Split Second

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Emma

Emma had been to Gavin to ask for the rest of the week off work to attend the trial. She had not expected him to agree, but when she told him she had some annual leave left and she could use that, he said yes.

On the third day, most of the evidence was from doctors of one sort or another. There was a doctor who had been on duty at the A&E department describing what efforts had been made to revive Jason Barnes. Then the pathologist who performed the post-mortem. He explained Jason’s injury and that the massive loss of blood had led to his death. After him they heard from the doctor who had treated Luke Murray and the consultant neurologist who had overseen his care while he was in the infirmary. There were only a couple of points where either of the defence lawyers cross-examined. Mrs Patel asked the pathologist whether he had recorded Jason’s blood alcohol level. At this Emma heard a sharp gasp from Mrs Barnes, who was sitting with her husband. The pathologist told them that Jason’s blood alcohol level was raised. He gave a figure and explained that it was just over the drink-drive limit.

‘So Jason would have been intoxicated?’

‘It’s impossible to know what his tolerance level was,’ the pathologist said. ‘Individuals are affected very differently.’

‘But he’d be unfit to drive?’

‘Legally, yes.’

And the same barrister asked if the position of the wound gave any indication as to who had used the weapon, whether for example it was someone left-handed or right-handed.

Emma glanced at the defendants in the box, wondering if this was an important issue. But the pathologist said no such thing could be inferred, not even whether the person had struck from behind, or had been facing Jason and reached around him.

There was a sense of disappointment in the courtroom. Emma knew that if this had been on television, the person on the stand would have been able to tell all sorts of things just from the wound that would help them identify the culprit once and for all.

When she was listening to the evidence, Emma didn’t feel so awkward, but in between, when there were breaks and everyone went out, she could feel the girl, Luke’s sister, glaring at her. Despising her. She imagined other people sharing the same thoughts, whispering about it: She’s the one from the bus. Just sat there. Could see them getting violent, did nothing.

The last witness for the prosecution was the police inspector in charge of the investigation. He described the sequence of events up to arresting the defendants. He explained that there was no forensic evidence to prove who had used the knife and the weapon had never been recovered in spite of exhaustive searches of the suspects’ homes. He also described how Conrad Quinn had confessed and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.

The defence barristers made a meal of that. Mr Floyd, representing Nicola Healy, focused on how Conrad had tried to evade the police up until his arrest and would probably have remained at large if a member of the public had not helped identify the suspects. Going on about how he only began to co-operate when he faced the most serious of charges. And the other barrister, Mrs Patel, kept repeating that Conrad Quinn was playing the system to save his own skin.

Emma grew tense again, her stomach churning, their hectoring reminding her of the way the lawyers had grilled her about who said what on the bus and how she could possibly tell.

Even the inspector got ruffled, raising his voice a couple of times as they kept on trying to make out that Conrad Quinn was unreliable and an opportunist who had fooled the police.

Finally Mr Sweeney announced that there were no more witnesses for the prosecution, and the judge said the defence case would open in the morning.

On the way to the train, Emma saw the newspaper sandwich board: JASON TRIAL: FULL COVERAGE. On Monday, the trial had been headline news everywhere. And she had been mentioned. Fellow passenger Emma Curtis, 23, told the court that Garrington had bragged about having a knife before punching the teenager. At which point Jason Barnes first intervened.

It had been in the Express; her mum had texted her and then rung after tea. ‘Your dad saw it before I did. And it was on the six o’clock news too.’ She sounded thrilled, as if Emma had done something clever. She heard her mother mumble, ‘Just a minute, Roger.’ Listened to the rustling as he took the phone, and his voice: “‘Visibly shaken”, that’s what it says here. I can just see it, hah hah! “Claims adviser”, it says. Must be in a sorry state to let you advise anyone. Eh, Emma? Cat got your tongue? Here, I’ll get no sense out of her.’ Malice delivered, she heard him return the phone to her mum.

‘You’ll have to tell us all about it,’ her mum said.

You must be joking, Emma thought. Was she on another planet? Had she not just heard him?

