You had spent what seemed like weeks trudging round the city’s gift shops and galleries with samples of your work, and all you had to show for it were two shops, each wanting a dozen or so pots and vases to sell on a commission basis. You were as pleased as if you had won the lottery, spending far more effort on each vase than on anything you had done before.
‘The longer you spend, the less you’re earning for your time,’ I had reminded you, but it seemed my business experience was wasted on you, and you continued to spend hours painting and glazing.
I called you when I landed in Paris and felt a sudden pang of homesickness when I heard your voice. Doug took the client out for dinner, but I pleaded a migraine and remained in my room, where I picked at a room-service steak and wished I had brought you after all. The immaculately made bed seemed vast and unappealing, and at eleven o’clock I went down to the hotel bar. I ordered a whisky and stayed at the bar, ordering another before I had finished the first. I sent you a text message but you didn’t answer: I supposed you were in your studio, oblivious to my calls.
There was a woman at a table near to where I sat at the bar. She was dressed for business in a grey pinstriped suit with black high heels, and an open briefcase lay on the chair beside her. She was going through paperwork, and when she looked up and caught my eye she gave a rueful smile. I smiled back.
‘You’re English,’ she said.
‘Is it that obvious?’
She laughed. ‘When you travel as much as I do, you learn to spot the signs.’ She picked up the papers she was working on and dropped them into her briefcase, closing it with a thud. ‘That’s quite enough for one day.’
She didn’t make any move to leave.
‘May I join you?’ I asked.
‘I’d be delighted.’
I hadn’t planned it, but it was exactly what I needed. I didn’t ask her name until the morning, when she came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel.
‘Emma,’ she said. She didn’t ask mine and I wondered how often she did this, in anonymous hotel rooms in anonymous cities.
When she had gone, I called you and let you tell me about your day; about how pleased the gift-shop owner had been with the vases, and how you couldn’t wait to see me. You told me you missed me, and that you hated us being apart, and I felt the reassurance seep into me and make me safe again.
‘I love you,’ I said. I knew you needed to hear it: that it wasn’t enough for you to see everything I did for you; the way I looked after you. You gave a tiny sigh.
‘I love you too.’
Doug had obviously worked hard on the client over dinner, and from the jokes at our morning meeting it was clear they had gone on to a strip club. By midday we’d clinched the deal, and Doug was on the phone to the bank to reassure them we were solvent once more.
I had the hotel receptionist call me a taxi. ‘Where will I find the best jewellery shops?’ I asked.
He gave a knowing smile that irritated me. ‘A little something for a lady, sir?’
I ignored him. ‘The best place?’
His smile became a little more fixed. ‘Faubourg Saint-Honoré, monsieur.’ He remained solicitous as I waited for the taxi to arrive, but his presuming air cost him a tip, and it took me the full cab ride to shake off my annoyance.
I walked the length of Faubourg Saint-Honoré before settling on a small jeweller’s unimaginatively called ‘Michel’, where black trays were studded with sparkling diamonds. I wanted to take my time choosing, but staff in discreet suits hovered around, offering assistance and suggestions, and I found it impossible to concentrate. In the end I chose the biggest: a ring you couldn’t possibly refuse. A square-set white diamond on a simple platinum ring. I handed over my credit card and told myself you were worth it.
I flew home the following morning, the small leather box burning a hole in my coat pocket. I had it in mind to take you out for dinner, but as I opened the front door you ran to me and squeezed me so tight that I couldn’t wait another moment.
‘Marry me.’
You laughed, but you must have caught the sincerity in my eyes, because you stopped and put your hand to your mouth.
‘I love you,’ I said. ‘I can’t be apart from you.’
You didn’t say anything, and I faltered. This hadn’t been part of my plan. I had expected you to fling your arms around me, kiss me, to cry, perhaps, but above all: to say yes. I scrabbled for the jewellery box and thrust it into your hand. ‘I mean it, Jennifer. I want you to be mine, always. Say you will, please say you will.’
