Resolution

Chapter 46

Maureen was alone in the witness room. Paulsa had been called to give evidence and had been in there for forty minutes already. He had arrived this morning in slow-blink, tiptoeing mode. She couldn't imagine anyone managing to sustain a conversation with him for longer than three minutes – he seemed pretty off it and she didn't suppose he would make a very good witness. She was the last one, knew she would be the final witness and hoped she would be left until the afternoon. She didn't want the jury to come up with a verdict before Monday.

She was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt with trousers she had bought that morning, and felt grown-up and ready for them. She hadn't seen Liam before she came to the witness room, didn't know if he was out there or not. She suddenly thought that he might have been arrested for Michael, or something to do with Michael, but it was nonsense. She knew it was nonsense.

There was only an hour left until lunch when the door opened and the police officer gestured for her to come with him. She stood up, gathering her newspaper, breathless with nerves. He led her through the back door, along a narrow passageway and into an antechamber with an intimidating large oak door at one end. Next to the door stood a bald man in a black gown and bow tie. He nodded to the uniformed man, acknowledging acceptance of the package. He took the newspaper from Maureen, set it down on a chair at the side and opened the door.

It was very bright in the court, lit from above by windows in the ceiling. The body of the room was hidden behind a large wooden wall but she could hear a thundering silence, a man coughing, someone whisper. The usher pointed her up a small, steep set of wooden stairs and, as Maureen climbed, the room came into view.

It was grander than the small-claims court. The judge was sitting in a duck egg blue alcove above her, between two pillars and below a symbol of the crown, all ribbons and unicorns. Below the witness box, sitting at a large table, were the lawyers in their funny costumes facing the judge with their backs to the public. The overhead windows didn't extend to the public gallery and the benches were in shadow. Liam's face caught her eye. She went to wave, delighted to see him, but stopped her hand at her waist. Liam was looking worried and sitting next to Winnie. He seemed to be holding her hand. Winnie, she noticed, had not brushed her hair.

Straight across the room sat the jury, a mess of color, body shapes and hairdos, a welcome injection of reality in the pantomime. They were in a little wooden pen, facing her on three benches of five, like a roller coaster train dipping into the courtroom. She could tell by their expectant faces that she was billed as the finale. They were sitting forward, waiting voraciously. It was hot in the room and, high up in the booth, Maureen was hotter than most. She began to sweat furiously.

Angus was sitting to her left, in a wooden gallery, flanked by guards. He opened his eyes a little, like a pleasured child, and mouthed one word: Pauline. Maureen grinned at him and gave him a cheeky little wave. She saw the confusion and fear in his eyes and looked away.

The bow-tied man swore her in, holding out a Bible for her to put her hand on, and she found herself taking the oath to someone else's God very seriously. The man told her to sit down on the wooden seat and went off, clambering down into the body of the court and up another small set of stairs into the judge's booth, standing slightly behind him.

A lawyer from the table went to stand up but hesitated with his knees half bent as the judge checked his watch. The judge nodded to him and he got up. He had a little black goatee beard, and wore a white wig and a gown. He walked all the way across the room and stood next to the jury, one arm laid along a dividing wall, his head tipped back affectedly. Beneath his gown his suit was expensive, his shirt well pressed. "Missss O'Donnell." It was a long hiss, a theatrical attempt to get everyone's attention and, she felt sure, malign her as unmarried. "Could you tell us how you met Douglas Brady?"

Maureen cleared her throat and leaned nervously towards the microphone. "I met him-" The microphone gave off a high-pitched crackle.

The bow-tied man came galloping over to her, leaning over the wall of the box. "Don't lean in so far, stay back a bit," he said. She sat forward a little and he winked at her. "Super," he said, his eyes twinkling. She watched him go back to the judge's box. His was the only friendly face she could see in the room and she wanted him to come back.

"Again, Miss O'Donnell." It was the advocate, posing at the other end of the room. "How did you meet Mr. Brady?"

"I was leaving the Rainbow Clinic," her voice echoed around the sound system, every syllable sounding legally significant, "and I was waiting at a bus stop. He stopped his car and offered me a lift back into town."

The advocate nodded, as if she were following his script. "You were, were you not, a patient at the Rainbow Clinic?"

They were going to ask about her psych history, she fucking knew it – they were going to make her discuss it in front of all these people. She paused and caught her breath. "I was, yeah."

" Why were you a patient?"

It was a big question. She paused to think about it and another man in a gown and a wig stood up, saying something about the question, and the judge nodded. "Yes," he said, "I think you have to narrow that question down."