‘When are you home again?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Emma said.

‘Okay. Bye for now. Byeee.’

Emma stared at the fish in her aquarium very hard. She watched a little tetra winnow through the weed in the corner, past the conch shell. She stared and stared but the hot, angry lump in her chest would not melt away.

Andrew

The defence case began with Thomas Garrington taking the stand. He swore on the Bible. Andrew had worked out by now that the couple who always sat near the back were his parents. He was a huge man, bald, with the look of a boxer, the broken nose. She was tiny, nervy, red-faced.

As Thomas Garrington gave his account, prompted by questions from Mrs Patel, Andrew quickly realized that he was contradicting all the salient facts of Conrad’s story. According to Thomas, it was Conrad who drew the knife, Conrad who first kicked Luke, Conrad who stabbed Jason. Garrington admitted to calling Luke names and pushing him on the bus. ‘I didn’t punch him, I just pushed him.’

And when he realized Conrad Quinn had used the knife?

‘I got out of there, I couldn’t believe it. We didn’t even know the guy.’

‘How would you describe Jason’s actions in the garden?’ Mrs Patel asked.

‘Well he was really pumped up, you know, screaming. I think he was drunk. He hit me from behind with something, broke my rib.’

Andrew was stunned; he heard Val gasp. He could see the image they were trying to construct: Jason raving and pissed, wielding a weapon. A million miles away from the boy he was.

‘We’d like to show the court the exhibit,’ said the barrister. The judge agreed. A still photograph was projected on to the screens. It was dated four days after the murder and showed Thomas Garrington stripped to the waist, a bruise the size of a plate on his lower back. Someone murmured in sympathy; Val made a sound of disgust. Andrew sucked in a breath, could hardly believe the cheek of it.

‘This is the injury you sustained?’

‘Yes.’

Val shook her head, made to move. Andrew feared she’d shout out, risk the judge’s displeasure and get the public gallery cleared. He put out his hand to restrain her. She turned to him, her face alive with outrage. He nodded; he understood.

‘And you visited the GP with this?’

‘Yes. He said it was a broken rib,’ said Garrington.

‘Why do you think Conrad used the knife?’

‘Speculation,’ protested Mr Sweeney.

‘Trying to establish cause,’ Mrs Patel said.

‘Rephrase the question,’ decided the judge.

‘Did Conrad tell you why he used the knife?’

‘He’d seen Jason hit me; he thought he had a knife an’ all. He wanted to defend himself,’ said Garrington.

‘Did Conrad Quinn believe he was in danger from Jason Barnes?’ said Mrs Patel.

‘Yeah, the way he was carrying on: like he was off his head.’

This from someone who’d been drinking, snorting coke and had chased down Luke Murray to deliver a beating, thought Andrew.

‘You refer to Jason Barnes?’

‘Yeah.’

Andrew heard Val groan, and the judge looked across at the public gallery.

Thomas Garrington went on parroting Conrad’s evidence, but in his version it was Conrad who had thrown the knife in the river and Conrad who had sworn them to silence.

‘What do you say to the allegations Conrad Quinn made in this court that you had a knife and that you stabbed Jason?’ Mrs Patel sounded stern, unsympathetic as she put the question.

‘It’s not true.’ His eyes were big and blue and it looked like he was close to tears.

‘Can I remind you that you have sworn an oath to tell the truth and only the truth. Who stabbed Jason?’

‘Conrad did.’

‘Is there anything else, Thomas?’ she said quietly.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell the police. But Conrad was a mate and well… I knew he’d done wrong but I couldn’t turn him in.’

During the break, he and Val were waiting by the windows overlooking Crown Square, going over and over the bare-faced cheek, the audacity of Garrington’s story, decrying the exploitative shock value of the photo, all in hushed whispers.

‘What if they fall for it?’ she said. ‘The jury. Think Jason was the aggressor.’

‘They won’t,’ he said. ‘They’re intelligent people.’

Val baulked, ‘We don’t know that.’

‘They’ll believe you, Val,’ he said, ‘what you say happened, not this garbage.’