You gave a tiny shake of your head, but you opened the box and your mouth fell open a fraction. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Say yes.’
There was a pause long enough for me to feel the fear in my chest that you might refuse. And then you said yes.
34
A metallic thud makes me jump. After DI Stevens left my cell last night, I stared at the flaking paint on the ceiling, feeling the cold seep through the mattress from the concrete plinth below until sleep crept up on me unwittingly. As I push myself upright on the bed, my limbs ache and my head pounds.
Something rattles at the door, and I realise the thud was the drop of the square hatch in the centre of the door, through which a hand is now thrusting a plastic tray.
‘Come on, I haven’t got all day.’
I take the tray. ‘May I have some painkillers?’
The gaoler is standing to the side of the hatch, and I can’t see her face, just a black uniform and a straggle of blonde hair.
‘The doctor’s not here. You’ll have to wait till you get to court.’ She has barely finished speaking before the hatch slides up with a clunk that echoes round the cell block, and I hear her heavy footsteps retreating.
I sit on the bed and drink the tea, which has slopped messily on to the tray. It’s tepid and sugary but I drink thirstily, realising I have had nothing since lunchtime yesterday. Breakfast is sausage and beans in a microwavable container. The plastic has melted around the edges, and the beans are crusted with bright orange sauce. I leave the offering on the tray with my empty cup and use the toilet. There is no loo seat, only a metal basin, and sheets of scratchy paper. I rush to finish before the gaoler comes back.
My abandoned food is long cold by the time I hear footsteps again. They pause outside my cell and I hear the sound of keys jangling, then the heavy door swings open and I see a surly girl barely into her twenties. The black uniform and greasy blonde hair mark her out as the gaoler who brought my breakfast, and I indicate the tray resting on my mattress.
‘I couldn’t eat it, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ says the gaoler, with a snort of laughter. ‘I wouldn’t touch it if I was starving.’
I sit on the metal bench opposite the custody desk and put on my boots. I have been joined by three others: all men, and all dressed in tracksuit bottoms and hooded tops so similar that I think at first they are wearing some kind of uniform. They sit slouched against the wall, as at home here as I am out of place. I twist around to see the myriad notices on the wall above our heads, but none of it makes sense. Information about solicitors, interpreters, offences ‘taken into consideration’. Am I supposed to know what is happening? Each time a wave of fear hits me, I remind myself what I did, and that I have no right to be frightened.
We wait for what must be half an hour or more, until a buzzer sounds and the custody sergeant looks up at the CCTV screen on the wall, now filled with a large white lorry.
‘Limo’s here, lads,’ he says.
The boy next to me sucks his teeth and mutters something I can’t make out and don’t want to.
The custody sergeant opens the door to a pair of Reliance security officers. ‘Four for you today, Ash,’ he says to the male officer. ‘Hey, City took a bit of a pounding last night, didn’t they?’ He gives a slow shake of his head, as though in sympathy, but he is grinning broadly, and the man called Ash thumps him good-naturedly on the sho
ulder.
‘We’ll have our day,’ he says. He glances across at us for the first time. ‘Got the paperwork for these, then?’
The men continue talking football, and the female Reliance officer comes over to me.
‘All right, love?’ she says. She has a plump, maternal air, at odds with her uniform, and I feel a ridiculous urge to cry. She tells me to stand, running the flat of her hand over my arms, back and legs. She sweeps a finger around the inside of my waistband and checks the elastic of my bra through my shirt. I am aware of nudges from the boys on the bench and I feel as exposed as if I had been naked. The officer handcuffs my right wrist to her left one, and takes me outside.
