Guilty One

13

Daniel looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly 3 a.m. A cool blue light filtered into the room. He couldn’t tell if it was the moon or the streetlamps below which caused the chill, austere glow. He had worked until ten, eaten at his desk and then gone to the Crown for a pint on his way home. Casual strips of desire whipped him, but the stress of the day had left him empty and he felt light as he turned and turned again in its wake.

In the near dark, he lay on his back with his hands behind his head. He thought about the years of anger towards Minnie that had folded into years of disregard. This had been his defence against her, he realised: anger and disregard. Now that she was dead his anger was still there, but set adrift. Half asleep, he watched it float and turn.

He had chosen to leave her all those years ago and now it was hard for him to grieve for her. To grieve he had to remember, and remembering was grief. In the half-dark he blinked as he remembered graduating and his first few years as a lawyer in London. All this had been without her. He had felt proud of his self-sufficiency. After he cut her off, he had paid his own way through university and then got a job at a firm in London, only three months after graduating. He had taken credit for this, but now, in the near dark, he was honest enough to wonder if he would have gone to university at all had it not been for Minnie.

He felt darkness circling around him and alighting on his chest, hooded, wicked, shining black like a raven. Daniel put a palm to his bare chest, as if to relieve the sting of the claws.

He had left her, yet her leaving still seemed the greater. As he turned and turned again he felt the death beyond the loss which he had created. Her death was heavier, dark, like a bird of prey against the night sky.

Ten past three.

With his mouth and eyes open, Daniel remembered killing the chicken. He remembered his child’s hands throttling the bird that she held dear. He sat up and swung his legs out of the bed. He sat there in the half-dark, his body curved over his knees. Because there was nothing else that would stop it, he pulled on his shorts, stepped into his trainers and went running.

Four o’clock when he checked his watch. The early autumn morning was warm and fresh against his face. He could smell the water from the fountain when he ran past it, and then the dewy leaves of the trees. The pounding of his feet on the path and the warming of his muscles energised him and he ran faster than he usually would, lengthening his stride and allowing his torso to drive him forward. Even at this pace, images came to him, causing him to lose concentration: he saw again her coffin; Minnie with her wellies on and her hands on her hips, cheeks reddened by the wind; Blitz bowing his head deferentially when she entered the room; the market stall stacked with fresh eggs; his childhood bedroom with the rosebud wallpaper.

He had been wild. Who else but Minnie would have taken on such a child? His social worker had warned him. Minnie had cared for him when no one else would.

Although he was already breathing hard, Daniel ran faster. He felt heat in his stomach muscles and his thighs. A stitch seared along his side and he slowed to accommodate it, but didn’t stop. He took longer, slower breaths as he had been taught, yet the stitch remained. In the darkness of the park, indigents shifted on cold benches, newspaper fluttering over their faces. His mind was torn between the pain in his side and the reluctant ache that came whenever he thought of Minnie. She had been the guilty one, but, accused at her funeral, he now considered his own part in her death. He had intended to hurt her, after all. He had been aware of punishing her. She had deserved it.

Deserved. Daniel staggered, then slowed to a walk. He was still a mile from home. The night acquiesced to a shameful, reluctant glow in the east. Daybreak. It seemed appropriate to Daniel; that the new day should be a small violence. The dark blue sky was beginning to bloody. He walked with his hands on his hips, breathing hard, sweat coursing between his shoulder blades. He wasn’t ready for the day. He was exhausted before it had even begun.

When he arrived back at the flat, he was sweating hard. He drank a pint of water and had a shower, staying under the jet for longer than usual, letting the water pour on to his face. He could feel the slow pulse in his veins from the exercise, and yet for once he did not feel calmed by it. All his life he had been running. He had run away from his mother’s home and her boyfriends. He had run away from foster homes, back to his mother; he had run away from Minnie, to university, to London. Now he still wanted to run – he still felt the need for it, an angry hunger in his muscles – but there was no longer any place to run to. And there was nothing left to run away from. His mother was dead, and now Minnie too; the one he had loved and the one who had loved him were both gone, and with it his love and his proof that he could be loved.

