown Court bench in my mind. If I don’t get the situation under control, he could easily let the Judicial Appointments Commission know how badly this trial has fallen apart, scuppering my chances. So much hangs on whether we can salvage something from this mess. If the whole trial has to be vacated so that a new district judge can take it over, it’s going to look shambolic on my part.
That’s not what’s shaken me, though. It’s something more profound than that. The look in Liam’s eyes as he finally told the truth, protecting his friend. The look of integrity. That’s what’s wrong. I have weighed myself in the balance and been found wanting.
A gentle tap at the door, and the defence barrister and QC come in, followed by the prosecutor. Monique, David and Jill. Monique is flushed, David’s colour’s high, too. I hope he’s not going to have a stroke in my office. Jill is looking cross. They shut the door behind them in the small office space I have to myself and all three start to talk at once.
‘I’m going to take Liam’s comment as a guilty plea.’
‘I insist that the trial is vacated and the prosecution sort the case out properly.’
‘I apologise for my clients, but they have very strong feelings about this.’
I hold my hands up, quietening them down. I gesture to them to sit down in the hard wooden chairs, before I let battle commence.
Over an hour later the lawyers leave my chambers and go back into the courtroom. It’s a messy compromise but it’ll have to do. Liam will be warned that the evidence he is giving is leading him straight towards being found guilty and he will be invited formally to change his plea. Philip will be called back onto the witness stand when the trial resumes the following Monday so that he can give a response to the allegations that have just been made about him. I will disregard the evidence given by Ryan that was not properly tested in cross-examination. But I’ve no doubt that David’s going to appeal if I convict Philip, regardless of how the rest of the trial plays out.
We adjourn for the day, even though there’s still another forty-five minutes left of court time. It’s safe to say that we’ve all had quite enough.
19
Marcus is already at El Vino’s. He’s sitting at the same table as the last time and he waves as I approach. There’s a bottle of red already open and poured into each of the two glasses. I sit down with relief and pour a good amount of the wine down my throat. I’m tempted to say that we must stop meeting like this, but his expression is so grim I don’t feel it’s remotely appropriate.
‘That was quite the day,’ I say instead.
‘What happened?’
‘It was a three-hander in the Youth Court. A robbery. The victim stormed off before he’d even finished giving evidence. It was looking as if they were all innocent until the last co-defendant got in the box and started confessing left, right and centre. Plus he totally implicated one of his co-defendants.’
At least it brings a smile to Marcus’s face. ‘Chaos. I love it when that happens.’
‘Maybe in retrospect. It wasn’t so much fun at the time. And it didn’t look so entertaining to the co-defendant’s parents. Or his representative. They’ve got a QC. David Lamb.’
Marcus’s face twitches and too late I remember that they’re in the same chambers. ‘That’s too bad, Sylvie. He’s pretty influential with the Judicial Appointments people. I hope he’s not going to give you a bad reference.’
Fear clutches at me, the idea that my future career could be jeopardised by this stupid trial. Then I calm myself. It’s not my fault that the boy went rogue with his evidence. But try as I might to be dismissive about what Liam’s done, it nags away inside me, the integrity he showed in the face of such pressure, not caring how badly it might turn out for him as long as his friend was all right. How badly we behaved in comparison.
‘It wasn’t that bad,’ I say. ‘It was more on the defence solicitor losing control of her client than anything to do with me. He can’t hold it against me if I convict his client.’
‘Wanna bet?’ Marcus says. He’s not smiling but I laugh anyway, determined to make it into a joke. ‘Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about Tess.’
‘I thought that was what you wanted to talk about,’ I say. ‘Should you really be out? Is she OK on her own?’
‘Her mum is down for the weekend,’ Marcus says. ‘We’re hoping to God that Tess doesn’t have another seizure. She doesn’t want her mum to know what’s going on yet. She’ll tell her when she has to, but she doesn’t want a fuss.’
I nod. I know that’s not what Marcus means, but I don’t need to contradict him. We both know that the real issue with Tess’s mum is not that she’ll care too much, but that she’ll care too little, caught up as she always has been in her own affairs. Literally so, on many occasions.
‘What brings her down?’ I say.
‘Spending time with Tess, of course,’ Marcus says. This is something I can’t let pass, and I raise my eyebrow. He laughs. ‘Yeah, fair enough. There’s a big party over in Glasgow at the end of the month and she wants to go shopping.’
‘Is Tess going to tell her about the vow renewal ceremony?’
