Split Second

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Louise

Louise had seen pictures of Val Barnes in the papers. One in particular she remembered: Val and Andrew beside the hearse at the cemetery. Val had been wearing a hat with a veil; she was almost as tall as Andrew, willowy.

In person, in the witness stand, she was thin as a rake. She’d fine blonde hair that fell straight to her shoulders, a striking, angular face.

Andrew rarely spoke of her, although he had told Louise that she had been off work with depression and also that she had refused to go see anyone to talk about it, though she was on tablets from the doctor.

Val’s voice was firm, cool, as she answered the initial questions. Yes, she was the mother of Jason Barnes. Jason had been out with friends that evening; he was home from university for Christmas. She described being alerted by shouts outside; she went and looked out of their lounge window. She could see figures in the garden. Her husband was upstairs in the shower.

Ruby edged closer to Louise and Louise grasped her hand.

Val described opening the door. ‘There was someone on the ground, three others kicking him.’

Louise set her jaw, tried not to go where the words threatened to take her, fought to skim over the surface of them.

‘I saw Jason running in through the gate. He was shouting, “Get off him, leave him.” He pulled one of them off, Thomas Garrington. But he pushed Jason back, knocked him over.’ She stopped abruptly. Louise watched her steady herself, raise her jaw and then continue. ‘I shouted at Jason to stop, to come in. I shouted that I was ringing the police.’

‘Did Jason come inside then?’ Mr Sweeney, the prosecutor, asked.

‘No.’ Her voice broke but she went on speaking. ‘He… erm… he picked up this garden lantern, he hit Thomas Garrington on the back. That’s when I went in and rang the police and fetched Andrew.’

‘What were the others doing?’

‘They were still kicking.’

Louise felt something come loose inside her; she arched her neck, breathed through her mouth.

‘Were they are all actively involved?’

‘Yes,’ Val said.

‘Can you please describe where the three people were in relation to Luke, and how Luke was lying?’

Ruby squeezed Louise’s hand. Louise turned to her, mouthed ‘You okay?’ prepared to leave if Ruby needed to. Ruby nodded, her mouth pinched with misery, blinking fast. Louise passed her a tissue.

‘Thomas Garrington was near his feet. Luke was on his left side facing away from the house; he had his arms over his head, his knees were bent.’

‘A foetal position?’

‘Yes,’ Val said.

He slept like that, Louise thought. And now he can’t even do that any more. Instead he lies stretched out, and when they turn him, to avoid bedsores, they never curl his limbs close to his body. She remembered him as an infant coiled like a comma on her grandad’s lap. A little sea horse.

‘Please carry on,’ said Mr Sweeney.

‘Conrad Quinn was by his head, near his shoulders.’

‘And Nicola Healy?’

Louise saw the girl in the dock look down, studying her hands.

‘She was the other side of Luke, near his middle,’ said Val.

‘And you clearly saw them all kick Luke?’

‘Oh yes.’ Her tone firm.

‘What happened when you returned?’

‘I was on the phone in the hall, the door was still open. Andrew ran outside. Thomas Garrington was at the gate, and Nicola Healy too. Jason had his hands on Conrad Quinn, on his shoulders, pulling him away. As Andrew went out, he pulled away from Jason and ran off as well. And Andrew went after them.’

The courtroom was almost silent, tight with concentration. Louise felt brittle; her pulse was thrumming hard.

‘I went to Jason, to try and get him to come in, but he was worried about Luke. Andrew came back then, and Jason shouted to get an ambulance.’

‘At this stage, did Jason appear to be hurt?’

‘No,’ Val said quietly.

Louise looked up at the ceiling, at the fine plaster mouldings and the pendulum lights. Ruby wiped her eyes. Louise heard someone in the rows behind her stifle a sob.

‘Andrew sent Jason in. We could hear the ambulance coming and Andrew waited outside for them. Jason was trembling.’ She swallowed.

Louise felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

‘Then the police came in,’ said Val, ‘and Andrew too. He said he thought Jason was in shock and he’d make a hot drink.’ Val stopped talking abruptly. She pressed her fist to her mouth and closed her eyes.

