Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) Page 8

  ‘Just what I need,’ she said, with a bright, determined laugh. ‘A bit of cherishing. Clothes that make you feel like a star.’

  ‘And don’t shrink in the wash,’ said Lucy practically. ‘Anyway, you are a star, honey. That presentation in court today was masterful ...’

  ‘Mistressful, you mean?’

  ‘Whatever. If they don’t release Jason after that, they never will.’

  ‘And doesn’t he know it. Well, if I did well today, Lucy my love, it was down to your meticulous preparation. Come on, let’s call a cab. We’ve got to look our best before we dine with the mightiest lawyers in the land.’

  Sarah had booked them in for dinner at the Middle Temple, her own Inn of Court. She was in London rarely enough for this to be a treat, and Lucy had never been. Two hours later they sat together at one of the long wooden refectory tables in the ancient Elizabethan hall, where Law Lords, judges, and eminent QCs mingled with aspirant pupils eating their required number of dinners. Lucy gazed about her in awe.

  ‘Is this really as old as it looks?’

  ‘Of course.’ Sarah was determinedly full of high spirits. ‘This is the hall where Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream was first performed. I was younger then. A poet in a ruff propositioned me.’

  Lucy laughed. ‘You do look a bit ghostly. Is this where you ate your dinners?’

  ‘I did. And I was called to the utter Bar. By that old gent over there, standing in front of the portrait. He got my name wrong - called me Newlyn. It was deeply moving.’

  ‘Why do they call it the utter Bar?’

  ‘Because we’re utterly wrong, most of the time. You should know that, Luce - you’ve listened to me often enough.’

  They had a cheerful evening, talking to a high court judge, an ex-policeman who had become a barrister, a Chinese lady QC, and an earnest undergraduate who was president of the Cambridge Law Society. Sarah wondered at the intensity of the questions he posed. How will Emily cope, she wondered, with young men like this? Oh well, maybe I’ll find out tomorrow.

  At the hotel Sarah collapsed into bed, exhausted. But two hours later she awoke. The rhinoceros had resumed its mating activities with the boiler. She lay alone in the orange glow from the streetlamp, listening.

  Jason Barnes was nothing to her. He could rot in jail or run free; it was all one. She’d done her best; it was out of her hands. But it wasn’t just Jason who’d be released tomorrow, if she won. She’d been released herself, by her husband. Only the freedom he’d given her was one she neither wanted nor knew what to do with.

  Oh Bob, Bob, why did you do it? Am I too old, too ugly? Too obsessed with work, perhaps? But Sarah had always been a workaholic, he’d known that for years. As a young wife she’d had studied day and night, sometimes sitting at her desk inside the playpen, to shield her books from the sticky hands of toddlers, while they trashed the house outside. Bob had often come home to find her frantically restoring the wreckage, while the food she’d meant for his tea smouldered into a black snack under the grill. He hadn’t seemed to mind then - he’d laughed, helped her clean up, and encouraged her studies, proud when she got all A grades, keen for her to go further.

  And she had gone further - to the utter Bar, to her own place in chambers, a luxurious house in the country, an appeal in the Royal Courts of Justice.

  So how did I lose a husband on the way? Just when we’d succeeded, we had everything? What is it? Is it me? Are my legs too fat, my hips too broad suddenly, my face too wrinkled? At three a.m, unable to sleep, Sarah got up to look. She switched on the light and subjected herself to a meticulous examination in front of the full length mirror. Can it really be that? It’s true there are lines round my eyes and mouth, my breasts are not as pert as they were, my bottom a little heavier. But not a lot, not really. I can still get into suits I wore ten years ago. Last time I weighed myself I was four pounds less, amazingly, than I was last summer.

  And Bob’s no athlete, after all, never was - hairy pigeon chest, pot belly, skinny arms, knock knees, a varicose vein on his right calf - what in God’s name gives a bony bearded creature like him the right to reject me for my looks?

  Is that why he’s gone? No, it probably isn’t. I’m not a challenge any more, that’s what matters to him. I’ve succeeded. I’m no longer the desperate dropout schoolgirl with a baby to care for, like some Dickensian waif he’s rescued from the poorhouse. I’ve made it. I’m not his project any more.