Dressing, he opened the box that she had left him and took out the photograph of Minnie and her family. Why had she left him this photo, he wondered? He understood the photographs of him and Minnie at the beach, the photos from the market stall or working on the farm. This photograph he had always been drawn to, but only because it depicted a youthful Minnie – a good mother and her perfect family. Perfect families had obsessed Daniel when he was a child. He used to watch them on buses and in parks, hungrily studying the interactions between parents and children, and between the parents themselves. He liked to see what he had missed out on as a child.

Frowning, Daniel put the photograph on the mantelpiece beside his Newcastle United tankard.

He buttoned his shirt and ate his breakfast and was ready to leave at five thirty. He would be at work at six. As an afterthought, brushing his teeth and throwing files into his briefcase, he went back to the box and retrieved the butterfly. He didn’t know why, but he put it into his briefcase also.

Daniel bought a paper when he exited the Tube at Liverpool Street. Rarely was he at work this early. Even the paper felt fresh, warm as bread. He knew a coffee shop that would be open by the station. He bought a coffee and instead of taking it straight to his office, he lingered and allowed himself the luxury of reading the paper while he sipped the hot liquid.

On page four of the Daily Mail, Daniel saw the headline ANGEL OF DEATH and sighed.

A boy of eleven is being held over the horrific killing of eight-year-old Ben Stokes, who was found beaten to death in Barnard Park, Islington, over a week ago.

The Crown Prosecution Service said it had advised Islington Borough Police to charge the boy, who is reportedly from the area, with murder. Ben Stokes was found dead hidden in a children’s play area.

Jim Smith, head of the service’s Crown Court Unit, said: ‘We authorised the police to charge a boy aged eleven for the murder of eight-year-old Ben Stokes.’

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared at a youth court hearing at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court on Friday morning and stood in the dock with a security officer. The boy wore a shirt and tie and green pullover as the charges were read to him. He did not show any emotion during the hearing. The boy has been remanded in custody and will appear in court again on 23 August.

The boy, who lives with professional parents in an affluent area of Angel, was well known at his Islington primary school for violent and disruptive behaviour. The boy’s mother refused to answer her door to reporters yesterday. Ben Stokes’s parents were too distressed to speak to reporters, but released a statement which said, ‘We are overcome by grief on the death of our beloved Ben. We will not be able to rest until the person responsible is brought to justice.’

The assault – which bears similarities to the murder of toddler James Bulger by two ten-year-olds in 1993 – has horrified the nation. Prime Minister David Cameron and Home Secretary Theresa May both called it ‘appalling’.

Daniel loosened his tie and tucked the paper under his arm. The coffee was now cooling and he sipped it as he walked to his office. There had been other articles: small paragraphs in the local press at the time of the bail hearing. This article was different. It was a headline.

It’s starting he thought. It is starting already. It was bright daylight now, but the day still smelled young. His stomach was curdled with tiredness and he felt as if he could lie down on the pavement, press his cheek to the dirty stone and sleep.

He was first to arrive at work. The cleaners were still there, emptying bins and wiping desks. In his office, Daniel finished his coffee reading through Sebastian’s prosecution papers. There were several photographs of Ben’s battered body. The first showed the crime scene itself, with Ben’s face buried under the brick and sticks that had been used to assault him, as if the killer wanted to make a shrine of his small body. Other pictures taken at the postmortem showed the full extent of the injuries to the face: the broken nose and fractured eye socket. It did not look like a child’s face, but rather a doll that had been broken, squeezed out of shape. Daniel frowned as he looked at the photographs.

Just before nine his phone rang and Daniel picked it up.

‘It’s Irene Clarke,’ said Stephanie.

‘Fine, put her through.’

Daniel waited to hear her voice. Apart from a glimpse at her silk party in March, it had been nearly a year since he had seen her. They had gone out the night of Tyrel’s sentence. He remembered her small sarcastic mouth and her arched brows.

‘Hello, Danny, how are you?’

‘How are you, more to the point? How’s life as a QC? Congratulations on your silk appointment.’