They were all unbelievably posh. Maureen had never actually heard accents like that before, the wide vowels and rolling 7?s. She had always thought she sounded plummy but compared to the lawyers she could be selling cockles and mussels from a barra.

"Very well," the standing advocate resumed. "Miss O'Donnell, how did you come to be attending the Rainbow Clinic?"

She decided to be straight about it. "I had a nervous breakdown a year after I finished my degree," she said. "I was admitted to the Northern Psychiatric Hospital. After I left there I went to the Rainbow Clinic as an outpatient."

The standing man was not pleased with this. He raised his eyebrows and furrowed his brow. She suspected that he had hoped she'd sound like more of an arse. "But you weren't actually referred there, were you?" he said.

"No," she said. "I didn't like the psychiatrist I was referred to so I stopped seeing him and asked the Rainbow if I could see someone there."

"What was wrong with the psychiatrist you were referred to by your doctors?"

He had been cold and disinterested but Maureen didn't want the lawyer to think she could be intimidated. "He was a plummy twit," she said.

On the back bench of the jury box a plump man in a purple shirt and a small red-haired woman snickered as though they had been trying not to laugh all day. The lawyer frowned. It took him a second to realize that the jury were enjoying it. Then he smiled as if this was a great joke they could all enjoy together.

"You certainly are quite a feisty young woman," he said, objectifying her and robbing her of her dignity, "aren't you?"

He waited for an answer, compounding the insult. If she agreed she'd look like a nutter, if she disagreed she'd look passive, so she compromised. "Dunno."

"Well," he sounded sarcastic, "you seem quite feisty to me, Miss O'Donnell, really quite feisty." He paused to look through his papers.

"Is that a bad thing?" The voice echoed around the tinny sound system. It was Maureen, speaking when she hadn't been spoken to. The lawyers at the table looked at one another, the snide advocate looked at the judge for backup and the judge leaned forward. "You're here to answer questions, Miss O'Donnell," he said sternly, "not to make conversation."

"I'm sorry," said Maureen, irked at being publicly ticked off by someone she neither knew nor worked for. "I'm not a lawyer, I don't know the rules."

The judge was not pleased with this. "Then you ought to listen to me when I tell you what they are," he said, and turned away from her to cut off any further exchanges.

"As I say," said the smug advocate to the jury, "quite feisty."

It all felt very unfair. Suddenly from the public gallery came a drawling, angry voice: "Don't you fuckin' talk to her like that."

Oh, God. It was Winnie, choosing this above every other opportunity in her life to lift a drink and stand up for her daughter. Liam caught Maureen's eye from the public gallery, cringing, helpless to stop it. The bow-tied man gestured to someone. A uniformed policeman stepped out of the shadows at the back of the public gallery and removed Winnie from the court to the tremendous amusement of the back row of the jury box. Liam followed her out, carrying her coat. Maureen tried to smile as if drunken women were a big surprise to her too, but she couldn't pull it off.

"This is a criminal trial," said the judge sonorously, looking around the room and addressing everyone. "It will not be allowed to descend into a circus."

For a moment everyone in the court shuffled in their seats and wondered what sort of rotten circuses the judge had been subjected to as a child.

The advocate gathered himself together, flicking through his papers and taking a loud, deep breath to get everyone's attention again. "So, you chose to go to the Rainbow Clinic?"

Maureen said yes.

"And you went for how many sessions?"

"Two."

"And" – he turned away from her, facing Angus – "whom did you see when you were there? Who, in other words, was your doctor at the Rainbow Clinic?"

Maureen pointed at Angus. "Angus Farrell."

"Can you" – he turned to face her – "point him out to us in this court today?"

The purple and red jurors sniggered audibly. Maureen pointed to Angus again.

"And what was Mr. Farrell like during these sessions?"

Maureen was pleased that she had the chance to say something positive and overcome the impression that she had a grudge. "He was great. He was kind and patient and very helpful."

The advocate nodded. "He helped you?"

"Very much so."

The advocate pushed himself off the side rail and headed into the middle of the court. "This is a little delicate, Miss O'Donnell," he said softly, as if he gave a shit about her, "but could you tell the court the nature of the problem you went to see my client about?"

Maureen cleared her throat carefully. "I was experiencing flashbacks and bad dreams."

This was not the answer he wanted. He tried again: "Could you tell us what the cause of these symptoms was?"

