A Game of Proof

‘Do you know who killed her?’

‘No. How could I?’

This was the answer she had planned and rehearsed with him. Simple, and true. But then, to her surprise, he glared pointedly at David Brodie. ‘I’ve got my ideas but no proof.’

They had already discussed this idea and rejected it. Sarah feared that any further attempt to accuse Brodie was likely to backfire. She thought Simon had been convinced. Clearly not, however. They’d planned everything and here he was already striking out on his own.

‘Did you love Jasmine?’ she continued coolly.

‘Love her? Yes.’ He appeared to consider the idea for a moment, then repeated himself with more emphasis. ‘I did. Yes.’

Careful, Simon, she thought. Don’t start acting now. She had warned him against this, but the witness stand did strange things to people, particularly those facing life imprisonment.

‘Would you tell the court, in your own words, exactly what happened on Thursday 13th May. From the beginning.’

Simon drew a deep breath, and faced the jury, as she had suggested. If you can manage it, tell the story to them; if not, look at me. ‘Well, I was off work, so I had a lie in, like, until about nine thirty. Then I got up and went for a run.’

‘Where did you go for your run?’

‘Where I often go. Down the river opposite the Archbishop’s Palace. Past where she were found that night. So if there were mud and such on my shoes, that’s where I got it, see?’

She sighed. His fake worker’s accent had become stronger. Idiot!

‘You were wearing these training shoes that were shown in evidence, were you?’

‘Course I were. They’re my shoes, aren’t they? What else would I wear?’

For Christ’s sake, Simon, she wanted to scream, I’m not arguing with you, I’m here to help you. ‘All right. What happened then?’

‘Well, when I got back, I met her. Jasmine. She was by the river not far from my house.’

Better now. Less accent, less truculence. Perhaps it had just been stage fright. She nodded encouragingly. ‘Were you expecting to meet her?’

‘Not exactly. She came to see me sometimes but I never knew when.’

‘Was she coming to see you then?’

‘She said she was. Yeah.’

‘How did she look?’

‘Stunning, like always.’ He glanced at the jury, then realized he’d misunderstood the question. ‘Oh … well, a bit angry, or upset. I asked what’s up and she said she’d had a row with David, like. Anyhow, she came in.’

‘What happened then?’

‘I had a shower, she made some tea, and we talked for a bit. Nothing special, really.’

‘Had she visited you like this before, while she was living with David?’

‘A few times, yeah.’

‘What usually happened on these visits?’

‘Well, we’d chat for a bit, maybe have a meal, then we’d go to bed together, and sometime later she’d … leave.’

A shaven-headed male juror, she noticed, was nodding approvingly. This sounds normal to him, then, at least. ‘Is that what happened this day?’

‘Yes. We had a bite to eat, and then … she took her clothes off … you know.’

‘You had sexual intercourse?’

‘If that’s what you call it, yes. I shagged her.’

There was a snort of suppressed laughter. Jesus, Simon! Of all the words to use, why pick that one? The point of this is not to shock your mother, but to ingratiate yourself with the jury. The younger jurors, she saw, looked amused, but several others looked distinctly disgusted. Phil Turner smiled ironically.

Now another key question. ‘So, to be quite clear, Simon, was this sexual intercourse something you both wanted? Or did you force it upon her?’

‘No, of course not. She wanted it — why else did she take her clothes off like that? That’s why she came. She knew what was going to happen.’

‘So you didn’t rape her?’

‘No, not at all. Nothing like it.’

She could almost hear the jury’s minds working. Is this man lying or not? All they had to go on was their experience of life — similar situations, similar young men to Simon.

‘The forensic pathologist has described some bruises which he found inside her vagina. Can you account for those?’

‘Not really, no. I mean, I didn’t hurt her, if that’s what you’re saying. She liked it, she always did.’ He hesitated. ‘I mean, maybe it bruised her when she got excited but I wouldn’t know that, would I? She didn’t complain.’

‘Did you wear a condom?’

‘No. She were on the pill. She said.’

Such questions for a mother to ask her son, in public. Sarah remembered the childhood photos she had found last night. ‘All right. What time of day was this?’

‘Early, mid afternoon maybe. Hard to say. We went to bed and I fell asleep. Maybe she did as well. Then we went for a walk, bought some Chinese. I thought … I thought it was a real good day. Then when we came back it went wrong.’

‘What went wrong?’

‘Well, like I say we were getting on fine. She was saying what a pain David was with all his tidying and fussing, and I knew he couldn’t screw her like I did, she told me that every time, it was quite a joke with her really … so I thought she might leave him and come back for good. She said she would, too; I remember it clearly. I was really happy.

‘But then, after the Chinese, she looked at her watch and said she’d have to go. So I said ‘go where?’ And she said, ‘to David, of course. You don’t think I could live in this pigsty, do you? He’ll have the bed made and the house all nice’ — you know, stuff like that. And I was so angry, then. It was like she’d kicked me right in the guts. So I yelled at her. I said she’d promised to stay and we’d had a great time, but she just laughed. She said that was part of the game, something like that, it would make it even better next time because I’d want her even more. And that made me sick because I saw she’d been doing this all the time and probably did the same to David too, she was just a bitch, I said that … I wish I hadn’t now but I did …’

For part of this speech he had been talking to the jury, then turning back to her and even the judge and the people in the well of the court, as though he wanted to convince everyone of what he was saying. For the first time Sarah felt it might work, that people might really believe her son and understand him. But they might also realize he had just described a perfect motive for killing Jasmine. They had seen her mutilated body. Now here he was calling her a bitch. Pray God Jasmine’s mother’s not here.

‘And then what happened?’

‘She just walked out. I tried to stop her but she was too quick, she was outside. That’s probably when that old nosy git was cleaning his teeth and heard us shouting. Anyway I tried to pull her back in and she clouted my face with her bag — he didn’t see that, did he? But that’s why I hit her back, because it hurt. Anyway she was such a bitch, to go like that after all she’d said. So then I went back in and … that’s the last I saw of her.’

‘You never saw her again?’

‘No.’

There was a collective relaxation around the court, as though a key moment had passed. But what conclusions had people drawn, Sarah wondered. That was the mystery.

‘So what did you do then?’

‘Nothing special. I just mooched around indoors thinking about how she’d behaved. I was all, like, churned up