‘I fucking hope not,’ he says. ‘Do you remember what she was like at the wedding? She’ll be in an even bigger meringue this time, to make doubly sure she upstages poor Tess.
‘It was amazing to see you both in those dresses again,’ he adds. ‘Neither of you has barely changed at all.’
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘You know how much I hated it before. Can’t believe I have to wear it again.’ I finish my wine, and a certain recklessness takes hold. ‘She’s even mended the tear. Remember?’
He’s still for a moment before he nods, once, the movement slight but still there. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I remember.’ Our eyes lock and all the noise and bustle of El Vino’s falls away, the last years too.
If it hadn’t been a leap year, perhaps their wedding might never have happened. But Tess had been planning forever how she wanted her perfect wedding to be, and Marcus fit the part of the groom perfectly. He was smitten enough to be thrilled when she proposed on the 29th of February that year, and had readily gone off up Hatton Gardens with her the following day to find her a diamond that met her three ‘C’ requirements. But Tess then seemed to turn into a monster, truly fulfilling the cliché of the demanding bride, and Marcus became more and more demoralised. We’d hide in the upstairs of Inner Temple Library, sharing muttered conversations about how much he hated the seating plan and I hated the dress.
To hand it to her, it was a miracle of organisation. She pulled together a full late-summer wedding in just over six months, getting not only her first choice of venue but her first choice of church, too, a last-minute cancellation at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh. It was a spectacular service, marred only by the fact that my arse looked huge in the purple frock. We’d been taken out in coaches to a stately home near the Firth of Forth where we’d all got hammered – except for Tess, as she so firmly reminded me yesterday.
If Tess was abstaining, though, Marcus had drunk enough for two. He’d jumped up on the stage to take over the mic from the wedding singer at one point, giving a rendition of ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You’ which had been excruciating as opposed to excruciatingly funny. Tess had been visibly pissed off. The row only happened later, though, once we all got back to the hotel in which we were staying (‘my mum suggested we stay at hers,’ Tess had said, ‘but fuck that’).
They travelled separately in a limo and so arrived back before the rest of the party in the coach, which made a couple of stops along the way to let people out in various parts of Edinburgh before we got to George Street. I went upstairs to my room to change out of the purple monstrosity, and as I passed the door to the suite on the way up, I could hear incoherent screaming and crying. I thought about knocking on the door, but I was too pissed, and I didn’t want to get involved. Tess had bollocked me enough during the day variously for smiling too much and not smiling enough that I really didn’t feel that I could be fucked with it.
It took three goes but I finally got the entry card to work and got into my room where I took my shoes off with a sigh of relief. There was a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and I tore the foil off in one go, desperate to have another drink after the stress of the day. As I was trying to pull out the cork there was a bang at the door. I staggered over to open it and as Marcus pushed his way through the cork popped out of its own volition, hitting him on the forehead and exploding all over my dress.
He took the bottle out of my hand, pouring a long draft down his neck and grabbing me with the other hand. I turned away from him, getting out of his grasp, before he caught hold of the back of my dress. I moved away again, hearing a ripping sound. I swore and he let go, sitting down at the edge of the bed and putting his head in his hands. ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘Fuck.’
‘We’re not going to.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ I said. It was tempting. If she hadn’t been so awful for the last months, if I hadn’t been so drunk, if he hadn’t been so drunk. If they’d never been together in the first place . . . But I wasn’t going to go there. Nothing good would come from that.
‘I feel so trapped,’ he said. ‘I told her I didn’t want to go through with it last week. That’s when she told me she was pregnant.’
I sat still, the room spinning. I knew what Marcus had said was important, but I didn’t know how to process it. She couldn’t be pregnant. She’d have told me. It didn’t make sense. But I was drunk and knackered so not much was making sense, really.
‘You’d better go back,’ I said, and he groaned. ‘I can’t.’
‘I think I’m going to be sick. Please, could you just go.’
He left with no further argument. I threw the dress off me onto the floor and curled up to sleep without taking off my bra, and when I woke it was long past nine and I only got down to breakfast by the skin of my teeth.
It didn’t take me long to regret not only breakfast, but the fact I’d ever been born. Tess was beaming, brandishing her wedding ring like a blade. And her news, the pregnancy she wanted to share with everyone after she was married. I looked from her to Marcus, his rictus grin, a hostage smiling under duress. I thought of his hand on my arm, his attempt to pull me into an embrace, and I lowered my head, unable to meet Tess’s gaze.
‘I never wanted to think about the wedding again,’ Marcus says. ‘The whole idea of it brings me out in a rash.’