She pulled a face. Still worried. ‘I’ll just go to the loo before they start back.’

He nodded.

A couple of minutes later, he saw Louise and Ruby coming up the nearby stairs.

‘Louise,’ Andrew said as she reached the hallway. She stopped. She nodded, polite, a little guarded.

‘You remember Ruby.’

‘Hello,’ he said. Bizarre, the stilted introductions, when they had sat in court only a few feet away from each other hearing about their sons, sharing the aftershocks from that terrible night all over again.

He was going to carry on, talk about Garrington’s testimony, then he sensed rather than saw Val returning. He twisted round: she was standing across the foyer; she shot a look of such loathing their way that Andrew almost recoiled. He felt she would misinterpret this, weave it into whatever false picture she was composing of his relationship with Louise. He noticed Louise follow his glance. Then Val pivoted on her heels and stalked towards the court.

Louise stood there, red spots of colour blooming on her cheeks.

‘I’m sorry,’ Andrew said, heartsick and hurting. ‘I’d better go.’

He wanted to reassure Val, to explain, to make her believe that Louise was no more than a friend, but then perhaps being just a friend was too much for Val to take. She still blamed Luke, clung to her belief that he was the bogeyman, that he deserved no pity or concern and that by extension his family was to be shunned. Even after all they had heard in court. Sometimes he thought Val’s strength, her conviction, was a flaw rather than a virtue.

Louise

Mr Sweeney got up; he looked grim. ‘You called Luke “wog boy”, is that right?’ he said to Thomas Garrington.

Louise felt apprehension wash through her again. She glanced at Ruby, wishing she could shield her from the abuse, from a world where strangers hurled insults and blows because of a person’s skin colour. Ruby raised her head, a gesture of pride and defiance, and Louise’s heart rose with love for her.

‘I can’t remember.’

‘You called him “dickhead”, yes?’

‘Yes,’ Garrington said.

‘You called him a “dirty nigger”?’ said Mr Sweeney.

Louise flinched.

‘Can’t remember,’ Garrington said.

‘You called him a “knobhead”?’ said Mr Sweeney.

‘I can’t remember.’

‘You hit him, forcing his head against the window?’

‘I pushed him,’ Garrington quibbled.

‘And he hit his head against the window?’

‘Yes,’ Garrington said.

Louise deliberately let her vision blur, gazing into the middle distance. ‘Look at me, Mum.’ The first time Luke had scaled the sycamore outside the house. Her heart had swooped with fear for him. He must have been forty foot up, legs astride a bough. ‘Trust him,’ her grandad always said when Luke was tiny. ‘Most kids know what they are capable of.’ Luke in the tree, burnished by the late autumn sun. King of all he surveyed. The joy of him, the thrill of him. She had crowed with delight. She wrenched her mind back to the here and now.

‘You had a knife in your boot?’

‘No I never.’

‘You had a knife,’ Mr Sweeney insisted, ‘and Nicola Healy was heard to say, “He’ll shank you.”’

‘She meant Conrad.’ The boy’s face was stark with anxiety.

‘An independent witness, with no vested interest in the outcome of this case, swears that Nicola Healy was referring to you. That it was you who boasted about having a knife.’

‘She’s wrong, then,’ said Garrington.

‘Are you asking the jury to take your word over that of an innocent bystander?’

‘Yes, ’cos it’s true.’

‘You had taken cocaine and been drinking alcohol earlier that evening?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How does it make you feel, cocaine?’

‘High.’ Someone laughed. Garrington betrayed the trace of a smirk. He was forgetting to play the penitent. Louise felt irritation whip through her.

‘Hyped up, aggressive?’ Mr Sweeney suggested.

‘No.’

‘Perhaps the mixture of alcohol and cocaine prompted you to seek out a confrontation, to become violent?’

‘No.’

‘You kicked Luke Murray?’

‘Yes,’ Garrington said.

‘Where?’

‘In the garden.’ People laughed. Louise felt a rush of hatred, dizzying, almost robbing her of control. She balled her fists, bit her tongue.

