‘So, Girl A,’ the barrister says, ‘if this was not an intoxicated person, why would he lie there – and not defend himself at all?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Perhaps he felt he had nothing to live for?’
‘No, he did. He did have things to live for.’
‘Did he cry out, or shout? I’m just trying to imagine the scene, here.’
Zara says nothing.
Aidan looks over at Luke in the dock. He used to be tall and slim but, after a year on remand in HMP Wandsworth, he is muscular around the neck and arms, like a swimmer.
The courtroom is completely silent.
Aidan stares at the curtains.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘It’s a … a blur.’
‘According to your account, Jamie lay silent and still for the entire attack, so you say. How sad, that he felt his life wasn’t worth anything to even justify rolling over. You’re certain he wasn’t … intoxicated in some way?’
‘He didn’t do drugs. Didn’t drink. Couldn’t afford to.’
The barrister lets out a sharp, acidic laugh. ‘Surely most sleeping people, if woken by an attacker, as you say, would defend themselves, would they not?’
‘Yes.’
‘But he didn’t? He didn’t even lift his head? How tragic.’
And then, right before Zara says it, Aidan realizes. The barrister has worked something out, and has set a trap for Zara to walk into.
‘He did fight,’ Zara says. ‘He stood up first and he lurched towards them. Don’t say that about him. He didn’t think his life was futile just because he was homeless. He didn’t.’
The courtroom is stunned into silence.
Lauren turns to Aidan. She’s staring at him, his wife who, at the moment, is in her beautiful guise. She doesn’t look away, not even as the barrister starts to speak again.
‘Forgive my confusion, Girl A, but you previously said – under oath, I might add – that the victim did nothing. Page three of your witness statement reads: “The two defendants were standing over the victim and the first defendant began to attack him while the victim lay there, motionless.”’
‘I … I … I’m sorry.’
And now, like a gun going off, Aidan realizes. Zara has lied. Zara is lying.
The courtroom doesn’t speak. Nobody moves. Lauren’s eyes are boring into the side of Aidan’s head.
‘So, what is the true version of events?’ the barrister asks. ‘Who attacked first?’
‘Jamie,’ Zara says, very quietly.
The courtroom stills.
Only the judge moves, shifting in his chair at the bench, elevated above the courtroom, and speaks. ‘Girl A,’ he says softly. He’s wearing half-red, half-purple robes, a ludicrous court jester. ‘I have to say …’ the judge looks over at the witness box, even though he can’t see her. He lowers his glasses down his nose. ‘Who attacked first is absolutely crucial in this case.’
‘I know,’ Zara says, her voice strangled and plaintive from behind the curtain.
Aidan wants to go and undo the Velcro and gather her up. He can tell Lauren feels the same.
‘Do you know why?’
Zara says nothing, and Aidan knows she will be staring at the curtains in shock, frozen. She hates to get things wrong. One Christmas, when they were playing Trivial Pursuit, her hands were actually shaking as he asked her a question. She answered incorrectly, but he gave her the wedge anyway.
‘For murder to have taken place,’ the judge says, ‘the defendants need to have intended to cause grievous bodily harm or death, and – crucially – not to have been acting in self-defence. If you have not told the entire truth, Girl A, about the victim’s actions, then the defendants may not have committed murder. So I must ask you: what events took place, and in what order?’
‘Okay,’ Zara says, her voice thick. ‘The defendants stood over Jamie. Doing nothing. And then he … he attacked them first. And they reacted to that attack.’
Aidan listens intently to the silence, shocked. And then it all unravels.
‘I’m sorry,’ Zara says from behind the curtains. ‘I’m sorry, I lied.’
There’s another beat of silence, and then the courtroom comes alive.
The judge shouts, ‘Approach the bench,’ and the barristers stare at each other. The ushers move around to the back of the witness box and, before Aidan knows what’s happening, the jury are dismissed through one door and the public gallery through another. As Aidan waits to leave the courtroom with journalists and other family members, he can feel the blood pounding uncomfortably in his head. Harry nods to Lauren and Aidan. He’ll bring Zara to them, the nod says, when the courtroom is empty. When it’s safe.
The hairs on the back of Aidan’s neck rise up.
They disperse into the foyer and Lauren sits on a bench affixed to the wall. Aidan immediately joins her. ‘God,’ she says to him, her expression aghast. Eyes wide. Hand to her forehead.
‘She lied,’ Aidan says.
‘They still killed someone,’ Lauren says tightly. ‘Whatever the detail.’
‘It isn’t detail if they were defending themselves,’ Aidan says.
‘I’m sure Zara can clear it all up for us,’ Lauren says. ‘I’m sure she’ll explain.’
Aidan isn’t so certain. Zara called Lauren right after she phoned an ambulance that night. Aidan had been next to Lauren as she took the call, and, when they had arrived, Zara’s hands were covered in dried blood from where she had tried to stem Jamie’s bleeding. Aidan watched as Lauren cleaned them up with a wet wipe from a dehydrated packet in the car, remembering sticky summers gone by. When they’d have both the kids in the back, Poppy and Zara, just a couple of months between them, feet kicking the front seats. Lauren had asked her if Jamie had attacked the boys first. If they were actually defending themselves against him. Aidan recalls it now. Zara had looked at Lauren curiously, those beautiful, roving brown eyes of hers focused suddenly on her mother. She had been wearing shorts, a denim jacket and trainers. All bloodstained. ‘If so, it was self-defence,’ Lauren had continued. ‘He could have been threatening them, Zara.’
Aidan rests his head against the wall of the foyer now. But surely Zara wouldn’t lie? Would she? Why would she do something so foolish – and so unlike her, so misguided? Perjury, for God’s sake. Zara’s a fucking vegan, a climate change maniac. He thought she was ethical.
‘She’s in meeting room eighteen,’ Harry says as soon as he arrives in front of them a few minutes later. He’s holding a drink and looking unconcerned in that languid way of his, one hand in the pocket of his suit trousers. He leads them to the side room. It’s up two flights of stairs that turn back on themselves, and down a red-carpeted corridor. It’s silent up here, like a museum.
Harry holds the door open for them. Zara is sitting there, just as she appeared in their kitchen this morning. Harry sits down opposite them. Lauren naturally turns to Aidan, a question mark in her blue eyes.
Zara is absent-mindedly chewing on the inside of her cheek as they sit down, skewing her mouth to the left.