We are driven to court in a partitioned lorry that reminds me of the horseboxes at the county shows to which my mother used to take me and Eve. I fight to stay on the narrow bench seat as the lorry turns a corner, my wrists cuffed to a chain that runs the width of the cubicle. The lack of space makes me claustrophobic and I stare through the obscured glass window which sends Bristol’s buildings past me in a kaleidoscope of shapes and colours. I try to make sense of the twists and turns, but the motion has me feeling seasick and I close my eyes, resting my forehead against the cool glass.
My moving cell is replaced by a stationary one in the depths of the Magistrates’ Court. They give me tea – hot, this time – and toast that splinters into matchsticks in my throat. My solicitor will be with me at ten, they tell me. How can it not yet be ten o’clock? I’ve lived a lifetime today already.
‘Ms Gray?’
The solicitor is young and disinterested, his suit expensive and confidently striped.
‘I didn’t ask for a solicitor.’
‘You have to have legal representation, Ms Gray, or represent yourself. Do you want to represent yourself?’ His arched eyebrow suggests that only the very foolish would consider such an option.
I shake my head.
‘Good. Now, I understand you have admitted in interview the offences of causing death by dangerous driving, and of failing to stop and give details after an accident. Am I correct?’
‘Yes.’
He rifles through the file he has brought with him, its red ribbon untied and thrown carelessly on to the table. He hasn’t yet looked at me.
‘Do you want to plead guilty or not guilty?’
‘Guilty,’ I say, and the word seems to linger in the air; the first time I have said it out loud. I am guilty.
He writes down something far longer than one word, and I want to peer over his shoulder to read it. ‘I shall apply for bail on your behalf and you stand a good chance of getting it. No previous convictions, abiding by your current bail conditions, answering bail on time … Clearly the initial abscond will work against us … Do you have any mental health issues?’
‘No.’
‘Pity. Never mind. I’ll do my best. Now, do you have any questions?’
Dozens, I think.
‘None,’ I say.
‘Court rise.’
I expected more people, but apart from a bored-looking man with a notebook, in a section of the court the usher explains to me is for press, there are very few. My solicitor sits in the middle of the room with his back to me. A young woman in a navy-blue skirt is next to him, passing a highlighter over a printed page. At the same long table, but several feet away, is an almost identical pairing – the prosecution.
The usher next to me tugs at my sleeve and I realise I am the only one still standing. The magistrate, a pinch-faced man with wispy hair, has arrived, and court is now in session. My heart is pounding and my face is hot with shame. The few people in the public gallery are looking at me curiously, as though I were an exhibit in a museum. I recall something I once read about public executions in France: the guillotine mounted in the town square for all to see; women clicking their knitting needles as they waited for the performance. A shiver runs through me as I realise I am today’s entertainment.
‘Will the defendant please rise?’
I get to my feet again and give my name when the clerk asks for it.
‘How do you plead?’
‘Guilty.’ My voice sounds reedy and I cough to clear my throat, but I’m not asked to speak again.
The lawyers argue over bail in a verbose rally that makes my head spin.
There is too much at stake; the defendant will run.
The defendant has kept her bail conditions; she will continue to abide by them.
There is a life sentence to consider.
There is a life to consider.
They speak to each other through the magistrate, like warring children communicating through a parent. Their words are extravagantly emotive, illustrated with flamboyant gestures that are wasted on the empty courtroom. They argue over bail: over whether I should be remanded in prison until the Crown Court trial, or released on bail to wait for my trial at home. I realise my lawyer is arguing for my release, and I want to tug at his sleeve and tell him I have no interest in bail. Except for Beau, there is no one at home for me. No one to miss me. In prison I will be safe. But I sit mutely, my hands in my lap, unsure of what picture I should be portraying. Not that anyone is looking at me. I am invisible. I try to follow the lawyers’ argument, to work out who is winning this war of words, but am quickly lost in the theatrics.