  And so suddenly, he falls out of love. I’m boring, that’s what it is, I’m boring. Whereas that bitch, whatever her wretched name is - Sonya - she’s divorced, isn’t she, with kids and a part time job - she needs help now. She’s his new project, that’s her attraction. Not the fact that she’s younger than me, not her thighs or her bottom or her hair - Bob needs someone dependent, that’s what it is. Someone who’s grateful to him, who worships him for his generosity.

  Which I didn’t do. Not often enough, anyway - and not at all recently, since Simon’s trial, when I was right, after all, and he was wrong. I thought I was equal - more than equal to him, if the real truth be known. He realised that, and didn’t like it.

  He is a kind, generous man, after all. Up to a point. But now we’ve reached that point, and he’s gone. Left me to stand on my own two feet. All alone. And lonely.

  She shivered suddenly, looking at her nude reflection in the mirror. The room was surprisingly cold for a hotel. Perhaps the rhinoceros had killed the boiler in its enthusiasm. Or the management turned down the heating in the middle of the night.

  Or perhaps she was shivering from loneliness.

  She forced a smile - a determined smile that aped happiness. Her reflection smiled back. She turned to one side, struck a pose, looking over her shoulder, one thigh half raised. Not a bad-looking body, for its age. The stomach was - well, possible to pull in if she tried, the breasts still ... almost as firm as they were. Quite a fair silhouette. She smiled and arched her fingers like a dressmaker’s dummy in a shop window. I can do it, this is me, I don’t look bad. I should - what did that woman in the shop say? Cherish myself.

  She remembered the silk camisole she had bought and put it on, hugging it smoothly to her hips. Oh yes, I need this. If I’m going to be alone I must be kind to myself, make myself happy. If I can. She did a small, hesitant dance around the room, brushed away a sudden, unexpected outburst of tears, and ran a hot bath. That, at least, was working in the middle of the night.

  Four hours later, wearing a black trouser suit, smart heels, and silk camisole under her blouse, she entered the court. For once the tension in the atmosphere didn’t touch her. Her client’s release or continued imprisonment was out of her hands. It was how she handled her own freedom that mattered. She settled quietly in her seat, and waited for the judges to enter.

  12. Ten o’Clock News

  IT WAS the lead item on the ten o’clock news. But Terry Bateson almost missed it, because of the volcanoes. Terry was neutral about volcanoes, but his eldest daughter Jessica seemed to hate them. He’d got home at six to find her in a foul mood. She refused her food, swore at her younger sister, and sat scowling in front of the telly with the sound turned up. ‘She’s been like this since I fetched her from school,’ Trude said. ‘I think it’s something to do with geography.’

  ‘Geography?’ Terry asked, bemused. ‘Don’t you mean hormones?’

  ‘No, I mean geography at school. It’s something the teacher said.’

  Terry Bateson was a Detective Inspector in York CID. He was also a single parent, which didn’t go well with the demands of his work. Since his wife, Mary, had been killed by a hit and run driver three years ago, he’d fought hard to find time for his two daughters. Trude, their Norwegian nanny, took care of them in the day, but now it was his turn. Jessica had just started at secondary school, and things were not going too well.

  He sat down beside his daughter on the sofa. She ignored him, staring sullenly at the telly. He put an arm round her shoulder. She h
unched up, her body a tense little ball of rejection. He tried again, moving closer. She pushed him away, then changed her mind, leaning tight under his arm. They sat like that for a while, watching the Simpsons together. Then the adverts came on and he muted them with the remote.

  ‘Something happen at school?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘No,’ she muttered shortly.

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘Nothing good.’

  ‘Something bad then?’

  ‘Yes.’ They watched a hamburger advert. ‘It’s Mrs Murton. I hate her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I got a C for last week’s homework. She said I didn’t try.’

  ‘Really? Fetch your book and show me.’

  She hesitated, then got up and stomped upstairs. Two minutes later she came back, an exercise book in her hands. She held it out. ‘You won’t be angry?’

  ‘No. Let me see.’

