How to Kill Your Family(86)

I should finish off explaining what happened with Caro since it’s why I’m in here, wearing a polyester tracksuit instead of something nice from MaxMara. It’s why Kelly is the closest person to me, since Jimmy won’t reply to my letters and I’ve realised I have very few other friends. I knew that before really, I didn’t exactly spend my time cultivating close relationships before all of this. I was possessed, I see that now. Only focusing on my plan to cut down the Artemis family and not even having the foresight to build up a life that would be waiting for me once it was all done. Stupid, of course. I relied on Jimmy to be there when I was finished, thinking that he’d be enough and that the rest would come easily. And most people are sort of terrible. Thick or dull or a hideous combination of both. I could never tolerate it, and so I never tried to. My current predicament has hardly disabused me of this notion.

But Jimmy wasn’t the constant in my life that I presumed he would be. Two days after Gemma Adebayo had told me that I was free to go, I had been woken up early by a hammering at my front door. I opened it blearily, and was promptly arrested for the murder of Caro Morton. I was taken back to the police station, this time with less concern for my comfort or wellbeing, and charged. As I sat with the detectives for several hours that day, it all began to come out. Jimmy had told the police he thought it was a murder immediately, yelling about how much I hated Caro. My jealousy, it was suggested, led me to push her violently off the balcony and hope that it would look like a tragic accident. The other girl left at the party gave a signed statement saying that I’d argued with Jimmy about his engagement and then asked Caro to come and smoke with me outside. This mousy girl, who I later found out was called Angelica and who was decidedly less weedy than her appearance had suggested, was instrumental in the case against me. Who knew that the girl with a fulsome collection of Alice bands had it in her?

I was refused bail, after it was passionately argued that I was a risk to the public, which made me screw up my face in disbelief and swear loudly, something the judge didn’t appreciate much. My appointed brief, a flailing graduate who hadn’t even read my notes before he entered the courtroom, did nothing to push back on this and was fired the moment I exited the building and was remanded into custody.

It was then that I got my first taste of jail. It was a horrible shock initially. The centre I was sent to was a grim concrete block behind a huge wall in South London. I was strip-searched, relieved of my possessions and sent to a holding cell. It was freezing cold and I spent three days obsessing over what, if anything, I had left in my flat which might point the police towards my actual crimes. I visualised every corner of my home, mentally walking around the flat to try to remember anything I might have been sloppy enough to leave on display. I couldn’t sleep, and my mind kept distorting the images I tried to conjure, making me start again and again until I wept with frustration. By day three I felt calmer, having forced myself to breathe deeply for an hour. By then, I was confident that nothing would point towards the Artemis deaths. This was bolstered by the knowledge that the police weren’t looking for anything that wasn’t connected to Caro, and nobody knew of my connection to the murders anyway. As far as they were concerned, I’d spontaneously pushed a love rival off a balcony in a fit of jealousy. Unless they were hoping that I was the kind of person who kept a deeply confessional diary, any evidence for that would be sparse. How ridiculous that I only decided to start a deeply confessional diary once I was actually in the bowels of the criminal justice system.

I hired a new lawyer, Victoria Herbert, and prayed that she would be the Rottweiler she promised to be. A Rottweiler in Hermès scarves and Louboutin heels. The way I liked it. Herbert was bullish about my chances at getting off. There was no forensic evidence, apart from some contact Caro and I had had during the course of the night, and the bulk of the case was based on testimony from Angelica Saunders and Jimmy. Jimmy, giving evidence against me. Jimmy, the only person I truly cared about, telling the court that he believed I had pushed his fiancée off a balcony, not looking at me once during the trial. Jimmy, pictured in the Sun one Friday, walking hand in hand into court with Angelica. Her in a hideous tweed pencil skirt and ballet shoes looking proud. Jimmy might have left me in a bemused heap but I began to respect Angelica’s hustle.

The jury deliberated for six hours. Victoria sat with me during that wait, which felt like a year. When we were told that the jury was ready to return a verdict, she was ebullient, assuring me that a quick turnaround was definitely a good sign. For all her bluster, she was completely wrong on that count. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. The word echoed around the courtroom as people gasped and one man shouted something angrily from the gallery. I stood there, my hand reaching for my throat, trying to remember to breathe and failing. I looked towards Jimmy, who was sitting with his head on Sophie’s shoulder as John patted his arm mechanically. Only Jimmy’s sister, Annabelle looked at me, tilting her head as though she were sizing me up for the first time.

And that was that. I was sentenced to sixteen years and taken to Limehouse a week later. I missed the window for an appeal, stuck in shock and unable to know what to do next. But then George Thorpe came along, a middle-aged white man here to save the day as he imagined he was born to do. He had an appeal granted, arguing that there was further eyewitness testimony which was not sought out by police at the time.

I appointed Thorpe at considerable cost after I got here, realising that Victoria Herbert was much more interested in promoting herself as a glamorous attack dog than actually being one. She appeared in Grazia off the back of my case, barely pretending to bat away praise and using the word ‘empowered’ far too much. The staggering fee my new brief charged was made possible because he offered to do it on a buy now, pay later basis. I could see his rationale for this – he wanted some publicity and I could give it to him in spades. I imagine he was aiming for QC, and felt like a high-interest murder case might bolster his chances. He was quite the showman. At the many high-profile trials he’d worked on, the media slavishly reported on his arguments, his floral language, his habit of thumping the table when he was mid passionate defence of his clients. Thorpe had a stellar success rate which meant I felt relaxed about his final bill. Whatever happened, I’d have enough money to put him on a permanent retainer once I’d laid claim to the Artemis empire. Credit to Thorpe, he exposed every possible flaw in the trial, and he used the press to highlight those flaws, knowing that they’d run any story they could on the Morton murderer. During the trial, they’d painted me as a bitter and damaged girl in love with her step-brother (he wasn’t of course, but the tabloids love them some incest-lite), but once I’d been sentenced a new angle was needed. Now I was damaged, but no longer bitter. My fragility was played up – ‘She had nobody really, except for Jimmy’ – and images of me were printed where I looked shy and vulnerable rather than hard and arrogant. These photos were provided by old workmates judging by the clothes I was wearing, and I’m only in them because they were mandatory. It’s amazing what you can decide somebody is like simply from a photo. Thorpe had an old school friend who worked in PR seed some stories about Caro’s mental health problems and hints were dropped about her eating disorder, her love of a good party (read: drugs) and her temper. Awful tactics really, but this isn’t a discussion about media ethics and besides, I would’ve taken one hundred stories ripping Caro to shreds if it had helped my case. I’d have read them even if they hadn’t helped my case.