‘Mrs Barnes?’ the barrister enquired softly. Val raised her head, moved her hand to grip at the necklace she wore. She was shivering now, her face quaking, her voice uneven as she spoke. ‘Then… erm… Andrew saw… Jason looked so pale… He fell forward, he was sitting down and he fell forward, and then… he was hurt, there was blood on his coat, on the chair.’ Louise’s neck tingled; her heart felt too big, swollen in sympathy.

‘Jason was taken to hospital then?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he was declared dead on arrival?’

Val nodded vigorously, tears spilling. ‘Yes, but we didn’t know for a while.’

‘And you were told that he died as a result of a stab wound in the back?’

‘Yes,’ she said simply. She was amazing, thought Louise. The strength in her as she relived that dreadful night. Her dignity.

The barrister thanked her and the judge ordered a recess before cross-examination.

‘You okay?’ Louise asked Ruby as they filed out.

Ruby nodded.

‘Hungry?’

‘Always,’ she said wryly.

‘We’ll grab a sandwich.’

The area near the courts had a spooky, science-fiction feel, Louise thought. Skyscrapers, gleaming in the pale sun and windy open spaces between. Most of the people wore formal work suits. They fitted the setting: polished and glossy, expensive. Louise felt out of place by comparison, and dazed, emptied by the strain of the trial.

When they got back to court, Val was already being questioned by the defence barrister. A current of mutual dislike seemed to crackle between the two women as Mrs Patel tried to undermine Val’s account. Val appeared to grow stronger, surer under the barrage. Asserting again, clearly and confidently, what she had seen. Never wavering. Then Mrs Patel focused in on some of the detail.

‘When Jason hit Thomas Garrington with a cast-iron lantern, what position was Thomas Garrington in?’

‘He was by Luke Murray, by his feet, kicking him.’

‘His back to Jason?’

‘Yes.’

‘So Thomas Garrington was not expecting the blow?’

‘No,’ said Val.

‘He wouldn’t have seen it coming?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Did you see anyone produce a knife?’

The sudden change of topic startled Louise and she sensed the same reaction in Val as Val’s head jerked up and she blinked before she replied. ‘No.’

‘Did you see anyone use a knife?’

‘No.’

‘Did you hear anyone speak of a knife?’ Mrs Patel asked.

‘No.’

‘You saw Jason arrive in the garden when you first went to the door. You observed everything up until he assaulted Thomas Garrington with the lantern?’

Val hesitated. Louise knew it was the word assaulted. There like an obscenity in that context. Laying blame on Jason. The same way the papers had smeared Luke.

‘Yes,’ Val replied in a steely tone.

‘Did Jason appear to be sober?’

Val blinked. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Was his speech slurred? Was he weaving about?’ said Mrs Patel.

‘There was a fight going on,’ Val protested.

‘He had been out drinking with his friends?’

‘Yes,’ Val said briskly.

‘For several hours?’ the barrister added.

‘Yes. He wasn’t drunk,’ Val said.

‘How could you tell?’ Mrs Patel said. Val didn’t reply.

‘And when you came back to the doorway, only Conrad Quinn was still fighting Jason?’

‘Yes,’ Val said.

‘Mr Quinn was the last to leave the garden?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did he appear? Mr Quinn?’

‘Erm… out of control, enraged, like a madman. They all did.’

‘Mrs Barnes,’ the judge said, ‘please restrict your replies to the particular question. Members of the jury, please disregard that last reply.’

‘Mr Quinn appeared enraged? Did he seem at all frightened?’

‘No,’ Val said.

‘Or upset, or anxious?’

Louise saw that Mrs Patel was shifting attention from her client on to Conrad Quinn, casting him as the real villain. He was a villain; he had after all confessed to wounding Luke, but what his role had been in the murder was in dispute.

When Nicola Healy’s barrister began, he concentrated on trying to get Val muddled up about Nicola’s role in hurting Luke. How many times had Nicola kicked Luke? Which foot had she used? Where had she kicked him?

Again Louise barricaded herself against the tide of images, substituted a rag doll, a mannequin for Luke, refused to contemplate the visceral terror her son must have suffered. Distancing herself from the details, the jagged facts that were all the more horrible for the steady, workaday way in which they were laid out for the court.

Some of the questions were impossible to answer, and Val glared as she gave her replies, aware that the barrister was succeeding in inducing some doubt into the proceedings. Louise knew that it was all they needed. Enough doubt, enough uncertainty and the defendants would walk away scot free.