  They sat together on the sofa and studied the offending pages. There were drawings about mountains and valleys, and a few sentences in Jessica’s blue pen. Not very many, Terry could see; not hugely informative. There were a great many more teacher’s comments in red ink, scattered here and there. More information needed. You could say more about this. What about erosion!! Jessica, you could do better. Try harder!!

  The comments hurt, much more than Terry expected. He imagined the teacher’s scowl, her disapproving cluck as she scored the words into the page. Attacking my child, he thought. Even if the comments were justified.

  ‘What’s she like, Mrs Murton?’

  ‘Horrid. Very strict.’

  ‘Is it geography homework tonight?’

  Jessica nodded glumly. ‘Volcanoes. I hate them.’

  ‘Let’s do it together, shall we? Look them up on the computer. And in the encyclopaedia.’

  It took time, but in the end Jessica agreed. They sat by the computer, with books spread on the table, researching details about volcanoes. Terry found it interesting, but Jessica didn’t. The enthusiasm she’d once had in primary school - for dinosaurs, whales, giant turtles - seemed almost extinct. He worked hard to revive it, praising her drawings, suggesting extra details she could add.

  It took an hour before he raised a smile.

  At half past nine he read both girls a story in bed. At ten he came down at last. He poured himself a whisky, slumped on the sofa, and switched on the TV.

  Just in time to see Sarah Newby.

  She was outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London. She stood at the back of the screen, on the left. In the centre of the picture was the circular figure of Lucy Parsons, the solicitor. Lucy wore a black jacket, white silk blouse, and long flowing black skirt. She stood beside a short, muscular man in a dark suit and tie. He had a pale, seamed face and a short prison haircut. Lucy was reading a statement on behalf of her client, while the police held back a crowd of journalists and photographers. Sarah Newby stood quietly at the back. She had a look on her face that Terry knew well. It was the quiet, satisfied smile of victory.

  Lucy’s statement said: ‘Eighteen years ago a young girl mysteriously disappeared, and Jason Barnes was unjustly convicted of her murder. He has always protested his innocence, in the face of immense pressure from the police and prison authorities. Now that innocence has been recognized, and he is free to start a new life again.’

  The crowd jostled her and she paused for a moment. The TV cameras zoomed in on Jason Barnes. There was an odd expression on his face - a grin that was part ecstasy, part sneer, part snarl. As though he was exhilarated, scared and angry all at once. Understandable, Terry thought, in a man wrongly imprisoned for 18 years, but it looked unpleasant all the same.

  ‘My client has asked me to extend his sympathies to the mother of the murdered girl, Brenda Stokes. He hopes that her real killer will one day be brought to justice. But he has no sympathy whatsoever for the police, who took away 18 years of his life, and he hopes there will be an enquiry into their conduct.’

  Jason raised a fist in the air as she ended. ‘They can rot in hell!’ he yelled. Then the bulletin returned to the studio, where the BBC’s court correspondent outlined the original case against him, and the reasons for his successful appeal today. Terry’s boss, Will Churchill, appeared, speaking for North Yorkshire Police. The case would remain on their files, he said. In due course it would be re-examined. But they had no other suspect at present for the murder of Brenda Stokes. Her family were devastated by the outcome.

  Terry had no particular interest in this trial - like Will Churchill, he was too young to have been involved in the original investigation. But it was that sudden, brief glimpse of Sarah Newby that caught his attention. He hadn’t expected it; it caught him by surprise. He hadn’t met her for weeks. She’d begun to fade from his thoughts; he’d forgotten her. Or so he’d thought.

  But that single glimpse of her face - less than a minute in total - changed everything. He felt it like a pain in his chest. His breath came short, his heart beat faster. The words of Lucy Parsons’ statement, the details of the case, washed over him like muzak; he scarcely heard them. It was that slim face at the back of the screen that transfixed him. She had her dark hair pinned back, he noticed, probably to fit under her wig in court. The hairstyle made her forehead look broad. She wore white legal bands around her throat, and some sort of dark robe. She was smiling quietly in triumph, and her hazel eyes watched the media scrum with interest and amusement.