A hush descends on the court and the magistrate fixes me with an unsmiling gaze. I have the absurd urge to tell him that I’m not like the usual occupants of his court. That I grew up in a house like his, and that I went to university; held dinner parties; had friends. That I was once confident and outgoing. That before last year I had never broken the law, and that what happened was a terrible mistake. But his eyes are disinterested and I realise he doesn’t care who I am, or how many dinner parties I have held. I’m just another criminal through his doors; no different from any other. I feel my identity being stripped away from me once more.
‘Counsel has passionately defended your right to bail, Ms Gray,’ the magistrate says, ‘assuring me that you would no sooner abscond again than you would fly to the moon.’ There is a titter from the public gallery, where a pair of old women are wedged into the second row with a Thermos flask. My modern-day tricoteuses. The corners of the magistrate’s mouth twitch appreciatively. ‘He tells me your initial flight from the scene of this truly abhorrent crime was a moment of madness, out of character and never to be repeated. I hope, Ms Gray, for all our sakes, he is correct.’ He pauses, and I hold my breath.
‘Bail is granted.’
I let out a sigh which might be taken for relief.
There is a noise from the press box and I see the young man with the notebook sidle out of the row of seats, his book stuffed messily into his jacket pocket. He gives a bob of his head in the direction of the bench before exiting, leaving the door swinging behind him.
‘Court rise.’
As the magistrate leaves court, the hum of conversation grows louder, and I see my solicitor lean over towards the prosecution. They laugh about something, then he comes over to the dock to speak to me.
‘A good result,’ he says, all smiles now. ‘The case has been adjourned for sentencing at Crown Court on the seventeenth of March – you’ll be given information about legal aid and your options for representation. Safe trip home, Ms Gray.’
It feels strange to walk freely out of the courtroom, after twenty-four hours in a cell. I go to the canteen and buy a take-away coffee, burning my tongue in my impatience to taste something stronger than police station tea.
There is a glass roof above the entrance to Bristol Magistrates’ Court, which gives shelter from the drizzle to small groups of people, speaking urgently to each other between drags of cigarettes. As I walk down the steps I’m jostled by a woman heading in the opposite direction, and coffee seeps through the ill-fitting plastic lid and on to my hand.
‘Sorry,’ I say automatically. But as I stop and glance up I see that the woman has stopped too, and that she is holding a microphone. A sudden
flash of light startles me and I look up to see a photographer a few feet away from me.
‘How do you feel about the prospect of prison, Jenna?’
‘What? I—’
The microphone is thrust so close it almost brushes my lips.
‘Will you be sticking by today’s guilty plea? How do you think Jacob’s family are feeling?’
‘I, yes, I—’
People are pushing me from every angle, the reporter’s questions shouted over a chanting I can’t decipher. There is so much noise it’s like being in a football stadium, or a concert arena. I can’t breathe, and when I try to turn I’m pushed in the opposite direction. Someone pulls at my coat, and I lose my balance, falling heavily against someone who pushes me roughly upright. I see a placard, clumsily made and brandished high above the small throng of protesters. Whoever has written it has started too large, and the last few letters have been squeezed together to make it fit. Justice for Jacob!
That’s it. That’s the chant I can hear.
‘Justice for Jacob! Justice for Jacob!’ Over and over, until the shouts seem to come from behind and all around me. I look to the side for a space but there are people there too, and my coffee falls from my hand and loses its lid as it hits the ground, liquid splashing my shoes and running down the steps. I stumble again, and for a second I think I’m going to fall and be crushed underfoot by this furious mob.
‘Scum!’
I make out an angry twisted mouth and a pair of enormous hooped earrings that swing from side to side. The woman makes a primitive sound at the back of her throat, then spits the glutinous result at my face. I turn my face just in time, and feel the warm saliva land on my neck and slide beneath the collar of my coat. It shocks me as much as if she had punched me, and I cry out and hide my face behind raised arms, waiting for the next offensive.
‘Justice for Jacob! Justice for Jacob!’
I feel an arm grip my shoulder and I tense, twisting away and looking frantically for a way out.