‘Me too.’
‘It’s not even that,’ he says. My hand jerks involuntarily, spilling my drink. We never speak of it. ‘It’s the whole thing. Her manic conducting of this insane orchestra playing a nightmare bridal symphony from hell.’
‘It wasn’t that bad,’ I say, with no conviction at all.
‘It fucking was,’ he says. ‘It took me months to get over it. Let alone how shifty I felt. I’ve never told her the truth about where I went off to after our row.’
‘Maybe you should have told her.’
‘You could have done it too,’ he says. ‘She’s your best friend.’
‘I would have,’ I say. ‘But the pregnancy. The miscarriage . . . I thought you and she had sorted things out after that happened. I didn’t want to upset everything.’
We fall into silence. I look around the bar, at the tables of barristers and solicitors knocking back red wine, prosecco, rinsing the taste of the working week out of their mouths. We’ve finished our bottle now and the way the conversation’s going, I could do with a lot more to drink.
‘Shall I get another one?’ I say.
‘I’ll get it,’ he says, but I shake my head.
It’s been nearly forty years since women weren’t allowed to be served at the bar here, but I still take a perverse pleasure in going up. Besides, I need to catch my breath from the oppression of Marcus’s misery. Dislodge the stone of guilt that lies heavy in my gut.
20
I thought the conversation we’d had already was bad. It’s nothing to the conversation we have when I get back to the table, elbowing pinstriped men and women out of the way, my reluctance to sit back down with Marcus growing the closer I get to him.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said,’ Marcus says when I get back to the table. ‘The miscarriage. There’s something you don’t know.’
I look at him, eyes narrowed. ‘What don’t I know?’
‘Haven’t you ever wondered why we don’t have kids?’
‘Not really. Tess told me she wasn’t interested and neither were you – can’t say I’ve given it much thought. You know my view on kids.’
‘True. But it’s not as simple as that. I mean, neither of us is that interested, but there was a period of time when we tried for a while. About a year.’
‘Tess never told me,’ I say.
‘It wasn’t something we wanted to talk about,’ he says. ‘We were trying not to let it dominate our lives.’
I nod.
‘In the end we went for tests,’ he says. ‘Tess was fine. It was me that was the problem.’
I raise an eyebrow.
‘I’ve got a very low sperm count,’ he says. ‘It’s impossible that I could get anyone pregnant.’
There’s a long pause after he says this. For a moment I don’t understand why he’s felt the need to share such intimate revelations with me, but my throat constricts as the implications fully dawn on me.
‘So you couldn’t have been the father? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Of course that’s what I thought,’ he says. ‘We had a huge row. That’s when she told me.’
‘Told you what?’
He pauses for a moment to drink the rest of his glass of wine. He puts the glass down and looks straight at me. ‘She wasn’t pregnant, Sylvie. Tess was making it all up because she was terrified that I was going to ditch her right before the wedding. She pretended to have a miscarriage afterwards to put an end to the charade.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure. It took me a while to believe that this had been the lie, rather than that she’d cheated on me. But I did believe her.’
I’m in shock at the revelation. ‘Faking a pregnancy to make sure a marriage goes ahead? That’s not great.’
‘It isn’t,’ he says. ‘I forgave her, though. We moved on.’
‘So why are you telling me now?’
He looks away from me, over into the far corner of the bar, but I don’t think he’s aware of anything that’s happening in front of him.
‘If she’s lied before to stop me from leaving, who’s to say she isn’t lying again?’
‘You mean . . .’
‘I mean, maybe this whole brain tumour story is a lie?’
He tops his glass up and drinks. I sit in silence, stunned, unable to think of anything to say in reply, the acrid smell of Tess’s urine after her seizure yesterday evening suddenly strong in my mind.
‘No,’ I say. ‘That’s not possible. Who the hell lies about having cancer?’
He shrugs. ‘She lied before,’ he says.
‘It doesn’t mean she’s lying now. Think about it. The situation is completely different. If you’d jilted her at the altar, it would have destroyed her life. I’m not saying she did the right thing, but I can understand why she might have done that. Maybe she even thought she was pregnant. This is completely different, though.’
We sit for a moment in silence. I’m sifting through my memories of that time, how guilty I’ve felt ever since that I presented a temptation to Marcus. All this time I’ve blamed myself, thinking how terrible it was that I should have let him into my room when she, my best friend, was pregnant and alone in hers. Some of that weight of guilt shifts now. But it was all so long ago . . .