‘Where on his body?’ Mr Sweeney said quietly.

‘His legs.’

‘How many times?’

‘Don’t know.’ Garrington chewed at his lip.

‘Ten, or twenty?’

‘Not that many,’ he said.

‘How many?’

‘Maybe four.’

‘You wanted to hurt him. And when Jason Barnes tried to stop the abuse, you pulled a knife. I think you’re lying to me, to the jury, to Jason Barnes’ parents. You’re lying to save your neck.’

‘I’m not! Conrad had the knife.’

‘Luke Murray had humiliated you, hadn’t he? The picture he had taken on your birthday at the house party, he had posted it on the internet, made a fool out of you. You were humiliated, is that fair to say?’

Garrington hesitated. ‘Yeah.’

Louise heard Ruby beside her give a little sigh.

‘So you wanted revenge, and when Jason Barnes tried to prevent you, you were prepared to do anything to stop him.’

‘No.’

‘This is a pack of lies, isn’t it?’ said Mr Sweeney.

‘No.’

‘Where did you get rid of the knife?’

‘I didn’t have a knife,’ Garrington said.

‘You usually carry one.’

‘No.’ He was red-faced now, frowning.

‘You expect us to believe that as a habitual carrier of knives, you chose that particular night to leave your knife at home. The night when you were involved in a hate crime that led to a fatal stabbing?’

‘It’s true,’ he said.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Mr Sweeney. ‘I’ll tell you what I think happened. You were kicking Luke; you and Conrad and Nicola. Nicola was near his stomach, Conrad at his head, you were by his legs, closest to the gate.’

Louise, her heart thumping like a drum, her stomach cold and aching, concentrated on taking a steady breath in and out.

‘Jason Barnes reached you first; he pulled you away, but you were enjoying yourself by then. Your blood was up and you were relishing the savage attack on Luke Murray. You knocked Jason down and returned to Luke. Jason hit you on the back and you fell down; he moved round you to reach Conrad Quinn, and you pulled out your knife.’

Garrington shook his head continuously, protesting repeatedly, ‘No. No. No,’ as the barrister continued. ‘Jason Barnes had his back to you when you drove the knife into him, pulled it out and ran. That’s really what happened, isn’t it?’

‘No way.’ His face contorted, spittle at the corners of his mouth. ‘No way. Conrad did it. Not me. I never did it.’ He was shouting, his panic and anxiety overridden by a virulent anger.

Louise got a taste of the aggression in the man and understood that he had the wherewithal to kill. She thought he was lying. She believed Conrad Quinn, pathetic though he was. Garrington was a bully. He had been bullying the girl when Luke first ran into him at the house party, and everything Emma Curtis had heard on the bus went against him. Louise looked at the jury, praying that they shared her instincts.

Louise ran into Emma Curtis in the ladies’ toilets. She felt a twist of embarrassment and went to leave, then thought better of it. ‘My daughter,’ Louise said, ‘I’m sorry. Things can be very black and white at that age.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Emma said. She was hugging her upper arms, worry etched on her face. ‘I wish I could go back, do something different.’

Louise pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Gathered herself. ‘We’ve all been there,’ she said, ‘on the train, at the bus stop, in the park. Seen someone needing help, someone outnumbered, someone being hurt. A bloke slapping his girl or a racist hurling abuse. We’ve all been there and wanted to disappear: if I ignore it, it’ll go away.’

‘I was scared, and no one else…’ Emma stopped. Her cheeks were bright red. She looked away.

‘My girl, Ruby,’ Louise said, ‘would I want her to do something in the same situation? With my heart in my mouth, yes. But if she was beaten as a result? Killed?’ Louise’s voice shook. ‘How could I?’

There was a silence. Emma’s face was mobile, struggling with emotion.

‘But thank you for coming here, that was very brave,’ Louise said.

‘No. I just wish-’

‘You can’t go back,’ she said. ‘It’s what you do next, what you do in the future, that matters now.’

Emma gave a brief nod. Louise returned to the foyer, grinding her teeth together and fighting tears.