It Ends At Midnight, page 9
They’ve gone. My body subsides, able finally to relax. I signal to pay the bill and go downstairs to find the loos. I’m halfway down the stairs when I’m nearly knocked over by someone bounding back up towards me. He pulls himself short, holding his hands up in apology, before going straight up. I’ve pushed myself into the corner of the stairs and my hair has fallen over my face so I don’t get a good look, but I know it was Philip.
What’s more to the point, does he know it was me?
14
Three o’clock and we’re back in court. There’s no trace of recognition in Philip’s eyes as he looks up at me in court. David doesn’t seem aware that we’ve been in the same restaurant, either. I’m going to let it go. Any suspicions I might have are just those, suspicions, and the thought of what might kick off if I were to go on about it is too much for me to contemplate.
The complainant hasn’t returned and the prosecution asks for one further adjournment, to the following morning. David stands to argue and I hear him out before telling Jill that I will grant her one further adjournment, but that after that the case will have to continue, complainant or not. I go home and switch my phone off, not wanting to deal with Tess or anyone else.
I’m feeling better the next morning, more human. More able to deal with Tess. I put my phone back on and my instinct’s correct – she’s got the message.
OK. Come round anyway tonight. Let’s talk about New Year, the vow renewal. I’m excited about that.
She doesn’t mention Linda and I take from this that she’s got my point. This is one situation we do not want to disturb. I text my agreement to the plan and make my way to court with a clearer mind.
Ryan has not turned up.
‘There’s no reply at his address, or on his phone,’ Jill says on behalf of the prosecution. ‘I won’t be applying for a further adjournment. The complainant has given his evidence in any event so I would submit that the case can continue.’
David shoots to his feet. He looks furious. ‘This is entirely unsatisfactory,’ he says. ‘His evidence was not complete. He made a very damaging allegation about my client and I did not have the opportunity to test it in cross-examination.’
I look back through my notes for the moment when Ryan suggested that he was threatened at knifepoint by Philip on an earlier occasion.
‘My notes clearly indicate that you challenged the complainant on this point and put it to him that he was not telling the truth.’
David continues, ignoring what I’ve just said. ‘The learned judge has now heard this allegation, and much as I do not seek to imply that she will be unable to put it from her mind, the perception of justice is everything. I would urge the court therefore to call an end to this parody of a trial and order a retrial in front of a new bench, where all the evidence can be tested properly as justice dictates.’
His expression is as pompous as his words, and my hackles go straight up. If he’s able to put his own godson at a professional distance, I can easily put one piece of evidence out of my mind. I’m not going to put a halt to proceedings.
‘In my previous remarks, I made it clear that the evidence to which you refer was, in my view, properly tested in cross-examination. The case will proceed,’ I say. ‘Any evidence that was not thus tested will be erased from proceedings. I invite the prosecution to proceed.’
If looks could kill, I’d be stone dead. Philip, his dad, and his barrister. Beyond that, his co-defendants in the dock. The look on David’s face says clearly that this is going to be appealed straight to the Crown Court, but there it is. I’m sure of my position, in this at least.
Now we’re onto the police interviews, no comment all the way from all three defendants, all of whom were represented by the duty solicitor. Checking the paperwork, I can see that this is the firm still representing Daniel and Liam. Philip’s parents must have arranged their new representation shortly after this – I shuffle through some more of the papers and the explanation presents itself. They’d all been remanded in custody, until an appeal had been lodged at the Crown Court for Philip which had led to his release on bail on a number of stringent conditions. It’s no wonder he looks bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in comparison to the slumped shoulders of the other boys.
I repress a shiver of sympathy. I’ve seen this so many times, the change that the first time in Feltham Young Offender Institution wreaks on the boys who end up in its maw. They start out terrified, and maybe the first time they’re brought to court after being remanded there, they’re still able to speak about it, how much they dislike it, the way it affects them. But by the time we reach the third or fourth hearing, they’re lost in a world beyond my comprehension, their barriers up so high they’re impassable in the short time available for consultations.
