‘No, sir. That’s what I’m ringing about. The judge won’t listen. Says Sharon’s words are hearsay. Not real evidence.’
‘Usual lawyer crap, sir. Anyway the point is that the jury’s still out but they may come back any time. I did my best, sir, but …’
‘OK, Harry, just wait there. Tell them I’m on my way.’
Shoving his phone into his pocket, Terry slipped the scrapbook into an evidence bag. ‘Book this out sergeant. I need it for evidence.’
Sergeant Chisholm protested. ‘Sir, you can’t! I need to list each item separately.’
‘Later, sergeant, later. This is more important now. I’ll take full responsibility.’
As he ran down the stairs, two at a time, the phone in his pocket said: ‘DCI Churchill’s here too, sir. He’s not very happy …’
‘This is it, then,’ Lucy said. ‘Chin up, Simon. Hope for the best.’
‘Yeah, OK. Now or never, eh?’
Handcuffed to the security guards, Simon made his way up the grim concrete stairs, into the wood-panelled courtroom with its stucco pillars and elaborate domed ceiling. The court was full. Above him the public gallery creaked and hummed, fifty mouths muttering, a hundred eyes staring down. Lucy smiling encouragingly back at him as she took her seat.
In front of Lucy, he could see his mother’s slim gown and the back of her horsehair wig. He wondered why she didn’t turn and smile too when he came in, and if it might be a bad omen. Neither he nor Lucy had seen Sarah since she left them half an hour ago, and Lucy didn’t know why she had gone.
The judge in his red robes entered, bowed, and sat down. The clerk intoned the ancient formula: ‘All those having to do with the case of the Crown versus Simon Newby draw nigh and give your attendance. Her Majesty’s Crown Court at York with his Lordship S. Mookerjee presiding is now in session.’ The judge nodded to the usher to fetch the jury.
For a minute, perhaps longer, there was silence. Simon stared at his mother’s neck, slender under the ribbons of the wig. Why doesn’t she turn and smile, he wondered desperately. He crossed his fingers like a child. If only she turns and looks at me it’ll be all right. Come on, Mum, turn.
But she didn’t.
Simon watched anxiously as the jurors filed back into court, willing them to meet his eyes. He had read somewhere that if they looked at you it was all right; if they avoided your eyes you were done for. Six of them glanced at him. Three of those looked away quickly when they met his eyes. None of them smiled.
When they had all taken their places the clerk of the court rose.
‘Members of the jury, would your foreman please stand.’
Simon closed his eyes. When he opened them it was still true. The elderly woman at the back, the one with the grey hair and the string of pearls, was standing up. She wasn’t looking at him. None of them were.
Terry drove with one hand on the wheel and the other holding the phone to his ear. Twice on the busy Fulford Road he had pulled out to overtake, once causing a car to hoot at him directly outside the police station. He was talking to Harry Easby.
‘Look, Harry, I’ve got new evidence which proves it was him beyond a shadow of a doubt. You’ve got to get back in there and stop it, son, before it’s to late.’
Harry was on the steps outside the court. ‘I can’t, sir, you don’t understand. The lawyers have told DCI Churchill what I tried to do, and he’s hopping mad, sir, I daren’t go back in …’
‘If you don’t, Harry, there’ll be a miscarriage of justice!’
‘If I do there’ll be murder, sir. You haven’t seen him. Anyway I haven’t got the evidence to show. You’ll just have to bring it yourself before the jury come back.’
‘That’s what I’m trying to do, Harry — Christ!’ Terry swerved to avoid a cyclist. ‘I’m in Fishergate now, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Just stall them till then, Harry, will you?’
‘Just get here, sir, will you?’ But Terry’s phone had already switched off. Cautiously, Harry made his way back into court, hoping he would not run into DCI Churchill on the way.
Sarah couldn’t face Simon. It was all she could do to sit here, facing the judge and the assembling jury. She was conscious of Phil Turner a few feet away, but couldn’t meet his eyes. He had beaten her, persuaded the judge to disallow evidence that strongly suggested Simon’s innocence. There was no justice in it but what did that matter? He had won the game of proof.
As the elderly woman identified herself as the jury foreman Sarah shuddered, as Simon had done. My worst enemy on the jury, the one who had fiddled in her handbag when I was making my strongest points.
‘Madam foreman, have you reached a verdict?’
‘We have, yes.’ A thin clear voice, slightly more educated than Sarah had expected, but cold, too, without emotion. The old cow would probably vote for hanging if she could. Oh well, I’ll win on appeal, but that could take years.
‘And is …’
A hand was tugging on Sarah’s sleeve. Turning, she saw it was Harry Easby, the detective who’d brought the news of Sharon’s death and Sean’s confession. He was crouched, whispering something to her earnestly. ‘Sorry, what?’
‘DCI Bateson’s on his way. He’s got more evidence. He says it proves Sean did it.’
‘Yes, but it’s too late now — look!’
The court clerk, irritated by their whispered conversation, frowned at them in reproof, before continuing, in a slightly louder voice. ‘… and is that the verdict of you all?’
‘It is.’
‘Very well. On count one, the murder of Jasmine Hurst, do you find the defendant, Simon Newby, guilty or …’
‘He’s got the proof,’ Harry insisted. ‘He’ll be here in a minute. If you want to stop them now’s the time …’
‘… not guilty?’
‘My Lord.’ Sarah rose to her feet, slowly, so slowly it seemed, as if she was trying to run through water in a dream, a nightmare in which she had to act but couldn’t because her muscles wouldn’t obey her. She couldn’t even seem to attract their attention; the clerk and the judge were both looking at the jury forewoman, not her, as though she wasn’t there. Even her voice wasn’t working. She tried again. ‘My Lord …’
‘Not guilty.’
There was a gasp, a murmur of mingled outrage and relief from the public gallery behind her. At least they’ve heard me, Sarah thought, why hasn’t the judge noticed yet?
‘My Lord …’
‘Mrs Newby?’ The judge studied her curiously, almost with compassion, rather than the anger she had expected. ‘It’s all right, Mrs Newby, there’s no need any more.’
He looked past her and said, ‘Simon Newby, you are free to go.’
And then it sank in. There was a roaring in Sarah’s ears, and she sat down quite suddenly, like a puppet whose strings are cut. She heard talking around her and felt Lucy’s soft hands on her shoulders but it was all a blur and her arms didn’t seem to work. Judge Mookerjee, about to thank the jury and discharge them, noticed the commotion about Sarah and looked down, concerned. ‘Mrs Newby, are you all right?’
Sarah looked up through a film of tears and straightened her spine as she had always done, all her life. ‘Oh yes, My Lord, thank you.’ Then she turned to the jury, where the elderly woman she had called a cow was still on her feet and said again, ‘Thank you. Thank you all very much indeed.’
Chapter Forty-Four
‘So if you’d come in time, what were you going to show the judge?’ Sarah asked Terry, as they strolled along