Irene laughed.

‘You coming with me to see the pathologist tomorrow?’ Daniel asked. ‘Just looking through the reports now.’

‘Yes, definitely. I was just calling to say we should meet at Green Park or something – go together.’

‘Sure,’ said Daniel. ‘And afterwards I might even buy you a drink – toast your success, like.’ He deliberately allowed his accent to broaden. He smiled, expecting her to tease him, to lapse into her best wae’aye man.

‘I’ve been working so bloody hard,’ she said, ‘I’ve almost forgotten all about it. Be good to see you though. Been a while.’

‘I can’t tell you how glad I am that you took this.’ The honesty brought a brief warmth to his face.

‘I had to. It touches a chord …’ she said.

‘I know. Me too.’

She was waiting for him at Green Park when he arrived, late afternoon. She looked pale and tired, her hair flattened on top and at the sides as if she had just taken her wig off, but her face lit up when she saw him. He kissed her on both cheeks and she squeezed his upper arm, running her hand right down to his wrist, which she held for a second before letting go. ‘Danny boy, eh. You look good.’

‘So do you,’ he said, meaning it. Despite her wig-flattened blonde hair and tired eyes, she stood out on the street, with her chin tilted to one side to admire him. Irene always made him want to stand up straight and pull back his shoulders.

They made their way down Piccadilly, past the Ritz and then to Carlton House Terrace where they were to meet the pathologist, Jill Gault, in her office overlooking St James’s Park.

Daniel could smell Irene’s perfume as he walked, even as passing buses contributed warm gusts of smog to the air. Their strides matched and Daniel was distracted for a moment by the easy rhythm of their paces.

It was late afternoon but the sun was merciless, high in the sky, like a critical eye. The pathologist’s office was a relief: not air-conditioned but cool, the heat of the day forbidden by the thick stone walls. She sat behind an expansive desk with tortoiseshell glasses pushed up into her curly red hair.

‘Can I get you tea or coffee?’ said Dr Gault.

Daniel and Irene both declined.

Dr Gault opened a brown file and lowered her glasses to the end of her nose, to allow her to review Ben Stokes’s pathology report.

‘Your report was very interesting, Dr Gault,’ Daniel said. ‘You’re clear that the cause of death was acute subdural haematoma caused by a blow to the front right side of the head?’

Dr Gault slid an X-ray on to the desk in front of them. With her pen, she indicated the extent of the haemorrhaging.

‘You are quite sure that the murder weapon was the brick found at the scene?’ Irene asked.

‘Yes, the contours match exactly.’

‘I see. Correct me if I’m wrong,’ Irene continued, ‘but you have identified the time of death as approximately six forty-five in the evening, but you have been unable to state the time of the assault – that’s the case with this type of injury?’

‘That’s correct,’ said Dr Gault, letting her pen fall to the desk and sitting back in her chair with her hands resting on her stomach. ‘With this type of injury, it is quite impossible to determine the time of the assault. Haemorrhaging causes pressure on the brain but it can be anything from minutes to ten hours or more before it becomes fatal.’

‘So that means that the attack could conceivably have happened around six o’clock at night?’ said Daniel, with one eyebrow raised.

‘That’s correct, or it could have happened some hours before.’

Daniel and Irene looked at each other. Already Daniel could see Irene presenting this in court.

It was cooler when they emerged from the pathologist’s office, but the London streets still felt dirty and noisy and stuffy. It was just after five o’clock and crowded, people navigating each other like fish; cars honked at cyclists; people talked on invisible mobiles. Taxi doors slammed; buses breathed in and up from the road, out and down towards it; jets coursed soundlessly through the blue sky above it all.

‘Well, that was useful,’ said Irene, putting on her sunglasses and taking off her jacket.

She had strong, square shoulders, like a tennis player, and Daniel admired them. He pulled off his tie and put it into his pocket. ‘Let me buy the Queen’s Counsel a drink, then?’

They were early enough to get tables on the street. They sat opposite each other, sipping ale as the shadows lengthened and tired summer wasps floated lazily around empty glasses.