The final question for Val was about the weapon. ‘Did you see Nicola Healy with a knife at any point?’

‘No,’ Val answered, as everyone knew she would, and closed her eyes.

Louise understood that establishing who had stabbed Jason was crucial to the murder case; that the only people who had seen the fight, Andrew and Val, had no idea a knife had been used. That left the three attackers as the only witnesses. One of them had stabbed Jason. Conrad Quinn claimed he was innocent of that, and Thomas Garrington and Nicola Healy, too, were pleading not guilty. Someone was lying, one of the three was the killer, and Louise felt a wash of unease at how uncertain the outcome now felt.

Andrew

Val came back into the witness suite and sat beside him, looking shattered. She accepted the offer of a cup of tea from one of the volunteers.

‘How was it?’ Andrew said. ‘You okay?’

‘They were there,’ she said, ‘looking like butter wouldn’t melt. All scrubbed up.’

They had both been advised not to discuss their evidence, which seemed preposterous to him, given that they were man and wife and must have relived the events they had seen together many times in the months since it happened. Even so, Andrew asked her what it was like.

‘His barrister’s a right bitch.’ Val gave a swift shake of her head. ‘You know what she said?’

The volunteer returned with her drink and Andrew warned Val with a look. Val got the message and kept quiet. The woman told Andrew that he’d probably be called after lunch now. When she’d gone, Val said quietly through gritted teeth, ‘She had the audacity to suggest that Jason assaulted one of them. Jason!’

‘What?’

‘Because he hit Thomas Garrington with the lantern.’ She gave a humourless laugh. ‘The bloody gall of it.’ Her anger twisted into sadness and she pressed her fist to her mouth, squeezed her eyes shut. Andrew put his arm around her, hoping she’d accept the comfort, lean into him, but she was stiff, unyielding. He could smell her hair, her perfume. He reached his hand to cover hers, stroking her fingers, her wedding ring.

Val straightened up, leant forward for her drink. He moved his arm. ‘She’s there,’ she said.

‘Who?’

‘Louise Murray. I assume it’s her, at the front, with a teenage daughter.’

‘Of course she’d be here.’ He didn’t know what Val expected him to say. Any further discussion was prevented by the arrival of three elderly women, witnesses in another case.

After the stifling wait over lunch, it was his turn to go into the witness box. Val left to find a seat in the public gallery.

He took in the court with a sweep of his eyes as he entered the box, feeling slightly giddy. The place looked full. In the public gallery he could see his parents, Val with Colin and Izzie, and Louise and Ruby in front of them. Other families too. The glimpse he got of Garrington in the dock sent a spike of adrenalin through him. He and the girl looked ridiculously young. Callow was the word. They were young; she was younger than Jason, he a few months older.

He turned to face ahead – to face the jury – and was sworn in. It was bearable at first, describing Val hammering on the shower door, and chasing them away. Less so as he related Jason’s desperate pleas about Luke: ‘I think they’ve killed him. Get an ambulance!’ Tasted again the raw desperation in Jason’s voice.

Andrew could hear the tremor in his own voice as he spoke about Luke. ‘His face, you couldn’t really make the features out, there was a lot of blood but he was still breathing.’

‘Did you notice the lantern?’

‘No.’

‘And then Jason went inside?’

‘Yes, there was a policeman who wanted to speak to Val. Jason… I could see something was wrong, the way he looked.’ Andrew took a breath. His hands clasped together rigid. If he’d known Jason was wounded at that point? If he’d got the paramedics to stop the bleeding straight away, could he have been saved? The treacherous thought, torturous, slithered through him.

‘Then he collapsed.’ Andrew clenched his jaw, damming the tide of emotion that threatened to engulf him. He cleared his throat, answered the remaining questions about the hospital, the death with short, practical replies, in a dry, flat tone.

Mrs Patel began with an expression of sympathy for his loss and a comment about how difficult this must be. On his guard after what Val had said, Andrew didn’t trust a word of it. She confirmed that he had given identifying information to assist in the drawing up of the e-fits.

‘You didn’t see the beginning of the altercation?’ she asked.

‘No, I was upstairs.’

‘You didn’t see Jason hit Thomas Garrington with a cast-iron lantern?’

‘No, but Val told me-’

‘Hearsay,’ she barked, and the judge asked him to confine his testimony to those things he had witnessed directly.