  It was a pretty face, but not excessively so. No prettier than dozens of female faces he saw every day. Objectively, he told himself, she bore no comparison to Trude, who sat watching the news with him. She wasn’t even in the same league, really. But then Trude was a young healthy Norwegian girl, twenty two years old. Her features were perfect, her body lithe and athletic. She could have been a model if she’d wanted, instead of a nanny. Terry’s colleagues at work couldn’t believe his luck. They ribbed him about Trude unmercifully, thought up endless excuses to visit his house.

  But for Terry, Trude was just a child. Beautiful, yes, but out of his class. He was old enough to be her father, after all - a point quite clear to Trude. There was a glass barrier between himself and girls like her. She saw him as a safe, trustworthy employer; he trusted her to care for his daughters. That was as far as it went.

  But then, there was a glass wall between Terry and most women. It had been there since Mary’s death. He could see that other women were beautiful, understand how men found them sexy. He could even imagine going to bed with them, as he had done with many girls as a student. It would be pleasant, exciting, enjoyable.

  But it wouldn’t matter. Not in the way it had mattered for years, with Mary. That was why he’d married her. Because she was different to other women. Because she’d become, quite literally, the other half of himself. The person who understood him more than any other. Who looked back at him as if she were the female face in his mirror.

  So when Mary had died - snuffed out in a second by a careless, cruel teenager - he had thought that love for him was over. Sexual love, that is, between himself and a woman of his own age. Love for his children, of course, was different. That was a responsibility he would never lose. His daughters were what remained of Mary; she lived in their eyes. But other women looked like strangers.

  Some were beautiful, some were sexy, some witty or amusing; a few were all of those things. One or two had made passes at him, without success. He wished them well, but they did nothing for him. They existed behind a glass screen.

  Until he met Sarah Newby.

  She was the first woman, since Mary’s death, who was truly there for him. Who really mattered. Who filled his mind with her image when she wasn’t there, and made him see no one else when she was. Who made him feel light and happy when she spent time with him. Who made his chest tight and painful when she turned away, or seemed to ignore him.

  Which, sadly, she often did.

  Because, unfortunately, Sarah Newby came with several serious disadva
ntages. Firstly, she was married. Terry didn’t think it was a very happy marriage. He’d met her husband and despised him; he’d seen husband and wife quarrel in public. But it was a marriage nonetheless, and one Sarah set some store by. She’d made that quite clear in the past, on the one occasion when he’d almost managed to get her into bed.

  They’d been at a wedding that day. She had quarrelled with her husband, who stormed out of the hotel and left her. Sarah had got drunk, danced with Terry, and invited him up to her room. But then she’d ruined it all by being sick, and nothing happened. It might have been nerves, or the alcohol, or both; Terry wasn’t sure. Next day he’d sent her flowers, hoping for a second chance. She’d thanked him, but explained she’d made a mistake. Her marriage and her career came first. An affair with Terry would wreck them both. That wasn’t going to happen. Ever.

  That was the second drawback to Sarah Newby. The phrase ‘career woman’ had been invented for her. Terry didn’t know all the details, but he knew she’d had to fight to get her place at the Bar. So hard, that her career had become part of her character. She’d got pregnant at fifteen, and left school with no qualifications, no connections, no hope. And a child to bring up, in the slums of Seacroft, near Leeds. Somehow, with her husband’s help, and her own iron determination, she had clawed her way up from that disastrous beginning to this triumph on today’s TV News. A victory in the Court of Appeal, in the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

  That was Sarah, that’s what she did. Terry thought of that smile on her face, the quiet smile of victory. That was what she lived for, what she wanted. It was admirable and terrifying at the same time. Admirable as an achievement; terrifying to a man, like Terry Bateson, who feared he might be in love with her. Because she’d made it quite clear that an affair that might wreck her career was simply not going to happen. Not even with him.

  And yet. Terry had also seen her put her career on the line for her son, Simon. When the boy had been accused of murder, she had defended him, knowing that if she lost, her career was over. Who would employ a barrister who had spawned a murderer? She didn’t have to do that, she could have backed away. But she’d done it for the love of her son. One thing that mattered to her more than her work.