She didn't want to tell them. She looked at the giggly jury members, at the table of lawyers and the haughty judge, and knew that not one person in the room gave a flying fuck. If she made a fuss they'd play on it. "I was abused by my father when I was a child and this was the fallout from it," she said quickly.

The advocate nodded in apparent sympathy. "And Mr. Farrell was patient with you and helped you to get over it?"

She looked at Angus, sitting in the box between the two bored guards. His eyes were half shut, blank but creepy, as if he were about to pounce on her. She looked behind him and saw his ugly family, eating chewy peppermints, passing the roll between themselves. "Yes," she said, "he did."

"Did you see him as a father figure?" He waited patiently for her to answer.

"I don't know what you mean by that." Her amplified voice rattled around the room.

"Did you see him as a father figure? It's a term in common usage."

"I didn't see him as my father," she said, knowing full well where he was going with it.

"You didn't see him as an older man who had helped you," he said incredulously, looking at the jury, "who perhaps had authority over you?"

"I don't see my own father that way, so, no, I didn't see him as a father figure."

The advocate shuffled his papers. "But he did help you?"

"Yes."

"So," the advocate addressed the jury, "he was a good man."

"He was good at his job," said Maureen, quickly. "I don't know what sort of man he was."

"Miss O'Donnell," said the judge, losing patience with her, "no more interjections, please."

"Sorry," she said, a picture of innocence. "I thought that was a question."

The judge knew she was lying. "Unaware of the rules of the court you may be, Miss O'Donnell, but you seem to have a natural aptitude," he said, and the lawyers smiled at what appeared to be a thin judicial joke.

The advocate stepped forward, and continued to question her, making her tell the story of finding Dead Douglas in the front room. He got her to tell how she had written to the Public Registrar for a copy of Douglas's marriage certificate but wouldn't let her say that she'd done it because Douglas swore blindly he wasn't married. And then he asked her questions about Angus, whether he had known that she was seeing Douglas and, if he had, would he have approved? Maureen said she didn't think he would because she was a patient. The advocate pounced on the comment, suggesting that Angus had tried to split them up and she'd fed him acid because of it. Maureen tried to contradict him and got into trouble again.

"Now, Miss O'Donnell," the advocate went on, "we have heard evidence about the state Mr. Farrell was in when he was found on the Isle of Cumbrae." He paused for effect. "We have heard expert witnesses testify to the effect that he was very heavily drugged with lysergic acid diethylamide."

Maureen nodded.

"LSD," said the advocate, "to give it its street name."

It was hardly a street name. The red and purple jurors nudged each other.

"Furthermore," he continued, "we have, just this morning, heard evidence from Paul Cunningham that you purchased a large quantity of that substance from him before or around the time of the deaths of Mr. Brady and Mr. Donegan. Do you recall such a purchase?"

Maureen pretended to think about it. "No," she said.

The advocate turned on her. "You don't recall going to Mr. Cunningham's flat and buying a large quantity of LSD?"

"No," she said certainly. "I have bought drugs for recreational use from Paulsa before but I don't remember buying anything then and I'd never buy a big quantity. If you buy too much at one time and get caught you could be charged with dealing and sent to prison for ages."

" 'Paulsa' being Mr. Cunningham?" he said.

"Yeah."

"Angus Farrell, the man who helped you" – he looked up at her – "has stated that after Mr. Brady's death you came to visit him in the clinic and gave him a coffee. Mrs. Shirley Evans has also testified to that. It is our contention that the said coffee was heavily laced with LSD."

The judge intercepted to say something wry and the advocate conceded, looking at his notes.

"No further questions," he said curtly, and sat down.

The judge looked at his watch pointedly. He asked another lawyer sitting at the table if he would be long. The man said no. He was thin and nervous. The shirt and suit beneath his gown were cheap, and hung less well than the defense advocate's. He might have been a genius, but the slick, smug lawyer inspired more confidence. He stood up and shambled over to the same spot next to the jury.

"Miss O'Donnell?" His accent sounded less of a distant speck on the social scale. "You said you intended to end your relationship with Mr. Brady?"

Maureen waited to make sure the question was finished. "Yeah."

"Why were you going to end it?"

"We were both pretty miserable," she said, "and he'd lied to me about being married."

The prosecution's questions dragged on for a bit longer, covering the same ground about Douglas and there being no reason for her to drug Angus and how she liked him, really. The judge started getting pissed off and looking at his watch. Finally, he asked the lawyer if he was going to ask any new questions instead of the old ones over and over and suddenly, after a small discussion between them, Maureen was dismissed.