‘You didn’t see anyone use a knife?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘When you went into the garden, where were the defendants?’

‘By the gate, near the pavement.’

‘And Conrad Quinn?’

‘He was with Jason, Jason was pushing him.’ The figures in the spiralling snow.

‘Pushing or pulling?’

‘Erm…’ Andrew pictured the scene. ‘Pushing, pushing him away.’

‘You’re certain?’

‘I think so,’ he said.

‘You’re not sure?’

His stomach flipped. ‘That’s how it looked,’ he said. But he felt she had scored a point. He had to be clear, he knew that; he had to be convincing, rock solid, not waver, allowing different interpretations.

‘What were Thomas Garrington and Nicola Healy doing at that time?’

‘Shouting.’

‘What were they shouting?’

‘I don’t know, I think-’

‘We don’t want your thoughts, Mr Barnes, we want the facts.’

‘Right.’ He ground his teeth together. He could feel sweat on his palms, on the sides of his chest. He was here to tell them what had happened to Jason, but it was a trap, a false trail. She was leading him down it, away into marsh and bog, places where the sun didn’t shine, where shadows lurked and shifted shape. And he was stuck. Sinking sand. He blinked, his eyes losing focus; saw Jason, just leaving the courtroom, slipping out and glancing back but distracted. Distracted and not seeing Andrew.

‘Mr Barnes.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Shall I repeat the question?’

He couldn’t do it. He had come here for justice, to bear witness, and he couldn’t even do that properly. He was diminished. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. He dared not speak; his jaw ached with the tension, his heart felt as if it would burst. The usher stepped towards the witness box. But he would not give in. He held up one hand. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘I want to carry on,’ but he couldn’t control the way his hand trembled.

‘Very well,’ said the judge.

Mrs Patel resumed her questioning. ‘What was Thomas Garrington shouting as he stood at the other side of the fence?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘So he may well have been remonstrating with Conrad Quinn?’

He stared at her. ‘It didn’t look like that, it looked like-’

‘But you’ve just told the court you don’t know-’

‘Their body language,’ he interrupted. ‘They were excited, high, wild. Ready to run. They were waiting for him.’

‘Speculation,’ she rapped.

‘That’s what I saw.’

‘Your Honour…’ There was an interchange between the lawyer and the judge. Andrew took a sip of water. He could do this, he had to do this. It was all that was left to him.

Mrs Patel resumed her cross-examination and he answered her few remaining questions with as much clarity as he could muster.

Mr Floyd, the barrister for Nicola Healy, appeared to take up the same thread. Implying that Nicola Healy and Thomas Garrington had fled the scene and wanted Conrad to come too. ‘Conrad Quinn was still struggling with Jason, am I right?’ he asked.

Andrew agreed.

‘Conrad Quinn had persisted even when his friends had run off?’

‘Only for a moment,’ Andrew said.

‘A moment?’ Mr Floyd scowled. Could he be more precise? ‘One second, two seconds, five?’

Andrew counted in his head. ‘Three, no more.’

‘How long would you say you were outside in all? Until you returned after the chase?’

‘It’s difficult to say. It was all very quick.’

‘When you first came out of the house, was Conrad Quinn kicking Luke Barnes?’

‘No, he was struggling with Jason.’ They kept coming back to Conrad, to what he was doing, but Conrad wasn’t up there in the dock, the other two were.

‘Did you see Nicola Healy touch Jason at any point?’

‘No,’ Andrew said.

‘Did you see Nicola Healy kick Luke Murray?’

‘No.’

‘Did you see anyone kick Luke Murray?’

‘No.’

‘Would it be true to say that the only violence you witnessed that night came from Conrad Quinn and was directed at your son Jason?’

He felt a swell of irritation. It wasn’t a fair question. It ignored everything else: what had happened on the bus, then what Val had seen. ‘Yes, but-’

‘Thank you. No further questions.’

Andrew walked back down into the pit of the building, numbly following the volunteer to the witness suite. He felt a flame of anger growing steadily inside him. For the first time he grasped that they might not win, that the defendants might possibly be acquitted, and he knew then that he would spend the rest of his life trying to bring them to justice if that was the case. He felt his fury cooling and hardening into something solid as stone. He would never give up, never let it go.