‘To you,’ Daniel said, chinking glasses with her.

‘So,’ Irene said, leaning back, observing him. ‘Do you think Sebastian did it?’

Daniel shrugged. He could feel the sun on his brow. ‘He’s adamant that he didn’t do it. He’s a weird little kid but I think he’s telling the truth. He’s just messed up.’

‘I found him unsettling, but I … barely spoke to him.’

‘He’s bright. Only child. I think … probably quite isolated. He’s said some stuff to me about his father attacking his mother. They’re wealthy, but I don’t think it’s a happy home.’

‘I could believe that. The father seems like a misogynist – he didn’t want us on the case because I’m a woman.’

‘No!’ said Daniel. ‘It was me. He thought I was too young and inexperienced.’

Irene sighed and shrugged, and then looked more serious: ‘With what we heard from Gault, there could easily have been another attacker, you know. Sebastian has an alibi from—’

‘Three o’clock … and the statement from the man who said he saw Sebastian fighting after that time sounds like he was led on by the police or just confused. There’s nothing distinctive about his description of Sebastian … and what with the distance and the foliage –I’ve been to the park – I’m sure we can undermine it. If only we could get something useful on tape.’

‘I even watched the tape myself in case we missed something. Typical, of course, that the police only requested the council tapes …’

‘You found others?’

‘Well, two pubs in the area have CCTV. We’re still going through those tapes, looking for the boys, but also this second sighting supposedly of Sebastian …’

‘I know, if only we had something on tape that put someone else, not Sebastian, in the adventure playground at the time …’

She rested her chin on her hand and looked into the distance, across the street at the buses and cyclists. Daniel liked her face, which was shaped like a melon seed. He watched as she pushed strands of hair behind her ears.

‘I’m still bruised from the last time,’ she said finally. ‘Do you ever think of it?’

Daniel sighed and nodded, running a hand through his hair. They had both been stung by a guilty verdict that saw the teenager returned to the system that had raised him. They had each warmed to the tall boy, who had skin taut and brown as a chestnut, and a smile bright and quick as innocence. He had been born in prison to a crack-addicted mother and brought up in foster care. They had fought hard for him, but he was guilty and he had been found guilty.

‘If I’m honest, one of the reasons I wanted this was because of losing for Tyrel,’ she said.

‘I went to see him a month or so ago. He’s waiting for an appeal … I went to tell him there wasn’t going to be one. He’s really thin.’ Daniel looked away.

‘And this one,’ Irene continued. ‘I know he’s supposed to be eleven, but he’s tiny … or is that what eleven-year-olds look like? I’m out of touch … I mean at least Tyrel looked like a young man.’

Daniel took a long drink.

‘You need to let it go,’ he said. ‘I’m sure QCs aren’t supposed to worry about all this stuff.’ He winked at her and smiled, but she did not return his smile. She was looking away again, remembering. ‘God, we got so drunk that night.’

Towards the end of it, Irene had put beer caps into her eyes to impersonate the judge who sentenced Tyrel.

‘My sister couldn’t understand why I was so down afterwards,’ Irene continued. ‘She kept saying to me, but he was guilty – as if that mattered, as if that negated what we were trying to do. I remember that terrible look of fear he had when he was sent down. He just looked so young. I felt strongly then, and I still do, that he needed help, not punishment.’

Daniel ran both hands through his hair. ‘Maybe we’re in the wrong job.’ He laughed lightly. ‘Maybe we should go into social work.’

‘Or politics and just sort it all out.’ Irene smiled and shook her head.

‘You’re a great barrister, but you’d be a rubbish politician. They’d never shut you up. Can you imagine you on Newsnight? You’d be ranting. You’d never be asked back.’

She laughed, but then her smile fell. ‘God help Sebastian if he’s innocent. Three months in custody until trial is hard enough on an adult.’

‘Even if he’s guilty, it’s hard,’ said Daniel, finishing his pint.

‘It doesn’t bear thinking about,’ said Irene. ‘Most of the time I appreciate the justice system. You have to, don’t you, in our line of work. But when it comes to kids – even kids as old and streetwise as Tyrel – you just think, God, there must be another way.’