Liam and Daniel have this look now, a deadness round their eyes as if they’ve lost hope, their expressions as grey as their tracksuits. Philip’s in a grey suit, by contrast, his hair neatly trimmed and brushed into a side parting. Despite the daggers he’s looked at me, the tiresome way that his QC has behaved, I do feel wholehearted sympathy for him. For all the boys. I’d be fighting for my life, too.
It’s exactly what I did.
Philip is due to give evidence first. He takes the stand, swears on the Bible to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. David begins to take him through his evidence.
The examination in chief is designed to show Philip in his best light. Not only does he have no previous convictions, but his academic achievements are outlined to me, also his position on the school football and debating teams. I try not to react when football is mentioned, my face impassive. Anyway, it’s not relevant. I wish he’d get on with the night itself, but I’m not going to rush him. There’s no need for me to give the defence any unnecessary grounds for appeal – David will already feel he has enough to undermine a conviction if that’s the way it goes.
Perhaps David can tell that he’s losing my attention, but he pivots the questioning smartly onto the night in question. Yes, Philip knows Liam and Daniel from the football club, yes, Ryan too. Not to speak to, Ryan. He’s in the year above Philip and the others. Philip knew vaguely that Ryan had been the football captain and that he’d lost his position when Philip came onto the team.
‘I’ll lose my place as captain soon, too. It’s the way it goes,’ he says, his face open, innocent. ‘But Ryan didn’t take it that way. He was furious.’
‘In what way was he furious?’ David says.
‘Furious enough to threaten me after he was demoted. He said he’d get me back. My friends too. Now look at us,’ Philip says, opening his hands out to the court in demonstration.
He’s good, I’ll give him that. His whole demeanour is that of outraged innocence. Ryan was good – Philip is even better. David asks if there was any time when he challenged Ryan before the football trials that won Philip the captaincy.
‘No way,’ Philip says. ‘I wouldn’t want to be captain if I hadn’t won the place fair.’
That piece of evidence dealt with, David takes him back to the night again. Very simply, he was hanging out with a couple of friends from the football team. He gestures behind him as he says this. They had kicked a ball around in the park and were walking up the hill to go to the corner shop to get some Coke and crisps when they were arrested. That was it, simple. They had nothing to do with any robbery, none of Ryan’s belongings had been found on them, and it was nothing to do with them.
Jill cross-examines him, but it doesn’t get far. He stonewalls her at every turn. He’s not lying, he’s telling the truth, why would he need to rob anyone? I’ve got an iPhone 11. For a boy of his age, he has a remarkable level of sangfroid.
I lean back in my seat to evaluate him. He knows how much is at stake for him right now. It’s no wonder that he’s giving it this level of focus. The way that his friends look must have had its impact on him, too, the Feltham effect. I’d be doing everything I could to prevent myself from going inside, too.
Besides, he has a point. If they stole Ryan’s phone, where is it now? It wasn’t found on any of the three co-defendants. The prosecution haven’t brought up any other corroborating evidence – it’s Ryan’s word against the three boys, and he couldn’t even be bothered to stay in court.
Philip finishes his evidence and sits back in his seat beside his parents, clearly relieved to have got it out of the way. We have a short adjournment, and Daniel follows to give his evidence, almost a carbon copy of Philip’s. He’d been present, too, when Ryan lost his temper with Philip and said that he’d get him back for stealing the captaincy from him.
Philip nods along as Daniel speaks, smiling when he manages to bat away Jill’s cross-examination. As Daniel returns to the dock, there’s a definite sense that it’s all over now. Only Liam left to go, and that’s going to happen tomorrow morning.
At this rate, the boys will be acquitted by lunchtime.
HOGMANAY
1989
I could tell Tess meant trouble the moment I walked through her door. Her eyeliner was as thick as my little finger, black lines swooping from the inner corner to meet the wing flicked high from the upper lid. Her eyelashes were so thick with mascara that they looked fake, and her lipstick was a perfect shimmer of iridescent purple.
