My Husband's Wife(56)

It all helps to build up a bigger picture in which Joe isn’t the demon he was portrayed as in the first trial.

Then comes another medical expert. Yes, she confirms, it’s quite possible that someone who had ‘excess drink in their system’ might get into a hot bath without realizing and then might be too drunk to climb out. And yes, the resulting self-inflicted bruises from falling and then trying to escape might be difficult to distinguish from bruises inflicted by someone else.

Why weren’t such experts called up during the first trial? Like I said before, there are good lawyers. And some not so good. And of course it takes time (which equals money) and resourcefulness to get the right experts.

A second set of neighbours are called in too. A pair of elderly sisters. Clever move on Tony’s part. These two testify, one after the other, that they often saw Joe ‘acting in a very gentlemanly manner’ towards Sarah. Always opening the car door for her. Carrying the shopping. That sort of thing. ‘We often thought she was a very lucky young lady,’ simpers the older sister.

A friend of Sarah’s is then called. She’s what we call a ‘hostile witness’. Someone who doesn’t want to give evidence but is compelled to by court order. Yes, she admits. Sarah did have a drinking problem and it made her do stupid things. Could she give an example? How about the Friday before she died? Her friend reluctantly reveals that Sarah had nearly been run over by a car when drunk on a work night out. Another colleague must have reported it. And was it possible Sarah might have fallen into a too-hot bath when drunk? Another unwilling yes.

Tomorrow we’ll hear from some medical specialists in autism spectrum disorders. Joe will hate every bit of it, but he knows he needs it for his defence. Apparently, one in a hundred people is affected. So hopefully there’ll be someone in court who will be sympathetic.

And finally, we’ll bring to the stand those families whose loved ones were also scalded but survived. ‘Save the best for last,’ as Tony so tactfully puts it.

Yet the joy of all this is that ever since the hearing started, I haven’t once thought about Ed.

After the case. After the case. The most difficult decision of my life is looming.

But deep down, I already know what I have to do.

‘The jury was only out for fifty-five minutes! You reckoned it would be several hours!’

Joe’s face is different from the one he wore inside prison. It is lit up. Exalted. Exhausted too.

Tony and I feel the same.

‘They knew I was innocent.’ Joe’s upper lip bears a froth of beer. It was, he said, the first thing he wanted. A pint in a pub ‘with freedom for company and the two people who made it happen’.

I’ve never heard him sound so emotional before. But he was looking at me when he said it. Right now I feel drunk with the thrill of innocence as surely as if I have been acquitted myself. Tony feels the same. I can see from the flush on his face that says, ‘We won.’

‘Law is a game,’ he had told me at the beginning. ‘If you win, you’re king. If you don’t, you’re a loser. You can’t afford to be the latter. That’s why it’s addictive. It’s why you’re in the dock alongside your client.’

That’s why, I could now add, a lawyer feels the need to win arguments in his or her private life too. Because if you can’t do that, there’s an implication (rightly or wrongly) that you can’t be any good at your job. Does Tony win arguments at home? I suspect that he does. I don’t want to think about my own situation.

The crowds outside the court were thick with cameras, shouting and flashing lights, a wave of journalists pushing microphones in front of us. Tony made a short speech: ‘This is a day of reckoning not just for Joe Thomas, who has finally been proved innocent, but for all the other victims too. We expect more developments shortly.’ Then he steered us with practised ease into a waiting car and took us to this pub in Highgate where the locals are well-heeled members of the public rather than the press. I looked for Ed in the crowds, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Time to think about him later. Right now, this is our moment.

Thanks for everything. That’s what you might expect Joe to say. That’s what a normal person would say. But Daniel hadn’t done ‘thank yous’ either.

‘What next for you then?’ asks Tony now, draining his glass and glancing at his watch. I can tell from the way he speaks that he’s hacked off at not being thanked, and also – tellingly – that he doesn’t really care for our client, who technically isn’t our client any more.

Joe Thomas shrugs. ‘I’ll use the money to start again somewhere else.’

He’s referring, of course, to the supportive donations that came in during the case when Joe declared he didn’t want any compensation – only his name to be cleared. As one well-wisher wrote to The Times: ‘It is a vindication of society today that there are decent people still around – even though their actions have been misinterpreted in the past.’

‘I rather fancy a different kind of job too,’ he adds.

My mind flicks back to the client profile I read on the train all those months ago. It seems like another life away.

Joe Thomas, 30, insurance salesman. Convicted in 1998 of murdering Sarah Evans, 26, fashion sales assistant and girlfriend of the accused …