A Game of Proof

outside with two small children — one of them the little boy who had dared to attack the brute who was raping his mother.

She went back to her chambers where two young barristers were commiserating with Savendra over the conviction of his filthy farmer for polluting the borehole with his slurry pit.

‘My expert assured them that it takes twenty years to reach the water table,’ he said, gloomily watching the bubbles in a glass of mineral water instead of the champagne languishing in the fridge. ‘But that only made it worse. The applicants could see themselves drinking foul water for decades to come — you could see the steam coming out of their ears!’

‘Leaving the pollution in their minds, no doubt!’

‘Exactly. They got costs as well. My client may have to sell up …’

‘Is there much money in slurry these days? Maybe you can bottle it and sell it as perfume for dogs …’

Sarah squeezed past into her room to write her speech for tomorrow. There were plenty of questions she could raise about the evidence; her real problem was how to appeal to the jury, to get them to feel good about acquitting a man who not only looked like a horrendous thug but probably was one. Particularly when the acquittal would be so devastating for Sharon. And for her children too.

That was the problem. To question the evidence was easy, to gain the jury’s sympathy … not so easy. Not even slightly easy. Impossible, probably.

Well, that’s what I’m paid to do. Not the easy things, but the difficult ones. That’s the whole point of the challenge.

For an hour she tried out phrase after phrase, rejecting one after another. All the time Gary’s words haunted her: ‘Keep me trap shut and tell no more lies.’ It was as close as she was likely to get to an admission of guilt. Gary was an old enough lag to know the game; a client must never admit guilt to his barrister. If the client did admit it, it was the barrister’s duty to advise a guilty plea, even at this late stage. If that advice was rejected the barrister could, as some did, withdraw from the case there and then, or more likely, offer only a token defence, questioning the evidence with a lack of conviction that clearly signalled to everyone in court — except the jury, who were new to the game — how little you believed in your task. Sarah had seen that done but always hated it. She wanted to do the job properly, go all out for victory.

After all Gary, repulsive as he was, had consistently professed his innocence.

Until now.

‘Keep me trap shut and tell no more lies.’ You sod, Gary — why didn’t you keep it shut with me! But of course he hadn’t admitted his guilt — she and Lucy had just inferred it from a couple of words. There was no ethical reason why she shouldn’t continue to defend him, and every practical reason — including a substantial fee from the legal aid fund — why she should. It was a good case, a step up in her career. If only it didn’t feel so tacky and sordid, suddenly.

The phone rang and she picked it up.

‘Sarah?’

‘Bob. Hi.’ She’d meant to ring him earlier but got absorbed in her work. ‘How’s Emily?’

‘That’s just it. I don’t know.’

‘Don’t know? What do you mean? Where are you ringing from — school?’

‘No, I’m at home. But she’s not here.’

‘What time is it?’ She glanced at her watch. Half past six. ‘Did she leave a note?’

‘No, nothing. I got home at five and she wasn’t here. No plates or sign of lunch. I’ve rung her friends — Michelle and Sandra anyway — and they haven’t seen her either.’ There was a hint of anxiety in Bob’s voice — unusual for him.

‘Didn’t you ring this afternoon like I asked?’

‘Look, I’ve had two teachers sick and a football match to referee, for God’s sake! Anyway the answerphone was still on when I got here.’

‘Have you tried her mobile?’

‘It’s here in her bedroom. She told me this morning the card has run out.’

‘Well …’ Sarah was nonplussed. ‘Have you tried her friend Joanne? She sometimes goes there.’

‘I haven’t got the number.’

‘Well, go round by car. You know where she lives.’

‘All right. But someone should be here in case she comes home. It’s not like her, Sarah — you know what a state she was in this morning.’

‘I’ll be back in an hour or so. I’ve got this speech to write …’

‘The hell with your speech! Bring it home, Sarah, do it later — you should be here!’

Sarah’s face tightened. She didn’t need this, not now. ‘Stop panicking, Bob. She’ll be OK. She’s probably gone for a walk to get her head together. There’s nothing we can do until she comes back anyway. If I get my speech out of the way I can talk to her later.’

Silence came from the phone. Don’t play silly games with me, Bob Newby, not now. In a light voice intended to reassure, she said: ‘In about an hour. OK?.’ And put the phone down.

Now — how to appeal to the jury’s emotions. The deadline would concentrate her mind, as it always did. She bent forward over her desk, and her mind closed down all thoughts of Bob and Emily.

It would open again in an hour.

She got home at eight to find Bob alone. He had tried Emily’s friend Joanne and two more without success, he said. The schoolgirls had phoned their network of friends — none of them had seen or heard from Emily today.

Bob looked distraught. When Sarah came in he rushed downstairs, hoping it was Emily. One of the mothers had suggested he search her bedroom to find out what clothes she had been wearing, but he had no memory for girls’ clothes at the best of times. But the idea, the fear in the mind of the woman who had put him up to it, made Sarah shiver as she unzipped her black leather jacket.

‘Why do you want to know what she’s wearing?’

‘I don’t know … well, in case, the police …’

‘Bob..’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘She’ll be all right.’

‘So you say. You haven’t been here — you’ve been writing your wretched speech to defend some rapist! Sarah, it’s eight o’clock in the evening and none of her friends have seen her all day. It’ll be dark in an hour.’

‘Well, maybe she’s gone for a walk.’

‘Where?’

‘Well, you know — where does she go? By the river.’

Oh God no! The same thought struck them both at once. ‘I didn’t know she went by the river,’ Bob said.

‘She has done once or twice recently. She told me about it. She saw a heron …’

‘We’d better go and look.’ He grabbed a coat and went to the back door. She followed. Outside in the garden he turned. ‘No, one of us ought to stay here, in case she comes back …’

‘But if we both go, one can go upstream and one down. As you say, it’ll be dark soon.’

‘But what if she comes back?’ Bob’s panic was infectious. They stood there, indecisive, staring at each other on the carefully mown lawn, beside the weeping willow and the rose trees they had worked so hard to afford. This is absurd, Sarah thought. Nothing is going to happen.

‘We’ll leave a note,’ she said firmly. ‘Surely you left a note when you went out before?’

‘No. I didn’t think.’

Christ! And you a head teacher! ‘All right, I’ll write one.’ She turned back to the house. ‘You go on. Which way will you go?’

‘Upstream.’

‘I’ll go down then. See you soon.’

She wrote two large notes — GONE FOR A WALK BY THE RIVER, BACK SOON, MUM AND DAD — and left one on the fridge door and one on the stairs. If Emily came in she would either look for food or go to her room, surely. Then she put on her wellington boots and went out through the garden gate, across the field to the river bank. She set off downstream.