She handed me a drink as soon as I came in. I lifted it up and smelt it before taking a sip; the spirits hit so strong at the back of my throat that I coughed.
‘Drink up,’ she said. ‘Don’t be a wuss.’
I took another sip before putting the glass down and looking more closely at what she was wearing. A tight black dress that stopped some inches above her knee, thick black tights, black boots. Not far off from my outfit, though my skirt was considerably longer than hers. I had just left my parents’ house, after all. I rolled it up at the waistline until it, too, sat above my knees.
‘Do you have that belt you said I could borrow?’ I asked and she nodded, handed it over to me, a thick elastic corset with a silver zip down the middle. I sucked my tummy in and zipped it up, making sure my skirt wasn’t bunched up stupidly over my bum.
‘Nice,’ Tess said. ‘It suits you.’
She led me upstairs to her bedroom where she sat down on her bed, a small compact mirror in her hand, and she painted on a further layer of eyeliner, her eyes glittering darkly from inside the black kohl. Even though she was my best friend, at that moment she looked completely strange to me, like someone I had never met and would in all honesty cross the street to avoid.
‘You look fierce,’ I said, laughing, though it didn’t feel like a joke.
‘I feel fierce,’ she said. ‘This is going to be my night. I’m unstoppable. I’m going to get smashed, stoned and shagged. You just watch me.’
‘That sounds like a plan,’ I said, laughing again. Campbell had dumped her only the week before but she seemed to be getting over it.
We pulled our coats on and left. The plan was to start at Stewart’s brother’s flat for drinks till it was time for the bells, when we were going to go up the Tron for the annual glandular fever fest that was the mass of kissing that went on. I’d got off with a couple of boys last New Year but I hadn’t enjoyed it much, the crush of the crowds overwhelming as the fireworks exploded overhead and nameless hands groped at me under my coat. It felt completely different to know that I’d be going up with Stewart, my actual boyfriend. It was the first New Year I’d been loved up. The first I’d ever actively looked forward to.
Back at Stewart’s brother’s flat. Stone Roses on the stereo and a can of Stella thrust in my hand by someone. I found Stewart standing at the kitchen table, Campbell beside him, Linda on the other side. They were doing tequila slammers. A bottle of Jose Cuervo sat on the table and Stewart was sloshing ginger ale into three tumblers. He put the bottle down and all three took their glasses before covering the top with one hand and slamming them on the table before throwing their heads back and necking the contents. Campbell let out a huge belch and Stewart jeered at him. Linda in the meantime was holding on to the side of the table, an expression of concentration on her face, her eyes screwed shut. It didn’t look like she’d be fit for many more.
Stewart caught sight of me in the doorway and waved, a shit-eating grin splitting his face ear to ear. ‘Sylvie! Have a slammer!’
I stood beside him as he sloshed out the drink into the three cups. Linda had opened her eyes by now but she shook her head vehemently at the suggestion of another one, so Stewart gave me her glass. I was semi-pissed from the drinks I’d had already, and the tequila hit me nicely in the gut. I turned round to Stewart and pulled his head to mine, giving him a long kiss. He tasted of booze and fags, a staleness already to his breath. He kissed me back but pulled away after a moment.
‘Sylvie, about tonight.’
‘What about tonight?’ I said.
‘I’ve been talking to these guys about it, and we think we should have a competition.’
‘What kind of competition?’ I said, pulling myself away from him. The warmth in my gut was subsiding fast, a chill setting in.
‘How many people we snog, of course! It’s traditional!’
‘I, well, I’m not sure I—’
‘Don’t be such a spoilsport. You’re gorgeous – I bet you’ll win,’ Stewart said, just as Tess made her entrance. She poured herself a shot, necked it.
‘I’m the one who’s going to win, Stewart,’ she said.