‘But there is, England and Wales are out of step with much of Europe. In most other European countries children under the age of fourteen don’t even appear before a criminal court.’ Daniel laid his palms flat on the table as he spoke. ‘Kids are dealt with in civil proceedings by family courts, usually in private. I know the outcome can often be the same with violent crime – long-term detention in secure units – but it’s all done as part of a care order, not as … custodial punishment.’

‘Compared with Europe we seem medieval …’

‘I know, ten years old and you go to criminal court. I mean … ten years old! It seems ludicrous. Scotland was eight until earlier this year. God, I can remember being eight, ten years old … the confusion, the fact that you’re so small, and so … unformed as a person. How can you be held criminally responsible at that age?’

Irene sighed, nodding.

‘Do you know the age of criminal responsibility in Belgium?’

‘Fourteen?’

‘Eighteen years old. Eighteen years old. Scandinavian countries?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Exactly, fifteen years old. And we’re ten! But what really makes me angry is the fact that it’s not about money or resources or any of that crap. Roughly what per cent of the people you defend are from troubled backgrounds: drugs, domestic violence … ’

‘I don’t know. I would say eighty per cent, easily.’

‘Me too. Vast majority of clients have had really difficult upbringings … D’you know how much a damaged child in the care system will cost the state throughout the course of its life?’

Irene narrowed her eyes, considering, then shrugged.

‘Over a half a million pounds. A year of one-to-one therapy would cost a tenth of that at most. Incarceration’s old-fashioned but it’s bloody expensive too. The maths alone should persuade them.’

‘Now who’s ranting? I think I’d get on Newsnight before you would.’ Irene looked warmly at him and took a sip of beer. ‘You like defence, don’t you? It comes naturally to you.’

‘Yeah, I like being on this side of it,’ Daniel said, leaning on his elbows. ‘Even if I dislike the person I’m defending I force myself to see it from their side. There has to be a presumption of innocence. I like the fairness of that …’

‘I know; fairness is why we all got into this game. It’s a shame it doesn’t always seem fair.’

They watched the traffic and the scores of people rushing home from the day, and were silent for a few moments.

‘The press’re gonna go mad over this one, you know. It’ll be much worse than Tyrel. You know that, don’t you?’ said Irene.

Daniel nodded.

‘Have you had hassle already?’ she asked.

‘No, have you?’

Irene shrugged and waved her hand, as if there had been hassle but she didn’t want to talk about it. ‘It’s him I worry about. The child’s being vilified in the press, unnamed or not … Where’s the fairness in that? He’s not even on trial yet.’

‘You’ll raise that though, won’t you?’

Irene sighed. ‘Yes, we can apply for a stay and say the jury have been influenced by the pre-trial publicity, but we both know it’s pointless. The publicity is prejudicial but it will always be so. And God knows what use a stay will be to us when the child’s inside anyway …’

She looked into the distance, as if imagining the arguments in live court. He watched her cool, blue stare.

‘You must be one of the youngest female QCs now, are you not?’

‘No, don’t be silly, Baroness Scotland was thirty-five.’

‘Will you be forty this year?’

‘No, I’ll be thirty-nine, you sod!’

Daniel coloured and looked away. She narrowed her eyes at him.

‘Irene,’ he said to the passing traffic. ‘Irene. It seems too old-fashioned for you.’

‘My father named me,’ she said, chin down. ‘After Irene of Rome, would you believe?’

‘I would believe.’

‘Most of my family call me Rene. It’s only work people that call me Irene.’

‘Is that what I am, then? Work people?’

She laughed, and finished her beer. ‘No,’ she said, eyes sparkling but coy, ‘you’re the lovely Geordie solicitor.’

He hoped that she had blushed, but it could have been the beer.

‘How is your Geordie these days?’ he asked.

‘Alreet, like,’ she managed, smiling.

He laughed at her Home Counties voice struggling with the consonants. She sounded Scouse.

‘I’m glad to be working with you again,’ he said quietly, no longer smiling.

‘Me too,’ she said.