‘You said Jamie did nothing,’ Lauren says. ‘But he did?’
‘Yes,’ Zara says. Amazingly, she doesn’t seem to feel a need to clarify anything further. The mind of the teenager.
‘What sort of attack was it?’ Harry asks. ‘It’s very important – now – that you tell me the truth, Zara.’
‘They stood over him. They roused him, I think. He got up and sort of … came at them. He was shouting and stuff … but they scared him, they –’ Zara stops speaking and turns her hands over on the table, palms up. A small gesture of defeat.
‘And what exactly is stuff?’ Harry says. ‘Shouting and –’ he taps his pen on the table, ‘– stuff.’
‘Well –’ Zara says in a small voice.
‘But why would you lie?’ Lauren interrupts. ‘If he attacked first – I mean – Zara.’
Lauren doesn’t understand lying. She tells every single person she meets exactly what she is thinking: Tesco cashiers and mechanics and postmen. ‘No croissant for me,’ she will say in cafés, ‘I’ve got three pounds left to lose!’
‘You want to know why?’ Zara says.
‘Yes,’ Lauren says softly.
‘After he – Luke – did it, he shouted at Jamie. He said, “You’re a waste of space. You’re worthless.” Right in his face. As he … as he died. Those were the last words he heard. And – you know – Jamie wanted to start working for one of the cafés that fed him. He had an interview and everything. And now it’s all lost.’
Of course, Aidan thinks, looking at the thoughtful set of her mouth. Zara felt that them killing Jamie – no matter what he did first – was morally reprehensible. Despite the law, Despite everything.
‘I need to clarify the actual facts, Zara,’ Harry says tightly, glancing briefly at Lauren. ‘So the order of events was that Jamie lashed out at them – and Luke and Mal didn’t do anything first?’
‘That’s correct,’ Zara says quietly. ‘He got up and he was … shouting and screaming and kicking out. He was … he didn’t like people in his spaces. He always slept out of the way. He got frightened when people disturbed him. So he came at them. Lunged. They tried to move – to run away from him. He was coming towards them and they panicked. They used the roof tile to … to get him off.’
‘Right,’ Harry says very quietly, after a brief pause. ‘That is quite different.’
‘But he didn’t mean it, I know he didn’t,’ Zara says passionately. ‘He was so scared, he gets like that sometimes because of his PTSD, because of his past, and they were so … they were so awful, after they’d done it. They didn’t regret it at all.’
‘So the footballers were the victims of the attack?’ Harry says, writing something down on a legal pad.
‘They don’t seem to behave much like victims to me, do they?’ Zara says, looking directly at Harry.
‘This is …’ Lauren says, and Aidan waits, leaving the punishment to her. ‘You shouldn’t have done this,’ she says eventually.
Harry looks on impassively, ever the lawyer. Gathering the information. Waiting, catlike, for his moment.
‘They didn’t care at all,’ Zara says, and now the tears come. ‘They didn’t give a shit.’ She grips the table. Her hands leave sweaty marks on the Formica. They fade as Aidan looks at them, disappearing to nothing.
‘What made you do it?’ Harry says.
Zara considers his question for a few seconds. ‘The police,’ she eventually answers, folding her hands awkwardly in her lap. ‘I think the police.’
‘What?’ Harry says. ‘Why?’
‘They said, “And Jamie wasn’t attacking them, was he?” That’s how they said it. Wasn’t. I thought … I thought about self-defence, but I thought. God, it sounds stupid now, but I thought the police wanted me to … to leave that bit out. I thought I was being … invited to.’
This seems to annoy Harry. He crosses his legs so forcefully under the table that it rises up for a second, and Zara presses down with her hands to steady it.
‘How so? Did they say anything else, Zara?’
‘Well, I stammered, and then the woman police officer, she said, “And no movement from Jamie?” And then she asked, “And Jamie was just lying there?” and I thought they wanted me to … I thought what the boys did was so bad that … that we should turn a blind eye to Jamie. Because they still killed him, you know?’
‘Right,’ Harry says faintly.
Aidan looks at Zara. Teenage logic. There’s no nuance to it. No common sense, no understanding of the justice system, of perjury. Just a desire to please, a feeling, instincts.
‘Why would the police want you to do that?’ Harry adds.
‘Because they want convictions, don’t they?’ Zara says. ‘Numbers. I thought … I don’t know. I saw two boys kill someone and I wasn’t … I guess I just … I got it wrong, didn’t I? I did the wrong thing. Clearly.’ Her head drops ever so slightly.
‘Yes,’ Harry says. ‘They … I mean, he was lunging at them, by your account. They did what any reasonable person would do.’
‘I know,’ Zara says in a small voice, but there is still something defiant about the set of her jaw.
‘Look,’ Aidan says. ‘What happens now?’
Harry lets a tiny expulsion of air out of his mouth. ‘It’s pretty unprecedented,’ he says. He checks the time. It’s an Apple Watch. The screen springs to life as he turns his wrist. Aidan can see he has a waiting text message, too. Lauren leans right over to read it, and Aidan almost smiles. She is always so reliably herself.
‘The prosecution will need to take a view,’ Harry says. ‘Let me consult with my colleagues across the street.’ He scoots his chair back and leaves the room in one swift movement.
Aidan looks at Lauren, and they leave the room together.
‘I hope he can help us,’ Lauren says.
Aidan frowns. Harry isn’t going to help them, he thinks sadly. He belongs to the State. He’s there to prosecute crimes on their behalf. Crimes like murder and – yeah – crimes like perjury, too.
6
Aidan
Islington, London
In the middle of the night, Aidan is awake for a few moments before he realizes. His eyes are open in the not-quite-darkness of central London. Lauren is sleeping on her side, turned towards him, as she always does, her belly rounded and naked, forming three distinct rolls that she’d like to be two.
A burglar alarm is going off somewhere across the street. Three beeps, then a pause. Aidan taps his foot on the mattress along with it. Beep, beep, beep, pause. Beep, beep, beep, pause. He turns on to his back, an arm above his head, and watches the ceiling light up blue, three times, then dim.
The Crown Prosecution Service reviewed the police tape of Zara’s statement in the afternoon, while Aidan, Lauren and Zara waited.
Afterwards, Harry had confirmed that Luke and Mal would be completely exonerated. That they were defending themselves against an attack. He had confirmed, too, that the CPS wouldn’t press charges against Zara: the interview footage confirmed her account that the police appeared to ask leading questions. That it would be easy for a teenager to be swayed by such an ‘amateur line of questioning’.