The fireworks proper wouldn’t start till the bells, but there were random rockets firing off as we walked up from Broughton Street to town. The streets were full of people, the pubs throbbing with music as we passed. Happy New Year shouted by every next passer-by. I’d passed the point of pissed now, carried along on a wave of other people’s emotions, smiling with Tess as she grabbed a man in a See You Jimmy hat and stuck her tongue in his mouth.
‘One,’ she yelled in my face, triumphant. I shook myself free of her. I’d grabbed a bottle of Baileys from the side at the flat and I took a long swig, the sugar hit swiftly followed by the alcohol.
Stewart grabbed me and spun me round, high as a kite on drink and the headiness of freedom. He’d already grabbed a couple of girls en route to Princes Street but they’d rebuffed him, laughing all the time. I knew this wasn’t where the main action was, though. That would be on the Royal Mile, thousands of people all thronged together to bring in the New Year. We were on Princes Street now, getting closer to the Mound, and it was more and more crowded. I held tight onto Stewart with one hand, the Baileys with the other. Campbell and Linda were close ahead of us linked arm in arm, and Tess kept bumping into me on my other side.
Every now and again we’d stop as one or the other found a willing recipient of their kisses. Tess had nicked a tartan cap from one of her victims and she wore it now at a jaunty angle, her eyes still glittering darkly underneath. Stewart’s eyes were glittering in the same way, and when they turned to us, I could see febrile excitement in Linda and Campbell’s faces, too, currents of energy sparking between them all.
I was there and not there, so numb with drink now that I’d left my body, floating somewhere above my head as we forced our way through the crowds and up to the top of the Mound. I had a vague memory that we were meant to be meeting some more people outside the Carwash, the pub at the top, but I didn’t care what we did, where we went, happy to be pulled along on the tide of energy that was holding our little group together. Stewart was stopping every couple of yards to accost a different group of girls, Tess too, Linda and Campbell all joining in, and I stood at the heart of it all, Baileys in hand, watching the fireworks explode in the sky above.
Finally we were up at the top on the Mound, pole position on the steps by the pub. There were more faces I recognised, people from school, girls from the year below, boys who’d left already, but it was all blurry, all spinning, the thud of music from the pub behind me pounding through me so hard the soundwaves had solid form. On and on it pulsated, insistent, hard, and I realised it wasn’t music, it was Campbell, his hands on my waist as he ground his erection into me in time to the music. I wanted to pull away but I couldn’t, the crowds too tightly wedged in around me, and when I turned my head to protest, he took it as a come-on and started to kiss me, the angle awkward, my neck stiff.
I didn’t kiss him back but I didn’t stop him either, my mouth open but slack. I was leaving my body again, floating higher and higher until I was up in the sky with the rockets, branching flowers of purple and red and golden light streaming down around me. I watched as Campbell’s hands ran over me, grabbed and squeezed at me, as if it were happening to someone else. He had his hand down the back of my skirt, squeezed in underneath the corset belt, and I knew it would be uncomfortable, digging into my tummy, but again it was happening just over there, out of the corner of my eye, not directly to me.
I turned my head away from him and drank more Baileys, relishing the sweet flavour pulling me back into myself. I was seriously drunk now. If Campbell weren’t holding me so tightly I’d be on my knees. I didn’t want him holding me, though, now that I was back to ground. His hands were too hard – it was hurting me, the way he was pulling at my belt and trying to reach down through my tights. It was too much, the booze sitting in my tummy and the pressure he was putting on me. I started to struggle, trying to break away, but by the way his breathing got heavier on my neck maybe he thought I was getting into it, grinding him back.
There was a pulling at my arm, an insistent tugging, and for a moment I thought it was more of Campbell’s assault, but it kept going, and in the end I turned my head to the left. Tess, her face tight with fury. When she saw I was paying attention at last she jabbed at my arm, vicious. My sensations might be numbed through drink but I felt that all right. There’d be a bruise in the morning.
‘Fucking slag,’ she hissed. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Even through all the bangs, the music, I could hear her, such was the force of her fury.
